On the complications of feminist speech and national belonging.
Perhaps unique in its history, feminism among Armenians reached a zenith in the immediate aftermath of genocide in the capital of the perpetrator state. The goals of Armenian national revival put extraordinary emphasis on women’s duties to the nation, not only as mothers and nurturers, but also as relief workers, financial contributors, and lobbyists. The Republic of Armenia gave suffrage to women, which in turn emboldened Armenian women throughout the world to demand representation in the governing bodies of their communities.
Feminism among Armenians reached a zenith in the immediate aftermath of genocide.
Hayganush Mark stood at the forefront of the battle against “women’s enslavement” and took it upon herself, along with her comrades at her journal Hay Gin (Armenian Woman), to convince the Armenian nation that women’s emancipation would not distract from, but would ultimately add to its revival.
She was born Hayganush Topuzyan in 1882 to a family of modest means. Hayganush’s mother, herself illiterate, insisted that her only child receive a well-rounded education. Mark would later note that she took “feminism’s first liberating steps” thanks to this hard-working woman who “did not know even the ‘a’ of the alphabet.” After high school, Hayganush became a teacher in the Armenian schools and started publishing literary pieces. In 1905, she got engaged to Vahan Tosigyan, a young and promising journalist, and soon thereafter the couple launched the women’s journal Dsaghig (Flower).
Mark was already a passionate feminist, and so impressed by La Fronde, the French feminist daily, she aspired to mimic that publication’s modus operandi by employing only women contributors at Dsaghig. However, in the absence of enough qualified women, she allowed men to write in the journal on the condition that they use women’s pseudonyms. For herself, Mark used neither a nickname nor a male’s last name, a first among Armenian women writers. But she still found a way to respect Armenian tradition: she kept her first name and took on a shorter version of her father’s name, Markar, for her last; Mark. Most radically, she kept this name even after marriage.
In 1919, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and under the Allied occupation of Constantinople, Mark began publishing Hay Gin. On its pages, women’s concerns and feminism occupied equal space, and the journal urged women to partake in both the national revival and work for the women’s cause. News about orphans, women, and children sequestered in Muslim harems and calls to mobilize mass support for Greater Armenia appeared in issues alongside news of international conferences on women’s rights, histories of feminism in different cultures, profiles of the lives of famous feminists, serialized works from Western feminists, and discussions of controversial feminist demands, such as women’s right to paid employment and even limited prenuptial sexual freedom for both sexes.
Hay Gin’s first editorial, on November 1, 1919, began by affirming that the First World War, despite its tragedy, had given birth to some “rare favors:”
During those four hellish years, we, especially Armenian women, have demonstrated that beyond housework and childcare, we can bear with all sorts of hardships. We can also be trusted with jobs and markets, and we have proven to those who have spoken against our cause that it is best that they keep their mouths shut.
If we consider what we have accomplished during the Great War, how we stepped in for our husbands, brothers, children, and what we also have achieved after the war, how we embraced our orphans, how we shed tears as they cried, and how we took our duties seriously, our fate is bound to change. . . .
We will assume our duties, create our rights and shape our roles. Our feminist instincts will not hinder our homemaking chores. Rather, the rebirth of our sex will take us to the summit of our nation and to the summit of our fatherland.
For several years following, Hay Gin featured pieces from the most-renowned male and female writers of the time and was widely popular with advertisers and a steady body of subscribers. But the situation took a turn in late 1922 when most of Hayganush Mark’s companions left Istanbul and Greater Armenia—the full and true revival of the nation had become but a dream. Reflecting the broader changes in the Armenian community itself, the journal’s tone and content weaned into domestication, if not invisibility. And in 1933, the Turkish government silenced the voice of Hay Gin.
After her death in 1966, not many people remembered Hayganush Mark or Hay Gin. She did not make it into Armenian literature or history textbooks. She, like other women and feminists, also did not make it into Armenian historiography. But this was not only because of her sex, but also because she was among those who remained in post-genocide Turkey. Until very recently, the mainstream “national” history of Armenians, even those that included discussion of the Armenian diaspora, did not have much to say about Armenians who remained among “the enemy.”
Hayganush Mark reappeared in the Armenian public sphere in 2000 when a group of young women gave a presentation to the alumni association of the Esayan Armenian School where Mark had worked as a teacher. To our surprise, Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan, recently elected Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul, honored the event with his presence. Known for his intellectualism, the Patriarch made a point of publicly congratulating the young women for unearthing the experiences of their feminist ancestor. But our amazement with the Patriarch did not last long. Only a few months later, the Patriarch warned his congregation in a sermon that out-marriage was on the rise. He singled out young women who were continuing their education at universities, thus postponing marriage and indirectly leading young men to marry non-Armenians. Our young and passionate hearts were infuriated by this expression of misogyny and the double standards in the Patriarch’s ideology.
It took me a decade of research on the formative years of the Turkish Armenian community to be able to understand Patriarch Mutafyan’s dilemma, which was in fact quite similar to that of Hayganush Mark’s in the 1920s and 30s. This dilemma sits at the core of the limits to which one could be Armenian in post-genocide, post-minoriticization Turkey. Turkish domination over the Armenian minority has remained much the same over the Republic’s history. Because that domination has a gendered history and implications, it would be impossible for the Patriarch to remain a steadfast feminist. Perhaps this was not a significant problem for this particular member of the clergy. But for Hayganush Mark and all other Armenian feminists that came after her, the broader political framework does not leave them many choices, but “only paradoxes to offer.” The gender equality of liberal progressivism threatens the hierarchically ordered tradition that Armenians hold to maintain their presence in Turkey. As long as the power imbalance between the Turkish state and its Armenians remains, paradoxes will have to remain the best friends of feminists.
Lerna Ekmekcioglu is Associate Professor of History at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of the forthcoming book, Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-Genocide Turkey.
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Wonderful! Thank you!!
Posted by: Ani | May 15, 2015 at 10:14 AM