We have not found documents that allow us to come to clear-cut conclusions on this question, but the initial, October 1912 negotiations between the Catholicos, Kevork V, and the Viceroy for the Caucasus, Vorontsov-Dashkov, would seem to indicate that the ARF found common ground with the Russians about this time. It is possible, if not, indeed, probable, that high-ranking Armenian officials in St. Petersburg stepped in here. At all events, two eminent St. Petersburg personalities, Professor Nikoghayos Adontz (1871-1942) and the lawyer Sirakan Tigranian, were present in Istanbul on 21 and 22 December 191246 and were received on the very day that the Armenian National Assembly created a Security Commission and charged it with handling the question of reforms.
On 21 December, a “historic” meeting of the Armenian National Assembly was held behind closed doors in its chambers at Galata. The Political Council, comprising Stepan Karayan, a judge on the Court of Appeal,47 the Hnchaks Murad Boyajian and Nerses Zakarian,48 the Tashnags Dr. Garabed Pashayan49 and Vahan Papazian, and the “centrists” Diran Erganian,50 Levon Demirjibashian,51 Oskan Mardikian52 and Dr. Sarkis Svin,53 presented its scheme for the implementation of reforms in the Armenian provinces.54 The task of explaining the reasons for the action proposed by the Political Council fell to Krikor Zohrab, whose role in the plan to put the Armenian Question back on the agenda has already been mentioned. The Council’s proposition was unanimously approved by all the political tendencies represented in the National Assembly, which agreed that there was no longer any alternative to taking radical steps in order to “eliminate, once and for all, the risk of generalized massacres attested by all the credible reports received in the recent past.”55
The Assembly moved to create an Advisory Committee that was to work on the question of reforms in close coordination with the Political Council. The Committee had five members: Harutyun Shahrigian of the ARF, Vahan Tekeyan of the Constitutional Democrat Party, David Der Movsesian, representing the Center, B. Kalfayan of the Social-Democratic Hnchag Party, and Krikor Zohrab. Finally, to coordinate the work of the Council and the Committee, a Mixed Council—comprising both the Political and Religious Councils—designated a Commission on Security, with, as its president, a former Patriarch, Yeghishe Turian. The Commission included Krikor Balakian, Stepan Karayan, Oskan Mardikian, Levon Demirjibashian, and ... Read all
The AGBU and the Reforms in Asiatic Turkey, 1912-1914