Reading Hagop Mntsuri’s The Second Marriage Through The Perspective of Non-Contemporaneous Contemporaries in the Ottoman Empire

Abstract

This paper discusses the novella Yergrort Amusnutyunı (The Second Marriage) by Hagop Demirciyan (pen name Hagop Mnts‘uri’) in a larger historical context including the conditions which led to the Armenian genocide, the ramifications it had on the life of the survivors and the irreversible realities it created in post-genocide Turkey. Published in Istanbul in 1931, the book represents the deep historical and structural differences between Istanbulite Armenians and those from the provinces. Reading and explaining these differences in their context through the lenses of Mntsuri’s characters as well as through the lens of the literary theories of uneven development, I argue that the Armenians in the provinces and in Istanbul were deeply separated from each other, becoming non-contemporaneous contemporaries. This unevenness was coupled with genocide denial in the decades after 1915, imprisoning the survivor as kağtagan within silence over generations, not just in Istanbul but also the communities where they sought refuge abroad.