Zabel Yesayan Driveway was inaugurated in Paris on International Women’s Day

10.03.2018

Zabel Yesayan Driveway was inaugurated in Paris on International Women’s Day

A driveway in Paris was named after writer Zabel Yesayan on International Women’s Day.

The official ceremony of inauguration took place on March 8 at the 12th arrondissement (district) of Paris. The ceremony was attended by the mayor Anne Hidalgo who highlighted the strength and cultural capacity of the Armenian community of Paris. She noted that Zabel Yesayan is a symbol which will remind about all those Armenian women who died during the Genocide of 1915. “The first victims were intellectuals, - said Anne Hidalgo, - those who could express universal humanitarian message through their art; a message which fits the values of French Republic”.

Zabel Yesayan was a 19th-century Ottoman-Armenian writer who survived the 1915 Armenian Genocide. She was one of the best known female writers of Ottoman Empire and the only woman included in the list of Armenian intellectuals targeted for arrest by Young Turks. Yesayan is known for her ideas on empowering women.