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6УДК 31:316:9
Ja. Tashieva
CHYNGYZ AITMATOV IS AN OUTSTANDING PERSONALITY OF THE XXth CENTURY
In this article, the author analyzed a huge contribution of Chyngyz Aitmatov, a great writer, outstanding personality to world literature, strengthening dialogues and collaboration between Western and Eastern countries.
Keywords: heritage, compatriot, outstanding, personality, protagonists, spiritual, contribution.
Kyrgyz people have always lived among heroes. Without heroes the rich cultural heritage of the Kyrgyz Republic would be empty. Through the prism of Kyrgyz heroes' collective work, the national identity of our small but great nation can be traced. A special place among the Kyrgyz values belongs to our great compatriot Chyngyz Aitmatov.
Chyngyz Aitmatov is a great writer of the twentieth century, a keeper of culture and a passionate defender of humanity. He introduced the Kyrgyz Republic to world literature and made its culture known all over the world. It's hard to overstate Aitmatov's importance to Kyrgyzstan's national identity, as well as his great contribution to the world's literature.
Every year on the 12 of December we celebrate the birthday of Chyngyz Aitmatov. This day is celebrated nationwide as Chynghiz Aitmatov's Day. Reflecting the reality in his literature heroes, deeply influencing our feelings, Chyngyz Aitmatov's works contributed much in the world literature. Chyngyz Aitmatov is an outstanding phenomena, writer, and philosopher of modern time. He was and he is widely recognized in the whole world. The power of his words and feelings was so great and influential that united all people around him. It won't be an exaggeration if one says that alongside with other generous writers of different times and nationalities Aitmatov as a thinker and a painter, he is alive flesh of inner world of a modern person, alive soul. By his name we can strengthen human's intelligence, his immortality, international nature. By his name we can state highest mission of literature in the modern society.
He was also one of the first persons to speak about the need to preserve culture and help to revive the Kyrgyz language and culture. But long before Aitmatov wrote his first words, the Kyrgyz had an oral story telling tradition. The most famous of these stories is the Epic Manas, the legendary founder of Kyrgyzstan, whose story takes days to recite. Like the Iliad and the Odyssey, Manas is a story of conquest-of Uighurs and Afghans, mainly-followed by a long journey home. As Aitmatov himself said of the oral tradition, while other peoples display their culture in tangible arts like architecture and written books, the Kyrgyz "expressed their worldview, pride and dignity, battles, and their hope for the future in the epic genre."
Critics saw in Aitmatov an "artist of contrasts", who creatively linked different artistic styles. Aitmatov walked comfortably in all social classes, and believed in the ultimate victory of sound mind and kindness. Chyngyz Aitmatov's works marked a new trend in prose, adding popular wisdom to the social realism of the twentieth century, as well as philosophical power and psychological depth. Cloaked in the guise of science fiction, Aitmatov's satire of Soviet leaders managed to slip past censors more easily than more explicit condemnation. Moderate social criticism recurred frequently in Aitmatov's work, as did complicated portraits of rural Ce n-tral Asian communities, which Aitmatov produced without ever straying into "village prose," a Soviet literary movement extolling the virtues of rural life and Russian nationalism that, for the USSR's Turkic minorities.
Why is Aitmatov's word so powerful and impressive? During a half of the century a great number of serious researches were devoted to Aitmatov's phenomena, his philosophy, social problems, protagonists, contr a-dictions. It is a paradox but Aitmatov as a writer and thinker is so ordinary and great at the same time. Perhaps this very peculiarity makes him so lovely and favorite and available for all of readers. He expressed the most urgent and complicated problems through ordinary language. Masterpieces of Aitmatov make readers worry, think, conclude. They all ask a question: What is the essence of the life? There were eternal problems which made Aitmatov suffer. They still make readers suffer today. Answering these historical, vital questions the author reached giant literature-philosophic conclusions. Answering these questions Aitmatov became strongest revealer of evil, perfidy, meanness, tyranny. Responding these questions Aitmatov praised in his heroes freedom of ideas and soul, eternal fight of kindness and evil, he praised and supported justice, people who obtained high-
© Tashieva Ja., 2015.
ISSN 2223-4047
BecmnuK Maeucmpamypu. 2015. № 11(50). T. 4.
est human traits of character such as generosity, nobility, love, kindness. Despite the fact that majority of his protagonists die tragically in fight with dark evil we can see true-to-life tragedies where kindness wins the evil, new wins old, good wins bad. Readers can only express their admiration by realistic perfectness of Aitmatov's creations. One can admire his heroes, full of human traits of character, full contradictive feelings, such as doubt and jealousy, love and hate, thinking and worry about social duty and personal destiny. All his heroes are wonderful, full of passion, they face evil, horror, but don't give up in difficult situations. In all his heroes readers see some feeling of their own. Aitmatov managed to render perfect and ordinary people, idealized their tragedy. Richness of Aitmatov's masterpieces prove again and again that only really true-to-life people's beautiful art which reflects peculiarities of a person's personality and continues to live, exists, it remains to be property of world society. Aitmatov's works capture more and more attention, go on their way forward. These books are read by different generations.
Aitmatov's story "Jamilya" has been translated into several languages and made Aitmatov famous all over the world. A great French writer Lous Aragon called the story "the best love story of all times and peoples". A great Kazakh poet Mukhtar Auezov treated this work as a new phenomena in the Kyrgyz literature. This small story about an ordinary Kyrgyz girl from the village with difficult fate, about pure love of two young people whose love occurred to be much stronger than many-centured traditions. In the l963 Aitmatov was awarded the Lenin Prize for "Tales of the Mountains and Steppes". His most productive period was from 1960-1980, and it includes the books: "Face to Face", "My Little Popular in a Red Kerchief', "The First Teacher", "Mother's Field", "Farewell, Gulsary!", "Spotted Dog Running at the Edge of the Sea", and others. The novels "And the Day Lasts Longer than a Century" ("Buranny Flag Station") Aitmatov wrote "And the Day Last Longer than a Century" and much of his later works in Russian, seeking a larger audience, just as Vladimir Nabokov switched from Russian to English after fleeing the Bolsheviks. But the fact that Aitmatov wrote his early work in Kyrgyz challenged us to see the beauty in a language. He was one of the main intellectuals who endorsed the Kyrgyz language's status in the 1980s.
"The Execution Block", "The Mark of Cassandra", and "When Mountains Fall" ("Eternal Bride") represent universal cultural values and made Chyngyz Aitmatov one of the greatest writers the 20th century. Aitmatov was a new type of artist with a gift for depicting spiritual life under the most difficult circumstances. He opened a new page in the history of modern literature, and raised it to a new high level enriching it by definite fresh philosophic content. To the end of his life Aitmatov maintained a burning interest in the problems posed by reality itself.
The Kyrgyz Republic gave the world Aitmatov and he remains a great authority among Turkic speaking prose writers. His works vividly reflect the national culture, problems of modern time, spiritual and moral aspects of life, a thirst for truth and justice, efforts to awaken the conscience, courage and humanity.
Just before his death he published a new novel "When Mountains fall" or "Eternal Bride". The memory about him will remain forever in the hearts of Kyrgyz readers, and his name will remain forever in the annals of classical literature.
In his book "And The Day Lasts Longer Thana Century", Aitmatov introduced a new mental term "mankurt" to culture and political vocabulary. Mankurt is a person, a slave who was deprived freedom and desire to objection. The book explored the feelings of a Kazakh man who was torn between the traditions of his people and the efforts of the Soviet government to create a "Soviet person". The term was adopted and used by Central Asians. A famous Japanese humanist Daiseku Ikeda when speaking with Chyngyz Aitmatov told him "You warned the whole world that absence of memory can lead to slavery". Just before his death he published a new novel, "When Mountains fall" or "Eternal Bride".
Aitmatov's works have been translated into 176 languages and UNESCO said he was among the world's most read authors after Shakespeare and Tolstoi. Some of Aitmatov's books have been made into films in Kyr-gyzstan, Russia and Turkey.
The Ataturk Culture, Language, and History High Agency of Turkey set up a special committee to nominate Aitmatov for the Nobel Prize in literature. Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertugrul Gunai recently said that representatives of culture ministries from Turkic-speaking countries and regions, including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and also representatives from Russia's republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan planned to forward Aitmatov's candidacy.
Central Asians considered him "their" writer, and indeed, citizens of the Soviet Union came to consider him "their" writer as well. His books were popular for truthfully describing life in the Soviet Union, but were sufficiently tempered to avoid being considered outright criticism of the Soviet authorities.
He was also good for Kyrgyzstan's image, drawing positive attention to the small Central Asian country similar to the kind of publicity. His intellectual gathering, the famous Issyk-Kul Forum founded in 1986, was credited as being a major breakthrough in creating a dialogue between intellectuals of the West and the Soviet
Union. After Kyrgyzstan got independence in 1991, Aitmatov also served as Kyrgyzstan's ambassador to European countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and France), UNESCO, the European Union, and NATO. Works by Aitmatov have received numerous awards, like the Order of Lenin, the Gold Olive Branch of the Mediterranean Culture Research Center, the Academy Award of the Japanese Institute of Oriental Philosophy, and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. He was also an academician of the Kyrgyz National Academy (1974) and the Hero of Kyrgyzstan (1997). After Kyrgyzstan gained independence, Aitmatov represented the young country as an ambassador to the European Union, NATO, and elsewhere.
"Democracy cannot be built at once, cannot be developed overnight", Aitmatov said. "Democracy has to be in motion, as a stream, all the time".For Aitmatov humankind's main achievements were spiritual. As he used to say that whatever the economic or industrial achievements are, in the end any achievements will be measured by culture and spirituality.
People say that two heroes made The Kyrgyz nation world-known: one is the epic hero of "Manas," the other is Chyngyz Aitmatov. Nowadays Aitmatov's works stride in the whole world overcoming time, years, borders of states, mountains, deserts, seas, rivers. The further they spread the more people use his creation's gifts, the wider becomes the sphere of Aitmatov's communication among people on the planet. Aitmatov exists today in all languages. We, Kyrgyz people are proud that Chyngyz Aitmatov is our Kyrgyz people's writer!
References:
1.Кто есть кто в мировой политике. М. 2009.
2.Гачев Г.Д. Чингиз Айтматов в свете мировой культуры, Бишкек, 2008.
3.http // ru.wikipedia.org/wiki
4.Вселенная Чынгыза Айтматова. Бишкек, 2012.
5.Айтматов жонундо кундолуктор. Бишкек, 2015.
6.Ч. Айтматов. Статьи, выступления, диалоги, интервью. М. 2010.
ТАШИЕВА ДЖАМИЛЯ КУЛНАЗАРОВНА - доцент кафедры лингвистика и языки, Восточный университет им. Махмуда Кашгари-Барскани, Кыргызстан.
