Stepan Shahumyan
| Stepan Shaumian | |
|---|---|
Stepan Shahumyan
|
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| Commissar Extraordinary for the Caucasus | |
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In office 25 April 1918 – 31 July 1918 |
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| Preceded by | position established |
| Succeeded by | position abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
13 October 1878 Tiflis, Russian Empire |
| Died | 20 September 1918 (aged 39) Krasnovodsk, Russian SFSR |
| Resting place | Unknown |
| Political party |
Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Russian Social Democratic Labour Party |
| Alma mater | Humboldt University of Berlin |
| Occupation | Politician, revolutionary |
Stepan Georgevich Shaumian (Russian: Степан Георгиевич Шаумян; Armenian: Ստեփան Շահումյան, Step’an Shahumyan; 1 October 1878 – 20 September 1918) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and politician active throughout the Caucasus. Shahumyan was an ethnic Armenian and his role as a leader of the Russian revolution in the Caucasus earned him the nickname of the "Caucasian Lenin", a reference to the leader of the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Lenin.
Although the founder and editor of several newspapers and journals, Shahumyan is best known as the head of the Baku Commune, a short lived committee appointed by Lenin in March 1918 with the enormous task of leading the revolution in the Caucasus and West Asia. His tenure as leader of the Baku Commune was marred with numerous problems including ethnic violence between Baku’s Armenian and Azerbaijani populations, attempting to defend the city against an advancing Turkish army, all the while attempting to spread the cause of the revolution throughout the region. Unlike many of the other Bolsheviks at the time however, he preferred to resolve many of the conflicts he faced peacefully, rather than with force and terror.
He was known by various aliases, including "Suren", "Surenin" and “Ayaks". As the Baku Commune was voted out of power in July 1918, Shahumyan and his followers, known as the 26 Baku Commissars abandoned the city, fleeing across the Caspian Sea. However, he and the rest of the Commissars were captured and executed by anti-Bolshevik forces on 20 September 1918.
Stepan Gevorgi Shahumyan was born in Tiflis, Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire, to a family of a cloth merchants. He studied at the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and the Riga Technical University, where he joined the Russian Social Democratic Party in the 1900. In 1905 he graduated from the philosophy department of Humboldt University of Berlin.
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