Hayk Bzhishkyan

Hayk Bzhishkyan
Bzhishkyan in 1920's
Birth name	Hayk Bzhishkyan
Nickname(s)	Gai
Born	(1887-02-06)6 February 1887 Tabriz, Iran
Died	11 December 1937(1937-12-11) (aged 50) Moscow, Soviet Union
Allegiance	Russian Empire  Soviet Union
Service/branch	Imperial Russian Army Red Army
Years of service	1914–1935
Rank	Comcor
Commands held	24th Rifle Division 1st Army 42nd Rifle Division 1st Caucasus Cavalry Division 2nd Cavalry Corps 3rd Cavalry Corps
Battles/wars	World War I Russian Civil War Polish Soviet War
Awards	see below

Hayk Bzhishkyan (Armenian: Հայկ Բժշկյան, Persian هایک پزشکیان, Russian: Гайк Бжишкян, also known as Guy Dmitrievich Guy, Gai Dmitrievich Gai (Гай Дмитриевич Гай), Gaya Gai (Гая Гай), or Bzhishkyan, 18 February [O.S. 6 February] 1887 – 11 December 1937), was a Soviet military commander of the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War.

Hayk was born in Tabriz, Iran to a family of teachers; his mother was Persian and his father an Armenian socialist (a member of Social Democrat Hunchakian Party) who had taken refuge from Tsarist authorities in Persia during the 1880s. He returned to Russia in his teens, was an activist and journalist in Tiflis, where he studied at the Armenian Theological Seminary, and spent five years in jail for revolutionary activities before he was drafted in 1914. Because of his background, Gai had been assigned to the Turkish front, where repeated bravery under fire won him a battalion commander's stars, the Cross of St. George (3rd and 4th class), and the Order of St. Anna, all awarded by General Nikolai Yudenich. Captured by the Turks, he escaped and returned, badly wounded, to Russia on the eve of the February Revolution. During World War I, Bzhishkyan rose to the rank of captain. Gai had become a Bolshevik before the October Revolution." (Lincoln, p. 413) He became a military commander in 1918, when he fought against the Czech Legion ("White Czechs") and the Orenburg Cossacks of ataman Alexander Dutov.