Despite Historic Welcome, Romania’s Armenians Yearn for 1915 Genocide Recognition

In fact, Vosganian said his fellow lawmakers avoided the debate entirely until 2019, when US lawmakers passed a resolution labeling as genocide what happened to the Armenians more than a century earlier. Two years ago, Joe Biden became the first US president to say so publicly.

“After the US recognition, they organized a discussion in the Romanian parliament and produced some statements,” Vosganian said. “They were full of compassion and respect for the victims, but they didn’t pronounce the word ‘genocide.’ Israel is the same, by the way.”

Vosganian, who has a PhD in economics, served in parliament until 2020 and was also the country’s minister of economy and finance for a time. Besides heading the Union of Armenians, he’s also president of the Union of Writers. In addition, he was also an Armenian language teacher and in 1978 created a private Sunday school for ethnic Armenians.

Today, he said only 5% of the descendants of the 1915 genocide speak fluent Armenian, though nearly all of the more recent post-Soviet arrivals do.

“We have newspapers in Armenian, and the Mass in church is Armenian,” he said. “In Iran or Syria, where mixed marriages between Muslims and Christians are forbidden, the Armenians have preserved their mother tongue because they all have their own schools. But in Romania, we have lots of mixed marriages, so most Armenians were born to mixed families.”

Sergey Minasyan is deputy director of the Caucasus Institute, a Yerevan-based think tank. From 2017 to 2023, he was Armenia’s ambassador to Romania. During Minasyan’s tenure, a national census showed only 2,000 to 3,000 ethnic Armenians living in the country.

The community, he said, dates from the 10th century, following the collapse of the medieval Bagratid Armenian kingdom, which had its capital at Ani in present-day Turkey. Some fled to Crimea and western Ukraine, and others to northern Romania and southern Poland.

“In the 17th and 18th centuries, some Armenians from Moldova emigrated to Transylvania,” said Minasyan. “They established four cities but had to convert to Catholicism because of the Austrian Empire and the huge influence of Hungarians. They also became Hungarian-speaking.”

The world’s largest Armenian Catholic church is located in Gherla, a city of 20,000 which until 1843 was known as Armenopolis. Another center of Armenian Catholic life was Gheorgheni, in Harghita County. Yet at last count, no more than 600 Armenian Catholics remain in Romania.

Today, the association Kalman heads is strictly a cultural group with no political influence. Its main activity is organizing Armenian festivals and literary presentations; the next one will take place September 26-28 in nearby Târgu Mureș.

Bucharest has had an Armenian presence since the late 14th century, and today is home to the largest of Romania’s 22 Armenian churches.

Located at 43 Carol I Boulevard, the Biserica Armenească — dedicated to the archangels Michael and Gabriel — was consecrated on September 6, 1915, and doubles as the headquarters of the Union of Armenians in Romania. In addition, the capital city’s Armenian Museum contains ancient relics such as handwritten manuscripts dating to 1351, a Book of Psalms from 1596 and an Armenian Bible printed in Amsterdam in 1666.

Vosganian said that in 1923, four years after its formation, the Union of Armenians opened an orphanage for 200 children whose parents had been killed by the Ottomans. They were brought from Damascus, Beirut and Aleppo, and within three years, all had been placed with local Armenian families willing to take them in.

“Unfortunately, when the Red Army came to Romania in 1944 and the communist regime became the ruling government, the union closed all its branches and activities,” he said. “From 1945 to 1989, the Armenian community didn’t have any ethnic organization except the churches. The only minorities with political representation in the so-called parliament were the Hungarians and the Germans. And after the first decade of communism, the Germans emigrated.”

The Armenian presence in Romania quickly shrank following the nationalization of all private companies. This hit the Armenians particularly hard since many of them were wealthy factory owners, industrialists and entrepreneurs.

Nevertheless, one of Romania’s most important art museums was founded in 1947 by an Armenian businessman, Krikor Zambaccian. It was eventually closed by the Ceaușescu regime in 1977 but reopened in 1992 as a branch of the Romanian National Museum of Art. Located near Dorobanților Square, it houses over 300 objects of art including works by French painters Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse.

Varujan Pambukhchyan, a member of Romania’s parliament since 1996, not only represents ethnic Armenians but also heads the parliamentary committee overseeing all 20 of the country’s officially recognized ethnicities.

“This representation mechanism is a very old one,” he explained. “Since 1919, when the Romanian government decided to accept Armenian refugees, we have been represented in parliament — even in communist times — with only one exception: World War II.”

Besides Armenians, 19 other minorities enjoy similar representation including Albanians, Roma, Bulgarians, Czechs, Greeks, Italians, Jews, Poles, Russians, Serbs, Turks and Ukrainians.

Pambukhchyan said that given the high level of Turkish investment in Romania as well as strong bilateral economic ties — with two-way trade exceeding $10 billion annually — Bucharest is unlikely to formally recognize the genocide anytime soon.

“Romania is one of the few EU countries that also has strategic partnerships with Turkey and Azerbaijan. And as a fellow NATO member bordering the Black Sea, Turkey’s political influence in Romania is really huge,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we aren’t doing anything to have the genocide recognized. But for now, it is still not possible.”