- Mr. Matevosyan, do you think we can say today that the writer Matevosyan is engaged in politics?
- If I am involved in politics, my politics is at a very amateur level. Very often I am guided purely by external impressions. I am not a member of any movement, organization, party, never have been and never will be. Even if any party can deceive that it is the one that encompasses the national interests, I will still look with reservation and I will try not to subject my personal freedom to it. I cannot say that I am involved in politics. And if such an impression arose from the dialogue published in the "Soviet Armenia" newspaper, which came to light right before the session, from a paragraph of that dialogue, where I insisted that we should all unite around a strong-willed person, and that person in this case was Vladimir Movsisyan, then even now I am of the opinion that we should unite around one person. the enemy should not be able to cast a moth of rage in us. Our situation today is such that we should not play parliament-parliament. That's how we play. Many words discussed in our vocabulary were not born here, they were brought from countries that have provided the protection of every civilized person and family and do not at all express the current state of our fragile country. I'm saying something wild, but one can even show sympathy in favor of those who have the abilities of a leader, a dictator, who could take the lead of the people's march without losing as much as possible tomorrow, a people who are not in the mood to escape.
- You want to say that Movsisyan had nothing to do with what you said, you talked about the idea of uniting around one person.
- Among yesterday's figures, it is natural that Movsisyan and above all Movsisyan would be the organizer. In their gatherings, completely different guys see in themselves both Mosesians and more.
- Outside the parliament, there are different opinions and assessments about the work of the session. How do you rate these works?
- There should be different opinions. Just as the popular thought, popular feeling connected its salvation with the gods and heroes it invented, here, too, the people connected the hope of that salvation with the parliament. However, the parliament is made of the flesh and blood of its people. The parliament is in conflict with its people, it divides both the people's worries and hopes for a way out. Parliament is not more than its people.
- It seems that you are not very enthusiastic about the changes in the authorities. This opinion is due to your interview published in "Soviet Armenia". Is it really so?
- I once had an idea to compile and publish a collection of those interviews. Then I saw that there should be only those interviews that have passed under my pen word for word. I don't consider oral interviews mine unless I at least edited them. (Before publishing this interview, we introduced the author - E. B.). In the interview you mentioned, however, some of my thoughts remained, which I do not give up. What thoughts were there that led you to that conclusion?
- The whole interview gave that impression.
- But at that time there was no parliament, there was no new government yet. Perhaps my dissatisfaction is with revolutions in general.
- Do you mean the movement?
- Yes, dissatisfaction with the revolution, the movement. If there is ever a question of forming a new party and joining that party, I will only be attracted by the Conservatives. I just don't accept revolutions. I think that after every revolution, countries were destroyed, which later stood up, came to their senses only after decades. The same thing happened to us, I mean not only Armenia, but also the Soviet Union. Is what happened as a result of movements, the "work" of organizations, or the collapse itself - I don't know, I only know that we will come to our senses after decades.
- One of the Diaspora Armenian figures said that if the ANM is accepted by the peasantry, then it is already an organization with roots and strength. We know that ANM lost in the villages, its candidates did not pass. How do you, as a villager, explain this defeat, the fact that ANM was not accepted?
- I know that district committees really became khanates in some places, and the village was their estate. In that estate, indeed, their influence was insurmountable. Normally I don't open my mouth to curse and I have never said curse words. I just said so that you know of my knowledge of the source of the causes. The peasantry has always been conservative. If you look at the participation of the Armenian peasantry in the Zemstvo elections (if you don't look for other sources and go by the data provided by "Armyansky Vestnik"), you will see that our neighboring peoples, especially the Georgians, were very active, the interests of the Azerbaijani peasants expressed their views, and ours were almost indifferent. Now, I think, they were indifferent for the last time. Upheavals have set him in motion, poverty and awareness of his own interests will now drag him into the realm of politics. And God forbid that something like a peasant party be created, which could cushion the clash between the peasantry and the radical ones.
- The heroes of your work are in contrast with the Soviet order. The harmony of the village was disturbed during the years of Russian rule. It is reflected both in your works and in the stories of Bakunts and Tumanyan. Now there is an opportunity to get rid of that Russian influence. However, you seem to have taken a conservative stance against it. What is the reason?
- In the works of Bakuntsi, myself, and others, especially Vasiliy Belov, Rasputin, there is a reflection of the pressure brought by totalitarianism, which put those expressing the interests of the village in opposition to the order and the government. My inactivity today is perhaps dictated by the above-mentioned worry that every revolution, every movement collapses again on the peasantry. I prayed in my hut for the country, for the leader who would slowly, through reforms, without upheavals lead the country to new times. So, it is explained only by my fear that we don't lose the existing achievements, the existing level, the existing work, in short, that those half-destroyed barns, non-working mechanization, broken down tractors will be changed slowly and not lost.
- In other words, you have a fear that we can lose what we have.
- Yes, we are already losing and what if we lose again. If the instinct of life does not control us, then we should all have such anxiety, because the village is no longer the village of Bakuntsi, nor the village I have seen. I apologize, I know, those deserving and deserving people are still working with the same old conscience. But the peasant as a whole has changed a lot. I don't want to use the word, but it is impossible: the village is no longer what we all hoped for, the people are spoiled.
- There are many parties in Armenia today. Who do you think the people will follow, or rather, which party will be able to lead the people behind them?
- Maybe I'm an old person or some form doesn't leave me, took me in its mold and doesn't let me think about it freely. Maybe. I think that things called parties, in general, are outdated categories, and they should not be the leaders of life. All parties at all times have suffered from a serious illness. It was party egoism. When you look at history, Dashnaktsutyun, which seems to have opened its wings wide and could say that it is the party of the nation, but it was not the party of the entire nation, could not fully take national interests under its wings. I don't know if the party you mentioned will emerge among us or not. Perhaps we should talk about the parties as a whole. And about the cooperation of the parties, their mutual tolerance. Indeed, a very accurate word has come up: multipartyism. We have to tolerate and accept each other, because only together we will be able to encompass the inexhaustible that is called life. No party and no individual, even the thought of the most brilliant man on a broad scale of life, will be a mere one-sided thing. It will be Marx, I don't know, it will be Lenin or whoever, all of them should be able to touch an edge of life just for a moment. So long live multi-partyism. Long live multi-party tolerance and cooperation.
- Mr. Matevosyan, you contradicted yourself. A little while ago you were talking about the idea of "dictatorship", and...
- In one case, I came from the experience of the world in general, in another case, from the current state of Armenia, and my country, destroyed by a disaster, filled with refugees, came before my eyes. Or maybe the old figure spoke in me again, a popular leader an Andranik general?
- Can we say that this vague understanding is the result of your not engaging in politics, or rather, being an amateur?
- I don't know. There is a character of a girl in the work of a Russian writer, she herself trembles from the hatred of people towards each other. That hatred is not his own, but people hate each other, but standing next to him, he trembles, the hostility goes through him. Now, I'm in that situation too, in this mess, all the blows hit me first.
- In the above-mentioned interview, when it came to the integrity of the theory, you mentioned that "it is good that we went on the path of creating pure socialism." What did you mean by that? The socialism we have built or the socialism to be built?
- As far as I remember, there must have been talk about Dostoyevsky's criticism of orthodoxy, orthodox socialists, "socialism" hardly had any other function in my system of thought. But if you're talking about socialism in general, long live socialism untainted by nationalism, which didn't even last two days in our country.
- Perhaps it is too early to say today that we are living in difficult times. They may be yet to come. There are calls for help from one country or another. Let's take the disaster zone. We are waiting for the foreigners to build a house. Meanwhile, thousands of Armenian builders in the disaster zone do not want to build their own houses. The fault for failing today's recovery of the disaster zone is ours alone...
- I completely agree. The losses outweigh the gains with help. The people will be deprived of citizenship again, will be alienated from their homeland, from their worries. If the earthquake happened in independent Armenia, and the government was the master of its country, the disaster zone would have already been restored. For me, long live the government that will not turn to aid, but to celebrate its strength.
- Mr. Matevosyan, in that interview you mentioned that we do not have a national plan or goal. What is that program, what goals were we talking about? What should that program look like?
- All of us just every day, every hour, if we have such an idle day, something like salvation happens when we don't remember Van, Cilicia, our past, and it is a saved day for each of us. We are constantly fried by these worries and have no way out. In the best cases, at the moment of the flight of the mind, I suppose that maybe in the future something like a federation will emerge: Turkey, Armenia, Kurdistan. It is the humanism that speaks in me, the poet that speaks, and not the political scientist. This is what I meant. Give me a national perspective, and my poet, endowed with little abilities, will grow into Tumanyan, I will become Tumanyan. Because there was a national perspective against Tumanyan, there was a saved Armenia of tomorrow, and it is no coincidence that our cultural titans were born at that time, when there was no real Armenia, but there was the perspective of Armenia.
- We got a very vague idea of your political views from your artworks and interviews. Your clear political views do not appear in the press or elsewhere. Moreover, one of the best writers of the nation "did not speak" during the movement, and suddenly he decided and became a deputy.
- The first time I sat down to write a speech to give a public speech, I wrote what others are saying today, two and a half years later. I wrote: "Dear people, unfortunately the head of our country spoke to us in Turkish." Could this be said or not? This means to deprive of perspective, to condemn, to lead to escalation. And I saw us in a position where every move was going to bog us down even more. I was absolutely in favor of immobility, I didn't have the courage to say let's not strike. I didn't have the courage, I was afraid to say: don't go to the demonstrations, all this is directed against us. I have been of this opinion, others may think this is wrong, but this is what I thought.
- Now you say that you did the right thing, that you remained silent, but then maybe there was a need for your words?
- Now they say that the writer is the expression of the nation's desires. They say that writers are good (I do not share the opinion that I am the best writer in the nation) who take the words from the people's mouths. In other words, the words that the people were supposed to say were said by the writer a day before. Such was Tumanyan, Charents. I have said in other interviews that I was simply fried by the pains of my people and I was in confusion with them. I wasn't the one who said the wise words. In the best case, I have seen such hideous images, sometimes I thought that I should fall in front of the people and retreat, flee from this country. Could it be published? It's not possible. Even today, this is the real thing. On the one hand, the exit doors have been opened, on the other hand, the skirts are shaking and frightening.
- You want to say that after meeting with Gorbachev, Silva Kaputikyan and Zori Balayan, when they came and did not tell the people the truth, was it true?
- If they told the truth, the clash that happened in Baku would have happened in Armenia. Now should I feel guilt on my conscience that I did not lead the people to that conflict?
- You are in session for days, do you find time to write?
- No, absolutely. My ear is full of cute and silly noise. Sometimes I see abilities that give glorious speeches, and everything else, turned into a noise, is in my ears and I don't know how long it takes for my ears to be cleaned, and the divine vibration, the page of God... Do you remember Tumanyan's quartet?
You are an unknown poet, overlooked until today.
Without words you pour out a song with bright eyes.
I am also lucky to be an amazing reader.
That I read those songs so easily and so deeply.
How much my ears and my eyes will be cleansed so that I can read the divine text again.
- Do you want to say that somewhere you regretted becoming a deputy?
- Yes. What I had to do, I would do again. I would interact with people. Five people would do a favor like heroes, give the village a tractor. I was thinking about these possibilities. I could do that much just being a writer.
- Various commissions have been formed in the parliament. Did you not want to work on any committee?
- I could work in many places, but at the expense of literature. I could have worked in the Biosphere Committee, and I was nominated, but I withdrew at the last minute. I am glad that Samvel Shahinyan passed. I could work in the Agrarian Commission. There is one committee that has not been created, the committee dealing purely with refugees. I will still fight for that commission, such a commission should be created.
- Do you agree with the political line of the government, the positions put forward by it?
- It is a realistic policy. The government cannot be confrontational. We have to get into the state of our government. We should not forget the conditions we are in, never forgetting our losses... In short, our homeland is Turkey. We should not forget that, nor should we forget the "misunderstandings" that may happen. The republic can be trampled in one day. Provocations may arise. In this sense, I am really with my government. And if, let's say, Levon Ter-Petrosyan finds an expression instead of me, my heart just explodes with joy. Let's say when the word process for independence was found.
- But it seems that it is not correct to declare the beginning of the process. Maybe it should be the direct process.
- I don't know, maybe they will say that. Indeed, I am a person who is not moved by beautiful and high adjectives. I am not that poet. Those songs don't appeal to me. Although the songs of longing and pilgrimage of the people of Sassoon attract me a lot, I am already a father, and to some extent I am also a father for the nation.
- When the Declaration was adopted, frankly, I could not believe that we broke away from the Russian Empire so easily and...
- If I were Russia, I would not leave easily again. In the sultan's diaries, I am talking about Abdul Hamid, it is said that it is a disturbing phenomenon for him, the sultan, that the tsar invests capital in the Caucasus, invests money, seizes territory, that is, creates an empire. A historical association has emerged, which is very difficult, impossible to destroy. I think the end will be good. Something really bad has been destroyed. The current losses frighten us, the anxiety is in all of us, but we are going to... to America, we are going to Europe. Europe is coming from one side, we are advancing from the other side.
- And the Karabakh issue?
- The Center will not give Karabakh to us if we pin our hopes on it. The Center will not allow a single hair to fall from Karabakh's head, nor will the Center give Karabakh to us. Along with Karabakh, there will still be issues of Talish, Lezgis, Kurds and many more issues in Azerbaijan. Karabakh is a playing card in the hands of the Center, with which it hits both our heads and Azerbaijan. If we go to negotiations, come to an agreement, both of us will be relieved of a great deal of pain on the way of this progress.
- In these difficult times, art and literature seem to have been forgotten.
- No, you can imagine, there are good guys. As, let's say, the heather was destructive for Tumanyan, for Charents it was a furnace, a furnace, it burned. And so now. There is a youth that has not forgotten the literary work. There are many good publications in the literary press.
- Mr. Matevosyan, how should the land issue be resolved? How do you envision a solution to this?
- Very difficult, extremely difficult. You can't say easily and calmly, with a salty extravagance, that we should return the land to the peasant and be done with it. What if there is no land? If you return the entire plain of Aparan, it is the share of two farmers, and the rest of the peasantry? Professor Manasaryan's assertion that we should nurture both a healthy collective farm, a healthy state farm, and all other good forms is correct. We will try all those ways.
- Should we look for other ways to keep the good that has been?
- Kolkhoz is a dictatorship, they say let's destroy it, but what about Chartar, Gharabagh, and if that form of community there kept them tied to the land? If a group of people managed to get along and not live badly, why destroy it? We have to meet and constantly leave places to their initiative. There cannot be an unequivocal answer here. We are a land-less country, it may even happen that we declare the land as national property. We should leave the issue of human freedom and look at the possibilities. Otherwise, let's say, Sevan for the people of Sevan, the fertile plateau of Kalinino for them, and me, and you?
The limits of your freedom are up to the limits of my freedom. The land issue is a separate issue. We will talk about this another time.
The interview was conducted by Edik BAGHDASARYAN
"Republic of Armenia", 13.10.1990