THE ARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION IN THE POLITICAL SYSTEMS OF ADVANCED ASIAN AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AT THE END OF THE 19th CENTURY – THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY – 2024-3

Part V. ARF’s key role in ensuring the European Orientation of the Iran Constitutional Revolution in 1905-1912

Gevorg S. Khoudinyan
Doctor of Historical Sciences

Keywords – AR Federation, Iran (Persia), Constitutional Revolution, ties and relations, ARF Fourth General Meeting, Socialist International, Rostom, France, Bulgaria, European Orientation.

Summary

Until now, the deep connections and relations of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation with the forces and figures who participated and played a role in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran have not been revealed, in the context of which it is only possible to understand the real reasons for the active participation of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation in that revolution. After the 4th general meeting of the ARF (February-May 1907) and especially after the Stuttgart Congress of the Socialist International, at the end of 1907, the institutionalization of the cooperation of the ARF with the opposition and revolutionary forces of both the Ottoman Empire and Persia took place. As a result, the party, which showed serious fluctuations until then, very quickly reoriented itself towards the Iranian Constitutional Revolution that began in 1905, but accelerated only in 1906, taking upon itself the difficult task of ensuring its European orientation. The Constitutional Revolution of Iran was an attempt to overthrow the Ghajar dynasty of Turkic origin ruling the country and restore the historical mission of Persia as one of the key countries that laid the foundations of world civilization for centuries. The policy of ARF Dashnaktsutyun to support that attempt was the continuation of the centuries-old civilizational mission of Armenia and Armenians to spread Hellenistic culture, Christian value system and then European Enlightenment ideas in Asian environments.

The cooperation of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun with the leaders of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution acquired a coordinated character as a result of the arrival in Tehran in December 1907 of the party representative Rostom (Stepan Zorian) and his negotiations with the leaders of the Iranian Majlis and influential figures of the Constitutional Revolution in the first days of January 1908.

In the person of Rostom, the Iranian constitutionalists were dealing with a political figure who had been acquainted with the political realities of Europe for many years and laid the lasting foundations of ARF connections and relations in their system, and at the same time, a personality with a great experience of revolutionary struggle in Western Armenia and Transcaucasia. Considering the difficult situation of the Balkan countries and the inevitability of a new war with the Ottoman Empire, he attached great importance to the creation of an alliance between independent Bulgaria and Persia.

During Rostom’s negotiations with the Mejlis leadership, the party undertakes to carry out political-relational and propaganda work in Europe in favor of the constitutional movement of Persia. The leaders of the Mejlis were working to establish contacts with the political and even state circles of France through the ARF Dashnaktsutyun and to get a state loan from that country to fill the empty coffers of Persia.

Rostom’s dream of forming a Bulgaria-Iran alliance and ensuring France’s support for Iran’s Constitutional Movement remained unfulfilled. The subsequent behavior of the global and regional powers, which became an obstacle to its implementation, showed that for them the revival of Iran was a natural obstacle to the implementation of the Russian-British plans to divide Persia into spheres of influence and then to ravage Armenia. For this reason, the interests of the Armenian people, and currently, the statehood of Armenia, demand not to forget the visionary plans of our ancestors. Therefore, it is gratifying that currently conditions are gradually being created to deepen the cooperation between France and Iran, which is being strengthened through Armenia, and to involve Greece in it instead of Bulgaria.