CHINGIZ AITMATOV

Chingiz Aimatov is a famous Kyrgyz author, probably the only native Central Asian author to obtain international renown. His works have been translated into English and other European languages. (It is actually claimed that he has been translated into more than one hundred languages, with a total circulation of 90 million copies). He was very popular in Soviet times, although not without controversy, and Mikhail Gorbachev sometimes quoted from him in speeches. Recurring themes throughout his work are the cultural heritage of the Turkic peoples and how modernity is depriving man of his individuality.

His father was a prominent member of the Supreme Soviet of the Kirghiz Autonomous Republic and it is believed he was killed at Chon Tash (just outside Bishkek) along with the entire membership of the Central Committee in one of Stalin’s purges — although, this did not stop him joining the party himself (!).

Born in 1928 in the village of Sheker in the Talas valley, near the Uzbek border, he completed only six years of schooling and at the age of 14 (it was during World War II) he became Secretary (head) of the local village soviet (council) and a tax collector. He later trained in Jambul (Kazakhstan — now called Taraz) as a veterinarian, graduating in 1953, and worked on an experimental farm.

His first publication appeared in January 1952 — an article in the journal ’Soviet Kirghizia’, «On the Terminology of the Kirghiz Language» in which he commented how much the Kirghiz language had been enriched by borrowings from the Russian language. This was followed by a number of short stories. As a result of his publications he entered the Literary Institute in Moscow, graduating in 1958. He published a few minor works at this time, but rose to popularity with his book Dzhamilia. He emerged as a major Soviet writer and literary figure, on the governing board of many intellectual and cultural institutions such as the Literary Gazette, Writers’ Union and he was the head of the Kirghiz Filmmakers’ Union for over twenty years. For a time he contributed to the newspaper Pravda. He wrote in both Russian and Kyrgyz. As well as writing his own novels he also wrote plays and he translated other people«s stories, and poetry.

Elected a member of the Supreme Soviet he was a delegate to the last four Party Congresses, and was awarded many national honours, including a Lenin Prize, a State Prize (both for Literature) and the Hero of Socialist Labour medal (awarded on his fiftieth birthday). He was instrumental in the founding of the national-rebirth «Movement for Democracy» in 1989.

He is currently the Kyrgyz ambassador to the European Union based in Belgium. His son is an adviser to President Akaev.

In his hometown of Sheker, there is now a Museum dedicated to him, his life and work. It was opened in 1978, to mark his 50th year and has over 1000 exhibits such as manuscripts, articles, books and pictures. There is also a special section about his parents and family history.

Aitmatov's works include:

Dzhamilia (1958) — This dealt with the right of a young Kyrgyz girl to reject «patriarchal norms» and leave the husband she was given in a traditional arranged marriage to run off with her true love.

Farewell Gul«sary! (1966) — Centres on a man tending his dying horse and musing over his past, on how he was excluded from the party under Stalin and on whether he should rejoin it.

The White Ship (1970) — the main character is a young boy who lived in the Issyk-Kul region of Kyrgyzstan and is told a Kyrgyz legend about how a deer gave milk to a boy and girl who were the founders of his clan. When he sees his grandfather kill, skin and butcher a dear he is mortified by the experience.

Early Cranes (1975)

The Piebald Dog Running Along the Shore (1978) — a rite of passage of a young boy out at sea on his first deep sea fishing trip with his elders when a storm strikes and brings disaster.

The Place of the Skull (1986) — a story tracing a family of wolves and the humans with whom they come into contact: a mystical former-monk tuned Journalist and the manager of a sheep farm.

Execution Block (1986) — about the growing drugs culture among young people and a young man«s search for God to save himself. The book caused a sensation when it was first published and there were demands by hard-line communists that it should be banned.

The Day Lasts More Than A Thousand Years (1980) — probably his most famous work in the West. The Central plot concerns Yegedi, a Kazakh worker, he adopts the heroic task of burying an old friend according to traditional Muslim rituals. The book has other interlocking themes and seems to advocate a revival of national traditions dating from before Russian expansion into Central Asia. There is a Science Fiction element that follows the fate of a group of Cosmonauts who appear to encounter an alien intelligence. He draws heavily on the tradition of the mankurts, (who according to Kyrgyz legend were prisoners of war who were turned into slaves by having their heads wrapped in camel skin. Under a hot sun these skins dried tight, like a steel band, thus enslaving them forever, which he likens this to a ring of rockets around the earth to keep out a higher civilisation. A mankurt did not recognise his name, family or tribe — «a mankurt did not recognise himself as a human being», he writes).

He also wrote the play The Ascent of Mount Fuji co-written with Kaltai Mukhamedzhanov.