Yerevan is my city, as familiar as my skin, close, painfully mine. Yerevan is my city. I love Yerevan the most when the most beautiful flowers in the world open, the dark hawthorns, then the poplars bloom, one night, and the next day the city is enveloped in a half-real-half-real fog of poplars, and finally the conifers bloom. Why am I writing all this? What does this have to do with the next essay? Perhaps none. Perhaps the closest. I didn't like him in my student years. For those who grew up on the asphalt, he was complicated and tricky. it was easy to replace the intense pleasure of hard-to-read literature with daily detective work, fast-paced poetry, and other worldly writing. Teryan said about Tumanyan that he loves him very much, but his pathos is not his pathos. I was not Teryan, but definitely "his pathos was not my pathos". Hawthorns were still blooming in my yard. Then there comes a time when the accessible page is no longer read. The conifers were blooming, and I realized that yes, I grew up on the asphalt, I set my foot in the village on a parade route, but I wrote "Transparent Day", "Metsamor", "Green Field", "Old Mountains Under the Open Sky", "Trees". Not a little. Not much. Literature does not exist in towns and villages, literature is either there or it is not. This literature is in me, in my generation with its best half, with our best half we are. That's how we keep ourselves and our mountains standing, and even if we are pack horses, to a greater or lesser extent, all of us, our running is often our duty, instead, in Ahnidzor is our world, our autumn sun, our hangover, damn the city of Tashkent, and...
– Your first entry into the Writers Guild.
- I was a typewriter at the printing house, among the many and varied materials that came to the printing house, for me, without special effort, the materials of "Literary newspaper" stood out. I did the composition of materials related to literature. Apparently, I was a good typewriter, I also proofread when composing, and the proofreaders and editorial staff brought me to the "Literary Newspaper" for the first time. I was 20-22 years old. Maybe 20 to be exact. I got a job in a newspaper and then a magazine, my favorite people were H. Sahyan, V. Davtyan, A. Aristakesyan, H. Felekyan, the others... It was my world. Basically, GM's contribution to my writer's biography is difficult to assess. Being wrong is worth fearing. When I look back, it seems like a very disturbing circumstance, but if it wasn't for GM, I don't know what my life as a writer would have been, would it have been the life of a professional writer or a person dealing with literature from case to case? The presence of GM is difficult to assess because the image of its absence is terrible.
- Can "Vernatun" of Hovhannes Tumanyan be considered "Union of Writers"?
- With the emergence of Tumanyan's "Vernata", the panorama of Armenian literature with past, present and future was opened and expanded. The correct answer is this. "Vernatun" gave birth to Abovya and Sayat-Nova, saw and covered the times of Khorenatsi, appreciated Narekatsu, accepted Teryan, created a wide circle of readers around him. "Vernatun" opened horizons for literature. In fact, thanks to "Vernata", literature took a civil status in the nation and society.
- How do you imagine the HMU today in the new times, which are fundamentally different from the previous times, what is the mission of the HMU today?
- I am not that naive that "Let the lights", "Requiems", H. Sahyan's poetry... directly related to GM activity, as if there was GM and masterpieces were created. The absence of a GM is terrifying to me. When I was a free man, more or less independent, among the famous people of the republic, a member of parliament, etc., etc., even then, even for a free man, the absence of GM caused a feeling of weightlessness and dizziness. That was my feeling, and that young man, that girl who is called and is on her way to the great Bani, but has no address and destination, seems to have no place to go. Maybe GM is a beacon, maybe it's a deception of a mirage, I don't know either, but the child who is called not to become a shopkeeper, is called to come to literature, will be sure that he has his own ministry, his place to go, his path leads to a certain place.
- Does this mean that today GM will voluntarily assume the role of a nanny, a mission to take somewhere, take care of, educate, cherish?
- Like it or not, yes. The role of endowment and encouragement to the society, imposing and confirming civil status for the state and the people for maiden poetry and gentleman prose. Literature is a production, as important as this or that province, and any government interested in the nation and their own power is obliged to create at least a favorable field for that production. it will be done in our country, the state will do it through GM.
- According to you, what should be the relationship between writer and society, what is the writer's place in the life of society?
- However, the role of the writer, apart from the duty of reflecting reality, researching and revealing life, is to inspire the society, to create characters that lead the society. The world is led by characters, the nations of the world make their way through their characters.
- "Are you going to be a crusader, a prophet and a martyr?"...
- Yes. "You will go to the stake and the cross not as a slave, but as a hero." It sounds loud, for those of us who are humiliated, it sounds loud, but we must remember whose sons we are: Khorenatsi, Abovyan, Tumanyan, entire eras have been sealed with our names. Khorenatsi region, Narekatsi region... We must not forget this.
- Paruyr Sevak said it is enough to hide behind Narekatsi, Tumanyan, Charents. The time will come and ask: what have you done?
- That's right. If there is reproach in what you said, I accept it.
- There is anxiety in what I said.
- Anxiety and scolding, I accept. Both Tumanyan and Charents were more open, courageous, brave and wise in front of their time than we are in our time.
- And more defenseless.
- No, more knowledgeable, more broad-minded to perceive, include, transform reality. Another question is, did they manage to change anything?
- Do you agree that they were more for us of the future than of their time?
- No. They were for their time. And as much as their time is our time, so they were for us. They were what they were, and the writers of their generation, from the 1870s to the 1920s and 1930s, were braver and more knowledgeable, active, progressive than ours, who were more reserved, submissive. The spirit of sovereign initiative was denied and the leadership of the country was handed over to the slaves of totalitarianism. Blameable, not blameworthy?
- The power was not handed over voluntarily, it was taken by compulsion.
- It's not like that. Statehood was cherished by people, salvation of the nation. Statehood, more or less, took a tolerable form, and naturally, the leadership of the country was given to the authorities. The writer was assigned the role of an embellisher. As in the Middle Ages, miniaturists were assigned only to decorate the main biblical texts, so we were given the role of a miniaturist, a margin decorator to the main ideology. For 70 years, it was reserved for us. But from the very first days, literature found itself and was able to turn the margin into a main text with new content. this is how Charents was born, this is how other monuments were born that named time. Instead of portraying socialist reality with socialist realism, we nevertheless found reality and gave a picture of the times.
- Was that image always real and true?
- Leaders of nations, peoples, periods are the images created by writers. It is the duty of every writer to create a character to lead his nation. And if today the Armenian society goes after that image, does not sing its song, does not speak its words, that is the weakness of Armenian literature. With a reduced role, literature has created a harsh image, and the people are now not following their own image, but following the hard-earned American. What he adores is not his idol, it is not what he found, it is not created by his standards. That is the weakness of our literature.
- Your understanding of the writer-party relationship, the problem of the writer's partisanship according to you.
- The writer can move armies of angels and devils, but not be in either this or that army. I am a confederate, Honchakian, Ramkavar, ANM member and I am not a confederate, I am not a Honchakian, Ramkavar and ANM member, because if, let's say, I am a confederal party, other parties are excluded from me, which also have the same right to a national and friendly life. And so, I am all of those things, but I don't have to mold myself into anyone.
- But can a writer be a party member?
- Why can't he? Is it possible? And kudos to the party that is able to have those giants of comprehensive thoughts and emotions. If a party is so comprehensive that it can contain the non-partisan comprehensiveness of the writer, this speaks only for the quality of that party.
- The writer and the state, the writer's influence on the state policy, the writer's role in the relationship between the state and the people.
- The vision of the state took refuge, protected in us, relied on us. Armenian statehood is the child of an Armenian writer. The active Arshakunis and Bagratunis were remembered, discussed, ignited and revived as a new Armenian statehood in the Armenian writer.
- Today, how can a writer influence the state policy, becoming an intermediary link between the people and the state?
- By imposing mental and spiritual hardening on statesmen with Tumanian-Charents courage. Clinton says about Churchill: "To create an anti-fascist front, he summoned all the power of Shakespeare's English." This is what I would give to my politicians.
- Maybe the writer should be an oppositionist and target politics from the position of the opposition?
- Directly, when necessary, that too.
- Your description of the new generation of Armenian writers.
- There are people who are quite sensitive to life, open and capable to new art, new times, I hope for them. both as a senior and as president of the AMU, my concern should be to think about them, seeing in them the immortality of yesterday's literature and myself.
- 80's many artists complained that their creations do not reach the society, during the period of reconstruction, this opportunity was given, but it turned out that there was almost nothing to be published. What should be done today so that there are no "misunderstood geniuses" tomorrow?
- We are in a difficult situation not so much because of yesterday's murderous literary policy, but because an era has ended and a new one has begun. The previous one could be called the era of literature, in other words, of ideologies. Now we have entered a period where the book is destined for a difficult life. Add to this difficulty the special difficulties of the disintegrated USSR, and let's still hope that the book and the writer have their stable place, that there is a constant greatness that gives birth to a book, makes a book live.
- In that case, what is the role of criticism? Don't you think that there is a crisis in criticism in terms of overcoming the eras you mentioned?
- Criticism is given a lot of space from the beginning. Today, perhaps, is the time for literary forces to be concentrated in the field of criticism. The new age must first overcome criticism. Even if we don't have good literature, good criticism is a must. "Sos and Varditer" has no value other than ethnographic, Nalbandyan's "Criticism" is a real value. Criticism today has to overcome a certain path in front of literature, although the interdependence of these phenomena does not give much space to fall back and forth from one another.
- M. of Moscow The Gorky Institute of Literature is almost inaccessible today. Is it possible to create such an educational system in Armenia, if so, with the cooperation of which institutions?
- The creation of such a system is a necessity. Perhaps at university. But the right thing is to maintain contact with the outside world. young people should go out, see the world, search, make mistakes, find. Connections with the outside cannot be lost. The way out is to create such connections and systems both here and abroad.
- Armenia and you in 2000.
- "I dream of a bright river,
Marble houses on its banks,
There are sleepy girls walking around
Telling each other about my life"...
Here is both my homeland and me...
Yerevan is his city. He is a difficult person, and because he is always with him the pain of this country, the anxiety of this country, the hope of this country, the past, the present, the future, it is difficult with him, impossible without him.
There is a succession of eras in literature, and today literature is trying to find its new status, the new watchword with which the doors of the future will be opened.
And under the thousand-year sky of the world, a person will wake up, maybe at night, maybe early in the morning, and the coldness of the white paper will become a stone of temptation, the white paper will seem defenseless and weak against the brute force of the world, the white paper will become a wall and a fight, so that in this city first the hemlocks will bloom, then in one night, the poplars, at the end of the spring, the conifers. Under the thousand-year sky of the world, this man is doomed to be the genius of his tribe, because without him, the tribe will lose its way, its smell, its color, its memory, its history that does not fit within its borders, its defeats, its meanness, its frenzy to win, its passion to fight, its love to love... That person today is Hrant Matevosyan, a man who calls time.
Anahit ADAMIAN
"Republic of Armenia", 8.06.1996