Armenian Heritage and Memory Beyond the Borders Armenian Heritage and Memory Beyond the Borders | Page 14

Ottoman Period and the early Republic of Turkey by Elif Shafak’s
presentation. However, this book is the most important resource about
the detailed and excavated information on Armenian feminists with the
awareness of the political background in that time. The collaboration of
Lerna Ekmekçioğlu and Melissa Bilal still continues to work and they
give public talks about it. Although this book presents only 5 Armenian
feminists as a starting point, they are even excavating other feminists
and their works. They have reached 12 feminists that i mentioned above
utilizing this collaboration and labour so far and continue to present
them in the public talks; moreover, they aim to create a website through
which we can reach their information. The book has been also studied
in Armenian High Schools and universities in Turkey.
Aras Publishing: The literature not only is universal but also rep-
resents the nation(s) and country(ies). Literature indicates the signifi-
cance of people’s knowing their mother tongue, communication via it.
Literature has the potential to represent and form people’s collective
memory and creates a bridge between people in order to talk about
the issues. Aras Publishing has embarked on with the aim of introduc-
ing Armenian’s heritage, language and concern to Turkish people and
other various people living in Turkey. For Aras, literature is a means
of stating that Armenians lived and are still alive in Turkey. In 1993, it
was established in 1993 by Yetvart Tomasyan, Ardaşes Margosyan,
Payline Tomasyan, Mıgırdiç Margosyan, and also Hrant Dink in Be-
yoğlu, İstanbul. The fact that Aras Publishing was founded in Beyoğlu
and still remains to exist there is very substantial because Beyoğlu has
the collective memories of a lot of people of diverse nations and eth-
nicities. There were many Armenian people who made contributions
to shape Beyoğlu. In terms of reviving this memory and sustaining the
contributions, Aras Publishing is a memory complex on its own as well
as with the literary texts that it has translated and published. Aras Pub-
lishing has introduced many Armenian figures and culture to Turkey
by stressing that Armenian people needs to be heard because they
have an issue that all the people in Turkey have to recognize and the
government has to deal with. Aras Publishing also organizes the public
talks around the country.