So, Did We Really Find Yesayan?

Abstract

This think piece aims to locate the problematic interest in the work of Zabel Yesayan into the heart of much broader question of the fate of Armenian literary studies and criticism. The critique presented here provides a quick glance over the timeline of this interest through the touchstones accomplished over the last two decades. It is then followed by a series of issues that lie behind this fetishizing attitude. Some of these are namely the predominant and privileged status of the discipline of history, the misleading state of Yesayan translations in both Armenian and Turkish, and the illiterate – both in the literal and figurative senses of the word – (therefore scandalous) state of existing academia. My conclusory remarks, returning to what I describe as “Yesayan fever,” are part of an attempt for a rhizomatic reading that would liberate the author from the overloaded feminist and genocide-based readings.