On the occasion of awarding Hrant Matevosyan, writer, winner of the State Prize of Armenia, the State Prize of the USSR, the reporter of our newspaper Angela Hovhannisyan met the writer and asked him to share his thoughts with the readers of "Soviet Armenia".
- Dear Hrant Ignati, You excavate the small Tsmakut and your find, which is a human, joins the big family of humanity. How does the "literature-humanity" formula present itself to you?
- "From the beginning was the thing" - it is said in the Holy book. The word is the beginning of everything. Human history begins with speech. The word regulated the cosmic chaos, separating from it and naming light, darkness, star, man, grass. Speech is the key to the cosmic mystery. that is why the "literature" component of the proposed formula appears to me as the greatest responsibility to humanity. Culture creates a country, creates a people, and I think (I am convinced) that the culture of a country that has unleashed a war is also complicit in that despicable act of human destruction. so that culture needs self-cleansing. If there is an Armenian diaspora today, the reasons are not limited to the geography of the highlands, conquering tribes, etc., etc. culture is also responsible, so somewhere it has failed to fulfill its role of gathering, consolidating-completing.
Characters in literature lead the people, and if I feel good today, I don't believe in war, it's also because the "cut" of today's literature does not mark war, does not mark signs of domination. take any: Armenian, Russian, French, English literature. There is nothing there to destroy the human core. Armenian literature, which has a worthy place in world literature with its epics, Khorenatsi, Narekatsi, Abovyan, Tumanyan, Charents, is highlighted by a unique altruism. This is the literature born of a country and a people that has been eternally defeated, wronged, and divided. Every child of our nation has the pain of loss, and it seems that we should have become "the evil force in God's heaven", but see how harmoniously the entire Armenian literature is clapping, see how our great names burdened with pain willingly take on the pain of the universe, how they are united in carrying the cross of human salvation.
Let's remember where William Saroyan was born and then where Martiros Saryan or Tumanyan, Toramanian was born, it is difficult to see the geographical bridges connecting them, but what they have to say is solidified by ours. what is to be said is Man as an absolute value, greatness, responsibility for his fate, conscience, honesty. Let's listen to our song, let's listen to Komitas, let's listen to Armenian poetry, let's fix our eyes on the Hripsime Cathedral - the goal is love for people, saving humanity. The Great Saryan, which absorbed the terror of the heather with all its cells, drew the fertilizing power of the earth, no niche threatens the violent explosion of its flowers. Saryan did not paint the Evil One, he did not falsify the wonder of the world with images of destruction, his light unfolds justly, harbinger. Compare the Armenian folk tale "Master and Servant" with the Tatar version. in ours, the younger brother is satisfied with receiving the agreed-upon fee, in the Tatar version, he cheats in the kidnapping and takes the rich man's wife with him. But Pepo, cheated, wronged, upset, Pepo just says: "Give your honor, ask Arut" and considers his judgment as seen. So is our whole culture, always following the judgment of conscience. I think Toros Toramanian defined the essence of our art very correctly. "The beauty of the arts of other nations is exciting, often exciting and disturbing, and the beauty of our art is calming, soothing, leading to contemplation."
I am simply driven crazy by our epics, fairy tales, our rebellious, world-loving Little Mher, who will come out of the cave when wheat becomes more than nuts and barley than roses. but isn't this the will of the people? And how devout are the people who tell the epic, they believe in the myth, the myth, they love, they forgive, they are humble, they are brave... Every year I must read it, I force my family members to read it. it's all so beautiful!
- How do you think your "writing" is related to Armenian and world literature?
- I was a fourteen-year-old boy, I wasn't strong, but since I was between 8-11 years old at that time, I was the strongest, and the farmer gave me the plow, he went hunting. even now I can hear how the soil was creaking under the plow. above was the moon, on the yoke was the child. it was our corn, it was our land, we drove it... The boys were sleeping on the yoke and every now and then they were dripping like ripe pears. All of them later became decent people. Sort them all out.
Years ago, I had the courage to go to harvest in the village. Now I have weakened (no drinking, smoking, coffee). I mow, I see a man standing on the hill looking at me. He stands and looks. I am ashamed of my mowing, but while mowing I am getting closer, I am getting closer, let me see a child.
- How is it that you don't sew, you make rice, - he says, - you also draw papyrus.
- Let's eat bread, - I say.
- My bread is dry, I won't break it, don't you have any fruit? (In the mountains, bread dries much faster than the wind). What are you going to do in the future, he says.
- I will go to the village.
- Pa! You'll come to me, I'm not here, you'll be a friend.
In the evening I went to the boy. The father handed over 150 head of calf to the six-year-old boy for three days, he himself went after the patient. That evening came. He came, lightly, lightly, barely noticeable patted the boy's head.
"Hambri, I will give you bread," he said.
The boy hung from the tarek, got up, his shirt was torn, the portico was open, he took down the bowl of honey from the tarek, put it between his two legs.
"Give me water," he said to his father. And before his father brought water, he fell on his back, snored a little, fell asleep. Sleep sweetly... I know this is a man, he will take care of himself, he will take care of me too, if he takes care of 150 calves.
This is what my post is about.
My father is 77 years old, he harvests. If there is half an hour of sun on wet autumn days, it will be mowed. He knows that what he mows will rot from the rains, but since it is sunny at this moment, he will mow the grass, he must mow it. He does not harvest for himself, the collective farm. Its benefit is not direct here, it is mediated, but direct is the grass, the sun, the conscience. My father Ignat has a habit from the time of walking, where he saw a stone lying on the road, he should throw it aside. Is it not important for them the road to the village, the road to Ashtarak, the road to Yerevan... it is a stone lying on the road, it must be thrown aside. This is the action of the owner of the earth, the owner of the soil, the owner of the stone.
One day, Sahyan said, "Is there a horse grazing in the middle of two fields?" And I remembered that I was a hungry boy, they gave me the horse of the secretary of the regional committee to graze. The horse ate, the horse swelled, I was full. That's right. You love the horse, you love everything with the horse - it is a living beauty.
A man is spoiled by idleness. Every time I look at the destroyed land under the wheels of the car and remember our wheat during the war years. We got eight cents of wheat per hectare, it was bad wheat, we lived half-starved and sent almost all eight cents to the front. A man was growing beside that wheat. That person would not throw the cattle in the neighbor's field, the collective farm field, they were plowers and sowers, they knew one thing for sure: you can't cheat the land. Beside that winding field grew a wonderful people.
We lost that rusticity. now the man of the land is watching how the machine does its work, now we are throwing bread into the landfills. Bread!
Whatever I wrote is about my world, the people I know, sometimes I change names (they get upset), sometimes I don't change them (they still get upset). For me, every real person is more precious than all kinds of abstractions, because battalions are made of abstractions; so many people died. Every real person is the work of centuries, the creation of a thousand years, there is Shakespearean tragedy, Schillerian soaring, Tolstoic purity in every Tsmakutz person, why should I invent a person, invent a life? I am a photographer, a documentarian in my country and I am very satisfied with the life I have.
- What would you like to save a Tsmakutz and non-Tsmakutz person from?
- Ambitious from the culture that gathers armies, takes its ideals with weapons to other people's land, wraps them around people's necks, as if there is an idea bigger than a person. Let's remember and hate Alexander the Macedonian, Napoleon, Hitler. It is a terrible thing when these epidemic "ideas" break out in great nations. Like-minded with my country and its ideology, I see my mission in instilling respect for man, for every man, for a specific person.
To the originally wonderful, tragic, heroic man.
"Soviet Armenia", 22.11.1984.