chyngyz aitmatov biography in english

Chingiz Aitmatov: Getting to know a world-famous writer from Kyrgyzstan

One of the lasting effects of the continuing Cold War against all socialist thought and culture is the West’s denial of the art of socialist countries. This affects all genres in all the socialist countries. The work of these artists is rarely readily available to the general public, and sidelined in university courses, dismissed highhandedly as “Soviet Era” and therefore by definition deplorable.

This article is about the amazing Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov, who died 15 years ago, on June 10, 2008. Aitmatov was well known throughout the socialist world and was the principal reason for my recent visit to his homeland Kyrgyzstan. The Lonely Planet guidebook I had brought with me unsurprisingly made no mention of the country’s national writer.

Over 80% of Aitmatov’s Central Asian homeland lies in the high Tian Shan mountains (Chinese for “Celestial Mountains”). Kyrgyzstan’s landscape consists for the most part of mountain steppes, valleys at an altitude of 1500 to 2000 meters, populated into the 20th century by nomads with an extraordinarily vital oral tradition. Until the establishment of Soviet power, the language had no alphabet, and illiteracy prevailed. Consequently, the oral tradition epics of this people survived into recent times and remain significant for the historical consciousness of the nation. The written language was introduced only in the early 1920s, a few short years before Chingiz Aitmatov’s birth. The first great flowering of Kyrgyz literature began with this author. His work made his homeland, its people and its nature known and loved far beyond its borders.

Born in 1928 in the Kyrgyz village of Sheker, Chingiz Aitmatov came into contact with the nomads of his homeland at an early age through his grandmother, and so became acquainted with their myths and legends. In 1935, the family moved to Moscow, where his father was one of the first Kyrgyz communists to study as a party functionary at the CPSU’s social science cadre university, the Institute of Red Professors. Chingiz thus grew up bilingual. Both parents awakened in him an interest in and enjoyment of Russian and Kyrgyz literature and art. In 1937, however, his father became a victim of Stalin’s terror. He was arrested, executed by a firing squad in 1938 along with 137 other Kyrgyz intellectuals and buried in a mass grave in Chong-Tash village, 25 kilometers south of the capital Bishkek. Aitmatov, who named this graveyard Ata Beyit (Grave of Our Fathers), now a Memorial Complex, chose to be buried in this same location.

Following her husband’s arrest, Chingiz’s mother, a Tatar, returned with the children to their native village, where, despite being the family of an alleged “traitor,” she was supported by the village community. After the war began, young Chingiz was given a position in the district administration in 1942 and, like other young people, had to leave school at the age of 14. He went back to school after the war, studied at the veterinary college and began to write. His veterinary training was followed by five years of study at the agricultural college and work as an animal breeder.

In 1956, he went to the Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature in Moscow and attended a two-year course for young authors. His first stories appeared, and in 1958 he wrote his world-famous novella Jamila for his graduation submission. Many more stories and novellas followed, written both in Kyrgyz and Russian. Kyrgyz epics and legends repeatedly play a major role in his work. In 1980, Aitmatov’s great novel The Day Lasts More t han a Hundred Years was published. Due to its at times controversial subject matter and also the inclusion of tragic elements, Aitmatov’s work often came under criticism. Nevertheless, his outstanding literary achievement was also honored with several high awards.

Aside from writing fiction, Aitmatov was actively involved in politics and worked as editor-in-chief of the newspaper Literaturnaya Kirgiziya (Literary Kyrgyzstan), and for Prav da as correspondent for Kazakhstan and Central Asia. At the end of 1989, he became one of Mikhail Gorbachev’s advisors, in 1990 the USSR’s ambassador to Luxembourg, and from 1995 the now independent Kyrgyz Republic’s ambassador to the European Union. Further stories were published, as well as his memoirs Childhood in Kyrgyzstan , in 1998. In his last novel, When Mountains Fall (2006, not yet translated into English), Aitmatov again combines an old Kyrgyz legend with the reality of the post-socialist 21st century.

When Aitmatov was awarded the Aleksandr Men Prize in 1998, he declared:

“Humanity has no more comprehensive and no more complicated task than that of bringing forth a culture of love for peace as a contrast to the cult of violence and war. There is no area of human existence—from politics to ethics, from primary school to high science, from art to religion—where the human spirit is not confronted with the universal idea of the renunciation of violence.”

Chingiz Aitmatov died in Nuremberg on June 10, 2008, at the age of 79.

T he possibility of intergalactic cooperation

Aitmatov’s novel The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years is set in the Kazakh steppe at an inhospitable eight-dwelling railway junction not far from the Cosmodrome. The junction’s name, Boranly-Burannyi (snowstorm), refers to the rough life and weather that the small village community confronts together. However remote, it is spared neither national nor international upheavals. The inhabitants come to this wasteland for different reasons, and not everyone is cut out for the hardships of life there. The death of one of the two people who have spent their adult lives here, Kazangap, prompts his closest friend, Burannyi Yedigei (Snowstorm Yedigei), to honor ancient tradition and bury him in the ancestral graveyard. To do so, he saddles and decorates his legendary camel and sets off with Kazangap’s closest relatives and the digger Belarus. The novel describes Yedigei’s memories and experiences on his way to the cemetery, a day that transcends Kazangap’s life and reflects on the times. Thinking, as a specifically human ability, is reflected upon at all plot levels: “Yes, the Sarozek [the steppe] was vast, but the living thoughts of a person could contain even this.”

Aitmatov condenses the action by linking two storylines—one set in the immediate present, the other in the early 1950s—with various references to the life stories of the novel’s main characters. To this are added Kazakh myths as well as a USSR-US space cooperation program that has a utopian dimension, but also takes place in the present of the novel. A fabric emerges in which the past and the future intertwine, in which the best and the most horrendous that human beings are capable of emerges, as well as the possibility of intergalactic cooperation with a civilization that is more advanced and peaceful than Earth’s inhabitants.

The theme of peaceful community, human strength and the solidarity of ordinary people runs through all plot levels, as does the potential to destroy other humans. The legends are about power and abuse of power, violence and resistance. The legend of the Mankurt is centered on the erasure of memory and the subduing of those who survive cruel torture. But it is also about a mother’s fight for her son. Parallels are drawn with Stalinism, which is depicted here in the fate of the family of Abutalip and Zaripa Kuttybayev, and in which Aitmatov undoubtedly creates a monument to his own father.

Nevertheless, manifestations of goodness are also found again and again. Aitmatov’s positive characters are characterized above all by their love for other people, for children, for animals and for nature. Violations of this elementary love are, as it were, offenses against humanity. At the same time, and closely connected to this, is their sense of responsibility for the important work that defines their lives. People of different origins and fates have ended up at this remote railway junction in the middle of the steppe, people for whom work and life here offered a new beginning despite all the hardships. Here, they harness all their strength to ensure that the trains can travel from West to East and back. They celebrate the New Year together in this scene:

“Yedigei honestly believed that he was surrounded by inseparably close friends. Why should he have believed otherwise?

“For a moment, in the middle of a song, he felt he had to close his eyes. He saw in his mind’s eye the vast, snow-covered Sarozek and the people in his house, all come together like one family. But most of all he was glad for Abutalip and Zaripa…. Zaripa sang and played on the mandolin, quickly taking up the tunes of the songs, one after the other. Her voice was ringing and pure. Abutalip led with a deep-chested, muffled, drawn out voice. They sang together with spirit, especially the Tatar songs. These they sang in the almak-calmak style, one singer answering the other. As they sang, the other people joined in. They had already sung many old and new songs…. Sitting opposite Zaripa and Abutalip, Yedigei looked at them the whole time and was moved. They would always have been like this, were it not for that bitter fate which gave them no peace of mind.”

Further blows of fate await them, which Aitmatov deepens by weaving in three legends, each with special relevance to the main characters: the power of love and its tragic failure. This failure is repeatedly rooted in the power of inhuman opponents, the absence of solidarity, and weakness of fellow human beings. Therein lies the tragedy.

The space travelers represent the two great powers, here cooperating in a unique joint project to explore a newly discovered planet with inestimable mineral deposits for the purpose of energy production. With the great self-sacrifice of Aitmatov’s heroes, they try to persuade their governments to be open to the new civilization:

“At present they still have several million years yet to live on their parent planet, and we found it remarkable that they have already been thinking about a time so far ahead in the future and are filled with the same fire and energy about it as if the problem affected the present generation. Surely the thought has arisen in many minds, ‘Will the grass not grow when we are gone?’… But the remarkable thing is that they do not know of states as such; they know nothing of weapons; they do not even know what war is. We do not know; perhaps in the distant past they had wars and separate states and money and all the social factors of a similar character; but at the present time they have no conception of such institutions of force as the state and such forms of struggle as war. If we have to explain the fact of our continuous wars on earth, will it not seem inconceivable to them? Will it not also seem a barbaric way of solving problems?

“Their life is organized on quite a different basis, not completely comprehensible to us, and quite unachieved by us in our stereotyped earth-bound way of thinking.

“They have achieved a level of collective planetary consciousness that categorically excludes war as a means of struggle, and in all probability theirs is the most advanced form of civilization among rational beings in the universe.”

Great, tragic material

The perversion of mutual support and the dissolution of social cohesion in the interest of money thematically determine Aitmatov’s last novel When Mountains Fall . The cash nexus now rules where trust, mutual respect and help used to be. The snow leopard, a protected species, a symbol of the high mountain regions of Central Asia and revered there since time immemorial, is sacrificed to Mammon, even if this means the destruction of the region’s soul in the immediate future. The old values of a symbiosis between humankind and nature are sacrificed.

Some previous collective farmers are now calculating businessmen, a former gifted soprano has become a pop star, the erstwhile veterinary surgeon has switched to dog breeding, exporting the wolf dogs that are in demand in Europe, mainly to Germany. The majority of the population is struggling to survive: A past teacher is now a horse herder, a librarian is a flying trader, the protagonist, the journalist Arsen, is self-employed and is threatened right at the beginning of the novel. Driven into a corner and, unlike the leopard, informed about a society now hostile to him, he seeks revenge. But when he is actually able to take revenge, his humanity wins out, even if it costs him his life.

Once again, Aitmatov interweaves an old legend—that of the Eternal Bride—with contemporary events. On the significance of this myth, Aitmatov said the following in an interview about his novel:

“This is a great, tragic material. The forces of evil have destroyed the great love that was between two young people. Shortly before the wedding, guileful villagers kidnapped the bride to thwart their happiness. They told the groom that the girl had run away with a rival. In despair, he disappeared into the mountains. Afterwards, the people realized their mistake and regretted it. Too late. The fact that this myth is still alive today, that our people still believe that the Eternal Bride wanders around looking for her groom, that people light fires for her on certain nights, even prepare horses for her, shows how great this remorse and grief are.”

In this novel, too, three plot levels are linked. Alongside the present-day level of human experience at a turning point in time, there is secondly the myth, and thirdly, the author writes from the perspective of the snow leopard itself. All three levels enrich each other. As Aitmatov frequently does in his writing, he describes this animal species sensitively and from its own point of view.

Aitmatov’s view of humanity is marked by tragic features. Nevertheless, it is not dystopian. With his work, he sharpens readers’ awareness of the strengths of humanity: love, mutual trust and solidarity. And he describes how these are mercilessly destroyed by inhuman enemies. By putting us in the shoes of the ordinary people of Central Asia, we understand even more deeply our common humanity, which we must defend and protect in common cause. It will not be easy.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Dr. Jenny Farrell is a lecturer and writer living in Galway, Ireland. Her main fields of interest are Irish and English poetry and the work of William Shakespeare. She is an associate editor of Culture Matters and also writes for Socialist Voice, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Ireland.

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Chingiz Aitmatov: Respected Author, Diplomat, and Advocate for Kyrgyz Culture

Published: August 3, 2022

Chingiz Aitmatov is best known as Kyrgyzstan’s most beloved author, but he represents much more than that to the Kyrgyz people today. His more than thirty novels represent honestly the Soviet experience and the social and moral dilemmas that Central Asian people endured. He wrote about love, heroism, friendship, nature, inequality between men and women, oppression, cultural traditions, and the importance of education.

Aitmatov was also a diplomat and political figure who worked to advance education, promote Kyrgyz culture, preserve the environment, and even brought international thinkers together to abate the risk of nuclear war.

The recipient of numerous literary medals, awards, and honors, in 2008, right before his passing, he was nominated for the 2008 Nobel Prize for literature. Chingiz Aitmatov’s legacy can be seen through his novels, and the many screenplays, films, television series based on them as well as the museums dedicated to him. In Kyrgyzstan, there are many hearts who consider him a hero of Central Asia.

The Early Life of Chingiz Aitmatov

Chingiz Aitmatov was born on December 12, 1928, in the village of Sheker, in the Talas region of Kyrgyzstan. Aitmatov was born to a Kyrgyz father and a Tatar mother. His father, Torekul Aitmatov was one of the first Kyrgyz communists and was the second secretary of the Kyrgyz Regional Committee; his mother, Nagima Khamzievna Aitmatova was an actor and also an ardent communist. She fought for many social issues such as women’s rights, literacy, and land reforms. She also wished to abolish Islam from Kyrgyz society.

In 1937, Aitmatov’s father attended the Institute for Red Professorship, a graduate-level institute dedicated to Marxist social sciences, in Moscow. There, he was arrested and charged with anti-Soviet bourgeois nationalism; he fell victim of Joseph Stalin’s purge and was executed in 1938. After, Aitmatov was raised by his mother and grandmother. His grandmother, a Kyrgyz national, wanted to ensure Kyrgyz culture and traditions played a role in his life; she took him to traditional Kyrgyz weddings, festivals, funerals, local musical and dance performances and to meetings with Kyrgyz storytellers. His mother still wanted him to be successful within the Soviet state and taught him to speak Russian and sparked his love of Russian literature.

The Education of Chingiz Aitmatov

Aitmatov studied at a Soviet school in the village of Sheker until the age of fourteen. Then, during the Second World War, and the economic upheaval it brought the Soviet Union, Aitmatov was forced to drop out of school and find work. However, he was the most literate person in his village even at age fourteen, and was soon offered a position as Secretary of the Village Council, where his tasks involved taking inventories of agricultural equipment and ensuring tax collection.

When WWII ended, Aitmatov went back to school. In 1946, he enrolled at the Dzhambul Zootechnical College, which specialized in sciences related to animal husbandry. He graduated at the top of his class. In 1948, he studied at the Animal Husbandry Division of the Kyrgyz Agricultural Institute in Frunze (Frunze is now called Bishkek). During this time, Aitmatov began writing short stories; his first story,

In 1953, Aitmatov graduated with honors and took a job as a Senior Livestock Specialist at the Kyrgyz Research Institute of Livestock. However, he continued to be pulled toward literature. In 1956, Aitmatov moved to Moscow to enroll at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute to advance his writing skills; he graduated in 1958. Aitmatov then spent the next eight years working for Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union.

Major Works of Chingiz Aitmatov

By the time Aitmatov graduated from university, he had written and published many stories and had written his first two novels, Face to Face and Jamila . Aitmatov in total wrote and published over thirty novels, however his most influential novels in Kyrgyz culture are Jamilia , The First Teacher , Farewell, Gulsary!, and The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years.

In 1958, Aitmatov wrote his second novel, Jamila, which has now been translated to over 160 languages worldwide. A was also made based on it which, although originally scripted in Russian, you can now find dubbed in Kyrgyz, English, French, and Uzbek. Jamila is included in Kyrgyzstan’s educational curricula. The novel is set during the Second World War, where most of the men in the village have gone off to fight, and the women and children have been left to care for the village and survive on their own. The novel is told by Seit, who tells his story by looking back on his childhood memories of the village. His story includes a love affair between his sister-in-law, Jamila and a local man named Daniyar, who, due to a leg injury, could not fight in the war. Jamila was forced into marriage with her husband Sadyk, who had gone off to fight in the war; Jamila is then left with the responsibility of working the land herself. She meets Daniyar, who at first, she wants nothing to do with, but then falls in love after hearing him sing beautifully and their affair begins.

After Jamila learns that Sadyk has been injured and will return home, she decides to leave her husband and run away with Daniyar. Seit watched Jamila’s and Daniyar’s love grow from the beginning and found it inspiring. When he leaves the village to pursue his dream of being an artist, he paints Jamila and Daniyar on that autumn day that they left the village for his final project at art school.

Aitmatov published another classic, The First Teacher , in 1962. This novel takes place after the Russian revolution and is based on a teenage orphan, Altynai and a young communist teacher, Duishen. Duishen has been offered a teaching position at a poor local village school. Altynai, a Muslim girl from this village is desperate to go to school so she can learn to read and write. Many in the village, and especially Altynai’s aunt, looked down on this, believing that Muslim tradition meant only boys should receive a formal education.

Altynai’s aunt decides to marry her off to a high-powered and controlling chieftain, who abuses her terribly. Duishen finds out Altynai is being abused and goes to the police to help rescue her. Duishen is successful and sends Altynai off to boarding school where she can receive a proper education. Years later, Altynai is a successful Doctor of Sciences and is invited back to her village where they are opening a new school. Local villagers are now proud of Altynai’s accomplishments, and they want to honor her by naming the school after her. Altynai tells them about Duishen and how influential and important he was in her life. She explains that Duishen is the real “First Teacher,” as it was he who came to the village to educate the children, in a time when he was receiving nothing but pushback from the village elders. Altynai tells the villagers the school should be named after Duishen, the unassuming man who changed her life.

Aitmatovs next classic, Farewell, Gulsary! was published in 1966. This novel features the characters of Tanabai Bakasov and his horse, Gulsary, who live in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. The story is told through Bakasov’s flashbacks of the collectivization period during the Second World War. The Soviets tried to break any independence that Bakasov had, in doing so, they castrated Gulsary and then took him away from Bakasov. The Soviets then forced Bakasov to become a shepherd, which he had no prior experience doing. Bakasov eventually becomes a Communist party member, but then gets expelled from the party because he stood his ground and stood up for himself to local .

This book was able to bypass censorship due to Aitmatov becoming a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1966, followed by becoming a member of the Executive Board of the Writers Union of the USSR. Aitmatov was also good friends with Mikhail Gorbachev, which helped him later in his career.

Aitmatovs last major work, The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years , appeared in 1980. Inspired by events in his own life, the novel tells of Burannyi Yedigei, a railroad worker from Kazakhstan who meets Kazangap, a widower who had been weighed down his entire life by his father’s unfair arrest by the Soviets. Yedigei and Kazangap quickly become best friends and when Kazangap dies, the story recounts the life and moments they shared together. Yedigei wants nothing more than to give his best friend a proper Muslim burial. However, during this time in Soviet Kazakhstan, anything religious was considered anti-. He decided to bury Kazangap in a cemetery called , which means “The Grave of Our Mothers” in Kazakh and give him a traditional burial anyway.

In total, Aitmatov wrote and published over thirty novels, his literary works have been translated into more than 160 languages around the world, he has been published in 128 countries and has sold more than 100 million copies of his books worldwide. Aitmatov wrote twenty-four pieces that went on to be made into screenplays, films, and television series. He is most loved for writing stories that fully portrayed Kyrgyz life, its struggles, and values.

The Political Life of Chingiz Aitmatov

Aitmatov had a lucrative and successful literary career, but was also well known in politics, professional organizations, and diplomacy. In 1959, Aitmatov joined the Communist Party and later became a member of the jury for the Moscow International Film Festival. In 1963, Aitmatov was awarded the prestigious Lenin Prize for Tales of the Mountains and Steppes, a compilation of three of his novels, Jamila , Farewell, Gulsary!, and The First Teacher .

From 1964 to 1985, Aitmatov was Chairman of the Cinema Union of Kyrgyzstan SSR; in 1985, he was named Chairman of the Kyrgyz Writers Union. In 1967, he became a member of the Executive Board of the Writers Union of the USSR. In 1978, he was named a “Hero of Socialist Labor,” a title that celebrated his professional achievements. In 1986, Aitmatov founded the Issyk-Kul Forum, which gathered intellectuals from the Soviet bloc and the West together in his native Kyrgyzstan to discuss major global challenges. In 1994, he became a member of the jury at the 44 th Berlin International Film Festival. In 2002, he became the President of the Jury at the 24 th Moscow International Film Festival.

From 1990 to 1991, Aitmatov served as advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev and in 1990, Aitmatov was appointed the Soviet Ambassador to Luxembourg. From 1990 to 1993, he served as the Soviet and then Russian ambassador to Belgium and in 1995, he became the Kyrgyz ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. During the 1990’s, Aitmatov was a member of Kyrgyzstan’s parliament as well as the representative for Kyrgyzstan to the European Union, NATO, and UNESCO.

During Aitmatov’s political career, his accomplishments centered around preventing conflict and supporting peace. He was particularly interested in ways to prevent nuclear war, protect the environment, and discussing how culture affects conflicts.

The Death and Legacy of Chingiz Aitmatov

On May 16, 2008, Aitmatov was admitted to a hospital in Nuremberg, Germany, where he later died of pneumonia on June 10, 2008. He was 79 years old. Aitmatov was buried in the Ata-Beyit Memorial Complex (Ata-Beyit is translated from Kyrgyz as, “The Grave of Our Fathers”) a short distance outside of Bishkek and Kyrgyzstan’s most revered burial place.

The Ata-Beyit Memorial Complex consists of three levels, the top level memorializes those who died in the 1916 Urkun (which means “The Great Exodus” in Kyrgyz and refers to a Central Asian revolt against Tsarist conscription and corruption), the middle level memorializes the 138 Kyrgyz people who were murdered during the Stalin purge of 1938. This level houses Aitmatov’s father, Torekul Aitmatov, along with Chingiz Aitmatov himself, so that he could be buried with his father. The lower level memorializes sixteen of the eighty-nine protestors that were killed during Kyrgyzstan’s 2010 uprising.

In 2014, Aitmatov’s home in Bishkek was turned into a museum called the Chingiz Aitmatov House Museum. There are six rooms in the museum that house Aitmatov’s furniture, clothing, books, medals, awards, personal photographs, and handwritten letters. There is also an art gallery with paintings based on his works.

There is also an art gallery with paintings based on his works in Bishkek and, in Cholpon Ata, about a 3.5 hour drive from Bishkek on the shores of Issyk Kul, is a cultural center with many artifacts dedicated to him.

During my visit to the Chingiz Aitmatov House Museum in Bishkek, I was guided by a local Kyrgyz woman who explained to me the relevance and importance of Aitmatov’s personal home and the items within it. She told me Aitmatov was beloved not only by Kyrgyz people, but by all Central Asian countries, Russia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the United States. She was very keen on pointing out a photo of Aitmatov with the famous American actor/director/narrator, Morgan Freeman. My guide showed me Aitmatov’s medals from the Soviet Union, stating how proud Kyrgyz people are of the medals he received and how these medals not only represented his hard work and dedication to his career, but also to the people of Kyrgyzstan. At the end of my guided tour, I asked my guide if she had a favorite novel of Aitmatov’s, she told me her favorite novel was The First Teacher. When I asked her why The First Teacher was her favorite, she replied, “it allowed me to dream.”

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About the author

Maria Holderbaum

Maria Holderbaum, at the time she wrote for this site, was an International Relations major at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She was also studying Russian Language and Central Asian Studies in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan . Her future career ambitions included working for Non-Governmental Organizations and working with refugees. Maria enjoys traveling, finding the best street food in every country she visits and hunting for street art and mosaics. She was looking forward to diving into Kyrgyz culture and exploring Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan) during her semester abroad.

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Chyngyz Aitmatov

Chyngyz aitmatov (1928-2008) kyrgyz modern writer.

Chingiz Aitmatov was a Kyrgyz, Soviet and Central Asian author and statesman, whose fame spread beyond his country’s borders and his books are read with great admiration all over the world. He expressed the ideas of humanism and great love for all living things, including people, wild and domestic animals, plants and for the entire planet Earth.

Aitmatov was honored in 1963 with the Lenin Prize for “Tales of Mountains and Steppes” (a collection including “Jamila”, “First Teacher” and “Farewell Gulsary”) and was later awarded a State prize for “Farewell Gulsary!”.

His work is mostly based on folklore which he used in his works to describe contemporary life. Additionally to his literary work, Chinghiz Aitmatov served as ambassador to the EU, NATO, UNESCO, and the BeNeLux countries, first in the Soviet Union and later for Kyrgyzstan.

He wrote in both Kyrgyz and Russian and his works have been translated into more than 150 languages and published in 128 countries around the world with sales of more than 100 million copies.

Aitmatov Biography

Chingiz Torekulovich Aitmatov was born on December 12, 1928, in the family of communists Torekul Aitmatov and Nagima Khamzievna Aitmatova in the village of Sheker, Kara-Buurinsky (Kirovsky) district of the Talas , in the Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. (There is a house museum in the Aitmatov house in Talas where one can see some of his work and other memorabilia.)

After the birth of Chingiz, the family moved to the Talas city due to his father being promoted in 1929 and Torekul Aitmatov’s career therefore being in rapid rise. In 1933, Torokul Aitmatov was already the second secretary of the Kyrgyz Regional Committee. His mother was an ethnic tatar working as an actress in a local theater. The father of the future writer was arrested in September 1937 on suspicion of anti-Soviet nationalist activity and was shot on November 5, 1938.

During the Second World War, all adult men were mobilized and as the fourteen-year-old Chingiz was one of the most literate people in the village and took the post of secretary of the village council. After the war, the young man was able to continue his studies. He graduated with honors from the Dzhambul Zootechnical College and in 1948 entered the Kyrgyz Agricultural Institute in Frunze.

Aitmatov Career

The writer’s writing journey began on April 6, 1952, with the story “The Judo’s Newspaper” published in the newspaper “Komsomolets Kirgizii”. The first literary text Aitmatov wrote in Russian – one of two of his native language. After graduating from the institute in 1953, Chingiz Aitmatov, senior livestock specialist of the Kyrgyz Research Institute of Livestock, continued to write stories in Russian and Kyrgyz, publishing texts in local publications. In 1956, he decided to develop the writing skills and moved to Moscow, there he entered the Higher Literary Courses. In June 1957, Ala-Too magazine published the first story of the young writer “Face to Face”. In the same year, “Jamila” was published.

This story that made the writer famous was first published in French. The writer graduated from literary courses in 1958. By the time the diploma was received, two novels and stories were published in Russian. Aitmatov first novel will be released only in 1980, the novel “And the day lasts longer than a century”, realistic events of the life of the Buranny Edigey are intertwined with the fantastic line of contact between humanity and an alien civilization. One gets the impression that understanding with aliens is easier for people than to agree among themselves.

His work touches on Kyrgyzstan’s transformation from the Russian empire to a republic of the USSR and the lives of its people through the transformation. It displayed in one of his compositions as “Farewell, Gulsary”. Besides, the short story touches on the idea of friendship and loyalty between a man and his stallion, it also shows a tragic allegory of the political and USSR government. It presents the loss and grief that many Kyrgyz faced through the hero characters in the short story. Aitmatov had a special talent for combining harsh reality and fantasy, for magical realism and the achievement is all the more arresting if one has in mind. The official artistic faith of the day, Socialist Realism, with its insistence on clear cut pro-Soviet moralizing and flesh-and-blood characters.

Aitmatov was the winner of numerous prizes in the Soviet Union and he always played an active part in public life. From 1964 to 1985 Aitmatov was Chairman of the Cinema Union of Kyrgyz SSR, and in 1985 he was named Chairman of the Kyrgyz Writers Union. In 1990-1991 he served as an advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev and in 1990 he was appointed as the Soviet Ambassador to Luxemburg.

He served as the Soviet and then Russian ambassador to Belgium from 1990 to 1993. During the 1990s, Chingiz Aitmatov was a member of Kyrgyzstan’s parliament. After independence in 1991, Aitmatov also worked as Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador to European countries Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and France, UNESCO, the European Union, and NATO.

Aitmatov Awards

Works by Aitmatov have received numerous awards, including Soviet-era accolades like the Order of Lenin, the Gold Olive Branch of the Mediterranean Culture Research Center, the Academy Award of the Japanese Institute of Oriental Philosophy, and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. He was also an academician of the Kyrgyz National Academy (1974) and the Hero of Kyrgyzstan (1997).

In 2008, the writer was hospitalized from the se t, where work was done on the film based on the novel “And the day lasts longer than a century”. Aitmatov was diagnosed with acute pneumonia. He was transferred to one of the clinics of Nuremberg. Chingiz Aitmatov died in Germany and is buried near the capital of Kyrgyzstan , in the historical and memorial complex of Ata Beyit. Aitmatov left behind a wife, three sons, and a daughter.

Aitmatov monuments

In addition to his memorial, there is a statue of Aitmatov at a very central location in Bishkek Ala Too square (images above). A new house museum was also opened recently at the southern outskirts of Bishkek where Aitmatov allegedly worked during his career. Not far from magistral, the new southern main street of Bishkek, there is a mural of Aitmatov covering the end of a large block of flats. Further away from Bishkek, there is a monument park based on the Aitmatov’s characters in Sheker village that was founded in 2000 not far from his museum in his home town. Aitmatov monuments can be also seen during several of our Central Asia Tours .

kyrgyz culture

Kyrgyzstan tours, kyrgyzstan destinations.

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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.” - Chinghiz Aitmatov

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Chingiz Aitmatov, Who Wrote of Life in U.S.S.R., Is Dead at 79

By Bruce Weber

June 15, 2008

Chingiz Aitmatov, a Communist writer whose novels and plays before the collapse of the Soviet Union gave a voice to the people of the remote Soviet republic of Kyrgyz, and who later became a diplomat and a friend and adviser to the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, died on Tuesday in Nuremberg, Germany. He was 79 and lived in Bishkek, the capital of what is now Kyrgyzstan.

The cause was pneumonia, Lucien Leitess, the head of Mr. Aitmatov’s German publisher, told The Associated Press.

Long a prominent figure in literary and political circles in Russia as well as in Kyrgyzstan, Mr. Aitmatov, who wrote both in the Kyrgyz language and in Russian, was a hybrid in the former Soviet Union, a party member who nonetheless revealed the restlessness beneath the serene surface of Soviet life under socialism. Drawing on the realistic details of life in the villages of Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous remote province with China to its immediate east and south, and especially on the regional folklore, he wrote, if not allegorically or symbolically, then allusively about the wages of life in a society dominated by collective thought.

His first notable work, a short story called “Jamila,” for instance, depicts an emergent love affair between a troubled loner and the title character, a soldier’s wife whose husband is away at war, as they work together on a collective farm to produce grain for the army. Narrated by a young boy, the soldier’s younger brother, the story not only glorifies the love and the couple’s escape from their stultifying village but also gives a portrait of an artist as a young man. Inspired by their love, the young narrator determines to be a painter.

His other major works include a play, “The Ascent of Mt. Fuji,” about a discordant reunion of schoolmates that echoes with the guilt of Stalinist-era survivors, and “The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years,” a novella that conjures up a joint space mission between two superpowers, ostensibly the Unites States and the Soviet Union.

“He wrote about the Soviet Union when nothing was coming out of the Soviet Union,” said Iraj Bashiri, a professor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in literature from Central Asia, Iraq and Afghanistan. “He was critical in a very sly way. And not only didn’t they prevent him from writing, they understood him as a realist and admired him.”

Chingiz (pronounced CHING-ghizz) Aitmatov was born the village of Sheker Tallaskoi on Dec. 12, 1928. His father was a party official in the Kyrgyz Republic who ran afoul of Stalinists; he was charged, according to a biography compiled by Mr. Bashiri, with bourgeois nationalism and executed; his body, in a mass grave, was not discovered until decades later.

As a young man, Mr. Aitmatov worked as a shepherd and as a wheat harvester, but also as a correspondent for Pravda, the party newspaper, and a tax collector. He graduated from the Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow. Later, he became politically influential, at one point serving as Soviet ambassador to Luxembourg. A supporter of perestroika, he was an adviser to Mr. Gorbachev. His death elicited condolences to the family and public encomiums for his work from President Dmitri A. Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.

Mr. Aitmatov is survived by his wife, Maria; a brother, Ilgez; a sister, Roza; a daughter; and three sons, one of whom, Askar Aitmatov, was foreign minister of Kyrgyzstan from 2002 to 2005.

Mr. Aitmatov was “a writer of the entire Russian-speaking world,” Mr. Gorbachev told the Interfax news agency earlier this week. “A man who was close to all of us has gone.”

Sara Rhodin contributed reporting.

Chingiz Aitmatov, The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years

Information and Questions for Reading

If Platonov encountered terrible problems both in trying to make his writing fit the evolving standards for publication in the Soviet Union (in short: it was not sufficient to be from a working-class background; a writer had to follow the evolving standards of acceptable form and content), Aitmatov was born later and started to write just before Stalin's death. Although you never know how counter-factual history would have gone, it's unlikely that a writer whose father had been purged would have met success in a literary system that was ultimately ruled by Stalin. The introduction to our edition is by Katerina Clark, a specialist in the Soviet Novel (and in Soviet culture in general) - though you may be interested to see the traces of the era when it was composed: the late era of "Stagnation," when a Western scholar was forced to speculate about things that in most literary systems would come out in interviews or book reviews - or in our days on the author's blog. It was one thing to make clear in a novel that Stalinism with its purges (of Kazangap's father) and low-level but nonetheless tremendously destructive denunciations caused terrible damage in human and cultural terms - but another thing to utter critical opinions in one's own voice in an interview. Aitmatov was a successful writer who knew how to play the game in order to say most of what he wanted to say. (He died in 2008.)

Another reason for his success was the Soviet project of encouraging writers from other nationalities within the Soviet Union. If the Kyrgyz nation had no tradition of prose novels, then all the more reason to admit this promising young writer to the very prestigious Literary Institute in Moscow. (Remember that without a diploma from that sort of institute it was difficult for a writer to be published - whereas coming out of that system, in a planned economy, meant that a writer did have access to all the perks, as well as to publishers.) The Soviet period also saw a strong, ongoing program of translations both into and out of Russian, so that the existing great works of other nationalities (epic and lyric poetry, for example) became available in the local lingua franca and world language of Russian, while Russian classics were translated into the local language to serve as examples for readers and writers.

Questions for Reading The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years :

1. What's the effect of a narrative that opens with a fox - even if the introduction has already mentioned the human characters we'll soon see?

2. How do the very positive evocations of Kazakh traditions (initially, Yedigei's insistence on giving his friend a proper traditional burial) compare with the more ambiguous attitude toward traditions in "Jamila"?

3. If the novel as a genre was the showpiece of Soviet literature, does it make sense that Islam (both as a relic of the "opiate of the people" and as something suspicious in its non-Russian, non-atheist contents and power) is less present here even as a verbal presence than it is in "Jamila" (a short story that might not come under so much ideological scrutiny - and that didn't cost as much to edit and publish)?

4. What echoes of Socialist Realism or Soviet literary cliché do you notice in this work? What is tendentious about the traits assigned to the positive and negative characters?

5. What is the role of sex in this work?

6. And a fascinating element here that we won't otherwise be discussing much in this course: what is the place of science fiction in the plot, and in the message the reader might take away from the novel? (Note that Central Asia was used for a lot of Soviet nuclear testing - and the landscape we see depicted here might make sense as a location for testing bombs, since it was sparsely populated and not good for agriculture: it's mainly land that has to be crossed in order to get from one place to another.)

7. What does the novel convey about environmental issues, and how might that be another place to convey Muslim values to the reader? How can we read the message about the rocket complex blocking access to a traditional cemetery - or the ways a culture that moves more lightly or occasionally over the land would thereby lose access to its important sites?

8. Here and in "Soul" there's a renewed presence of wild and domestic (mostly wild) animals; tortoise, and then fox, camel, seagull golden sturgeon, and then eagle. How do the animals here compare to those we saw in earlier readings? What is the effect of depicting parts of the action through the eyes and consciousness of an animal?

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Chingiz Aitmatov

The Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov, who has died aged 79, was the most celebrated representative of Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked, mountainous nation of 5 million people in the heart of central Asia, which was a Soviet republic until 1991. A bilingual and bicultural writer, Aitmatov wrote his prose and plays in both his native Kyrgyz and in Russian, and was translated into more than 150 languages. Described as a "magical socialist-realist" in the Russian press, he was able to combine elements of Kyrgyz folk-tales and epics with formally traditional Russian realism.

Aitmatov's life was itself full of paradoxes of epic proportions: the son of a victim of the Stalinist purges, he became the most decorated of all Soviet writers, gaining three state prizes and a Lenin prize. A beneficiary of the thaw, the cultural liberalisation which took place under Nikita Khrushchev, he became a world-famous author in the 1950s while still writing in Kyrgyz, gradually switching to Russian in the mid-1960s to became one of the most eloquent practitioners of the language. Aitmatov was deeply in love with his native land and lore, but he was also a Soviet patriot and a true internationalist.

He was born in the village of Sheker, in the Talas region of Kyrgyzstan at the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains, near the Chinese border. His father was a Kyrgyz and his mother a Tartar. In childhood, Aitmatov was familiar with ancient tribal customs and the nomadic life of his people, but it is to his mother he owed the exposure to Russian literature and culture which led to his harmonious assimilation of two cultures, the poetic synthesis of which became the secret of his art.

When Aitmatov was just nine years old, his childhood was marred by a deep tragedy that affected the rest of his life: his father Torekul, one of the first Kyrgyz communists and a regional party secretary, was arrested in 1937 and executed on a charge of "bourgeois nationalism".

Before embarking on his writing career, Aitmatov studied animal husbandry and agriculture at the agricultural institute in the Kyrgyz capital, Frunze (now calledBishkek). In 1952 he started publishing his first Kyrgyz-language short stories in periodicals and four years later he entered the higher literary course at Moscow's Gorky Institute. His first short story translated into Russian appeared in 1958, the year he graduated. In the same year, he published Jamila, the tale that brought him international acclaim.

A communist true-believer, he never shied away from exploring and exposing in his prose the darkest aspects of Soviet reality, just as he tackled the issue of drug abuse and drug-related crime in his bestselling novel of the perestroika period, The Scaffold (1988).

He was not a political dissenter but possessed an honest heart and melancholy philosophical mind, and tended to attribute the shortcomings of Soviet reality not to the evils of the political system, but to the inherent flaws of human nature, which the system was expected to correct. But until that happy day arrived he tended to show the world as he saw it: full of bigotry, prejudice, cruelty, sexism, patriarchal brutality, and general lack of harmony in the way people treat each other. All this is punctuated by beautiful scenes of human kindness, wisdom, love and devotion, set against the background of the stunning central Asian landscape which he poetically evoked.

These themes are also present in his other novels and plays, including The First Teacher (1962), Farewell Gulsary (1966), The White Ship (1970), The Dreams of a She-Wolf (1990) and The Mark of Cassandra (1995).

Several of his stories were turned into popular movies. Aitmatov was working on the set of a film based on his science-fiction-infused philosophical parable The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years when he was stricken by his illness.

In addition to his literary work Aitmatov was the Kyrgyzstan ambassador to the European Union, Nato, Unesco, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and spent many years in Brussels.

Turkey nominated him - as a writer in a Turkic language - for the 2008 Nobel prize for literature.

He is survived by his wife, Maria; a brother, Ilgez; a sister, Roza; a daughter; and three sons, one of whom, Askar, was foreign minister of Kyrgyzstan from 2002 to 2005.

· Chingiz Aitmatov, writer, born December 12 1928; died June 10 2008

How a Russian-Kyrgyz bilingual writer opened Central Asia to the world

Chingiz Aitmatov (R) in Kyrgyzstan, 1973

The expansion of the Russian Empire towards the gates of Afghanistan and India and the subsequent incorporation of Central Asia into the Soviet Union resulted in the spread of the Russian language to Turkic-speaking peoples. And Kyrgyzstan produced one of the finest Russian language writers of the 20th century - Chingiz Aitmatov.

Born in 1928 in a Kyrgyz village called Sheker, Aitmatov briefly lived in Moscow as a child, but moved back to his native land after his father (who was executed during the Stalinist purges ) sent his family back to Kyrgyzstan.

Studying in a Soviet school, Aitmatov attained bilingual skills in Kyrgyz and Russian. In his memoirs, he narrated an incident about being asked by villagers to translate to a Russian veterinarian how a Don stallion had died of poisoning after consuming wild grass. Still a young boy then, he was rewarded with a “fine piece of meat” for his translation services. “That was how I served as an interpreter for the very first time – from Russian into Kyrgyz and Kyrgyz into Russian,” Aitmatov wrote. “I have been working within both those cultures ever since.”

Chingiz Aitmatov

Since he was too young to serve on the front, Aitmatov took up various jobs during the war years and went back to studying in 1946. He attended veterinary college in Kazakhstan and then enrolled at an agricultural institute in Kyrgyzstan, but his heart was set on writing.

His first short story in Russian titled ‘The Newspaper Boy Dzuio’ was published in 1952. Four years later, Aitmatov enrolled at the Gorky Institute of Literature in Moscow and this platform would propel him into a storied life as a writer.

The success of Jamila

Although Central Asia was a part of the wider Russian-speaking world, common Russians and Soviet citizens knew little about the life of that part of the world in the 1950s. The steppes, mountains and valleys were a world away from the urbanized parts of post-war European Russia and were much more difficult to access than the Baltic States.

In 1958, Aitmatov’s novella ‘Jamila’ was published in Russian. The moving story of a young woman from a horse breeder’s family who falls in love with a disabled soldier while her husband is away on the front was well received across the Soviet Union. For the first time, the traditions and the distinct way of life of the Kyrgyz people entered the world of literature. The book, like many of Aitmatov’s later works, was adapted into the silver screen.

A still from 'Jamilia' movie

Aitmatov said the novella had its roots in real life. “The roots take me back once again to World War II,” he wrote. “It had not just been a terrible event in the life of our country, which had cost many people their lives and brought hunger, cold and other tremendous ordeals in its wake. It had also led to an upheaval in regard to the customs and moral traditions in my homeland.”

French surrealist poet Louis Aragon, who translated the novella into French, called it the “world’s most beautiful love story”. Rahima Abduvalieva, who worked as Aitmatov’s translator in Germany and founded the Aitmatov Academy in London, says that international recognition of Aitmatov went hand in hand with the recognition of Kyrgyz culture.

“For writers in the West, Chingiz Aitmatov appeared like a sphinx (enigma) - there was no other word for it,” Abduvalieva wrote in a biography titled ‘Chingiz Aitmatov: The Glorious Path of an Eurasian Writer’. “How could a son of an ‘enemy of the people’ forgive the social system which had killed his father and continue to create such magnificent works in those conditions?”

‘Jamila’ was also very popular in Germany, where the translation had 37 print runs.

Bold themes

While in ‘Jamila’, Aitmatov explored the idea of an extra-marital affair in a deeply traditional and conservative story, his novella ‘Face to Face’ was about a deserter. “His bold choice of subject-matter is a thread running through all works by Chingiz Aitmatov,” Abduvalieva wrote in the biography. “While in his early works ‘Face to Face, ‘Jamila’, ‘First Teacher’, ‘Camel Eye’ and ‘Mother Earth’, he merely acquainted readers throughout the world with the Kyrgyz way of life, in the story ‘Farewell, Gulsary’, he gave a critical account of the social fabric of his country, attracting still greater respect than before as a writer with a philosophical bent.”

Writer Chinghiz Aitmatov, 1972

‘The White Steamship’, which was published in 1970, was also well received in many countries. The novella, set on the shores of Issyk-Kul Lake, is about a young boy who grows listening to stories and legends from his grandfather and looking out over the lake as white ships sail along. The novella managed to generate a fair deal of controversy over its depiction of the brutality, corruption and abuse of power that was prevalent in the Soviet Union. Despite showing sympathy for the traditional Kyrgyz way of life over Soviet modernization, the book was widely read in the USSR and was adapted to the big screen.

‘Jamila’, ‘The White Steamship’ and ‘Farewell, Gulsary’, which is a moving story about a war veteran shepherd and his stallion, are seen as ideal introductions to Kyrgyz society. For a much deeper dive into the Central Asian soul, his 1980 novel ‘The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years’ is an ideal companion. The novel is set in the vast steppes and galactic space, giving the widest and most vivid view of the region. The reader gets a grasp of the drastic and surreal gap between modern and traditional lifestyles. Abduvalieva termed the book a culmination of the creative path that Aitmatov embarked on when showing Central Asia to the world.

Chingiz Aitmatov walks in the vicinity of his native village Sheker in Kyrgyzstan, 1982

Aitmatov continued to gain international fame and recognition through the final years of the Soviet Union, winning prestigious prizes in Italy, India, France, Germany and other countries. He became an advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986 at the peak of Perestroika and, in 1990, was appointed as the Soviet Ambassador to Luxembourg. He served as Russia’s top envoy to the Benelux countries before becoming the Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan to the three countries.

His last novel, ‘The Snow Leopard’ was published in Germany in 2007, a year before his death.

A Russian-Kyrgyz legacy

James Riordan, who translated several works of Aitmatov expressed great admiration for the Kyrgyz writer, who he said gained distinction through the medium of Russian. “He writes not one, but two versions of each work: first in Kyrgyz, then in Russian, sometimes under a different title and in a different version, in the manner of Conrad, Nabokov and Narayan,” Riordan is quoted in Abduvalieva’s biography.

Chingiz Aitmatov in Germany 2007

Aitmatov said being bilingual was a constant thread throughout his life and perceived Russian as a “pilot language within the confines of post-Soviet Asia”. He went to the extent of calling Russian his second native language, saying: “As I understand it, the Russian language is one of man’s key strategic achievements, for it possesses the properties of a linguistic antenna. Russian calls forth from the resources of language and accompanies into the world around it the most profound and effective forms of expression and thought, nurturing communication for those living during one and the same chapter of history.”

The writer’s legacy is something that both Kyrgyzstan and Russia can claim with a great degree of pride.

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The national writer, arts & culture.

The art and life of Mark di Suvero

Chinghiz Aitmatov and the literature of Kyrgyzstan.

“Chyngyz Aitmatov and his arts,” a series of Kyrgyz postage stamps.

Six years ago today, when pneumonia claimed the life of the Kyrgyz writer Chinghiz Aitmatov, I learned about it the old-fashioned way: from a man weeping in the streets.

I don’t mean to imply that all of Kyrgyzstan had thrown its hands up in despair at the loss of its best writer and most famous native son, though I wouldn’t have blamed them if they had. I just happened to come across an old man—an ak cakal , or “white beard,” as the elderly there are known—sitting next to a small radio on a park bench, letting tears run down his face as he listened to the news. I’d been living in Kyrgyzstan for a year at that point, halfway through a tour in the Peace Corps; my Kyrgyz was not so sharp that I could clearly understand the radio, but it was more than good enough to ask the man if everything was all right. In response, he lifted a tattered copy of Aitmatov’s novel Jamila toward me and whispered, “He’s gone.”

It’s hard to overstate Aitmatov’s importance to Kyrgyzstan’s national identity. In my time there, new acquaintances regularly quizzed me on the country’s national this and national that. Kyrgyzstan’s national food? A fried rice dish called plov . The national music? Anything played on the ukulele-like komuz . The national writer? Chinghiz Aitmatov, obviously. (My younger English students had a hard time understanding why I couldn’t as quickly recite the United States’ national writer, et al.) December 12, the author’s birthday, is celebrated nationwide as Chinghiz Aitmatov Day. After Kyrgyzstan gained independence, Aitmatov represented the young country as an ambassador to the European Union, NATO , and elsewhere. “One of the great charms of Aitmatov’s life,” Scott Horton wrote for Harper’s shortly after the writer died, “was that he charted first the decline of the Central Asian life and identity, and then participated in its resurrection as the Soviet Union collapsed and as the Central Asian states regained, quite unexpectedly, their autonomy and footing on the world stage.”

But in other contexts, books are valued only for their most basic functions. On my first visit to Bishkek’s main bazaar, I ordered an empanada-like samsa , and it came wrapped in a grease-stained page torn from a collection of Alexander Pushkin’s poetry. When it came time to expel the byproduct of that samsa, I found half a history book leaning against the outhouse wall, offering itself up as toilet paper.

I never met him, but Chinghiz Aitmatov, born in 1928, often felt like a guide to me as I lived and worked in his country. I started reading his masterpiece, The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years , in my mother’s living room in Minnesota and finished it seven thousand miles away, in a village called Murzake. Improbably, the book juxtaposes a Kazakh community’s quest to bury a dead man in a remote desert cemetery with an astronaut’s and cosmonaut’s efforts to prepare their countries’ bickering leaders for first contact with an alien ambassador. Cloaked in the guise of science fiction, Aitmatov’s satire of Soviet leaders managed to slip past censors more easily than more explicit condemnations, like those of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Moderate social criticism recurred frequently in Aitmatov’s work, as did complicated portraits of rural Central Asian communities, which Aitmatov produced without ever straying into “village prose,” a Soviet literary movement extolling the virtues of rural life and Russian nationalism that, for the USSR’s Turkic minorities, might loosely be compared to writing in the voice of Uncle Tom.

Aitmatov wrote The Day Lasts and much of his later work in Russian, seeking a larger audience, just as Vladimir Nabokov switched from Russian to English after fleeing the Bolsheviks. But the fact that Aitmatov wrote his early work in Kyrgyz challenged me to see the beauty in a language I often thought of as limited. Compared to English, the Kyrgyz vocabulary is quite small: present and future tense are one and the same; the subtle distinctions between words like similar and same are folded into a single word that hangs on its context.

Shortly before Aitmatov passed away, I tried to start learning Russian. My tutor was an old Russian woman, racist toward the Kyrgyz and nostalgic for the days when Kyrgyzstan was still a part of the mighty Soviet Union. So nostalgic, in fact, that my lessons hued closely to the Soviet style of teaching: on my first day she handed me a copy of War and Peace in the original Russian and instructed me to start reading out loud so she could correct my pronunciation. At the next lesson, I asked her if we could start with something a bit more basic. “I know just the thing!” she told me, digging through some boxes. She rose with a copy of Aitmatov’s The Day Lasts and explained that a novel by a “mere” Kyrgyz writer would be much easier for me to comprehend. I didn’t see a need for a third lesson.

Whether a person in Kyrgyzstan is mocking a writer’s work or cherishing it or throwing it into the toilet, she lives in a country fundamentally shaped by the tradition of storytelling. Before coming under the control of the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, the Kyrgyz were a historically nomadic group. The pre-Soviet Kyrgyz left few monuments or traditions with obvious applications in the more urban, post-Soviet country today. This is one of the reasons Aitmatov mattered so much: he embodied Kyrgyz culture at a time when it wasn’t clear what that meant.

Every name in Kyrgyzstan tells a story—a village called Mailuu Suu , or “Oily Water,” for example, helpfully reminds travelers that it sits on top of a nuclear-waste dump. And a shameful number of new parents give their daughters names like Boldu (“Enough”) and Burul (“Turn”), to indicate that they would have preferred a son. But less discussed is the name Kyrgyzstan itself, which means more than its primary definition, “the land of the Kyrgyz.” The word Kyrgyz is derived from the phrase körk küz , which means “forty girls”—a reference to the forty daughters of Manas, who became the mothers of the forty tribes of Kyrgyzstan. I can think of no other country whose name is derived from a work of fiction, unless you count the Bible. Even as Kyrgyzstan continues to face the struggles of a developing country, it’s worth remembering that the country came to be in part because its bards told its story again and again. It falls to the storytellers on Aitmatov’s shoulders to write the next chapter.

Ted Trautman has written for The New Yorker , The Atlantic , Slate , Wired , and others. He lives in Puebla, Mexico.

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MOTHER EARTH - BIOGRAPHY OF CHINGIZ AITMATOV, ENGLISH

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Life and Myth: The Mother in Chinghiz Aitmatov’s Literary Creation

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Chinghiz Torekulovich Aitmatov was born on 12th of December 1928 in Sheker, a village in the Soviet Republic of Kirghizia. Both his parents were literate and had enjoyed schooling in a society of oral tradition. It is remarkable that the future writer’s mother, although belonging to a Muslim society with nomad way of life, with authority and power exercised above all by men, had been given access to education. As to Chinghiz Aitmatov’s father, he was one of the first Communists in Kirghizia, devoted to a cause which in his eyes was great; in the late thirties he was invited to Moscow in order to receive higher instruction in Marxist philosophy and there, in the Soviet capital, Torekul Aitmatov in 1937 was arrested; he disappeared.

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Kieffer, R. (1994). Life and Myth: The Mother in Chinghiz Aitmatov’s Literary Creation. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Allegory Revisited. Analecta Husserliana, vol 41. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0898-0_2

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Chingiz Aitmatov

Born December 12 , 1928 · Sheker, Kirghiz SSR, USSR [now Kyrgyzstan]
Died June 10 , 2008 · Nuremberg, Germany (lung and kidney failure)
Birth name Chingiz Torekulovich Aitmatov
Chingiz Aitmatov was a Russian-Kyrgyz writer and statesman known for such films as The First Teacher (1965) , Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalim (1977) and Jamila (1995) . He was born Chingiz Torekulovich Aitmatov on December 12, 1928, in Kirgizia, Soviet Union. His family was bilingual, Russian-Kyrgyz. His father, Torekul Aitmatov, was one of the first Kyrgyz communists and a regional party secretary. In 1937, while attending the Institute for Red Professorship in Moscow, Torekul was arrested and executed on charges of anti-Soviet bourgeois nationalism. Young Aitmatov was brought up by a single mother. He attended the Russian school, then Kyrgyz Agricultural Institute in Frunze, but changed from the study of livestock to the study of literature at the Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow. He made his literary debut in Russia, in 1952, with publication of his stories in Russian. From 1958 to 1966 he was roving correspondent for the leading Soviet Newspaper Pravda. In 1967 he became a member of the Executive Board of the Soviet Writers Union, and in 1968 he won the Soviet State Prize for literature for his novel Farewell, Gulsary!, a tale of an old man reminiscing about the parallel lives of himself and his old horse, which is dying. Aitmatov won two more State Prizes in 1977 and 1983, and was named a Hero of Socialist Labor in 1978. From 1964 to 1985 he was Chairman of the Cinema Union of Kyrgyzian SSR, and in 1985 he was named Chairman of the Kyrgyz Writers Union. In 1990-1991 he served as an advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev and in 1990 was appointed Soviet Ambassabor to Luxemburg. He served as the Soviet and then Russian ambassador to Belgium from 1990 to 1993. In 1995, he became Kyrgyzstan's ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands and also represented his home country in the European Union, NATO and UNESCO. During the 1990s, Chingiz Aitmatov was member of the Kyrgyzstan's parliament. His representative works : 'Jamila' (1958), 'The First Teacher' (1967), 'Farewell, Gyulsary!' (1967), 'The White Ship' (1972), and 'The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years' (1988) were translated in more than 20 languages across the world. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Aitmatov's novels found a new audience in the West and gained popularity in Germany. He died of pneumonia and kidney failure on June 10, 2008, in Nuremberg, Germany, and was laid to rest in Kyrgyzstan. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov
Spouse Maria Aitmatov (? - June 10, 2008) (his death, 4 children)
Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969
Member of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival 1994

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“Have the Mountains Fallen?” The Story of Two Journeys of Loss and Redemption in the Cold War

April 4, 2018
12 minute read

In the early 1990s, while working as a journalist in Moscow, Jeff Lilley witnessed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In 2004, he moved to Kyrgyz Republic. After spending around three years reading the work of Chingiz Aitmatov, he began to research the life of this Kyrgyz writer, who carefully chose the words he used to condemn the Soviet system.

About five years later, Lilley discovered the story of another Kyrgyz, Azamat Altay, whose life also intrigued him. Azamat Altay was a soldier from Soviet Kyrgyzia who was held captive in Nazi prison camps. After escaping from prison, he was declared a traitor and ended up fleeing to the United States.

Aitmatov and Altay first met in New York, on July 19, 1975, and saw in each other kindred spirits in the mission to preserve their people’s culture, language, and literature. They were living different lives continents apart from one another, but Aitmatov knew well the path Altay had traveled. Indeed, he had seemingly featured the character of Altay in one of his works. Meanwhile, for Altay, who had fled to the US and lived far from his home country, Aitmatov and his books were a kind of bridge connecting him to his motherland.

The stories of these two Soviet Kyrgyz men, who endured the historical events of Soviet era—from the purges to World War II, from the Cold War to the collapse of the Soviet Union—and fought for the freedom of their countrymen intertwine in Lilley’s historical biography.

Jeff Lilley

is a program team leader at Palladium International, a British-funded parliamentary support program based in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic.

From 2004 to 2014, he worked in the field of democracy and governance support in Eurasia and the Middle East, serving as country director in Kyrgyz Republic and Jordan. After spending a couple of years writing his book, he returned to Bishkek in 2016 to lead the program. Lilley is also the coauthor of China Hands: Nine Decades of Adventure, Espionage and Diplomacy

That’s a very good question, and I can answer it on two levels. First of all, when you read chapter three in the book, Chingiz Aitmatov remembers his aunt Karakyz. She had a time in her life where she was caring for a lamb that had just been born and the mother had rejected it. The mother would not let it feed. Karakyz was a woman who was not necessarily educated, but she had a very strong connection to animals, to nature, and to natural laws. The mother should never reject her child. So Karakyz put amulets on the ears of the sheep, and then she started to pray to God to fix the situation that was unnatural. And she said, “Have the mountains fallen?”

But the bigger meaning is a metaphor. It is a metaphor for when the natural order of life is disrupted. Both men suffered great loss. Aitmatov lost his father and Altay lost his country. So for them the mountains fell. But then they rose again. And the mountains fall and rise. That is the rhythm of life.

I spent around three years reading Chingiz Aitmatov’s books and researched them for a further five years. At first, my goal was just to write a biography of Chingiz Aitmatov, and then in around 2009, I was talking to Tynchtykbek Chorotegin [then an employee of RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz service]. He told me about Azamat Altay and I said to myself, “That sounds interesting!” So then I started researching Altay. I probably researched for five years. Then I wrote for one and a half or two years.

In Kyrgyzstan I went to Sheker, Bishkek, Issyk-Kul (state residence villa). Then I went to Switzerland to talk with Aitmatov’s agent. I traveled to New York City to go to the Columbia University Library, and I visited Washington, DC, to access the Library of Congress and the George Washington University archives.

The most difficult thing was finding a publisher (smirks). You write a lot of letters. You try to sell the book. And they write back, “Thank you very much! But we are not interested.” Many rejection letters. And then I was lucky, because Indiana University Press said, “We like this!” Maybe they appreciated it, but it may have helped that they also published Aitmatov’s novel, “The Day Lasts Longer Than a Century” in English 30 years ago. And I wrote that in my letter. But this is quite difficult, because you work for ten years, you give your life. And then you do not know if someone wants to publish it. So that is difficult for me.

As for the research, I was able to find information. I think there was a lot of information about Aitmatov. About Altay there was not so much. His memoirs were really helpful, then I met his family, which is very important. I always felt that I was making progress, which was good. I was always interested in finding out more about these two men and their fascinating personalities. Nobody said “No!” to me, everybody wanted to talk to me. One thing is, I wish I spoke Kyrgyz, because sometimes people were more comfortable speaking Kyrgyz. I think I am lucky that people still speak Russian, because I was able to speak with them.

Well, there are primary sources. Interviews with people. There are also secondary sources. So I had people on the ground here helping me who were translating Altay’s memoirs into Russian so I could read them; translating articles that I was requesting; they were going to the library here. I would find out what I needed and they would go and get it, and if it was in Kyrgyz, then translate it. I also worked with several students at the American University of Central Asia over the years to translate them. But I had two researchers who helped me a lot, Ermek Adylbekov and Iliyas Mammadiyarov. Very helpful guys. They speak Kyrgyz, English, and Russian perfectly—they are the new generation. I read a lot of Russian history, Central Asian history, and from these sources I developed my content.

I am really fortunate that the memoirs existed, because I never met Altay and there was not a lot written about him. There’s so much more about Chingiz Aitmatov. But the memoirs gave me information about the people who knew Altay, who worked with Altay. And this was quite exciting, the way they remembered him. I was able to talk to people who knew him in America, where he arrived in 1956. At Columbia University, I found reports about him as an employee there. I interviewed a couple of people in New York who had known him. I interviewed a very famous professor of Central Asian history called Edward Alfred Allworth. He was 95 years old when I interviewed him and he died last year. So I was very lucky. Altay worked with him for 13 years. He and Altay both fought in the war. They were both very proud men, who were quiet inside, and they were both fascinated with Central Asia.

The fact that they are Kyrgyz just makes it interesting, because Kyrgyz are free-spirited people, they have a nomadic culture.

I was able to talk to him. He said, “Why do you call him Azamat Altay?” I said that was his name. But he said, “No, no. His name is Kudaibergen Kojomberdiev.” He was almost angry at me. Azamat Altay officially changed his name in 1961; there is a story about why he did it. For some reason, I think Allworth was a purist. If this is your name, this is your name. Allworth was that kind of man.

We can all learn from their lives. Nobody is perfect. Everybody has troubles. Everybody struggles. Everybody has problems. And they are two very powerful examples of humans who decided they wanted to be free. One man escaped, one man stayed. But you can say that they both believed in this mission of Kyrgyz people preserving their language, their culture, and being free. I think this struggle for rights, human rights, is an eternal struggle. The fact that they are Kyrgyz just makes it interesting, because Kyrgyz are free-spirited people, they have a nomadic culture. And both men were very influenced by where they came from. Altay grew up in Issyk Kul, Aitmatov in Talas. This is a very important part of their identity. I think to Westerners it is something interesting, it is a new world. I also think Aitmatov’s writing is very powerful, and Americans will not suffer if they read what Aitmatov has written. His works were translated at one point, but never widely distributed in America. But wouldn’t it be great if he were “born again” in America for American readers?

The historical context is important, but they also understood in each other someone who is fighting for the same thing. They met in New York. I think they were simpatico, they respected each other. Aitmatov understood the difficult journey Altay had been on; Aitmatov understood how Kyrgyz people rejected Altay. But Aitmatov understood—because he writes about these kinds of characters—that Altay should be sympathized with. He should not be rejected.

For Altay, Chingiz Aitmatov was a connection to his homeland. When he read Aitmatov’s books, his heart did not hurt so much. So they were important for one another. There is an interesting story here. I was at Altay’s house—now his niece lives there—in New York. I saw Aitmatov’s books on the shelf. “Abu Talib is alive and he is Azamat Altay.” So that is pretty cool.

It starts out with World War II. For both men, World War II was a crucible. Then I go backwards, to the history of Urkun. And then we go to the purges, and the post-war period, and the Cold War. Then we move on to the creation of Radio Liberty, to Aitmatov’s writing, and then we come to perestroika [the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system in the late 1980s] and then independence [the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s]. And then it ends, basically, with the deaths of both men, which is the epilogue. So it really covers maybe a hundred years—The Day Lasts Longer Than a Century [quoting the Aitmatov novel], it is like a century. I also tell the history of the 1860 Russian colonization.

During World War II, Altay was captured three times by the Germans and escaped three times. He was subjected to torture. He had to live on his own. Hiding with Poles, Belarusians, hiding in the back, maybe cleaning up the stables, maybe chopping firewood for food and shelter. So that they would hide and shelter him. So he had to endure that way, cold, no food.

At the same time, Aitmatov was in the village in Kyrgyzstan. There were no men—all the men had gone to the war. So he had to become the secretary to the selsovet (village administration). He delivered the death notes to the families. A 14-year-old boy. Can you imagine what that would be like? I think he understood early what loss and pain was, and when you can do nothing about it. So that was one thing. I think Aitmatov then had to endure being the son of an enemy of the people. He was not allowed to go to graduate school, which is lucky for us, because he turned to writing.

Altay was denounced as a traitor and lost his homeland. He never went to his father’s funeral, and we know how important that is for Kyrgyz. You could say he abandoned his family. And this was with him for his entire life. That is why, when he came back in 1995, the first thing he did was to go to where his mother and father were buried and pay his respects as a son. The pain, the sense of loss, is very palpable for both men.

I can say a lot. It happened at a very interesting time in US-Soviet relations. Apollo and Soyuz were up in the sky. There was Bolot Minjilkiev, too, a Kyrgyz opera singer. So maybe you have spaceships linking up here and everybody’s watching this. But down in the hotel room in New York, for the Kyrgyz people it was as big as this. That says that culture, language, and connection are very powerful. Despite authoritarianism, it says something about Chingiz Aitmatov and his status that he felt free to meet with Altay. As you know, Bolot Minjilkiev really wanted to meet with Altay. There is a good anecdote about his character. He was a very free guy, pushing the KGB aside, saying, “You cannot stop me! This is my blood.” Some Kyrgyz rejected Altay—it was very harsh—but there were other Kyrgyz who valued him, respected him. I think in the Soviet era, it was hard to see the second type, but they were there, and they were in the writings of Chingiz Aitmatov, his characters. And everybody read Chingiz Aitmatov. It also maybe says that you have to be really smart to fight against authoritarianism and survive. That was the redemption. Altay came back and was greeted as a hero. And Aitmatov found his father after 53 years. I do not know any other stories like that. That is pretty amazing.

I am going to read to you:

[Excerpt from the book]:

“Chingiz Aitmatov’s work is a summons to his countrymen to remember their history, develop themselves morally and vindicate with their actions the freedom they possess.

Born in modest circumstances, both Aitmatov and Altay were constantly educating themselves throughout their lives, in the process building a respect for democratic traditions and the rights of the individual. They saw in each other kindred spirits on a common mission to preserve their people’s culture, language, and literature. They were not fueled by religious fervor or any exclusivist ideology. Rather, they cherished the promise of secular democracy and its hallmarks of freedom of religion, speech, and association. They embodied the missions of their lives with their lives in their efforts on behalf of their trapped countrymen.

“In the midst of it all, Aitmatov and Altay are beacons to guide those willing to bear the price of freedom. They are examples of courage to the current generation and, hopefully, generations to come. They fought the fight against impressive odds. Now, it’s up to their countrymen to carry on. After all, nomads were never content with being contained.”

We want to translate it into Kyrgyz and Russian, so that people here can read it. It is only in English now. We are working with a local organization to figure out how to best do this, and one idea is to do a crowdfunding campaign, hopefully collecting money from Kyrgyz who live overseas, but also those who live in Kyrgyzstan. The idea is to make the book available at an affordable price for Kyrgyz in the villages who might not have much money. So in a way, we want to raise money from Kyrgyz who have a little more to pay for translation and printing Kyrgyz and Russian versions. If there is any money left over, we want to put it toward an ecological goal. But we are just figuring this out. Hopefully, the campaign will be launched soon.

Elmurat Ashiraliev

Researcher, journalist.

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UCA Celebrates the 95th Anniversary of Kyrgyz Literary Legend - Chyngyz Aitmatov

On the occasion of the 95th anniversary of the legendary Kyrgyz author, Chyngyz Aitmatov, The University of Central Asia hosted a week-long series of events in Naryn to highlight and honour Aitmatov’s profound literary and cultural contributions. Several of the events were held in collaboration with Naryn State University (NSU), public schools in Naryn and the local Naryn drama theatre.

Ahmad Shah, University Librarian (UCA), addressing the audience during the Opening of Chyngyz Aitmatov Corner at UCA Library.

Actors from Chyngyz Aitmatov works during the panel discussion at UCA. L to R: Nurgazy Sydygaliev, Chorobek Dumanaev, Nasredin Dubashev, Busurman Odurakaev.

"Jamiliya" performance by UCA and NSU students.

Audience at the Naryn drama theatre enjoying the performances by UCA and NSU students.

NSU student recites the work of Chyngyz Aitmatov.

Students working on artworks at the Naryn State University.

The festivities included engaging book club sessions at UCA’s School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) campus in Naryn. UCA faculty member and filmmaker, Nursultan Stanaliev, delivered a session on the adaptation of Aitmatov’s works in Kyrgyz cinema. A significant moment of the celebration was the inauguration of the Chyngyz Aitmatov Corner at the SAS Library, providing students and researchers with access to a comprehensive collection of his works. The celebration welcomed main actors from Aitmatov's renowned works and featured a thought-provoking panel discussion that explored the enduring relevance of Aitmatov's works and its impact on contemporary literature and society.

Trivia and entertainment evenings at the SAS Naryn campus allowed participants to test their knowledge of Aitmatov's life and works. One of the evenings provided a multifaceted exploration of the writer’s literary legacy through various artistic disciplines, including world literature and poetry, dramaturgy, music and choreography, painting and sculpturing, and world languages. The celebration reached new artistic heights with an innovative and mesmerising performance of Aitmatov’s literary masterpieces by “Salt Peanuts”, the renowned Kyrgyz jazz band.

The Art Faculty at NSU collaborated with students from UCA, NSU, and local schools to create artworks dedicated to the writer. The celebrations concluded with an event in the Naryn Drama Theater with stage captivating performances based on Aitmatov's iconic story of “Jamilia”. The event was followed by musical performances celebrating Aitmatov's legacy through songs inspired by his writings.

Live painting and sculpturing by local artists.

Innovative adaptation of Chyngyz Aitmatov’s works by Jazz band, Salt Peanuts.

Chyngyz Aitmatov Trivia Night at UCA Campus.

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Chyngyz Aitmatov is the most famous Kyrgyz person
Chyngyz Aytmatov Biography
Chingiz Aitmatov
Чингиз Айтматов • биография и творчество
Чингиз Айтматов кто такой. Биография
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Chyngyz Aytmatov Biography
ADAM Aitmatov (English/Turkish subtitles)
Чингиз Айтматов Краткая биография
Чингиз Айтматов. Краткая биография писателя
Биография и творчество Чингиза Айтматова
Джамиля (драма, реж. Ирина Поплавская, 1968 г.)

COMMENTS

Chingiz Aytmatov
Chingiz Aytmatov (born December 12, 1928, Sheker, Kirgiziya, U.S.S.R. [now in Kyrgyzstan]—died June 10, 2008, Nürnberg, Germany) was an author, translator, journalist, and diplomat, best known as a major figure in Kyrgyz and Russian literature.. Aytmatov's father was a Communist Party official executed during the great purges directed by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in the late 1930s.
Chinghiz Aitmatov
Chinghiz Torekulovich Aitmatov (Russian: Чингиз Торекулович Айтматов, romanized: Chingiz Torekulovich Aytmatov; Kyrgyz: Чыңгыз Төрөкулович Айтматов, romanized: Chynggyz Törökulovich Aytmatov; 12 December 1928 - 10 June 2008) was a Kyrgyz author who wrote mainly in Russian, but also in Kyrgyz.He is one of the best known figures in Kyrgyzstan ...
Chingiz Aitmatov: Getting to know a world-famous writer from Kyrgyzstan
Chingiz Aitmatov died in Nuremberg on June 10, 2008, at the age of 79. The possibility of intergalactic cooperation. Aitmatov's novel The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years is set in the Kazakh ...
PDF Chingiz Aitmatov: A Biography
Aitmatov provides a noteworthy account of his own life and career in his "Craftsmanship."1 He was born on December 12, 1928, to the family of Torekul and Nagima Aitmatov in the village of Sheker (Talas Valley, Kirov district). Village tradition required that he should know seven generations of his ancestors.
Chingiz Aitmatov: Respected Author, Diplomat, and Advocate for Kyrgyz
Chingiz Aitmatov was born on December 12, 1928, in the village of Sheker, in the Talas region of Kyrgyzstan. Aitmatov was born to a Kyrgyz father and a Tatar mother. His father, Torekul Aitmatov was one of the first Kyrgyz communists and was the second secretary of the Kyrgyz Regional Committee; his mother, Nagima Khamzievna Aitmatova was an ...
Chyngyz Aitmatov is the most famous Kyrgyz person
Chingiz Aitmatov was a Kyrgyz, Soviet and Central Asian author and statesman, whose fame spread beyond his country's borders and his books are read with great admiration all over the world. He expressed the ideas of humanism and great love for all living things, including people, wild and domestic animals, plants and for the entire planet ...
Aitmatov, Chingiz
Aitmatov suffered kidney failure in May 2008 and reportedly fell into a coma; he died on June 10, 2008, in Germany. Works in Literary Context. Chingiz Aitmatov's bilingual education exposed him to the classics of Russian literature, as well as the rich indigenous traditions of his own culture. His ability to write with a dual consciousness ...
Chingiz Aitmatov Bio
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 ...
Chinghiz Aitmatov
Chinghiz Aitmatov. Chyngyz Aitmatov ( Russian: Чинги́з Тореку́лович Айтма́тов) (12 December 1928 - 10 June 2008) was a Soviet - Kyrgyz author and diplomat. He wrote in both Russian and Kyrgyz. He is a famous author in Kyrgyzstan 's literature. His best-known work abroad is a novel The Day Lasts More than a Hundred ...
Chingiz Aitmatov, Who Wrote of Life in U.S.S.R., Is Dead at 79
Is Dead at 79. By Bruce Weber. June 15, 2008. Chingiz Aitmatov, a Communist writer whose novels and plays before the collapse of the Soviet Union gave a voice to the people of the remote Soviet ...
Chingiz Aitmatov, The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years
Aitmatov was a successful writer who knew how to play the game in order to say most of what he wanted to say. (He died in 2008.) Another reason for his success was the Soviet project of encouraging writers from other nationalities within the Soviet Union. If the Kyrgyz nation had no tradition of prose novels, then all the more reason to admit ...
Chingiz Aitmatov
The Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov, who has died aged 79, was the most celebrated representative of Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked, mountainous nation of 5 million people in the heart of central Asia ...
How a Russian-Kyrgyz bilingual writer opened Central Asia to the world
Culture. Apr 26 2021. Ajay Kamalakaran. Chingiz Aitmatov (R) in Kyrgyzstan, 1973. I.Dronov/TASS. Follow Russia Beyond on Instagram. Chingiz Aitmatov's books that were set in the valleys of ...
The Paris Review
By Ted Trautman. June 10, 2014. Arts & Culture. Chinghiz Aitmatov and the literature of Kyrgyzstan. "Chyngyz Aitmatov and his arts," a series of Kyrgyz postage stamps. Six years ago today, when pneumonia claimed the life of the Kyrgyz writer Chinghiz Aitmatov, I learned about it the old-fashioned way: from a man weeping in the streets.
Mother Earth
NOVEL, ENGLISH, CHINGIZ AITMATOV
Kyrgyzstan: Chingiz Aitmatov, A Modern Hero, Dies
Aitmatov leaves behind a wife, three sons, and a daughter. The Kyrgyz people say that two heroes made their nation world-known: one is the epic hero of "Manas," another is Chingiz Aitmatov. They will say their last goodbye to this great son on June 14, when Aitmatov will be buried with his father in the Ata-Beyit memorial cemetery he helped ...
Life and Myth: The Mother in Chinghiz Aitmatov's Literary Creation
Abstract. Chinghiz Torekulovich Aitmatov was born on 12th of December 1928 in Sheker, a village in the Soviet Republic of Kirghizia. Both his parents were literate and had enjoyed schooling in a society of oral tradition. It is remarkable that the future writer's mother, although belonging to a Muslim society with nomad way of life, with ...
PDF Chyngyz Aitmatov
ChinghizAitmatov belonged to the post-war generation of writers. His output before Jamila was not significant, a few short stories and a. short novel called Face to Face. But it was Jamila that came to prove the author's work. Seen through the eyes of an adolescent boy, it tells of how Jamila, a village girl, separated from her soldier husband ...
Love, mutual trust and solidarity: Chingiz Aitmatov, the Kyrgyzstan
Chingiz Aitmatov died in Nuremberg on 10 June 2008 at the age of 79. The solidarity of ordinary people. Aitmatov's novel The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years is set in the Kazakh steppe at an inhospitable eight dwelling railway junction not far from the Cosmodrome. The junction's name, Boranly-Burannyi (snowstorm), refers to the rough ...
Chingiz Aitmatov
Chingiz Aitmatov. Writer: Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalim. Chingiz Aitmatov was a Russian-Kyrgyz writer and statesman known for such films as The First Teacher (1965), Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalim (1977) and Jamila (1995). He was born Chingiz Torekulovich Aitmatov on December 12, 1928, in Kirgizia, Soviet Union. His family was bilingual, Russian-Kyrgyz. His father, Torekul Aitmatov, was one of the first ...
"Have the Mountains Fallen?" The Story of Two Journeys of Loss and
They met in New York. I think they were simpatico, they respected each other. Aitmatov understood the difficult journey Altay had been on; Aitmatov understood how Kyrgyz people rejected Altay. But Aitmatov understood—because he writes about these kinds of characters—that Altay should be sympathized with. He should not be rejected.
UCA Celebrates the 95th Anniversary of Kyrgyz Literary Legend
UCA faculty member and filmmaker, Nursultan Stanaliev, delivered a session on the adaptation of Aitmatov's works in Kyrgyz cinema. A significant moment of the celebration was the inauguration of the Chyngyz Aitmatov Corner at the SAS Library, providing students and researchers with access to a comprehensive collection of his works.

Chingiz Aitmatov: Getting to know a world-famous writer from Kyrgyzstan

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