Poghos Bek-Pirumyan (; 8 June 1856 – 19 January 1921) was an

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...

n military commander. He served as a colonel for the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and was a commander of the

Battle of Sardarabad The Battle of Sardarabad ( hy, Սարդարապատի ճակատամարտ, translit=Sardarapati chakatamart; tr, Serdarabad Muharebesi) was a battle of the Caucasus campaign of World War I that took place near Sardarabad, Armenia, from 21 to ...

Biography

Poghos Bek-Pirumyan 2018 stamp of Artsakh

Poghos Bek-Pirumyan was born on 8 June 1856 in

Nakhichevanik Nakhichevanik ( hy, Նախիջևանիկ, Nakhijevanik) or Nakhchivanly ( az, Naxçıvanlı) is a village ''de facto'' in the Askeran Province of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, ''de jure'' in the Khojaly District of Azerbaijan, in the dispu ...

village of the

Shusha uezd The Shusha uezd was a county (''uezd'') of the Elizavetpol Governorate of the Russian Empire, and then of the Ganja Governorate of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic with its center in Shusha in 1840–1921. Geography The Shusha uezd was located in ...

of the

Elizavetpol Governorate The Elizavetpol Governorate, also known after 1918 as the Ganja Governorate, was a province ('' guberniya'') of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Yelisavetpol (present-day Ganja). The area of the governorate st ...

within the

. He is the cousin of

Daniel Bek-Pirumian Daniel-Bek Abisoghomi Pirumyan ( hy, Դանիէլ Բէկ Աբիսողոմի Փիրումեան; 22 November 1861 – 1922) was an Armenians, Armenian military commander who served in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I and in the army of ...

. Poghos graduated from the high school in

Shusha / hy, Շուշի , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = ShushaCollection2021.jpg , image_caption = Landmarks of Shusha, from top left:Ghazanchetsots Cathedral • Yukhari Govha ...

, then attended cadet school, and joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1878. He held several positions of battalion and regiment commander, and participated in both the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 and the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

of 1904–05. In 1914, Bek-Pirumyan retired, but came out of retirement that same year with the outbreak of

. Bek-Pirumyan fought on the Western Front, and then in the

Caucasus Campaign The Caucasus campaign comprised armed conflicts between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, later including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, the German Empire, the Central Caspian Dict ...

. Since 1916, he was the commander of the 5th Armenian Rifle Regiment, which participated in the battles of Van and

Mush In multiplayer online games, a MUSH (a backronymed variation on MUD most often expanded as Multi-User Shared Hallucination, though Multi-User Shared Hack, Habitat, and Holodeck are also observed) is a text-based online social medium to which mul ...

. At the

in 1918, the 5th Regiment was a reserve guerrilla unit and a special cavalry regiment. His cousin, Daniel Bek-Pirumyan, also participated in the battle as a commander-in-chief. Armenian general

Movses Silikyan Movses Silikyan or Silikov (, ; 14 September 1862 – 22 November 1937) was an Armenian general who served in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I and later in the army of the First Republic of Armenia. He is regarded as a national hero i ...

ordered elements of the 5th Armenian Regiment under Bek-Pirumyan to check the advance of the Ottoman army. Harutunyan, Ashot H. ''«Սարդարապատի ճակատամարտ 1918»'' he Battle of Sardarapat, 1918

Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia'' ( hy, Հայկական սովետական հանրագիտարան, ''Haykakan sovetakan hanragitaran''; ASE) publishing house was established in 1967 as a department of the Institute of History of the Armen ...

. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1984, vol. x, pp. 227-228. An offensive was launched on May 22 and the Armenian forces were successful in halting the Ottomans in their tracks and forcing Yakub Shevki Pasha's forces into a general

rout A rout is a panicked, disorderly and undisciplined retreat of troops from a battlefield, following a collapse in a given unit's command authority, unit cohesion and combat morale (''esprit de corps''). History Historically, lightly-e ...

, retreating nearly 15-20 kilometers in a westerly direction. The Ottoman command, however, was able to recuperate from its losses and reorganized its forces near the mountain heights on the north-west bank of the

Araks river , az, Araz, fa, ارس, tr, Aras The Aras (also known as the Araks, Arax, Araxes, or Araz) is a river in the Caucasus. It rises in eastern Turkey and flows along the borders between Turkey and Armenia, between Turkey and the Nakhchivan excl ...

. Repeated attempts to cross the river were met with fierce resistance by the 5th Armenian Regiment. On May 24, several more skirmishes took place between the Armenian and Ottoman forces. The battle came to end on May 29, with a decisive Armenian victory After Sovietization of Armenia in December 1920, about 1,000 officers of the First Republic of Armenia were arrested by the Bolshevik authorities, and were forced to walk from

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and i ...

to Alaverdi by foot (about 160 kilometers). Some of them were killed on the road. In January 1921, many heroes of the

were shot, including Daniel Bek-Pirumyan. Poghos Bek-Pirumyan committed suicide on 19 January 1921 after being tortured. These events soon led to the

February Uprising The February Uprising ( classical hy, Փետրուարեան ապստամբութիւն, reformed: Փետրվարյան ապստամբություն, ''P'etrvaryan apstambut'yun'') was an anti-Bolshevik rebellion by the nationalist Armenian R ...

Personal life

Bek-Pirumyan married his wife Catherine in 1892, and they had three children: Alexander (b. 1893), Tamara (b. 1897), and Michael (b. 1899). His cousin,

, was also a colonel who fought in many of the same battles as Poghos, including the

Awards

* Order of Saint Stanislaus, 3rd class (1881) *

Order of St. Anna The Imperial Order of Saint Anna (russian: Орден Святой Анны; also "Order of Saint Anne" or "Order of Saint Ann") was a Holstein ducal and then Russian imperial order of chivalry. It was established by Karl Friedrich, Duke of Holst ...

, 4th class (1882) *

, 3rd class (1882) * Order of Saint Stanislaus, 2nd class (1901) *

Order of St. Vladimir The Imperial Order of Saint Prince Vladimir (russian: орден Святого Владимира) was an Imperial Russian order established on by Empress Catherine II in memory of the deeds of Saint Vladimir, the Grand Prince and the Baptize ...

, 4th class (1904) *

Order of St. George The Order of Saint George (russian: Орден Святого Георгия, Orden Svyatogo Georgiya) is the highest military decoration of the Russian Federation. Originally established on 26 November 1769 Julian (7 December 1769 Gregorian) a ...

, 3rd class (1908) *

, 2nd class (1909) *

, 3rd class (1916) *

Gold Sword for Bravery The Gold Sword for Bravery (russian: Золотое оружие "За храбрость") was a Russian award for bravery. It was set up with two grades on 27 July 1720 by Peter the Great, reclassified as a public order in 1807 and abolished ...

* Medal "For the capture of Geok-Tepe" (1881) *

Order of the Lion and the Sun The Imperial Order of the Lion and the Sun ( Persian: نشان سلطنتی شیر و خورشید) was instituted by Fat’h Ali Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1808 to honour foreign officials (later extended to Iranians) who had rendered disting ...

, 3rd class

References

External links

Outstanding people of Karabagh

Hayazg.info
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bek-Pirumyan, Poghos 1856 births 1921 deaths People from Khojaly District Imperial Russian Army personnel Russian military personnel of World War I Armenian colonels Armenian people of World War I People of the First Republic of Armenia Recipients of the Order of Saint Stanislaus (Russian), 2nd class Recipients of the Order of St. Anna Recipients of the Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd class Recipients of the Order of St. George of the Third Degree Recipients of the Gold Sword for Bravery Armenian military personnel who committed suicide