Book Description

The first in-depth study of the aftermath of the 1915 Armenian Genocide and the Armenians who remained in Turkey. Following World War I, as the victorious Allied powers occupied Ottoman territories, Armenian survivors returned to their hometowns optimistic that they might establish an independent Armenia. But Turkish resistance prevailed, and by 1923 the Allies withdrew, the Turkish Republic was established, and Armenians were left again to reconstruct their communities within a country that still considered them traitors. Lerna Ekmekçioglu investigates how Armenians recovered their identity within these drastically changing political conditions. Reading Armenian texts and images produced in Istanbul from the close of WWI through the early 1930s, Ekmekçioglu gives voice to the community’s most prominent public figures, notably Hayganush Mark, a renowned activist, feminist, and editor of the influential journal Hay Gin. These public figures articulated an Armenian-ness sustained through gendered differences, and women came to play a central role preserving traditions, memory, and the mother tongue within the home. But even as women were being celebrated for their traditional roles, a strong feminist movement found opportunity for leadership within the community. Ultimately, the book explores this paradox: how someone could be an Armenian and a feminist in post-genocide Turkey when, through its various laws and regulations, the key path for Armenians to maintain their identity was through traditionally gendered roles. Praise for Recovering Armenia “With verve, passion and wit, Ekmekçioglu shows how central women were to the restoration of the Armenian community in the decade after the genocidal war. Recovering Armenia is a must-read for all students of the Great War and its aftermath, and for anyone who wants to understand the modern Middle East and the roots of sectarian conflict that continues in the region today.” —Elizabeth Thompson, University of Virginia “This remarkably innovative history offers . . . a thorough account of the ways in which . . . Armenian survivors of the genocide committed by Ottoman Turkey inventively reconstituted themselves as a harshly constrained yet enduring national minority within the new Turkish Republic . . . . A pioneering work that will prove indispensable.” —Khachig Tölölyan, Wesleyan University “Lerna Ekmekçioglu’s radically revealing and provocative book challenges conventional historical wisdom in its exploration of the continued existence of an Armenian minority in modern Turkey.” —Atina Grossmann, The Cooper Union