Boghos Nubar

Boghos Nubar's bust in Paris. Sculpture by Raffy Sarkissian, 1974.

Boghos Nubar (Armenian: Պօղոս Նուպար), also known as Boghos Nubar Pasha (Armenian: Պօղոս Նուպար Փաշա (2 August 1851 – 25 June 1930), was a Chairman of the Armenian National Assembly,^[1] liberal, the son of Egyptian Prime Minister Nubar Pasha and the founder, alongside ten other Armenian national movement leaders, of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) on April 15, 1906 and became its first ever president, a position he held from 1906 to 1928.

In 1912, he was appointed by Catholicos Gevorg V to head the Armenian National Delegation.^[2]

Career

Nubar was born in Constantinople in 1851. He fought for the Armenian cause.^[3] Armenian National Constitution (approved form of the "Code of Regulations" composed of 150 articles drafted by the Armenian intelligentsia) assigned by the powers of Patriarch (position in Ottoman Millet) and formed "Armenian National Assembly".^[4] This code is still active among Armenian Church in diaspora.^[4]

As early as the beginning of 1912 the Catholicos of Mother See of Echmiazin Gevork V had sent the Boghos Nubar to the Cabinets of Europe with a commission to demand administrative autonomy for Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. He has also been considered as one of the prominent Armenian figures in the Ottoman Empire.^[5] This proceeding was a step for Russian and French policy in Constantinople almost at the same moment on March 15, 1913. Boghos Nubar, the Ambassador, repeatedly asserts that the Armenians of Ottoman Empire in no way desire to bring up the question of independence or constitutional changes (regarding Armenian National Constitution). Their sole aim is to secure the reforms drawn up by Russia France and England and provided for in the Treaty of Berlin reforms which have remained a dead letter hitherto. In February 1914, the Armenian reform package passed.

In January, 1919, The Times published a letter from Boghos Nubar (an Ottoman citizen) in which he protests, belatedly, about the non-representation of Armenians at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. The letter includes a useful summary of the Armenian contribution to the allied war effort.^[3]

Our volunteers fought in the French Foreign Legion and covered themselves with glory. In the Légion d'Orient they numbered over 5,000 and made up more than half of the French contingent in Syria and Palestine, which took part in General Allenby's decisive victory.

In the Caucasus, without mentioning the 150,000 Armenians in the Russian Armies, about 50,000 Armenian volunteers under Andranik, Nazarbekoff and others, not only fought for four years for the Entente, but after the breakdown of Russia, they were the only forces in the Caucasus to resist the advance of the Ottoman Empire, whom they held in check until the Armistice was signed. They helped the British in Mesopotamia by preventing the ...^[6]

Boghos Nubar died in Paris in 1930.

Awards

Boghos Nubar was awarded the Belgian "Ordre de Leopold" and Egyptian Medjidieh, Osmanieh and Nile Orders, honorary degrees and medals for distinguished services^[7]

References