Death of Kevork Chavoush (May 27, 1907)

There were names that rose to legendary proportions at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, when Turkish and Kurdish marauding of Armenian peasantry was met with armed resistance by fedayees (freedom fighters). Kevork Chavoush was among the most prominent figures leading that struggle.
He was born Kevork Atamian in 1870, in the village of Megtink, district of Psanats (Sasoun). In 1886 his family sent him to the school of the monastery of the Holy Apostles (Arakelots) in Moush. At school, he heard about Arabo (Arakel Mkhitarian, 1863-1893), one of the founders of the fedayee movement. He decided to join the movement in 1888. He left for Aleppo, where he spent two years working to buy a gun. In 1890 he returned to Sasoun. 
In 1892 Gurbo, the head of the neighbor village of Alizernani, betrayed Arabo and reported his location in the village of Pertag to the Turks, who managed to capture him despite heavy casualties. Kevork Chavoush punished Gurbo’s treason by killing him in his own home. 
After Arabo was killed in 1893, Kevork Chavoush participated actively in the first rebellion of Sasoun in 1893-1894. He was captured and condemned to 15 years of prison. However, he was able to escape from the prison of Bitlis in April 1896 and return to Sasoun, where he met legendary freedom fighter Antranig (1865-1927) and entered the ranks of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.
Serop Aghpiur (1864-1899), another famous fighter, was forced to leave his home in Khlat and move to Sasoun. Kevork Chavoush and Antranig, joined him with their own groups. Serop established certain rules among the fedayees. The first rule was that the fedayee was married to his weapon. He noticed that the Armenian villages were in enmity, since men from one village stole women from another, and declared that anyone doing such a thing would be severely punished. Kevork’s uncle, Ave, kidnapped a housekeeper at the monastery of the Holy Apostles. Serop left it to Kevork to decide the punishment. He was forced to kill his uncle, but depression led him to leave Serop’s battalion and isolate himself for a few days.
In his absence, Serop was betrayed by a villager from Keghashen, also called Ave, who let the Turks know about Serop’s position and poisoned him. A troop of 2,000 Turks and Kurds soldiers surrounded the village of Gelieguzan. Aghpiur Serop, his son, and his brothers fell during the unequal battle. His wife Sose continued the fight, but was wounded and taken prisoner by Turkish chief Khalil bey, who beheaded Serop. His death did not go unpunished. In April 1900 Kevork Chavoush liquidated Ave and all other people implicated in the betrayal. In November a group of 30 fedayees, headed by Antranig and Kevork, ambushed Khalil bey and his 40 horsemen. They took Khalil prisoner and beheaded him.
On November 1, 1901, Antranig and Kevork Chavoush, together with a group of 25 to 27 fighters, occupied the Holy Apostles monastery. The operation had been carefully planned to attract the attention of the foreign powers. A few days later, 3,000 Turkish soldiers besieged the monastery. During the siege, typhus declared among the Turks, who started negotiations on November 18. However, on the night of November 27 the fedayees managed to cut through the siege and disappear in the dark.
After the defeat of the second rebellion of Sasoun in 1904, Kevork Chavoush fought heroically in the plain of Moush with Antranig and other fedayees, and later he went to the region of Vaspurakan (Van). The meeting of local leaders of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, held at the island of Aghtamar in September 1904, decided that a group of fighters return to Sasoun and continued the struggle against the Turkish authorities. Kevork became the A.R.F. representative in the region of Moush and Sasoun, and the leader of Armenian freedom fighters in the region from 1905-1907.
Kevork Chavoush had left his sweetheart, Yeghso (Heghine), when he had entered the cause of freedom. However, she never ceased to love him, even after she was forced to get married. In 1905 she escaped her home and tried to see Kevork for the last time before taking her own life. He first rejected, but then his comrades of arms convinced him. They married the same day, breaking the rule of fedayee etiquette, and had a son called Vartkes.
On May 25, 1907, an unequal fight broke in the village of Souloukh, in the plain of Moush. Eighty fedayees fought against a 2000-strong Turkish troop. The Turkish troops gave 120 dead and 110 wounded. The Armenian losses were seven dead and 21 wounded. Most importantly, however, Kevork Chavoush was mortally wounded in the fight. He passed away on May 27. After his death, the Turks tried to kill his wife and son, but his comrades saved their lives.
Kevork Chavoush’s life and exploits became the material for songs and novels. Like the rest of the fedayee movement, his name was banned for many years in Soviet Armenia. In the 1960s h is relative Kevork Melkonian managed to install his statue in the village of Ashnag, whose population had its roots in Sasoun, complemented by a museum he inaugurated in the 1980s. After the independence of Armenia,  other statues were inaugurated in Yerevan, Artashat, Jermuk, and the village of Lousarat. 

Birth Of Vahan Cheraz (August 16, 1886)

Vahan Cheraz in scout uniform

Armenians had an important role in the development of sports in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Among those pioneers was Vahan Cheraz, who later became one of the founding members of the scout movement of the Armenian General Union of Physical Education (Հայ Մարմնակրթական Ընդհանուր Միութիւն), better known by its initials as Homenetmen (Հ.Մ.Ը.Մ.).

Cheraz was born in Constantinople on August 16, 1886. His father Kaspar, a lawyer, was brother of a famous writer and public figure, Minas Cheraz (1852-1929), who had been a member of the Armenian delegation to the Congress of Berlin in 1878, accompanying Khrimian Hayrig.

He first studied at the French religious school of St. Benoit, in the neighborhood of Pera (Beyoglu). In 1901 he went to London, where he lived with his uncle Minas and studied for four years. He returned to Constantinople in 1905 and graduated from the Getronagan Armenian School in 1906. In 1905 Shavarsh Krisian, a pioneer of Armenian sports, had founded the first Armenian soccer team, Baltalimanı (many such teams would be named after Armenian districts). Upon his return, Cheraz had brought a soccer ball and founded a soccer team with the students of the Getronagan School, which was called “Santral” (Central, the French translation of the school’s name). In 1906 he founded another team called Proti. In 1908 both teams merged into the “Tork” team (named after a pagan Armenian god of strength), under his leadership. By 1911 the number of Armenian soccer teams had become 65.

“Tork” soccer team in 1911. Vahan Cheraz is pictured sitting in the middle.

“Tork” soccer team in 1911. Vahan Cheraz is pictured sitting in the middle.

Meanwhile, he worked from 1906-1911 as an inspector at the Constantinople port. He served in the Ottoman army from 1911-1912, and then he left the capital for Europe. He left for Paris and worked for an antiquarian until 1914. He later moved to Marseilles, where his uncle lived, and after the beginning of World War I, he traveled to Tiflis, where he enrolled in the first battalion of Armenian volunteers, under the command of Antranik, and fought in Persia from 1915-1916. After the dissolution of the volunteer groups, Cheraz went to work in the orphanages of the Russian Union of Cities, in Sarikamish and Erzerum, until 1917. 

When the October Revolution broke out in November 1917, the Russian troops withdrew from the Caucasian front. Cheraz returned to military service as a member of Antranik’s reorganized battalion and fought in the front in 1917-1918, and later in Persia and Zangezur in 1918-1919.

He became seriously ill at the beginning of 1919 and, after almost two months of illness, he went to Constantinople in search of medical treatment. He recovered and became scout head of the recently founded Homenetmen. At the same time, he worked as a translator for the British general headquarters, since Constantinople was under Allied occupation from 1919-1922.

Upon the invitation of the government of the Republic of Armenia, Homenetmen was officially invited to share their knowledge and expertise in sports and scouting. The Executive Committee sent three members, Vahan Cheraz, Dikran Khoyan (later pastor of St. Stephen Church in Boston and Soorp Khatch Church in Washington), and Onnig Yazmajian to Yerevan.  Their successful efforts were short-lived. After the establishment of the Soviet regime, Homenetmen was banned in the country.

In September 1920 the Armenian-Turkish war started, and Cheraz enlisted in the Armenian army. Later, he participated in the February 1921 uprising against the Soviet regime and settled in Alexandropol (later Leninakan, now Gumri). From 1921-1924 he worked for the Near East Relief (known in Armenia as Amerkom, abbreviation for Amerikian komite, “American Committee”) in different capacities, including head of the scouting branch in Alexandropol. 

He married a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, Vartanush Antreasian, whose first husband, a school principal had been burned alive, along with his students. Cheraz’s tragedy started a few days after his marriage, in November 1924, when he was arrested by the NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) on trumped-up charges of being a spy for England and the United States. He was sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia, but freed after five months thanks to an amnesty. He returned to Armenia, but could not find work, and after a short stint again at the Near East Relief, he remained unemployed.

He was arrested again, in September 1927, along with other Armenian employees of the Near East Relief, and imprisoned in Tiflis. He was charged with spying and being a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. He denied both charges, since he had never belonged to a political party. However, the interrogator came to the following “conclusion”: “to recognize [Cheraz] as an element socially dangerous and extremely suspicious in espionage.” On January 9, 1928, he was sentenced to death. Days later, before parting ways with his cellmates, he told them: “Farewell, friends. I know why they are taking me. It doesn’t matter, let them eat my head. But be sure that victory is ours. Don’t despair, remain always brave. Long live free Armenia, long live the Armenian people. Don’t forget me.” He left behind his wife and a one-year-old daughter. His wife Vartanush would be killed in the prison of Gumri during the Stalinist purges of 1937, at the age of 42, falsely accused of being an A.R.F. member and holding meetings of activists at her home, but, essentially, for having been Cheraz’s wife and having a brother abroad. Their ten-year-old orphaned daughter was adopted by her uncle Vartkes Antreasian, who changed her last name, fearing persecution. Buragn Antreasian-Cheraz currently lives in Yerevan.

Today, a street in Gumri and a sports school are named after Vahan Cheraz. A plaque on the front of the city’s Tumanian library says: “Vahan Cheraz, founder of the scout movement in Armenia, lived in this house from 1925-1927."

Death of General Antranig - August 31, 1927

From Armenia to Argentina, there are statues, memorials, streets, metro stations, even a highway section (in Connecticut) which remember General Antranig’s name. Perhaps the most recognizable Armenian hero of the twentieth century, he was highlighted in 1920 by The Literary Digest as "Armenia's Robin Hood, Garibaldi, and Washington, all in one. He is the ideal patriot of whom broadside ballads are published, and whose name inspires songs sung by the Armenian at his workbench, by the Armenian housewife at her tasks, by their children at play.”

Antranig Ozanian was born on February 25, 1865, in the city of Shabin-Karahisar, in the vilayet of Trebizonda. He was the son of a carpenter, Toros; his mother Mariam died when he was one-year-old. He married at the age of 17, but his wife died a year later, after giving birth to their son, who also died days later.

He was 23 when he joined the revolutionary groups of the Social Democratic Hunchakian Party (founded in 1887), and became a party member in 1891. In 1894 Antranig left the Hunchakian Party and joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (founded in 1890). The next year he met the fedayee commander Aghpiur Serop and joined his group. After Serop’s death in 1899, Antranig became the leader of fedayee groups of Vaspurakan and Taron in Western Armenian. His first mission was to capture and kill Beshara Khalil, a Kurdish soldier of the Ottoman Hamidiye regiments and tribal chief who had murdered Aghpiur Serop and was notorious for his atrocities against the Armenian population. 

Antranig’s most famous battles were the battle of the Monastery of Holy Apostles in Mush (1901) and the second resistance of Sasun in 1904. In November 1901, Antranig barricaded himself in the Monastery of Holy Apostles in Mush with 30 fedayees, including the famed Kevork Chavush, and some ten peasants. The well-fortified monastery was besieged by five Turkish battalions with a total of 1,200 men. After a nineteen-day resistance and causing substantial losses to the Turkish army, the group was able to leave the monastery and flee in small groups. Antranig gained legendary stature among Armenians after breaking through the siege. In 1924 he would write in his memoirs that “it was necessary to show to the Turkish and Kurdish peoples that an Armenian can take a gun, that an Armenian heart can fight and protect his rights.” 

He participated in the second insurrection of Sasun in 1904. He was pressed by Armenian leaders to allow temporary peace in the region. He moved to the Caucasus through Iran and then traveled to Europe, where he was engaged in advocacy in support of the national liberation struggle. In 1906 he published a book of military tactics in Geneva. In 1907 he settled in Bulgaria. During the fourth Congress of the A.R.F. (Vienna, 1907), Antranig announced his decision to leave the party due to his disagreement about the establishment of cooperation with the Young Turks. 

He participated in the First Balkan War of 1912-1913 within the Bulgarian army, together with Karekin Nzhdeh and a detachment of 273 Armenian volunteers. Antranig was honored with the Order of Bravery for his heroic participation in the war. 

During World War I, Antranig returned to the ranks of the A.R.F. and participated in the Caucasus Campaign as head of the first Armenian volunteer battalion, which helped lift the siege of Van on May 6, 1915. He participated in twenty different offensives where he gained fame due to his courage and his tactics to defeat the Ottoman forces. The Russian authorities made him a Major General in 1918 and decorated him five times for bravery. 

After the disbandment of the six volunteer battalions in 1916, Antranig resigned his commission and departed from the front. He left the ranks of the A.R.F. for the second time in 1917 and organized the First Congress of Western Armenians; he also published the newspaper Hayastan in Tiflis in 1917-1918, with writer Vahan Totovents as its editor.

After the Russian army left the Caucasus following the Revolution, Armenian forces were created in a rush to try to fill the vacuum against the Turkish offense. In March-April 1918, Antranig was the head of a provisional government created in the areas of Western Armenia formerly occupied by the Russians. His military leadership allowed the Armenian surviving population to escape to Eastern Armenia. 

After the foundation of the Republic of Armenia in May 1918, Antranig fought along volunteer units against the Ottoman army. In July of the same year, he arrived in Zanguezur, in the south, to participate in the inter-ethnic warfare between Armenians and the local Turkish population. He also tried several times to seize Shushi, the most important city of Karabagh, but was prevented by British troops in the area. 

In April 1919, Antranig arrived in Holy Etchmiadzin. His 5,000-strong division had dwindled to 1,350 soldiers. As a result of disagreements with the government of the Republic and British diplomatic machinations in the Caucasus, Antranig disbanded his division and handed over his belongings and weapons to Kevork V, Catholicos of All Armenians. In late 1919 he led a delegation to the United States to lobby in support of an American mandate. He was saluted as “the George Washington of Armenians.” 

He married again in Paris in 1922, with Boghos Nubar Pasha as best man. Antranig and his wife, Nevarte Kurkjian, settled in Fresno, California, where a young William Saroyan met him and later described the meeting in his short story “Antranik of Armenia” (Inhale and Exhale, 1936). He passed away near Chico, in northern California, on August 31, 1927, of a heart attack. His remains were moved to the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris in early 1928. They were set to be buried in Armenia, according to his desire, but Soviet authorities refused entry. His body was eventually returned to Armenia in 2000 and was reburied at the Yerablur Military Cemetery.