At that moment I, who had been standing on tiptoe behind the tourists' backs so as to get a glance of the huge world, and then reached the loophole for a good look, again thought of Daghestan.
It, too, had all the time stood on tiptoe in the rear, waiting for its turn to come, and hindered by the broad backs of those more fortunate and standing in front. Then it saw the whole world through a loophole in a fortress wall. Now it had merged with the vast world, bringing with it its customs, ways, songs, and sense of dignity.
At various times and through a search after various images, poets of all kinds have tried to give shape to their concepts of Daghestan.
The sorrowful poet Mahmud said of the peoples of Daghestan that they were like mountain streams that were constantly endeavouring to merge in a single torrent, but could not do so, and flowed their individual ways. He also said that the peoples of Daghestan in some way reminded him of flowers growing in a narrow gorge, which try to reach out to one another but are unable to embrace. But have not the peoples of Daghestan now joined to form a single mountain torrent, a single bouquet?
Batyrai once said: just as a poor man throws his worn-out sheepskin coat into the farthest dark corner, Daghestan has been crumpled up and thrown into the mountain gorges.
After reading through a history of Daghestan, Father compared her with a drinking horn that topers pass round the table from hand to hand during a bout.
With what shall I compare you, my Daghestan? What imagery shall I choose to voice my thoughts about your story and your destiny? Perhaps the finer and apter words will come to me later, but today I say, "A little window giving on the vast ocean of the world", or, more briefly, "A little window onto a great ocean".
There, my ministers, you have the second title of the book I am about to write. I realise that other countries neighbouring on my Daghestan could say the same of themselves. So what, she will have some namesakes.
I present you with my papakha - MY DAGHESTAN, and the star badge on that papakba - "A little window onto a great ocean".
Like one who is about to play, I have tuned my two-stringed pandur; like one about to sew, I have threaded my needle....
My ministers approved the title of the book, just as ministers at some international conference finally approve the agenda.

IT MAY SO HAPPEN that two brothers peacefully ride the same horse; it may also happen that one expert horseman leads two horses to the water on a single bridle.

ABUTALIB ONCE SAID: He had bought a hat like Lev Tolstoi's. Where can he buy the same kind of head?

IT IS SAID: He has been given a good name. What kind of man will he grow up to be?

ON THE FORM OF THE BOOK AND HOW IT SHOULD BE WRITTEN

A dagger never drawn will grow rusty;
A brave man who is always asleep will grow fat.
(Inscription on a dagger)

I have threaded my needle, but what kind of coat will I sew?
I have strung my pandur, but what kind of song will I sing?

My impatient, loyal steed is well shod. I have inspected each hoof and seen to the condition of the shoes, I have saddled him and tightened the girth. I can hardly insert my fingers under the band. Yes, my horse is well and carefully saddled.
A greybeard reminiscent of my father hands me the bridle; a quick-eyed little girl gives me my riding-whip. A mountain lass emerges from a nearby saklia carrying a pitcher full of water, the traditional way of wishing good luck on a journey. All those I pass by as I lead my horse out of the village stand aside and wish me a happy journey.
At the edge of the aul another lass places a lighted lamp on her window sill, as if to say to me:
"Do not forget this window and this light. It will go on burning until your return. While you travel your long road, and during the long nights of inclement weather, it will shine for you through the darkness and the years. And when, travel-worn and weary, you draw near your native village, its glimmer will be the first thing to greet your sight. Remember this window and this light."
I take a long last look at my native aul. I see Mother on the roof of our saklia, standing very straight but forlorn. Her figure grows smaller and smaller until it is no larger than a vertical line on the horizontal plane of flat roofs. At last, when I reach another turn in the road the view is blocked by a hill, and when I look back I see nothing but the mountains.
Before me, too, is a mountain, but I know that beyond it lies a vast world-other cities and villages, seas and oceans, railway stations, airports, and books.
My horse's hoofs resound on the rough road of my native Daghestan. Overhead, framed in the mountain tops, is the sky, now full of sunshine, now studded with stars, now overcast with clouds, now sending down the rain.

Tarry a while, my impatient horse,
Let me look back again,
Let me look again at my native aul
For my heart is full of pain.

Fly onward, my horse, and never look back,
For surely this isn't the end;
Many auls await us ahead
Where we'll find both brother and friend.

Whither am I bound? How am I to choose the right road? How am I to write this new book?

FROM MY NOTEBOOK: Young people in Daghestan no longer wear the national costume. They go about in trousers, jackets, and tennis or conventional shirts-just as in Moscow, Tbilisi, Tashkent, Dushanbe, or Minsk.
National costume is donned nowadays only by members of the Daghestan Song and Dance Ensemble. One may meet a man in old-style clothes at a wedding. Sometimes, if a man wishes to dress in the Daghestan manner, he will borrow the necessary clothes from a friend or simply hire them. He does not possess his own. In short, national costume is on its way out, or perhaps has practically disappeared.
The trouble, however, is that, with some poets, the national form is disappearing, something they even take pride in.
I, too, go about in European-style clothes, and do not wear my father's Circassian coat. However, I have no intention of bedecking my verse in featureless vestments. I want it to be decked in our Daghestani national dress.
As for myself, my life span covers only several decades; during these decades people have been wearing trousers, shoes, and jackets. Verses have a life of their own, their own dates of birth and death. I will say nothing of my own verse, which perhaps may not even outlive me.
I once saw in Moscow an ancient oak said to have been planted by Ivan the Terrible. It has seen people wearing boyar costume, then camisoles and powdered perukes, then top hats and cutaways, then Budyonny army helmets and leather jackets, then ordinary jackets and drapes, and then pipe-stem trousers.... Meanwhile the oak seemed to be saying: you people down there may run about on your affairs and keep on changing the fashion of your clothes, if you have nothing better to do. I have my own vocation-to trap the rays of the sun and convert them into tough and sappy wood, and also into acorns, out of which trees just as sturdy will grow.
There is a saying in the mountains that clothes make the man, but it is his steed that makes the brave man. This saying sounds grand, but I do not think it is true. A hero does not have to don a tiger skin, and a cowardly heart may beat beneath a coat of mail.

FOR I have often had to scratch my head when a water-melon I have chosen for its appearance proves pale and tasteless inside.

FOR, a certain man from Untsukuli once abducted the girl he loved; wrapping her up in a felt cloak. When he unwrapped the bundle he discovered the girl's toothless grandmother there.

FOR, Abutalib once told me of how he was once invited to a wedding in a distant aul, where he performed on the surna. The wedding was a roaring success. For three days, on a clearing in front of the aul, the surna was chuckling, the drum rolling, the violin wailing, the accordion going it merrily, and the singing full of hilarity. As we in Daghestan say, there was plenty of "dum-dum" and "chum-chum" - lots to listen to and to eat. The entire village attended the wedding, and all-young and old-did some dancing.
On the third day, the master of ceremonies announced in loud tones that the bride and bridegroom would come out into the circle and dance. Well, the public had all seen the groom during the three days of festivities, but the bride had been seated all the time, her face concealed by her veil. For three days Abutalib had taken in the sight of her bridal raiment, whose bright hues rivalled the colour cover of an anthology of Caucasian poetry.
As she began to dance, Abutalib was somewhat nonplussed by her proportions, whose massiveness could evoke a parallel with something like the Kirghiz epic "Manas", as published by the State Literature Publishers. The bride made ready to raise her veil, and the atmosphere of expectation grew tenser. Abutalib himself stood with bated breath. The veil was raised-the instant all had waited for for three days....
One of her eyes was directed towards Khunzakh, the other towards Botlikh. Below the eyes, which looked askance at each other in distaste, a very long nose seemed to have been tagged on to the face....
A fit of despondency came over Abutalib, who felt he could no longer play the surna, or eat. He left the scene of the wedding.
I suppose Abutalib was indulging in some exaggeration in this story.

AND YET a poor book will not be saved by excellent design. For a proper appraisal, the veil has to be removed here too.

FOR there was a time when the status of the womenfolk in the mountain regions and the attitude of the men towards them were raised to the level of a burning issue, a matter of principle.
That was a time when no husband dared for a moment to gainsay his wife. A mere family tiff would lead to the husband being called out to the Party District Committee and being hauled over the coals. To ensure fair play, the entire staff at the District Committee were given reprimands. During that year, conferences of mountain women were continually being held, at which more words were spoken than at all other congresses taken together.
During that selfsame year, a woman of huge stature began to appear at the Sunday bazaars, where she traded in forbidden goods. The militiaman fought shy of her, for he was afraid he might be suspected of encroaching on the independence and equality of the mountain women. Nevertheless, on the third Sunday, he timidly cautioned her, and on the fifth Sunday he decided to apprehend her and take her to the militia station.
While he was taking her along the street, people pointed at him, expressing surprise at his having dared to take into custody an independent and emancipated woman of the mountains.
He had not been able to have a good look at the woman in the crowded market-place, but now he noticed certain details, as for instance the huge boots that could be seen below the skirt.
"This stream does not flow from a proper spring," the militiaman thought, and tore the veil off the woman's face, revealing the blackguardly face of a man, with bulging eyes, and bristling moustaches, like blackthorn bushes growing from the face of a cliff.

Some artists, who lack the talent, patience and dignity to sell their goods, also assume disguises designed to conceal their paucity of thought with the tinsel of form. However, if the stomach is empty, what is the use of wearing one's papakha at a rakish angle.

BESIDES, however handsome a wooden dagger may be, you cannot harm even a chicken with it. The most it can do is to cut at the threads of downcoming rain.

AND BESIDES, there can be no offspring from a marriage between dolls.

AND BESIDES, when a boy has to be circumcised, he is shown a goose quill. But that is merely to distract him. You cannot perform a circumcision with a goose quill; for that a sharp knife is needed.
However, readers are not children to be distracted or solaced, nor am I an artist who carries a cardboard dagger in a sheath, even if the sheath is genuine and gilt-plated.

OF COURSE, a sheath is also a necessity, for without one the blade will rust. And it is fine for a sheath to be a handsome one.

OF COURSE, when a jigit brings home the spoils from a raid, his wife ties a silk kerchief about his steed's neck.

OF COURSE, a dull tongue is, for the keenest of thoughts, just like a wolf for the lamb.

OF COURSE, the sturdiest of arbas will be jolted about on a rough road and may even fall over the edge of a precipice.

OF COURSE, a donkey's girth-band cannot be an adornment for a horse's back, and the saddle of a thoroughbred will never fit an ass.
Here I must tell you the story of the man from Balkhar and his jade of a horse.

THE STORY OF THE MAN FROM BALKHAR AND HIS JADE. A man from Balkhar once loaded his sorry-looking horse with earthenware pots, pitchers and plates, and set out to sell them in the mountain villages.
On that day a horse-racing festival was being held in an Avar village, attracting many ardent horsemen and their no less fiery steeds. Both jigits and their mounts were renowned in those parts. The riders were handsome and of just proportions, and so were their horses. The jigits' eyes were burning with valour and excitement, and their horses' eyes were ablaze with the fire of impatience.
The starters were lining up when suddenly the peaceable man from Balkhar rode into the square. He looked half-asleep, as did his horse. The jigits began to make mock of the man.
"Come and join us," they cried.
"Register your nag for the race."
"Run your horse against ours and let it show its prowess."
"Run against us, or else there will be nobody to pick up the horse-shoes after us."
In response to this raillery, the man began in silence to unload his horse. He calmly piled up his goods in neat stacks, calmly mounted his horse, and joined the starters.
The jigits' horses began to paw the ground with their hoofs, prance, and beat the air with their forelegs. The Balkharian's. horse just stood there, sleepy, with head held low.
The race began, with the spirited horses dashing off with the speed of the whirlwind. A cloud of dust rose skywards, at the tail end of which the jade could be seen. The first course of the distance had been covered, then the second and the third, and the horses seemed to have lost their freshness, the steam rising from their flanks. Then they were all in a lather, which fell in flakes on the warm dust. Their legs seemed more and more benumbed, and the pace slackened considerably. Although they gave their mounts the whip, the riders could not make them go faster. The Balkhar horse, however, ran on in the way it had started-neither faster nor slower. First it caught up with the horses in the rear, then with those in the middle, drew level with those in the lead, and then, in the tenth lap-the last one-outpaced them. The ribbons of victory had to be tied about its neck. Its owner calmly returned to his wares, loaded them on to the animal's back, and resumed his way.

Such things happen in literature even more often than in horse-racing.

FROM MY NOTEBOOK. Verses which have been written with ease are sometimes hard to read. Verses that have been written with difficulty are sometimes easy to read. Form and content are like clothes and the wearer. If a man is good, clever and of high character, why should his clothes not be in keeping with his qualities. If a man has a handsome face, why should his thoughts not be befitting.
It very often happens a woman is good to look at, but unintelligent. If she is very clever, then she has no looks. It may be the same with works of art.
There are, however, fortunate women whose looks are on a par with their brains. The same may be said of books by poets of real talent.

A MAN FROM MAALI ONCE SAID: "As soon as a man making his way towards our aul can be seen on the mountain pass, I can tell at once whether he is good or bad."

A MAN FROM KUBACHI SAID: "The gold or the silver does not of itself mean anything. What is important is that the man who works the metal should have hands of gold."

The finest pitchers men display
Are moulded out of common day.
So also is the finest verse
Moulded out of common words.
(Inscription on a pitcher)

I have lived over fifteen thousand days in this world of ours. Many are the roads I have walked or travelled. I have met many thousands of people. My impressions are as countless as the mountain rivulets when it rains or the snow is melting. But how are they to be brought together for a book to result? Writing a book like that is much the same as digging a wide and deep channel through a valley. But that is only half the job. What is needed is for all the mountain rivulets to join together to flow into that channel. How am I to do that? What kind of knowledge is required besides a knowledge of life? The theory of literature? But one should not give more thought to how verses should be written than to actually writing them.
I want to say that I have no favourite literary schools or trends. I do have my favourite writers, artists and Masters.

FROM MY NOTEBOOK. At an examination at the Institute of Literature, an Avar was asked the difference between realism and romanticism. He had probably not read any books on the matter, but an answer was expected. After some thought, he replied to the professor as follows:
"If we call an eagle an eagle, then that is realism. If we call a cock an eagle, then that is romanticism."
The professor laughed and asked for his result book.
As for me, I have always tried to call a horse a horse, an ass an ass, a cock a cock, and a man a man.

FROM MY NOTEBOOK. The celebrated Rabindranath Tagore had a brother, who was also a writer and belonged to the Bengal school of Indian literature. Tagore was a school in his own right, an entire literary trend in himself; therein lay the difference between the two brothers.
Rabindranath's spirit harboured a bird of its own, one unlike all others. No such bird had ever existed prior to him. He sent it forth into the world of art, and all could see that this bird belonged to Rabindranath Tagore.
If an artist sends his bird forth and it mixes with a flock of other birds that are just like itself, then he is no artist. It means that the bird he has sent forth is not his own, unusual and wondrous, but an ordinary sparrow that nobody will be able to distinguish in the flock of other sparrows, which may be likable but still are sparrows and nothing else.
A man should have his own hearth, where he can himself kindle a flame. One who has mounted a horse that does not belong to him will sooner or later dismount and return it to its owner. Do not saddle other people's ideas; get hold of your own.
I make so bold as to compare literature with a pandur and the writer with the strings stretched on it. Each string possesses its own voice, its own sound, but taken together they blend to produce an accord.
The Avar pandur possesses only two strings. It was said of my father that he added a third string to the pandur of Avar literature.
I would like to achieve a voice of my own, distinct from all others. I would like to become one more string on our ancient Avar instrument.

I do not wish to resemble such hunters that buy the carcass of a fallow-deer at the market and when they come home say they killed it themselves.

OR IT MAY HAPPEN THUS: a rumour circulates that a hunter has killed a huge aurochs in a gorge, and all the other hunters make a dash for the lucky gorge. Meanwhile, the first hunter has killed a big bear at another place. While the other hunters all flock to the site of the kill, the master-hunter tracks down a big snow leopard in a third gorge.... Which of them is a genuine hunter? He who tracks down his quarry himself, or he who hastens in his footsteps? People like that would not hesitate to rob other people's traps.
They remind me of certain writers. One should never imitate the behaviour of an acquaintance of mine who, after meeting Kornei Chukovsky, pretended he did not know Abutalib.
A brook that has reached the sea and beholds the boundless expanse of blue with which it merges should never forget the spring high up in the mountains which has given it birth, or the long and narrow channel, rocky and tortuous, that it has had to travel in its descent.
Indeed, I am like that mountain stream. I love the source I have sprung from, and the stony bed I have followed. I love the dim gorges through which my waters run, the rocks they fall from in silvery cascades, and the low and peaceful places where they grow deep, reflecting the mountains about them and the sky above, with all its stars. And again they flow on, now slowly, now gathering speed.
However, I would not say that the gorges alone would suffice me. If I flow on, that means there is a goal ahead of me. Not only do I sense but I can actually see the measureless sea that awaits me.
I am not alone in this. I am part and parcel of all Da-ghestan, before whom vast vistas have unfolded. Not only have the boundaries of our cemeteries spread during all these years but also the frontiers of our concepts of life and the world.

I am an Avar poet. In my heart, however, I carry a sense of civic responsibility, not only for Avaristan, or the whole of Daghestan, or the entire country, but for our planet. This is the twentieth century. One cannot live otherwise.

THEY TOLD ME: shortly after my birth, my father had to move for a time to the aul of Araderikh, where his job had taken him. Two panniers were attached to the saddle on Father's horse: one held all our possessions-clothing, the remnants of our flour, some oatmeal and fat, and some books. My head looked out of the other.
Mother fell seriously ill after the journey, and could not breast-feed me. However, a poor woman who lived in the aul we had moved to and had recently lost her baby agreed to suckle me. She became my foster-mother.

So there are two women in the world to whom I am indebted. No matter how long my life lasts, and whatever I do for them or because of them, I shall never be able to repay that debt. There can be no end to a son's debt to his mother.
These two women have both been mothers to me: one of them brought me into the world, and was the first to rock my cradle and sing me to sleep; the other saved me from death by nursing me at her breast, thus leading me out of the valley of the shadow of death.
My people, my little native land, and each of my books also have two mothers.
The first mother is Daghestan, where I was born, first heard the sounds of my mother tongue, learnt to speak it, so that it has become part of my very being. It was there that I first heard the songs of my people and gave voice to my first song. It was there that I took my first drink of water, my first taste of bread. No matter how often I got hurt as a boy while climbing up the sharp rocks, the water and the herbs of my native soil healed my injuries. The mountain people say that the ailment does not exist that cannot be cured by the medicinal herbs from our mountains.
My second mother is great Russia, my second mother is Moscow. It is she that has nurtured me, given me wings, put me on the highroad of life, and shown me boundless vistas, the whole world.
To these two mothers I owe a filial debt. On a wall in my saklia hang two tapestry portraits: one is of Mahmud, the other of Pushkin. Many a flame-coloured flower from the mountain pastures near my village lies between the pages of the volumes of Blok's poems, which bring me the coolness of the white nights of Petrograd.
These two mothers of mine are like two wings, two hands, two eyes or two songs. The hands of my two mothers smoothed my brow, but also boxed my ears whenever I deserved it. Each of them stretched a string of my pandur, which has two strings. They raised me high above the earth, above my aul; from their shoulders I was able to see much that would have escaped my sight had I not been lifted so high. Just as an eagle in flight does not know which of its wings it needs and values more, I cannot tell which of my mothers is dearer to me.
In the past the mountain people used only herbs and water to heal their illnesses. They believed in their own healers. True, there were such among the latter who are remembered to this day. To cure an ordinary headache they would call for a black ram to be killed.
Any Avar knows that the flesh of a black ram is sweeter and juicier than that of one that is white or grey. The healer would use the freshly stripped skin to wrap the sick man's head in and make him sit in this fashion. When he left, he would take the carcass with him.
We shall not speak here of healers of that kind, but of those who were honest, and knew their business and their medicines.

Father once had to go to hospital - the Kremlin Hospital in Moscow. There he recalled the herbs and the springs of his Daghestan, and asked his sons to bring him some water from a little spring in the Butsrakh Ridge.
A father's words are law to his sons, so they went to Daghestan, climbed up to the Butsrakh Ridge, found the spring, and took from it water for a sick Avar poet hospitalised in Moscow.
Father drank of the water, and seemed to feel better. He even recovered. What he did not know was that on that very day a course of injections was begun of some new medicine brought from abroad.
Perhaps he would not have recovered only from medicine produced by world medical science. Perhaps the Avar water, our folk medicine, could not have effected a cure of itself.
But taken together, the two medicines brought about his recovery.
It is the same with literature. It springs from its native soil, its native people, its mother tongue. However, the consciousness of the genuine writer of today extends far beyond the bounds of his nationality. What affects all mankind, the whole world, should involve his heart, and crowd in his mind.

A wayfarer setting off on his way,
What does he take for his fare?
He takes some wine, and some bread he takes;
But you, dear guest, have no care.

We will offer you all the honours we can;
Leave your bread and your wine behind.
A Highlander's wife will bake you cakes
And her husband will give you wine.

A wayfarer setting off on his way,
What does he take besides?
He takes a well-sharpened dagger along,
But you, dear guest, never mind.

The mountains will offer welcome to you,
But if anyone treats you ill,
Highlanders pull their daggers out
Their duty as hosts to fulfill.

The traveller setting out on his way,
What else does he take, you think?
He carries along a merry old song
Upon his way to sing.

We too, dear guest, have many a song;
Perhaps you may have heard them.
Yet come and bring your own song along,
It's never too great a burden.

To compare a writer with a doctor, he should be able to use both time-tested simples and the latest achievements of medical science.
If one might compare a writer with one who travels to foreign parts on foot, he should, when he arrives as a guest in another land, bring his native songs in his heart, but at the same time find a place in it for the songs that will be sung for him.
He will be seen off by his own people and met by members of another: both possess songs of their own.
When the first lecturers and public speakers began to arrive in the aul of Keleb, the women would sit with their backs to the speaker, who was not supposed to see their faces. But when he was followed by a bard, with his songs, the women's respect for his music would prove stronger than their prejudice, and they would turn their faces towards him. Moreover, they were even permitted to throw back their veils.
Not a day passes, nor even a minute, without the song my mother sang over my cradle living in me, resounding in my heart. That song is the cradle of all my verse. It is the pillow on which I can rest my weary head, the horse that carries me to my destination. It is the spring that quenches my thirst, the hearth that gives me the warmth I take with me through life. At the same time, I would not like to be like Shukum who, though he had grown up big and strong, would not be weaned and had to be suckled by his mother. Of such as he it is said: "A bull in stature, but a calf in mind."
Nowadays it has become a commonplace to fill in questionnaires. I have lost count of the number I have to fill; not a single one of them has ever contained a question about love of country, but that should not be taken to mean that such love does not exist in general.
But then, it is not enough to indicate, in a questionnaire, that you are a citizen of the USSR; you have to behave like one. It is not enough to state there that you belong to the CPSU; you have to act like a member. It is not enough to write, in reply to the question: "Your native language", "Avar"; it should be your native language in deed. You must have the courage to remain loyal to it.
I welcome you all, my guests, no matter where you come from. I welcome all your songs, Come to me as brothers, as sisters. There is room for you all in my heart!

If a man of the mountains returned to Khunzakh with a woman of another nationality sitting behind him in the saddle, he would be frowned upon. His behaviour would not be approved by the aul's elders. Today, the young and the old have all got used to that kind of thing. An Avar's marriage to a woman of any other nationality is no longer considered shameful. Only one kind of marriage is condemned among the mountain people-one that is loveless.
Surely it is true that the greater the variety of the flowers, the handsomer the nosegay. The more stars there are in the sky, the brighter it will be. The rainbow is beautiful because it has gathered all the colours of the Earth.
In Africa I once saw an extraordinary flower. Each of its petals had a fragrance and a name of its own. In a word, I saw a bouquet growing on a stalk, only this was a single flower.
I would like my Avar book to resemble that wondrous flower, so that everyone might find something in it that is close to his heart.
So I arrange before me everything that should go into the making of my book. Like the skilled craftsman from Kubachi, I have ready to hand everything that I need. He has his silver and his gold, his cutting tools, his hammers and point-tools, and his marking punches; I have my mother tongue, my knowledge of life, portraits of people and their make-up, the melodies of our songs, a sense of history and of justice, my love, Nature in my land, the memory of my father, and the past and future of my people.... There are ingots of gold in my hands. But do my hands possess enough skill? Will my talent and skill suffice?
What should I do to put my songs into the palms of your hands, like throbbing birds, for them to fill your hearts without invitation or warning, in the way love fills the heart?
Again my glance travels over everything that lies on my desk....

IT IS SAID: May his wife leave the jigit who has no mount.

IT IS ALSO SAID: May his wife leave also that jigit who has neither saddle nor riding whip for his horse.

IT IS SAID: Never try to feed hay to an eagle, or meat to an ass.

IT IS SAID: Even a handsome house will collapse if its walls are not strong enough.

IT IS SAID: A hen once dreamt that she was an eagle. She flew off a rock and broke her wings.
A rivulet once dreamt that it was a mighty river; it splashed its waters over the sand, and dried up at once.

LANGUAGE

A baby laughs and whimpers here;
No word from him do men yet hear.
But time will come, he'll make it clear
Who he is and why he's here.
(Inscription on a cradle)

If there were no words in the world, it would not be what it is.
The poet was born a hundred years before the creation of the world.
He who makes so bold as to write verse without a knowledge of language is like a madman who jumps into a turbulent river without being able to swim.

Some people speak out, not because of the compelling thoughts that crowd their heads but because their tongues are itching. Others write verse, not because of the deep emotions welling up in their hearts but because.... Well, it is hard to say why they suddenly take to writing verse. Their lines sound like dry nuts rustling in a bag made of untanned sheepskin.
These people do not wish to look about them and first see what is going on in the world. They do not wish to listen and find out what harmonies, songs and melodies the world is full of.
It may be asked: why has man been given his eyes, ears and tongue? Why is it that a man has two eyes, two ears, but only one tongue? The reason must be that, before the tongue sends a single word into the world, the two eyes must do some seeing and the two ears some listening.
A word that has slipped from the tongue is much like a horse that has come down from a steep and narrow mountain path to a spacious and level plain. It may be asked: can one send a word into the world unless it has first visited the heart?
There is no such thing as just a word. It can be one of many things: curse, congratulation, beauty, pain, mud, flower, falsehood, truth, light or darkness.

In my native land I often heard
A word begot this world for us, poor sinners.
What was it like, that wonder-working word?
A pledge? An order? Or a prayer that sounds within us?
We're going into battle for the world
Pitilessly torn by evil powers.
Pledge, or curse, or prayer — say your word
Only that it save this world of ours!

A friend of mine once said: I am master of my word: if I want to, I shall keep it; if I want to, I can break it. That may be good enough for my friend, but the writer should be a genuine master of his words, his vows or curses. He should not make two vows for one and the same motive. In general, he that makes frequent vows is, in my opinion, simply a liar.
If this book resembles a carpet, then I am weaving it out of the multi-coloured threads of the Avar language; if it resembles a wintercoat of sheepskin, then I am sewing the skins together with the strong threads of the Avar language.
Long, long ago, they say, there were very few words in the Avar language. Such concepts as "freedom", "life", "courage", "friendship", and "goodness" were denoted by one and the same word or by words much alike in sound and meaning. Let others say that the language of our little people is poor. I can express anything I want to in my mother tongue and I need no other to express my feelings and thoughts.
There is in Daghestan a tiny nationality known as the Laks. The Lak language is spoken by about 50,000 people in all. It would be hard to make a more exact count since there are children there who have not yet learned to speak, and there are also such that have forgotten the language of their fathers.
The Laks are few in number, yet are to be met in, many distant parts of the world. The meagre livelihood from their rocky soil led them to wander all over the globe. Many were skilled craftsmen-shoemakers, goldsmiths and tinkers; some were rolling stones who sang their songs. There is a saying in Daghestan: "Be careful when you are cutting a watermelon open, lest a Lak come jumping out."
On seeing her son off to foreign parts, a Lak mother would instruct him, "When you are eating porridge out of a city-made plate, look under it for one of our folk."

HERE IS A STORY THEY TELL. A Lak was once walking about the streets of a big city-it may have been Moscow or perhaps Leningrad. Suddenly he caught sight of a man in Daghestan-style clothes. It was just like a breath of air from home, so he felt he must talk to the stranger. He ran up to him and addressed him in the Lak language. The man shook his head to show he did not understand, so the Lak tried Kumyk, Tat, and Lezghin, all to no avail. Whatever language he used, he could not get his fellow-countryman in Daghestan-style clothes talking, so he had to resort to Russian. It then transpired that the Lak had come up against an Avar, who began to rail at his strange companion.
"What kind of Daghestani are you, what sort of a compatriot, if you don't know the Avar language. You are an ignorant camel, not a Daghestani." I cannot side with my fellow Avar in this argument. Why did he have to fall upon the poor Lak? Of course, one ought to know Avar, but not necessarily. The important thing was that he knew his own language-that of the Laks. Besides, the Lak knew several other languages, which the Avar did not.

ABUTALIB was once on a visit to Moscow, where he had occasion to address a passer-by in the street, probably to ask the way to the market place. It so happened that the man he accosted was an Englishman. This did not surprise Abutalib, for quite a lot of foreigners are to be met in the streets of Moscow.
The Englishman failed to understand Abutalib and began to question him, first in English, then in French, Spanish and perhaps even in several other languages.
For his part, Abutalib tried to speak to the Englishman in Russian, then in Lak, Avar, Lezghin, Darghin and finally Kumyk.
The two men parted without being able to understand each other.
A certain over-educated Daghestani, who knew exactly two and a half words of English, later tried to convince Abutalib of the importance of culture.
"You see what culture means. If you were a cultivated man, you could have spoken to the Englishman, don't you understand?"
"Of course, I do," Abutalib replied. "Only why should the Englishman be considered more educated than I am? After all, he did not know a single one of the languages I tried to speak to him in."

To me the languages of man are like the stars in the sky. I would not like all the stars to merge into one huge star. That is what the sun is for. But then, the stars too should shine in the sky. Let every man have his own stars.
I love my star-my native Avar language. I believe those geologists who say that a lot of gold may be found even in a little hill.
"May Allah deprive your children of the language their mother speaks" — such was the curse laid by one woman on another.

ON CURSES. When I was writing my poem "The Mountain Woman" I found I needed a number of curses to be used by an ill-tempered woman in the poem. I was told that in a far-off mountain village there lived an elderly woman who could out-curse any of her neighbours. I immediately set out to make the acquaintance of this outstanding character.
I crossed the threshold of the house I wanted one balmy spring morning, when it is really sinful to use hard words. In all frankness I informed the old lady of the purpose of my visit - I wanted to learn some outstanding curses to be used in a poem I was writing.
"May your tongue wither; may you forget the name of the woman you love; may your words be "misunderstood by the man you have been sent to see on business; may you forget to say words of greetings to your native village on returning home from distant wanderings; may the wind whistle in your mouth when It is devoid of teeth.... Son of a jackal, how can I laugh (may Allah deprive you of that joy) if I am not merry? What's the use of tears in a house without a dead body in it? Should I invent curses for you if nobody has offended or insulted me? Go away, never to come back with such paltry requests."
"Thank you, my good woman," I said, and left her saklia. As I was walking away I thought: "If she could call down on me such formidable curses when she was not in an ill temper, in a calm atmosphere, so to say, what would she hurl in my face if she really got worked up?"
I think a time will come when some Daghestan folklorist will compile a book of curses used in the mountains. People will then learn the degree of inventiveness, refinement and imagination in our mountain people, and how expressive our language can be.
Each aul has its own curses. Beware of their searing wrath! In some of them you will be bound hand and foot by invisible bonds; in others you are already lying in your coffin; in some, your eyes have fallen out onto the plate you are eating from, and in yet others your eyes are rolling along sharp stones and disappear down a precipice. Curses on eyes are considered among the most awesome. They are the choicest of curses. Yet there are even stronger ones. I once heard two women quarreling in an aul.
"May Allah deprive your children of him who could teach them their language."
"No, may Allah deprive your children of those they could teach their language to."
That is how horrific curses may be. But even without the use of curses, any man in the mountains who does not respect his mother tongue forfeits all respect. The mother of a mountaineer will never read verses by a son who has written them in debased language.

FROM MY NOTEBOOK: I once met in Paris an artist, a Daghestani by nationality. He had gone to Italy shortly after the Revolution to study there, had married an Italian, and stayed on. Accustomed to the laws of the mountains, it was hard for him to settle down in the land of his adoption.
He did much travelling, visiting the splendid capitals of distant lands but wherever he went, his yearning gave him no respite. I asked the artist to show me his paintings so that I might see this nostalgia expressed in colours.
Indeed, one of the paintings had the inscription "Nostalgia". It depicted an Italian woman (his wife) clad in the traditional Avar costume. She was standing at a mountain spring, holding a chased silver pitcher, the handiwork of the renowned craftsmen of Gotsatli. On a mountain slope nestled a forlorn Avar aul, with its houses of stone, against a backdrop of an even more forlorn mountain. The summit was shrouded in mist.
"The mist is the tears of the mountains," the painter said. "When the slopes are shrouded in mist, the clear drops begin to flow down the wrinkled rocks. That mist is myself."
Another picture showed a bird perched on a prickly blackthorn bush growing amid bare rocks. A bird was singing, and from the window of a saklia a sad-faced mountain girl was looking out. Noticing the interest the painting had aroused in me, the painter said, "This has been inspired by an ancient Avar legend."
"Which one?"
"A bird was once caught and put in a cage. Day and night the captive kept on repeating, 'My birthplace, my birthplace, my birthplace, my birthplace.' In just the same way I have been repeating those words all these years.... The owner of the bird thought: 'What kind of home has the bird come from? It must be in some gorgeous and flourishing clime, with trees and birds of paradise. I will set the bird free and see where it flies to. It will show me the way to that marvellous land.' He opened the cage and out flew the bird. Ten paces away it settled on a blackthorn bush growing on stony soil. Its nest was among the branches of the bush. From the windows of my cage I, too, can see my homeland," the artist concluded.
"Why then don't you want to return home?"
"It's too late. I once took away from my homeland a young and ardent heart. How can I bring back only my old bones?"
On returning home from Paris, I looked up the painter's relatives. I was surprised to learn that his mother was still alive. With sad faces the relatives, who had gathered in a saklia, listened to my story about a son who had abandoned his native land for life in foreign parts. However, they seemed to have forgiven him and were glad to learn that he was still alive.
"Did you speak in the Avar tongue?" the mother asked suddenly.
"No, we spoke through an interpreter. I spoke in Russian and your son in French."
The mother covered her face with a black veil as our women do on learning of a son's death. The rain was beating on the flat roof. We were in Avaristan. Somewhere in Paris, the other end of the world, a prodigal son of Daghestan was also perhaps listening to the pattering of the rain.
"You are mistaken, Rasul," the mother said after a long silence. "My son has long been dead. That could not have been my son. No son of mine could ever have forgotten the language that I, an Avar mother, taught him,"

A REMINISCENCE. There was a time when I was employed at an Avar theatre. There was also a time when, loaded down with stage scenery, costumes and other properties (all our theatrical goods and chattels were carried on donkey-back, but some were left for the actors themselves to deal with), we roamed from village to village, bringing dramatic art to the dwellers of the mountains. I often recollect the year I spent in this way.
In some performances I was given small parts, but usually I sat in the prompter's box. This was a job that pleased me, a young poet, far more than any other role in the theatre. I attached secondary importance to such things as acting, facial expression, gestures and stage presence. I considered costumes, make-up and decor of secondary importance. First and foremost, came the text, I thought, so I kept jealous watch on the actors, to see that they followed the lines and enunciated them properly. If an actor skipped a word or distorted it, I would lean out of my box and pronounce the word properly in a tone that carried to every corner of the hall.
Indeed, I considered the text and the wording more important than anything else because words can live without costume or make-up; their meaning will be clear to the audience anyway.
I remember an amusing incident. The play we were performing was entitled "The Mountain People" and told of the distant past of the Avar people, As usual, I was the prompter.
In the story, Aigazi, the main character, who is taking refuge in the mountains because of a blood feud, comes to an aul under the cover of night to meet the girl he loves. She implores him to go back to his hiding place, lest he be killed, but Aigazi covers his beloved with his burka to protect her from the rain, and tells her in ardent tones of his love and his suffering.
On this occasion the part of Aigazi was performed by an actor named Magayev. In the middle of this love scene, the actor's wife rushed on to the stage and fell upon her husband for his having spoken words of love to another woman. Magayev seized her by the wrists and literally dragged her off the stage, intending to explain the situation to her behind the scenes. He thought he would be able to return to the stage and carry on, but his wife would not let go of him. The actress stood for some time in the centre of the stage, and the performance had to stop.
I was sitting in my booth, of course, without costume or make-up, clad as usual in trousers and a white shirt with unbuttoned collar. I think I was in slippers. Of course, I could not stand in for the actor in such attire, though I knew his script by heart. However, since I attached the utmost importance to the wording, not to the costume, I dashed on to the stage and told the heroine all the words she should have heard from Aigazi-Magayev.
I don't know whether the audience were pleased; perhaps, to them the drama had turned into comedy. As for me, I was perfectly satisfied: they had understood the content of the play, without missing a single word, and it was this that I thought important.
I remember arriving with the same theatrical company on my first visit at the famous village of Gunib, which lies high up in the mountains. It is common knowledge that all poets belong to the same fraternity, are kunaks as we would say in our'parts. I had heard that a certain poet lived in Gunib but I had never had occasion to meet him. I called on him and he put me up at his house for the duration of our visit.
My hosts were so considerate that I felt rather uncomfortable and even embarrassed to put them to so much trouble.
I have a particularly warm memory of the kindness shown by the poet's mother.
On leaving, I tried to find the appropriate words of thanks. It so happened that there was nobody else in the room as I was bidding the mother farewell. I knew that nothing can be more pleasing to a mother than to hear some kind words about her son, and although I had a sober appraisal of his rather modest ability, I did try, albeit timidly, to praise him. I began telling her that her son was a most progressive poet who always wrote on topics of the day.
"He may be a progressive poet," the mother interrupted in a sad voice, "but he has no talent. It may be that his verses deal with topics of the day but when I begin to read them they make me feel sleepy. Just think, Rasul, when my son was learning to pronounce his first words, which nobody else could understand, I was full of joy. Today, when he has learnt, not only to speak but even to write verse, I get no joy at all. There is a saying that a woman's intellect lies on the hem of her skirt. While she is seated, it is safe, but the moment she gets up it falls to the floor. That is how matters stand with my son: while he is eating at table he speaks like a human being; I never tire of listening to him, but when he rises from the dining table and goes over to his desk, he loses all his good and simple words. The only ones that remain are the stiff, drab and dull words."
When I recollect these words, I pray that Allah may never deprive me of my tongue. I would like to write in such a way that all my verse, and this book of mine, and whatever I may write will be understood by and dear to my mother and my sister, to every man in the mountains, and to anybody who reads them. I don't want to evoke tedium. What I want is to bring joy. If my language deteriorates, and becomes cold, incomprehensible and dull-in a word, if I spoil my language, that will be the most terrible thing to happen in my life.
In my early days, when the inhabitants of our aul would gather near the mosque to discuss community matters, I would recite my father's poems for them. I was a mere child, a little boy, but I would declaim with the utmost and even excessive energy, in a loud voice, with special emphasis on the words and sounds that pleased me. For example, when I read a new poem by Father entitled "Wolf-hunting in Tsada", I would pronounce all the words with the sounds "ts" with clenched teeth, so that they vibrated and clanged on the ear.
It seemed to me that this tense and emphatic articulation added expressiveness to my speech.
Father would correct me every time, with the words, "Is speech something like a nut which has to be cracked and chewed by your teeth? Is it like garlic which must be pounded in a stone mortar and pestle? Is speech like dry and rocky soil which must be turned over by a heavy plough and with great effort? You should pronounce your words fluently, with ease, without any strain, so that there should be no gnashing of teeth."
I would begin over again, but without any improvement.
"Perhaps you can get him to learn," Father shouted to Mother, who was busy on the flat roof of our saklia.
Mother pronounced the words I found so difficult, in the way Father wanted her to.
"Do you hear? That's the way to do it. Now try again."
I did so but with no success.
"Pah!", Father exclaimed in anger. "When a certain man from Jalatura distorted words in the way you do, I had to belabour him with a besom. What should I do to my son?"
In his annoyance Father walked off.

HOW FATHER GAVE A DRUBBING TO A MAN FROM JALATURA. All this took place one day in spring. It is common knowledge that in spring the stocks from the previous harvest give out, but there is no new produce as yet. In spring, prices at the market are higher than in the autumn. Even earthenware becomes dearer, although such utensils do not grow in the field.
Father, who was then a young man, decided to go to the market. One of his neighbours asked him to buy a besom there and gave him 20 kopecks for the purpose.
"If you get one cheap, you can keep the change," were his parting words to the young Gamzat as the latter was making off.
He soon found a broom-seller, and the chaffering began. People know that the first price named at an oriental bazaar does not have the least significance. You can even be asked to pay a hundred rubles for something worth 5 kopecks.
Father chose a good thick besom and asked:
"Is this for sale?"
"Would I be standing here otherwise?"
"How much?" "Forty kopecks."
"Is a besom a horse to begin bargaining at such a high price? Name your real price, and have done with it." "Forty kopecks." "No joking." "Forty kopecks." "I'll give you 20." "Forty kopecks." "But I've got only 20 kopecks." "Forty kopecks."
"But really I haven't got more than 20." "Then come when you have more."
Realising that he would not be able to buy a broom, Father began to stroll about the bazaar and soon saw a crowd that had gathered on a slight elevation near a row of booths. He approached them and, pushing his way to the front, saw the bard Mahmud, who was singing for the assembled crowd. He was seated with a pandur, now plucking at the strings, now placing his hand on them and singing. All were listening with bated breath, so that even the sound of a bee flying over the bazaar on its apian business could be heard. When a young man coughed during the singing, a grey-haired mountaineer, evidently his father, angrily drove him off.
It was in this silence, when not a sound was to be heard except Mahmud's singing, that a certain man from Jalaturi began to talk to a neighbour. In general, his intentions were of the best: the neighbour did not understand a word of Avar, so the Jalaturi man was translating the meaning of the words to him. The trouble was that the stream of words from his lips was a nuisance, for it distracted the listeners' attention and spoiled their enjoyment.
Indignant at such behaviour, the young Gamzat (my father to be) pulled at his sleeve, but to no avail. Then he whispered in the man's ear that he should fall silent, but to no effect. He did not know how to influence the man, and looked round. It so happened that the seller of brooms had also approached to listen, so my father ran up to him, grabbed the heaviest broom and began to belabour the insufferable man from Jalaturi. The man retreated, muttering threats, but my father was so worked up that he paid no heed to his words and finally drove off the man who had been distracting the crowd's attention from the strains of Mahmud's songs.
Father went up to the besom-seller to return his weapon.
"You may keep it," the man said.
"But I haven't got more than twenty kopecks and you wanted forty."
"Take it for nothing. What you have done is worth far more than all my goods."
Today the world is full of people like the man from Jala-turi, who mar people's enjoyment of song. They have multiplied in number and it is a pity that there are no besoms to belabour them with, or people to use those besoms to good effect.

In the mountains they say of a well-spoken, apt and pointed remark that "it is worth a saddled steed".

FROM MY NOTEBOOK: Ali Aliyev, who lives in the same house as I do in Makhach-Kala, is a fine wrestler, four times world champion. On one occasion, in the city of Istanbul, he was matched against a very strong Turkish opponent. His opponent was a skilful and seasoned fighter, but Ali, a cool and clever wrestler, threw him on the mat with the utmost ease. As the Turk rose to his feet, he muttered a curse common in the mountains of Daghestan. Great was Ali's surprise on hearing Avar spoken in Istanbul, but the Turk was even more surprised to hear the victor address him in Avar with the words: "Why the cursing, my fellow-countryman. It's all in the game."
The greatest surprise of all was in store for the referee, the judges and the crowd when they saw the two opponents suddenly rush to embrace each other as though they were long-lost brothers.
It appeared that the Turk was descended from an Avar family that had emigrated to Turkey after Shamil was captured. To this day, the two men are on the most friendly of terms.

ONE OF FATHER'S REMINISCENCES. In 1939 Father went to Moscow to receive a decoration that had been conferred on him. In those days this was quite an event. So when Father returned home with his decoration pinned on his chest, a jamaat or general gathering of the aul was called, where he was asked to describe his visit to the capital, his impressions of the Kremlin, and his meeting with President Mikhail Kalinin, who held such investitures. He was also asked to describe his most vivid impression.
Father did as he was told, and then added, "The most memorable thing was that President Kalinin pronounced my name, not in Russian but in Avar. He called me Ts'adasa Gamzat, not simply Gamzat Tsadasa."
The elders were pleasantly surprised and nodded their approval.
"So you see," Father went on, "you enjoy even hearing about such a thing from me, but you can imagine my pleasure at hearing it in the Kremlin from Kalinin himself. I will tell you in all honesty that I felt so glad that I even forgot my pleasure at being decorated."
I can fully understand Father's feelings.
Some years ago I was in Poland as a member of a Soviet writers' delegation. One morning somebody knocked at my door at the Cracow hotel we were staying at. When I opened the door a stranger addressed me in excellent Avar:
"Does Gamzatyl Rasul live here?"
I was nonplussed and pleased at one and the same time.
"May the house of your father never catch fire or collapse! How has it come to pass that you, an Avar, are living in Cracow?"
Delighted to meet the man, I practically dragged him into my room and what we had to say to each other took up the rest of the day and the whole evening.
However, my guest was no Avar, but a Polish scholar who had made a study of the languages and literature of Daghestan. He had first heard the sounds of Avar from two fellow-inmates at a German concentration camp. He took a liking to the two Avars and their language, so he began to study it. It appeared that one of the two Avars died shortly afterwards, but the other man survived, was liberated by the Soviet Army, and is still alive.
We spoke only in Avar, which I found most extraordinary and unusual. I invited my new friend and scholar to visit me in Daghestan.
We spoke Avar all day long, yet there was a vast difference between my speech and his. He spoke as befits a scholar, in a very pure and very correct-even too correct-and almost colourless language. He was most concerned with grammar, not with the flavour of his speech; he thought of the scheme, the structure of the sentence, not of the living tissue of each word.
I want to write a book in which the grammar will be subordinated to the language, and not the other way round.
 

Next

		На главную страницу