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| 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.
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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."
