The Bashkale Resistance was the bloody encounter between three revolutionaries of Armenakan

Armenakan Party

The Armenakan Party is a center-right political party in Nagorno-Karabakh .Armenakan Party failed to receive any seats in the 19 June 2005 elections....

 and the some Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 officials on May 1889. Even though it is named as Bashkale Resistance, the event happened in the Van Province

Van Province

Van Province is a province in eastern Turkey, between Lake Van and the Iranian border. It is 19,069 km2 in area and had a population of 1,035,418 at the end of 2010....

. The event was important as it was reflected on main Armenian newspapers as the recovered documents on the Armenakans showed an extensive plot for an uprising.

The event

The comrades Karapet Koulaksizian, Hovhannes Agripasian, and Vardan Goloshian, left the village of Haftvan (Salmast district of Persia), for Van on May 16, 1889. They were stopped near Van by Ottoman police. The police demanded that they disarm to protect the accompanying caravan. In the conflict Goloshian and Agripasian died and Koulaksizian escaped. The police recovered two letters (accompanying documents) addressed to Koulaksizian, one from Avetis Patiguian of London and the other from Mekertitch Portugalian in Marseille.

Reflections

Ottoman Empire believed that the men were members of a large revolutionary apparatus and the discussion was reflected on newspapers, (Eastern Express, Oriental Advertiser, Saadet, and Tarik) and the responses were on the Armenian papers. In some Armenian circles, this event was considered as a martyrdom and brought other armed conflicts.