Garegin Nzhdeh

**Garegin Ter-Harutyunyan,** better known as **Garegin Nzhdeh**, is an Armenian statesmen, general and leader of Armenia since his successful putsch on Erevan in 1931. Involved in the Armenian Revolutionary Federation before breaking up and forming the Society for Unification in the 20s in the aftermath of Armenian independence. Today, he is still hugely popular among the Armenian people, but his failure to pacify rebellious activity in Anatolia has strengthened his opposition. That coupled with his growing ill health has lead many to believe Nzhdeh’s rule is numbered.

## Early life

Garegin Ter-Harutyunyan was born on 1 January 1886 in the village of Kznut, Nakhchivan. He was the youngest of four children born to a local village priest. He lost his father, Ter Yeghishe, early into his childhood. Nzhdeh attended a Russian school in Nakhchivan City and continued his education in Tiflis.

Shortly after, he moved to St. Petersburg to continue his education at a local university. After two years of studying at the Faculty of Law, he left St. Petersburg University and returned to the Caucasus in order to participate in the Armenian national movements against the Russian Empire. In 1906, Nzhdeh moved to Bulgaria, where he completed his education at the Dmitry Nikolov Military College of Sofia and in 1907 received a commission in the army with the rank of lieutenant.

He would go on to join the Armenian Revolutionary Federation 2 years later before returning to mainland Armenia.

## Involvement in the Great War

Nzhdeh’s involvement in the Great War is shrouded in mystery and controversy, at least when Armenia was under Russian occupation. In 1915, as the Germans slowly beat back the Russian Empire in Poland and the Baltics, it is said that Nzhdeh, speaking for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation had organized a meeting between German diplomats and the ARF in secret, where, should Germany win the Great War, the Germans would grant Armenia independence with the ARF as the ruling party. In exchange for such a proposal, Nzhdeh, already in touch with a growing number of ARF anti-Russian guerrillas would militarize those men and sabotage the Russian infrastructure, railways and ports along the Mediterranean and Black Sea to disrupt the flow of trade.

Nzhdeh was willing to accept the German proposal, but in actuality the plan never materialized. But with Russia in the midst of the conflict, Nzhdeh was arrested when his involvement with the diplomats were leaked. Due to German failures to force a Russian capitulation, and the outlawing of the ARF, the plan was eventually scrapped in late 1916.

During his arrest, Nzhdeh, with the help of an under-ground ARF resistance cell, were able to break him and several others out of jail, where he successfully escaped Russian forces and fled to Persia indefinitely.

## Rise of the Dashnaks

With the Great War ending in a Entente Victory and the collapse of the Tsars, Nzhdeh remained pessimistic over the treatment of the Armenians in Russia. With Nzhdeh and many others in Persia, the ARF temporarily relocated to Tabriz, and it is there that he participated in the Iranian Revolution of 1919, calling on the Armenians of Isfahan, Tabriz, Urmia and Tehran to organize and fight for the Republican cause. He was instrumental in the takeover of Tabriz (the last holdout for Qajar loyalists) and the decision to grant Armenians two seats in the Iranian parliament. Thanks to these efforts, Nzhdeh was personally awarded and thanked by the Iranian president, who openly allowed the ARF to function in the country. These successes lead to a romanticized and galvanized image of Nzhdeh, where he founded the Tseghakronism movement in 1923, still in exile.

It was only through the Armenian Declaration of Independence did Nzhdeh and many others return to mainland Armenia, but the newly declared Republic of Armenia was experiencing a two front war against Georgia, Azerbaijan and Anatolian rebels. Despite Nzhdeh’s insistence on being a commander on the Caucasus front, the president at the time stationed him in Anatolia, ordering him to crush all anti-Armenian resistance.

## Civil strife in Anatolia

With the independence of Armenia and lack of Russian authority present in the area, Anatolia became a battleground between Kurdish and Turkish rebels who sought independence or unification with Turkey or Kurdistan. Turks and Kurds were not united in their fight however, but all guerrilla fighters turned their weapons against Armenia for the time being.

Rebellions broke out in Van, Erzurum and Sivas and in order to not overwhelm Armenian forces, Nzhdeh planned to wipe out one rebellion at a time, starting in Van.

Through various attempts to separate the rebels are starve their forces, he was eventually able to pacify Van, Erzurum and Sivas back into Armenian control, just as the Caucasus Conflict started to wind down, and after the Caucasus Conference, Nzhdeh was named a hero of the new republic, but in just a few years he fell out with the ARF, in part due to the Tseghakronism movement and his increasingly nationalistic views, forming the Society for Unification in 1928.