DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF ZABEL YESAYAN’S 1919 REPORT
ZABEL YESAYAN’IN 1919 TARİHLİ RAPORUNUN SÖYLEMSEL KURGUSU

Author : Füsun ÇOBAN DÖŞKAYA
Number of pages : 355-374

Abstract

This study is about the eleven paged report (letter) of the well-known Armenian writer Zabel Yesayan (1878-1943) entitled “La liberation des Femmes et Enfants Non-musulmans en Turquie” (The Liberation of Non-Moslem Women and Children in Turkey) dated 1911. The text was originally written in French and in this study the Turkish translation of journalist Alev Er is used. Yesayan gave the above mentioned report to the head of the Armenian National Delegation, Bogos Nubar Pasha, on March 18, 1919, to be submitted at the Paris Peace Conference. The report includes examples from the narratives of humiliation and violence towards the non-Muslim nations, especially to women and children, under Turkish domination and recommendations on what to do. The report gives information about the different ways and conditions of abducted women and children, gang rapes and the attitudes of Armenian women. Within the study the discursive construction of Islamophobia and Turcophobia is analyzed. The meanings of othering statements constructed within this anti-Turkish report are studied. In this study, discursive structures towards the construction of meaning are used. 'Turkish threat' and 'Turkish danger' discourse of Zabel Yesayan is analyzed. Turcophobia as a dominant theme and related with the deportation, constitutes a basis for the creation of obscurity, uneasiness, insecurity and concern. This study has revealed that the discourse of anti-Turkish report of Zabel Yesayan, with all its negative opinions and prejudices about Turkish people, depends on two main perceptions; The perception of Turkish people as a threat to Armenians, and the perception of Islam as a threat to Christianity.

Keywords

Zabel Yesayan, Armenians, Discourse, Ottoman Women, Deportation

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