Armenian fedayi

Armenian fedayi
A fedayi group fighting under the ARF banner. The text reads Liberty or Death.
Active	1880s–1920s
Country	Ottoman Empire Russian Empire
Allegiance	Armenians Dashnak Hnchak Armenakan
Type	Militia
Size	up to few thousands 100–200 (1904 Sasun uprising)
Engagements	Armenian national liberation movement
Commanders
before 1893	Arabo
Ceremonial chief	Aghbiur Serob
1899–1904	Andranik
1904–1907	Kevork Chavush

Fedayi (Western Armenian language: Ֆէտայի

Fedayi; Eastern Armenian language: Ֆիդայի
Fidayi), also known as the Armenian irregular units or Armenian militia, were Armenian civilians who voluntary left their families to form self-defense units and armed bands in reaction to the mass murder of Armenians and the pillage of Armenian villages by criminals, tribal Kurdish forces, and Hamidian guards during the reign of Abdul Hamid II in late 19th and early 20th centuries, know as the Hamidian massacres. Their ultimate goal was always to gain Armenian autonomy (Armenakans) or independence (Dashnaks, Hunchaks) depending on their ideology and the degree of oppression visited on Armenians.

The Armenian term fedayi is derived from Arabic fedayeen: فدائيون fidā'īyīn, literally meaning "those who sacrifice".

Goals and activities

The Bitlis Vilayet (histocial Taron) was the center of fedayee operations in late 19th century and early 20th century.

Armenian fedayees' main goal was to defend Armenian villagers from persecution and at the same time, disrupt the Ottoman Empire's activities in Armenian populated regions. Armenian volunteers fight during Hamidian Massacres, Sasun Resistance (1894), Zeitun Rebellion (1895–1896), Defense of Van, and Khanasor Expedition. They were the leaders and members of the Armenian national movement. These bands committed sabotage activities like cutting telegraph lines and raiding army supplies. They also committed assassinations and counter-attacks on Muslim villages. They helped Armenians defend themselves during village purges by Ottoman officials. They were supported by Armenians and quickly gained fame, support and trust by them.

Their activities in the Ottoman Empire dissipated after the Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire, when the Committee of Union and Progress came into power and, for a time, granted the Empore's Armenian citizens the same rights as its Turkish and Kurdish citizens. Most fedayee groups disbanded, their members returning to their families.

World War I

A photo of an Armenian volunteer from the Library of Congress

Main article: Armenian volunteer units

Some fedayee groups joined the Ottoman army after the Ottoman government passed a new law to support the war effort that required all enabled adult males up to the age of forty-five to either be recruited in the Ottoman army or to pay special fees (which would be used in the war effort) in order to be excluded from service. As a result of this law, most able-bodied men were removed from their homes, leaving only the women, children, and elderly by themselves. Most of the Armenian recruits were later turned into road laborers, and many were executed before the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.

The genocide gave way to the return of the fedayees. Apart from thousands of Armenians who were drafted or volunteered in several different armies fighting against the Ottoman empire, and apart from those who were drafted in the Ottoman army prior to World War I, the fedayees fought inside Ottoman borders. During the first year of the new republic, Armenians were flooding from Anatolia to safe havens. Roads were clogged with refugees. Further southeast, in Van, the fedayees helped the local Armenians resist the Turkish army until April 1918, but eventually were forced to evacuate it and withdraw to Persia. To consider emergency measures, the Western Armenian Administration sponsored a conference which adopted plans to form a twenty-thousand-man militia under Andranik in December 1917. Civilian commissioner Dr. Hakob Zavriev promoted Adrianik to Major General and he took the command of Armenia within the Ottoman Empire. They fought in numerous successful battles such as the Battle of Kara Killisse, the Battle of Bash Abaran and the Battle of Sardarapat, as fedayees merged with the Armenian army (Erivan centered) under the General Tovmas Nazarbekian.

The total number of guerrillas in these irregular bands was 40,000–50,000, according to Boghos Nubar, the president of the "Armenian National Delegation":

In the Caucasus, where, without mentioning the 150,000 Armenians in the Imperial Russian Army, more than 40,000 of their volunteers contributed to the liberation of a portion of the Armenian vilayets, and where, under the command of their leaders, Antranik and Nazerbekoff, they, alone among the peoples of the Caucasus, offered resistance to the Turkish armies, from the beginning of the Bolshevist withdrawal right up to the signing of an armistice."

Boghos Nubar, as a part of the Armenian Delegation, had the intention to expand the borders of the independent Democratic Republic of Armenia. Thus, he might have elevated the number of Armenian fedayees who were able to fight in order to show that the Armenians are capable of defending an eventually large Ottoman-Armenian border. In reality, their numbers at that time were much lower, considering the fact that there were no more than a few handful of fedayees in most of the confrontations between them and Kurdish irregulars or Turkish soldiers, even according to foreign accounts. Moreover, many of the fedayees were the same and reappeared in various places and battles. One should also note that many Armenian irregular fighters died defending regions of Western Armenia during the genocide.

Notable fedayis

Arabo

File:SerobPasha.jpg

Aghbiur Serob

Kevork Chavush

Andranik

The statue of Andranik at the Fedayees Museum in Yerevan

Nom de guerre	Years active (as fedayees)	Operation location(s)	Political affiliation
Arabo	1880s - 1893	Western Armenia	None
Girayr	1880s - 1894	Western Armenia	Hunchak
Papken Siuni	- 1896	Western Armenia, Constantinople	Dashnak
Aghbiur Serob	1891 - 1899	Western Armenia	Dashnak
Hrayr Dzhoghk	1880s - 1904	Western Armenia	Hunchak, Dashnak
Kevork Chavush	1890 - 1907	Western Armenia	Hunchak, Dashnak
Sevkaretsi Sako	- 1908	Western Armenia, Iran	Dashnak
Yeprem Khan	1880s - 1912	Western Armenia, Iran	Dashnak
Nikol Duman	- 1914	Western Armenia, Eastern Armenia	Dashnak
Medzn Mourad	1880s - 1915	Western Armenia	Hunchak
Ishkhan	- 1915	Western Armenia
Paramaz	1890s - 1915	Eastern Armenia	Hunchak
Keri	1880s - 1916	Western Armenia, Eastern Armenia	Dashnak
Hovsep Arghutian	1889 - 1918	Western Armenia	Dashnak
Armenak Yekarian	1890s - 1918	Western Armenia	Armenakan
Sebastatsi Murad	1890s - 1918	Western Armenia, Eastern Armenia, Baku	Hunchak, Dashnak
Andranik	1895 - 1919	Western Armenia, Bulgaria, Zangezur	Hunchak, Dashnak
Aram Manukian	1903 - 1919	Western Armenia, Eastern Armenia	Dashnak
Sose Mayrig	1890s - 1920	Western Armenia	Dashnak
Mihran Damadian	1890s - 1920	Western Armenia, Cilicia	Hunchak
Dro	1914 - 1920	Western Armenia, Eastern Armenia	Dashnak
Vartan	1890 - 1920s	Western Armenia, Eastern Armenia	Dashnak
Garegin Nzhdeh	1908 - 1921	Iran, Balkans, Eastern Armenia (particularly Zangezur)	Dashnak
Makhluto	1880s - 1921	Western Armenia, Eastern Armenia, Zangezur	Dashnak
Armen Garo	1895 - 1922	Western Armenia, Eastern Armenia	Dashnak

See also

• Armenian Genocide

Bibliography

• Vartanian, H.K. The Western Armenian Liberation Struggle Yerevan, 1967
• Translated from the Armenian: Mihran Kurdoghlian, Badmoutioun Hayots, C. hador [Armenian History, volume III], Athens, Greece, 1996, pg. 59-62.