A new millennium has arrived.
What happened?
What is happening?
How much did we understand?
How much do we understand?
To what extent are we the masters of the course of time and to what extent are we subject to it?
The faceless subordinate.
An era has passed. A period, a great period has passed, and an epoch is coming. He has come. And if not for the whole world, for us, the peoples of the territory of the Soviet Union, this is a very painful process. Unfortunately, this is a difficult course to bear.
We were thrown out of our time and out of time. The West has always been in the same process, and this new era is not unexpected for the West, it's time. It was a surprise for us, it was unexpected. And that's why it's sad.
I remember, during the writer's symposium in Portugal in 1989, where there were many great writers of the world, a respectable delegation represented Russian literature and the literature of the Soviet Union. Dissidents Iosif Brodsky, Sergey Dovlatov, half Armenian. I especially became friends with both of them, and today they are one of my most precious losses. There was Zinov Zinnik, Tanya Tolstoya from here, Anatoly Kim and Lev Anninsky. All dear, all worthy names. And during the meeting, the West, including the peoples of Eastern Europe, the so-called oppressed peoples, oppressed under the Soviet yoke, the Poles, the Czechs, even the Yugoslavs, retreated with joy, recording their progress and the retreat of the Soviet Union. At that time, many of us, perhaps even me, gladly joined their attack against tyranny, against this country. And the anxiety was most expressed on their faces, among those who were dissidents, when it seemed that it was their victory, their struggle was crowned with victory. That anxiety was much more in Iosif Brodsky and Sergey Dovlatov. They knew what horror would explode on our heads and what society, not a public order, but a society we would lose, what huge losses we would have, how many victims there would be. They saw it more than we did. They knew what it was.
Could it have been a smoother transition? I don't think it was possible.
It would have been a smooth transition and there would not have been these huge losses. It didn't happen, that soft transition didn't happen. It means it wasn't going to happen. The losses, the losses I'm talking about, are really heavy losses.
I expressed myself another time and found a fairly accurate formula. For an Armenian person, for my Armenian person, for me, the greatest loss is the loss of my imperial status.
In order to understand what this loss is, what it means. After the collapse of the Union and the departure of Russia, I had to lose my poise, I was no longer in the world, I would not stand in the world with a loud voice, I would not talk with powerful citizens of powerful states, about their presidents, about their culture, with a loud attitude, about their culture.
I consider it a huge loss.
Let me say that it was also thanks to that Union that I used to sing with such a high treble "I will march, I will see you in Cilicia", or I was caressing the issue of claims, or I was caressing the issue of revenge. All of that thanks to my Armenian-Russian, united life of those 70 and 200 years. Here. This is a huge loss.
It will be a long time before I find my voice again, find my loud voice again, nurture my dreams again, speak relying on justice from demandingness again. I must become a part of the world cultural empire, as, let's say, Narekatsi was in his time, when from Iraq, Persia to the Apennines, to the Atlantic Ocean he was a man, a citizen of a great Christian empire, and his voice was with God himself.
It will be a long time before it will ever be possible to join the world democracy, and my status will be equal to the status that the Soviet country gave me. I think my generation will not see it. And for now, we are a third-rate nation and we are a little bit with our votes, a little bit, we have already come to our voices, we have come to our situation.
Did we enter the 21st century empty-handed, with empty pockets? have we done anything, or are we completely helpless, completely deprived, only with losses? No, something has been created here.
The country, of course, lost. In general, countries are defeated after the defeat of ideologies, after the defeat of cultures, countries and states attack with force, of course, after the initial attacks of cultures. And one culture gives way to another, after which the troops of the invading country invade.
There was a cultural defeat in this country. Defeat to Western culture. That was the defeat of culture before free speech and free art. And, of course, it had to be followed by the defeat of the country's economy, army, and military power, in short, the country's defeat. Here.
The country of depleted culture, however, rushes into the new millennium, does it enter empty-handed, does it take nothing?
It does, however. Something is leading the world, humanity, future generations. He was able to record one thing. One of the greatest thinkers of the century, Charents, is led by Martiros Saryan, Aram Khachatryan. You will say now that they still rose from the 19th century, they were the inertial continuation of the great culture of the past, the Tumanian period, and the culture of the 19th century was recorded by the existence of those great phenomena in our reality. There is some truth in it, but also the other side of the truth is that, nevertheless, the children of this land, this atmosphere were and endowed themselves with themselves. They enriched our Gerbs with them. They endowed the republic, our nation, the Soviet country without culture. They became both the glory of that country and the certificate in the future, of these countries and of their time.
Something like another thought. It seems to me that there is an absolute truth. times and countries, nations, languages have, from the beginning, an inalienable honor to not remain barren, to crown themselves with culture. The language must not be silent, the language must become artistic, become something so that it can babble, speak, say, give meaning in other languages. Time also has that honor. He does not want to remain a desert. And, behold, the country, from the very beginning, with hard ideology, coercion, violence, which seemed to be condemned to black desert, barrenness from the very beginning, this country really blossomed and gave faces. Faces granted that they can be the glory of world culture.
I do not give other names.
I know that if, here, Charents, Saryan, if our other worthy names have emerged from the soil of the Tumanian times, then also in the coming times, people will also rise from the soil of our times, my times, who will be the side witness of my time and will also be the crown of their time. My words sound a bit strange, but that's it.
I hope, only nostalgic, nostalgic, a little sick, much more human, because no one can remember the past with a curse, and everyone sees light and warmth in the past; the enlightened one is not only the nostalgic attitude to my difficult childhood, my difficult youth, my difficult time, if I still see good things in that time. I think good things happened in that time.
My displeasure should be that, yes, why, this literature has proven its ability to be among the greatest many times, and in other languages, my fellow countrymen should have reached Saroyan heights, or profitable heights, or Arshil Gorky, or other and other names. Why, here, they didn't have that height, that's the strength of the name. Why couldn't they make their mark on the harsh, hard stone of time? This is a slightly different matter, and it is the truth. But it is also true that we can present a collection, a selection, a multi-volume selection to the world, which goes hand in hand with the literature of the world.
Can I speak from the cinema? as that cruel region of great significance, which was given the attention of the leaders of the country and which was also closely monitored, the Soviet cinema and the Armenian cinema with it did not become barren, it created things, work.
In the first period, after the confirmation of the violence of 37, the names Eisenstein and Dovzhenko had already shown their ability.
Freedom, the first period, the first period of the revolution, after that, the times of a decade and a half, when the richness of the literature and culture of the entire Soviet reality managed to manifest itself before the year 35. Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Mandelstam, Mikhail Sholokhov, Charents, Bakunts, the wonderful procession of Georgian writers and everywhere, everywhere.
It was interrupted violently. Fascism rose in Europe, and in response to fascism, nationalism here had to rise as a counterbalance, fascism here had to rise as a counterbalance. And here man, human rights and culture had to suffer losses. It was not entirely the fault of this country, Marxism, Leninism. It was the world's fault. It was the fault of the whole world that they threw evil here and started to walk on the side. Here.
However, even the war, even the times of war, did not remain barren and did their work. However, here too, cinema managed to get out of the military camp, very hard, very hard. 56-57 thanks to Khrushchev's wonderful ventilation, which rushed into all the cells like a cleaning wind and simply removed all the houses from the stench of violence and obsolescence. And after that, it should have happened. They created wonderful opportunities for the cinema and culture of this country. It might not mean anything to others, but it was a very big thing for this large area, including the territory of Armenia, including us, unimaginable, even for the new arrivals, what a breath of life it was.
What a breath of sunshine, what a breath of life, especially for my generation. What a breath of life it was for my 20-year-olds, that it was as if a different nation was emerging, as if we were completely out of touch with our parents, with the times of our parents. We were a people of a different spirit. And, of course, it was fruitful. the efforts of the country, the people and the authorities were crowned with a saving, one might say, saving culture. He was crowned, he was saved, he just managed to remove his honor, his curse, the curse of violence, from himself. And something arose that the world also accepted, welcomed, took into its fraternal family. Tarkovsky should have appeared. Tarkovsky would appear here, Chukhrai. I lived in Moscow for two years. I had an excellent teacher, leader, friend, Valentin Yezhov. That magnificent generation should have arisen here as well.
There, Tarkovsky and others, again there, Parajanov's masterpiece, indeed, "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors", both glory to Parajanov, and glory to those rulers of the homeland, who raised the barrier here and gave this man the opportunity to do his caprices, his whims, whims, such as his "Sayat-Nova". And that wonderful work was written on the front of Hayfilm.
There was the name Henrik Malyan. A wonderful person. It seems that he is not a big face, but he still managed to impose himself. He created a beautiful world: "Triangle", "We are, our mountains"... I will remember "Saroyan Brothers" later, Dovlatyan's other films. There are other names, it seems. In a word. But in the film studio of that time, there was something conflicting. I knew that a uniquely beautiful time was devoted to Armenian cinema, to the cinema of the small Armenian nation, where, let's say, the Norwegians, when they don't have a film ministry, don't throw so many opportunities and resources for cinema, but here it is thrown, and here the cinema, which will become our nation's foreign policy, domestic policy, as far as I know, was our unique opportunity to represent the nation, the nationality, the republic to the world: our army, that's all we have, we are good we didn't use that time. We did not use it well. As for Georgians, how Georgian cinema was able to use it well is well known to everyone. That was my annoyance. We did not use it well. But some good things happened. I would like our relatives in the diaspora, as well as today's Armenian audience, the Armenian man, to have his own film shelf created in those days, those wonderful days, to have a shelf of 15-20 good films, to have a library. That's where my frustration comes from.
Now those times have passed. I know poverty, I know the country's poverty, and I know that no rich person has that much, and even if he has, he will not open his pockets for such a charlatan case. Although, if they were smart, they should have opened it. Because according to my observations, other nations attach much greater importance to speech, theater, and books than to military effort. Christianly. Christianly, giving the emperor's to the emperor, leaving the material to the emperor, taking the verbal, Banin to themselves. And when you take the word of mouth, in the hands of the emperor, it's only a puffy body, a body that has left the spirit. that is, to take the Thing means to take the whole. We should be able to pay that attention to Ban.
What suffering, what a fight, what a long struggle Tumanyan had to get Armenian citizenship in Armenia, to enter the family of an Armenian. In the same way, even today we are facing the necessity of this purification, to bring into everyone's consciousness, Mantashov's consciousness, that the most important thing is the cinema, the most important thing is the press, the most important thing is the book, the world of things. If the world of things came to be, the world of matter will definitely exist. Here it is.
What will happen, what will happen!
Heavy. Culture in general, all over the world, culture is in a difficult situation. Regarding the West. I can understand based on their experience, and I can try to make you understand that there, painting, culture in general has entered everyday life, has become a part of the people's, people's life. Surprisingly, flower painting has become a part of urban planning, the streets are decorated with living flowers just like that, the country becomes a flower garden. the flower is unlikely to return to the frame and hang on the walls.
So is music, think. deprived of its classical form, has become one of the attributes of human existence, one of the things. There is no need, it seems, to go to the salons, to go to the church to listen to their Beethoven, their Bach. And here, again, it has become a part of human day. So is the book, actually. From the book, they have taken away the wonderful possibilities of that book, although the book is something else, but it is a big, big thing, bigger than the others. But they took away their book, that power of their book. They also ended up out of the game on par with the book. With what a huge effort, investment of funds, millions and billions, they want to make their work something noticeable.
It's a pity, alas, it's not ours. I don't know whether there is a question of agh or there is no question of agh. Alas, it is not only ours, and to hope that the writer, the book, the cinema will ever return to their vanguard positions of the Eisensteinian times, are futile expectations. It will never happen. And you, all of us today, are the witness of that.
What will happen in the future? Following the example of literature, the example of American literature, I assume that documentaries will have a progressive role at least in the first period. As it happened in literature after their Vietnam war. A literary trend called "New Journalism" was formed in American literature, we have another Armenian face there: Michael Arlen the Younger, Norman Mailer, one of their leaders, and others.
I said again, Paruyr Sevak's assessment is not prophetic, there is a very accurate assessment.
The wind sings some weather
That would bring honor to Beethoven.
A dim light on a dark horizon,
A newly discovered Rembrandt painting.
Shakespeare takes life
With its tragic dramas...
And we, you and I... play art!
And... with such conviction,
That the hero of Cervantes didn't have...
"And we, you and I, are playing art" is already a great art. Paruyr noticed the reality already at that time, the reality is that great art. And our weak pens, our myopic views, our weak brushes, the weak views of myopia, the brushes cannot cover that tragic deep, big, global, profound, cosmic reality. Reality avoids our culture, our culture. This is because of our weakness. Our wings cannot cover life in its entirety, its depth, its speed, its revolutionary moment.
Of course, it will certainly punish us and destroy all those poor attempts that pretend to be culture, but are not culture. And in this case, of course, there will be new Shakespeares, but copying the universal flow will be the reality, as it is. Because the unfolded reality is already the unfolded reality of previous great cultures.
The great director was probably named Dostoevsky, Charents, Tumanyan. The great directors were yesterday, who shaped today's day. Today, it is their unfolding reality that has come to life from the stage. Sure enough, the curtains of the theater seem to have been torn, the doors smashed, and the theater has descended into the street. Reality unfolded. That is already freedom.
What will happen?
This new reality will become popular consciousness and existence. And this new Shakespeare will rise to this new level, the new prophets who will conquer the future, their future.
And for now, until those Shakespeares are gone, those greats are gone, it is a documentary. At least let us have the courage, at least have the courage to see the reality as it is and, if we are not the prophets, then at least let us be the chroniclers of our times. Let us have the courage to be the documentarians of our times.
"View from Yerevan", 2002, N 2