Grigor Zokhrab

Born June 14 (26), 1861, in Constantinople; died July 19, 1915. Armenian writer, publicist, critic, and politician.

Zokhrab lived in Turkey and served from 1908 to 1915 as a member of the Turkish Parliament and a member of the National Assembly attached to the Armenian Patriarchate. He was first published in 1878. He introduced the novella into Western Armenian literature. In the novellas The Arch-imandrite’s Name (1887), The Gynecologist (1888), Nerses (1888), The Storm (1899), Forgive Me, Lord (1890), and A Father’s Duty (1892), Zokhrab exposed the greed of capitalists and usurers and the morality of noble and bourgeois families. He depicted members of the “lower classes”(Ainka, 1892;Tefarik, 1892) and revealed the sores of contemporary society, defending the victims of social inequality in Postal (1901), The Deceased (1901), Magdalina (1902),Akopik (1904), and The Churchyard (1908). Zokhrab’s works are characterized by a dynamic manner of narration and by simplicity and elegance of style.

Zokhrab created literary portraits of writers and public figures and wrote sketches on Europe (Pages From a Traveler’s Diary, 1909-13). His last work, Letters From the Battlefield (1914), is an attack on German imperialism. Zokhrab died during the massacre of Armenians organized by the Turkish government.