Writer Andrey Bitov visited Armenia for one week for the purpose of planting the first tree of the alley after Hrant Matevosyan. “I came to the fatherland of my friend, my brother, and planted two trees in Ahnidzor. The name of one tree is Hrant, and the name of the other one is Andrey. I hope these two trees will strongly stand on the Armenian land. When I was in the Lori canyon, in the birthplace of my friend, sad ideas came to my head. Hrant Matevosyan and Levon Nersisyan are not with us any more. They were telling me about their feelings and I perceived as they were. In fact I did not write my book but interpreted the ideas they gave me,” said the writer during a meeting with the students of the Russian-Armenian university.
Andrey Bitov is a great writer and thinker, and this greatness means that he is thinking of the future of the country and people. This is a simple reality that does not need words. Armenia is grateful to Bitov for his book entitled “The lessons of Armenia” written in 1967, due to which we could discover ourselves, the great people of our nation and our history, the stones and letters of our motherland. Due to his book we could love ourselves again. Andrey Bitov saw Armenia not as a guest and not in the way as tourists usually do but as a person who feels a part of that land and is inspired by that land. “Of course first of all I was inspired by Armenia’s history. For every writer the history is an endless topic and I was hungry of the information concerning the old ages of your history. The united, resisting and strong nation of Armenians has formed their mentality due to learning from the history. I thought that what is given with difficulties and pain is loved more. This rule is passed to the next generations and brings to great results and difficulties are becoming very expensive achievements. And the sad pages of the history are becoming stimulus for moving forward. This is what we learn from Armenia’s example. This example is important not only for peoples’ histories but for every person as well. People can understand each other only through this way and going through details,” says Bitov who believes that he is a traveler in this world too. “The traveling should have started spontaneously. You are traveling in order to get the right to write,” he says.
When he was young he used to travel in the USSR states very often. He has been in touch with the cultures of peoples and left a lot of notes about Armenia, Georgia and America.
“I know that one does not read books for pleasure or getting information. People are reading books in order to discover themselves,” the writer says.
Andrey Bitov confesses that he became a writer by chance. “I became a writer by chance but it is more than a half century that I am a writer. Definitely I became a writer because I did not want to work or serve. In other words, it was something like a ruse”.
He presented his poems in Armenia and read his writings under music. He explains his attempt to present his word under music with the fact that he wants to fill the silence between words. “When the word ends the music starts to play. It is an attempt to fill the space with sounds,” he said. By the way, recently he presented the drafts of Pushkin under jazz music in Moscow, thus showing that poetry is born from numerous improvisations.
– Your poems show that faith has a great role in your life. You say that nowadays the human being believes partially and lives partially as well.
– I assure that I would go mad without the faith. Those who don’t have faith either have problems with their personality or strongly believe in themselves because they think that thjey can do everything with their brains. If you don’t set a high point or limit for yourself, higher than you, you can’t percept this world as an ordinary human being in order to understand the reality and live. The life is full of surprises, which in fact are not given by chance. For example, this time I came to Armenia on the elder Friday day when the Armenians were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And now I am leaving back on the day of the elder Friday of Russians. This was not by chance and it is a very interesting coincidence.
– Has our life changed?
– The life is the same everywhere and generally people are the same as well: they have the same pain, the same lonilyness and they can’t hear the life’s message. They don’t know where to look for the “bearers” of the life. Don’t ask me anything about the modern life; the only thing I know is that the life is everywhere. If you think that something is missing in the life and is not good, I assure you that you are mistaken because the life is beautiful and full of miracles. Once you think of something, it comes up at once. Imagination can become a power of fact.
– Why don’t we have great writers now?
– The most important thing to me is the talent. As for the talent, it comes only with fairness and the truth. In other conditions there can be neither power nor voice. I believe that Hrant Matevosyan will be greater and will sound stronger in the future for sure because there has been no one like him in Armenia. There have been separate writings but no one has drawn the big picture as he did. By the way, Hrant was not interested in the fall of the Soviet Union mbecause as a representative of the Armenian literature he satyed in the memories of many people. Even though Hrant was not a representative of the literature but he was the bearer of the Armenian literature. There was time when all of us was struggling against unexpected norms in order to find a place under the sun. It was turning us on, but nothing more. What now? Can you try to be free? It is not so easy.
– Why?
– In order to be free you should be someone and have certain values, in other words you should exist with your values and then try to look for freedom in your existence. It has been always easy to obey and be like everyobne. It has always been like that. Simply people should come to the idea of being independent themselves. Freedom is an independent work and you are getting it independently. As for the other things that are given, these are just supporting or hindering, but not resulting in freedom. In a word, freedom is the business of people themselves. I don’t know anyone, and noone knows me – this is the real freedom. And if one day I have the happiness to ask the God for my freedom, or even get the right to write something, it means that everything is perfect then. Later you are starting to pray for other things such as for health, the next generations and friends and relatives. At leastwe are coming to this world being empty and named, and in the same way we are leaving this world. The most important thing is not to have reasons to be shy when you are leaving this world.
– Many writers are endorsing political powers, which is harming their reputation and role. What do you think about this?
– What does it mean for a writer to be oppositionist? Of course the writer is oppositioner because he/she does not like the government and is not interested in the governmental affairs, and he has other methods to express himself. However we should not forget that a real writer sees his government sometime in the future and does not want to have everything at once and fast. Governments go fast but good texts stay for a long time. I don’t understand anything in politics and don’t want ti either because politics is not good fro me. Politics smells bad and it has always done.
– Now it is very difficult in Armenia. Have you noticed this?
– It has always been difficult in Armenia. I think that the Armenian Diaspora should care about Armenia more. Even during the soviet times I was surprised to see the Armenian Diaspora not to support Armenia much. One should never begrudge. One should have an open heart and hand and all the doors will be open for him.
– You say that young people don’t read books and are conformists.
– O, let’s leave them alone. Young people will work it out themselves. Maybe they will…
– You have written a scenario about Iosif Orbeli, the director of the Hermitage, which has not been filmed yet. Filmmaker David Muradyan says that we would have a very good example of a film telling about the relationships between individuals and the system. Why wasn’t it filmed?
– When I wrote that scenario I didn’t have a job and I wanted to earn my living, but earn it without being shy. This scenario was not an important phase in my life. Frunzik Dovlatyan could not make it approved. Piotrovski did not like it either. Maybe there were true stories which were not accepted. What can we do? There are people who are not happy about the truth.
– When we say that a poet is more than just a poet, we are making him be like a man who is to show the true way to others. Why?
– The poet is a poet, neither more nor less. People like to listen to what poets say because they like self-delusion. I have written about one thing during all my life… I have written that the human being is in self-delusion all the time because this is the nature. The human being does not want to believe himself, this is the question of questions. The idea that we are being cheated by the government and society is a very simple interpretation. All of us are in self-delusion, me as well. I am only writing about this fact. And when writing I always assume that my readers are smarter than me. I respect the reader because a writer is no one unless his writings are read.
– Why does the human being want to be cheated?
– The human does not want to believe himself, he doesn’t want or need it. Recently I formulated my message and wrote how it happens that a man lies himself, and the influence of the soviet or totalitarian system does not matter here and is a secondary issue. For example I never understand why people accept and understand me so well in the West. When I formulated the mentioned message I understood it. Because this nature is for all the human beings and people should lie themselves in order to be able to live better.