PARRHESİAPAR

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.

This article was written for the exhibition re-membering: Traces of Armenian Life in the Diaspora, held at the Villa Oppenheim, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Museum in Berlin. The exhibition was organized in collaboration between the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Museum, Akebi, and Houshamadyan. Upon Tamar Sarkissian’s invitation, I contributed a family heirloom violin and photographs to the exhibition curated by Asuman Kırlangıç — and now, we share their story with our readers.

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.

Wasafiri approached this as one of the central themes of its issue. One of the most striking texts was the lead feature titled “Two Armenians Conversing in Two Armenians” by Tamar Marie Boyadjian and Hrach Martirosyan, translated into English by Maral Aktokmakyan. The conversation opens with an editorial note acknowledging the division of the Armenian language into two variants—close enough to be mutually intelligible, yet distant enough to create alienation. In this dialogue, Boyadjian and Martirosyan, each speaking one of the two variants, find common ground in their shared love for the language and its literary heritage.

The relationship between yayas born outside of Istanbul and the Armenian language was also highly intriguing. Some never learned Armenian, while others, speaking in local dialects, were shamed for it. The mistaken belief that Istanbul Armenian was the ideal and most beautiful version of the language played an active role in the rapid loss of these local dialects. The stories of our friends’ yayas in the diaspora are different from ours. The grandmothers of Armenians who migrated from Cilicia to the Aleppo-Beirut route or those who immigrated to the United States carry narratives distinct from those who remained in Turkey

The expected performance of an Istanbulite Armenian woman includes setting up tables during name days, hosting relatives, cooking well, being the one who brings the extended family together, keeping the house constantly clean and organized, and always being well-groomed and stylish. In other words, the Istanbulite Armenian woman must be a type of person beyond perfection!

This year, Diyarnıntaraç will be celebrated on February 14, while the Surp Sarkis Feast will take place on February 15. I’m not sure if these holidays can be associated with St. Valentine, but for Armenians, these days represent not only hope, fertility, marriage, and purification but also have connections to the land and crops.

As January 19th approaches, the children who participated in the "Breathing with Colors" event held at Sebat Apartment will remember Sarkis’ works, which offer profound meanings to viewers, even years from now. The 23.5 Hrant Dink Memory Site was opened to visitors in 2019 at Agos newspaper’s former office in Sebat Apartment. Designed with the memory and symbolic significance of the building in mind, the space offers visitors a unique emotional and experiential journey with the realistic texture of its materials.

Beyond its historical and religious meanings, Christmas in Armenian culture is a celebration that upholds traditional and societal values. These traditions have been carried on in various forms for years in the lands of Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Thrace.While traces of regional customs can still be seen in the homes of Armenians in Istanbul, some traditions, unfortunately, have faded over time.

It is noteworthy that the recorded presence of Armenians in Syria dates back to the 14th century, and by 1500, the prelacy was established in the vicinity of the Cathedral. In 1616, during his visit to Aleppo, Simon of Poland recounts the situation of this prelacy and the Armenian community, particularly noting the Armenian merchants. It is well-known from Armenian history that Armenians have always established educational centers alongside their monasteries and churches. Thus, a school was built next to the Cathedral, which became an important center for the arts and sciences.

The independent theater group Hangardz brought Saroyan’s play My Heart’s in the Highlands to life under the direction of Tara Demircioğlu and Yeğya Akgün, delivering a performance that deeply moved audiences and earned accolades. For nearly three seasons, it graced various stages in Istanbul. After the group’s tour in Armenia, the idea for the documentary emerged, revisiting themes explored in the play, such as belonging, roots, longing for home, and a sense of safety.

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.

Weeks ago, when the Israeli army ordered the people of the south via X (formerly Twitter) to leave their homes and 'relocate to safer places,' large numbers of refugees arrived in our areas. Zaven, a clothing vendor friend in Bourdj Hammoud, told me, 'Three women came to my shop, around 50–60 years old, dressed in black and wearing headscarves, asking if I needed workers; they’re looking for work. My heart shattered. I already don’t have work for myself; I couldn’t say anything to them.' Not long after, a woman stopped me in front of my house, asking, 'Do you know of any houses for rent?'

Cevahirciyan, who was an apprentice to Abdullah Brothers in Istanbul, established the first photography studio in Ankara in 1889 or 1890. Until the mid-1910s, he photographed events such as groundbreaking ceremonies of official buildings, inaugurations and official celebrations. Tsolag, one of the Dildilyan Brothers, apprenticed under Cevahirciyan, who is believed to have had a studio in Sivas before Ankara, and learnt the profession from him.

The International Hrant Dink Award ceremony turned into a celebration for women this year, and later created a discussion area where we could talk about ‘woman-to-woman’ solidarity models. When it comes to Armenian women living in the diaspora, there is not enough space to talk about violence against women in the public sphere. Different practices of violence against women and girls that remain behind closed doors can be buried in silence

Born and raised in Beirut, I have navigated the complexities of my identity, especially in relation to my Armenian neighborhood, Bourdj Hamoud. In 1968, Kurkjian delved into this existential struggle of the Diaspora Armenian in his pivotal piece, "A Second Equation with Multiple Unknowns." He poses crucial questions about the nature of Armenian identity in the Diaspora.

Following Chienne d’Histoire [The Barking Island], a wordless film from the perspective of the non-human, where we only hear the dogs’ voices, Avedikian’s documentary Histoire de Chiens [Dog Stories] was screened. This documentary, focusing on the relationships between Istanbul residents and street dogs 100 years after the 1910 dog massacre, differed from the first film in that it presented people’s perspectives on their relationships with dogs. The film momentarily eased the heaviness left by the first film with its style.

When I met Parrhesia Collective, this word gained a much more special meaning for me. Parrhesia Collective is the name of a community of women who think, speak, read and write in Armenian, different from the ancient usage of the word.

The main theme of our meeting and the common point that brought us together was that we were all Armenian women. Although each of us had thought about, discussed, and even found opportunities to take action on the problems we face as women in society, we realized that as Armenian women, we deeply felt the lack of a space that would allow us to express these problems and seek solutions.

After the massacres of the Hamidiye Regiments in the late 19th century and after 1915, with the increase in the number of orphanages, Armenian women and orphans predominantly worked in the carpet workshops established by the missionaries. Carpet weaving was a craft that some orphan girls knew from their families. This craft provided them with a space of solidarity after they had lost everything in the face of savagery. In return, they were employed as cheap labor for the companies of American and European missionaries.

Remembering the story of Martha, after whom the cove is named, may help us understand the latest developments on the beach. There seems to be a significant parallel between the perspective that objectifies and exploits a woman's body and the desire to possess and control a rare beach like Martha Cove. Martha Arat was a Lebanese Armenian woman, born in 1920. When her father was appointed to the Ottoman Bank, she came to Istanbul at a young age and attended Saint Benoit High School.

Long before 1915, Armenians had begun migrating to the United States due to abusive taxation and other oppressive policies in the provinces. The best known of these migration centers is Fresno, the hometown of William Saroyan. Another, of course, is Philadelphia. Armenian families in Philadelphia, which is still a heavily Armenian-populated city today, have numerous correspondence with their relatives living in the Ottoman provinces, photographs, and family archives documenting the daily life of Armenians at the turn of the 20th century. The exhibit “The Armenian Genocide, One Family's Story”, organized last year at Stockton and Montclair universities, was a good example of this.

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.

On Wednesday, April 24th, alongside Nesim Ovadya İzrail, our memory walk with approximately twenty participants led us to a point where we encountered the memory of spaces where Armenian intellectuals, whose stories we have read in books and their photographs we have seen in commemorative ceremonies, once converged. As one participant noted, during our walk, "unlike official history, what happened appeared more real to us”.

A medievalist Zaroui Pogossian working at the University of Florence in Italy, curated the historical section of Armenians of the exhibition in order to recreate what Marco Polo might have seen in these regions. She is also the author of the chapter on Marco Polo and Armenia in the exhibition’s bilingual catalog, published in Italian and English. In particular, Pogossian has brought together artifacts from the manuscript collections of the Institute of Ancient Manuscripts- Matenadaran in Armenia and the Mkhitaryan Monastery in Venice, as well as objects from the History Museum of Armenia in Yerevan

Although Hagop Oshagan, who was born and raised in Sölöz, near Bursa, is a well-known writer in the diaspora, the fact that he is less known and read by Armenians in Turkey, and that his works have not been translated into Turkish, is a very telling absence. These works, which provide significant information about the last period of the Ottoman Empire, and daily life in the provinces, thus will be extremely illuminating at the intersection of literature and history.

The historical framework of the novel “The Prospectors,” which emerged from a long process of research and writing, is based on Djanikian’s maternal family history, who is American. The writer’s paternal family is Armenian. While writing the novel, Djanikian examined forgotten sources, both old and new, particularly focusing on the Klondike region, and crafted a narrative that intertwines snippets of personal history with official history.

Getronagan students live each female character not only through the text, but also by dressing, speaking, acting and communicating like that character. In this context, the show 'Hay Gin' also inspires us as a pedagogical model.

This highly evocative performance can be interpreted differently by each viewer at a time when earthquakes, wars, and consequently forced migrations take up a lot of space in our psyches throughout the world. For Armenians like myslef, who are trying to fill in the gaps of the migration stories in their family history, this performance would probably have very strong echoes in their inner world.

Harutyunyan, born in 1860 in the village of Tlgadin (Huylu, now officially known as Kuyulu) south of Harput, is generally known for his newspaper articles, travel notes, plays, and short stories. In these writings, Tlgadintsi not only critically conveys the condition of Armenian properties and monasteries perspective,but also depicts the details of daily life with an ethnographic finesse, and portrays, as Beledian described, an almost silent forewarning of the impending disaster.

Hrant Dink, who comes from an Armenian family from Malatya, took on his historical identity by leaving his daily life in the middle of the gap between the province (kawar) and Istanbul. It is an identity woven with annihilation, the erasure of traces, inconsolable mourning, and an endless sense of injustice.

Kavar, translated as "province," encapsulates more than just a locality outside the city; it embodies the homeland, nature, and the relationship between human beings and the land. Our exploration of Kavar Literature began with Hamasdegh, and the ideas that emerged during our discussions formed the foundation for our future initiatives. We not only delved into Kavar Literature but also broadened our investigation by drawing comparisons with world literature