At the beginning of this week, I was in Moscow, where I talked to Azerbaijani intellectuals. Wonderful Russian poet Andrey Dementyev participated in one of the meetings and we asked him to recite his most famous poems. And when that 84-year-old art worker fulfilled our request without posing, I thought that it was interesting, pleasant for Armenians and Azerbaijanis of my generation (certainly, some layer), because we read the Youth magazine in our childhood, the editor of which was Dementyev for many years, because we were citizens of a big country and at the end of the day we speak the language, in which the poet writes. And our children who have grown up in two independent countries obviously meet none of those conditions. Some things unite Azerbaijani intellectual and me and we can talk on the cultural foundation that was laid in our school and college days. If the alienation and enmity between our peoples are retained, I cannot imagine how, on what foundation our children will communicate. That is why I think that it is not right to hand our conflict over to the next generation – everything will be much harder for them. Naturally, I cannot negotiate instead of our diplomats and presidents and thus make us closer to the solution of the problem – everyone must do his job. The only thing I can do is not reiterating the pointless tautology “Turk is always Turk,” in order to be perceived a “patriot.” I can claim that there is an intelligentsia in the neighboring country that doesn’t fall behind ours. I can forbid using any insulting expressions toward a neighboring or any other people in my newspaper, forbid attributing general negative traits to it, which by the way contradicts any logic. I can listen to any man, regardless of his nation and regardless of whether I agree with him or not, normally and without any prejudices or outrage. I don’t know whether it is much or little.
By the way, about listening. Andrey Dementyev himself read one of his famous poems, the meaning of which is the following – never regret about anything – someone has become a genius, another a boss – but don’t regret that you haven’t experienced the sorrows of those people. Don’t regret that another man plays the reed pipe brilliantly – you were listening to him more brilliantly.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
