Armenians had traded with Ethiopia from as early as the first century AD.[2]
Besides the obvious religious affiliation, there is also the story of the "Arba Lijoch" children coming to Ethiopia after the Armenian genocide. Arba Lijoch were a group of 40 Armenian orphans who had escaped from the atrocities in Ottoman Empire, and were afterwards adopted by Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, then Crown Prince Ras Tafari. He had met them while visiting the Armenian monastery in Jerusalem. They impressed him so much that he obtained permission from the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem to adopt and bring them to Ethiopia, where he then arranged for them to receive musical instruction.[3]
The Arba Lijoch arrived in Addis Ababa in 1924, and along with their bandleader Kevork Nalbandian became the first official orchestra of the nation. Nalbandian also composed the music for Ethiopia Hoy (words by Yoftehé Negusé), which was the Imperial National Anthem from 1930 to 1974.[4]
Armenians have a much older presence in Ethiopia. Indeed, one of the first recorded diplomatic missions to Europe from Ethiopia was led by Matthew the Armenian who traveled to Portugal and Rome at the request of the Dowager Empress Eleni of Ethiopia to appeal for aid against Islamic incursions into Ethiopia in the 16th Century.
The population peaked in shortly before the Italian invasion in 1935 at around 2,800. By the fall of the Ethiopian monarchy in 1974, it was around 2,000, after which the numbers fell precipitously.[5][6]
in 1924 the ruler of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, was visiting Jerusalem on a diplomatic trip, and fell in love with a brass band of Armenian children. Upon learning that they were orphans of the Armenian Genocide, he decided to adopt them.
He called this group of 40 Armenians, Arba Lijoch (“forty children” in Amharic, the official language in Ethiopia) and formed the royal imperial brass band of Ethiopia. The group was so successful that it eventually lead to a music renaissance and created a new music genre called Ethio-jazz.
While the Armenian orphans led the wave of musical modernization in Ethiopia, the Armenian community in Addis Ababa also governed the pharmaceutical and medical institutions at the turn of the 20th century. By the year 1935, the Armenian population in Addis Ababa was roughly estimated at a little over 2,000.
Today, there are about 100 Armenians remaining in Addis Ababa who stay interconnected largely in thanks to the Kevorkoff Armenian school and the St. George Apostolic Church, which continues to operate, thanks to Simon Hagopian, the son of one of the 40 orphans, and Archdeacon Vartkes Nalbandian
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