Chinghiz AYTMATOV: "A person is responsible for everything that happens in his time"

On December 12 the writer turned seventy, and The Day joins his well-wishers.

ON CREATIVITY

Q.: What do you think of Charles Baudelaire's maxim that "the artist in not accountable to morality. He should have talent, and not good intentions"?

A.: It seems to me that this is one-sided. It is biased. Talent is talent, but what does it serve in the end? And to avoid morality because it is in fashion or attractive, or because it leaves some trace on the artist, is not something I follow.

Q.: Excuse me for citing two more quotations: "If a work of art lacks something unreal, it is not realistic" by Marc Chagall, and "Great literature always follows the verge of unreality" by Vladimir Nabokov.

A.: Well, here I again cannot agree, although these are outstanding personalities and both classics. But to assert so categorically that if there is nothing unreal, it is not real, and that literature should always walk somewhere on the precipice of reality...

Q.: And how would you consider the unreal in your works? For instance, the she-wolf Akbara and her train of thought.

A.: Unreality can be real in its own way. Yes, in its own way. And the unreal is not necessarily abstract, chaotic, unintelligible, and somewhere secretly perceptible. Maybe our very subconscious is meant here. Sometimes the subconscious is able to perceive or produce a response which we finally can consider as unreal, but this isn't the point. The point is that to calculate beforehand and to try to plan this proportion is not quite close to the truth. Still and all, the truth comes first. You mentioned she-wolf Akbara. But this is already imagination. And in many cases it can be almost reality. It depends on how the reader views it. When Executioner's Block appeared, I was literally showered by readers' letters. Hundreds of letters every day. I just did not have time to read them all. That was the perception of the reader then. That was at the very apex of perestroika. And the following episode occurred. Once I was walking along the Gorky Street in Moscow, which is now called Tverskaya. Passers-by were going upstream and down, a river of people flowing along the street, and I amid them. Suddenly, a lady ahead of me said hello. I looked at her: a total stranger to me, past middle age, elderly. Meanwhile, she came up closer and looking straight into my eyes said: "I am Akbara". I was taken aback. But she had already passed by and was going somewhere in the crowed. So, is this unreality? Just the opposite, and this is what a fantasy can do - here it became reality. The lady had obviously taken the fate of this she-wolf so closely, that she related, compared herself to Akbara. And, obviously something was happening inside of her, in her life, consciousness, and emotions, when she all of a sudden said that. And went by. I will never forget that.

So, I, with all my respect for Nabokov and Chagall, I cannot completely agree with them. Unreality can be present, can be included in the context of a work, the context of artistic thought, but to put it so categorically that there is no art without unreality, I disagree with that.

Q.: When do you usually write in the morning or evening, with a pen, a typewriter, or computer. In short, when and how does it happen with you?

A.: You asked a question sort of painful to me. Or sensitive. To my great sorrow, I remain very archaic in this sense. I write only with a pen, a ball-point pen, and with nothing else. Previously, I wrote with a fountain pen, then the ball-point appeared and thus I became attached to it. I do not use a typewriter, not because I do not want or can't learn how to use it. I get a great pleasure when work is unfolding, and I can write 10 or 15 pages a day.

Q.: By hand?

A.: By hand. And then I rewrite quite a lot. The rewriting process gives me a great enjoyment, too. Technically, my work is organized as follows. I write a text by hand and my wife types it. Then I proofread it, very seriously, type it again, and, if necessary, once again. That's that. Not a smooth or efficient process.

Q.: But one assuring quality.

A.: Well, I don't know. It is a kind of manual labor in the literal sense of the word.

ABOUT MAN AND MANKIND

Q.: I understand that it is difficult to provide a completed foundation in any answer to my next question. And yet, what do you think a human being is: God's creation, a product of natural evolution, or a result of a continuing scientific experiment, which was started on Earth no one knows when, by whom and to what end?

A.: Philosophically, I believe a human being reflects everything you have mentioned, all the aspects. It can be considered one way or another still. It is complex. A person is a complex and multifaceted creature. Every time we want to understand it more or less for ourselves, we should see what this creature, the human being, represents at a given moment. If he has more animal in him, animal instincts and behavior, then we may think that, yes, we really did come from monkeys.

Q.: What do you think is there more in man of the end of the twentieth century?

A.: There is a lot of everything in him unfortunately, and this is displayed in various ways. It seems to me that man still fails to understand that in many cases he should behave differently. Yes, in many cases. But some instincts, other forces, interests and passions - yes, I emphasize passions lead him astray, making him one-sided. Within man the awareness should live that he is responsible for everything that happens in his time. A corresponding culture should be created for him to be able to comprehend any of the universal concerns. A culture that would lead the man to such a state. And this is very important now, when we are all concerned with something quite different.

Q.: As we know, the main lesson of history is that the people do not remember history lessons. Do you think that in the
visible future such people could appear like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Bokassa, or Pol Pot?

A.: It's possible. Something similar, such types will appear one way or another. Because it is this dark force, the terrible dominating and destroying force of dictatorship, that will always be latent in the subconscious or in the depth of man. Not necessarily exactly like those mentioned, but something of the kind could appear.

Q.: And attract people?

A.: Yes, for some period he would create a situation, very catastrophic and having grave consequences. It is the same problem, the same story for both the leader and the crowd, the leader and the pack. The leader can lead people to many things, and there are many examples in modern life. How can one convince a person that in this way that he or she is committing suicide? What do you call it when a man sacrifices himself for something? Of course, one may think that those ideas are most important, so on and so forth, but to reach the state of a kamikaze is, to my mind, against nature. Later, all great ideas become exhausted, tamed, and make room for other new ideas. Go ahead, develop, and sanctify them. But I think you should not sacrifice your life for them. Why am I talking about this? I have planned one thing where I will try to reflect whether a man was supposed do so, that is, to self-sacrifice, or should have sought for some other ways?

Q.: What place do you think religion should have in public life on the threshold of the third millennium?

A.: This is a very big question. I think some moderation should be taken into account. As it is often the case, we go from one extreme to the other. Historically, so to speak, religion originates from ancient times, and it should be present in our life. But I disagree that religion should be considered a fundamental factor. Religion is the accompanying ethical, moral, ritual, and other factors. All the rest - human wisdom, conscience, and activity - is directed to revealing the human essence, its creative potential.

ON GLORY

Q.: Did your attitude toward the world and yourself change as you gradually became a writer, then an acknowledged and outstanding writer?

A.: I don't know, maybe something was happening in my subconscious. In any case, I do not go as far as to comprehend, in the context of reality, that I am a writer and that's why I am such and such.

Q.: How does your fame in Kyrgyzstan, where you were born, differ from your fame in the CIS or Western Europe?

A.: I don't know how it can. Well, first, I become more and more convinced that the well-known aphorism that no man is a prophet in his own country is very correct. And in contrast, in Europe where, one would think, I am quite a stranger to them, a newcomer, the attitude is, so to say, more elevated. For instance, I often have meetings with German-speaking readers in Germany, Austria and, Switzerland. Such meetings gather enormous audiences, a thousand or more. And they often take place in churches, which amazes me. That evening, or that day the church is made available to us not for divine service or religious rites; quite the opposite, I see the priest among the readers. And we have a lively exchange of opinions and discussion. This speaks for itself. Quite recently, I have had an eight-day tour of Switzerland. There were eight meetings, two of which were in churches. I was joking after that, saying: "Incidentally, do you want a bishop?" Such is the attitude here, which can be quite different from that at home. There are always some...well, I don't know. Sometimes, when I may have some kind of, well, failures, this produces a kind of malicious joy. Because we are involved in everyday communication there, sort of one circle, under one roof, etc. And people show more rudeness there. That's my explanation.

In addition, at the end of perestroika our literature and literati suddenly were displaced and lost their significance. And tragedy of our modern culture, not only that of writers, is that we have lost our hierarchy of values. What is beautiful, what is splendid, what is attractive, and what is base. We don't have that now. On the contrary, someone can claim the base to be beautiful, and speculate on it. I deny and ignore this all. I will not cultivate in myself such base passions. Do you understand? And this tells on the level of interpersonal relations. After we, literature and writers, suffered a temporary defeat - I use even this word - Europe is sort of saving and supporting me. For example, a very respectable magazine is issued in the Vatican, with a big article captioned Chinghiz Aytmatov - Atheist, Communist, and Moslem - Turns to the Image of Christ. Though it is, of course, paradoxical to give an article such caption. But this shows that they, despite all this, even under such conditions they try to discern, understand, and fathom what kind of man I am and what I bring with myself.

Q.: What is the difference in attitudes toward writers in different countries?

A.: The attitude displayed by the public in Soviet times and, especially, during perestroika, was never seen before and never will again. It was a flight, an apex, when literature and authors meant something special, they expressed the state and the spirit of the society, its aspirations, and its leap toward the truth. It seemed that literature would respond to everything and say everything. And the attitude toward literature and writers corresponded to this. Now it is difficult even to relate this. It was such a historic moment, such cultural state, that we were appreciated, and very highly at that. And then all this suddenly collapsed, and a new life began. The market economy psychology made its entrance - not only its psychology, but its very reality. And the market economy immediately ordered things differently in different places. Not those who carry the Word, the spirit of Word, have authority but those who carry out some operations in a bank.

ON HIMSELF

Q.: Well said. We are all the products of our childhood, and what kind of childhood produced you?

A.: I was a child during the war, and everything the war inculcated in people was also inculcated in me. At fourteen I became head of a village Soviet; everyone else had gone to the front, and nobody else remained who could read and write. Three old men came to my school and took me. They told me to sit there and go to work because there was no one else. In this way I lost three years of school. Afterwards I tried to make up for it, to compensate somehow. And as for how I worked - I would often run away and play with those my age - opened up for me many aspects of human existence, things I had simply never seen before. For example, I distributed defense information, black pieces of paper, and gave them out among buildings. Do you understand what that is. God forbid! Or collecting war taxes? Every family was obliged to pay them without exception, no exemptions, no extensions. A person thus had to sell his last nanny goat to pay the war taxes. I had to collect the money and take it to the State Bank. At that time there was only one bank in the whole district. I had to do everything myself.

Q.: Would you please prioritize your life values: family, love, fame, money, friendship, creative work...

A.: What you have listed includes everything.

Q.: And in this exact order?

A.: Well, no, creative work should actually be placed after love. And money should come at the very end. Well, the devil only knows. I would like to have it that way, but now such things happen to people. Money plays some extraordinary role. Extraordinary. This strikes you now and then, and sometimes even more so. But this is already another discussion, another topic.

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