Hovhannes Kajaznuni
| Hovhannes Kajaznuni Յովհաննէս Քաջազնունի |
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| 1st Prime Minister of Armenia | |
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In office 6 June 1918 – 7 August 1919 |
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| Preceded by | position established |
| Succeeded by | Alexander Khatisyan |
| Chairman of the National Assembly of Armenia | |
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In office 4 November 1920 – 2 December 1920 |
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| Preceded by | Avetik Sahakyan |
| Succeeded by | Soviet Armenia |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
February 1, 1868 Akhaltsikhe, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 1938 (aged 69–70) Yerevan, Armenian SSR, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | Armenian |
| Political party | Armenian Revolutionary Federation |
Hovhannes Kajaznuni, or Hovhannes Katchaznouni (Armenian: Յովհաննէս Քաջազնունի) (1 February 1868 – 1938), was the first Prime Minister of the First Republic of Armenia from June 6, 1918 to August 7, 1919. He was a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.
Hovhannes Kajaznuni was born in 1868 in the town of Akhaltsikhe, then part of the Russian Empire, now part of Georgia. He attended secondary school in Tiflis from 1877 to 1886. In 1887 he moved to St. Petersburg and entered the Citizens' Architectural Institute, graduating with honors in 1893. In St. Petersburg he joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, eventually becoming one of its most important members. After graduation, he worked at the construction department of the Baku provincial administration (1893–95), as an architect in Batumi (1895–97), and as regional architect at the Tiflis provincial administration (1897–99). Between 1899 and 1906 he worked as a senior architect in Baku, designing hospitals and apartment buildings, his most notable work being the Saint Thaddeus and Bartholomew Cathedral completed in 1911. After 1906 he devoted himself to political and social activities.
Kajaznuni was forced to leave the Caucasus in 1911 to avoid being called to testify at the trial of Armenian Revolutionary Federation members mounted by the Russian government in St. Petersburg in January 1912. He lived in Istanbul and then in Van until 1914, when he returned to the Caucasus. He became a member of the Armenian National Council in 1917 and was an ARF representative in the Seym (the Transcaucasian Parliament) until 1918.
He was part of the Armenian delegation that conducted peace talks with the Ottoman Empire at the Trebizond Peace Conference, beginning on March 14, 1918. The three groups of Transcaucasus delegates—Muslim, Georgian and Armenian—had divergent aims, and were in a weak position to negotiate with the Ottomans. While the talks progressed, the Ottoman Third Army retook Erzurum after the Imperial Russian army abandoned it and advanced to the previous frontier with Russia. These setbacks spurred Akaki Chkhenkeli, the Georgian Menshevik leader of the Transcaucasus delegation, to unilaterally inform the Ottomans that he would accept the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as the basis for negotiation, and thereby abandon Armenian claims to portions of Ottoman territory. This concession was repudiated by the Seym, which ordered Chhenkeli and the delegation to return to Tbilisi.
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