Armenian Argentines

Armenian Argentines

Հայերն Արգենտինայում(Armenian) Armenios en Argentina(Spanish)
Saint Gregory the IlluminatorCathedral inBuenos Aires
Total population
Unknown(by birth) + 150,000(by ancestry) 0.3% of Argentina's population
Regions with significant populations
Buenos Aires,smaller numbers inCórdoba,Mar del Plata,BerissoandRosario
Languages
Spanish·Armenian
Religion
Majority:Oriental Orthodoxy Minority:Catholicism·Protestant
Related ethnic groups
Armenians·Armenian Brazilians·Armenian Uruguayans·Armenian Americans

Armenian Argentines(Armenian:Հայերն Արգենտինայում,romanized:Hayern Argentinayum;Spanish:Armenios en Argentina) are ethnicArmenianswho live inArgentina.Estimates vary, an 150,000 people ofArmenianancestry live in the country, forming one of the largest groups in the Armenian diaspora worldwide.The core of the population came fromCilicia,SyriaandLebanon.

History

According to researcher Kim Hekimian, the majority of Armenians arriving in the 1920s originated from the province ofAdanainCiliciaof theOttoman Empire.Most of these Armenians left their homelands either because of the deportations and massacres of theArmenian genocide.Immigrants from the cities ofMarash,Hadjin,andAnteptogether accounted for approximately 60 percents of all incoming Cilician Armenians.The large number of immigrants from these cities was a result of Armenians following their friends and relatives who had emigrated earlier.

Foreign MinisterHéctor Timermanwith the Armenian Foreign MinisterEduard Nalbandyan.

Once in Argentina, Armenians from the same city or town inCiliciawere inclined to group together and maintain their regional customs. The informal census taken by Ohannes Der Jachadurian in 1941 demonstrates that approximately 70 percent of the Armenians in Argentina originating from Hadjin resided in the southern neighborhoods ofBuenos Aires,including Flores,Nueva Pompeya,andVilla Soldati.Some of these regional ties promoted the creation of at least twenty organizations in the 1930s. Of these organizations, only the Society of Hadjin, Society of Antep and Society of Marash are still in operation.

In addition to the arrival of Armenians fromCilicia,between 1917 and 1921, during theRussian Civil War,manyArmenians from Russiaescaped to avoid religious persecution. Between 1947 and 1954 many Armenians from theSoviet Union,SyriaandLebanoncame toArgentinaas a consequence of the Second World War, and fromIranbecause of theIranian Revolutionin 1979.

The Armenian community of Argentina has maintained its identity due to focus on the church, school and the family structure. Most of those who came in the mid-1920s escaped theArmenian genocideandAdana massacres.The first Armenians came in 1908 and some came in 1915, but it was not until 1924-1930 that the community took shape when some 10,000 people settled inBuenos Aires.Subsequent waves of immigrants came fromRussia,RomaniaandGreece.The influx dried up in the early 1950s. Today, the community is estimated to number 80,000. While survival was of paramount importance, education was also high on the agenda of the early immigrants. They had no money and few of them spoke a foreign language, therefore they gave a great deal of attention to education. Much of the Armenian community of Buenos Aires can be found in thePalermoneighborhood.

Religious life

Prior to the establishment of the church, the Armenians of Buenos Aires congregated on Sunday afternoons at a coffee shop on 25 de Mayo Street which was owned by a Jewish man fromSmyrna.The coffee shop became such an established "center" for the Armenians that they used its address to receive mail from their family and friends from abroad.When more Armenian refugees arrived in Buenos Aires, the community managed to rent the Cathedral of St John the Baptist, an Anglican church which was near the coffee shop. Two Englishmen delivered sermons translated from Armenian by Haig Moscofian.

After the arrival of the first priest of the community Der Hayr Barasatian, the community became more religiously organized.After the Armenian community in Buenos Aires faced numerous financial crises, it constructed its first Armenian church in 1938.

Currently, the Armenian community of Argentina has nine Armenian churches.

Notable Armenian Argentines

Armenian Argentines inOberá,Misiones.

• Martín Adjemián,actor
• León Arslanián,former Federal Judge and former Minister of Security of theBuenos Aires Province
• Esteban Becker,football coach
• José Andrés Bilibio,professional footballer
• Norberto Briasco,professional footballer
• Lucas Zelarayán,professional footballer
• Efrain Chacurian,former professional footballer
• János Czetz,a military commander during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, and the organizer of Argentina's first national military academy
• Eduardo Eurnekian,businessman
• Pampero Firpo,professional wrestler
• Alicia Ghiragossian,poet and translator
• Bedros Hadjian,journalist, writer and educator
• Martín Karadagian,wrestler and actor
• Paz Lenchantin,bass player
• David Nalbandian,tennis player
• Alicia Terzian,conductor, musicologist and composer
• Paola Vessvessian,congresswoman
• Alex Yemenidjian,the former President ofMGM
• Fernando Zagharian,professional footballer

See also

• Argentina–Armenia relations
• Armenian diaspora
• Centro Armenio de la República Argentina
• Club Deportivo Armenio
• Sardarabad (weekly)

Further reading

• Artinian, J. P. (2022). "Chapter 5 The Armenian Diaspora in Argentina Facing the First World War and the Postwar: Genocide, Trauma, and Reconstruction". In Transatlantic Battles. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004523258_007

External links

• (in Spanish)Sardarabad – Armenian Spanish Newspaper
• (in Spanish)IAN – Spanish speaking armenians around the world
• (in Spanish)Armenios online
• (in Spanish)Armenian Institute
• (in Spanish)Diario Armenia
• (in Spanish)Cámara Argentino – Armenia
• Tigran Ghanalanyan, Armenian Protestant communities in South America,http://noravank.am/eng/issues/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=5722