- Why has time stopped for us, and since a long time ago? What was urgent, let's say, during the reign of Khorenatsi, is still urgent today. And all the individuals we remember and know, in fact, become ours, our contemporaries...
- They are truly contemporaries, blood relatives, and ideologues, one eternal request for Armenians. they see the nation's salvation in statehood. That issue is what makes them grow to giants, from Khorenatsi to Abovyan, Tumanyan, Charents. That one question is their weakness in all measurements, the weakness of Armenian literature. Instead of other penetrations, other deepenings, the eternal question of statehood is everywhere. A wall that our great men have always faced. In other words, at the same time, they were doing what Russian reality, Russian life has distributed between its two great figures: Peter the Great and Pushkin the Great. Russian life chose Pushkin for cultural giantization, and Peter was given the task of promoting the state. In this sense, Petros and Pushkin are together in Tumanyan, both weakening and strengthening each other. Im Tumanyan, not having Peter the Great behind him, taking on the national issue imperially, has turned the essence and weakness of his literature.
- Ten years ago, we seem to have solved the problem of statehood. now why do we consider the issues raised since Khorenatsi to be relevant? If Latin American literature was able to break away from its national problem by resorting to metaphysics and mythification, there is nothing new to write or think in our reality. What is written is written, what is thought is thought. And... Nothing is done. Moreover, it is also not done...
- It also pained me why Salvador Dali did not appear in Armenia, in my Saryan. Ditto for others. How many times has the Armenian aesthetic thought, in relation to the world of metaphysics, in relation to the supernatural, retreated due to the national problem. Saryan, yes, being within the limits of metaphysics (remember the period of his fairy tales), pulled back to depict the coat of arms of Armenia, a symbol of harmony and care. Those related to the world of Marquez and Dali, Charents, returned to Armenia, the Motherland, the history of the Armenians, and involved the poet in the state thinking.
- Maybe we were not ready for the restoration of independence and statehood? As you said, there have been ferments for centuries, thought for centuries, and everything has come up against the same wall, which has not been destroyed or collapsed in any way. But ten years ago, whether by our will or regardless of us, the wall was destroyed. why can't we make a step forward and are we now standing in front of the former place of the wall? And maybe it was easy for us to think that we will constantly hit the wall. and not only did we not think about the demolition, nor after that, we did not even see it. We did not imagine. Or our capacity is only up to that wall.
-...What have I done so far? Have we taken stock of losses and gains or not?
What did independence take, what did it give?
The process has failed.
- Who would do it? We constantly say: we didn't do it, we didn't do it... Who was going to do it, why didn't they do it? After 1988, all successive governments have repeated the mistakes of their predecessors and added their own. How are we, for example, better than the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the others who lived in Korang? maybe we are lost too, we just don't realize it yet.
- What would we do to say: we were, we are?
- In the previous country, we were able to enter both the union and world arenas. we were able to express ourselves, now...
- We were in that country. we were neither too good nor too bad. Now we will be again when we find ourselves in the new country, the great country of the world democracy, as full members as we were in the country of yesterday.
- But are we taking any steps or are we sitting and thinking, "After all, Hitler would have fallen from a stone?", Armenia would become Switzerland, Japan would become, and we are not doing anything so that Armenia would at least become Armenia.
- Do you remember Charents? "Nairian Paradise". Let me remind you.
Once I entered the museum of our revolutionary.
The driver was sitting there having a quiet conversation
With a very famous group leader. - When you came out -
Go, I said to my friend, enter the museum.
Sitting comfortably in our revolutionary museum
Dan Nairyan and Uncle Makhno are talking.
Once, so I remembered, and I was asked, who is that Nairian Dan? I still don't know who Nairian Dan was. Indeed, an ignorant generation has come before its history, a generation that does not know its history, that is not thirsty for knowledge of science or the world. And in the conditions of this ignorance, he cannot be a supporter of any current idea.
- Do we even have a story to tell? Who happened to be...
- We do not have history as a chronicle of the development of emperors and nation states. Maybe our history has progressed in such a way that, not having its own template in the world historiographical experience, it could not write its history by the hands of scientists. Of course, we had history: the amirs, the services of your sons in foreign imperial palaces, the charities, the history of your religion and culture, the history of your colony, the history of your migrations. This is also a story. And how is it that the story of the fall and rebirth of the Jews becomes history and the Bible?
- The history of the Jews is clear: it has always been guided by one goal, ours is a coil of contradictions, even in the 20s of the 20th century, they play their own game in numbers and...
- Don't tell them that they don't exist, it's us, we all are.
- Okay, our 20s. were the may events a rebellion or a riot? The same in 1921. In February, was it a rebellion or a riot? Before you know it, what lesson will you learn? After all, the class of rebellion is different, the class of riot is different. We have narrowed down our history a lot, and each of us, looking at what we see from our point of view, makes an assessment of the era and the event.
- In my opinion, Mayisyan was a rebellion, which, unfortunately, did not win. In my youth, I was proud of the fact that Sepuh subdued the 2,000-strong garrison of Alekpol with 600 Mausers, including the future Marshal Baghramyan. Unfortunately, the uprising did not succeed, otherwise Kars, Ardahan and Nakhijevan would have been ours. After the overthrow of the rebellion, Armenia was seen in Moscow's eyes as a nationalist country, as it had been under the Tsar with its aspirations for independence, and was punished by losing territory.
- But Russia was also punishing itself...
- With what?
- Armenia was part of Russia, wasn't it, the loss of our territory was also the loss of its territory.
- His what! He lost from Armenia, he gained from Azerbaijan, and in order to win the sympathy of the East, he acquired an ally like Turkey. Isn't that right?
- Perhaps, but why do we devote every five years of our country and our lives to erasing the previous ten years?
- I am not one of those erasers, I have my principle as a writer: what gave birth to mother Armenia are my sons, I own everything.
- But the dominant socio-political thinking is that every previous government is called a former criminal regime...
- It is due to partisanship. In order to make their work easier, they take a small part of the big whole and overcome it wonderfully. their article or writing or even a short day in power succeeds and the big story fails.
From the time of the first parliament, there was the way of the round table. the first republic was destroyed by our partisanship, the weakness of the third is also partisanship. We must overcome party egoism.
- Why is your voice not heard, why is a party created every day and does not add anything new to the existing one?
- Machiavelli used to say. "Societies love it when even the greatest and most humane ideas are forced upon them by force." Moses forced God's word on his people by force.
- Why does the state not resort to that "violence"? When we are 6-7 years old, we don't get tired of the thirst for learning, the desire to gnaw on the "granite of science", our parents take us to school and force us to teach a lesson until we reach the sixth grade. Why does the government not assume the role of a parent towards its people?
- We are not thirsty for anything. As soon as he entered literature, the young Azerbaijani writer got up and went on a journey, he reached Vologda to see Vasili Belov, he went to Irkutsk, he found Rasputin, he came to Yerevan to meet me. He was thirsty to know what world he lives in, where he is entering. Like a bird, he decided to soar and know the boundaries of the sky where he would fly.
Perhaps the boys of the early awakening period were so thirsty among us: Nikol Aghbalyan, doctors, historians, economists went to European universities, Shant, the post-biological generation. We are not a thirsty people. After them, an ignorant, narrow-minded intelligentsia arose. Nationalism and "Ekhern" were considered a degree of civic courage and knowledge, when they mean nothing by themselves...
- And maybe we don't get along with ourselves?
- I hope that there is honor among nations and times, and we will not let our country and time remain a desert after us.
- Maybe, but we go back and forth. What if we cannot live on our own? and if we need someone's boot, we need Moscow, Tizbo or maybe Washington. Or at least New York.
- It's also a road, but don't say it's a boot. During Sapog we lived in a big country, now we have to become a part of the big world.
- How is that? There is no value system. all standards are lost, it's all the same - one score. Who says what he wants, who does what he wants. There is no size, no weight, no rating...
- A Russian writer published a short story in the 60s, "Virunin". Revolution, louse, NEP, White Guards, persecutions, victory of the reds, from the Black Sea to the South Caucasus and beyond. The whole class was marked as a soldier and a commander, a hero, but one of the boys was not seen in the middle. Back in school, he was a little weird, he wanted to create a perpetual motion machine. And after the war, they go around and see that he built a perpetual motion machine in the meadow of a village in Tambov marz.
Let's hope one of us is building a perpetual motion machine in our garage.
- It is possible in literature. it's beautiful, it's impressive, it gives an ideal, and in life, no eternal engine, as we've been convinced, is really built, because it's simply not possible... Instead, we lose a generation in search of the same engine. Or a completely empty place.
- Yes, we lost the generation.
- So, how are we going to tie the chain?
- What was connected to connect that?
- In order to have a tomorrow, we must connect those links today. We have to solve three issues at least today.
- What are those questions?
- Let's make this land a country, a state and a Motherland, solve the Karabakh problem, reveal the crime of October 27. Which one of these has at least a sketchy answer? It becomes a vicious circle until these issues are resolved, you don't know what will happen to your culture, what will happen to your industry, what will happen to your agriculture... We cannot solve any issue because we have not solved the Karabakh issue, we are not solving the Karabakh issue either, because we are a weakening country day by day and we are experiencing a retreat due to one thing and another, and the end is not in sight.
- Under no circumstances should Karabakh be given away.
- We neither give nor take... Nor can we leave in the same state. You don't even have a face...
- Yes, you don't have first person. Anyone could be the first person if they gave themselves the right to be the first person.
- Why doesn't he give it?
- He does not see himself as fair and entitled.
- In that case, what are our different resolutions for?
- Imagine that your nation has no dreams, no romance, no memory... what will you do?
- Dream, romance, memory should have at least some strength, some value, so that you can talk to others as equals... Who gave something to the weak, who put something in place? We are a people celebrating 1700 years, but we are not really novice Christians.
- And who is that deep Christian among all your nations of the world?
- I don't know, but it's not us, that's for sure...
- We came out of the heavy economic-political struggle defeated and again the same rules are being imposed in order to withstand the competition. worker to worker, trader to trader, writer to writer. We will have to endure.
- First of all, you need spirit to endure that competition, right? I have to see, understand my tomorrow, to live today in that rhythm, preparing for tomorrow. If we had not consciously gone for independence, if we had not participated in the referendum as a nation, we would have barely endured the cold, hunger, darkness, and war for three or four years. It was that spirit, wasn't it, that ensured not only survival, but also victory...
- It is impossible to turn back, simply impossible.
- We are nationally indifferent, inert or fragmented, be as clean as you want, at least the smell of mud will stick in the swamp. What is salvation?
- Salvation... Of course, our situation is not a situation, but neither is the enemy. There is a place under the sky for both of us.
- Shall we place our hopes on others?
- How many years have you followed someone else's flag? When we met ten years ago, what did we talk about? What country have you been to? Where was your God, where were you going on pilgrimage? After the demolition of the walls, the pilgrimage continues.
- At that time, we lived in hope of the light at the end of the tunnel, now not only the light, but also the tunnel is not visible. Maybe you need to find some idea...
- There is no need to find an idea, what idea? Your TV maker will make a TV like a Japanese, your car maker will make a car like a German, you will have to push him out of the market, your dram has to give bread equal to the well cared-for European dram. What idea?
- Why doesn't my dram give me bread?
- We always want to please someone in Europe or America. We have never advanced our course, we have not done what we have to do, we have not liked it.
- Why?
- I will go by my word, I will go in my march, I will have my army. We took those steps and saw what happened. They punished on October 27. This might have scared our other officials, maybe not directly, but it gave us a good idea of what to do. In this case, the leaders of my nation are very noble if they listen to the imperative voices and behave themselves to please those who are the masters of our skies.
- But it is possible, isn't it, to find the commonality between us and our lords of the sky? At least the points of interest.
- It is very difficult. Even if in natural sciences the answer to 2 times 2 is four, in this case you don't know what it is according to cosmic laws. Finding a unified answer is very difficult.
- Because the ratio of responsibility and power was not found. why not put self aside for our sake?
- The country needs a king and the king needs a will: a king and a royal will.
- Shall we have?
- As a citizen of the Republic of Armenia, I will place myself under the subordination of every ruler of this country, if this subordination will cause unity and respect for us among other peoples and tribes. Vazgen Sargsyan was on that path and that's why they didn't let him go forward.
- Now why are they discrediting him, he is already dead, safe...
- It's a horror. I keep my word that I will never seriously address that defamation.
- Why ever? Why not now? Now if we don't stop it, nothing for Vazgen, Demirchyan, others, we are removing the soil from under our feet, the soil of the country.
- I was ridiculed when I was the first to say that it is easier to see Vardan Zoravar in the historical distance than a living Sparapet next to you. It is easy to find God 100 years and 1000 years away, but see the Virgin Mary in your parents and see your Savior in your brother, from your flesh and blood.
- They laughed out of fear. Power is feared, and the distant and the dead are safe. The living strong are uncontrollable and dangerous. And they were not only afraid of you and what you said, but also of the implementation of what you said.
-...Yes, sanctify and submit, then destroy... It brings a very strange, deadly peace.
- In the language of politics, it is called stability.
– As a sandpaper finished, glittering and dead constancy, from which nothing is born, which is death itself. With the color of death and dead hardness.
- In one of the interviews, you said: "Who are we to reveal October 27?" Do you still think so?
- I said and I say, remembering who is in charge of the trial on October 27.
- How are we going to do it?
- Literature and history have revealed so many beautiful and high qualities in the past and present thousands of people of your nation...
See your people, rely on those qualities and consider them in the context of others.
- The main hero of your literature is the Lord, the core is the idea of the Lord...
- The Lord is among us, by our side, we must not let him destroy.
-...And what should we do to build instead of destroy?
- We should see a builder in him. Let's see motherhood. Land and victory. Pursuit of beauty. Let's see the strength, relying on which we overcome the herring and do not drown.
- Is the basis of your optimism real or...?
- It is a problem of concept.
Peter tied the wings of the Cossacks of the entire Ukraine, the Zaporozhian Sech, and drove them north to stop Petersburg in the newly conquered swamps. He closed the borders so that goods could not be imported into Russia, so that the Russian musician could work himself. That was a man's move. It was a man's risk. Take your step in your country. Don't interfere with someone else's march. Have your own march. At the head of our procession was not our flag woven by our hands, we followed someone else's procession. In the process, men appeared, they were able to be shrewd, tactful, intelligent, strong-willed, warriors in the field of trade, deception, and war, they built an army, they made us reckon with the world, they dragged our behavior under us like our horse and gave it a course, they were able to stir up envy and they punished them heavily.
We repaid.
But what was once possible is still possible. Wasn't a prodigy. Our honor, our womanhood will find itself again. Nations and times have that honor, I repeat, they do not leave a desert behind them.
-...And what about art, culture, literature?
- Literature creates Christ. Luke, John, Matthew, Mark wrote the Gospel. The book was created and transformed the whole world. Khachatur Abovyan revived the past of Khorenatsi, Vardan Zoravari. The Nation's Past and the Nation's Prospect. What does your literature do? Literature is Raffi's, can you deny it? Abovyan's, Tumanyan's, Charents's, will you deny it?
- Are they still today?
- They always are. There are no big names today, but let's take a look at ourselves, why were there yesterday and not today? Why was Paruyr Sevak a bigger presence than Vardan Zoravar yesterday...
However, if the square is empty today, it is not the fault of the contemporaries, it is the fault of the time. 20s Charents exploded like lightning and filled the square with itself, because there was a world revolutionary-democratic movement behind it. Your nation was ready for that explosion. Even today, there are bright-good names, not many, but there are.
- How do you evaluate the past ten years?
- It is fate. We were and we were not going to be anyone else. What was to be done was done.
What have we done to prevent it from happening?
What I considered an omission was done by superior power among our neighboring nations and ended in failure. There was Chechnya, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Yugoslavia...
Whatever Levon Ter-Petrosyan did or did not do and ended up with this situation, otherwise it would have ended in tragedy.
The absence of Vano, the death of Vazgen, the defamation and distortion of others is a terrible loss for the whole nation and for me. They would be a national power with the existence of a ruling emperor. Today's attendees are also defiled-distorted and more absent than the murdered Vazgen, the exiled Vano.
What would Pushkin be without Russia, what would a bell or an organ be without a cathedral...
Let us be soldiers and commanders for each other. how beautiful our union would be!
- Well, shouldn't there be revenge among us? Shouldn't we remove the filth and garbage from among us, should we tolerate, forgive...?
Are we the promise or the Prince?
- We are both the promise and the Prince. We must protect ourselves. They defend their existence with their teeth. Do you own your enemy's respect or flattery?
- In honor.
- So be strong, don't give yours to someone else.
They will take as much as you gave. Tara: they will get stronger, they got stronger - they will calm down.
Now you decide whether you are the Prince or the Promise...
Anahit ADAMIAN
"View from Yerevan", No. 4, 2001