Hamaink (Commonwealth) was the first anarchist journal published in the Armenian language. It ran from 1880–1894, being printed outside of the repression of the Ottoman Empire first in Persia then later in Paris and London. The paper was published by the Armenian anarchist Alexandre Atabekian, a friend of anarcho-communist theorists Pyotr Kropotkin and Élisée Reclus. Commonwealth offered topics poignant to both regional and international revolutionary movements. It opposed the exploitation of the working class, European intervention, and centralization of the Armenian revolutionary movement. It called for self-determination, the communalization of land and stated that all government was tyranny. These beliefs would culminate into the development of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Today, Commonwealth is remembered for spreading anarchist ideas in the Caucasus and agitating for direct action.
This CPH poster printed at the worker-owned and union-run Community Printers, Santa Cruz, CA.
This is #187 in the Celebrate People’s History Poster Series.
Ali Cat. is an artist and print maker living on unceded Cowlitz, Multnomah, and Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde land at the confluence of two rivers, also know as Portland, Oregon. She produces her work under the name Entangled Roots Press.
