Bagramian, Movses

Dates of birth and death unknown. Figure in the Armenian liberation movement of the 18th century.

Bagramian was born in Karabakh and lived in Russia. In 1763 he left for the Caucasus with I. Emin; there he took part in Emin’s repeated attempts to organize an insurrectionist movement in Armenia against the Irano-Turkish yoke. From 1768 he lived in India. In Madras he became an active member of the circle of Sh. Shaamirian, who propagandized bourgeois enlightenment and ideas of liberation. In 1773, Bagramian published the work A New Book Which Is Called an Exhortation (abridged Russian translation, 1786), in which he called upon the Armenians to struggle for the liberation of their homeland, fought for enlightenment, and sharply criticized despotism. Soon after, Bagramian took part in the creation of a proposed constitution for an independent Armenian bourgeois state with a republican structure. He maintained a Russian orientation, intending to create an Armenian state with Russia’s help and under its protection.