Armenian Heritage and Memory Beyond the Borders Armenian Heritage and Memory Beyond the Borders | Page 12

Zaruhi Şahbaz Bahri (1880 İstanbul-1958
Paris) was essayist and also novelist. She was
the head of orphanage, nurture houses during
the post-genocide Turkey and founded Armenian
Red Cross in İstanbul. She became the member
of İstanbul Armenian Women’s Association.
Because of her political activities which were
connected to Armenian patriarchate during the
period of 1918 to 1922, she and her whole family
had to leave İstanbul in the late 1922 when the
Kemalists entered the city. She moved to Paris
with her whole kids and husband but she had to
afford in Paris as a tailor so she stopped writing for a while. However,
when she resumed writing in the 1940s, she wrote 4 novels. Despite
of it, the whole her works except for one haven’t been included in
Armenian literature anthology. Her memoir was unpublished for nearly
half a decade until her grandchildren published it with just 40 copies in
1995 in Beirut. Lerna Ekmekçioğlu says that it took 2 years for her to
reach it although it was published.
Siran Seza (1903 İstanbul- 1973 Beirut) was one
of the most intellectuals of Armenian Diaspora. She
left İstanbul as a young girl and studied journalism
and literature in the Columbia University. She
didn’t return to Kemalist Turkey, on the contrary,
she moved to Lebanon, Beirut. Her most important
work is women’s journal “Yeridasart Hayouhi” (The
Young Armenian Woman) that was founded in
1932. This journal was published from 1932-34 and
then from 1947-68. She took on editing the journal
and published 7 books including short stories and
memoirs that occasionally evolved around women characters and their
challenges in their daily lives.
“She stared at the page even after finishing the article. Armenia! As
she gazed down at the paper, her entire life passed before her eyes
and all of her hopes and suffering flew towards that poor homeland, that
Armenia that was just out of reach. She loved it. She yearned for it with
untold sorrow and nostalgia. How many times had she, powerless in her
wounded pride, lamented the bitter fate of her poor homeland?
Now a completely new image was gliding up from the depths of her