The Role of Armenian Charitable Societies and Educational Centers of Constantinople in Emancipation of Women

Abstract

The study focuses on the strategies, activities, characteristics, and interactions of Armenian charitable societies and educational centers established by Armenian women intellectuals in the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 19th century. The aim of the study is to examine the activities of the establishments founded in the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople in particular, as well as their essential role and purpose in the processes of women’s emancipation. The research shows that these charities helped all the educational centers, in which girls from disadvantaged families studied, with clothes, daily allowance, stationery, and financial means. The aim of the study is to classify those charities and educational centres in terms of their benefits to the nation and ideological basis. It is important and relevant not only as far as interdisciplinarity is concerned, but also from the perspective of analyzing women’s issues in Armenological Studies. The study of the Armenian charitable societies and educational centers established in the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 19th century reveal not only their functionality, but also their goals, plans, strategies, and ideological foundations in the context of women’s emancipation. In socio-public relations, these organizations not only helped to secure women’s rights and freedoms in education, upbringing, and work but also to liberated them from the unwritten taboos and laws of the patriarchal society.

Keywords:

women’s history, emancipation, education, charity, Armenia, Ottoman Empire