Roustam Raza

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Roustam Raza.

Roustam Raza in traditional mamluk uniform.

Roustam Raza, also known as Roustan or Rustam (Armenian: Ռուստամ Ռազա), was Napoleon Bonaparte's famous mamluk bodyguard. Roustan was an Armenian from Tbilisi. In his memoirs Roustan wrote that he was born in Tiflis (an old name of Tbilisi) and his father Rustam Unan (Armenian: Ռուստամ Հունան) was a merchant. Being born in Tbilisi, Roustan was often erroneously considered as Georgian.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Roustan was kidnapped when he was a child and sold as a slave in Cairo. One of the local authorities presented a young slave to General Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798. Thus, Roustan became a bodyguard of Napoleon till 1814, when the former married Mademoiselle Douville in Dourdan, France and refused to follow the Emperor in his exile to Elba.

[edit] References

^ Roustam, mameluck de Napoléon. D'après des mémoires et de nombreux documents inédits tirés des Archives Nationales et des Archives du ministère de la Guerre. [Ed.Hector Fleischmann]. — Paris: Albert Méricant, 1910. — 384 pp.^(French)
^ Alexander Mikaberidze. "The Georgian Mameluks in Egypt", www.napoleon-series.org, 2001-09-01. Retrieved on April 7, 2007.
^ Раза Р. Моя жизнь рядом с Наполеоном, в кн.: Рустам. Моя жизнь рядом с Наполеоном. Воспоминания мамелюка Рустама Раза, армянина. / Перевод с французского Григора Джаникяна и Ирины Карумян. — Ереван: Наири, 1997.^(Russian)