For 40 days now, he has not been with us, by our side. How many events happened in these 40 days, festive and tragic. How many words of congratulation, consolation, warning, promise, exhortation, assurance were said on different occasions. Maybe that's why Hrant Matevosyan an absence so visible, so significant. The absence of a man who could cut through the noise of the crowd and the hysterical screams of the "fathers of the nation" with his low voice. Absence of the one who, by the grace of God, thanks to his talent, was able not only to rise above the vanity of the day and what is called "struggle for vital problems", he was able to make us rise above vanity, to make us think about who we are and where we are going, to get and feel our identity.
This interview was recorded a year and a half ago. Reading it, you feel how much we miss the words of Hrant Matevosyan. His the wise word: And the main thing is how much he himself is missing...
- Did the Armenians have a political idea that is specific to all centuries, general unity and the goal of Armenianness?
- In your question, I hear the answer to the Germans' accusation that we did not receive ideas that would allow us to unite, that would allow us to be united, to form, to become a nation. And that is the reason for the tragic fate of Armenians. If your question is about rulers: Peter the Great, Bismarck, French, Americans, and you want to compare your people with them, then I think your question is wrong. We don't have to ascribe their image to us, like the frog in the fairy tale that inflated to become a buffalo, but burst. What is has always been our ability. And thanks be to God that we did not disappear, we avoided destruction, we were liberated and we walk in the parade of today's peoples not with the big ones, but not with the small and disappeared ones.
- In that case, let's reformulate the question: what was the spiritual idea of our Armenians, what did we live for?
- Maybe in that case you can say: what is the idea of the Russians, what is the spiritual idea of the Germans, the Turks, the Persians? Where does the pretentiousness of that question come from? It seems that the people, like a cannonball, were loaded with the kernel that the ruler or the national imperative wanted. It's not like that. Not so. The question implies that the people, the nation, should be charged with some idea and led. That's not the attitude of a Democrat, it's a stereotype of the past. It is as if the essence of man is not something, man is only a living creature, and the creator is somewhere above, and fills that creature with content, and directs it in the direction he indicates. I do not accept that ambition. I find that there is a God, a king, a hero, a knight in all men. And we should not wait for our kings from the outside world, from where the Arshakunis came, and wait for God from heaven to come down like Christ, and expect superhuman deeds from heroes, as if there is not a hero and a knight sitting in each of us. I don't understand that ambition. I am the son of a peasant, I see God in my father, the Mother of God in my mother, and I don't see other things.
- But why did the Armenians create their church, their alphabet?
- It was the church of our parents, the great state mind of our great-grandfathers suggested that we should be able to live and not assimilate to the Byzantine church. Small procedural differences were found for this purpose. And it turned out that we passed from paganism to Christianity, from Christianity to national Christianity, and we became different from the Orthodox. We are not orthodox among the orthodox, we are not pagan among the pagans. And we kept the clear Self. We understood that we must have our own Self, our people, we cannot assimilate. Although we suffered a lot because of that. And they punished us, and we made enemies, let's say, in the face of the Persians.
- Why did Armenians attach such importance to it?
- It was the course of history and social development. Even peoples with the same root, Ukrainians and Russians, are different from each other. the Lyach-Slav does not consider itself Russian, and in front of our eyes, nations so close to each other are at war in Yugoslavia. And we are part of the world and tend to identity like everyone else. If an American does not even consider his English as English, if those two peoples grew up and matured thanks to the same Shakespeare, it means that this is the only way for humanity. Like a child beginning to live, who says I and wants his I to be established, the national I is also established.
- And what is that Self like?
- To answer, you have to collect everything that our writers have written about us. And in short, we are the ones who always resist.
- Is it about moral resistance?
- Yes, moral resistance. For the sake of our cultural originality, our own song, our own place in the universe.
- What ideas do you think lead to the future in that world?
- Respect, reverence for all of us, God's children. Respect for the big and the small, the man and the woman, the black, the disabled, the blind - respect for every living thing - this is the ga-ghapar that was born in England and spread all over the world. It is the ideas of Berkeley and Shakespeare that the universe, the world, are first of all subjective. That idea, with its practical implications, is of great value to the individual. It seems that whether the Self exists or not, the world continues to exist. But what great importance is given to that Self, to the person, to his eyes, to his abilities. That very philosophy of the self, that world perception, becoming supranational today, spreads throughout the world, subjecting itself to royal dynasties, state power, rulers. Of course, the tyrant, the king is still strong in man - he sees God in himself - the animal tendency to violence and rudeness. It is very difficult to rule it all, because it all takes new forms. But life goes on. As the Chinese say, the flower will bloom, every nation will find its place, and every person will be God.
- But the same idea, on the other hand, rejects individuality, equates the characteristics of everyone.
- But it's good and it's beautiful. It gives the power a divine, solar power, according to Tumanyan: "The sun sees no shadow." And it's great that state institutions, state relations, and every person have such a sunny outlook.
- Are Armenians also carriers of these ideas?
- Armenians are unfortunate, and everyone who is familiar with the history of Armenians should be happy that Armenians still exist, we are not equal to the strong ones of the world. But our cultural heritage proves that we have the power to compete with anyone. I saw a wonderful scene on the shore of Lake Parvana, how a little child came out of the water and began to dance for his goat. No one was there, she came out in her best clothes and started dancing for her goat. Almost no one was left in the village, it was a deserted village. Our personality is endowed with the desire of that child. But I don't know other nations that don't have that aspiration. Such a girl could be in Karakum, Gobi desert, Tibet, Africa. No one, including us, can be deprived of that universal attraction. I do not know uncultured nations. Culture is a way of living in this uncomfortable, too cold, too hot, hostile country. Culture is just a way of life. A Bedouin lives in the desert thanks to a camel, weaves a woolen tent, feeds on milk, and washes with urine. The camel is used from bone to breath to sustain the Bedouin in the desert and this is called Camel Culture. The Tatars got it all from the horse. Culture is life, human life. The same is happening in America today. Everywhere, culture has turned into civilization, and above all, into life. Culture is a way of life, not a decoration of life.
- But one gets the impression that Armenians are tired and prefer to fulfill their cultural demands elsewhere.
- Don't simplify, don't blame. You may apply for a visa tomorrow. Do not forget: the state has collapsed - the great, united state, the great empire, of which we were all citizens. A part has been detached from the earth, like the tail of a reptile, which is still moving. There is no work - this is the most terrible problem. Alas, Armenians are shedding tears outside because of longing for their non-homeland.
- But some people think that they are persecuted by the very absence of an idea and search for or invent ideas. Do you find it useless?
- It is a heroic attitude. Due to this, peoples went out to fight, soaked in blood and died before our eyes. Thank God that our ideologues and statesmen did not manage to involve the country and the people in ideas and lead the country to misfortunes and disasters. In front of our eyes are Chechnya, Yugoslavia, the Kurdish movement - nationwide disasters, tragedies, they broke out as a result of the same nationwide charlatanism that you are talking about.
- 200,000 Armenians have become sectarians, probably because they are looking for some idea.
- It is a pity that they have become sectarian. Excuse me, I have to be blunt, this is the work of foreign special services, that's how all unions are split, be it the Union of Writers or the Soviet Union or the Union of Churches. They want to destroy all the connections and unions that are still left.
- If the dominant trend in the world is democratization and giving everyone what they deserve, where do these dark forces come from?
- I don't know where they are from. But if today we can understand our Self and give it its due, we will do what others have done in the way of self-repression. Peter the Great was a ruler of violence, suppressed the centrifugal forces, created the Russian Empire. In the same way, Martin Luther, by scorning national religion and overcoming other aspirations, empowered the German nation. Either it is done by external violence or by grasping one's own personality. Machiavelli said that even so-called written ideas, whether Moses or Christian, any great idea, without violence, without the use of force, was not established in life. There is a result that outweighs the losses, a greater result than in the case of absolute individual freedom and favorable circumstances.
- But the people's constant desire for independence and today's desire for the globalization of the world contradict each other. Collision expected?
- Senseless and destructive conflict. Globalization is as doomed to failure as Christianity or Islam. They ruled the whole world, leading to a single God and a single idea, but every nation created its own religion and its own Christ. There have always been different types of globalization, and peoples have always been able to transform world ideas into their own.
- Christian globalization gave no more and no less Christ, taking away some national characteristics. And today's globalization simply takes away the national and what does it give instead? Civilization?
- In other words, he gave Christ and took away Astghik and other old gods. Now, by uniting the political and economic processes, they have a great and enlightened aspiration to exclude wars, ethnic conflicts, borders. On the other hand, the eternal aspirations of the peoples to express themselves under one unified dome, to have their own culture, and their own language are preserved. So we managed, thank God. We couldn't, we couldn't. But we should doubt that globalization is everything and can give answers to the questions of Armenians, Chukchi, and anyone else. ...It turns out, for example, that literature is being created in five languages in Spain: we knew one single Spain, but there are five languages. They have not lost their originality.
- In the last twenty years, culture around the world has weakened, lost its significance...
- That's how it should be. It's just that the situation in the Soviet country was a little different, and we didn't feel it that much. But outside, art had long been absorbed into everyday life. Today, fine art does not exist independently, it has been involved, for example, in urban planning. American, Canadian, European fine art can be found in their garden, yard, lobby. And it is unlikely that fine art will return to its former framework. That's why it seems that there are no more Rembrandts and Mozarts. But instead, emotional saturation has increased. Entire nations no longer experience emotional thirst. They are temporarily satisfied. It will be like that for a while. And already at that new level, new Mozarts and Rembrandts will rise.
- From Armenian history and culture, it always seemed to me that what we know are just islands in a big sea. And the most important, the essential, is hidden and there is an Armenian Atlantis that has disappeared in the depths of time, but exists as before in the depths of our souls. Smart people have told me that it's not a sense of the past, but of the future. Have you ever experienced anything like this?
- May your feeling be true and may that secret be preserved and reflected in each of us, to awaken in us immortality and the ability to resist. We should try not to be illuminated by someone else's light, as Charents said in the poem "By the Four Paths of History" (there is a very harsh and disrespectful attitude towards our ancestors, who tried to connect world history). In the future we must strive to create our image on our flag, we must have the image of our God and our own place in the parade of peoples.
- What is that character that should be on our flag?
- When I was young and my speech was more self-confident and bold, I used to say: if ever the UN decides to erect a statue to the conscience of humanity, the image of the Armenian should be carved.
- How is the conscience of an Armenian different?
- Vasiliy Belov and I will say the same about our peoples. And we will both affirm our Self. But someone else will have to say, what is the difference between my god and Vasiliy Belov's god? The main thing is that deep down we are all very similar. In the depths that have not yet become figurative, that have not yet manifested themselves. And my point is that you have to go to the universal, the deep.
- Did I understand correctly that the Armenian conscience is closest to the conscience in general?
- Yes. I am not a woman, I am not Russian, I am not noble, I was born in a village, but I see Anna Karenina in me. Literary success is getting to the truth. That's what I'm about. There is not much such literature in the world, but that literature is what is about me and has no other addressee. I think both my literary successes and the successes of Armenian literature prove that. The Chinese will read it and say: “This is about me. I am Chinese, but I understand as if I was born and raised in Armenia." There is a depth of the human soul where all the conflicting "ideas" come together, as you say. And that depth is above all. For example, it seems that Christianity and Islam seek to destroy each other, but deep down it is the same desire, the same search for God, the desire to create something higher than oneself and to be among the created. In his own story. The course of history has brought all the total ideas to the feet of man, and it is beautiful.
Even the national idea can be considered violence against a person if it dares to deify itself, to put the well-being of the individual above. There is a need for constant mutual responsibility between the ideas of I and We, from the point of view of what is most useful for the self-assertion of one's Self in eternity. The stronger the I, the stronger the We. The Russian word "сволочь" comes from the word "сволакивать" which means lower class: so-and-so had so many "сволочь", 400 "сволочь", and none of them had a name. They were all Ivan's "сволочь", the man was forgotten. But history, time broke those chains and gave every man his name, made his Self absolute.
- I wonder how people will interact. Before, they were told "must" and they themselves knew that "must". And were ready to go to death.
- Yes, it is interesting how the English aristocrats managed to do something together during the Second World War without losing either their aristocracy, their name or their past. So it's possible. Or America of billionaires, where everyone has the power of a state. They can combine their efforts for the common good, together and separately. I hope that every Armenian understands that he is nothing if he does not voluntarily belong to the national community.
Jews, for example, in Russian literature are each a unique greatness, but together they somehow belong to Jewish eternity. So it is possible. We Armenians are scattered and will be scattered, but we remain in something and at the decisive moments of fate we will wake up and return to our homeland.
Just as Israel is a refuge, a fleeting image, a symbol for the Jews, Armenia will be preserved not as a goal, but as a refuge in the territory of history. We will always be able to preserve some things so that Armenians can remember that they have a homeland at a cruel moment in history. A place to escape. Shelter. Root. I don't know the word.
One half of us is on the ground, one half is in the air, one half is in Los Angeles, one half is packing, but still we belong to each other, and that belonging gives us inner strength.
Ara Nedolyan
"Новое время" ("Новое время"), 30.01.2003