INTERVIEW: 'In the Ruins' still resonates over a century on

Over a century on, the scenes described by Zabel Yessayan in the aftermath of the 1909 massacres of Ottoman Armenians in Adana still resonate grimly. In the political tumult in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, tens of thousands of local Armenians were killed in the first months of 1909, and Yessayan traveled down to Adana with a delegation from Istanbul to inspect the aftermath.

HDN spoke to Judith Saryan, one of the editors of a newly published edition of Yessayan's account of the trip, "In the Ruins: The 1909 Massacres of Armenians in Adana" (reviewed in HDN here). Saryan described Yessayan's life and times, her trip to Adana, and the modern-day resonance of her account.

The book describes Yessayan's trip to Adana and its surroundings in the aftermath of the massacres of 1909. She was sent with a delegation from the Armenian Patriarchate in Constantinople. Who was Zabel Yessayan and what was the purpose of the trip?

She was born in 1878. Her maiden name was Hovanessian and she was born in Constantinople in the Scutari [today's Üsükdar] neighborhood. She learned to read at a very young age, her father was a very important influence on her life. He taught her to read and he spent many hours with her discussing different issues, in particular the importance of freedom of expression and women's rights. He was a strong role model and encouraged her to do what she wanted. When she decided to be a writer he was very supportive. She attended school for four years and graduated when she was 14. She had an opportunity to go to Europe to study when she was 17. She went to Paris to study, also working there on an Armenian-French dictionary and as a tutor. She wrote about this in a short story called "The Man," which described her student...