# Talk:Alexander Atabekian

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Hello @Grnrchst,
I've tagged the following information "Between 1914 and 1917, he served in the Imperial Russian Army as the head of a field hospital on the Caucasian front." as unreliable; it lacks a source and contradicts some sources that state:
1) He was persecuted by the Russian Empire and banned from its territory.
2) He was in Persia until 1917, at which point he allegedly returned to Moscow with Kropotkin.
The information suggesting his involvement in the Russian army appears highly questionable. I am inclined to remove it since, in all my research, I haven't found anything supporting this claim. However, if there are sources, it's better to include them. What are your thoughts on this? AgisdeSparte (talk) 13:34, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

According to Atabekian's open letter to Kropotkin, it does appear that he acted as a medic on the front lines, although he doesn't suggest he was part of the Imperial Russian Army. In the document, he talks about witnessing the Armenian genocide and aiding refugees from the Ottoman Empire. It's certainly an interesting primary source, although I can't find it mentioned in any secondary sources, so I would advise caution on using it. Right now I'm working on an expansion of the article using more sources, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find any secondary sourcing that verifies his activity during world war I. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:46, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
@AgisdeSparte: I will say that of the information you've added today, the claim I find the most dubious is that Atabekian was present in the foundation of the ARF in Tblisi in 1890. This is just not possible, given in 1890 he was still in Geneva. Unless he bounced between Georgia and Switzerland in a matter of weeks, I'm highly doubtful that he was involved in this, especially given his association with the ARF only seemed to be a thing in 1896. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:07, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
@AgisdeSparte: On further look at the sources you added regarding the ARF founding in 1890 (van der Walt 2014; and van der Walt & Schmidt 2010), I think this claim should be removed outright. Not only would it have been physically impossible for Atabekian to have transplanted between Switzerland and Georgia in such a small amount of time, which none of the other sources I've looked at have claimed; but van der Walt and Schmidt also make basic errors that they shouldn't be making given the sources they themselves are citing. Like the assertion that "Hamaink (Commonwealth) was published from 1880 to 1894" is easily proven false: it only ran issues during 1894, and Ter Minassian herself points out that the 1880 year is certainly an error, as Atabekian would only have been twelve-years-old at the time. --Grnrchst (talk) 14:27, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
@Grnrchst I just looked at the sources, and correlated it with Armenian sources that I was able to find, such as this source from the ARF(1) that states that Atabekian was in fact influential in the founding of the movement, even if he was not in Tbilisi, for he was the main publisher of the newspaper Droshak in the West, apparently. You can find that page 344. AgisdeSparte (talk) 15:02, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
@AgisdeSparte: That's good information to have, but I don't think this is enough to claim he "participated in the foundation of the ARF". This Armenian source never implies that he was involved in the founding of the ARF, only that he helped get Droshak set up in Switzerland, which we know began publication in Geneva in 1892. At best I think this shows his connections with the ARF go back a few years, but I still think it's dubious to imply he was a founding member, influential or otherwise. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:14, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
@Grnrchst The translation given to me by ChatGPT is the following : "Until then, Hovhann Davtyan from Tbilisi had written a letter to his fellow student, the atheist Aleksandr (Sasha) Atabekyan, in order to seek support for the planned publication of the newspaper "Droshak" in Rome and maintain continuous connections. The established relations of Atabekyan with Russian revolutionary circles had been noticed at the beginning of the initial period in Rome, and shortly thereafter, he also cooperated with various revolutionary organizations from different countries. The "Droshak" newspaper, edited by Al. Atabekyan, played a crucial role in increasing cooperation with Italian, German, and French revolutionary leaders. Rome attempted to create an opportunity to transfer Ottoman rule over the Armenian provinces to the Osmansyan government with the help of the Italian government. Finally, he abandoned it after obtaining a Roman passport on December 2/14, 1894, for not being able to use it due to not knowing Romanian and, realizing the impossibility of reaching Galaț, 689."
The two other sources claiming that he is one of the founders of the ARF are probably referring to the fact that he was the main publisher of the official organ of the ARF and this since the beginning, I believe we can then use this new source to precise the text about his links with the founding of the ARF, in order to represent correctly that he wasn't in Tbilisi and wasn't in fact among the direct founders. However, it is quite an influential position to have than to be the publisher of the official organ of an organization, a role that he seemed to have since the beginning, so it's not either a random link with the ARF, it's quite an official and major role inside the organization, even if not really a founder. AgisdeSparte (talk) 15:16, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
Droshak was indeed at the time mainly published in the West, Pierre Quillard also was in link with the ARF for their publishing endeavours apparently. AgisdeSparte (talk) 15:18, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
@AgisdeSparte: Please take caution when you're using ChatGPT, it is not very good at translation and should not be taken as a reliable source of information. This translation gets a lot of stuff wrong, like confusing Rostom and Romania for "Rome".
I think your solution is the right one. It'd be good to mention that he was the publisher of Droshak and had links with the ARF's members from the early days. But let's not imply he was a founding member. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:25, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
@Grnrchst I'll change the text by adding this new source and you tell me if it suits you ;) AgisdeSparte (talk) 15:28, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
@AgisdeSparte: I rearranged it a bit, as I think it's better to introduce the fact that he established links with the ARF before we say what he did with those connections. I also removed the questionable sources, as the necessary information about the ARF's founding was already provided by Selbuz. Grnrchst (talk) 15:41, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
@Grnrchst Great, so we have a good version. AgisdeSparte (talk) 15:44, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
@AgisdeSparte: I managed to find information on this from Andrey Biryukova, who goes into detail about Atabekian's time as a combat medic during World War I. So it's now back in the article. --Grnrchst (talk) 17:29, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@AgisdeSparte: Hey just letting you know that I have published an expanded and copy-edited version of the article, based on the research you've already done, plus some sources I went through myself. You can see the changes I made here. I'm sure I've missed some things here and there, so if something got removed that you think should be reinstated, please go right ahead and put it back in. (Apologies in advance if I glanced over something important) I'm also more than happy to explain any changes that you have questions about. I've really enjoyed collaborating on this article with you and am excited to see it improve further. :) --Grnrchst (talk) 22:03, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Shusha was a part of the Russian Empire back then. The absolute majority of the Russian Imperial sources (if not all) use the name of 'Shusha' (Шуша in Russian). Hew Folly (talk) 09:22, 25 July 2024 (UTC)