On the centenary anniversary of Rasul Gamzatov, they again started talking about the cost of the collapse of the USSR

Gamzatov called his village “Avar Athens”, and, truly, this is not a big exaggeration. Khunzakh (the nearest regional center) was once the capital of the mighty Avar Khanate, which competed in its influence with the Khazar Khaganate. So tourists who flock to local Athens because of the inaccessibility of Greek cities have something to see, something to be surprised by, something to think about. The shortcomings of hotel service are more than made up for by the hospitality of the people, the beauty of mountainous Dagestan, and the antiquity of history. There is something mysteriously attractive in the gigantic peaks, in the wild nature, in the hidden will of these places.

In general, “How beautiful, my friends, is our blooming Dagestan!..” The hall listened to the majestic song based on Gamzatov’s poetry while standing. She was born a long time ago, from Soviet times. The music is folk, and in the melody of the chorus the sensitive ear of an Orthodox person will hear familiar notes from liturgical chants. It’s not surprising – Christianity came to the North Caucasus before Islam, and for centuries the faiths lived side by side, sometimes competing, sometimes reconciling.

The most famous creation of Rasul Gamzatov is the poem “Cranes”, which became both a song, a symbol, and almost a prayer. “It seems to me, sometimes, that the soldiers who did not return from the bloody fields…” In Tsada there is a memorial “White Cranes”. The poet’s word, if it is sacred, is news from other worlds, an echo of the past, a message to the future. Here, on a plateau illuminated by the sun, the ever-flying cranes of our national genius were remembered: “I stand alone, in the middle of a naked plain, And the wind carries the cranes into the distance, I am full of thoughts about my cheerful youth, But I don’t regret anything in the past.”…

Why is it so sad?! After all, the holiday, the 100th anniversary of Rasul Gamzatov, was a success. A wonderful anniversary concert, rich in national motifs, at the Russian Drama Theater in Makhachkala. Poetry evening at the Poetry Theater (the only one in Russia!), where writers from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Cheboksary, Astrakhan and, of course, Dagestan poets performed. The anniversary included the festivals “Our Rasul”, “Cranes over Russia”, a creative competition “Poetic Balcony”, a “round table” at the National Library. Rasul Gamzatov and many more festive and memorable events.

2003 was the last year in the life of Rasul Gamzatov. I was at his 80th birthday in Makhachkala. The poet felt “his age,” but, sitting on the festive podium, listening attentively to everyone, he joked: “Here they say: you are great. I’m not as good as you think – I know myself better. But I’m not as bad as many others think…” The audience applauded. Only very influential people can allow themselves to be ironic.

Rasul Gamzatov is a political figure. He, the poet, gathered a lot of bureaucratic people around him then. At the ceremonial meeting, Viktor Kazantsev, the president’s representative in the Southern Federal District, read poems of his own composition for the hero of the day. The heads of Kabardino-Balkaria, Ossetia and Ingushetia, the commander of the North Caucasian Military District and the chairman of the parliament of Adygea, the sweet-voiced Bul-Bul Ogly (Minister of Culture of Azerbaijan) and the Ambassador of Georgia to Russia Zurab Abashidze (son of the famous poet), delegations from Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine ( !)… Almost all of Russia gathered – writers from Karachay-Cherkessia, Chechnya, Kalmykia, Buryatia. The Dagestanis greeted with ovation the speech of Valentin Sorokin, deputy chairman of the executive committee of the International Community of Writers’ Unions: “I, a Russian poet, really love the poet Rasul Gamzatov, the poet of all the peoples of the great Union of Soviet Socialist Republics! I want white cranes to fly, cry and sing over his wise gray head, over his native Dagestan, over our native Russia! Gamzatov is the son of Dagestan, the prophet and singer of the Caucasus, the defender of the USSR!..”

This feeling of unity and brotherhood that reigned at the festival at that time sometimes gave the illusion that everyone who had gathered together with the poet had become twenty years younger and had returned to the times of the unostentatious friendship of peoples, when there were “fifteen republics – fifteen sisters.” Time of hope, 2003!..

What now?.. Have we become stronger over the past 20 years? Happier? More friendly? Or maybe cultural figures equal in talent and influence to Rasul Gamzatov are now being brought into the focus of public attention? But who is this?! Singer Shaman? Author of obscene verses Shnur? Video blogger Danya Milokhin?

It is difficult to count on unanimity in answers to these questions. Firstly, the very methodology of our sociology is incomprehensible. Secondly, really everything that works. And several decades of post-Soviet denationalization were not in vain. They affected not only the self-perception of the Russian people, but also their physical well-being. On fertility, mortality, life expectancy.

The Soviet government was lax in some ways, limited and dogmatic in some ways, but there were also clear rules. For example, this: way to talent! In 1923, when Rasul Gamzatov was born, there was, naturally, no asphalt to his mountain village. In the village “Seventy warm hearths. Seventy blue haze rising into the clear high mountain sky.” By the way, they drowned with dung – dried manure. And from such an aul, so far from universities and academies, the young man Rasul was able to rise to the level of international fame! What’s it like?..

And is he alone? Mustai Karim, Kaisyn Kuliev, Chingiz Aitmatov and other talented writers from national republics and autonomies gained their readership and popularity thanks to the cultural policy of the Soviet Union. So this policy was correct? Or are we now against talent, let artificial intelligence create instead of them?.. But the Soviet Union is not only the friendship of peoples and the mutual enrichment of cultures. This is, first of all, an economy built on completely different principles than today. These are developed industry, advanced science, space exploration, technological self-sufficiency, military power.

What’s surprising is that no one has yet been held accountable for the collapse of the USSR!.. But isn’t the destruction of the state a crime? Why are the perpetrators not named and punished? And why today the citizens of Russia, in essence, do not know what exactly they are building, what is the goal of the civil aspirations of our society? Are we building an empire by competing with other imperialists? Or a “cluster” in the planetary system of the “new world order”? Or do we have no plan at all, but only situational throwing?..

“The purpose of a writer is not only to create, to rethink the past and present, to “hear the call of the future,” but also to control the minds and hearts of readers, to be a herald of citizenship and patriotism, to be a prophet in his Fatherland, showing the true, high, spiritual path to his contemporaries.” These are the words of Magomed Akhmedov, an Avar poet and friend of Rasul Gamzatov. Unfortunately, he passed away this year. Having graduated from the Literary Institute in 1979, he still saw the “era of great style” in our culture and knew many of the “Soviet titans” personally. What about the current generation? Who will they look up to? Whose ideals to express? Why call?

Yes, becoming a poet of truth is not so easy! This is the lot of strong natures who dedicated their talent to their native people. And therefore they have the right to certainty: “Both ordinary people and deputies, everyone is inspired by this muse. Long live Rasul Gamzatov, Poet of the Soviet Union!..”