Yeprem Khan

Yeprem Khan

Yeprem Khan Davidian (Armenian: Եփրեմ Խան, Եփրեմ Դավթյան, Persian: یپرم‌خان داویدیان‎), also Yefrem Khan, (1868-1912) was an Armenian revolutionary leader and national hero of Persia (Iran). He was born to an Armenian family in the village of Barsum (Armenian: Բարսում), located in Elisabethpol (Ganja) Governorate of the Russian Empire (located in present-day Azerbaijan).

As a youth, Yeprem participated in Armenian nationalist groups and partisan activities against the Ottoman Empire. In September 1890, Yeprem was arrested by the Russian Cossacks and exiled to Siberia by 1892, from where he managed to escape to Tabriz in 1896. While in Tabriz, he began working for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF Dashnaktsutiun), whose activity in Persia was primarily directed against the Ottoman Empire, and established its local branches in Tabriz and Rasht.

Yeprem was highly instrumental in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, and, by 1907, convinced ARF to formally participate in it. After the Persian national parliament was shelled by the Russian Colonel V. Liakhov, Yeprem Khan joined up with Sattar Khan and other revolutionary leaders in the Constitutional Revolution of Iran against Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar.

In October 1908, during Tabriz resistance, Yeprem Khan formed a secret Sattar Committee (in honor of Sattar Khan ) in Rasht, and established contacts with Social Democrats, Social Revolutionaries, and Armenian Dashnaks in the Caucasus. Reinforced by 35 Georgians and twenty Armenians from Baku, Yeprem captured Rasht and then implanted his red flag on the town hall of Anzali. Further reinforced by Mohammad Vali Sepahdar, the main landed magnate of the Caspian provinces and former Qajar commander, Yeprem Khan marched his forces of Caucasian guerillas and Mazandarani peasants towards Tehran, which he entered in July 1909.

In November 1909, the Second National Assembly (Parliament) of Iran, appointed Yeprem Khan as the police chief of Tehran. He further split from revolutionaries, when in 1910, Sattar Khan, a hero of the civil war, refused to obey the government order to disarm. After a brief but violent confrontation at Atabek Park in Tehran, Yeprem Khan, using Shah's army and police forces, disarmed Sattar Khan.

Yeprem Khan died on May 19, 1912.