CC BY
2
DOI 10.54770/20729316-2024-1-339
А.V. Markov (Moscow), S.E. Kamilova (Tashkent)
GENRE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE STORY ABOUT THE PAINTER IN CONTEMPORARY UZBEK LITERATURE
Abstract
Contemporary Uzbek literature, addressing the perceptions of the present-day reader, is developing new attitudes and techniques of fiction based on the synthesis of the traditions of the Western and Islamic cultural worlds. Uzbek literature has established a new genre, the "ma'rifi novel", a novel narrative based on a parable of oriental type. A biographical novel about a painter appears to be part of a parable, which depicts the inner world of the artist. The painter can only act as socially active by justifying his or her treatment of himself or herself and others. Thus, the parable serves as a mechanism for mainstreaming the inner life of the hero when it is not embedded in a melodramatic plot, but directly refers to the final moral judgment. While Uzbek literature of the pre-Soviet and Soviet times spoke of the painter as an inspired conductor of the ideal and carrier of progressive ideas, nowadays the mimetic concept of art has been replaced by a constructive one. The artist is portrayed as the maker of the secondary reality and of the universal code of culture, including the moral standard. This allows for a more acute depiction of moral collisions in the artist's life. This new conception requires both the reinforcement of the features of the parable and the insertion of ekphrasis as a model of the direct effect of the aesthetic program on the comprehension of reality. Ekphrasis permits not just to point to the direct perception of the painting by the artist's audience represented in the narrative, but to show that the artist's personal experience corresponds to the social experience of the audience, that is, to show the audience's readout of the code. The readout of the code as a sum total of the artist's creative ideas essential to the national culture is accelerated through the use of universal symbols such as Home, Garden, Creation, and History. In general, we can say that the parable turns into a story with a relatively free progression through the mentioning of different works of art. In this case, the works of art become symbols, quite in the vein of intrigue in Western literatures, when the characters' motivations, their inner monologue and reflections are read through the artificial pictures. The moral choice of the hero then continues the inner monologues of both her/him and her/his audience.
Keywords
The image of the artist in literature; narrative of the artist; ekphrasis; biographical narrative; social status of art; responsibility of the artist; cultural mission of the artist; genre transformations; Central Asian literatures; traditions of the literatures of the Islamic world.
А.В. Марков (Москва), С.Э. Камилова (Ташкент)
ЖАНРОВЫЕ ТРАНСФОРМАЦИИ РАССКАЗА О ХУДОЖНИКЕ В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ УЗБЕКСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ
Аннотация
Современная узбекская литература, обращаясь к представлениям современного читателя, разрабатывает новые подходы и приемы письма на основе синтеза традиций западного и исламского культурных миров. Узбекская литература создала новый жанр, «ма'рифий роман», романное повествование, основанное на притче восточного типа. Биографический роман о художнике оказывается частью притчи, в которой изображается внутренний мир художника. Художник может выступать как социально активный, только обосновывая свое отношение к себе и другим. Тем самым, притча становится механизмом актуализации внутренней жизни героя, когда она не встраивается в мелодраматический сюжет, но непосредственно обращается к итоговому моральному суждению. Если узбекская литература досоветского и советского времени говорила о художнике как вдохновенном проводнике идеала и носителе прогрессивных идей, то в наши дни миметическая концепция искусства сменилась конструктивной. Художник изображается как творец второй реальности и универсального кода культуры, в том числе морального. Это позволяет острее изобразить моральные коллизии в жизни художника. Такая новая концепция требует как усиления черт притчи, так и введения экфрасиса как модели непосредственного воздействия эстетической программы на понимание реальности. Экфрасис позволяет не просто указать на непосредственное восприятие живописи изображаемой в повествовании аудиторией художника, но показать, что личный опыт художника соответствует социальному опыту аудитории, то есть показать считывание кода аудиторией. Считывание кода как совокупности творческих идей художника, существенных для национальной культуры, ускоряется через использование универсальных символов, таких как Дом, Сад, Творчество, История. В целом можно говорить, что притча превращается в фабулу со сравнительно свободным развитием, благодаря упоминанию разных произведений искусства. При этом произведения искусства становятся символами, вполне в духе интриги в западных литературах, когда мотивации персонажей, их внутренний монолог и рефлексия прочитываются через картины. Нравственный выбор героя тогда продолжает внутренние монологи и его, и его аудитории.
Ключевыеслова
Образ художника в литературе; повествование о художнике; экфра-сис; биографическое повествование; социальный статус искусства; ответственность художника; культурная миссия художника; жанровые трансформации; литературы Центральной Азии; традиции литератур исламского мира.
The literary process of the early 21st century in Uzbekistan is evolving in a context of continuous uncertainty and pluralism of ideas, crisis of hierarchies, risk society, which results in transformation of narrative tools, blurring of boundaries of literary phenomena and relevance of literary concepts, updating of forms, styles, and genres. Yet, fiction does not disregard the lessons learned from previous generations, but, on the contrary, continues the recommendations of classical Uzbek literature. In particular, attention to the inner life of the hero, polythematicism, and the protagonist's destiny as a way of stringing various narratives become dominant in the style of contemporary writers. Thus, present-day Uzbek literature has become a bridge between all the phases of literary development.
The topic of art is one of the cross-cutting ones, allowing to bind the epochs, because it implies an immediate sense, a direct correlation of the current state of affairs with the ideal. Therefore, the more contemporary Uzbek literature refers to different epochs, the more it addresses art. It is worth noting that this treatment is carried out by comprehending both the destiny of the artist and the destiny of art in society. The artist loses the function of a mentor, a teacher of Truth, he transforms into an observer, a fixer of reality, a kind of litmus test of the transformation of moral and value coordinates of the Uzbek society today. The understanding of art is also being adjusted today as the interest of mass readers tends to gravitate towards a more entertaining form rather than a superior one.
Alisher Navoiy is recognized as the pioneer of the theme of art in Uzbek literature, who wrote the treatise "Collection of the Chosen" in 5 majlis, i.e. sections. In this treatise the ideal image of art is developed on the grounds of writings of poets and artists of the 15th century, in particular, poets Lutfiy, Mahmud Pahla-van, Sakkokiy, Gadoiy, painter K. Bekzod. The canonical image of the artist, formulated in Navoi's treatise, was relevant up to the end of the 19th century.
In the early 20th century, Uzbek jadids actively employed the techniques of pictorial ekphrasis in their works and expanded the subjects of art. The destiny of the artist becomes a key theme in the works of Chulpan, Fitrat, A. Qodiri, Xamza and others. Being wordsmiths and literary critics at the same time, considering literature as the craft of words, the enlighteners try to comprehend the nature of art as well as themes, plots and images as its corollaries. The Jadids ask ontological questions about art: how art arises, what is the nature of inspiration, what is the inner world of the maker, how does an artwork convey the ideas inherent in it, etc.
In Soviet times, the works of A. Qahhor, Oybek, X. Olimjon and others delved into the issue of the correlation between fiction and reality in the process of making a work of art, raised the question of the ethics of the artist, the artists' view of the self and the "Other", as well as of their own work. The influence of Russian and Western literature, then, has provided Uzbek authors with the ability to present the complex and differentiated existence of the human being in a transitive situation. The authority of the classical Eastern tradition formulated the philosophical idea of "Self and Other", which was implemented
through original stories, while combining different stable attitudes and narrative strategies [Владимирова, 1980, Владимирова, 2011].
In the 1960-1980s, in the works of Mirmuksin, A. Yakubov, A. Muxtor, and P. Qodirov, the artist's intrinsic individuality and creativity are contrasted with the strengthening of human depersonalization; this confrontation causes the exacerbation of the subject of the artist's moral responsibility. Along with that, in Uzbek literature of this time there are significant shifts in the perception of the significance of the artistic text and the writer's role. The traditional dichotomy "art - reality" is being reconsidered in a new way, and the theory that the text does not reflect reality, but instead creates a new reality is gaining more and more recognition. In other words, under the influence of structuralism and the new information environment of the time, art was seen as a code in which all meanings were simultaneously diffracted.
The createdness of the fiction world, its emphasized fictitiousness, its dependence on conventions are then realized as a required feature of the present-ness of a literary text. Works about the artist acquire a pronounced theorizing, reflective character. This tendency becomes especially tangible in the literature of the last third of the 20th century in the works of X. Dostmuhammad, N. Kabul, T. Murod, and others.
Today Uzbek literature is developing the issue of art in two ways:
1. Reconstruction of the creator's image in the arts,
2. Ekphrasis as a conceptual constituent of individual author's style of a contemporary writer.
It should be emphasized that if the creator is the source of the code, then ekphrasis is the realization of the code here and now.
If the vector of reconstructing the image of the artist meets the requirements of tradition, and Muhammad Ali, Isajon Sulton, Salomat Vafo, Ulug-bek Hamdam recreate the destiny of the artist in close relation to the destiny of the Uzbek people, the second vector is new, interesting and productive. In particular, academician N.F. Karimov has produced a number of works called "ma'rifi novel", which presents not only the destiny of the artist, but also the production process, and the content of the mentioned works affect the plot of the ma'rifi novel. In particular, in the book "Khudoybergan Devonov, the first Uzbek photographer" [Karimov 2019] the image of the artist is formed through the synthesis of historical facts, analytics of the works, autobiographical data with fiction episodes. At the same time, the author oengages in a dialog not only with his hero-artist, but also with the people depicted in the photographs. As an example, we can point to the episode that describes the process of making the photograph "Dorboz" (The Rope-Walker).
The paintings exert an even stronger effect on the plot in the experience of creating ekphrasis in Nazar Eshonqul's short story "The Man Leading the Monkey", which successfully continues the tradition of Western and Russian literature in developing the subject of visual art. The narrative is based on the paintings of the artist. Special emphasis is placed on the first and last paintings.
The first picture shows a man coming out of the forest, holding a monkey on a chain. The man is young, his life is just about to begin. His gaze is directed
forward, into the future. In the other painting, the man is walking in the reverse direction. Only now he is not leading, but being led. The monkey is leading the old man on a leash. It is a pitiful sight: the old man is hunched over, dejected by the hopelessness and irrevocability of the whole affair.
As E.M. Kaminskaya correctly points out, "[t]wo main movements a person makes in his or her life: he or she looks forward and looks back. In the first case, the person sees what his or her feelings and imagination tell him or her: it is inherent in him or her to dream, to build aerial castles. In old age, when there is no longer an opportunity to change or complete anything, a person can only contemplate. The dreamer, the doer, is succeeded by the thinker, the philosopher" [Каминская 2019, 141] (translation is ours unless otherwise indicated -A.M., S.K.).
The image of the old man in the story is so unsightly that it appears to be exclusively negative. Evil, ugly, stinking, unpleasant to others, neither grateful nor friendly. He is avaricious and embittered and at the end of his life he remains lonely and forgotten by all. A bleak and joyless picture of human life, with its sunset in the foreground.
The house, the belongings and the garden are all decayed. The house is an old building with no trace of its former luxury and solemnity. Only the smell of decay, of slow but unavoidable death. In the final scene of the story, the young man, an unwitting witness to the old man's decline, refuses to move into the empty and unneeded house; he is disgusted by the odor emitted by the trees, flowers, and even the bricks of the house. The odor of old age contradicts the spiritedness and fragrance of youth. But the story is far from being all about the conflict between generations. Youth and old age remain apart.
Speaking about the writer's conception of the art, his imaginative intent, it is worth turning to the very important side of the story, which is the old man's artistic endeavor. The old man was a talented artist with his own specific creative vision, knowing famous painters of the past. In this context, the image acquires ambiguity, requires a special view of both the character and the surrounding reality. The finale of the story can be deciphered in a completely different way. The destiny of a talented artist is full of challenging trials. Often he remains misunderstood, underestimated.
The painter spent his whole life painting the pictures that reside in his house. The artist arranged them by year. And this detail is not incidental. The twenties, thirties, forties, fifties reflect the historical process in that unflattering form, as it really was. The strength and courage of the artist is that he portrays the historical truth in his paintings, does not make them pleasant, soothing, does not aim to please the audience, to bring joy. The main thing for him is the truth of art, whatever it may be. Painting turns into chronicling.
Nazar Eshonqul's image of an artist is multifaceted and versatile. In a creator, as well as in the world that surrounds him, good and evil are merged. The demonic element in the image of the old man-artist only emphasizes his creative nature. The young man does not understand the paintings of the old man-artist. They seem to him both gloomy and, most importantly, meaningless. He is confused by the abstraction of the material, which for him is a mark
of losing the talent. Early paintings, landscapes, are followed by portraits with a blurred depiction. Paintings impress not only with dark colors, ominous images, but also the general pathos of tragedy. The old man-artist stays misunderstood. Youth does not hearken to old age due to self-confidence and adolescent maximalism.
The artist's house is an icon of a special symbolic type. Let us recall Chekhov's garden and the famous exclamation 'All Russia is our garden!". The old man's garden is in the courtyard of the eastern house and is rotting with the house. This is a story not so much about a particular person's house and his lost connection with his family (the old man-artist's conflict with his son), but about the breaking of the link between past and present, about the lack of interest in how things were lived in the past. Family ties and their absence are supplemented by creative ties, restored by them. Therefore, the paternal impulse is directed not only at the native son who eventually deserts his father and disappears from home, but also at the young man who lives in the neighborhood and can be a kind of successor to the old artist.
The philosophical significance of the story can already be discerned in the title "The Man Leading the Monkey". The monkey is full of contradictions. In the Eastern tradition, the monkey is often endowed with positive traits (bravery, steadfastness, self-sacrifice). The meaning of the artist's first, earliest painting is that youth can accomplish many things. The main word in the title is Man. In a person should prevail spiritual principle. A man strong in spirit is capable of many things. The only thing that cannot be exceeded is biological time that leads a person to physical decline.
The human lifespan is short. But this does not mean that it is impossible to fulfill your main destiny. Two paintings - the earliest and the latest - face each other. The first one shows a man just entering life. In the latter, he is taking his last steps on earth. The place from which the man emerges has a special connotation. In a dense forest there are many trees. Most likely, it is a place of wandering souls and minds. The forest is one version of the labyrinth through which man wanders before birth and after death. Life is a way out of the labyrinth, albeit for a very short period of time. And during this time a person should have enough time to say and do some really crucial things.
The life of the old man-artist is his paintings. Biological time involves historical time. Each painting is a certain period in the life of not one person, but a whole nation or even humankind. The young man is unpleasantly surprised by the terrible disasters depicted in the old man-artist's paintings. He favorably evaluates the early landscapes and does not want to accept pictorial information from those paintings that depict the death of people, hardships and misery of life. The paintings are arranged in the old man-artist's house in such a way that the young man, leading a monkey on a chain, consecutively examines the paintings after the first one. The painting where the monkey and the old man return is arranged so that the character sees paintings from the past. Historical time appears inside the biological time.
The two paintings arrange an enclosed space. This shows that history influences a person from within, throughout life is an important factor and should
be considered and guided by it, as it is the experience of past generations. The first and last pictures are about the present and the future. It is commonly believed that the past is behind us and we look back on it. In the story, the past in the form of a picture gallery appears right in front of the person entering life. Will he see this bitter experience of humankind in front of him? Will he want to perceive the past tragedies, to be penetrated by the suffering of others, so that he will never do the same? In the light of these questions, the young man's final phrase suggests that, unfortunately, he is not ready to take on the crippling burden that the artist has carried all his life. He evaluated the old man's paintings from an ordinary everyday point of view, i.e. from the point of view he was capable of.
The old man-artist is a creative person. All his life being subject to the system (state, political, military) and being a part of it, he lived according to the set rules and did not leave his art. He continued his artistic mission, showing firmness in his convictions and imaginative courage. The young man gets into an argument with the old man, arguing about the beliefs that a person should have. It seems to him that the old man is disappointed in life, has achieved nothing, his beliefs have dispelled along with the era in which he lived. It is interesting that the young viewer remembers only one first picture, where the man leads the monkey, i.e. he is just entering life. Tragic pictures from the life of mankind do not stick in his memory. The younger generation, which has no memory of the past, dooms itself to an unenviable existence. The old man is not an ordinary loser, as it seems at first glance. He is a creator. The young man is mistaken in thinking that talented landscapes were only in the twenties, when the old man was young.
The true creation is all the subsequent masterpieces reflecting the most unflattering aspects of life. To preserve the memory for the next generations is the main belief of the artist. The creative endeavor is challenging. Perhaps the time for understanding the paintings of an old man-artist has not yet come. Until his last breath he continues to work: with difficulty holding a spoon, he confidently holds a brush, which for him is not only a tool of production, but also a tool to fight against the soullessness, culturelessness and remorselessness of people. Like a true soldier, he remains faithful to his ideals of work. A young man comes to the old man's house after his death and sees the last painting. By the way the colors are put on the canvas, it is evident that the artist wanted to put an end to his pictorial chronicle in time.
A young man has contradictory feelings looking at the artist's latest masterpiece, where a monkey leads a half-dead old man into the forest. He looks and does not understand the main thing: this painting is not about the life of the old man-artist. This painting is a caution, a forewarning to him, the young viewer. The brilliant artist is able to foresee the future, to make a prediction, but he is unable to prevent events. The story mentions Karl Bryullov's painting "The Last Day of Pompeii", which depicts one tragic instant. But this does not lessen the value of the pictorial masterpiece, which had the power to stop time. To stop so that people could see, realize, be horrified by the hundreds of moments going on around them.
Thus, the traditional dichotomy "art - reality" is comprehended in contemporary Uzbek in a new system of concepts, according to the thesis that the text does not reflect reality, but creates a new reality. Art is seen as a code in which all meanings are refracted at once. So, the theme of art is represented by two vectors: representation of the image of the creator as a code of the whole aesthetic concept, and the development of an ekphrastic vision of reality, where ekphrasis is the realization of the aesthetic code of an individual author's poetics.
The theme of art implements the motif of destiny through universal symbols such as House, Garden, Creativity, History. The parable basis as a trait of classical tradition in Uzbek works allows to retain the plot about art or directly refer to the works of art. Then the itinerary of life can be presented as a trail along the works of art. And Russian and Western traditions enable the reader to see symbols in paintings and to observe contradictions between stories in the paintings and the moral choice of the hero. The lack of the hero's knowledge then appears to be crucial. But the parable can transform this situation of character into a general situation of changing generations, questioning the historical memory of all mankind.
REFERENCES (RUSSIAN)
1. Владимирова Н.В. Развитие жанра рассказа в узбекской литературе. Ташкент: Академия наук УзССР, 1980. 316 с.
2. Владимирова Н.В. Развитие узбекской прозы XX века и вопросы художественного перевода. Ташкент: ФАН, 2011. 160 с.
3. Каминская Е.М. Роль живописного экфрасиса в рассказе Назара Эшанку-ла // Звезда Востока. 2019. № 5. С. 139-150.
4. Каримов Н.Ф. Худойберган Девонов - первый узбекский фотограф. Ташкент: Фонд Каримова, 2019. 158 с.
5. Эшонкул Н. Человек ведущий обезьяну. Рассказ / пер. С. Камиловой // Звезда. 2015. № 8. С. 6-12.
REFERENCES (Articles from Scientific Journals)
1. Kaminskaya E.M. Rol' zhivopisnogo ekfrasisa v rasskaze Nazara Eshankula [The Role of Pictorial Ekphrasis in the Story of Nazar Eshonqul]. Zvezda Vostoka, 2019, no. 5, pp. 139-150. (In Russian).
(Monographs)
2. Vladimirova N.V. Razvitiezhanra rasskaza v uzbekskoy literature [Development of Short Story Genre in Uzbek Literature]. Tashkent, Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR Publ., 1980. 316 p. (In Russian)
3. Vladimirova N.V. Razvitiye uzbekskoyprozy XX veka i voprosy khudozhestvennogo perevoda [Development of Uzbek Prose of the 20th Century and Problems of Literary Translation]. Tashkent, FAN Publ., 2011. 160 p. (In Russian).
Alexander V. Markov,
Russian State University for the Humanities.
Doctor of Philology, Professor at the Department of Cinema and
Contemporary Art. Research interests: theory of literature and art.
E-mail: markovius@gmail.com
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6874-1073
Saodat E. Kamilova,
National University of Uzbekistan.
Doctor of Philology, Professor. Research interests: modern Russian literature, modern Uzbek literature. E-mail: ksaodate@mail.ru ORCID ID: 0000-0001-7542-3970
Марков Александр Викторович,
Российский государственный гуманитарный университет. Доктор филологических наук, профессор кафедры кино и современного искусства. Научные интересы: теория литературы и искусства. E-mail: markovius@gmail.com ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6874-1073
Камилова Саодат Эргашевна,
Национальный университет Узбекистана имени Мирзо Улугбека. Доктор филологических наук, профессор. Научные интересы: современная русская литература, современная узбекская литература. E-mail: ksaodate@mail.ru ORCID ID: 0000-0001-7542-3970
