Roving Revolutionaries: The Connected Revolutions Of The Early Twentieth Century

321 Pages·2019·4.209 MB·English

by  Houri Berberian

Roving Revolutionaries
Armenians and the Connected Revolutions
in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman
W orlds
Houri Berberian
university of california press
Roving Revolutionaries
The publisher and the University of California Press
Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of
the Constance and William Withey Endowment Fund in
History and Music.
Roving Revolutionaries
Armenians and the Connected Revolutions
in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman
W orlds
Houri Berberian
university of california press
University of California Press, one of the most
distinguished university presses in the United States,
enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship
in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its
activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and
by philanthropic contributions from individuals and
institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2019 by Houri Berberian
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Berberian, Houri, author.
Title: Roving revolutionaries : Armenians and the
connected revolutions in the Russian, Iranian, and
Ottoman worlds / Houri Berberian.
Description: Oakland, California : University of
California Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical
references and index. |
Identifiers: lccn 2018035605 (print) | lccn 2018037761
(ebook) | isbn 9780520970366 (ebook) |
isbn 9780520278936 (cloth : alk. paper) |
isbn 9780520278943 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: lcsh: Revolutionaries—Armenia—History—
20th century. | Russia—History—Revolution,
1905–1907. | Turkey—History—Revolution, 1908. |
Iran—History—1905–1911.
Classification: lcc ds195 (ebook) | lcc ds195 .
b47 2019 (print) | ddc 950.4/1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018035605
Manufactured in the United States of America
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Sebouh

Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
A Note on Transliteration xvii
1. Connected Revolutions: Local and Global Contexts 1
2. “Active and Moving Spirits of Disturbance”: Circulation
of Men, Arms, and Print 47
3. The Circulation of Ideas and Ideologies: Constitutionalism
and Federalism 106
4. Connected through and beyond Reading: Socialism across
Imperial Frontiers 145
5. “The Egoism of the Cured Patient”: (In Lieu of a)
Conclusion 183
Notes 191
Bibliography 265
Index 287
List of Illustrations
maps
1. Connected empires / 5
2. Global steamship routes, 1914 / 52
3. Ottoman and Caucasian rail, 1914 / 56
4. Global telegraphic communications, 1901/1903 / 62
5. Rostom on the move, 1893–1918 / 78
6. South Caucasus / 86
7. Arms transfer, 1890–1914 / 99
8. Arms workshops, 1890–1914 / 100
figures
1. Kristapor Mikayelian, Rostom (Stepan Zorian), Simon
Zavarian / 80
2. Rostom with his wife, Eghsabet, and daughter, Taguhi / 81
3. The rainbow of constitution / 108
4. Stepan Sapah-Giwlian / 113
5. Let us give the constitution a new salute / 116
6. Mikayel Varandian / 169
7. The Armenian peasant—Where should I go? There are
three paths / 177
viii
Preface
In 1907 skilled bomb maker and revolutionary Stepan Zorian (1867–
1919)—known to his comrades as Rostom—sat with Iranian constitu-
tionalist leaders and consented to place the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation, which was the leading Armenian party at the turn of the
twentieth century, at the service of the Iranian Constitutional Revolu-
tion. Soon after the meeting, they took up arms together against royal-
ists who were trying to halt the progress of the constitutionalist strug-
gle. Two years earlier, during the Russian Revolution, Rostom had been
far from the Iranian scene, stirring things up in the South Caucasus,
where he convinced his party comrades of the importance of including
the South Caucasus in their revolutionary struggle. Four years later,
Rostom turned up again, this time in the Ottoman Empire after his
party’s involvement in the reinstatement of constitution and revolution.
Rostom’s geographic mobility, his appearance at pivotal moments in
three different revolutionary struggles, and his remarkable ease when
operating in varied milieus point to a fascinating but heretofore unex-
amined and central feature of these modern revolutions: the critical cir-
culation of revolutionaries as well as ideas, arms, and print. Rostom
was one among many roving revolutionaries who made their way
through these early twentieth-century revolutions and whose itinerant
global ideas about constitutionalism, federalism, and socialism traveled
with them and were appropriated according to local and regional cir-
cumstances.
ix