Krikor Zohrab

Krikor Zohrab, author, lawyer, and a member of the Ottoman Chamber of Deputies, was a prominent and widely-respected figure in the national and cultural life of Armenians in Turkey, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was among the 200 or so national and religious leaders murdered by the Ottoman authorities as a prelude to their massacre of the Armenian people in 1915. Though born into the prosperous and comfortable society of Constantinople, he was able to learn how the less fortunate lived, and how simple, honest people were brutalized by circumstances. His stories contain little plot in the ordinary sense, relying instead on the sensitive treatment of emotions, and the creation of ambience and mood, sometimes ironic, sometimes poignant. He was concerned with real people, immersed in their fears and conflicts.