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Avis Nurijanyan | |
|---|---|
| People's Commissar for Military Affairs of theArmenian SSR | |
| In office December 1920 – May 1921 | |
| Preceded by | position established |
| Succeeded by | Alexander Miasnikian |
| People's Commissar for Internal Affairs of theArmenian SSR | |
| In office July 1921 – August 1921 | |
| Preceded by | Poghos Makintsyan |
| Succeeded by | Shavarsh Amirkhanyan |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1896-12-03)3 December 1896 |
| Died | 16 September 1938(1938-09-16) (aged 41) |
| Party | Armenian Revolutionary Federation (1917–1918) Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1918–1927, 1929–1937/8) |
Avis (Avetis) Soghomoni Nurijanyan (Armenian:Ավիս Սողոմոնի Նուրիջանյան; 3 December 1896 – 16 September 1938) was aBolshevik revolutionary andSoviet politician ofArmenian origin who served as the People's Commissar for Military Affairs of theArmenian SSR from 1920 to 1921 andPeople's Commissar for Internal Affairs in 1921. He is infamous for his role in carrying out mass repressions immediately following theSovietization of Armenia.[1]
Avis Nurijanyan was born in 1896 in the village of Vachagan (now a part of the city ofKapan) to a peasant family.[2] He graduated from theShusha Real School, then studied at the faculty of economics of theKiev Commercial Institute from 1913 to 1917.[2] He abandoned his studies after his fourth year at the institute and participated in revolutionary activities.[3] DuringWorld War I, he served in the Russian Army on theCaucasus front.[3]
Nurijanyan was a member of theArmenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) in 1917.[2] In 1918, he joined theRussian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).[2] He took part in revolutionary activities inBaku and the creation of theBaku Commune in 1918.[2] He was elected a member of theBaku underground committee of the Russian Communist Party, but was arrested and expelled fromAzerbaijan in the summer of 1919.[3] He then held a leading position in the Bolshevik organization inAlexandropol (modern-day Gyumri,Armenia).[2] In January 1920, he was elected a member of the Armenia Committee (Armenkom) of the Russian Communist Party.[3] While inAlexandropol, he took part in the organization of the failedMay Uprising of 1920 against the ARF-led government of theRepublic of Armenia.[3] After the suppression of the rebellion, he fled to Azerbaijan.[3]
In September 1920, Nurijanyan participated in the meeting of the communist organizations of Armenia in Baku and was elected a member of the Central Committee of the newly created Communist Party of Armenia.[2] He was also a member of the Revolutionary Committee of Armenia (Armrevkom) formed in Azerbaijan, which made up the new government of Armenia following its Sovietization in November-December 1920.[3] From November 1920 to May 1921, he served as the People's Commissar for Military Affairs of Soviet Armenia.[3]
Although the Bolsheviks had initially agreed to grant immunity to the former political and military leadership of Armenia, Nurijanyan and his allies were eager to take revenge for the violent suppression of the May Uprising and destroy the remnants of the "bourgeois, nationalist regime" of the ARF.[4] He was one of the chief perpetrators of the forced exile and repression of numerous political and military figures of the First Republic of Armenia in January 1921.[1]
Bakhshi Ishkhanyan, an Armenian Marxist author, described Nurijanyan as "theHerostratus of Armenia. A sick young student operating under the influence of his constantly agitated brain, a total sadist and degenerate."[1] The repressions that Nurijanyan conducted were one of the causes of theFebruary Uprising of 1921, when Soviet power in Armenia was briefly overthrown by an ARF-led rebellion. The harsh methods of the Armenian Bolshevik leadership prompted Soviet leaderVladimir Lenin to sendAlexander Miasnikian to take leadership and stabilize the situation in Armenia.
Nurijanyan left Armenia and held various positions in the Communist Party bureaucracy inLeningrad andRyazan from 1923 to 1930. He was a supporter of theTrotskyistLeft Opposition and was consequently expelled from the Communist Party in 1927, although his party membership was restored in 1929.[3]
Starting in 1930 he worked as the chairman of thekolkhoz center of theTranscaucasian SFSR, but as of 1937 he was not working.[3] He worked inTbilisi until 1937, when he returned to Armenia.[3] Nurijanyan fell victim to theGreat Purge of 1937–1938.
According some sources, he was arrested in June 1937 and died in prison that year, while another source reports that he was sentenced to death on 19 July 1938 and executed on 16 September 1938.[2][3]
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