Ardeshir Ovanessian

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Ardashir Ovanessian
Member of Parliament of Iran
In office
7 March 1944 – 12 March 1946
ConstituencyArmenians (North)
Personal details
Born
Ardashes Ovanessian

1905
Rasht, Qajar Iran
Died1990 (aged 84–85)
Yerevan, Armenian SSR
Political partyTudeh Party of Iran
Other political
affiliations		Communist Party of Persia
Alma materKUTV

Ardeshir Ovanessian (

communist leader of Armenian
origin.

Biography

He was born around 1905 in Rasht, to an Armenian family originally hailing from Salmas.[2] After completing a pharmacist apprenticeship (the profession of his father), he became involved in radical politics. He became involved in the radical Cultural Society of Rasht. Ovanessian became a cadre of the Communist Party of Persia in 1923. In 1925, he was sent to study at KUTV. Upon his return in 1926 he organized a pharmacists' trade union. For the Communist Party Ovanessian played a key role in the organizing of the party in Azerbaijan, making frequent visits to the different towns in the region.[3]

Ovanessian was eventually captured by the police, and would spend eleven years in

Qasr prison.[3] In prison, Ovanessian played a major role. He and other jailed communist leaders organized cultural and educational activities for other inmates. In jail, Ovanessian studied French language.[4] Once released in 1941, he became a founding member of the Tudeh Party of Iran.[5] He became a member of the Provisional Central Committee of the party.[6] After his release, he published a self-biographical work of his prison ordeals.[7]

He was elected to the 14th

Central Committee of the Tudeh Party. He was one of two former members of the old Persian Communist Party to be included in the Central Committee (the other being Amir-Khizi).[8] He also became a leading figure in the Tudeh-led trade union movement.[9]

Ovanessian organized a peasant uprising in

Director-General of the Azerbaijan People's Government. When the Azerbaijan People's Government fell, he went into exile in the Soviet Union. On May 18, 1949, he was sentenced to death in absentia by an Iranian court.[5]

References

  1. Abrahamian, Ervand. Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran
    . Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1999. p. 34
  2. ISBN 978-0815623434
    . Ardeshir Ovanessian born rasht.
  3. ^
    Abrahamian, Ervand. Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran
    . Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1999. pp. 36-37
  4. Abrahamian, Ervand. Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran
    . Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1999. pp. 31, 42
  5. ^ a b c Ladjevardi, Habib. Labor Unions and Autocracy in Iran. Contemporary issues in the Middle East. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1985. pp. 260-261
  6. Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran between Two Revolutions
    . [S.l.]: Princeton Univ Press, 1982. p. 295
  7. Abrahamian, Ervand. Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran
    . Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1999. p. 15
  8. Abrahamian, Ervand. Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran
    . Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1999. p. 78
  9. Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran between Two Revolutions
    . [S.l.]: Princeton Univ Press, 1982. p. 348
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