ANEC Holds Symposium on Armenian Women in NY

NEW YORK—His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, had deemed 2013 the “Year of the Mother of the Armenian Family” and asked Armenians throughout the world to organize activities to reflect on and explore the central role of mothers in the past and present of our nation. With this idea in mind, the Armenian National Education Committee (ANEC) sponsored a symposium on Sat., Oct. 5, titled, “Armenian Women as Mothers and Artists,” to offer insights into the richness, depth, and breadth of the issue. The symposium was held at the Pashalian Hall of St. Illuminator’s Armenian Cathedral in New York.

ANEC sponsored a symposium on Sat., Oct. 5, titled, “Armenian Women as Mothers and Artists,”

After the welcoming remarks by Fr. Mesrob Lakissian, the pastor of St. Illuminator’s Armenian Cathedral and a member of ANEC, the symposium was opened and conducted by fellow member Sossi Essajanian. “Even though ANEC’s primary mission is to give support and advice to the Armenian schools under its jurisdiction, we also believe that the concept of education encompasses much more than just our schools,” she began. “The idea of taking upon this and, hopefully, other subjects in the future is geared towards our community as a way of learning and sharing knowledge.”

The three featured speakers belong to the new generation of Armenian studies scholars, and introduced refreshing topics during the symposium, which were warmly welcomed by the audience. The first presentation was by Dr. Melissa Bilal, a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at Columbia University’s department of music. She recently defended her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago. She has written on the historical and ethnographic aspects of the Armenian lullaby in Turkey as a genre of intimacy, testimony, and protest. Unfortunately, due to health problems, Dr. Bilal could not attend the symposium; Essajanian read her paper, which was illustrated with musical fragments. The paper discussed how songs, especially lullabies, powerfully mediate the transmission of loss, particularly with relation to the Armenian Genocide. She argued that lullabies created, remembered, and sung by Armenian “grandmothers,” either in Armenian or in Turkish, provided the listener with an orientation toward a mode of knowing and feeling. The lullaby, at the same time, enabled silent mourning.

Afterwards, Jennifer Manoukian, a graduate student in the department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies at Columbia University, considered the life of Zabel Yessayan, the foremost female author of Armenian literature in the first half of the 20^th century. Her lively discussion highlighted Yessayan’s roles as a mother and activist during the Adana massacre of 1909, the Armenian Genocide, and the first years of the diaspora. Manoukian, whose B.A. thesis was on Yessayan’s early writings and who has translated several of her works into English, included largely untranslated autobiographical texts, personal letters, and accounts of Yessayan’s family members in her presentation.

A coffee break was followed by the final presentation, by Dr. Vartan Matiossian, the executive director of the ANEC who tackled the little-known figure of Armen Ohanian. Despite her male name, Ohanian was a dancer, actress, writer, and translator, whose life journey allowed her to construct a multidimensional identity. Her life across borders, languages, and cultures embodied some elements that, today, are intimately intertwined with the concept of a diaspora. Matiossian, who co-authored a book in Armenian on Ohanian in 2007, drew upon a wide array of sources in several languages to offer an entertaining presentation about a fascinating life and biography.

The presentations highlighted various manifestations of Armenian women in their role as mothers in different spaces and places, and left the audience with new considerations for Armenian mothers in the 21^st century.

The Armenian National Education Committee is a joint project of the Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian Relief Society (ARS) Eastern Region, and provides guidance, coordination, and assistance to the Saturday Armenian schools and day schools within the jurisdiction of the Prelacy. ANEC also releases publications and organizes lectures, language courses for adults, summer studies for teens, and seminars for teachers. For more information, visit www.armenianprelacy.org/anec; write to Armenian National Education Committee, 138 E. 39^th Street, New York, NY 10016; call (212) 689-7231/7810; or e-mail anec@armenianprelacy.org.