Life-Giving Stories, Fermented Memories
Aylin Vartanyan
What I remember most vividly about my grandma Koharig is her restlessness and her extraordinary talent for preparing food. She could bring together whatever was available at home and make a delicious meal. She gave meaning to her life by constantly cooking and feeding her loved ones (sometimes forcefully). Maybe that was her way of telling the family stories she couldn't put into words. Ursula K. Le Guin, in her essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, opened a critical window onto the notion of the hero in literature. Instead of heroic narratives that often devolve into destructive power over time, she proposed carrier narratives. She reminded us that the first cultural tool wasn’t a weapon for killing, but a bag used to carry and preserve. This view, supported by anthropologist Elizabeth Fisher, places survival, nourishment, and transformation at the center of narrative.
Waiting
Susan Arpajian Jolley
In this week's column, we are featuring the article of Susan Arpajian Jolley from the USA about her grandmother. Parrhesia Collective has been discussing the role of our grandmothers, in our monthly Kov Kovi meetings for some time. Following the articles of our members in the previous weeks, we are honored to receive an article from Susan Arpajian Jolley, that we would like to share with Agos readers. The English original of the article you can read online. As Collective, we would like to thank Susan Arpajian Jolley for sharing her grandmother’s story with us.
From Konya Ereğli to Istanbul: My Grandmother’s Story
Dença Değirmenci
Her story in Ereğli ended when she got married at the age of 17 and moved to Istanbul with my grandfather. At that time, Armenian families would marry off their daughters at a young age to Armenian men to protect them. That’s how my grandmother got married and came to Istanbul for the first time—for her own wedding.
A Violin, A Marriage, and a Century-Long Life
Tamar Gürciyan
For me, this violin is a memory of lives trapped between two worlds, of a woman who struggled to adapt to a new life while carrying the weight of the past, and of my elders, who, despite everything, survived, lived, and loved life. With this exhibition, as I bring to light photographs and the violin hidden under the bed, I hope to uncover the pains, losses, and forgotten stories of the past—while moving closer to hope.
Reflections on Wasafiri’s Armenia(n)s: Elevation Issue II: Realizing We Have a Living Literature
Meri Tek Demir
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.