I really like one of the stories he tells. Davit, his son, was very young when they first took him to Ahnidzor, Hrant's native village. The child went to the dog first. He was a shepherd, he didn't like adults and strangers, both Hrant and Verzhine, his wife, called out to the child in fear: "Stop, don't come close." And David announced. "What are you afraid of? The dog won't bite me, it's OUR dog!" "You know that the dog is ours, but the dog doesn't know that you are ours." And the dog, it turned out, knew. The dog instantly sensed in the boy that he was HIS, OURS.
This story has a sequel.
David is assigned an essay at school based on Avetik Isahakyan's story. The eight-year-old boy writes that he liked the relationship between man and dog the most, and analyzes this relationship in detail. The teacher is surprised that the child had discovered a plot line that no literary critic had noticed.
Now David is a tall young man, as tight as a string, with "black, big as tears" eyes, expressive hands like his father. He studies at the philological faculty of the university, he understands literature no less than he did when he was a child. And his father Hrant, remembering that story, asks me:
- Have you ever seen how a calf comes out of the barn for the first time and begins to know the world? He looks around and gradually, object by object, assimilates what he sees. Here is the bush, there are two... no, three leaves on the bush. He stopped, thought, studied...perceived. He went ahead. He sees a certain Hrant sitting, holding a book. And why are his eyes moving? Isn't that scary? No, nothing... seems to be fine. You can go ahead. Here is the dog... And suddenly he got terribly scared. And the dog, in order to show that he is the owner, wags his tail twice. The calf flees in terror. The cow, jumping over the dog, runs to help the calf. The dog politely steps aside and sits like a benevolent hostess.
I took my children to my father's house for a long time so that they learn to perceive the world that way. In my opinion, it is because of this that they became understanding, literate readers. The entire verbal fabric of world literature, from the Bible to the present "village writers", is the birth of rural life. Whatever a person reads, the village teaches him the alphabet of understanding literature: a-garden, b-bor, c-river. You are a city dweller and mule has a different meaning for you than for me. I know everything about a mule: what it looks like, what it eats, how it sleeps, how it is yoked.
- You wrote. "If the mythical flood were to happen again, like Noah, I could recreate the great farming and animal husbandry cultures..." Did you think when you were "learning" and living your "alphabet" that you would need those knowledge later in a direct, physical sense?
- How can I say... I felt freedom for the first time when I went to the city in 1950. It was freedom for me to be freed from what felt like maternal cruelty. My mother was born in a small town and married in a deaf village. a day's horse's journey away. And in him lived the resentment of fate. He wanted me to fulfill his unrealized potential, and he was preparing me for a different life. He was preparing all three of us for a different life, but I was the eldest and I had to be the one to pave the way. The most important thing for my mother was that I study well. She cried bitterly when I got "two". My mother was happy to see my good handwriting, she did not know how to write.
I became a writer because of my mother. What a mother I had... You won't find such a great storyteller anywhere. What characters he created, what situations, one alive, unfettered, free. And all of them are accurate, precise, accurate. My mother used to say that the birds sing the most in the spring, when the chicks appear, they sing for them. We were kittens for my mother, and she was a world of culture in our pocket: television, radio, theater, cinema, in short, the world. He was illiterate, he did not know poems by heart, but every minute he created a new, fresh, accurate word, wherever he found it. Once we were collecting potatoes with him: large, white, tame. You collect a whole pile, and the pile collapses, rolls into the black soil. I say: "Mom, look, the potato is the size of a child's head." And he? “What do you say, the size of a child's head? Are you a henchman or a criminal, is a child's head a potato for you? They look like suckling pigs, don't they?' Do you see, in this comparison he expressed everything: both the delicate pink of the potato, like the thin skin of a new-born pig, and the fact that it can be eaten, and the fact that they scatter and flee before your eyes like plastic pigs, and expressed the color, and the movement, and the size. And said quickly, without a moment's thought. He had no language barriers, no stereotypes. They used to speak very well in the village. There were, of course, toto-talkers, but they remained silent, standing and smoking. And if someone had important thoughts, others expressed them. My mother not only created a language in her speech, but also a model of the world, she entered into a role in such a way - she created different situations and showed the child - see, these are the kind of people - that she herself began to live in those roles, and not only opened up the world to us, but also expanded her monotonous life. And his only education was the village alphabet...
- Alone? But people like your mother are a part of the ancient civilization and culture created for centuries. All we have left now is to open museums of that culture and take our children there. Do you know what I want to ask? You have been writing about the village for 30 years, building your ark, is there anything left for us?
- Man's lineage, his family, in my opinion, the foundation of the world is what remains. Once upon a time, when I was young, I jumped from my mother and my fellow villagers to others, more "cultured", more "educated". I thought friendship was above all else. And then the return home began.
I'm going to tell you something bitter. You are already one of my children's generation, and if not me, who else will tell you... I, my peers, are a lost generation. When all ties to those who lived before us who brought us to this day were severed, we entered into a false, contrived life. We were brought up with false values (even though we were instilled that they were true values). We entered life not with our own words, we were not only not taught to speak and think independently, but, on the contrary, those who were able to do that, were taught back, put other people's words on our lips. If you pay attention, you will see that our literature is mostly false, it is not a reflection of life, but a literature of literature.
My first conscious feeling in life was fear. Fear of being killed by fascists. Then the famine. I will not talk about it in detail, it is a forbidden topic for me, because I am writing about it now. Let me just say that I know what an egg is, what a fortune one egg is. I continue to feel its beauty and value in the panorama of the millions of eggs in the incubator.
What was hidden behind my childish fear, my hunger? On the wall of our house hung a family photo, beautifully framed. Once I accidentally discovered that under the photo was not cardboard, but another photo. Do you know who? Litvinov. People's Committee of Foreign Affairs. Photographs of political leaders were sent to the country club and my father, as a carpenter, was asked to make frames. While he was preparing the frames, an authorized person from the district center came and said that Litvinov's picture should not be hung, he should be thrown away, and someone else should be hung instead (I don't remember who). But Litvinov's picture was pasted on good, strong cardboard, you wouldn't find it in the village, so my father put the photo in a ready-made frame, and on top of it, our photo. Who Litvinov was, I didn't know at the time, but that's how politics seeped into our lives. It was a policy that in late autumn, in the cold, school children collected rose hips in the surrounding woods, getting their hands dirty and scratched, until now I can see not a pile, but a big, red hill of rose hips that we used to collect in front of the school. Politics was so absorbed into our lives that we didn't even see it as politics. You ask: why and how were the clan ties undermined... In 1945, the policy of appropriating Siberia began. The resettlement program was developed. You wouldn't have asked, you wouldn't have convinced them to populate Siberia. Reset and that's it. Each republic had its own resettlement plan. And Armenia, which had lost so many people during the genocide, during the war, during the violence, had to send 300,000 people to Siberia. But the dictator of Armenia at that time - and despite the crimes, our unfortunate people are still grateful to him - that dictator went to Stalin and said that 300,000 is too much, it cannot be done that way. And convinced the father of nations to lower that number to 100,000. Thanks for not 300,000... But where do you get 100,000? A certain number of each district was committed. And if someone from my small village, where everyone is friends, must be exiled, what was left for me? To make it so that they exile not my son, but my nephew. And what can I do? How do I prevent them from coming to my house? Do you understand? Under those conditions, what kind of loyalty to the tribe...
- And the family? What happened to the family?
- I had a great-grandfather, my father's grandfather. His name was Hovhannes. He had a young wife. He took the woman's hand, put the girl on the donkey and went wherever he could see. He decided to look for land where he can live peacefully. They went, went and reached a large forest clearing. They built a house with their own hands. They used to harvest other people's crops, and then they themselves got enough cattle that they had their own shepherd. Grandpa Hovhannes's wife raised six boys and two girls. For them there was a doctor, a cook, a tailor, a tailor, a book. Then they had children, grandchildren. And that woman became the clan head of the entire village. I often think that our heroic epic was created by women. They sat, sisters, girlfriends, neighbors made carpets, waited for men and told each other stories about themselves, their husbands, fathers-in-law. They missed their husbands and composed love songs on behalf of their husbands about their wives, their children, their return. And the small children of those women were running around, and in their presence one could not cry and say sentimental, tearful words, because a man should grow up as a man. This is where real masculine, heroic poetry was created. Which was created by women.
Now tell me, in your opinion, what is the hope that the modern, most educated, most well-educated girl will become the head of the clan, will become Eva? There is no longer the woman who supports the family on her shoulders, thanks to whom the family lives alone in the clearing of the forest... Now there is no creator of epics...
- And what was the father doing in the family?
- The man was the LORD in the family. What do you think is the first, natural value? I would say that the first natural value is independence. The man used to rely only on himself. He fed the family with his own hands. He owed no one, depended on no one. He fed himself, clothed himself, brought up his children and managed his property, his money. so much money for food, so much for children's education, so much for church, so much for charity.
And we, are we masters of our land? What can we do? Feed our children? But we don't sow grain. The salary? And what can be bought for 140, well, 200 rubles? The state has taken over our responsibilities, leaving us money for food and clothing. Children will be brought up in school instead of us. Sow grain - can you buy bread at the store? We have placed our hopes on the state for everything, that we even trusted it with charity and mercy. And the result: no compassion, no education, no normal patient care? Here was an emergency situation: Sumgait refugees. Did the state take care of their needs? We ourselves went from house to house to collect clothes and money to help them. Here is another example, sorry if it sounds rude. there was Martiros Saryan, a handsome, white-haired, noble old man. How they loved him! Disappointed. They thought that he was not only a grandfather and a father, he was a state man, the state will take care of him. They took away the corpse and did not give a dime to those who needed it, to take care of it, to do what was necessary... She was lying in the coffin so disfigured by death that no trace of her noble beauty remained...
Even God could not be created without father and mother. Even Jesus Christ had to have parents. Among us, there were and are complete parents, in whom holy mistrust lives: I, myself, and only I raise my children, I feed them.
In order to feel like a master in the family, he should at least be able to manage his money. He should have bread, work and a normal salary.
- And to feel like a master in the state?
- The family is a small state. The owner of the state must first of all have land that he owns. I can see from the plane what our mountain slopes have become. We were forced to do deep plowing, and the soil layer was very thin, and almost a year after such plowing, the rains would wash away the soil, and the clay mountains would remain. What am I, if the ground literally goes under my feet?
The Lord is a keeper. You have to be strong in order to keep whatever it is - land, nature, family. Weakness destroys from inner greed, unwillingness to think and create. It was much easier to leave the waters of Sevan to the plain than to think about what can be done to preserve the unique lake. Holds the strong. But when some people want to replace God, when they say that only they know WHAT SHOULD, and others must obey, and those others stop relying on them, the number of strong people decreases. Do you take charge? Great, guide us. We have stopped working and thinking independently, we have opened our mouths waiting for words and bread to be put there. And here, there is no initiative in the places. Human capacity is suppressed. The whole country has become a province. See: clothes here, there are no clothes made in Armenia. The basic skill of sewing beautiful, comfortable clothes and shoes has been lost. The province creates nothing. Does not answer for anything. There is no creative mind in the province.
Marieta Shahinyan wrote that Yerevan was Weimar in the 20s. After the revolution, the cream of Armenian culture came to Yerevan from all over the world. And now we are going to study in Moscow and Leningrad. Life was in full swing in old Tiflis. the Italian opera came on tour, there were artists, newspapers were printed. Local newspapers print the central ones, the music is brought (if they are brought) from Moscow. The province has only one exit, on one side - from here to the Center. On all other sides we are surrounded by walls, borders, and no fresh air. The province is swamped. The Center drains all economic and cultural forces from the province, and those who remain lose their value for the Center.
We want to live our own lives, we want to have the right to our own opinion, sometimes different from the opinion of the Center.
...Many repatriates came to Armenia after the war. They were back to stay forever. And in the 70s? most of them went back. Why? Because they were tired of dragging life. We had lived like that all our lives, and they knew what it was to live normally. If people want to live without minor problems - it's NATURAL. Finally got to figure it out. We have lived somehow for so many years, manipulating enthusiasm and spirituality, and now those high ideals have been devalued. People are tired of the pastors they worship today and tomorrow it turns out they were not prophets. The role of shepherd and prophet has been devalued. They don't believe in them, they don't want them - they don't want either the good ones or the bad ones. People want to live their lives, their minds.
It's a criminal mindset: let them go, we'll have more.
In their time, the repatriates brought elements of a culture that was more advanced than ours. Our household culture rose thanks to them.
With their departure, we will certainly not lose that household material level. But by going to each of them, I personally, Hrant Matevosyans - a person, an Armenian, a writer - lose a part of my home, my homeland, myself. I'm getting poor. I am a bad owner if they felt uncomfortable in my house, those who came with love and kindness, hoping to stay here forever.
- You know, Hrant Ignatovich, you have changed. When I was coming forward, you spoke with distaste for the "print", journalists found it difficult to talk to you, you rarely approached the phone, you avoided meetings with readers. And now, I know, our conversation is not the only one in the central press this year, as I see, you are almost not hiding.
- Let me tell you... my generation is already at the age of fatherhood. I accept our Union, this world as my home, and my generation and myself as a father. Yes, we really don't live well, not all of us have good jobs... But we don't have the right to be angry anymore, just like the father of the family can't be angry about the poor table in his house. First, we are guilty too. Second, our time has come to enter that house with some positive charge. We have been singing in someone else's voice since childhood. It's time to have your own voice and have your say.
Hovhannes Tumanyan has a story. During the genocide in 1895, the refugees from Sassoon came to Etchmiadzin Catholicos. There was an old priest with them, whose whole family had been massacred, eleven people, and he was already 80 years old. He asks the Catholicos: what should I do now? And the Catholicos answers: "And what should I do? I lost eleven people in your house in Sassoon alone. And how much did I lose in Zeytun, Constantinople? They are all my family."
When I was 25 years old and had a father, I could afford to rebel and play riot. You can't now. Although literature has been degraded for many years to the role of a servant of politics, we must enter life as fathers as if nothing had happened. We have to restore the world from this chaos, despair, debris, restore ethics. For us, literature is already fatherhood.
Marina ARISTOVA wrote
"Semya" ("Семя", Москва), 29.06.1988