“An Apology for Armenian Feminism”
MERİ TEK DEMİR
When Sir Philip Sidney wrote his “An Apology for Poetry” in 1580, which was published posthumously in 1595, driven by the belief that poetry as a form was undervalued and misinterpreted, he could hardly have imagined that this bold text of his time would lay a foundation for literary theory centuries later. What has led me to write this piece, which I have titled ”An Apology for Armenian Feminism”, stems from a similar concern: the sense that feminism in today’s Armenian society is not being interpreted as it deserves to be. I hope, at the very least, that it may encourage readers to reconsider the subject from the beginningb
Recently, Aras Publishing released Mayda (1888) by Sırpuhi Düsap in Turkish, translated by Maral Aktokmakyan, as the opening title of its new Women Writers series. Mayda, Düsap’s first novel and widely regarded as the beginning of Western Armenian women’s literature, opens with a letter from Sira Hanım to Mayda, a woman who has lost her parents and her husband and now lives alone with her daughter. The novel unfolds through these exchanges of letters. Because the correspondence touches upon many subjects that were taboo for women at the time, Mayda was considered a radical work in its day and met with strong backlash from the male-dominated Armenian literary circles of Istanbul.
After all, the mere idea of a woman publishing a novel was itself a radical act for the period. From this perspective, Mayda marks the opening of a new door amid the patriarchal order and destructive criticism of its time, serving as a pioneering work for the women writers and intellectuals who followed. Yet I believe it is equally necessary to re-examine this subject from our contemporary standpoint, to ask to what extent the Ottoman Armenian women’s movement has truly inspired, or failed to inspire, today’s Armenian women. I would argue that today this movement is too often viewed through a lens of nostalgic admiration — an incomplete and idealized approach that limits our understanding.
This, in turn, has led to a reading practice that still struggles to form a proper critical framework within Western Armenian women’s literature. Any criticism of women writers is often treated as a personal affront to their identity, and those engaging with Western Armenian culture and literature are expected to focus solely on preserving and promoting these writers’ names — a tendency that, in effect, mythologizes them. In the preface to Mayda, Düsap herself writes that she did not intend to produce a great or ambitious novel; her only desire was to express the truth, fully aware that her work would provoke strong reactions. Yet her own modest sense of purpose should not lead us today to overlook the work as a serious literary text.
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. Moreover, as if the lives and struggles of women outside Istanbul, both before and after 1915, had never existed, a rigid narrative of feminism has been constructed solely through the lives and activities of Düsap and the intellectual women who followed her. And yet, even a brief look at Hagop Mıntsuri’s short stories reveals much about the resilient lives of women in kavar — examples that could easily expand this narrative.
When it comes to the works of Armenian women writers from Istanbul, they are often studied in comparison with their contemporaries in the West — writers who shaped Western feminism, such as the Brontë sisters or Virginia Woolf. Unfortunately, these comparisons tend to rely on familiar thematic parallels, highlighting that Armenian women writers were no less capable than their Western counterparts, turning such readings into a source of pride rather than inquiry. I have always valued and practiced comparative studies, yet for me, any meaningful and rigorous criticism must begin with the text itself. Today, the works of those canonical women writers we so often place side by side with the Armenian authors are being examined through new methods that move far beyond the framework of classical feminism. In contrast, the continued effort to merely “introduce” Istanbulite Armenian women writers to the world does a great injustice — to their literary production, to the women who fought and created outside of Istanbul, and to contemporary feminism itself. And that, I believe, is something that deserves an apology.
If we look at our everyday lives and family histories, my paternal grandmother Lusin, was born in Everek, Kayseri. She married my grandfather Mesrob, an Armenian from Ankara who was older than her, and moved there as a bride. After losing her husband, she supported her family by working as a seamstress from home, raising her children in good conditions, while also teaching sewing to her neighbors so they too could earn an income — creating, in her own quiet way, a small network of solidarity. Later, after her relatives had moved, she too migrated to Istanbul. While this is only a small example from my own family, through our Kov Kovi gatherings we have once again realized that such strong, resilient, and admirable women exist in the family histories of all of us. That is why I wish to emphasize once more that a feminist perspective cannot be confined solely to the life stories and activities of certain women under the title of the Ottoman Armenian Women’s Movement.
Saying that I do not find this useful either for Armenian feminist thought or for Western Armenian literature, I hope that Armenian feminism can be discussed and read from a new perspective.
