- Your last two books, "The Hangover" and "The Lord" were published almost simultaneously last year in "Ñîâåòñêèé ïèñàòåëü" and "Õóäîæåñòâåííàÿ ëèòåðàòóðà" publishing houses. It is difficult to name new, because except for "Metsamor", which is being published in Russian for the first time, the rest of the works were already known to Russian readers (for example, "The Lord" was published in 1987 in the magazine "Дружба народов"). Obviously, the material contained in those two compilations is not accidental, it is the result of your silence, not the malice of the editors. How long was your silence this time and what was it filled with?
- I haven't written anything for a long time now, to the delight of my unfriendly friends. That's not life for a writer. Perhaps, even to describe one's own death, a person should feel healthy and write in bearable conditions for creativity, that is, have minimal rest, minimal facilities, opportunity to separate. Yes, yes, in order to describe one's malignancy, one must first be healthy.
- Which health do you mean?
- Everyone. But in this case, the health of the whole society and the peace of the whole society. If there was peace across the country now, I would breathe a sigh of relief. Alas, we grumble and show impatience like before, we demand decisive measures and decisive changes, we don't tolerate and don't want to listen to other people's opinions, and what is most incomprehensible, we long not for good, but for revenge and blood. That had to wait. When you deal with the well-being of other countries, it becomes obvious that it has been achieved through policies of reconciliation and tolerance. Let's call things their names, poverty in all its complexities is the commander of the parade in our country today. And poverty inevitably brings with it blood, blood and blood.
- How to avoid blood?
- A sick person tries to hide his sores and pains, not to communicate with others, so as not to get infected suddenly. We have not yet achieved that tact and strictness in our relations with each other, in our relations with peoples. Meanwhile, you can control something inside you, show nobility, if you have to, even obedience, forgive others what you would not forgive yourself. We don't try to listen to our neighbor instead of forgiving. We live in a vacuum of ideas about each other. For example, what does the average Soviet citizen know today about the Issyrians or the Azerbaijani Jews, the Black Tatars or the Central Asian republics, Georgia or Armenia, or the Near Baltics? He does not make a difference between a Latvian and an Estonian, for him they are all Near-Baltic people, whom the same citizen, although he envies, treats with caution, still respects, in some cases he feels his weakness in front of him, or something like that. And the Transcaucasians, from the point of view of the same city, in one word, are charchis, what kind of relations can there be with them? Due to the irresponsibility of journalists, the image of extremists and black shirts is strengthened day by day, and yesterday, those who were called Georgians without distinction of nationality, today they were renamed Armenians. In this atmosphere of ignorance, only very large national units can show themselves. Naturally, in this situation, I completely sympathize with the centrifugal aspirations of each Baltic republic, that they are not able to cope with all this and that is why they aspire to their northern neighbors, hoping for a calmer and more dignified life than here. It is clear that if I were a Baltic citizen and saw that there is no way to settle the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, there is no way to pave the way to truth and justice, civilization and humanity, I would try to protect myself from that headache. Everyone is looking for their own way to salvation.
- Once, Vladimir Arrow answered the question, "Why did many novelists and dramatists remain silent during the flowering of the opening speech?", probably to make sense of what was happening...
- Frankly speaking, I would answer differently. I don't know how much I'm waxing poetic, but in Andrei Rublev, one of my favorite films, there's a short story about how Rublev starts working on Doomsday. Imagine a wall prepared for a mural - you can start painting, but Rublev does not touch the wall. It seems to me that Tarkovsky wants to say that Rublev does not paint the "Doomsday" in order not to become a reality. In other words, he silently tries to prevent what might happen. But despite his silence, the Last Judgment is taking place. I think that the whole Soviet literature is now like a mute Rublev, not embodying in words what is happening today, we are afraid that the blood and demonic power of evil can come to light through the traces of words. We fear that Doomsday in our books because there is really great humanity in silence, in silencing, in concealment. If you reveal all the layers of truth, you have to destroy all life. I am conservative. I may be wrong, but I belong to a people that has seen too much blood, has been deprived of the opportunity to have an independent state, for centuries, has been subjected to persecutions, persecutions, massacres, and therefore I really value every opportunity to preserve the traditional course of life, so that there are as few shocks as possible. And for that, we should be tolerant towards our own and others' sins, we should try to understand and forgive each other. I am afraid of revolutions, I am afraid of maximalist slogans. I believe that the man calling for the most destructive revolution has no daughter to be raped in the street by militant thugs, no family to be deprived of a roof, or the family is somewhere in America, and he is here struggling with the intellectual flight of his mind.
Recently, in one of the American auditoriums, I met my compatriots representing the Dashnaktsutyun party. In the Soviet press they were always accused of terrorism and other sins and presented as scarecrows. During the meeting, I suddenly realized that these people are just as conservative as I am, that they are as afraid of anarchist sentiments in the Soviet Union as I am. It is time for us to finally realize that the state does not need a revolution, a coup, but an unhurried, thorough, difficult transformational work.
- Almost like Mandelstam: "But victims don't want a blind sky, // Work and stability are preferable."
- How many years have we eaten bread unworthily, now we must starve with dignity. We deserve this poverty and now we have only one way out: to return to peaceful work to fill the void we have contributed to.
- We are talking now, and the internal editor, the first enemy of the writer, is doing disgustingly heavy in me. "This will pass, but this is hardly printed even in our time"... It is a custom. Have you noticed the stifler in you? Isn't there too little sincerity in the Armenian literature of the last decades, because we were cutting our wings ourselves?
- Finally, with the efforts of our well-wishers, the internal censor appeared. You start playing cat and mouse with yourself. You are writing a specific work, where there is a certain drama, a burning of passions, an explosion. Let's say one of the heroes is Armenian, the other is Turkish, each of them has their own problems. But the internal censor insists that it is not the Turk's place, nor should the Armenian with his problems at that moment. And then the story is on the brink of destruction, and then you unwittingly switch to Aesopian language. As a result, you wrote something, but it looks like you didn't. Nevertheless. I think that artistic perfection is the beauty before which even the hand of a non-friend shrinks back. If, however, someone wants to make corrections in your writing, perhaps you yourself provide that opportunity with the imperfection of your speech. However, we know that real, solid literature was written and created in such unnatural situations. As for Armenian writers, I think that subconsciously we have never felt ourselves to be the full owners of this country and that is why none of us was opposed to regress in global issues, leaving that right to Russian intellectuals. Let's say, Solzhenitsyn could not be born among us, if only because he would not be deported from the country, but simply physically destroyed.
- The situation in literature has drastically changed. We learned a lot of new names. But Russian writers have overcome the zone of silence. The impression is that no one in the republics had unusual cases.
- It is a difficult question. Practically all our republics have found themselves in a situation where their own Berdyaevs and Gumilyovs will appear. After returning to their literature and establishing themselves, only those writers can return to the All-Union readership. In addition, after Solzhenitsyn, a large number of works were suddenly devalued and lost their meaning.
As for Armenia, the tragedies of recent years pushed us back for several decades. We must return what was lost not only in the economy, but also in culture. It is true that the Armenian diaspora has created a sufficiently interesting and unique cultural layer abroad in several fields of historiography and art, many works have entered international circulation. But we, even in our republic, let alone the whole country, are practically deprived of the opportunity to relate to that wealth. We have found ourselves in a mysterious situation, when the history of Armenia exists in two dimensions: one with the Soviet interpretation, the other without distortions, known to the whole world. We have been served with so much truth that we have become impoverished not only materially, but also spiritually.
- What was your relationship with the editors?
- We are all Tolstoys and, accordingly, we want to have our Makovetskys as editors. With us, the editor, as a law, is your worst enemy, starting with yesterday's girl who fancies herself neither a censor nor an editor who protects me from my own text. Not only am I frustrated with my editors, I'm sick of thinking about them. The editor is meant to reveal the hidden Mozart in you, not to be an executioner in the form of a half-literate, semi-literate lady or those young ladies who have appeared in countless numbers in publishing houses.
- With the elimination of censorship and editorial arbitrariness, the lie did not disappear. And for now, we are by no means immune to it. As Aksyonov aptly put it, "with the expansion of the spheres of conversation, the sphere of lies also expanded." In practice, the vast country is deprived of complete information about everything. How to live in that lie? I understand that this is not the best topic for a conversation about literature, but going back to the topic of silence, I think that in this situation silence is better than the non-truth presented as the truth.
- That next lie will once again create false literature, which tomorrow, not today, no one will need. The literature of the not-so-recent past, which required no less effort, was meant to replace genuine culture. Alas, before us is a blinding void. Piles of novels were written that today have become waste paper. Even today, half-truths and lies are being created. I don't even know how to fight against such fakes and imitations. Shall we create a new alphabet, a truth-seeking mountain? Are we not even capable of distinguishing truth from lies?
- No, we know everything very well...
- What if we don't know? It's one thing to know and be silent, it's one thing to know and speak. The word reveals the true extent of our knowledge. Do we really know everything? I don't think so. I just hope that we, the Armenians, are not the last among the peoples. We can continue to be hindered, intimidated and banned, but Armenia has seen more and, as we know, survived and will live. And our connections with the outside world will expand, however much, I repeat, it may be hindered by possible friendly or malicious, which are not few in various instances. One of them behaves like that without malice, automatically, in the good old tradition, because he can't do otherwise, and the other has far-reaching goals and hardly hides his enmity. It may be some kind of official, kindred soul, rotten in the apparatus, who has settled there like a lazy, slobbering cat in a hot corner, and at no cost will you drive him out of that corner. But where will he get lost, what does he need, if power is the only opportunity for him to tear off a piece of himself, and he will not cede his power to anyone under any circumstances. I often openly feel another resistance - the central government, for which, obviously, it is difficult to understand our problems, for which we are a small soldier in a big political game and that soldier can also be sacrificed. I didn't want to talk about it, but perhaps I should say that those in power have a logic: he is subordinate, so he is guilty of something. Because the sinner can be subjugated. He does not need a crowd of angels, he needs sinners, idlers, traitors, treasure thieves. They are easy to manage. What's more, you can always change the places of cause and effect. And the fault will be found if there is a fault. In the past two years, we have often encountered such facts.
Everyone was shocked by the tragic events in Georgia. But the first staging, where the role of the culprit was assigned to the people, was at our "Zvartnots" airport. Unfortunately, no commission was created to investigate the "riots" at the Yerevan airport, but even without that, the common scenario in which the troops are either late or too hasty to help is obvious. And the young man filming the incident died. I am sure that there would be neither the problem of Turks-Meskhetians, nor the mass murders in Baku and Sumgait, if those in power did not need to prove their irreplaceability. Look, they say, what anarchy will prevail in the country if you remove us from power.
- Do you remember: a few years ago, they brought you the notes of the eyewitness of the Turkish massacres of 1915, which shocked you with their naturalness. Could you ever imagine witnessing something like this? Even though it's not your subject at all, you have your world and suddenly... As a writer, would you ever describe all that we've experienced during this time?
- I touched on the sphere of social disasters in my books, but, I confess, I did so with the greatest unpleasantness, because the smell of decay constantly hit my nose and made me shudder. I imagined my future life not alongside my former heroes, but much earlier in the past. As for describing today's upheavals, perhaps there will be writers younger and stronger than myself. Recently, Samvel Shahmuradyan's documentary book about the Sumgait tragedy was published, and he, thank God, is as strong as before.
- And you never had the desire to engage in mere publicity? Don't you want to scream so much, to ring all the bells so that people will hear the truth?
- Prose is a natural state for me. In my last novel I described a specific situation, it seemed to me that it was only a slight digression on one side, a retreat to one side, not a great excursion into the past, from which I will quickly move on to my subject. But since I did not want to be superficial, imprecise, approximate in details even for a moment, that excursion was supplemented with details. There was also a murder (the events took place in the summer of 1918, during the invasion of the Young Turks led by Vehib Bey), and I suddenly, not wanting it myself, prophesied, predicting today's disasters. While working on the novel, I didn't want to reveal in words what was before my eyes. And I saw cowardice, treachery, all the human filth imaginable. But as soon as I got to the description of the murder, I put the pen down, I physically couldn't write it, my hand literally refused to hold a pen. Speaking of Rublyov, of being the THING from the beginning, I also meant myself... The events of Sumgait prevented me. Now I want to continue the novel again, but this time, unfortunately, as a "monetic-historian", I can hardly follow the Azerbaijani-Armenian events.
- At this moment, what solution do you see for the republic and the people?
- What I am going to say may seem absurd, but the way out is precisely in this state of affairs, where we have found ourselves. Life goes on, the people will come to their senses, stand up, and deal with their affairs. Many negative phenomena will come to the surface: everything will happen: buying and selling, various machinations. Those who leave will leave (I'm sure emigration will increase dramatically), those who stay will stay. Necessity will oblige to clean up not only the destroyed, but also all kinds of garbage. Before our eyes is the prosperous example of the present civilized world, which will not allow us to return to the past, neither to Stalin nor to Mao. Whatever we say, our life tends to exchange that experience, first as a surrogate that irritates us with its poor ways and possibilities, and then as a civilized life of its own. May God give us health to be able to participate in all that.
The conversation was led by R. EHIAZARYAN
"Literaturnoye Obozrenie"