Recently, I watched “Mea culpa”. They say it is the last performance: the action takes place in 2015, and since this date is reached, the act is losing its “anti-utopia” meaning. I share the idea, we cannot ask for our historical lands, because we are unable to build a normal state in the 29 thousand km given to us. The talent of those creating this performance is also not disputable.
In my opinion, writing an article in a theatric (literature, music, painting) language or make a rally is disputable. If I write in a newspaper on how the dollar was 410 AMD, and now it has become, let’s say, 460 AMD, it will be very relevant today, but an artistic work about dollar-dram fluctuation, it seems to me, must contain such generalizations that are of interest to the audience in the event of any currency exchange.
For example, in “Mea culpa”, the hints about 2002 regarding resigned, but not yet answered for his sins president were understandable, while about 2014, they are understandable not to everyone, and in 2030 (if the performance, suppose, is staged) a special note should be delivered to the audience about which president is the matter about.
Generally, in our art and especially poetry, it is well-accepted to present a rhymed (typically “quasi-nationalist”) sermon as an artistic work. I do not want to give names not to incite excessive heated debates on these pre-holiday days. Instead, I give the name of a Poet, whose work of the best period is artistic up to quintessence, Hamo Sahyan.
What is the modern man’s, or perhaps generally, the man’s main problem? To overcome the contradictions: between the East and the West, national and universal, egoism and altruism, calculation and dream and so on. Those who overcome this contradiction work a true miracle.
Everything is miracle true,
Everything is longing and boon,
Everything is upright and errant,
Everything is giving and possessory.
Why am I referring to literature in this year’s final editorial instead of summaries and assessments? Because I want to wish you, dear readers, and myself for we should read more and not just newspapers and websites. Joseph Brodsky wrote that by reading, we are able to be self-expressed more accurately and thus avoid neuroses. “The book, says the poet, costs far less than a single visit to a psychiatrist.”
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
