Drastamat Kanajan

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Drastamat Kanajan (left) together with Martiros Sarjan

Drastamat Kanayan , Դրաստամատ Կանայեան, called Dro (born May 31, 1884 in Igdir , Surmali , Russian Empire ; died March 8, 1956 in Boston ), was an Armenian military man and politician.

Life

Drastamat Kanayan attended school in Igdir and high school in Yerevan . In 1902 he joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) - inspired by General Antranig's military successes . In 1905 he carried out an assassination attempt on the Tsarist governor of Baku , Prince VI Nakashidze, because of his partisanship in the bloody clashes between Azerbaijanis and Armenians. In 1907 he was in Alexandropol responsible for the assassination of the military commander Maksud Alichanow-Awarskij. During the First World War he was a combatant in the Russian Army and led an Armenian volunteer association.

During the short period of the Democratic Republic of Armenia , which was proclaimed in 1918 , he organized the defense against the Turkish invasion and fought in the Battle of Sardarapat . At the end of 1920 he was the republic's last defense minister . After the coup of the Armenian Bolsheviks and the establishment of the Armenian Soviet Republic , he, his wife and child were imprisoned by the NKVD in Moscow in 1921 . In 1924 he was allowed to emigrate to Romania , his wife and child remained hostage in Omsk and were murdered there. In Romania he joined the emigrated Armenians who gave him a position in the private oil industry. In 1938 he was elected to the Executive Committee of the ARF.

During World War II, he hoped that Armenia would regain independence after a German military victory over the Soviet Union. On the German side he put together a legion of Soviet prisoners of war of Armenian origin who fought in the Soviet Union and were largely wiped out there. At the end of the war he was briefly captured by the US. He lived in Lebanon from 1947 and died during a visit to the USA , where he was buried in the Mount Auburn cemetery . In 2000 his second wife, Gayane Kanayan (1900–2005), whom he married in Romania in 1935, had his body transferred to Armenia in a mausoleum built for him in Aparan .

literature

  • Richard G. Hovannisian: Dimensions of Democracy and Authority in Caucasian Armenia, 1917-1920 , in: Russian Review , 1974, No. 1, pp. 37-49
  • Simon Vratsian : Tempest-born Dro . Mrrkatsin Dron in Romanian. New York: Armenian Prelacy, 2000.
  • Antranig Chelebian: Dro (Drastamat Kanayan): Armenia's first defense minister of the modern era . Los Angeles, CA: Indo-European Pub., 2009 ISBN 1604440783 .
  • James G. Mandalian: Drastamat Kanayan, (1884-1956) , in: The Armenian Review, Volume 10, Number 2, Summer, June 1957; Reprinted with: Armenian Revolutionary Federation , ARF 125 Anniversary Special , January 15, 2016
Fiction

Web links

Commons : Drastamat Kanajan  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Vartkes Yeghiayan: The Armenians and the Okhrana, 1907-1915 . Los Angeles: Center for Armenian Remembrance, 2016
  2. ↑ a b James G. Mandalian: Drastamat Kanayan, (1884-1956)
  3. ↑ Sabine Berking: One remains who tells of suffering and retribution . Review of Varujan Vosganian, Book of Whispers , in: FAZ , October 10, 2013, p. 37
  4. ↑ a b c Varujan Vosganian: Book of Whispers . 2013, pp. 188–196
  5. ^ Gayane Kanayan , Boston Globe Obituary , April 2005
personal data
SURNAME Kanajan, Drastamat
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dro
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Armenian military and politicians
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Igdir
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 1956
Place of death Boston