Andranik Ozanyan
| Andranik | |
|---|---|
General Andranik c. 1920
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| Nickname(s) | Andranik pasha |
| Born |
25 February 1865 Shabin-Karahisar, Ottoman Empire |
| Died | 31 August 1927 (aged 62) Richardson Springs, California, U.S. |
| Buried at | Ararat Cemetery (1927–28) Père Lachaise (1928–2000) Yerablur (2000–present) |
| Allegiance |
 Dashnaktsutyun (1892–1907) Bulgaria (1912–13) Russian Empire (1914–16)Armenian paramilitaries (1917–19) |
| Years of service | 1888–1904 (fedayi) 1912–13 (Bulgaria) 1914–16 (WWI) 1917–19 (Armenia) |
| Rank | Commander of the fedayi (1899–1904).png){kind=small} First lieutenant (Bulgaria) Major-general (Russia)Commander of the Western Armenian division of the Armenian Army Corps (1918) Commander of the Special Striking Division (1919) |
| Wars |
Armenian National Liberation Movement |
| Awards | see below |
| Signature |  |
Armenian National Liberation Movement
Sasun Uprising
First Balkan War
World War I
Andranik Ozanian, commonly known as Andranik (Armenian: Անդրանիկ; 25 February 1865 – 31 August 1927) was an Armenian military commander and statesman, the best known fedayi and a key figure of the Armenian national liberation movement. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, he was one of the main Armenian leaders of military efforts for the independence of Armenia.
He became active in an armed struggle against the Ottoman government and Kurdish irregulars in the late 1880s. Andranik joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktustyun) party and, along with other fedayi (militias), sought to defend the Armenian peasantry living in their ancestral homeland, an area known as Western (or Turkish) Armenia—at the time part of the Ottoman Empire. His revolutionary activities ceased and he left the Ottoman Empire after the unsuccessful uprising in Sasun in 1904. In 1907, Andranik left Dashnaktustyun because he disapproved of its cooperation with the Young Turks, a party which years later perpetrated the Armenian Genocide. Between 1912 and 1913, together with Garegin Nzhdeh, Andranik led a few hundred Armenian volunteers within the Bulgarian army against the Ottomans during the First Balkan War.
From the early stages of World War I, Andranik commanded the first Armenian volunteer battalion within the Russian Imperial army against the Ottoman Empire, capturing and later governing much of the traditional Armenian homeland. After the Revolution of 1917, the Russian army retreated and left the Armenian irregulars outnumbered against the Turks. Andranik led the defense of Erzurum in early 1918, but was forced to retreat eastward. By May 1918, Turkish forces stood near Yerevan—the future Armenian capital—and were halted at the Battle of Sardarabad. The Dashnak-dominated Armenian National Council declared the independence of Armenia and signed the Treaty of Batum with the Ottoman Empire, by which Armenia gave up its rights to Western Armenia. Andranik never accepted the existence of the First Republic of Armenia because it included only a small part of the area many Armenians hoped to make independent. Andranik, independently from the Republic of Armenia, fought in Zangezur against the Azerbaijani and Turkish armies and helped to keep it within Armenia.
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