“Oragir”’s last guest this year was Hrant Matevosyan, prose writer and chairman of the Writers’ Union of Armenia. Below, with some cuts, we present the great writer’s conversation with journalists.
Questions from “Oragir”
“During the existence of Armenia’s Third Republic, our artists—writers, painters, composers—seem unable to find their place. Sometimes they turn up in politics… In short, one has the impression they are doing everything except art. In your view, is there a place for the intellectual in our reality today? And where is it?”
“The question is a little worn, and I have addressed it before. I will probably have to repeat my best formulation on the subject. An epoch is changing. We have not passed from Armenia’s Second Republic to its Third; we have passed from one epoch to another. After the revolution we were preserved in a jar, left behind the world, and suddenly the gates were opened. The world rushed into us; we rushed into the world. A republic of an ideological nature suddenly found itself in another situation, another environment. And in that environment we are all bewildered, intellectuals and politicians alike. I myself long for clean public squares, for depoliticised language and conduct, for an ordinary citizen’s life. If we are a little honest with our conscience, we must see that today’s situation, with no outstanding writer or painter, was the same yesterday. The desert, after all, existed yesterday too. Broadly speaking, Armenian literature seemed to exist, yet again it did not. Those individual personalities were absent. Now too we are shaken by our reality, bewildered. I am glad of every more or less tolerable text: people can find themselves again and say something. I was glad, and am glad now, that Razmik Davoyan was able to continue ‘Requiem.’ It is very good that he could overcome things and write its second part, although it has neither the former energy nor the freshness of a youthful gaze. There are a few other authors. Aghasi Ayvazyan, for example. Have I strayed from the question?”
“I wonder whether you consider a non-ideological state possible.”
“If capitalism is an ideology, if capitalism is not something natural, then there can be no non-ideological states. But in my view it is not an ideology.”
“Yet every reality needs to be articulated. And its principal articulators are writers and artists. But today’s Armenia is not being articulated in art, nor is its future.”
“We were bewildered from the first days. When independence was granted, we did not seem enthusiastic, because nobody understood what was happening to us. Reality did not enter our thinking through language, did not become our vocabulary. Reality followed its own course, while its perception in poetry, prose and political parties followed an entirely different one. Reality did not yield itself to us. We were unable to take it into ourselves. Journalists sometimes accuse the writer, the intellectual, of avoiding reality. But it is not a fault. This harsh reality either did not yield to the writer or yielded only with difficulty.”
“Does the writer, the intellectual, in Armenia now know what he has to do? Does he see his task, have an idea of it?”
“Speaking from my own experience and feeling, I do not see my reader. I do not see that girl sitting at the end of the avenue, reading my book on her knees, to whom I am a hero. I fear we have all lost our reader. But let us regard this as temporary. Let us hope the people will see their prospects again, and values will return to their places.”
“In other words, just as time has pushed the artist out, it will bring him back?”
“Perhaps. But today’s reality is our misfortune, and I wanted not to be alone in it. A group of journalists came from France. I asked whether their books too went unread. He calmly took out his notebook, calculated and said that in recent years one million two hundred thousand copies of Camus had been sold in France. In effect, the French journalist left me alone in my misfortune. Yet the book’s role is generally diminishing, and not only here. It is happening throughout the world. And that is not the writer’s fault. Some record the unnoticed death of Armenian literature, but in truth it concerns all literature. I see the death of the book. Sometimes I think the fault is ours: we should be able to compel the public to accept the book, as Camus in fact did. But very few among us hold out.”
“You said you observe the book’s declining influence. What, then, will replace it in our lives?”
“Gevorg Emin once said: Levon Ishtoyan’s foot is replacing my head. He was offended. But there is no need to be offended. Levon Ishtoyan’s foot gave the public the emotion Emin’s head was supposed to give. And many things can supply that emotion: television, cinema, street design, cars, girls’ walks, clothes. All these meet the emotional need the people, in their half-worn clothes, satisfied yesterday through Nairi Zaryan’s ‘Hatsavan.’ Against the background of new realities, a group of writers will emerge who can make all this their platform and rise above that reality, just as yesterday’s figures rose against yesterday’s greyness. I am certain the writer will not die; literature will not die.”
“Over the past year there have been events on which your opinion is still unknown.”
“In those good old times, when there were no political disputes and political conversations arose only by chance, I used to say that if I founded a party, I would found a conservative one. Let me go further back and say that my attitude towards independence was reserved. I did not enter the Third Republic with applause but with fear and apprehension, because I saw the losses that today are growing at an enormous pace. Even then I could see that the people had their suitcases packed. Their thoughts were abroad. Besides, most income even then came from work away from home. There was not that much work here. This land could not support so many people. Naturally, to fend for himself, a person would have to leave this country. I regarded all that with fear. One small shock was enough for the fragile body that had somehow formed, called the country of Armenia, to collapse and crumble. That was what I feared. Neither Levon Ter-Petrosyan nor the immature ‘politicians’ living by their own egotism—whether Zori Balayan or Silva Kaputikyan—were the apple of my eye. There was a heartless attitude, the whole thing was foolish, and my response was reserved.”
“My friend, the painter Hakob Hakobyan, said that what would happen here was decided elsewhere. I was offended that he assigned our country the role of an object rather than a subject. But he was right. As for recent times, I have one great anxiety: nothing that takes shape is tolerated here. Neither an emerging democracy nor an emerging dictatorship is tolerated among us. Outside forces do not tolerate peace here. Through deception and bribery, they manage to draw people from among us to their side. This is certain. The first period, embodied by Levon Ter-Petrosyan, demonstrates it: they managed to discredit it, drag it through the mud and ruin it through Vazgen Manukyan. Now it is Robert Kocharyan’s period. You will see that they will not tolerate this either. Through someone, by someone’s hand, the great powers will destroy this peace to secure their prosecutorial presence here. I am in favour of peace, even a dictator’s peace. Every upheaval frightens and troubles me.”
Questions from other media
“Yesterday Robert Kocharyan established the ‘Golden Reed’ literary prize by decree. What do you think of it?”
“I must begin a little further back. Years ago I was awarded the Komsomol prize. The late Vardges Petrosyan was very upset that it had not been awarded to him. Overnight they arranged things, placing a note on the First Secretary of the Central Committee’s desk describing me as a drunkard and an immoral man. The continuation was later told to me by Komsomol secretary Stepan Poghosyan. He says Kochinyan summoned him early in the morning and told him the story. Stepan Poghosyan said the prize should go to neither of them, neither Vardges nor Hrant. What am I trying to say?… As though there were not enough rubbish, now they have dreamed up this prize.”
“This prize will very soon be discredited among us. Besides, the mechanism to ensure that a truly deserving person receives it is unclear. If there is no deserving person, let them not award it that year. It will be discredited… How were decorations discredited? They hand them out by the crate, and very soon the entire republic’s population will have its chest adorned with medals.”
“Who is to decide which writer deserves it? The victorious general Robert Kocharyan? Again they have not found the right form. Perhaps it would have been better to put a little money in one or two writers’ pockets so they could spend a couple of years in peace, simply writing. Levon Khechoyan, for example. If they are going to give it to him, let them give it as a prize.”
“What is your attitude towards Robert Kocharyan?”
“Kocharyan made two very good impressions on me: one during his interview with the Russian television journalist Karaulov, and then when he was Armenia’s prime minister. Beyond that I have nothing to say.”
“Why are you not writing now?”
“To be honest, the pen has fallen from my hand. The main reason is the absence of that girl sitting in the avenue, reading my book on her knees. I have lost her. Perhaps she exists, but I have lost her. A volume of Paruyr Sevak, in a print run of sixty thousand, used to sell out in a single day. Now Sevak’s six volumes are offered for six thousand drams, and nobody buys them. It is a heavy blow. They printed two thousand copies of Charents; five hundred may or may not have sold.”
“There is another reason too: I have nowhere to sit, withdraw and shut my eyes to our reality. I cannot clear my ears of that noise of 1988. I cannot rise above that reality. I do not know who will help me return to my wonderful work. I would like to return to it.”
“Oragir”, 26 December 1998.