The
decisive battles that led to the creation of the Republic of Armenia in
1918 had several professional officers among their leaders.
Taniel
Bek-Pirumian came from a region that gave many military leaders
throughout history: Artsakh (Gharabagh). He was born on November 21,
1861, in the village of Nakhichevanik, in the district of Khachen. He
graduated from the city lyceum of Shushi, then capital of Artsakh, and
started his military service at the age of twenty. He studied at the
infantry lyceum of Tiflis from 1881-1883. Three decades later, in 1913,
he graduated from the courses of the school of artillery of Oranienbaum
(nowadays Lomonosov, in the region of St. Petersburg, Russia).
Meanwhile,
he ascended in the ranks of the Russian army: sergeant in 1883,
lieutenant in 1888, captain in 1890, and deputy colonel in 1913. He held
positions as commander of squad, platoon, and battalion.
Pirumian
fought at the Caucasian front in the Russian army during World War I.
He was ascended to the rank of colonel in 1915 and decorated with
several medals for his bravery. Like many of his colleagues, Pirumian
remained in the region after the evacuation of Russian troops following
the October Revolution of 1917, helping organize the nascent Armenian
army.
In
the decisive days of May 1918, Taniel Bek-Pirumian was entrusted with
the general command of the front of Sardarabad, which was dangerously
close to Etchmiadzin. On May 21, the Ottoman forces occupied the village
and the railway station of Sardarabad, and advanced towards Ghamishlu.
The next day, the battalion of the “Condemned to Death” (մահապարտների
գունդ) of Gharabagh, headed by Poghos Bek-Pirumian (first cousin to
Taniel), counterattacked and chased away the Ottoman troops up to
Sardarabad, which was liberated in the late afternoon. The Ottomans
fortified themselves in the surrounding heights and led a
counteroffensive on May 24-26. The three-day battle was fiercely
contested and ended in an Armenian victory. In those delicate moments,
Taniel Bek-Pirumian’s military experience and his iron will played a
fundamental role. He entered the fraught of the battle, leaving the
command to Lieutenant Alexandre Chnéour, a Russian officer in the
Armenian army. Personally heading a column of soldiers, he disrupted and
repelled the Turkish advance in the central area of the battlefront.
Bek-Pirumian
continued his career in the Republic of Armenia and was ascended to the
rank of major-general in late 1919. He was appointed military commander
of Kars. However, he broke his leg in a car accident, and was taken
prisoner by the Turks in October 1920 after the fall of Kars. In January
1921 he was transported to Alexandropol and delivered to the
representatives of the 11
th
Red Army.
The
Bolshevik terror was rampant in newly sovietized Armenia. In 1921, soon
after being liberated from Turkish prison, Bek-Pirumian and other
high-ranking Armenian officers were shot on the road of Gharakilise
(nowadays Vanadzor) to Dilijan. The corpse of the unfortunate general
was secretly moved to Etchmiadzin and buried in the cemetery of the
church of St. Gayane. Another hero of Sardarabad, his cousin Poghos
Bek-Pirumian, overwhelmed by the Bolshevik terror, took his own life.
