This paper reconstructs the transimperial political action of Gabriel Kafian, a founding member of the Armenian Hunchakian Revolutionary Party, whose activities spanned the capitals of Europe and the frontiers of the Ottoman and Russian Empires in the late nineteenth century. Drawing primarily on Tsarist police reports and British consular files, the study traces Kafian’s movements between Geneva, Tbilisi, and the eastern Anatolian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, revealing how Armenian revolutionaries operated across European urban centers and imperial frontiers under surveillance of multiple regimes. Kafian’s arrest by Ottoman authorities and subsequent transfer to Russian custody expose the cooperative dimensions of imperial policing and the emergence of a shared transimperial security system. By examining these archival materials through the lens of borderland studies and transimperial surveillance, the paper demonstrates how revolution, repression, and exile were deeply intertwined processes. Rather than presenting a biography of revolutionary activism, the study highlights the imperial borderlands as dynamic spaces where empires and clandestine political action continuously intersected.
