Chingiz Aitmatov Bio
"The responsibility of a writer is to bring forth words that capture, through painful personal experience, people's suffering, pain, faith and hope. This is because a writer is charged with the mission of speaking on behalf of his fellow human beings. Everything that happens in the world is happening to me personally.”A renowned humanist, writer, and diplomat, Chinghiz Aitmatov was a beloved Kyrgyz cultural icon. In addition to capturing beautifully universal human moments in his writing, his life was uniquely positioned in time such that he was able to chart the decline of Kyrgyzstan and Central Asian culture with the take-over of the Soviet Union and its later collapse. Aitmatov also played a very active role in the resurrection of his own home country politically as an international ambassador and artistically and socially through his writing.
- Chinghiz Aitmatov
Born on December 12, 1928 in Seker, Kyrgyzstan, Aitmatov received his early education at a Soviet school as Kyrgyzstan was becoming a part of the newly formed USSR. Aitmatov’s parents were heavily involved in the Soviet political realm. Aitmatov’s father worked several positions in the Party apparatus, and his mother was committed to fighting for a number of social issues including women’s rights, literacy, land and water reforms, and eliminating the remaining influences of Islam on Kyrgyz society. Even in a political household, politics no doubt became even more personal when in 1937 Aitmatov’s father was charged with "bourgeois nationalism" and was executed. Despite this scarring experience at a young age, Aitmatov had little choice but to continue living as a diligent Soviet citizen. At 14 Aitmatov worked as an assistant to the Secretary at the Village Soviet, the district office of the Soviet government, and at 20 he studied literature at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow. Interestingly Aitmatov’s life could have taken a very different path at this point, as he studied animal husbandry for a few years before pursuing literature in Moscow. I can’t imagine he would have become such a Kyrgyz icon in such a profession, but who knows. In 1951 he married Keres Shamshibaeva with whom he had three sons and a daughter but divorced some years later.
Aitmatov’s literary career really began when he started working for Pravda in 1956, one of the most influential papers in the Soviet Union and the official paper of the Communist party. While working at Pravda, Aitmatov published the first of many of his most important works: “A difficult Passage” in 1956, “Face to Face” in 1957, and Jamila in 1958. In 1963 he published Tales of the Mountains and Steppes for which was awarded the Lenin Prize for literature. Although he wasn’t particularly overt in his criticisms of the Soviet Union, his novels often had themes of social and political activism. In his most popular novel, Jamila, he confronted the discrepancies in the traditional treatment of women in Central Asian Society. The novel raises issues of discrimination, denial of education, and mistreatment with a strong female protagonist at the center. This, and other societal commentary, stem from Aitmatov’s deep-seated love for all of humanity; he believed in a “love that wishes all who have been born on this planet happiness and freedom” and that “no ideology or national structure is more important than this” (Aitmatov as cited in “Prominent Russians”). This underlying message in all his books is perhaps the reason he was so widely appreciated.
In addition to growing literary fame, Aitmatov also earned a place on the political stage: becoming a member of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. in 1966 and a member of the Executive Board of The Writers’ Union of the USSR a year later. His political career however did not slow his writing and after winning the State Prize for his first novel Farewell, Gyulsary in 1968 Aitmatov went on to win the prize again in 1977 and 1983. In the early 1970s Aitmatov began writing his works in Russian instead of his native Kyrgyz, which allowed him to reach a wider audience, and also ventured into the performing arts with his contributions to the play “The Ascent of Mount Fuji,” which was first performed in 1973. It was considered very provocative in Soviet Russia as it featured and examined themes of authority and dissent. In 1981 he published The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years, which features dual plots: a Kazakh community’s quest to perform a culturally respectful burial ceremony in a remote desert, while inhibited by the changes brought about under soviet control, and an international space collaboration that has made contact with aliens. It is a sort of mash-up of science fiction with other elements more common to his writing such as clear influence from Central Asian folklore and mimicked soviet realism tropes that cloak a mild critique of the soviet regime. This loss of culture and tradition under the pressures of the Soviet regime is no doubt a tension Aitmatov himself experienced. This novel also would heavily influence the film Mankurt released in 1990 and written by his second wife Mariya Urmatova. Interestingly he actually coined the term mankurt to mean a Central Asian who opts to become this new “Soviet person,” the term is now used derisively by Central Asians. Although his writings were quite influential, many exhibit a similar amount of restraint in their critiques. Perhaps it was this sense of caution, or maybe just Aitmatov’s general humanist outlooks, that appealed to Mikhail Gorbachev when he decided to make Aitmatov one of his advisors as he became President of the USSR in the mid-1980s. Like his writing career, his political career only continued to boom; Aitmatov would also serve as the Soviet ambassador to Luxembourg and, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, he continued as the Kyrgyz ambassador to the European Union as well as many other European countries. He would eventually serve as a member of parliament in Kyrgyzstan.
While Aitmatov lead a very eventful and interesting life, he is still best known and most beloved for his work as a Kyrgyz author. His novels covered many themes including love and friendship, heroism in wartime, and the emancipation of Kyrgyz youth from restrictive tradition, drawing from his own experiences with Kyrgyzstan’s dissolution and working for the Village Soviet during war-times. Ever a man of his people, the messages of Aitmatov’s novels have evolved to fit the times. His final novel When the Mountains Fall Down: The Eternal Bride, published in 2005, had environmental themes: encouraging the mindful preservation of nature, and making an appeal to his fellow countrymen to protect the Celestial Mountains of his home country.
Aitmatov and his writings were quite widely respected even in disparate political circles. Politicians of all parties from his native country of Kyrgyzstan sought his public support. When he died in Nurnberg, Germany on June 10, 2008, his death was mourned by the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the current Russian President Vladimir Putin alike, and even his critics acknowledged the quality of his novels.
Bibliography
Balski, G. Directory of Eastern European Film-Makers and Films 1945-1991. Flicks Books, 1992.
‘Chingiz Aytmatov | Kyrgyz Author’. Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chingiz-Aytmatov
“Death Of A Modern Hero.” RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, 23 June 2008, www.rferl.org/a/1144589.html.
“Prominent Russians: Chinghiz Aitmatov.” Chinghiz Aitmatov – Russiapedia Literature Prominent Russians, 11 June 2008, russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/literature/chinghiz-aitmatov/.
