Christapor Mikaelian

Kristapor Mikayelian
Քրիստափոր Միքայէլեան
Born	(1859-10-18)18 October 1859 Verin Agulis, Nakhichevan, Erivan, Russian Empire (today Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic)
Died	17 March 1905(1905-03-17) (aged 45) Sablyar, Kyustendil, Bulgaria
Nationality	Armenian
Other names	Hellen (Էլլէն) Topal (Թոփալ) Edward (Էդուարդ)
Citizenship	Russian
Political party	Armenian Revolutionary Federation
Movement	Armenian national liberation movement

Christapor Mikaelian (Armenian: Քրիստափոր Միքայէլեան, romanized: Kristapor Mikayelian;^[a] 18 October 1859 – 17 March 1905) was an Armenian revolutionary who played a leading role in the Armenian national liberation movement.

Born in Nakhichevan, he became a teacher and worked to educate migrant workers from Western Armenia. During the mid-1880s, after the Russian Empire decreed the closure of parochial schools in Armenia, he became involved in revolutionary activism. He moved to Moscow and joined Narodnaya Volya, through which he met Stepan Zorian and Simon Zavarian, and which informed his conversion to revolutionary socialism. Upon returning to the Caucasus, he established the revolutionary organization Young Armenia and began organizing violent actions against the Ottoman Empire. Together with Zorian and Zavarian, Mikaelian established the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), in which he became a leading figure.

During the 1890s, he edited the ARF's newspaper Droshak and organised a number of actions, including the Khanasor Expedition of 1897. He then moved to Geneva, where he took a role in the ARF's Western Bureau, soliciting support for their cause from Western Armenophiles, particularly French and Italian anarchists. He also took command of an operation to exact a "revolutionary tax" from rich Armenians, in order to fund their revolutionary activities. By the turn of the 20th century, he had begun planning to assassinate the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II. He brought together several Armenian revolutionaries, and a couple European anarchists, in order to carry out the plot. Mikaelian himself never saw it through, as he was killed in an accidental explosion while testing explosives in Bulgaria.

Mikaelian's planned assassination attempt against the Sultan failed, leading to the ARF losing western support and facing an internal leadership crisis. The ARF eventually secured the independence of an Armenian Republic, where Mikaelian gained the status of a revolutionary martyr.
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