Fethiye Çetin () (born 4 May 1950 in Maden,

Elazığ Province Elazığ () is a city in the Eastern Anatolia Region, Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey, and the administrative centre of Elazığ Province and Elazığ District. Founded in and around the former city of Harput, it is located in the uppermost Euph ...

) is a Turkish lawyer, writer and

human rights activist A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campai ...

of Armenian origin.

Biography

Growing up in Maden, Fethiye Çetin had no reason to suspect that she had other than Turkish Muslim roots, until her maternal grandmother, Seher, revealed to her that her real name was not Seher: she was by birth an Armenian Christian, named Heranuş Gadaryan. Heranuş was born to parents Hovannes and Isguhi Gadaryan, and was taken from her mother's arms during a

death march A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war, other captives, or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinct from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Convention requires tha ...

in the course of the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...

. This legacy inspired Çetin's first book, a memoir published in 2004 about her grandmother's story entitled ''My Grandmother: An Armenian Turkish Memoir''. The memoir follows Heranuş through the eyes of her granddaughter, from memories of Çetin's childhood, to the horrendous events of the Armenian genocide her grandmother revealed to her as an adult. Çetin discovered that all the men of Heranuş' village had been slaughtered in 1915, and the women and children were forced into exile, walking for many miles with Turkish soldiers more than willing to pick off any stragglers. During this long march, Heranuş was taken out of her mother's arms and adopted by a Turkish gendarme. It was from this adoption that Çetin's grandmother adopted the identity of Seher, the content, Muslim housewife that raised Çetin. Her grandmother's experiences launched a search for Heranuş' family, who had escaped to New York. ''My Grandmother'' explores the bond formed between grandmother and granddaughter from the time of the revelation until Heranuş' death. The Independent describes the book as "Gripping and thought-provoking ... Spare and elegant ... This moving testimony transcend politics and brings the Armenian tragedy to life with tenderness as well as sadness". ''My Grandmother'', translated into English by

Maureen Freely Maureen Deidre Freely (born July 1952) is an American novelist, professor, and translator. She has worked on the Warwick Writing Programme, University of Warwick, since 1996. Biography Born in Neptune, New Jersey, she is the daughter of author ...

,Çetin, Fethiye (2008). ''My Grandmother: A Memoir''. Verso. . Republished in 2012 under the title ''My Grandmother: An Armenian-Turkish Memoir''. has become demanded reading piece at some progressive Turkish institutes of higher education, such as

Sabancı University Sabancı University () is a private research university that adopts a liberal arts education approach, established in 1994 and located on a 1.26 million squaremeter campus which is about 40 km from Istanbul's city center. Its first students ...

.Hugh Pope (2 June 2008)
Book review; ‘My Grandmother: A Memoir’ by Fethiye Çetin
. ''

Today's Zaman ''Today's Zaman'' (Zaman is Turkish for 'time' or 'age') was an English-language daily newspaper based in Turkey. Established on 17 January 2007, it was the English-language edition of the Turkish daily '' Zaman.'' ''Today's Zaman'' included dom ...

''. Hugh Pope, reviewing the book for ''

'', characterises the book as "part of a trend in Turkey that is grappling with a history of denial, nationalism and fears of political consequences" in regards to "the lost Armenians". As a lawyer, Çetin has been representing the family of the murdered Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor

Hrant Dink Hrant Dink (; Western ; 15 September 1954 – 19 January 2007) was a Turkish-Armenian intellectual, editor-in-chief of ''Agos'', journalist, and columnist. As editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper ''Agos'', Dink was a ...

. In September 2010, Fethiye Çetin visited Australia as an invited guest to a public discussion in a Sydney bookstore, about her memoir ''My Grandmother''. She also went to Melbourne as an invited guest to the Melbourne Writers' Festival.

References

Sources

* Bilefsky, Dan. "A Family Tree Uprooted by a 60-Year-Old Secret." The New York Times. The New York Times, 5 Jan. 2010. Web. 4 Dec. 2016. [
A Family Tree Uprooted by a 60-Year-Old Secret
.] * "My Grandmother: An Armenian Turkish Memoir" Robot Check. Amazon, n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cetin, Fethiye 1950 births Living people Turkish human rights activists Turkish memoirists Turkish people of Armenian descent 20th-century Turkish writers Turkish women writers Women memoirists 20th-century Turkish lawyers 21st-century Turkish lawyers 20th-century Turkish women lawyers 21st-century Turkish women lawyers