A strong presence in Soviet-Armenian modern prose is Hrant Matevosian, whose name is associated with the most successful achievements of that same prose, in terms of depth and form.
He was born in 1935 in Ahnidzor village, Lori region, Dsegh district. At the age of 15, he came to Yerevan to study. The beginning deals with writing. along with it, he follows the courses of the Abovian Pedagogical Institute. He did proofreading and then editorial work, then he went to Moscow for a short time to follow the senar courses.
It has been published in the literary press since 1960. In 1967, the collection of short stories and novels "August" was published. Recently, the "Trees" collection and one volume of the English translation of a number of works were published in Moscow.
Matevosyan's works were also translated into Russian and highly appreciated by Russian literary critics and readers.
With the task of presenting to our readers his reflections on various issues of literature, as well as his full literary merit, we are making an appointment for an interview.
With a warm greeting, he invites us to his office. Photographs of Yovhannes Toumanian and Charents dominate the bookcases. Soon, a contagious virus will end between us. He is deeply concerned about the fate of Lebanese Armenians. He expresses his fear that the crisis of Lebanese Armenians is endangering the historical role of Diaspora Armenians.
After familiarizing himself with our questionnaire, he stands up and begins to walk the length of the room. After summarizing himself for a moment, he begins to speak. His speech is strong, he speaks with deep conviction and restrained emotion.
- As one of the full-blooded cultivators of Soviet-Armenian prose, whose name is associated with a number of the main virtues of modern Soviet-Armenian prose, we would like to hear from you about the prose writers of your generation and their collections and Soviet-Armenian prose in general. What successful cases have come to light in recent years?
- Gurken Mahari: "Burning Mountains", Abig Avagian: "Southern Fever", Agassi Ayvazian: "Tbilisi", Zorayr Khalapian: "Where were you, man of God", Moushegh Galshoyan: "Dzori Miron", Yohannes Melkonyan: "Interrogation", Perji Zeytuntsian: "Clot" Robert Iserly", Vardges Petrosian: "Armenian Sketches". All together: 1600 pages. Did you forget successful pages and successful other names? Of course. Otherwise, the door would be opened in front of an endless line and endless boredom. Therefore, let's be even stricter and separate from the above list the most talented works in my opinion: "Aigestanner", "Fever", "Tiflis" - all three are about the birthplaces of the authors. All three about the fragmentation of our national dream. I would put Avagian's "Longing" and Ayvazian's "Tiflis" from the series "Fever" in the collection of the best stories of the twentieth century, if I were suddenly given the right to collect such a collection. As far as "Aigestanner" is concerned, I appreciate that case for providing an opportunity to talk about our lost homeland. I am sorry to say that none of these three successes of ours have the quality and Armenianness of Minas Avetisian, but all three of them have the same quality and level thanks to the same Armenianness. It is not about rewriting, writer-reader, book-theatre, author-response success, which gives many of our authors the right to consider themselves successful writers and which gives the right to any Segal (I remembered the name of the author of "Love Story" correctly - God knows, but only yesterday he was the first author on the book market) to look from its height of circulation and not recognize Saroyan and Faulkner - yes, the word is not about this success, but about the success in the so-called forge, kitchen, how else should I say it in order to be understood, author-homeland-Armenianity fields. Tondrakian is the mark of the cross or the stigma of the cross, patriotism has been engraved on the breast of our literature since the time of Khorenatsi, and it is not at all strange that more or less all the successes of our literature of fifteen hundred years have been cast from the pure gold of Armenians. This is the only mandatory condition of our literature and it does not touch, does not collide, does not offend other interests and other nations, because the more Armenianness, the more humanity, the more about me, the more about you, to our depth, the depth. Today's world literature is growing from the literature about the common world, from the literature telling about others, to the literature of confession, self-confession, and deep down we are all pure and similar to each other.
- Like verse, as well as prose literary works, there is talk about "old" and "new" understandings and literary generations, classic-realist and modern-abstract, so-called "innovative" directions. How does this issue appear to you? It would be interesting to know your opinion, if you can call it that, about the creed and literary output of each side.
- Living in the same house with a Turk for a thousand years and not realizing that he will slaughter you and even after slaughtering, not believing that you were slaughtered and boasting of your ability to know the world to put forward the language of abstractionism, this is pure childishness. Abstractionism claims to speak about all people, or as much as possible about large groups of people, but in reality it says nothing about all people, not groups, not even one person, because the person is forever new, always unique, always elusive. Everyone deserves, if not love and respect, then at least deep attention, which would later put the artist in front of a really lovable or really despised existence, but that existence would never turn into abstraction, because he, only he, was unrepeatable in all cases. I don't know what is more behind those abstractions: the fear of looking reality in the eyes, the inability to understand reality, irrelevant humanity, irrelevant misanthropy, or the indifference to us pedestrians? In all cases, they abstract us, strangers, and do not abstract their mothers, sisters and themselves. So it's a matter of opinion.
The 18th-century Turkish traveler geographer Euliya Çelepi traveled through Armenia ten times, and in his 500-page book, there is not a single Armenian name or an Armenian person - the Rayas are soft, the Rayas are good-looking, the Rayas are hospitable, we ate well, we drank well, we arrived with two slaves and a slave girl, and we left. Xenophon went south through Armenia to Ponta with the Greek army, there was not a single Armenian on the way - the barns are warm, warm huts are inhabited by hospitable people, we drank beer, the appointed guide was a handsome young man, he took me as a slave. please Yehia Karnetsi, the younger of Chelepi, the same Erzrum citizen, whose 10-12-year-old daughter Chelep liked the look of before marriage, yes, Yehia Karnetsi went to Russia at the same time on Persian affairs and on his mission to the Armenians, and was imprisoned there, because you don't say that he is not only a person, but also an individual and In the city of Nizhny Novgorod, he criticized the non-Christian course of the tsarist authorities. Glory and honor to him - the French admiral, standing on his ship in his safe shell of a Frenchman, purely with the goodness of a Christian and purely with his high human virtue, endangering his arena as an admiral, the French admiral saves 6,000 Armenian-Christians, and in order to at least partially prove that they were not just such 6,000 even if they were freedom-loving heads, but 6000 unique individuals, suffering, desire, dream, will, weakness, etc., etc., etc., would have required the years of work of the editor of Musa Leran Yushamatean, Armenians and your friends, Armenians again and native, local, participating Armenians. Yes, it's a matter of opinion. Yes, it's not a matter of form. You must have the civil courage to get off your seat, the count, and at least inquire as to who that soldier who died, that odd soldier of the ten million Russian army who died, who was he, what was he, why did he live, what was he called (Tolstoy, "Hachi Murat"), and he must have a great human conscience in your safe deathbed of the count, with hundreds of relatives and doctors. and surrounded by thousands of admirers, not to forget those who are left alone to die, "how do those poor villagers die, what do those poor villagers do when they die?" The modern-abstract, so-called innovative point of view is as old as Xenophon. It is indifference to other people's sorrows and joys. I don't know anything newer than "Tagharan" series and nothing older than "poezozurna" in the poetry of innovative Charents. The same - Tumanian's quatrains, the same - Abovian's maslahat-novel. And if someone is truly innovative, he is an innovator for himself, one cannot turn his innovation into a direction and drive all those who are gifted in this way to that direction, that this is the new way, go that way. Literature is the lossless expression of my unique self - you find the way of self expression, my way is only my way - you find your way.
- How do you interpret the relationship between the writer and the reader? Don't you think that an attentive and interesting reader can play the role of a graduate for the writer? In general, how do you rate the Armenian reader?
- Stepan Zorian has a wonderful short story, "The Readers". It's the years of the First World War, in the courtyard of a monastery in one of our rural towns, they read "Mshak" and talk about Gabonia, Trieste and Trieste, the Carpathians and a thousand and one things, but what they say and who is right and who is wrong is neither interesting nor particularly understandable for an old woman standing next to her - she keeps asking the same question: "Something from my child in the newspaper didn't he write anything?", "didn't our son write anything?", "hey, dear father, didn't he write our son's name anywhere in that newspaper?" - and they talk again about their Trieste and Trieste, the smallness of the Japanese people, the Italian memoir. The Armenian reader, we are all in that old woman's condition, what the world and our writers write and what they don't write, we don't really care, we are constantly waiting for some information, some news, a yes, even a no to hear about our child, our father, our mother, our unfair condition, we expect a distant, dim, rubbery ray of hope and we want to consider the terrible no that is a deception of sight and hearing. humanity and history - already history - said about our righteousness and the injustice of the enemy. The unmixed delight of pure art is unknown to us, it is the gift of the children of great nations free from the injustice complex (God gave them at least an injustice complex), we could not overcome and pass the low, broken, small scale set by the Mahari-citizen, collapsing with one kick, as if it was meant to define his calling. the estates of the religion, the elements of the novel, the uncontrolled element of his writing talent had widened the borders of those estates and turned them into the Motherland... yes, we did not cross that fence and could not see the high art and thus high patriotism that gave weight and real great spirit to "Aigestans". Is this cruelty to the writer, or the sheer poverty of the reader? Cruelty or poverty, this is how it is. That's right, history has made the relationship between our writer and our reader like this. This is the relationship between the writer and the reader of a small nation. And the reader has gifted his writer with all these functions and expects from him, if not the answers to all his national questions, then definitely the touches. It is not so terrible for an Armenian writer, Tumanian and others gave an example of it.
- What is the state of modern Soviet-Armenian theater? Did you see any compelling light in recent years? Do you see any premonitions about the subsequent expansion of native theater?
- One should certainly hope for the theatrical experiments of Zorayr Khalapian and Perch Zeytuntsyan. Theater is such a field that requires a person to fully invest his powers. It would be desirable to see Zeitountsyan and Khalapian only in the theater, so that their powers can fully flourish.
John O'Neill, Tenn. Williams, Et. After reading Olpi and other greats of the Soviet Union and abroad, you, an Armenian, feel disappointed by the attempts made so far by your national theater.
I tried a biez called "Neutral Zone", they say it didn't work. I think it was at least partially successful. It's not about that. I noticed that self-showing is not characteristic of our national character. If I were very realistic and obeyed the natural accent dictated by the characters, all my characters would not speak or at least not speak about the main issue. Will there be an action like that, will there be a presentation like that? Perhaps the fault lies in the fact that I did not know a form that fully demonstrates our national character. Perhaps a day will come when we will also create appropriate forms that fully reveal our national character, such as, say, "Mokats Mirzen", "Pepo", "Anoush", "Sasnai Tsrer", Komitas' songs, etc.
- Being well-known for the fact that the literatures of different nations communicate with each other's best traditions and values through mutual translations of full-value books, how do you evaluate our translated literature on this basis, considering the translated authors and the quality of the translations?
- The questioning is completely fair. I completely share the anxiety in your question. The translations are simply inaccurate.From today's literature, nothing from Faulkner, nothing from Marques, very little from Saroyan has been translated. I can't list everyone. There are a lot of people who have a good hand. Perhaps they did not write well for themselves, they are not good authors, but they can be very useful in translation training, even if using Russian as an intermediate language, although it would certainly be preferable to translate directly from the original.
I am a writer. I read Russian. I have read a lot of world classical literature in Russian, but I feel the need for that literature in the Armenian language like hunger and lack of air. There is a subtlety. there are translations, understanding, constructions, which should be in Armenian, so that I could feel myself helping those authors in my writing work.
We should not have high expectations in the translation of the poem, especially since we also have rich, genuine poetry. We should accept the exceptionally good lines of the translation as a gift of luck. (In parentheses, let's take as an example Vahagn Dautean's Persian translations from Russian). But we should expect and achieve high-quality translation in prose and make it a field of national activity. It would be equal to having one's own prose, because Armenian expanded, breathed, and strengthened in those translations.
- What is your opinion about Diaspora Armenian literature in general and prose in particular? How do you imagine its future? Is it possible to dress the literature written by Diaspora-Armenian authors in foreign languages and at the same time on topics that have nothing to do with Armenia, as "Diaspora-Armenian literature"? Do you think that the Motherland is interested in Diaspora Armenian literature to the necessary extent? What names in prose will tell you something?
- Every little success of Diaspora Armenian literature, a living vibration, a living accent is a great joy for me. The meeting with Vahan Tekeyan, Hamasteh, Mndzuru, Shahan Shahnur was a real holiday for me. It was definitely a deception, but it seemed to me that I am a child of a great motherland and that literature is being created in unknown corners of my great motherland. Then I saw from the floor that this homeland does not exist and the values created in the diaspora were just the result of superhuman efforts of the authors. They say that being Armenian is a burden. And I would say that being an Armenian writer is a killer burden.
The literature of Armenians speaking from a different linguistic shell is, in their own words, "a retreat... without a song", and in other words, a nostalgia that is not free from the pressures of another safe language and the patronage of another state.
Literature is a field of social, economic and political activity, like airplane construction, coal production, oil production, atomic research. Will the diaspora have the power to provide materially, to encourage its literature, to free its most gifted ones from all kinds of other worries, just as an airplane builder is only an airplane builder and an atomizer is only an atomizer? This is only one side of the issue. In parentheses, let us say that even the homeland of Armenia, which has statehood, image and flag, finds it difficult to carry its cultural burden. This culture created a great nation, which was later destroyed, and a small part of it is unable to carry on its shoulders the culture created by its entire and powerful times. We have Narekatsi, but no Narekology, we have Tumanyan, but no Tumanian science. There is a culture, there is no interpretation of culture.
Now the second part of the question. In 1915, US President Theodore Roosevelt said that his country does not need half-Americans. 50 years later, on the occasion of the pro-Israel aspirations of the Jews, the leader of Poland said about the Polish Jews: we don't need half-Poles. Nations are closing in their shells, the geopolitical spirit of the beginning of the century is shrinking and withdrawing from the international arena, and God knows which country tomorrow will tolerate the survival of Diaspora Armenians as Armenians.
After all this, will the Diaspora Armenian literate find the strength to nominate his own type of faith for the homeland and Armenian nationalism? Saroyan would have said: God knows!
Should the instinct to preserve the species and the rebellion to be the legal defender of the dishonored arm the Armenian writer so strongly to stay on the literary positions?
- Dear Matevosian, you have already succeeded in making your name known and admired as the "strong man" of modern Soviet-Armenian prose. With your stories that have been published in the literary press for many years, and especially with the collection of stories "August" that was published recently, you established your sonorous voice and original style, like our springs and sky, bold and thoughtful, like our mountains and harsh nature. The characters you have created are Armenians who are characteristically attached to their land, mountains and virtues, but at the same time they are primitive, hardworking and fair people with their thoughts, inner world and deeds. It would be very pleasant to listen to your thoughts, about your literary profession, principles and creative path.
- Let's consider those beautiful words of yours about me to be the result of your longing to have high literature about our people. My opinion about me personally: I took the exam and was admitted to literature. That's it for now. What am I going to do? What do I want? My wife told me, but I seem to have seen it a thousand times with my own eyes. We have Shilachi district in Yerevan. Having come there after the massacre, the remnants of our defeated herd wandered in that Shilachi cemetery. There were loves again. there were marriages again, children were born at the right time, so that during the war against Germany in 1941, they were at the front. Now, those houses are made of clay and stone, the heavy summer heat of Yerevan. and the German prisoners of war open and pave the street called Nar-Dos today. A mother, an old woman constantly stands next to the prisoners of war and constantly cries over their captivity, even though her son's executioner is among them. He says that every time the postman used "black paper" to spin a rope and hung the cricket on the hot, clay rope of Shilach, then silence descended and the prisoners of war became tired and stopped working. They were the ones who started the war, they were the guilty party, but did the Poles Armenian mothers feel that guilt? They didn't, that's not the important thing. He says that they always cooked meals for the prisoners from what they had, on the day of receiving a new "black paper" only they rioted and did not give meals to the Germans. Their revenge was just that. And only you and I, Armenians, know the extent of our mothers' love.
If I can capture at least a little of our inimitable, our great, our philanthropic, our unruly, our God-like image in literature, I consider my work as a writer to be somewhat justified.
Sometimes I had moments of self-satisfaction for what I did, I believed in praises, but every time I turned to life, I sweated and saw that what I did was small, nothing in front of the great figure called Armenian. Whatever you want to think, I am sure that if ever any organization of the United Nations deems it necessary to create an image of a symbol of world conscience, that image, symbol will be created in the image of an Armenian man, an Armenian villager and should be erected on Armenian soil. In order to understand what kind of character we are talking about, let me first mention Vahan Derian's "Yerkir Nayir" series.
"They are so inconsolable and like crying
The songs of my country, so sad.
A foreigner will not understand us.
The cold stranger will not understand us."
Glimpses of that image, often dim, often a little, are present in the works of Mndzuru, Hamasteh and Bakuntsi.
- How will you understand the connection between literary criticism and artistic literature? According to you, does our civilization successfully fulfill its "messiah"?
- Tom Wolfe, a young American writer and critic, speaking about the leaders of abstractionism, Clement Krenperk and Herlt Rosemperk, considers it their tactical mistake that they immediately stand against the Bob Art movement. Wolff says: “That's Cranperk's colossal mistake. Krenperk, who in his time proposed the exact motto of modernism: "every innovation at first seems ugly", should have understood that in the times of avant-artism, no artist is able to block the way of a new style with a frontal attack, because he is declared outdated, not modern and thrown out of the square. In the times of Avant-Artism, the only way to fight against a new style that you hate is to jump over it and show from your vanguard position the abyss towards which the current of the new style is moving. Krenperk realized later that he should have acted that way."
I support this form of criticism. Let my critics see further than me in the direction I look and show the danger or safety presented by that distance. So far, very few of my critics have spoken for me, from within me, and broadened my horizons. Literary criticism itself does not directly create literature, it can create exceptionally favorable conditions for literature.
In my opinion, we have only had one such fact so far: the analysis of "Khambapet Shavarsh" by Hrand Tamrazian.
– Our last survey. What new plans do you have? What are you currently working on? Would you consider writing a sprawling novel? Finally, do you have any intention of coming up with a new volume?
- My collection "Trees" was published recently. I already have two novels in an unfinished state: "The Bridge of Princess Nana", the title of the second one might be "Tsmakut". Now I am working on a big novel with the tentative title "Deathlight". I wrote 120 pages, maybe it will be more. My plans are many, my physical abilities are few. I barely understood what literature is. As it is said in our folk song, I barely found the "object of my song". It is my part to have great physical and bodily ability to make my visions come true.
M. VIGENEAN
"Call" (Beirut), 14, 21, 28.04.1979.