The October 1905 conversations between Aghaton and Nubar do indeed seem to have triggered the decision to found the AGBU. But we should not ignore the fact that, in this period, the summer 1905 Tartaro-Armenian clashes in the Caucasus and their socio-economic repercussions were at the center of attention; they stiffened the two men’s resolve to build an organization capable of responding swiftly to similar emergencies. The campaigns organized by Armenian national organizations in Egypt to collect money for those in need in the Caucasus sparked a vast upsurge of generosity: Aghaton reports that he was especially moved by a group of shoemakers from Van who spontaneously donated twenty percent of everything they owned. He also notes, however, that whereas the response to the emergency should have been immediate, funds actually reached the Caucasus only in November.11 In other words, traditional fund-raising structures could not meet contemporary needs. Aghaton confesses that he broached the subject to Nubar with some trepidation, fearful that the Pasha’s many activities would prevent him from getting involved in so ambitious a project. But, on that October day in 1905, the two men made a pact.
Over the next months, an ad hoc committee including most of the Union’s future founding members discussed bylaws. “We wanted to open chapters of this benevolent society,” Aghaton writes, “in every country, even Turkey.
The Origins of the Armenian General Benevolent Union
Constitutive Assembly of the AGBU, 15 April 1906, cartoon by Alexandre Sarukhan (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris)
Yervant Aghaton (1860-1935), a French-educated agricultural engineer, Inspector General for Agriculure under Abdülhamid (1884-1896), and a high-ranking official in the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris)