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 ZOHRAP Grigor was born on June 26, 1861 in Constantinople. Armenian writer, publicist, lawyer, public-political figure. He graduated from two French Higher Education Institutions in Constantinople receiving professions of land surveyor (1879) and lawyer (1882). Still young he was elected as a President of the Asiatic Society, participated in the activity of the Armenian Joint Organization. From 1883 he practiced law and taught it at the University of Constantinople. During the Armenian massacres in 1895-96 he defended the Armenian political defendants, before that he defended the Armenians of Zeitun and in 1905 a Bulgarian revolutionary. Zohrap was deprived of the right to practice law because of his  political activism. In 1908 he moved to Paris, and then returned to Constantinople after the Young Turk Revolution. In 1908 he was elected as a member of the Ottoman Parliament and the National Assembly. Zohrap displayed an exceptional political courage during the massacres of Adana (1909) and in 1911 he sent a Memorandum to the Turkish Prime Minister demanding to quit the Hamidian methods of the Ittihatist government towards the Armenians. Zohrap published two works on law (in 1908, in Paris, in French and in 1909, in Constantinople, in Turkish) and “The Armenian question in light of documents” under the pseudonym Marcel Leart (in French) in Paris, in 1913. 

Zohrap is a multi-genre writer (poems, novels, novellas, essays, orations). He became famous with the realistic novel “A Vanished Generation” (1887). Zohrap’s novellas are the most remarkable ones and were published in three collections: “Sounds of Conscience» (1909), “Life as it is” and  “Silent Grieves” (both in 1911) in which Zohrap created many realistic characters and revealed the social sources of the human tragedy (“Tjitin partq” (“Debt”), “Magtaghine”, “The Widow”, “The Whore”), discussed the theme of love in the light of human happiness and high moral values (“Ainka”, “Basil”, “First Love”, “Zabugho” “Jeyran”),   touched upon the themes of life and death, insoluble mysteries of human inner world (“Happy Death”, “The other one” “It Seems To Me”). Zohrap observed the subject, case, actions and feelings of people in their internal connections reaching the unique life-philosophy (“Churchyard”, “Tefarik”, “Sarah”)։ Zohrap wrote in restrained, precise language with rich content. 

Journalistic essays (“Chinese letters” 1884, “Journey in my memories”, 1898-1903 etc.), critical articles (“Immoral literature”, 1892, “New Literature”, 1892, “The Moral Struggle”, 1893) and “Familiar Faces” (a piece where he draws portraits of prominent figures of his time) (1891-1909) are the important part of the Zohrap’s literary heritage. 

On May 20, 1915 he was arrested and severely murdered on the way from Urfa to Diyarbekir.

Source - "Who is Who. The Armenians" Encyclopedia, Volume I, chief-editor Hovh. Ayvazyan, Yerevan, 2007.