Aslan Kasayev, Cand. Sc. (History). Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
“Eugene Onegin” is thought to be “an encyclopedia of Russian life.” At the same time, the most famous book by Fazil Iskander ‘Sandro from Chegem’ can be considered an encyclopedia of Abkhazian life, or even the whole life of the Caucasus.
He was a foreigner at the feast of life of the literary party of the late 1950s and so on till Perestroika. Critics and the KGB assigned him to such authors as Aksyonov, Yevtushenko and Voznesenski, who represented an active social phenomenon of Moscow. They hung out at poetry parties and fashionable house concerts; they were well-known by the Central Committee. But few people knew what one of the most favorite authors of magazines “Yunost” and “Novy Mir” looked like. He spent about five years in Moscow and then moved to Bryansk for several years, and later he returned to beautiful Abkhazia. He influenced from there…
One secret of the depth and popularity of Iskander’s works was his either loud or sad laugh. Orthodox philosopher, literary critic Sergei Averintsev defined the phenomenon as “simultaneous mind motion and motion of nerves and muscles: a dynamic outburst as an explosion.” And the phenomenon of Iskander is similar to the Caucasus character, which is full of irony and sometimes self-irony.
Nikolai Gogol found immortal characters in the south-eastern Ukrainians. Fazil Iskander has been doing the same thing with the Abkhazians for more than 60 years. His Abkhazians are absolutely unique and original in form and content – they turn into traits. They are recognizable in all nations under all weathers or political conditions. This is doubtless the historic importance of Fazil Iskander’s works.
Even though Iskander’s characters are described by various stylistic means, in fact they are taken from life itself. On the other hand, many characters created by Iskander sprang to life, for example, an immortal powerful corrupt official – the meat king Georgy Georgievich from the play titled “A Coffee House by the Sea.” You can find a Georgy Georgievich anywhere in our country.
Many well-known people of Abkhazia were prototypes of Iskander’s characters: the Sukhumi historian Vianor Pachulia can be recognized in the bright and original historian Vakhtang Bochua from “Kozlotur Constellation.” It was thought that Iskander stringed a line, describing a meeting with an English tourist in the 1950s in “Kozlotur.” However, the former last UK ambassador to the USSR, Sir Rodric Braithwaite, has recently told me that he visited Abkhazia as a tourist in the second half of the 1950s. Yuri Voronov, one of the brightest Abkhazian politicians of the 1990s, the vice-speaker of the Abkhazian parliament, was described by Iskander as a husband of “Chegem’s Carmen”, the honest archeologist Andrew.
It is admitted that Abkhazia was put into literary form by Iskander, who took the country and its nation to leading subjects of the world art process. Metaphysically, Iskander created Abkhazia as a legend, as a myth, especially for those who have visited the land…
