AGBU Chapters in Eastern Europe
Unlike Western Europe, Eastern Europe had two important Armenian communities on the eve of World War I, in Bulgaria and Rumania. They took shape late in the nineteenth century, particularly after the 1894-1896 Hamidian massacres, when large numbers of Armenian emigrants fled the insecurity and persecution rampant in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The Bulgarian and Rumanian communities each counted thirty to forty thousand Ar- menians in 1914. They were the soil in which new AGBU chapters took root. Read all
The AGBU Center in Almelo, inaugur-ated in 1979 (AGBU arch./New York).
Bulgaria
• Plovdiv, January 1910:
Hovhannes Mesrobovich
• Sofia, February 1910: Hagop
Shahveledian
• Ruschuk, February 1910:
Krikor Aslanian
• Varna, September 1911:
Parsegh Suzmeyan
Rumania
• Bucharest, July 1910:
Mardiros Derbederian
• Constanza, June 1911:
Dikran Altunian
• Balchik, July 1911: Garabed
Ghazarian
• Fokshan, March 1912: Krikor
Dikranian
The AGBU’s Local Chapters