Meri Tek Demir
“An Apology for Armenian Feminism”
Every March 8, various events are held on the Ottoman Armenian women’s movement, and over the years a considerable number of books and opinion pieces have been published about these pioneering writers. Yet I must admit — and this forms the first reason for my “apology” — that their literary production has largely been overshadowed by their life stories.
Reflections on Wasafiri’s Armenia(n)s: Elevation Issue II: Realizing We Have a Living Literature
Of course, in modern Armenian literature, it is impossible to overlook the traumas experienced by writers and poets, their sense of displacement, or the traces of their personal histories within their works. And yet, the fact that classical and modern Western Armenian works are still examined primarily through the lens of author biographies, whether in Istanbul or elsewhere, prevents the literature itself from receiving the recognition it deserves. In this way, a deep-rooted and rich literary tradition is reduced, in the Western gaze, to a mere struggle for visibility. What’s more troubling is that this perspective is not only held in the West but is also increasingly internalized within today’s Istanbul Armenian community.
‘Unufak’: Displaced Lives, Fragmented Narratives
In his debut novel Unufak, Rober Koptaş attempts to touch upon the suffering and devastating societal events experienced by the Armenian community of the 20th century through a story crafted across three generations.
Fishermen and Net Mender Women of Kumkapı
The sea and fishermen form a common theme in Ara Güler's photographs of Istanbul. The exhibition of a selection of photographs taken in the old fishermen's neighborhood of Kumkapı under the title 'Kumkapı Fishermen' was inspired by Ara Güler's series of articles titled 'Kumkapı with Armenian Fishermen' published in Jamanak newspaper in 1952, taken when he was still a young photojournalist. Among his famous signature photographs of fishermen and net menders captured sometimes in groups or single, there are also women who immediately catch our eye, the most striking one being Merametci Saten Hanım.
“Creative Dance/Embodied Pedagogy”
With her “Dance with Armenian Letters” project in Berlin a few years ago, Babikyan approaches her return to the roots perhaps from the very beginning of the story, through the alphabet. Giving life to letters through bodily expression is a significant example in her unique artistic journey of exploration and teaching. Moreover, Babikyan does not keep this experience to herself but enables children and adult participants in the workshops to gain their own experiences, thereby involving them in this journey. At the core of this practice lies an artist’s awareness and sensitivity.
Writing Women and the (un)Written: Servi Nine ve Üç Güzeller
My expectation was not about reading a story completely about Armenianness, but I had the expectation to capture the experience of existing and writing as an Armenian woman through her language since I believe that we need to hear the experiences of the present as much as we need the experiences of the past, and it is important to be able to tell our own stories ourselves.
Climate-Fiction and Ecocriticism in Armenian Kavar Literature: Hamasdegh and Dapan Markar
Today, we understand kavar in the most general terms as the rural life of Armenians, and of course we look at the reflections of nature in rural life, with which our ties have weakened today, and the relatively peaceful lives of the kavar people a century ago from a nostalgic perspective. However, Dapan Markar and other stories show that the only aim of the writers of kavar was not to idealize it.