InternationalThis International Women’s Day, let’s celebrate Zabel Yesayan
Published: Thursday March 05, 2009
Zabel Yesayan. Nareh Balian / Armenian Reporter
Yerevan - As March 8 approaches, flower vendors across Armenia prepare for one of the busiest days of the year. International Women's Day started in 1911 as a political event, a major day of global celebration for the economic, political, and social achievements of women, and recognition for their continuing struggles. It became a popular holiday, particularly in the Soviet Union, but over the years, it deviated from its social and political roots and joined the ranks of Mother's Day and Valentine's Day as a day for men to express their love for the women in their lives through flowers and chocolates.
So why, in the 21st century, has International Women's Day fizzled to a mostly superficial level in Armenia? Why has it strayed from its roots?
For Armenian women, it's easy to feel estranged from the victories and ongoing struggles of the women's movement because our mainstream culture doesn't have much to do with it. We can read Simone de Beauvoir all we want, but how do we relate her to our reality?
What many Armenians don't know, and what many intellectuals, historians, and literary critics often omit, is that feminism is a part of our culture too. And perhaps its strongest voice belongs to Zabel Yesayan, whose novels, short stories, and essays explore orientalism, exile, conflict, and love from the perspective of women.
Who is Zabel Yesayan?
Her writing is acclaimed by such critics and writers as Krikor Zohrab and Hagop Oshagan, who described her as, "the most gifted?.?.?. complete writer among Armenians." Yesayan's work is a significant contribution not only to Armenian literature, or to Armenian women's literature, but to the world literary community. Yet beyond her writing, what truly sets Yesayan apart as an important unsung hero of Armenian history is the courageous life that she led and her whole-hearted dedication to her cause. She didn't just write feminism - she lived it.
Zabel Yesayan (née Hovhannisian) was born Scutari, a district of Constantinople, in 1878. She studied in Paris at the Sorbonne, and was one of the first Armenian women of her era to study abroad. She made a name for herself by contributing poems, short stories, and essays to journals both in Armenian and French. In 1900, still a student in Paris, she married Dikran Yesayan, a photographer. They had two children, Sophie and Hrant.
In 1908, Yesayan returned to Constantinople to continue her writing career. She took young Hrant with her while Sophie remained with her husband in Paris. In 1909, she went to Cilicia to investigate the aftermath of the massacres of Adana as a member of the Constantinople Patriarchate's Commission. She chronicled the tragic stories of survivors and dedicated several works to this subject. She published a detailed report containing interviews with survivors as well as her impressions of the horrors she witnessed in a book titled, Among the Ruins, in 1911.
Zabel Yesayan was one of the Armenian intellectuals designated to be arrested by Ottoman authorities in April of 1915, but she escaped arrest and fled to Bulgaria. She lived for several years in exile, but all the while she was writing and working to help ease the suffering of her nation in any way she could. In 1917, she was in Baku, assisting in the care of Armenian refugees and orphans. Traveling through the Middle East on similar missions, Yesayan and her son were not reunited with their family in Paris until 1919.
In 1920, she went once again to Cilicia, with her two children, to help with the Armenian orphanages there. She returned to Paris in 1921, shortly after her husband's death.
During this period of exile, she wrote breakthrough works of fiction that pushed the envelope for Armenian feminist writing such as The Last Cup (1917) and My Soul in Exile (1922), and numerous appeals seeking to draw the world's attention to the plight of the survivors of the Genocide, including one of her better-known works, The Agony of a People (1917).
Surprisingly, she was often mocked by her contemporaries for
her tireless efforts. Gostan Zarian, a distinguished Armenian poet and author,
had also escaped to Bulgaria during the deportations. In his autobiographical Cities,
Zarian wrote a chapter on Yesayan called, "The National ‘Turkey
Hen,'" in which he focused on her physical appearance and mocked her mannerisms
rather than acknowledging her work. This extract is taken from Ara Baliozian's
translation of Zarian, from the book, Garden of Silihdar and Other Writings
"She has arrived. An outlandishly tall hat on her head, a tight-fitting dress, quaintly large feet, narrow eyes - a plucked, old turkey hen who?.?.?. has fallen in the streets of Sofia and is now squawking with a shrill, ardent voice."
In 1926, Yesayan visited Soviet Armenia and was deeply moved and encouraged by her experience, finding new hope for the Armenian nation there. She published her impressions in the travelogue, Prometheus Unchained, which was widely dismissed by diasporan critics as Soviet propaganda. What they did not see was that it was not a political party or system of governance that had Yesayan enthralled, but the prospect of rebuilding a nation, and creating a brighter future for Armenians.
On her encounters with young students in the streets of Yerevan, she wrote: "It inspires extraordinary confidence in the observer. A green shoot at the side of the shriveled old trunk of the nation, that will grow, rise, and assure our survival."
