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Preserving culture
MIT historian Lerna Ekmekcioglu explores how women preserve Armenian
cultural identity.
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Lerna Ekmekcioglu, McMillan-Stewart Career Development Assistant
Professor of History at MIT
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/staying-alive-ekmekcioglu-armenian-culture.html
January 22, 2013
Lerna Ekmekcioglu was born on the dividing line between two cultures,
Turkish and Armenian. A native speaker of both languages, she brings a
unique perspective to her area of research ' examining how ethnic
Armenians in Turkey managed to live side by side with those
responsible for the Armenian genocide.
"What do people do when they are excluded?" Ekmekcioglu asks. "How do
the state and minority groups negotiate their roles?"
Ekmekcioglu has found that the pressures of the Turkish (and Ottoman)
state created a divide between public and private identity, and that
women played a significant role in defining the private realm. "Inside
the family, the household became the place where [Armenians] could
keep their mother tongue [and other traditions]. Mothers, the heart of
the home, were positioned to preserve what the regime wanted to stamp
out," she says.
"Moreover, there were those semi-private spheres, such as Armenian
schools and churches, where even though the presence of the state was
felt, Armenians were able to gather together and found ways of
maintaining their differences from the majority."
Armenian women's history
A faculty member in MIT History and in the Women's and Gender Studies
program, Ekmekcioglu says she has been interested in feminism since
college. That was when she first researched the Turkish women's
movement and discovered that the only information available centered
on the experience of Muslims, the majority population in Turkey.
Non-Turks, including ethnic Armenians, Greeks and Jews, were simply
absent.
"There was no Armenian women's history in Armenian or Turkish,"
Ekmekcioglu says. "So, I decided to write it myself."
Together with college friends, she began by writing an academic
article on Hayganoush Mark, a woman from Istanbul who published an
Armenian women's journal from 1919 to 1932. Clearly critical of
existing scholarship, the article nevertheless won third prize in a
Turkish student history competition. Ekmekcioglu was thrilled.
"That's when my life changed," Ekmekcioglu says. "This is when I
understood that Armenian feminism was a worthwhile topic for research
and writing"; she then decided to pursue an academic career.
After completing her bachelor's degree at BoÄ?aziçi University in
Turkey, Ekmekcioglu went on to earn a master's degree and then a PhD
from New York University. In 2006, she co-edited a book in Turkish
about Ottoman/Turkish Armenian feminists, "Bir Adalet Feryadı,
Osmanlı'dan Cumhuriyet'e BeÅ? Ermeni Feminist Yazar (1862-1933)" [A Cry
for Justice: Five Armenian Feminist Writers from the Ottoman Empire to
the Turkish Republic (1862-1933)], which was so well received it has
gone through multiple editions.
Surviving the New Turkey
In 2011, Ekmekcioglu joined MIT's School of Humanities, Arts, and
Social Sciences, where she now serves as the McMillan-Stewart Career
Development Assistant Professor of History. She's currently writing
another book, "Surviving the New Turkey: Armenians in Post-Ottoman
Istanbul," which covers two very different yet consecutive periods in
Turkish and Armenian history: 1918-22, when Istanbul was under Allied
occupation, and 1923-33, the first decade after Turkey became an
independent republic.
"This is the first academic attempt to study these time periods
together and from the perspective of the Armenians who experienced
it," she says.
The 1915 genocide eviscerated the male population of Turkish
Armenians, leaving huge numbers of women and children without
protectors in a strictly patriarchal society. The policy the Ottomans
took toward them was to have them adopted into Muslim households.
"According to this patriarchal ideology ' both groups [Turks and
Armenians] are patrilineal ' you belong to your father and his
religion," Ekmekcioglu says. "This mentality assumed that women and
young children don't matter to the identity of the group. Therefore,
children born to Armenian women 'adopted' into Muslim families would
be Muslim."
However, when the Ottoman Empire lost World War I, the armistice
agreement dictated that these adopted women and children be returned
to Armenian control. The surviving Armenian leadership organized
rescues and founded shelters, even agreeing to consider any children
born to the adopted women as Armenian ' a startling break with
tradition that stemmed from the desperate need to rebuild the Armenian
population, Ekmekcioglu says.
"I'm looking at women who didn't want to return, because they thought
they would be considered 'spoiled' if they returned, or didn't want to
move to an institution," Ekmekcioglu says. "Of those who returned to
the Armenian community, many were married off to Armenian men. Many
were pregnant when they returned, sometimes from rape, and they tried
to kill their babies or neglected them. But the Armenian authorities
did not always allow them to have abortions because they needed the
population."
Withstanding persecution
Worse still, during the Turkish struggle for independence from the
occupying forces, many Armenian women and orphans were threatened
again, and some were even massacred. Yet, a small percentage of the
Armenian community stayed inside Turkish borders even after the
establishment of the Republic of Turkey, crafting communal survival
strategies to remain a distinct group.
"What did they do to survive the new Turkey?" Ekmekcioglu asks.
She plans to answer this question in full while on leave in spring
2013, when she finishes writing her book. But it's clear that women
played a central role in preserving Armenian identity.
"This is not merely a story of a persecuted people resisting
oppression," Ekmekcioglu says. "It is also the story of Armenian
feminists, who were glorified when they promoted tradition (such as
the importance of speaking Armenian) and vilified when they demanded a
say in the decision-making bodies of the community. ... These
feminists argued, and on a daily basis, that tradition and equality
could co-exist."
"Reclaiming People, Reclaiming Land: Politics of Inclusion after the
Armenian Genocide," by Ekmekcioglu, is forthcoming in the July 2013
volume of Comparative Studies in Society and History.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
MIT historian Lerna Ekmekcioglu explores how women preserve Armenian
cultural identity.
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Lerna Ekmekcioglu, McMillan-Stewart Career Development Assistant
Professor of History at MIT
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/staying-alive-ekmekcioglu-armenian-culture.html
January 22, 2013
Lerna Ekmekcioglu was born on the dividing line between two cultures,
Turkish and Armenian. A native speaker of both languages, she brings a
unique perspective to her area of research ' examining how ethnic
Armenians in Turkey managed to live side by side with those
responsible for the Armenian genocide.
"What do people do when they are excluded?" Ekmekcioglu asks. "How do
the state and minority groups negotiate their roles?"
Ekmekcioglu has found that the pressures of the Turkish (and Ottoman)
state created a divide between public and private identity, and that
women played a significant role in defining the private realm. "Inside
the family, the household became the place where [Armenians] could
keep their mother tongue [and other traditions]. Mothers, the heart of
the home, were positioned to preserve what the regime wanted to stamp
out," she says.
"Moreover, there were those semi-private spheres, such as Armenian
schools and churches, where even though the presence of the state was
felt, Armenians were able to gather together and found ways of
maintaining their differences from the majority."
Armenian women's history
A faculty member in MIT History and in the Women's and Gender Studies
program, Ekmekcioglu says she has been interested in feminism since
college. That was when she first researched the Turkish women's
movement and discovered that the only information available centered
on the experience of Muslims, the majority population in Turkey.
Non-Turks, including ethnic Armenians, Greeks and Jews, were simply
absent.
"There was no Armenian women's history in Armenian or Turkish,"
Ekmekcioglu says. "So, I decided to write it myself."
Together with college friends, she began by writing an academic
article on Hayganoush Mark, a woman from Istanbul who published an
Armenian women's journal from 1919 to 1932. Clearly critical of
existing scholarship, the article nevertheless won third prize in a
Turkish student history competition. Ekmekcioglu was thrilled.
"That's when my life changed," Ekmekcioglu says. "This is when I
understood that Armenian feminism was a worthwhile topic for research
and writing"; she then decided to pursue an academic career.
After completing her bachelor's degree at BoÄ?aziçi University in
Turkey, Ekmekcioglu went on to earn a master's degree and then a PhD
from New York University. In 2006, she co-edited a book in Turkish
about Ottoman/Turkish Armenian feminists, "Bir Adalet Feryadı,
Osmanlı'dan Cumhuriyet'e BeÅ? Ermeni Feminist Yazar (1862-1933)" [A Cry
for Justice: Five Armenian Feminist Writers from the Ottoman Empire to
the Turkish Republic (1862-1933)], which was so well received it has
gone through multiple editions.
Surviving the New Turkey
In 2011, Ekmekcioglu joined MIT's School of Humanities, Arts, and
Social Sciences, where she now serves as the McMillan-Stewart Career
Development Assistant Professor of History. She's currently writing
another book, "Surviving the New Turkey: Armenians in Post-Ottoman
Istanbul," which covers two very different yet consecutive periods in
Turkish and Armenian history: 1918-22, when Istanbul was under Allied
occupation, and 1923-33, the first decade after Turkey became an
independent republic.
"This is the first academic attempt to study these time periods
together and from the perspective of the Armenians who experienced
it," she says.
The 1915 genocide eviscerated the male population of Turkish
Armenians, leaving huge numbers of women and children without
protectors in a strictly patriarchal society. The policy the Ottomans
took toward them was to have them adopted into Muslim households.
"According to this patriarchal ideology ' both groups [Turks and
Armenians] are patrilineal ' you belong to your father and his
religion," Ekmekcioglu says. "This mentality assumed that women and
young children don't matter to the identity of the group. Therefore,
children born to Armenian women 'adopted' into Muslim families would
be Muslim."
However, when the Ottoman Empire lost World War I, the armistice
agreement dictated that these adopted women and children be returned
to Armenian control. The surviving Armenian leadership organized
rescues and founded shelters, even agreeing to consider any children
born to the adopted women as Armenian ' a startling break with
tradition that stemmed from the desperate need to rebuild the Armenian
population, Ekmekcioglu says.
"I'm looking at women who didn't want to return, because they thought
they would be considered 'spoiled' if they returned, or didn't want to
move to an institution," Ekmekcioglu says. "Of those who returned to
the Armenian community, many were married off to Armenian men. Many
were pregnant when they returned, sometimes from rape, and they tried
to kill their babies or neglected them. But the Armenian authorities
did not always allow them to have abortions because they needed the
population."
Withstanding persecution
Worse still, during the Turkish struggle for independence from the
occupying forces, many Armenian women and orphans were threatened
again, and some were even massacred. Yet, a small percentage of the
Armenian community stayed inside Turkish borders even after the
establishment of the Republic of Turkey, crafting communal survival
strategies to remain a distinct group.
"What did they do to survive the new Turkey?" Ekmekcioglu asks.
She plans to answer this question in full while on leave in spring
2013, when she finishes writing her book. But it's clear that women
played a central role in preserving Armenian identity.
"This is not merely a story of a persecuted people resisting
oppression," Ekmekcioglu says. "It is also the story of Armenian
feminists, who were glorified when they promoted tradition (such as
the importance of speaking Armenian) and vilified when they demanded a
say in the decision-making bodies of the community. ... These
feminists argued, and on a daily basis, that tradition and equality
could co-exist."
"Reclaiming People, Reclaiming Land: Politics of Inclusion after the
Armenian Genocide," by Ekmekcioglu, is forthcoming in the July 2013
volume of Comparative Studies in Society and History.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress