Aram Manukian (19 March 187929 January 1919) was an Armenian revolutionary, statesman, and a leading member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) party. He is widely regarded as the founder of the First Republic of Armenia.
Born and educated in Russian (Eastern) Armenia, he was mostly active in Van, one of the largest cities in Turkish (Western) Armenia. He rose to prominence there as a community organizer. During the first months of World War I, he worked with local Ottoman officials to de-escalate rising tensions until mid-April 1915, when Turkish forces laid siege to the city. He led the successful Armenian civilian self-defense of Van. As a result, tens of thousands avoided being deported and massacred by the Turkish government while the Armenian genocide was underway. He briefly served as the head of the provisional government in Van.
Following the Russian Revolution and the collapse of the Caucasian front in 1917–18, Aram was "popular dictator" of the unconquered area around the city of Yerevan. In May 1918, he helped organize the defense against the advancing Turkish army, which was effectively stopped at the Battle of Sardarabad, preventing the complete destruction of the Armenian nation. Manukian played an important role in the establishment of the First Republic of Armenia and served as its first minister of internal affairs. He died of typhus in January 1919, short of his 40th birthday.
Aram Manukian was an advocate for self-reliance. He was noted for his ability to unite different sections of society for a common cause. He is widely considered by scholars to be the founder of the First Republic of Armenia. During the Soviet period, he, along with other prominent Dashnaks, was largely disregarded. Since 1990, attempts have been made to revive his memory in independent Armenia.
Early life Aram Manukian was born Sargis Hovhannisian view online on 19 March 1879, either in Zeyva village in Zangezur (modern-day Davit Bek, in Armenia's Syunik Province) or in Shushi, the largest city of Karabakh at the time. His father, Harutyun, was a gunsmith; his mother, Sona, was a housewife. He was the youngest of five children. He received primary education at the Agulyats School in Shushi. Starting in 1895 he attended the city's diocesan school, where he joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the main driving force of the Armenian national liberation movement. In the spring of 1901, Manukian was expelled from school for revolutionary activities and moved to Yerevan, where he continued his education at the local diocesan school. He graduated two years later, in May 1903. In 1903, Manukian went to Baku where he took part in strikes and later in the Armenian resistance against the confiscation of Armenian Church properties by the Russian government. He was briefly in Elisabethpol to organize the Armenian resistance there. In mid-1903 he moved to Kars, where he actively took part in the formation of armed groups. In September 1903, within a group of 150 men, Aram Manukian tried to cross the Russian-Turkish border to transfer weaponry to the fedayi in Sasun; however, he returned to Kars due to illness.
Activities in Van Manukian settled in the city of Van in February 1905. Because he spent most of his political career, except the last few years, in Van. Aram became associated with the city and came to be known as "Aram of Van", known in Armenian as “Vani Aram”. He soon became the head of the local party branch and sought to strengthen its influence in Van. Manukian was convinced that if Armenians were going to revolt against Ottoman rule, it needed to be a well-organized and widespread revolt and not a local one, such as the failed uprising in Sasun in 1904. He engaged in community organizing and transfer of weaponry (particularly rifles and bullets) to Van from Russia and Iran. In 1906 alone more weapons were transferred to Van than in the previous 15 years. Prior to the Young Turk Revolution, the party branch in Van had around a thousand members. He also sought to minimize the Ottoman government interference in internal Armenian matters. The ARF effectively established unofficial courts for Armenians, who were mistreated by the Turkish judiciary. In 1907, during the ARF Congress in Vienna, where he was the delegate from Van, Aram expressed skepticism about the declared goals of the Turkish emigre political movements in Europe that the ARF was cooperating with, particularly the Young Turks. He said that they are "for the most part, palace revolutionaries who in one sense or another have dynastic interests." Manukian claimed that if they "begin with them, we are going to encounter a great many problems." A year later the Young Turks ousted Sultan Abdul Hamid II from power and restored the constitution. Ottoman Armenians reacted positively to the overthrow of the sultan.
After the revolution, Manukian taught at a school in Ordu. He returned to Van in late 1912. Meanwhile, the Adana massacre of 1909 largely ended the Armenian hopes of reforms by the Young Turks. However, Manukian continued to work with local Ottoman officials and other Armenian parties, especially the Armenakan Party, to improve the condition of the Armenians. He became the leader of the ARF in the Van region along with Ishkhan and Arshak Vramian. He took an active role in the Armenian community by teaching at schools, communicating with the press and promoting Armenian youth circles.
In December 1912, Aram Manukian became a suspect in the murder of the mayor of Van, Bedros Kapamajian, an Armenian loyalist to the Ottoman government. He was arrested along with several other notable ARF members "as encouragers for the murder" according to Turkish sources. He was later released.
World War I
During World War I, the Young Turk (Committee of Union and Progress) government of the Ottoman Empire planned and carried out the Armenian genocide, the systematic extermination of the Armenians living in their ancestral lands. In the spring of 1915 Van became the only location where Armenians organized a major resistance. Aram Manukian played a key role in this resistance, widely seen as self-defence.
In late 1914, during the first months of the war, tensions in the Van Vilayet had been kept low by the cooperation of the Dashnak leaders Manukian, Ishkhan, Ottoman parliament deputy Arshak Vramian and local Young Turk officials and Van governor Tahsin Bey, who was considered a moderate. In early August, a general mobilization took place, during which some problems arose that were solved by the cooperation of these parties. An important event occurred in September, when Cevdet, the radical brother-in-law of Minister of War Enver Pasha, was appointed governor. According to Raymond Kévorkian, Cevdet's appointment "was probably calculated to make it easier to implement a policy of provocation." "Several more or less serious incidents occurred in the vilayet of Van between December 1914 and March 1915. Each time, the Armenian leaders had to step in to pour oil on troubled waters." In Van city, local prominent Armenians, such as Aram Manukian (Sergei Hovhannisian, 1879–1919), one of the principal Dashnakist leaders there, sought to calm the public—Armenian and Turk alike—through negotiations with the governor.
Clashes between Armenians and Turks in the Van Vilayet became more frequent in March and April 1915. In late March and early April, Cevdet, Aram Manukian, Vramian and other major figures met to discuss the tensions. In mid-April, an incident took place in Shatakh. On the night of 16 April, Ishkhan, who was assigned a mediator's role, was killed by a group of Circassians while staying in a Kurdish friend's house in a nearby village. According to Kévorkian, "There is every reason to believe that none other than Cevdet, the superior of these Çerkez [Circassians], had ordered these killings. He had probably come to the conclusion that he could accomplish nothing in a city with an Armenian majority unless he first got rid of the three Dashnak leaders. His behavior the following day tends to confirm this suspicion." The next morning, Cevdet invited both Aram and Vramian to his konak. Aram did not go upon Vramian's advice. Vramian was subsequently murdered in a location near Bitlis. "The news shocked and dismayed the [Armenian] population. The American missionaries in Van, Dr. Clarence Ussher and Miss Grace Knapp, who were eyewitnesses to these events, provide us details that leave little doubt as to the vali's [Cevdet] intentions."
On 18 April, Cevdet demanded all Armenians turn in their arms. Kévorkian suggests, [Armenians] knew that they were doomed if they obeyed; yet, if they failed to, they would provide the vali with the pretext he needed to attack the city's Christian quarters and the rural areas. In other words, the Armenian leaders' strategy of temporization had become obsolete. The murder of Ishkhan on the night of 16 April and the arrest of Arshag Vramian – Van still did not know that he had been murdered – probably convinced the last Armenian leader left alive, Aram Manukian, to reject the authorities' injunctions and prepare the city for an attack that was now certain to come. With Ishkhan and Vramian assassinated, Manukian remained only major Armenian leader in Van. Turkish forces attacked Aygestan, the old city of Van with a mixed Armenian-Turkish population, on 20 April. Aram "had already made preparations to ward off an attack and was able to prevent the Turkish troops from entering the quarter." In the following days, around 15,000 Armenian villagers poured into the old city quarter.
With the Russian-Armenian forces reaching Van, the Muslim population and Ottoman forces began to evacuate Van on 14 May, with the last troops leaving on 16 May after burning down their barracks. On 18 May, Armenian volunteers under Vardan entered Van, followed by Russian troops under Major-General Nikolayev. During this time, Nikolayev selected Manukian as the provisional governor of Van, allowing him to establish a provincial government. Manukian's administration lasted until the end of July. His first orders were to allow the looting and burning of houses belonging to Muslims to discourage their inhabitants from returning.
Yerevan
Turkish offensive Between October 21, 1917 and April 14, 1918 Manukian edited the newspaper Ashkhatank (Աշխատանք, "Labor") in Yerevan.
Following the February Revolution of 1917 the Armenian-populated areas formerly controlled by the Russian Empire had no effective political administration. In Yerevan, Bishop Khoren sponsored the establishment of a provincial council in December 1917. Aram was sent by the Tiflis-based Armenian National Council to head the civil administration of the city. Miller writes that the "choice was well calculated, for the hero of Van was a veteran organizer, fully aware of the strengths and shortcomings of his people." Aram arrived in Yerevan in early January 1918 and organized a committee which served as an unofficial administration. His committee established law and order in the city by expelling several Armenian bandit groups, imposing special taxes and confiscating materiel abandoned by the Russian troops.
In early 1918 Manukian and Dro established what historians describe as a "popular dictatorship" in the areas around Yerevan. Aram was popularly proclaimed "dictator of Yerevan" in March, thereafter consolidating all power in his hands. An effective military dictatorship was established in the last surviving pocket of unconquered Armenian-populated territories.