Murad of Sepastia, Mikayel Varandian (softcover)

The recently deceased diplomat and author Edward Alexander has written about this book:

“Varandian has given us a rich and colorful biography that will captivate not just devotees of Murad of Sepastia but Armenians interested in their past. None can read it without a profound sense of pride and exhilaration at being a compatriot of this astonishing folk hero. The book covers his days from Sepastia, when he first saw the light of day, to his final moments on Tatar soil, far from the Armenia he loved and to which he devoted his life.

Murad of Sepastia is replete with the names of great political figures—Kristapor, Rostom, Aharonian, Vratsian—in whose portrayals historians will find rich lodes to mine. But Varandian’s research has produced fascinating details of Armenian-Turkish military and political confrontations in prose that is simple, unadorned and easily accessible. This is a small book to be treasured as it defines for ur our past and how we should remember it.”

Murad of Sepastia (1874-1918) joined the ranks of the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party and then the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. He participated in numerous resistance and self-defense operations in Sasun as early as 1903 followed by the Armeno-Tatar clashes in the Caucasus in 1905. After the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, he returned to Taron and then Sepastia where he remained until 1915 engaging in several military, organizational and then logistical missions. Upon his return to Erzinga in 1916, he founded with General Sebuh the “One Gold, One Survivor” campaign to save the orphans of the Armenian Genocide and organize the evacuation of the Armenians of the region. He was killed during the epic battles of Baku in 1918.