Shaamir Sultanum Shaamirian

Shaamirian, Shaamir Sultanum 

Born 1723 in Iran; died 1798. Armenian public figure and Enlightenment thinker.

A wealthy merchant, Shaamirian conducted trade in India. From 1770 to 1790 he headed a printing house and an Armenian patriotic circle in Madras; M. Bagramian was a member of the circle. Shaamirian helped develop the idea that Armenia should be liberated from Iranian and Turkish supremacy through a people’s revolution, and he affirmed that only in alliance with Russia could Armenia attain and preserve its national independence. In the publicist work The Pitfall of Ambition (most recent edition: Tiflis, 1913, in Armenian), Shaamirian criticized feudal monarchical state systems and set forth the republican principles that he believed should be the foundation of the state system of a free Armenia.

REFERENCES

Ioannisian, A. R. Rossiia i armianskoe osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie v 80-kh gg. XVIII st. Yerevan, 1947.
Gabrielian, G. G. Ocherk istorii armianskoi filosofskoi mysli. Yerevan, 1962.