David Bek

Davit Bek or David Beg (; died 1728) was an Armenian military commander and the leader of an Armenian rebellion against the invading Ottoman Empire and implanted Safavid Muslim tribes in the mountainous region of Zangezur (today the Armenian province of Syunik and part of the province of Vayots Dzor). He was one of the most prominent military figures of the Armenian liberation movement of the 18th century. After the fall of the Safavids in 1722, Davit Bek established himself as the military leader of the local Armenians of Syunik and Kapan during the Ottoman Turkish invasion and the attacks of the local Muslim tribes. Davit was successful in preventing the various Muslim tribes from making proper territorial gains. In 1727, in order to put a halt to the Ottoman approach in the area, King Tahmasp II of Iran appointed Davit as the governor of the area, and gave him the right to administer the area as a vassal Armenian principality under Iranian control. Following his death in 1728, he was succeeded by his comrade-in-arms Mkhitar Sparapet as the leader of Armenian forces in Zangezur. Biography Little is known about Davit's early life. Most of what is known about him comes from the mid-eighteenth-century Armenian text titled Patmutʻiwn Ghapʻantsʻwotsʻ ("History of the Kapanians") by the Mekhitarist monk Ghukas Sebastatsi, which was based on the accounts of Stepanos Shahumyan of Meghri and a few other participants in the Syunik rebellion. Almost nothing is said in this work about Davit Bek's background. One version of Patmutʻiwn Ghapʻantsʻwotsʻ refers to Syunik as Davit Bek's "native land." Most eighteenth-century manuscripts write that Davit was a Georgian Armenian from Mtskheta, although at the time Armenians from Tiflis (Tbilisi) were frequently referred to as Mtskhetians. According to Ashot Hovhannisyan and Hakob Papazyan, it is possible that Davit Bek was related to one of noble families (Meliks) of Syunik, many members of which settled in Georgia, although there is no solid evidence for the later claims of two of the noble families of Syunik, the Orbelians and the Melik-Parsadanyans, to be related to him. One colophon of an Armenian manuscript written in 1746 in Astrakhan describes Davit Bek as the son of Alikhan and the son-in-law of a Tiflis Armenian notable named Parsadan Bek. It is known that Davit Bek was an officer of the vali (viceroy)/king of Kartli, Vakhtang VI (also known as Hosaynqoli Khan).