page_title: Andranik
section_title: Public image
hierarchical_section_title: Andranik / Legacy and recognition / Public image
caption_attribution_description: English: Armenian national hero General Andranik, 1919
context_page_description: Andranik Ozanian, commonly known as Andranik was an Armenian military commander and statesman, the best known fedayi and a key figure of the Armenian national liberation movement. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, he was one of the main Armenian leaders of military efforts for the independence of Armenia.
  He became active in an armed struggle against the Ottoman government and Kurdish irregulars in the late 1880s. Andranik joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation party and, along with other fedayi, sought to defend the Armenian peasantry living in their ancestral homeland, an area known as Western Armenia—at the time part of the Ottoman Empire. His revolutionary activities ceased and he left the Ottoman Empire after the unsuccessful uprising in Sasun in 1904. In 1907, Andranik left Dashnaktustyun because he disapproved of its cooperation with the Young Turks, a party which years later perpetrated the Armenian Genocide. Between 1912 and 1913, together with Garegin Nzhdeh, Andranik led a few hundred Armenian volunteers within the Bulgarian army against the Ottomans during the First Balkan War.
context_section_description: Andranik was considered a hero during his lifetime. The Literary Digest, an influential American newspaper, described Andranik in 1920 as "the Armenian's Robin Hood, Garibaldi, and Washington, all in one". The same year, The Independent wrote that he is "worshiped by his countrymen for his heroic fighting in their defense against the Turks". In a letter to Andranik, the noted Armenian writer Hovhannes Tumanyan praised him, while Bolshevik and Soviet statesman of Armenian origin Anastas Mikoyan wrote in his memoirs that "the name Andranik was surrounded by halo of glory".
  Andranik is considered a national hero by Armenians worldwide. He is also seen as a legendary figure in Armenian culture. Five surveys conducted by Gallup, Inc., International Republican Institute and the Armenian Sociological Association from 2006 to 2008 asked, "[o]f the prominent Armenian people and characters in Armenian history and folk culture, who is most suitable to be a national hero or leader at the present time?". Andranik was placed second after Vazgen Sargsyan; 9–18% of the respondents giving Andranik's name.
  During the Soviet period, his legacy and those of other Armenian national heroes were diminished and "any reference to them would be dangerous since they represented the strive for independence", especially prior to the Khrushchev Thaw. Paruyr Sevak, a prominent Soviet Armenian author, wrote an essay about Andranik in 1963 after reading one of his soldier's notes. Sevak wrote that his generation knew "little about Andranik, almost nothing." He continued, "knowing nothing about Andranik means to know nothing about modern Armenian history." In 1965, Andranik's 100th anniversary was celebrated in Soviet Armenia.
caption: General Andranik on the cover of the French magazine L'Image, 1919
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