Andranik Ozanian §

Born Andranik Toros Ozanian in Şebinkarahisar in 1865; took to the mountains as a fedayee in 1888 after killing a local Ottoman official, and made his name in the Sasun resistance of 1894 and the 1901 defence of Arakelots monastery. Commanded an Armenian battalion in the Balkan Wars (1912–13) under Bulgarian colours and a volunteer battalion under Russian command on the Caucasus front 1914–17. From mid-1918 he commanded an autonomous "Special Striking Division" that operated in Zangezur and the Karabakh approaches, and his refusal to subordinate to the Yerevan ARF government gave him an irregular, almost warlord status. Andranik's Zangezur campaign of 1918–19 is contested: Armenian historiography (Chalabian, Hovannisian) credits him with shielding the Armenian population from Ottoman-Azerbaijani forces; Bloxham, de Waal and Azerbaijani sources document the destruction of Muslim villages and a deliberate policy of demographic homogenisation. Left the Caucasus in April 1919 in dispute with the Yerevan government and the British command; emigrated through Europe to the United States, where he died in Fresno on 31 August 1927. His remains were reinterred at Yerablur in Yerevan in 2000.