Chingiz Aytmatov

Chingiz Aytmatov is a great writer of the Kyrgyz people. His name stands alongside the great representatives of world literature recognized on an international scale in the 20th century.

At the same time, many renowned literary scholars place him in the ranks of writers such as L.N. Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, and Faulkner. In this sense, he is a master of words who, during his lifetime, was worthy of the highly honorable recognition of being called a classic writer. His works have been translated into more than seventy languages of the world.

He is a bilingual writer who writes equally well in both Kyrgyz and Russian.

It is clear to everyone that the differences and uniqueness in the level of development of Kyrgyz and Russian culture and written literature, in national thinking, and in language are very great. The author wrote some works in Russian first (for example, «Oq kema», «Alvido, Gulsara»), and then they were translated into Kyrgyz.

In the writer's works, the urgent events of the present merge with legends and myths passed down through folk oral literature, forming a wonderful integrity.

One of the greatest epics in the history of humanity, which shines like a sun for Ch. Aytmatov's works, is the Kyrgyz «Manas».

Ch. Aytmatov is a great friend of the Uzbek people and Uzbek literature. Just as Byzantine culture influenced the development of world culture, Uzbek culture has influenced the development of the culture of the Central Asian peoples to the same extent, says Chingiz Aytmatov.

Almost all of the writer's major works have been translated into Uzbek. Skilled translators such as Asil Rashidov and Ibrogim Gafurov are working diligently to bring his novellas and novels to the Uzbek reader. In the work of strengthening peace between peoples and friendship between literatures, Chingiz Aytmatov is accomplishing great things as a state and public figure.

Chingiz Aytmatov was born on December 12, 1928, in the village of Shakar in the Talas valley of Kyrgyzstan. His grandfather, Aytmat Aga, was a wonderful performer of the komuz.

His work on the railway allowed him to enroll his son Torakul in a Russian-native school in Aulie-Ata. Later, Torakul Aytmatov rose to the level of a major statesman of Kyrgyzstan.

However, unfortunately, he became a victim of the era of the personality cult. Chingiz's mother, Naima Aytmatova, was an educated, wise woman. During the future writer's childhood, his grandmother Oyimkhon Aya and her daughter Qoraqiz Opa told him many legends, myths, and songs. It is no wonder that the stories the writer heard in childhood had a certain influence on his works. Chingiz first studied in a Russian school, then continued his studies in a Kyrgyz school.

He studied at the Higher Literary Courses under the Writers' Union in Moscow from 1956 to 1958. Over various years, he worked as the editor-in-chief of the leading literary magazine in Kyrgyzstan, «Literaturniy Kirgizistan», as a correspondent for the newspaper «Pravda» in the republic, and as the chairman of the board of the Kyrgyzstan Cinematographers' Union. He also made a great contribution to the development of the republic's cinema. Kyrgyz cinematic art, like its fiction literature, reached a global level through the example of screen adaptations of Chingiz Aytmatov's works.

The work that first made the author's name famous on an international scale was the novella «Jamila». Written in 1958, this novella was published as a book in Russian and French in 1959, and within two years it was translated into nearly thirty languages in the former Soviet Union and abroad. Such an event had never happened in Soviet literature. Louis Aragon, who translated the work into French, evaluated it as "the most beautiful love story in the world" and even titled his article with those words.

In the novella, based on the innocent, pure love of Jamila and Daniyar, a proactive stance on human freedom, rights, and age-old customs was demonstrated. Innovativeness is the main feature of Chingiz Aytmatov's work. The novella «Somon yo‘li» (The Milky Way) is a clear proof of this. The main character of the work, Tolgonoy, has endured very severe hardships of life. A terrible war took her husband and three sons from her. However, as if that were not enough, fate brings another misfortune upon her. Her daughter-in-law Aliman, who had become like a daughter to her, passes away early. Oh, destiny, are you always so bitter, so merciless? However, in the writer's view, fate cannot be completely merciless. Because that is life. From her daughter-in-law, a grandchild remains as a keepsake for Tolgonoy. In her life, the continuation of life. The eternity of Tolgonoy's descendants' craft is embodied. The writer's skill manifests itself in the artistic portrayal of the seamless unity of nature and society, past and present, myth and innovation, fantasy and reality, legend and truth.

«Oq kema» (The White Ship) novella is one of the author's next most beautiful works dedicated to the interpretation of purity and justice, bloodshed and its moral roots, national traditions, and human values in that same direction. In the work, the reader encounters the Child, who lives in the embrace of dreams as pure as light and sincerely believes that the fairy tales about the Mother Deer and the White Ship are not fairy tales but truth, and looks forward to their realization; Momin Bobo, who, despite being extremely honest, sincere, and truthful, becomes dependent and submissive for the sake of the peace and quiet of his daughter and grandson, and for this reason, even goes as far as killing the Mother Deer; and images like the savage Orozqul, who looks at human worth, nature, national values, and customs as worthless.

The fact that the Child, whose hopes and dreams are shattered as a result of the killing of the Mother Deer, turns into a fish and perishes upon entering the water in order to reach the White Ship, contains a great aesthetic meaning that glorifies pure hope and human purity, rebellion against spiritual degradation, and perfection.

The novel «Asrga tatigulik kun» (The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years) added new fame to Chingiz Aytmatov's global reputation. The events reflected in the novel «Asrga tatigulik kun» take place mainly in a tiny village where six or seven families live at a railway station called Buronli. And the village is located in the vast Saryozek desert of Kazakhstan.

The novel's composition is masterfully crafted. The events in it begin with the death of Edigey, who had worked as a simple railway worker his whole life at that Buronli railway station, and the journey toward the Ana-Beyit cemetery to bury him. The events in the work occur during the time it takes to reach that destination. The main character of the work, Edigey Zhangeldin, is an honest, hardworking man. He participated in the war and saw the hardships of the war. He endured many trials before working as a railway worker at the Buronli station. The legend of the mankurts is the most important part that determines the completely modern significance of the novel «Asrga tatigulik kun» and is a source of one of the leading ideas that have permeated the entire structure of the novel. According to the legend, in ancient times, the Saryozek lands were conquered by the invading Zhuan-zhuans. They shaved the hair of the captured warriors, placed a cap made of freshly slaughtered camel skin on their heads, and drove them into the desert in the heat of the sun. The torture was so savage and painful that many of them could not withstand it and perished. Those who survived became mankurts, deprived of memory.

One of the mankurt youths of Saryozek, Zholoman, let alone remembering the past, does not even recognize his own birth mother who comes to save him, and does not remember the name of his tribe or his father.

As if that were not enough, he shoots and kills his mother at the instruction of one of the Zhuan-zhuans. In Chingiz Aytmatov's novel «Qiyomat» (The Day of Judgment/The Scaffold), the situations where goodness and nobility, kindness and truthfulness, justice and truth are sinking to the level of apocalypse are shown through the reflection of the problems of nature, society, man, and faith.

The apocalyptic destruction and bloodshed occurring due to the trampling of nature are not happening by themselves. There are forces and vile people carrying them out. These are: the fact that Akbara and Tashchanar are left with no refuge to live in nature, the fact that five wolf cubs perish due to the burning of the reed bed where their nest was located in connection with the opening of a road to a rare mine in the mountains; the fact that after Akbara and Tashchanar flee to the mountains, the four wolf cubs born there are stolen by the vile Bozorboy, who is devoid of human traits, and sold for vodka; the fact that savage groups led by Ober-Kandalov slaughter songbirds in hopes of making easy money; and others — are these not phenomena that are plunging nature into an apocalypse?

And what about the fate of Avdiy Kalistratov, who says that even God and His servants will forgive these sins, that one must repent and enter the right path, and who stakes his life on that path? This appeal, this invitation — a group of drug addicts kicks him in a dog-like agony and throws him off a train. In this way, because he called for repentance, faith, and the right path, and because he begged tearfully not to slaughter songbirds, a group of savages led by Ober-Kandalov hangs him alive from a tree. The writer takes a unique comparison-example from the annals of history to emphasize that such events are not novelties, that this disease did not appear only in the 20th century, and provides its extremely deep, philosophical expression.

This is an artistic interpretation of the religious teaching related to Jesus. "A heart not filled with love for God is filled with diseases," says Jesus. "Likewise, woe to him who is not full of love for man, for he is dead."

The Roman governor Pontius Pilate and his enemies promise to save Jesus' head if he calls on the people to rebel and turns them away from the truth. However, Jesus considers it better to give his life in suffering than to turn away from the path of truth.

The most complex character in the work is Avdiy Kalistratov. He believes in God and religion from the bottom of his heart, with his whole being. However, in his opinion, the God who has been in human thought until now is outdated, so it is necessary to renew Him, to create a contemporary God. He does not intend to turn back from this idea, even if they burn him at the stake, as he says. "Changing the ideas that have been stagnant for centuries, getting rid of dogmatism, giving the human spirit freedom in understanding God, and considering God as the highest manifestation of human existence" forms the basis of Avdiy's views on religion and God. He was also expelled from the religious seminary for these blasphemous thoughts. In one respect, he is a complete skeptic. In another, he is a supporter and advocate of those who have lost their way from the path of conscience and faith, ready to give his life to put them on the right path, and at the same time, he is first beaten like a dog by those very people and then executed like a near-Jesus. It is difficult to call Avdiy a character of the traditional good or bad person. He is a complex character. Based on this, it can be said that the main character of the novel «Qiyomat» is not Jesus, nor Avdiy Kalistratov, nor Boston, nor Akbara and Tashchanar, but Faith, which unites them all.

The writer wants to say that the great force that preserves humanity and goodness is faith, which shines with the belief in the spiritual power of the Creator.

Ch. Aytmatov describes the essence of goodness in the work in connection with various: divine, philosophical, and humanitarian foundations. After all, the common unity of these three is important in fully and artistically embodying the writer's ideas in interpreting goodness. The divine foundations of goodness are put forward, on the one hand, through the image of Jesus, and on the other hand, through the image of Avdiy Kalistratov, who studied at a religious seminary but left it.

Chingiz Aytmatov puts forward the humanitarian foundations of goodness, especially through the image of Boston. Boston, a hardworking, advanced shepherd, lost his father to the front when he was in the second grade, and lost his mother early. He hardened his bones in labor. He found and ate his own crust of bread. For this reason, he hates lazy, idle, loafer, gossipy people; he is uncompromising with them. However, in turn, for the same qualities, and for his initiative and dedication to the common cause, they cannot stand Boston either. The philosophy toward him of people like Bozorboy, who walked around not knowing how to take revenge on Boston for his dedication and truthfulness, is also ready: "If it were in the old days, the 'kulak' [affluent peasant] who avoids hard work would have been shot immediately as a class enemy of the Soviet government, regardless of his wailing. Alas, those times have passed."

The path of goodness is always in suffering, but if there were no basic philosophy of suffering and even apocalypse, would Jesus have turned from his path, would Avdiy have changed his mind, would Boston have lived by compromising?

It is worth noting that the writer skillfully and artistically demonstrates that there is commonality and unity in the views of Qochqorboyev against the just and truthful Boston, Ober-Kandalov against Avdiy, and Pontius Pilate against Jesus. The author skillfully uses myths in revealing the essence of the characters in the work and in instilling humanitarian ideas more deeply into the reader. For example, the performance of old Bulgarian songs, the further purification of Avdiy's soul under the influence of those songs, the arguments about washing away sins and opening the eyes of the heart between Jesus and Pontius Pilate, the supplications of all the suffering characters to the Creator in desperate straits throughout almost the entire work, and the light of faith, trust, and repentance in the meaning of the supplications, and the fact that their figures and nature become even purer increase the vitality, truthfulness, and effectiveness of the novel.

At the same time, it should be noted that the novel «Qiyomat» was translated into Uzbek with great skill by the prominent translator Ibrogim Gafurov.