IN AZERBAIJAN, ANGER AT AN AUTHOR, BUT NOT NECESSARILY AT HIS ARGUMENT
Akram Aylisli has been stripped of his pension.
Azerbaijan’s Orhan Pamuk
An accomplished author in Azerbaijan has raised a storm of criticism
with a new novel that casts the country’s traditional rival, Armenia,
in a sympathetic light.
Azerbaijan’s Hot January: Unusually Bold Protests Challenge Government
By Daisy Sindelar
February 08, 2013
A lifetime of achievements came tumbling down this week for Azerbaijani
author Akram Aylisli, who was stripped of his honorary titles and
pension after writing a novel, “Stone Dreams,” casting regional rival
Armenia in a sympathetic light.
But amid the furor over Aylisli’s work, a quieter conversation has
also emerged, with many Azerbaijanis calling for steps toward peace
with Armenia.
The relationship between Baku and Yerevan is a deeply antagonistic one,
plagued by festering anger over the six-year war over Nagorno-Karabakh,
an Armenian-majority separatist region located within Azerbaijani
territory.
“Stone Dreams,” published recently in the Russian literary journal
“Druzhba narodov” — which, ironically, translates as “Friendship of
the Peoples” — stirred resentment by depicting only the conflict’s
Azerbaijani attacks against Armenians, notably pogroms in Baku and
Sumgait. Incidents of Armenian aggression against Azerbaijanis,
such as the February 1992 Khojaly massacre, are conspicuously absent.
But even some Azerbaijanis who suffered during the war have come
forward to praise Aylisli’s book — including Gunel Movlud, a
31-year-old Azerbaijani poet and Karabakh refugee.
“This novel can work in Azerbaijan’s favor. Of course, it’s his own
opinion. Maybe what he says isn’t the truth, maybe it is. But this
novel reflects something. It shows that we’re a civilized nation that
can accept responsibility for our part in things,” Movlud said.
Book Burnings
Many of Aylisli’s defenders appear to be motivated, in part, by the
depths of the animosity now directed at one of the country’s most
respected writers.
After a week of protests, book-burnings, and calls for Aylisli to
give up his citizenship, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev upped
the ante, issuing a formal decree stripping the 75-year-old writer
of his honorary title as “People’s Writer” and dropping a monthly
$1,250 presidential pension he had received since 2002.
Aliyev argued the measures were a just punishment “for distorting facts
in Azerbaijani history and insulting the feelings of the Azerbaijani
people.” But Aylisli — whose dozens of novels and plays before
“Stone Dreams” never touched on the Armenia issue — accused the
government of crossing a line in attacking his entire body of work.
“I didn’t ask them to give me that title. And they didn’t give it
to me for this novel. They gave it to me for my other works. So what
does it mean? They’re cancelling out my other books? I really didn’t
expect anything like this decree,” Aylisli said.
Aylisli has been a staunch critic of the ruling regime.
The crackdown has extended further, with Aylisli’s son, a powerful
customs official, being asked to resign from his post and Baku’s
National Drama Theater cancelling an anticipated production of
Aylisli’s play, “Don’t Love Me.”
The severity of the censure may be tied to Aylisli’s open criticism
of the Baku’s ruling elite. In addition to its depictions of the
Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict, “Stone Dreams” paints a thinly veiled
portrait of Aliyev’s father and predecessor as president, Heydar,
as a corrupt official who buys the loyalty of Baku’s intelligentsia
with free apartments. And a more recent manuscript, “Big Traffic Jam,”
which has only appeared in samizdat form, is rumored to subject both
Aliyevs to a scathing satirical critique.
But the groundswell of support for Aylisli has forced even the
government to edge away from its normally pugilistic stance on Yerevan.
Many Azerbaijanis were astonished February 7 when the country’s public
television station broadcast a live debate on the Armenia question.
The debate featured many contentious exchanges, like this one between
Aylisli and ruling-party lawmaker Musa Guliyev.
Guliyev: You wrote something that can be used as Armenian propaganda.
They’re saying, “Look, Azeris are barbarians, we can’t live with them.”
Aylisli: You do that! Every single day you curse Armenians, but then
you turn around and tell them that we should live together.
Armenian Reaction
The issue has been closely watched in Armenia, where Aylisli’s
privations have provided local media with a fresh opportunity to
criticize the Azerbaijani regime.
“Agos,” the Turkish-based newspaper formerly run by the slain
Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, wrote a scathing account of the
affair, noting that Aylisli’s plays had been a feature of Armenia’s
Soviet-era theater scene and quoting the writer’s own assertion that
“Stone Dreams” was a message to Armenians that “it’s not the end”
and “we can live together.”
Levon Ananian, the chairman of Armenia’s Union of Writers, on February
8 offered a formal response to the controversy, saying, “Kudos to
our Azerbaijani colleague! He is that brave man who blazes the trail,
the trail that leads to repentance through truth.” Ananian added that
“Not only Armenians, but also Russians, all people that are concerned
about the future of the country…should share this braveness.”
It remains to be seen, however, whether any Armenian writer, will
rise to a challenge posed by Aylisli to his literary counterparts
across the border. Speaking last week, Aylisli said he deliberately
chose to focus on Azerbaijani violence, and that it was the “job of
Armenian writers” to follow suit. “It’s not possible for any people
to commit such cruelties and not write about it,” he added.
Related: Azeri Author Sends Unpopular Message To Armenians: ‘We Can
Live Together’
Back in Azerbaijan there are those who wish Aylisli had chosen to
portray both sides of the conflict. Rustam Behrudi, an Azerbaijani
poet, says Baku has gone overboard in its attack on the novelist,
particularly at a time when it is conducting a significant crackdown
against antigovernment protesters and political opponents.
At the same time, Behrudi says Aylisli erred in representing only one
side of the story. Any story of the conflict between Azerbaijan and
Armenia, he says, should portray the actions and sufferings of both.
“Azerbaijan has so many big problems. But instead of solving those
problems, they’re attacking a writer for his novel. What is literature
about? It’s about freedom of expression, about liberty,” Behrudi says.
“I don’t think it’s right to attack a writer like this. At the same
time, I disagree with the author about some parts of the novel. If an
Armenian was beaten and killed in Baku, and a writer writes about it,
he should also talk about the events that caused the attack.”