A Day for Чыңгыз Айтматов

Today is a fine day for celebrating Central Asian culture. I had real Uzbek plov for lunch, and Kazakh language classes like I have everyday, after which I had a chance to speak with some Turkmen and Uyghur teachers, and now I’m all set to review some of the work of Kyrgyzstan’s greatest literary figure since Manas, Chingiz Aitmatov.

Mr. Aitmatov was nominated for the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature by Turkey [as a writer in a Turkic language]. When he fell ill, he was at work on a movie set for The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years. He is buried next to his father in the Ata-Beyit cemetery he helped found for the victims of Stalinist oppression. It bears the same name as the cemetery in The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years.

Perhaps the best way to celebrate a writer’s life is to appreciate the work he has left behind him. Whether or not spiritual immortality is attainable, there are many writers that hope to attain immortality, or at least vicarious long-life, through their work. Having finished two excellent books recently, I can attest that if fame were given in return for merit, Aitmatov will still be on people’s lips for hundreds of years to come. While it’s true that some of his works appear too topical to really make sense in a future world without the Soviet Union, some of his writing is about the most timeless subject of all: love in a difficult world.

The first book I read was The Place of the Skull. The original Russian title is Плаха [Plakha]. It was an incredible read. I’m not going to go into too much detail – there are more in-depth studies of this work available on the Internet. In short, it’s a book in two parts, titled Man and Wolf, respectively. The first part follows the “holy fool” Avdi, whose name is analogous with the Biblical name Obediah. The second part follows an upstanding Kyrgyz shepherd Bazarbai Noigutov. Both stories are linked, rather loosely, by following the story of the she-wolf Akbara. After reading some of the criticism available on the internet, it’s clear that some changes were made in the translation – there are whole sections that were left on the cutting room floor, unfortunately. I didn’t notice the lack, of course – the book is quite complete as it is.

If you’ve read the Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, you’ll understand the most common criticism against this book. In the middle of the work, Avdi hallucinates a very philosophical conversation between Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ. A very similar scene takes place in Bulgakov’s work. Aside from the same scene being paraphrased, though, the books have little in common. Chingiz Aitmatov uses the scene to make the point of Avdi’s religious devotion to Christ, as well the similarities between any two people that dedicate themselves to helping others, however misguided they might be.

The book has plenty of light moments, but on the whole it’s a very dark journey. I learned that, while the Soviet Union was nominally atheist, they certainly knew their Bible stories. That being said, Jesus comes off as a surprisingly secular-humanist type. It’s almost as if he realized that he was going to be “misunderstood” by the masses, and that hopefully someday people would realize what he was actually getting at. The crucial point to keep in mind is that this is a work of Glasnost. Published in 1986, it brought up a lot of topical issues: drug abuse among the youth, desecration of the environment, loss of religious faith and humanism, and the unforeseen costs of relying so heavily on direction from Moscow.

And now we get to the book I’m excited about. It’s one of those timeless short stories that could have been written last night or two hundred years ago. Published in 1957, it’s actually been hailed by French Communist Poet Louis Aragon as ‘the most beautiful love story in the world.’ I’d like to mention that the woman on the cover has perhaps the most beautiful half-of-a-face I’ve ever seen, and that alone sells the book for me. Whether that’s just good marketing or not, I can’t say, but it certainly makes me think Jamilia might just be that mythical “perfect woman.”

What’s more bizarre is that this new edition’s blurb on the back places the action in the Caucasus. The characters have Kirghiz names, and identify themselves as such, except for the half-Kazakh, half-Kirghiz character Seit. It’s probably calculated on the idea that more Americans are familiar with the Caucasus than Kyrgyzstan – or not calculated at all, and just an unlucky stab in the dark by the blurb writer.

The book is so short it can be read in one sitting. But what a whirlwind ride of emotion! Even though it has possibly the happiest ending of any Central Asian love story you’re likely to find, it still manages to be soul-crushingly sad at the same time. The narrator is Jamilia’s younger brother-in-law, a young boy and an aspiring painter. From the first pages, it’s clear that he has a boy’s love for Jamilia, and maybe because we see the story through his eyes, Jamilia takes on an almost eternal visage of beauty, intelligence, and femininity.

So, in short, I suggest picking up The Place of the Skull if you can, while I STRONGLY recommend Jamilia.

This post was written by...

Michael Hancock-Parmer – author of 158 posts on Registan.net.

Michael earned an MA in Central Eurasian Studies in 2011 and remains a student at Indiana University pursuing a dual PhD in Russian History and Central Eurasian Studies. He served 6 months in the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan in 2005. After the events in Andijan and the subsequent closure of the program, he served 2 years in southern Kazakhstan, returning to the Midwest in 2007. His general area of interest is on post-Timur Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, centered on the Syr Darya river valley.

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