Hovhannes Katchaznouni

nationality=Armenian


order=1st Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Armenia
term_start=May 30, 1918
term_end=May 28, 1919
predecessor=
successor=Alexander Khatisyan
birth_date=1868
birth_place=Akhaltsikhe, Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire)
death_date=1938
death_place=Yerevan, Armenian SSR
spouse=
party=Armenian Revolutionary Federation
vicepresident=

Hovhannes Katchaznouni (Lang-hy|Յովհաննէս Քաջազնունի) (Akhaltsikhe, Georgia 1868 – Yerevan, Armenia 1938) was the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Armenia from May 30, 1918 to May 28, 1919. He was a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.

Personal life

He was born in 1868 in the Akhaltsikhe region of present-day Georgia. Having studied architecture, he worked as an architect in Baku. He joined the Dashnak organization there. He became a member of the Armenian National Council in 1917 and was the Dashnak representative in the Seym (the Caucasian Parliament) until 1918. He was on the Armenian committee that conducted peace talks with the Ottoman Empire in Trabzon and Batoum. After the dissolution of the Transcaucasian Federation, he became the first Prime Minister of the independent Armenian state in 1918. He held this position until August 1919. He was arrested after the Bolsheviks came to power in Armenia in 1920. He left Armenia after the counter-revolutionary revolt against Bolshevik rule was suppressed in 1921. Years later, he returned to Soviet Armenia, to work there as an architect until his death in 1938.

Report to the 1923 ARF Congress

Katchaznouni prepared a critical report for the April 1923 ARF congress in Bucharestcite journal
author = Tölölyan, Khachig
year = 1992
month = Summer
journal = Terrorism and Political Violence
title = Terrorism in modern Armenian political culture
volume = 4
issue = 2
pages = 8–22
url = http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a788817885
publisher = Routledge
doi = 10.1080/09546559208427146
editor = L. Winberg
quote = ...the Party Congress of the ARF (Bucharest and Vienna), November 1992 to April 1923...] cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=fnSfu-ivcSwC&pg=PT29&lpg=PT29&dq=1923+bucharest+ARF&source=web&ots=F_e8hH2eMR&sig=7tgqF5zIFC7rtUQTr1_0M3L9NMU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPT30,M1|title=Political parties and terrorist groups|first=Leonard |last=Weinberg|year=1992|isbn=9780714634913|pages=15-17|publisher=Routledge|quote=(pg.15) ... the Party Congress of the ARF (Bucharest and Vienna, November 1922 to April 1923)... (pg.16) Only months after the congress, Hovhanness Kachaznouni, a government official of independent Armenia and a chief dissenter at the congress, published an expanded version of his arguments, which had not been heeded at the Vienna Convention. The book, "Dashnagzootyune Anelik Chooni Aylevs" (The ARF No Longer Has Anything To Do, Vienna : Mekhitarist Press, 1923), is a landmark of the party's history. It was banned from party clubs and libraries for decades afterwards...(pg.17) The party, he suggested, should dissolve itself and its former members should join new organizations specifically directed at serving the post-genocide diaspora.] [cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=BhJCAAAAIAAJ&q=1923+bucharest+ARF&dq=1923+bucharest+ARF&ei=Wl3BSKSrMYPqjgHgzdzrDQ&client=firefox-a&pgis=1|title=A trip through historic Armenia|first=Stephen G|last=Svajian|pages=418|year=1977|publisher=GreenHill|quote=...the manifesto to the 'Dashnag Party Congress' in Bucharest, April 1923.
His manifesto is entitled, 'Dashnaktzoutune Has Nothing To Do Any More.'] [cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=gNRmAAAAMAAJ&q=1923+bucharest+ARF&dq=1923+bucharest+ARF&ei=Wl3BSKSrMYPqjgHgzdzrDQ&client=firefox-a&pgis=1|title=La Perse et la Grande Guerre|first=Oliver|last=Bast|year=2002|publisher=Institut français de recherche en Iran|isbn=9782909961231|quote=...book which was originally 'a manifesto' he had presented to the convention of the foreign branches of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Bucharest, 1923)] titled "The Federation Has Nothing More to Do," which called for the dissolution of the Party and Armenian support of Soviet Armenia. [cite book|first=Hovhannes |last=Katchaznouni|title=Dashnaktsutiune anelik chuni ailevs|month=July|year=1923|publisher=Mechitarist Press|location=Vienna|language=Armenian] cite journal
author = Hovannisian, Richard G.
authorlink = Richard G. Hovannisian
year = 1974
month = January
title = Dimensions of Democracy and Authority in Caucasian Armenia, 1917-1920
journal = Russian Review
volume = 33
issue = 1
pages = 37–49
doi = 10.2307/127620 See footnote 12.] cite book
title = Britain and the Armenian question, 1915-1923
author = Nassibian, Akaby
year = 1984
isbn = 9780312098094
pages = 105
quote = (Dashnaktsutiun Has Nothing To Do Any More) (Vienna, 1923)
url = http://www.theses.com/idx/google/it2.asp?xml=all/31/it00087600.htm
publisher = St. Martin's Press
location = New York (also London and Sydney: Croom Helm)] [cite book|title=Armenia at the Crossroads: Democracy and Nationhood in the Post-Soviet Era|pages=20|author=Libaridian, Gerard J|isbn=0962871516|publisher=Blue Crane Books|year=1991|month=September] Its incendiary claims immediately drew rebuke from the party. [cite book|first=Reuben|last=Darbinian|title=Mer Pataskhane H. Kachaznunii|language=Armenian|location=Boston|year=1923|publisher=Hayrenik Tparan Translates to "Our Answer/Response to H. Kachaznunii" (author's name also transliterated "Rouben", "Ruben", "Rooben", etc.)] [cite web
url=http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/search/books.htm
accessdate=2008-08-07
date=2003-05-07
title=Books of the Armenian Research Center
work=Armenian Research Center
publisher=University of Michigan
quote=Kachaznuni, [Hovhannes] . "H.H. Dashnaktsutiwne anelik chuni aylews [Dashnaks Have Nothing To Do Any More] " (Vienna: Mkhitarean Tparan, 1923).
We also have R. Darbinean's and S. Vratsean's responses...R. Darbinean, "Mer pataskhane H. Kazaznunii" and S. Vratsean, "Kharkhapumner: H. Kajaznunu H.H. Dashnaktsutiwne anelik chuni aylews [girk artiw] " [(Boston, MA: Hayreniki Tparan, 1924)] , in Box 5 of the St. Sarkis books.] [citation
accessdate=2008-09-02
title=PhD Thesis, Department of Government and Public Administration, University of Sydney
month=October
year=1997
url=http://www.realchange.nareg.com.au/phd.htm
first=Armen
last=Gakavian
chapter=ARMENIAN DIASPORAN IDENTITY REIMAGINED, 1915-1985
chapterurl=http://www.realchange.nareg.com.au/ch3.htm
quote=...the former Prime Minister of Armenia, Hovhannes Kachaznouni, published a book, "The ARF Has Nothing More to Do", and migrated to Soviet Armenia. As the title suggests, Kachaznouni argued that the ARF and the other parties had no role to play in Armenian political life, now that Armenia was Bolshevik. The opponents of the ARF, of course, capitalised on this. In the same year, a response was written to Kachaznouni by high-ranking party member Rouben Darbinian, who argued that Kachaznouni was wrong to give up hope, because Sovietisation would be short lived, and the ARF needed to continue the struggle for freedom.] [cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=gpL9QKCJ2L8C&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=%22interim+conference%22+1923+armenia&source=web&ots=bxYbj9laEK&sig=ybESRC5oyGx1bWlxcVcAZl0OG9w&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA167,M1|pages=167|title=Resistance and Revenge|first=Jacques|last=Derogy|publisher=Transaction|isbn=0887383386|year=1990|quote=April 11 [, 1923] . Letter from Shahan Natali to the Boston committee:
I was informed too late to be able to express my view towards the item put on the agenda of the next interim conference in Vienna; the position of the Party toward the sovietization of Armenia. You are not without responsibility for this delay, which has prevented me from making the party return to its revolutionary line.] Until recently, the report was best known through its abridged English translation by Matthew Aram Callender, "The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnagtzoutiun) Has Nothing to Do Any More" and edited by Avedis Boghos Derounian. The translation emanated from the New York branch of the Armenian General Benevolent Union's Armenian Information Service. [Imprinted on the cover of the booklet: "Published by the" Armenian Information Service, Suite 7D, 471 Park Ave., New York 22." Written on the last page: "The Armenian Information Service publishes the Armenian Reporter..."] [cite book
first=Mark
last=Malkasian
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=aRJJ9qs6PeQC&pg=PA225&dq=%22Armenian+Information+Service-AGBU%22&ei=76qbSPeMAYPEjgHNnqn6BA&sig=ACfU3U14OjDUD1CIgfxtWXhAS--uPENWOw
title=Gha-Ra-Bagh!
publisher=Wayne State University Press
pages=224
isbn=9780814326046
year=1996 See footnote 1 and 3.] [cite news|url=http://www.agbu.org/publications/article.asp?A_ID=499
first=Christine
last=Simone
title=Is Armenia in the news? Yes and no
publisher=Armenian General Benevolent Union
work=AGBU News
date=1993-03-01
accessdate=2008-08-07
quote=AGBU's New York office of the Armenian Information Service ...] The booklet's elusive nature can be attributed to the fact that the Congress was "highly secret and closed to the public" with little information about its circumstances being released, [cite news|title=The ARF World Congress, Then and Now|work=Armenian Reporter|author=Vosbikian, Joseph|date=1995-12-16|quote=As for the 1923 ARF convention and the 1995 26th World Congress of the ARF, both were highly secret and closed to the public; we were solely dependent on the information that has leaked out since and the recent public statements coming from their central bureau. ] and the fact that remaining copies have been "banned from [ARF] clubs and libraries for decades afterwards."

Recently, a historian from Istanbul University named Mehmet Perinçek [cite web|url=http://www.istanbul.edu.tr/enstituler/ataturk/ogrenciler.html
accessdate=2008-08-07
title=Doktora: 2007-2008
work=ÖĞRENCİLER
publisher=İ.Ü. Atatürk İlkeleri ve İnkılap Tarihi Enstitüsü
date=2007-11-23] found an unabridged Russian copy (printed in Tblisi, 1927) of the book in the Russian State Library in Moscow. [cite news|url=http://arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=7607052
title=Ermeni isyanını Perinçek buldu İTO ABD’ye gönderiyor
work=Hürriyet
date=2007-11-02
accessdate=2008-08-07
language=Turkish
first=Sadi
last=Özdemir] Perinçek said that he was the first person to have entered the Russian State archives (due to a simple absence of applications), [cite news|url=http://arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=-248101
title=En yakışıklı bilimsel sosyalist
date=2001-06-10
accessdate=2008-08-07
work=Hürriyet
first=Ayşe
last=Arman
authorlink=Ayşe Arman
language=Turkish] and that he has spent seven years studying them. [cite news|url=http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2006/05/08/siyaset/asiy.html
title=Soykırım değil 'karşılıklı kırım'
accessdate=2008-08-07
date=2006-05-08
language=Turkish
work=Milliyet
first=Derya
last=Sazak] Following the discovery, translations of the text into several other languages were published by Kaynak Press, Istanbul, in several languages as part of a book series titled "The Lie of 'Armenian Genocide' in Armenian Documents". [ [http://www.kaynakyayinlari.com/catinfo.asp?mrk=33 Books by 'Hovhannes Katchaznouni'] , Kaynak Press]

The booklet is controversial because it has been cited to support marginal arguments, such as the claim that Ottoman Armenians deserved their fate.

Bibliography

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References