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Zabel Yesayan
Զապէլ Եսայեան
Born(1878-02-04)4 February 1878
Scutari, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
Died1943 (1944) (aged 65)
Siberia, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
OccupationNovelist, poet, writer, and teacher.
NationalityArmenian
Alma materSorbonne University
SpouseDickran Yesayan
Children
  • Sophie
  • Hrant
Signature

Zabel Yesayan (Armenian: Զապէլ Եսայեան; 4 February 1878 – 1943) was a prominent figure in the Armenian academic and political community during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Zabel Yesayan's books, articles, and speeches cover a range of topics such as the Adana Massacre, Armenian Genocide, and commentary on the status of Armenian women. Yesayan also worked as a translator in France as well as a professor during her later years as an academic. Her novels and articles contributed to understanding the persecution of Turkish Armenians, the after effect of World War I, and women's roles and rights in the Ottoman and Armenian communites.

Biography

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Zabel Hovannessian, daughter of Mkrtich Hovannessian, was born on the night of February 4, 1878, in the Silahdar neighborhood of Scutari, Istanbul, during the height of the Russo-Turkish War.[1] She attended Holy Cross (Ս. Խաչ) elementary school and graduated in 1892.[2]

Student in Paris

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In 1895 she was among the first women from Istanbul to study abroad, moving to Paris, where she studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France.[3] Inspired by the French Romantic movement and the nineteenth-century revival of Armenian Literature in the Western Armenian dialect, she began what would become a prolific writing career. Her work also contributed to the Armenian intellectual movement called Zartonk (the awakening), along with other female authors such as Srpuhi Dussap and Zabel Asatur (Sibyl).[3]

While in Paris, she married the painter Dickran Yesayan (1874-1921).[4] They had two children, Sophie and Hrant.[5] After the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, Yesayan returned to Istanbul. In 1909, Yesayan was appointed to the Armenian Constantinople Patriarchate’s Commission and sent to Cilicia to examine the situation.[6] Yesayan published a series of articles in connection with the Adana massacres.[7] The tragic fate of the Armenians in Cilicia is also the subject of her book Among the Ruins (Աւերակներու մէջ, Istanbul 1911), the novella The Curse (1911), and the short stories "Safieh" (1911), and "The New Bride" (1911).

World War I Refugee

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Attacks on Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I left Yesayan's life in peril. She was the only woman on the list of Armenian intellectuals targeted for arrest and deportation by the Ottoman Young Turk government on April 24, 1915.[8]

Yesayan evaded arrest and fled to Bulgaria and later to Baku and the Caucases, where she worked with Armenian refugees documenting their eyewitness accounts of atrocities that had taken place during the Armenian genocide.[6] Yesayan's son stayed with her mother in Constantinople while her husband and daughter were in France.[9] Yesayan would be reunited with her family in France, after the war in 1919.[3] After WWI, she went back to Cilicia with her children to help Armenian refugees and orphans.[3]

Move to Soviet Armenia

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Yesayan visited Soviet Armenia in 1926 and shortly thereafter published her impressions in Prometheus Unchained (Պրոմէթէոս ազատագրուած, Marseilles, 1928). In 1933 she decided to settle permanently in Soviet Armenia with her children, and in 1934 she took part in the first Soviet Writers' Union congress in Moscow.[10] She taught French and Armenian literature at Yerevan State University and continued to write prolifically. During the Great Purge, implemented by Stalin, Yesayan was accused of "nationalism," abruptly arrested in 1937, and was exiled to prisons spanning from Yerevan to Baku.[10][11] She died in unknown circumstances. There is speculation that she was drowned and died in exile, possibly in Siberia, sometime in 1943.[7] Both the Soviet Concise Literary Encyclopedia (1964) and the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1972) state Yerevan as the place and 1943 the date of her death.

Early Literary Career

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In late-nineteenth-century Constantinople women including Srubpuhi Dessap and Gayaneh Matakian hosted Armenian intellectual salons to provide a space for people to discuss intellectual ideas, literature, and politics.[5] Salons also allowed women to interact with men without being labeled as improper women.[5] Yesayan often visited the salon ran by Gayaneh Matakian.[5] There, Yesayan met other writers and activists such as Sibyl and Arshak Chobanian, her first publisher. Yesayan published her first prose poem ("Ode to the Night")[1] which appeared in Chobanian's periodical Tsaghik (Flower) in 1895. Yesayan's first novel Sbasman Srahin Mech (In the waiting room, 1903) also appeared in serial form in Tsaghik.[11] The book discussed women's immigration and poverty in France.[11] In 1903, the word Feminism first appeared in Armenian in Yesayan's publication on the Women's section in Tsaghik.[12] She went on to publish short stories, literary essays, articles, and translations in both French and Armenian in periodicals such as Mercure de France, L'Humanité, Massis, Anahit, and Arevelian Mamoul (Eastern Press),Ecrit pour l'Art, La Grande France and in the Armenian Magazines Tzolk (Light), Mer Ugin (Our Way) and Arşav (Race).[13]

Zabel Yesayan with her son Hrant

Political Activism

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Yesayan used her writing and voice to expose wartime atrocities and to champion Armenian sovereignty and women’s rights. One of her lesser known works, Krakedi Më Hishadagner (Memories of a Writer, 1915) written in Bulgaria, portrays Ottoman Turkish executions of prominent Armenians on April 24, 1919.[14] Due to the danger that came with publishing the piece, Yesayan used the male pen-name Viken to hide her identity.[15]

In 1918 Yesayan was in the Middle East organizing the relocation of refugees and orphans. This period of her life led to the novels The Last Cup (Վերջին բաժակը), and My Soul in Exile (Հոգիս աքսորեալ, 1919; translated into English by G.M. Goshgarian in 2014),[16] where she exposes the many injustices she witnessed.

After the Armenian Genocide, the Armenian National Delegation went to the Paris Peace Conference to make a case for Armenian sovereignty. Yesayan was elected to be a part of the Armenian National Delegation.[17] In 1919 Yesayan gave a talk in French "The Role of the Armenian Woman during the War” (Հայ Կնոջ Դերը Պատերազմի Միջոցին), to show the peace delegates the devastation of the genocide as well as how Armenian women took up arms to protect themselves.[18] During the Paris Peace Conference, Yesayan also met with the Inter-Allied Women's Conference to speak about the atrocities Armenian women faced, as a result of the genocide.[19] The Inter-Allied Women's Conference brought up Yesayan's testimony to the delegation as further evidence for the need of international women's rights.[19]

Yesayan also spoke out for Armenian women, challenging traditional gender roles and social expectations such as education and labor. In the publications When They are No Longer in Love and The Last Cup (1917), Yesayan uses her works of fiction to discuss women's oppression.[20] Yesayan, like other female activisists, advocated for Armenian women to be a part of the public sphere.[21]

Later Works

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While visiting Soviet Armenia, Yesayan portrayed the social and political conditions in the novel Retreating Forces (Նահանջող ուժեր, 1923). Shortly thereafter, Yesayan published her impressions in Prometheus Unchained (Պրոմէթէոս ազատագրուած, Marseilles, 1928). After settling in Armenian with her children, she published a novella Shirt of Fire (Կրակէ շապիկ, Yerevan, 1934; translated into Russian in 1936) and her autobiographical book The Gardens of Silihdar (Սիլիհտարի պարտէզները, Yerevan, 1935; translated into English by Jennifer Manoukian in 2014).[22]

Recognition

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Lara Aharonian, founder of the Women's Resource Center of Armenia, and Talin Suciyan, Yerevan correspondent for the Turkish Armenian newspaper Agos directed a documentary film about her titled Finding Zabel Yesayan. It was released in collaboration with Utopiana and premiered on March 7, 2009.[23]

A street in Paris was renamed after Yesayan on March 8, 2018 during International Women's Day.[24]

In a 2019 interview, Turkish writer Elif Shafak decribed Zabel Yesayan's In the Ruins as her "favorite book no one else has heard of." Shafak described it as a "heart-rending cry, an important chronicle. A very important read."[25]

Posthumous Publications

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The Zabel Essayan Alleyway in Paris, France, inaugurated on 8 March of 2018, on the occasion of International Women's Day.[26]

According to the Armenian International Women's Association (AIWA), several of Yesayan's works were published in the literary journal Pangaryus as part of AIWA's series Treasury of Armenian Women's Literature. The materials were selected from the three volumes of Yesayan's work translated into English. The works published included My Home, an excerpt taken from Yesayan's memoir titled The Gardens of Silihdar; Yesayan's eyewitness account of the Adana massacre of 1909, titled In the Ruins; and a mystery story called The Man, which had previously been published in a collection called My Soul in Exile and Other Writings.[27]

List of works

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  • The Waiting Room (1903)
  • The Obedients and the Rebels (1906)
  • Phony Geniuses (1909)
  • In the Ruins: The 1909 Massacres of Armenians in Adana, Turkey (1911)
  • Enough! (1912-1913)
  • Memories of a Writer (1915)
  • The Agony of a People (1917)
  • The Last Cup (1917)
  • Murad's Journey from Sivas to Batum (1920)
  • Le Role de la Femme Armenienne pendant la Guerre (The role of Armenian Women during the war (1922)
  • My Soul in Exile (1922)
  • Retreating Forces (1923)
  • Prometheus Unchained (1928)
  • Meliha Nuri Hanim (1928)
  • Shirt of Flame (1934)
  • The Gardens of Silihdar (1935)
  • Uncle Khachik (1936)[28]

Memberships [28]

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  • Member of the Union of Women who support Education
  • Member of the Union of Nationalist Armenian Women
  • President of Üsgüdari hay Dignants Ingerutyun (Üsküdar Women's Society)
  • Member of the Alliance universelle des femmes pour la Paix par l'Education, France (International Womens' Alliance for Peace Through Education), France
  • Member of Soviet Writers Union, Armenia

References

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  1. ^ Ara Baliozian (1982). The Gardens of Silihdar and Other Writings (1st ed.). New York, New York: Ashot Press. p. 53. ISBN 0-935102-07-8.
  2. ^ Rowe, Victoria (1 March 2008). "Armenian Writers and Women's-Rights Discourse in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Constantinople". Aspasia. 2 (1): 51. doi:10.3167/asp.2008.020104. ISSN 1933-2890.
  3. ^ a b c d   Rowe, Victoria. “The ‘new Armenian Woman’: Armenian Women’s Writing in the Ottoman Empire, 1880–1915.” ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2000. pg 12
  4. ^ "Zabel Yessayan Project - Armenian International Women's Association". aiwainternational.org. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
  5. ^ a b c d Rowe, Victoria (1 March 2008). "Armenian Writers and Women's-Rights Discourse in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Constantinople". Aspasia. 2 (1): 53. doi:10.3167/asp.2008.020104. ISSN 1933-2890.
  6. ^ a b Rowe, Victoria (2000). ". The 'new Armenian woman': Armenian women's writing in the Ottoman Empire, 1880–1915". University of Toronto (Canada) ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  2000. NQ53820.: 11 – via proquest.
  7. ^ a b Ruth Bedevian. "WRITING - HER LIFE'S MISSION". An electronic library featuring a huge collection of documents on Armenian literature, history, religion and anything Armenia-related. Armenianhouse. Retrieved 10 October 2011.
  8. ^ Atamian, Christopher (28 October 2011), "Finding Zabel Yesayan, Finding Ourselves", Ararat Magazine
  9. ^ Rowe, Victoria. "The ‘new Armenian Woman’: Armenian Women's Writing in the Ottoman Empire, 1880–1915." Order No. NQ53820, University of Toronto (Canada), 2000. http://proxy.lib.csus.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.proxy.lib.csus.edu/dissertations-theses/new-armenian-woman-womens-writing-ottoman-empire/docview/304657881/se-2?accountid=10358. p.12.
  10. ^ a b "Our Greats-Zabel Yesayan: The queen of twilights of Skyutar". Hayern Aysor. 6 February 2018. Retrieved 2 May 2022.
  11. ^ a b c Rowe, Victoria (1 March 2008). "Armenian Writers and Women's-Rights Discourse in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Constantinople". Aspasia. 2 (1): 52. doi:10.3167/asp.2008.020104. ISSN 1933-2890.
  12. ^ Rowe, Victoria (1 January 2008). "Armenian Writers and Women's-Rights Discourse in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Constantinople". Aspasia. 2 (1): 56. doi:10.3167/asp.2008.020104. ISSN 1933-2882.
  13. ^ "İstanbul Kadın Müzesi - Zabel Yesayan". www.istanbulkadinmuzesi.org. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  14. ^ leonaslanov (30 August 2016). "Armenian Writers: Facing the Writings of the Medz Yeghern (1917-1922)". Programme of Armenian Studies. Retrieved 2 May 2022.
  15. ^ leonaslanov (30 August 2016). "Armenian Writers: Facing the Writings of the Medz Yeghern (1917-1922)". Programme of Armenian Studies. Retrieved 2 May 2022.
  16. ^ Zabel, Yessayan (2014). My Soul in Exile and Other Writings. Translated by G.M. Goshgarian. Armenian International Women's Association (AIWA) Press. ISBN 978-0964878778.
  17. ^ "Lerna Ekmekcioglu: The Armenian National Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference and "The Role of the Armenian Woman during the War" | World War I in the Middle East and North Africa". Retrieved 2 May 2022.
  18. ^ "Lerna Ekmekcioglu: The Armenian National Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference and "The Role of the Armenian Woman during the War" | World War I in the Middle East and North Africa". Retrieved 2 May 2022.
  19. ^ a b Siegel, Mona L. (2020). Peace on our terms : the global battle for women's rights after the First World War. New York. ISBN 0-231-55118-5. OCLC 1124788151.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  20. ^ Rowe, Victoria. "The ‘new Armenian Woman’: Armenian Women's Writing in the Ottoman Empire, 1880–1915." Order No. NQ53820, University of Toronto (Canada), 2000. http://proxy.lib.csus.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.proxy.lib.csus.edu/dissertations-theses/new-armenian-woman-womens-writing-ottoman-empire/docview/304657881/se-2?accountid=10358. p. 27.
  21. ^ Rowe, Victoria (1 January 2008). "Armenian Writers and Women's-Rights Discourse in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Constantinople". Aspasia. 2 (1): 59. doi:10.3167/asp.2008.020104. ISSN 1933-2882.
  22. ^ Yessayan, Zabel (2014). The Gardens of Silihdar: A Memoir. Translated by Jennifer Manoukian. Armenian International Women's Association (AIWA) Press. ISBN 978-0964878785.
  23. ^ Armenian Reporter: Finding Zabel Yesayan, a film
  24. ^ "Paris Street Renamed in Honor of Zabel Yesayan". Hetq. 9 March 2018. Retrieved 9 March 2018.
  25. ^ Tamaki, Jillian (26 December 2019). "The Turkish Novelist Elif Shafak Wants You to Read More Women". The New York Times.
  26. ^ "Zabel Essayan alley inaugurated in Paris, France". armenpress.am. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  27. ^ "Archives - Armenian International Women's Association". Retrieved 23 November 2018.
  28. ^ a b hello@madebycat.com, madebycat®. "İstanbul Kadın Müzesi - Zabel Yesayan". www.istanbulkadinmuzesi.org. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
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