In Armenia, an image of the one-eared cutthroat Andranik was dismantled from a school facade

The Armenian authorities have dismantled an image of the one-eared general Andranik Ozanyan from the facade of a school in the village of Arteni in the Aragatsotn region, which caused outrage among local residents.

According to the portal shamshyan.com, residents received information that the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport had decided to dismantle the image of Andranik, executed in mosaic style from “special stones,” from the wall of village school No. 1.

“For 2-3 days the villagers kept watch at the school in order to prevent the dismantling in case an attempt was made to carry it out. On October 23, with the help of special equipment, the image was nevertheless removed, which caused the anger of the residents. They even threatened to resort to extreme measures and block roads, but for the moment they are refraining from this, awaiting a decision on the further fate of the portrait,” the report says.

The villagers propose installing the image at least in the village park.
Let us note that Andranik Ozanyan was born in the city of Şebinkarahisar (Trebizond Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, now Giresun Province, Turkey). This deserter from the Turkish army, once pardoned for desertion by the Turks and released with his ear cut off, distinguished himself by attacking peaceful Turkish villages, where he robbed and killed peasants.

Then the detachments led by Andranik fought during the First World War against Turkey, but Andranik “went all out” in the South Caucasus. In Nakhchivan, Sharur and Zangezur in the summer of 1918, Andranik’s detachments carried out the mass extermination of the Azerbaijani population. Having made his way through Julfa from Southern Azerbaijan into Nakhchivan, he ordered the merciless extermination of the Muslim population. According to data from the regional Committee of the Bolsheviks, in the village of Yaychi in the Nakhchivan district alone, 2,500 people were killed. Their corpses were then thrown into the Araz.

Attacks were also carried out on Surmeli and Vedi. In total, over the summer of 1918, 3,000 people were killed in Sharur and Nakhchivan, and 7,700 people in Zangezur. Fifty thousand peaceful residents were driven from their native places.
Having returned to Urmia (a city in Southern Azerbaijan), where he never managed to join up with the English armed forces, Andranik soon appeared again in Azerbaijan and once more attacked Zangezur. There, 115 settlements were turned into ruins, and more than 10,000 people were killed and wounded. About 150,000 saved themselves by fleeing to territories free of Armenians.

Armenian bandit formations under the command of another cutthroat-general, Drastamat Kanayan (Dro), came to Andranik’s aid. Soon the Armenians attacked the villages of Garagishlag, Bagud, Agudi, Bagirbeyli. In Garagishlag, 200 people were killed. In Bagud, 400 people who had hidden in the mosque from the bandits were burned. In Agudi, Andranik ordered that all Azerbaijanis be brutally killed because they refused to accept Christianity. The residents had their noses, ears and breasts cut off.

In Bagirbeyli, seven men and women were herded into one house and burned alive. Later Andranik took up positions in the city of Gerusu (now the city of Goris in Armenia) and three times attempted to seize Shusha in order to raise an uprising of the Armenians, who at that time made up the smaller part of the population. And the situation in Shusha, Karyagino (Fuzuli), Askeran, Agdere and other districts of Karabakh, as well as Goycha and Javanshir, was already inflamed by Dro’s troops, who had made their way here from Zangezur, and by the detachment of yet another executioner of the Turks, Garegin Nzhdeh, which had joined them.
In the summer of that same year, 84 villages were destroyed in Goycha (of which 24 were completely wiped out) and 60,000 people were killed (almost the entire Muslim population of Goycha at that time), with the exception of a few dozen who managed to save themselves.

During the fighting in Zibikh, in Zangezur, Andranik’s detachment was surrounded by militiamen led by Sultan bey. After fierce fighting, the Dashnaks, having lost part of their fighters, surrendered. Inevitable death awaited them. But the “fearless” Armenian commander Andranik the One-Eared, kneeling before Sultan bey with tears in his eyes, begged only for his own mercy. The execution turned into a farce.

Sultan bey, for the sake of a joke, offered Andranik the choice of a death worthy of a man, but if he did not consider himself to be one, then before the eyes of the captured Armenian soldiers he had to crawl between his legs.

Armenia’s “legendary hero,” the “ardent fighter for the restoration of Armenian statehood,” also a tsarist general, also an English agent, also a friend of the Armenian Bolsheviks, gladly chose the second.
On all fours, to the laughter of the peasants, like a well-trained circus poodle, he slowly but gracefully passed between Sultan bey’s boots. And then the bey, spitting on him with disgust, said: “Let this dog go, it is not worth dirtying one’s hands on such a reptile.”

Sultan bey kept his word: the “valiant” general Andranik survived, and his soldiers got what they deserved.