"Tales of mountains and steppes"

The world-famous writer Chingiz Torekulovich Aitmatov does not need to be introduced to readers - millions of his admirers live all over the world. If you still need it - refer to his books.

There are writers, each work of which becomes an event in the cultural life of the country, the subject of heated debate and deep thought. The work of Chingiz Aitmatov is convincing evidence of this.

The appearance in 1958 in the Novy Mir magazine of the story Jamilya, small in volume, but significant in content, vivid in its imaginative thinking and mastery of execution, was a signal that a man of surprisingly original talent had come to literature from the Kyrgyz steppes.

Chekhov wrote: "What is talented is new." These words can be fully attributed to Ch. Aitmatov's stories "Jamilya", "White steamboat", "Farewell, Gyulsary!", "Poplar in a red scarf" and others. Only an exceptionally gifted nature can combine a truly folklore beginning and an innovative perception of modern life. Already the story "Jamilya", sung by the writer freely, in one wide breath, has become an innovative phenomenon.

Jamila is the image of a woman, which no one before Ch. Aitmatov so revealed in the prose of oriental literatures. She is a living person, born from the very land of Kyrgyzstan. Before the advent of Daniyar, Jamila lived like a stream, bound by ice. Neither the mother-in-law nor Jamila Sadyk's husband, due to the age-old traditions of "large and small courtyards," even think that in the spring the sun can wake up this invisible stream. And he can gurgle, seethe, boil and rush in search of a way out and, not finding it, will stop at nothing, rush forward to a free life.

In the story "Jamilya" in a new way, subtly and with great inner tact, Ch. Aitmatov solves the problem of the collision of the new with the old, the patriarchal and socialist way of life and everyday life. This problem is complex, and when they tried to solve it straightforwardly, the characters turned out to be sketchy, there was no psychological persuasiveness. Ch. Aitmatov happily avoided this shortcoming. Seit, on behalf of whom the narration is being conducted, respects his mother - the support of the family. When all the men of "large and small households" go to the front, the mother demands from the rest "patience together with the people." In her understanding of things, she relies on extensive life experience and epic traditions. The author does not throw a single reproach at her address. And patriarchal foundations, inertia, narrow-mindedness, covered with mold of well-being, are subtextually highlighted by the author, and ultimately it becomes clear to the reader that all this puts pressure on a person, deprives her of beauty, freedom and strength. The love of Daniyar and Jamila not only exposed the moral and social roots of this narrow-mindedness, but also showed the ways of victory over it.

Love in the story wins the battle against inertia. Both in this work and in subsequent works, Aitmatov affirms the freedom of personality and love, because without them there is no life.

The power of the influence of real art on the soul of a person is clearly revealed in the fate of young Seit. An ordinary Ailian teenager, who differs from his peers, perhaps by a little more observation and spiritual subtlety, suddenly begins to see clearly under the influence of Daniyar's songs. The love of Daniyar and Jamila inspires Seit. After their departure, he still remains in the village of Kurkureu, but this is no longer the former teenager. Jamilya and Daniyar became for him the moral embodiment of poetry and love, their light led him on the road, he resolutely told his mother: “I will go to study ... Tell your father. I want to be an artist." Such is the transformative power of love and art. This is asserted and defended by Ch. Aitmatov in the story "Jamilya".

At the very beginning of the 60s, several stories by Aitmatov appeared one after another, including Poplar in a Red Scarf, Camel's Eye. Judging by the artistic performance, they belong to the time of the writer's creative search. Both in this and in the other story there are acute conflict situations both in the sphere of production and in the personal life of the characters.

The hero of the story "Poplar in a Red Scarf" Ilyas rather poetically perceives the world around him. But at the beginning of the story, where this poetry looks like a natural manifestation of the spiritual capabilities of a person inspired by love, he seems less convincing than later, when he suffers, looking for his lost love. And yet Ilyas is a sharply defined male character among the people around him. Baitemir, who first sheltered Asel and then married her, is a kind and sympathetic person, but there is a certain egoism in him. Perhaps this is because he lived too long in solitude and now silently but stubbornly clings to happiness, which so unexpectedly, like a gift from God, crossed the threshold of his bachelor's home?

Critics reproached the author of "Poplar in a Red Scarf" for the lack of psychological justification for the actions of the characters. The unspoken love of two young people and their hasty wedding seemed to be called into question. There is, of course, some truth in this, but one must also take into account the fact that the creative principle of Ch. Aitmatov, as well as the love tradition of his people, is always alien to the verbosity of people who love each other. It is through actions, subtle details that Aitmatov shows the unity of loving hearts. Declaration of love is not love itself. After all, Daniyar and Jamila also realized that they love each other, without verbose explanations.

In "Topolka in a Red Scarf", Asel recognizes the tracks of Ilyas's truck among the wheels of a dozen other vehicles. Here Aitmatov used the folklore detail very appropriately and creatively. In this region, where the action of the story takes place, a girl, especially two days before the wedding, in broad daylight, cannot go out onto the road to wait for an unloved person. Ilyas and Asel were led on the road by love, and here words are superfluous, since their actions are psychologically justified. And yet, in the story, one feels some kind of haste of the author, the desire to quickly connect the lovers, he rather needs to move on to something more important. And now Ilyas says: “We lived together, loved each other, and then a misfortune happened to me.” And then - industrial conflict and, ultimately, the destruction of the family. Why? Because Ilyas "turned the horse of life in the wrong direction." Yes, Ilyas is a hot and controversial person, but the reader believes that he will not sink, will find the strength to overcome the confusion in his soul and find happiness. In order to be convinced of this logical transformation of Ilyas, it is enough for readers to recall the internal monologue of this young man, already quite beaten by fate, when he sees white swans over Issyk-Kul for the second time: “Issyk-Kul, Issyk-Kul - my unsung song! ... why did I remember the day when, at this place, right above the water, we stopped together with Asel?

Ch. Aitmatov does not change his manner: in order to prove the depth of Ilyas' feelings and the breadth of his soul, he again leaves him alone with the lake.

With this story, the remarkable writer proved to himself and others that for any plot, any topic he finds an original Aitmatov's solution.

Initially, the story "Jamila" by Chingiz Aitmatov was called "Obon", that is, "Melody". Indeed, music in it is the main meaning-forming element.

To paraphrase Nietzsche, who called his book The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, Aitmatov's story can be said to be about the birth of love from music. And the Kyrgyz writer himself was rare even among people who were committed in spirit and soul to music, sound, polyphony, counterpoint.

In the story, both Jamilya and Seyit fall in love with the gloomy, unsociable Daniyar - he sings so beautifully! Sings about the earth, about the motherland, about beauty. But Daniyar's song is perceived by them as the voice of his inner world, a manifestation of his personal qualities, as a signal to the outside. And this signal is very readily perceived by both. At the same time, Aitmatov organizes the structure of the story in such a way that the reader knows almost nothing about what Jamila Daniyar thinks about, and she about him. We observe what is happening from only one point of view, we see everything through the eyes of Seyit, who is assigned the role of a certain choir in ancient Greek tragedy, if we use the concepts of theatrical aesthetics. In this regard, we recall the subtle observation of the same Nietzsche, who believed that it was the choir, that is, music, “equal in strength to Hercules himself,” that serves as the main way of expressing the author’s thought in the ancient Greek theater.

Here I want to reflect on what music meant to Aitmatov in general. And she meant a lot, although according to my personal observations, the writer did not seem like a music lover, sobbing over the chromatisms of Liszt and Schubert or Tchaikovsky's Pathetic Symphony. In general, I would be careful not to call him a connoisseur of classical music. That's how his childhood turned out, that's how his life turned out. But music penetrated his soul in a very peculiar way: he caught its deep essence as if from the fly, grabbing exactly what he needed from its finely organized structure.

It seems to me that Aitmatov's literary thinking itself was organized very musically, almost according to the law of counterpoint. At the same time, to call this thinking sonata, for example, would be an obvious simplification, although who would dare to say that Beethoven's Appassionata or his own The Tempest are works that are simple in structure?

In Aitmatov's texts, as in counterpoint, there are several heroes whose vital interests or positions (voices) and behavioral models are initially multidirectional, and therefore conflictogenic. But they are usually connected with each other so closely, and the space-time layers are superimposed one on top of the other in such a way that they form a complementary triumph of different elements - voices. Therefore, Aitmatov's novels are real symphonies, and the outstanding Kyrgyz esthete Aziz Saliev was absolutely right when he defined the nature of Aitmatov's talent as "Beethovenian".

And the outstanding Russian critic Yuri Surovtsev called the composition of the novel “And the day lasts longer than a century” as contrapuntal (counterpoint is a simultaneous combination of two or more independent melodic voices in music). It is no coincidence, therefore, that ballets were also written according to Aitmatov's texts. For example, Vladimir Vlasov’s ballet Asel was staged at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow back in the 70s, Kaly Moldobasanov wrote the ballet-oratorio The Mother’s Field, The White Steamboat and the Legend of Mankurt sounded in the language of music, etc. .

Aitmatov's journalistic heritage contains several interesting materials about musicians. For example, he left a very touching portrait - a memory of the great Dmitri Shostakovich, who was very fond of the stories of the Kyrgyz prose writer. There is a note about Stravinsky, who, as Chingiz Torekulovich wrote, was always interested in and professionally fond of simple in form, but deep in content, folk melodies.

I remember how we, the Kyrgyz official delegation, which included Chingiz Torekulovich, visited the Stockholm Opera during a state visit to Sweden and listened to the immortal Carmen. By the way, I noticed that the writer did not really like this classical opera in the innovative production of Janus Pedersen. It seems to me that opera was not his passion, ballet, perhaps, was closer to him.

But back to Jamila, in which Aitmatov brought a lot of tribute to music. In the story, young Seyit will become a witness, an involuntary spy on the relationship between the gloomy and silent front-line soldier Daniyar and the cheerful and cheerful daughter-in-law, for whom he still has childishly tender feelings. And after the escape of his beloved, he falls into unaccountable longing, feels incredible devastation. Something needs to be done, something to drown out this longing and fill this spiritual abyss. And he decides to sing this story of two people, to reproduce it in colors, to become an artist. This is on the one hand.

On the other hand, the young man is separated from Jamila by an invisible wall of closely related ties, and he is forced to balance on the blade of a knife, a thin line, experiencing bouts of vague attraction, jealousy and shame. Subtly feeling this circumstance, the writer chastely leaves such complex spiritual movements of the hero without a detailed description - he prefers exclusively poetic symbolism, intuitive sensations, creating a discourse of understatement and undisclosed context, although at the end of the story Seyit still decides to call Jamilya, who is leaving with Daniyar, "beloved" . Freud would have called this state "perverse mental movements," that is, suffering caused by certain physiological symptoms.

“For the first time I felt then, - lyrical hero confesses , - as something new woke up in me, which I still could not name, but it was something irresistible, it was a need to express myself. Yes, to express, not only to see and feel the world for yourself, but also to convey to others your vision, your thoughts and feelings, to tell people about the beauty of our land as inspirationally as Daniyar could do it. I froze from unconscious fear and joy before something unknown. But then I did not understand that I needed to pick up a brush.

... I was seized by that same incomprehensible excitement that always came with Daniyar's songs. And suddenly it became clear to me what I want. I want to draw them».

And Aitmatov drew. I drew my Mona Lisa. All this was born from the spirit of music.

It cannot be said that the story describes some absolutely exceptional life situation, that the departure of a woman from an unloved husband among the Kyrgyz is something out of the ordinary. Everything was and is. But Jamila's life is a drama, or rather, a tragedy of a strong woman endowed with rich mental and physical health, who is just beginning to realize the essence of human existence and the taste of life.

The world-famous Russian literary critic Viktor Shklovsky in his book “Artistic Prose. Reflections and analysis”, speaking about the life of Tolstoy's heroines, subtly remarked: “There is nothing unusual in Anna Karenina, but she is gifted with everything, as it were, excessively; she is human in his full essence, and that is what makes her love tragic. In addition to the fullness of vitality, Anna is not to blame for anything ...

Natasha Rostova is also characterized by the fact that she was given too much, this should bring her misfortune.

Anna Karenina is ordinary, well-bred, there is nothing in her that deviates from the ordinary, but she is so strong that she breaks this ordinary; her misfortune is typical, like the tragedy of completeness.

I dare say that this observation is also true in relation to Jamila, but with one important addition: this image is far from being as one-dimensional as it seems, it has at least one more additional angle for a more complete consideration. Jamilya is not a secular lady at all, watching her every move and being shackled by the strict rules of secular life, but a woman brought up in the spirit of Kyrgyz traditional epicureanism. On the other hand, she has one important advantage - a natural ear for the word, music, heard in an incredible context - against the backdrop of majestic mountains and steppes.

In this sense, one can only regret that no one has yet tried to listen to, for example, Mozart's Haffner Serenade or Mahler's 5th symphony under the stars and surrounded by the Tien Shan mountains. True, there is one unique example, but in cinema: in Stanley Kubrick's film "A Space Odyssey 2001", Johann Strauss' classic waltz sounds against the backdrop of endless space and a myriad of stars. And it sounds divine. “Thus said Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss is also heard against the backdrop of some kind of lunar landscape and cyclopean boulders. The feeling is truly incredible.

So, can we say that music can change fate and push a person to real action in life? Aitmatov says he can. And if someone dares to take any life step or deed because of music, or not least because of it, then, one must assume, he is truly a superman - the highest spirit and true freedom.

“Love includes everything that is given by nature, stars, Cosmos. Love is a symphony, more precisely, a world symphony.”

These are the words of Aitmatov.

Answer from Green flower[guru]
Jamila is the image of a woman, which no one before Ch. Aitmatov so revealed in the prose of oriental literatures. She is a living person, born from the very land of Kyrgyzstan. Before the appearance of Daniyar, Jamila lived like a stream, bound by ice. Neither the mother-in-law nor Jamila Sadyk's husband, due to the centuries-old traditions of “large and small courtyards”, even think that in spring the sun can wake up this invisible stream. And he can gurgle, boil, boil and rush in search of a way out and, not finding it, will stop at nothing, rush forward to a free life. In the story “Jamilya” in a new way, subtly and with great inner tact, Ch. Aitmatov solves the problem of the collision of the new with the old, the patriarchal and socialist way of life and everyday life. This problem is complex, and when they tried to solve it straightforwardly, the characters turned out to be sketchy, there was no psychological persuasiveness. Ch. Aitmatov happily avoided this shortcoming. Seit, on behalf of whom the narration is being conducted, respects his mother - the support of the family. When all the men of the "large and small households" go to the front, the mother demands from the rest "patience together with the people." In her understanding of things, she relies on extensive life experience and epic traditions. The author does not throw a single reproach at her address. And patriarchal foundations, inertia, narrow-mindedness, covered with mold of well-being, are subtextually highlighted by the author, and ultimately it becomes clear to the reader that all this puts pressure on a person, deprives her of beauty, freedom and strength. The love of Daniyar and Jamila not only exposed the moral and social roots of this narrow-mindedness, but also showed the ways of victory over it. Love in the story wins the battle against inertia. Both in this work and in subsequent works, Aitmatov affirms the freedom of personality and love, because without them there is no life. The power of the influence of real art on the soul of a person is clearly revealed in the fate of young Seit. An ordinary Ailian teenager, who differs from his peers, perhaps by a little more observation and spiritual subtlety, suddenly begins to see clearly under the influence of Daniyar's songs. The love of Daniyar and Jamila inspires Seit. After their departure, he still remains in the village of Kurkureu, but this is no longer the former teenager. Jamilya and Daniyar became for him the moral embodiment of poetry and love, their light led him on the road, he resolutely declared to his mother: “I will go to study ... Tell your father. I want to be an artist." Such is the transformative power of love and art. This is argued and defended by Ch. Aitmatov in the story "Jamilya".

The work of Chingiz Aitmatov is convincing evidence of this. The appearance in 1958 in the Novy Mir magazine of the story Jamilya, small in volume, but significant in content, vivid in its imaginative thinking and mastery of execution, was a signal that a man of surprisingly original talent had come to literature from the Kyrgyz steppes. Chekhov wrote: "What is talented is new." These words can be fully attributed to Ch. Aitmatov's stories “Jamilya”, “White steamboat”, “Farewell, Gyulsary!

”, “Poplar in a red scarf” and others. Only an exceptionally gifted nature can combine a truly folklore beginning and an innovative perception of modern life. Already the story "Jami-la", sung by the writer freely, in one wide breath, has become an innovative phenomenon. Jamila is the image of a woman, no one before Ch.

Aitmatov is not so disclosed in the prose of oriental literatures. She is a living person, born from the very land of Kyrgyzstan. Before the appearance of Daniyar, Jamila lived like a stream, bound by ice. Neither the mother-in-law nor Jamila Sadyk's husband, due to the age-old traditions of "large and small courtyards," even think that in the spring the sun can wake up this invisible stream. And he can gurgle, boil, boil and rush in search of a way out and, not finding it, will stop at nothing, rush forward to a free life. In the story "Jamilya" in a new way, subtly and with great inner tact, Ch.

Aitmatov solves the problem of the collision of the new with the old, the patriarchal and socialist way of life, everyday life. This problem is complex, and when they tried to solve it straightforwardly, the characters turned out to be sketchy, there was no psychological persuasiveness. Ch. Aitmatov happily avoided this shortcoming. Seit, on behalf of whom the narration is being conducted, respects his mother - the support of the family. When all the men of "large and small households" go to the front, the mother demands from the rest "patience together with the people."

In her understanding of things, she relies on extensive life experience and epic traditions. The author does not throw a single reproach at her address. And patriarchal foundations, inertia, narrow-mindedness, covered with mold of well-being, are subtextually highlighted by the author, and ultimately it becomes clear to the reader that all this puts pressure on a person, deprives her of beauty, freedom and strength. Daniyara and Jamila not only exposed the moral and social roots of this narrow-mindedness, but also showed the ways of victory over it. Love in the story wins the battle against inertia. Both in this work and in subsequent works, Aitmatov affirms the freedom of personality and love, because without them there is no life. The power of the influence of real art on the soul of a person is clearly revealed in the fate of young Seit.

An ordinary Ailian teenager, who differs from his peers, perhaps by a little more observation and spiritual subtlety, suddenly begins to see clearly under the influence of Daniyar's songs. The love of Daniyar and Jamila inspires Seit. After their departure, he still remains in the village of Kurkureu, but this is no longer the former teenager. Jamila and Daniyar became for him the moral embodiment of poetry and love, their light led him on the road, he resolutely declared all rights reserved 2001-2005 to his mother: “I will go to study ... Tell your father.

I want to be an artist." Such is the transformative power of love and art.

This is asserted and defended by Ch. Aitmatov in the story "Jamilya". At the very beginning of the 60s, several stories by Aitmatov appeared one after another, including Poplar in a Red Scarf, Camel's Eye.

Judging by the artistic performance, they belong to the time of the writer's creative search. Both in this and in the other story there are acute conflict situations both in the sphere of production and in the personal life of the characters.

The hero of the story "Poplar in a Red Scarf" Ilyas rather poetically perceives the world around him. But at the beginning of the story, where this poetry looks like a natural manifestation of the spiritual capabilities of a person inspired by love, he seems less convincing than later, when he suffers, looking for his lost love. And yet Ilyas is a sharply defined male character among the people around him.

Baitemir, who first sheltered Asel and then married her, is a kind and sympathetic person, but there is a certain egoism in him. Perhaps this is because he lived too long in solitude and now silently but stubbornly clings to happiness, which so unexpectedly, like a gift from God, crossed the threshold of his bachelor's home? Critics reproached the author of "Poplar in a Red Scarf" for the lack of psychological justification for the actions of the characters.

The unspoken love of two young people and their hasty wedding seemed to be called into question. There is, of course, some truth in this, but we must also take into account the fact that the creative principle of Ch.

Aitmatov, as well as the love tradition of his people, is always alien to the verbosity of people who love each other. It is through actions, subtle details that Aitmatov shows the unity of loving hearts. Declaration of love is not love itself. After all, Daniyar and Jamila also realized that they love each other, without verbose explanations.

In "Topolka in a Red Scarf", Asel recognizes the tracks of Ilyas's truck among the wheels of a dozen other vehicles. Here Aitmatov used the folklore detail very appropriately and creatively. In this region, where the action of the story takes place, a girl, especially two days before the wedding, in broad daylight, cannot go out onto the road to wait for an unloved person. Ilyas and Asel were led on the road by love, and here words are superfluous, since their actions are psychologically justified. And yet, in the story, one feels some kind of haste of the author, the desire to quickly connect the lovers, he rather needs to move on to something more important. And now Ilyas says: “We lived together, loved each other, and then a misfortune happened to me.” And then - industrial conflict and, ultimately, the destruction of the family.

Why? Because Ilyas "turned the horse of life in the wrong direction." Yes, Ilyas is a hot and controversial person, but the reader believes that he will not sink, will find the strength to overcome the confusion in his soul and find happiness.

In order to be convinced of this logical transformation of Ilyas, it is enough for readers to recall the internal monologue of this young man, already quite beaten by fate, when he sees white swans over Issyk-Kul for the second time: “Issyk-Kul, Issyk-Kul - my unsung song! ... why did I remember the day when we stopped at this place, just above the water, together with Asel? Ch. Aitmatov does not change his manner: in order to prove the depth of Ilyas' feelings and the breadth of his soul, he again leaves him alone with the lake.

With this story, the remarkable writer proved to himself and others that for any plot, any topic he finds an original Aitmatov's solution.

Frame from the film "Jamilya" (1968)

It was the third year of the war. There were no adult healthy men in the village, and therefore the wife of my older brother Sadyk (he was also at the front), Jamila, was sent by the brigadier to a purely male job - to carry grain to the station. And so that the elders would not worry about the bride, he sent me, a teenager, along with her. He also said: I will send Daniyar with them.

Jamila was pretty - slender, stately, with blue-black almond-shaped eyes, tireless, dexterous. She knew how to get along with her neighbors, but if she was offended, she would not yield to anyone in swearing. I loved Jamila dearly. And she loved me. It seems to me that my mother also secretly dreamed of someday making her the imperious mistress of our family, who lived in harmony and prosperity.

On the current I met Daniyar. It was said that in childhood he remained an orphan, for three years he roamed the yards, and then went to the Kazakhs in the Chakmak steppe. Daniyar's wounded leg (he had just returned from the front) did not bend, that's why he was sent to work with us. He was reserved, and in the village he was considered a strange man. But there was something hidden in his silent, gloomy pensiveness that we did not dare to treat him like a familiar.

And Jamila, as it happened, either laughed at him, or did not pay attention to him at all. Not everyone would endure her antics, but Daniyar looked at the laughing Jamila with sullen admiration.

However, our tricks with Jamila ended one day sadly. Among the sacks was one huge one, seven pounds worth, and we handled it together. And somehow, on the current, we dumped this bag in the partner's britzka. At the station, Daniyar looked at the monstrous load with concern, but, noticing how Jamila grinned, he put the bag on his back and went. Jamila caught up with him: “Drop the bag, I was joking!” - "Go away!" - he said firmly and went down the ladder, falling more and more on his wounded leg ... There was dead silence around. "Give it up!" people shouted. "No, he won't quit!" - someone whispered with conviction.

The whole next day, Daniyar kept calm and silent. Returned from the station late. Suddenly he began to sing. I was struck by what passion, what burning the melody was saturated with. And suddenly his strangeness became clear to me: daydreaming, love of solitude, silence. Daniyar's songs aroused my soul. How has Jamila changed?

Every time when we returned to the village at night, I noticed how Jamilya, shocked and moved by this singing, came closer and closer to the britzka and slowly pulled her hand to Daniyar ... and then lowered it. I saw how something accumulated and matured in her soul, demanding an exit. And she was afraid of it.

One day we, as usual, were driving from the station. And when Daniyar's voice began to rise again, Jamila sat down next to him and lightly leaned her head against his shoulder. Quiet, timid… The song suddenly broke off. It was Jamila who impetuously hugged him, but immediately jumped off the britzka and, barely holding back her tears, said sharply: “Don’t look at me, go!”

And it was evening on the current, when I saw through a dream how Jamila came from the river, sat down next to Daniyar and clung to him. "Jamilyam, Jamaltai!" - whispered Daniyar, calling her the most tender Kazakh and Kyrgyz names.

Soon the steppe blew, the sky became cloudy, cold rains began to fall - the harbingers of snow. And I saw Daniyar walking with a duffel bag, and Jamila was walking next to him, holding on to the strap of his bag with one hand.

How many conversations and gossip were in the village! Women vying with each other condemned Jamila: to leave such a family! with the hungry! Maybe I'm the only one who didn't blame her.

retold