The Family

Calouste Gulbenkian was born in Scutari (now Üsküdar), Istanbul on 23 March 1869, the son of Sarkis and Dirouhie Gulbenkian, members of an illustrious Armenian family whose origins date back to the fourth century.

Their ancestors were the Princes of Rechduni, who owned lands south of Lake Van, in Armenia. The Rechduni settled in Caesareia, Cappadocia, one of the earliest centres of Eastern Christianity, in the eleventh century, when King Senekerim of Vaspurakan was on the throne. They adopted the family name Vart Badrik, a Byzantine noble title, replacing it with the Turkish form Gulbenkian when the Ottomans came to power in the seventeenth century.

During the four hundred years that the family stayed in Cappadocia, every generation was involved in patronage of the arts and in welfare work.  Our research has further shown that from 1800 the successive Gulbenkian generations played a major role in supporting both the Armenian community and the wider Ottoman community in which they served as loyal citizens (they funded hospitals, schools, churches, artists and intellectuals, food distribution in time of famine and later on, after the genocide, they provided  housing and granted property for refugees in Mesopotamia).

 

In 1880, Sarkis Gulbenkian, Calouste’s father, settled by the Bosphorus.  He was an affluent merchant who had recently acquired concessions in the oil fields of the Russian Caucasus.