Zabel Yesayan
Zabel Yesayan ((reformed), Զապէլ Եսայեան (classical); 4 February 1878 – 1943) was an Armenian writer and a prominent figure in the Armenian academic and political community during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Books, articles, and speeches cover a range of topics such as the Adana massacre, Armenian genocide, and commentary on the status of Armenian women. Yesayan also worked as a translator in France as well as a professor during her later years as an academic.
Also recorded as Zabel Hovhanisian · Zabel Essayan · Zabel Jesajan
Zabel Yesayan

Avetis Aharonyan (1866-1948) · First Republic of Armenia · Public domain
- Full name
- Զապել Հովհաննիսեան.
- Born
- 1878. · Üsküdar.
- Died
- 1943. · South Caucasus.
- Nationality
- Ottoman Empire and Soviet Union.
- Occupation
- writer, translator, opinion journalist, novelist, literary scholar, poet and university teacher.
- Education
- University of Paris.
- Languages
- Armenian.
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Zabel Yesayan ((reformed), Զապէլ Եսայեան (classical); 4 February 1878 – 1943) was an Armenian writer and a prominent figure in the Armenian academic and political community during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Books, articles, and speeches cover a range of topics such as the Adana massacre, Armenian genocide, and commentary on the status of Armenian women. Yesayan also worked as a translator in France as well as a professor during her later years as an academic.
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wikidata · Q3574447 · wikipedia · Zabel Yesayan
In this article
Biography
Biography
Her novels and articles contributed to understanding the persecution of Turkish Armenians, the after effect of World War I, and women's roles and rights in the Ottoman and Armenian communities.
Zabel Hovannessian, daughter of Mkrtich Hovannessian, was born on the night of February 4, 1878, in the Silahdar neighborhood of Scutari, Istanbul, during the height of the Russo-Turkish War. She attended Holy Cross (Ս. Խաչ) elementary school and graduated in 1892.
Student in Paris
Student in Paris
In 1895 she was among the first women from Istanbul to study abroad, moving to Paris, where she studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. Inspired by the French Romantic movement and the nineteenth-century revival of Armenian literature in the Western Armenian dialect, she began what would become a prolific writing career. Her work also contributed to the Armenian intellectual movement called Zartonk (the awakening), along with other female authors such as Srpuhi Dussap and Zabel Asatur (Sibyl). • Illustration — Zabel Yesayan While in Paris, she married the painter Dikran Yesayan (1874-1921). They had two children, Sophie and Hrant. After the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, Yesayan returned to Istanbul. In 1909, Yesayan was appointed to the Armenian Constantinople Patriarchate's Commission and sent to Cilicia to examine the situation. Yesayan published a series of articles in connection with the Adana massacres. The tragic fate of the Armenians in Cilicia is also the subject of her book In the Ruins (Աւերակներու մէջ, Istanbul 1911), the novella The Curse (1911), and the short stories "Safieh" (1911), and "The New Bride" (1911).
World War I refugee
World War I refugee
Attacks on Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I left Yesayan's life in peril. She was the only woman on the list of Armenian intellectuals targeted for arrest and deportation by the Ottoman Young Turk government on April 24, 1915. Yesayan evaded arrest and fled to Bulgaria and later to Baku and the Caucasus, where she worked with Armenian refugees documenting their eyewitness accounts of atrocities that had taken place during the Armenian genocide. Yesayan's son stayed with her mother in Constantinople while her husband and daughter were in France. Yesayan would be reunited with her family in France in 1919 after the war. After WWI, she went back to Cilicia with her children to help Armenian refugees and orphans.
Move to Soviet Armenia, arrest and rehabilitation
Move to Soviet Armenia, arrest and rehabilitation
Yesayan visited Soviet Armenia in 1926 and shortly thereafter published her impressions in Prometheus Unchained (Պրոմէթէոս ազատագրուած, Marseilles, 1928). In 1933 she decided to settle permanently in Soviet Armenia with her children, and in 1934 she took part in the first Soviet Writers' Union congress in Moscow. She taught French and Armenian literature at Yerevan State University and continued to write prolifically. During Joseph Stalin's Great Purge, Yesayan was accused of "counterrevolutionary agitation" and abruptly arrested on June 27, 1937. She was held without trial for one and a half years. During her trial, Yesayan only admitted to having connections with individuals who were deemed enemies of the state. She was exiled to prisons spanning from Yerevan to Baku. She died under unknown circumstances. There is speculation that she drowned and died in exile in Siberia, sometime in 1943. In 1956, during the Khrushchev Thaw, Yesayan's son, Hrant Yesayan asked that her case be reevaluated. During this time, one her cellmates, Karine Gyulikekhvyan testified that after each of Yesayan's interrogations, new accusations would be brought against her from the Soviet state. Yesayan's case was dismissed due to lack of evidence on September 27, 1956, and she was posthumously rehabilitated on January 9, 1957.
Early literary career
Early literary career
In late-nineteenth-century Constantinople, women including Srpuhi Dussap and Gayaneh Matakian hosted Armenian intellectual salons to provide a space for people to discuss ideas, literature, and politics. Salons also allowed women to interact with men without being labeled as improper women. Yesayan often visited the salon ran by Gayaneh Matakian. There, Yesayan met other writers and activists such as Sibyl and Arshak Chobanian, her first publisher. Yesayan published her first prose poem ("Ode to the Night") [1] which appeared in Chobanian's periodical Tsaghik (Flower) in 1895. Yesayan's first novel Sbasman Srahin Mech (In the Waiting Room, 1903) also appeared in serial form in Tsaghik. The book discussed women's immigration and poverty in France. In 1903, the word Feminism first appeared in Armenian in Yesayan's publication on the Women's section in Tsaghik. She went on to publish short stories, literary essays, articles, and translations in both French and Armenian in periodicals such as Mercure de France, L'Humanité, Massis, Anahit, and Arevelian Mamoul (Eastern Press),Ecrit pour l'Art, La Grande France and in the Armenian Magazines Tzolk (Light), Mer Ugin (Our Way) and Arşav (Race). • Illustration — Zabel Yesayan with her son
Political activism
Political activism
Yesayan used her writing and voice to expose wartime atrocities and to champion Armenian sovereignty and women's rights. One of her lesser known works, Krakedi Më Hishadagner (Memories of a Writer, 1915) written in Bulgaria, portrays Ottoman Turkish executions of prominent Armenians on April 24, 1915. Due to the danger that came with publishing the piece, Yesayan used the male pen-name Viken to hide her identity. In 1918 Yesayan was in the Middle East organizing the relocation of refugees and orphans. This period of her life led to the novels The Last Cup (Վերջին բաժակը), and My Soul in Exile (Հոգիս աքսորեալ, 1919; translated into English by G.M. Goshgarian in 2014), where she exposes the many injustices she witnessed. After the Armenian Genocide, the Armenian National Delegation went to the Paris Peace Conference to make a case for Armenian sovereignty. Yesayan was elected to be a part of the Armenian National Delegation. In 1919 Yesayan gave a talk in French "The Role of the Armenian Woman during the War” (Հայ Կնոջ Դերը Պատերազմի Միջոցին), to show the peace delegates the devastation of the genocide as well as how Armenian women took up arms to protect themselves. During the Paris Peace Conference, Yesayan also met with the Inter-Allied Women's Conference to speak about the atrocities Armenian women faced as a result of the genocide. The Inter-Allied Women's Conference brought up Yesayan's testimony to the delegation as further evidence for the need for international women's rights. Yesayan also spoke out for Armenian women, challenging traditional gender roles and social expectations such as education and labor. In the publications When They are No Longer in Love and The Last Cup (1917), Yesayan uses her works of fiction to discuss women's oppression. Yesayan, like other female activists, advocated for Armenian women to be a part of the public sphere.
Later works
Later works
While visiting Soviet Armenia, Yesayan portrayed the social and political conditions in the novel Retreating Forces (Նահանջող ուժեր, 1923). Shortly thereafter, Yesayan published her impressions in Prometheus Unchained (Պրոմէթէոս ազատագրուած, Marseilles, 1928). After settling in Armenian with her children, she published a novella Shirt of Fire (Կրակէ շապիկ, Yerevan, 1934; translated into Russian in 1936) and her autobiographical book The Gardens of Silihdar (Սիլիհտարի պարտէզները, Yerevan, 1935; translated into English by Jennifer Manoukian in 2014).
Recognition
Recognition
Lara Aharonian, founder of the Women's Resource Center of Armenia, and Talin Suciyan, Yerevan correspondent for the Turkish Armenian newspaper Agos directed a documentary film about her titled Finding Zabel Yesayan. It was released in collaboration with Utopiana and premiered on March 7, 2009. In her MA thesis titled Censorship, otherness and feminism: the silenced figure of Zabel Yesayan (2013), Vardush Hovsepyan Vardanyan aims to revive the figure of Yesayan, one of the Armenian writers and activists whose name had been forgotten. A street in Paris was renamed after Yesayan on March 8, 2018, during International Women's Day. In a 2019 interview, Turkish writer Elif Shafak described Zabel Yesayan's In the Ruins as her "favorite book no one else has heard of." Shafak described it as a "heart-rending cry, an important chronicle. A very important read." In 2022 a life-size monument dedicated to Zabel Yesayan was unveiled in the village of Proshyan, Kotayk Province of the Republic of Armenia, in the area of Zapel Esayan Agribusiness Center. In same year, in Istanbul, an association on the Armenian literature named after her was founded, Yesayan Culture and Literature Association, in relation with Aras Publishing Company founded by Armenians in Turkey.
List of works
List of works
• The Waiting Room (1903) • The Obedients and the Rebels (1906) • Phony Geniuses (1909) • In the Ruins: The 1909 Massacres of Armenians in Adana, Turkey (1911) • Enough! (1912-1913) • Memories of a Writer (1915) • The Agony of a People (1917) • The Last Cup (1917) • Murad's Journey from Sivas to Batum (1920) • Le Role de la Femme Armenienne pendant la Guerre (The role of Armenian Women during the war) (1922) • My Soul in Exile (1922) • Retreating Forces (1923) • Prometheus Unchained (1928) • Meliha Nuri Hanim (1928) • Shirt of Flame (1934) • The Gardens of Silihdar (1935) • Uncle Khachik (1936)
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1878
Zabel Yesayan was born on 4 February 1878.
1941
Zabel Yesayan died at South Caucasus.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Paris and Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Residences
Üsküdar.
Birth place
South Caucasus.
Death place
Posthumous publications
• Illustration — The Zabel Essayan Alleyway in Paris, France, inaugurated on 8 March 2018, on the occasion of International Women's Day. According to the Armenian International Women's Association (AIWA), several of Yesayan's works were published in the literary journal Pangaryus as part of AIWA's series Treasury of Armenian Women's Literature. The materials were selected from the three volumes of Yesayan's work translated into English. The works published included My Home, an excerpt from Yesayan's memoir titled The Gardens of Silihdar; Yesayan's eyewitness account of the Adana massacre of 1909, titled In the Ruins; and a mystery story called The Man, which had previously been published in a collection called My Soul in Exile and Other Writings. In 2023 Gomidas Institute published Zabel Yessayan's "On the Threshold. Key Texts on Armenians and Turks as Ottoman Subjects".
Memberships
Source: • Member of the Union of Women who support Education • Member of the Union of Nationalist Armenian Women • President of Üsgüdari hay Dignants Ingerutyun (Üsküdar Women's Society) • Member of the Alliance universelle des femmes pour la Paix par l'Education, France (International Women's Alliance for Peace Through Education), France • Member of Soviet Writers Union, Armenia
References ==== Bibliography
* * * *

A letter written by Zabel Yesayan to her daughter Sophie.
Zabel Yesayan

Zabel Yesayan (center) in Constantinople with several literary figures, including Krikor Zohrab, far right, and Levon Shant between Zohrab and Yesayan.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Zabel Yessayan Project. Armenian International Women's Association.
- 2.Bedevian, Ruth. Zabel Yessayan - Biography. ArmenianHouse.org.
- 3.Atamian, Christopher. Finding Zabel Yesayan, Finding Ourselves. Ararat Magazine. October 28, 2011.
- 4.Our Greats-Zabel Yesayan: The queen of twilights of Skyutar. Hayern Aysor. 2018-02-06.
- 5.Sirazova, Karina. Трагическая судьба Забел Есаян: среди развалин Западной Армении. Армянский музей Москвы и культуры наций. 25 July 2021.
- 6.Grigoryan, Seda. Zabel Yesayan: The Hope for Justice Hidden in a Matchbox. EVN Report. 2019-03-19.
- 7.leonaslanov. Armenian Writers: Facing the Writings of the Medz Yeghern (1917-1922). Programme of Armenian Studies. 2016-08-30.
- 8.Zabel, Yessayan. My Soul in Exile and Other Writings. Armenian International Women's Association (AIWA) Press. October 2022. 978-0964878778 psc.
- 9.Lerna Ekmekcioglu: The Armenian National Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference and 'The Role of the Armenian Woman during the War'. World War I in the Middle East and North Africa self-published inline. October 2022.
- 10.Yessayan, Zabel. The Gardens of Silihdar: A Memoir. Armenian International Women's Association (AIWA) Press. October 2022. 978-0964878785 psc.
- 11.Finding Zabel Yesayan, a film. Armenian Reporter.
- 12.Hetq. Paris Street Renamed in Honor of Zabel Yesayan. 9 March 2018.
- 13.Tamaki, Jillian. The Turkish Novelist Elif Shafak Wants You to Read More Women. The New York Times. 26 December 2019.
- 14.Victor Zarougian and Judy Saryan Integrate Art and Agriculture in the Homeland
- 15.Հայաստանում տեղադրւել է Զապէլ Եսայեանի արձանը - «ԱԼԻՔ» Օրաթերթ.
- 16.Yesayan Kültür ve Edebiyat Derneği Açılıyor.
- 17.Zabel Essayan alley inaugurated in Paris, France. armenpress.am. 9 March 2018.
- 18.ZABEL YESSAYAN WRITINGS APPEAR IN NEW CAMBRIDGE LITERARY JOURNAL.
- 19.Զապել Եսայանի գրությունների նոր հատորը անգլերեն թարգմանությամբ
- 20.English translation published by the Sebastia Compatriotic Union in New York in 1961. National Library of Armenia.
- 21.Zabel Yesayan. İstanbul Kadın Müzesi.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 4
- Baliozian. The Gardens of Silihdar & Other Writings. Ashod Press. 1982. 978-0-935102-07-9.
- Rowe, Victoria. The 'new Armenian woman': Armenian women's writing in the Ottoman Empire, 1880–1915. 2000. 1335714456.
- Rowe, Victoria. Armenian Writers and Women's-Rights Discourse in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Constantinople. Aspasia. 2. 1. 2008. 10.3167/asp.2008.020104.
- Siegel, Mona L. Peace on Our Terms: The Global Battle for Women's Rights After the First World War. Columbia University Press. 2020. 978-0-231-55118-2.
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