What is the role of myths in Chingiz Aitmatov’s novels?

Abstract

This paper examines the role of myths and legends in the works of Aitmatov, the

semantic load they carry, and their artistic originality. It presents a reflection on the role of

legends in the work "Longer than a Century Lasts a Day," the legend of Dononbai the Bird and

the White Cloud of Genghis Khan.

No doubt, Chyngyz Torekulovich Aitmatov is an outstanding writer with a deeply

philosophical understanding of the world. The inner world of the common man is revealed

through the main characters; through the worldview of the main characters, the author shows his

attitude to the world. A peculiarity of Aitmatov's work is the way he weaves myths and legends

into the plot of his works, Thus, in the novel "The Day Lasts Longer Than a Hundred Years".

Aitmatov describes two legends: the legend of the mankurt and the legend of Genghis Khan's

white cloud, in his novel "The White Steamboat" there is a legend of the Horned Mother Deer,

the myth in the “The Spotted Dog Running Along the Seashore”, and in his latest novel "When

the Mountains Fall," the legend of the Eternal Bride is masterfully presented. These are not all

examples of the use of legends and myths in his work. Aitmatov's universe amazes with its

subtle sense of the world, its preservation of harmony, and, to some extent, the cautionary

meaning that the legends carry.

Many works are devoted to the work of Aitmatov, in particular, the poetics of mythologist

and their artistic originality, the role of myths in his works, and their folklore and mythological

motives. Aitmatov’s mythical images are rooted in deep antiquity, they are deep and we can say
that the philosophical meaning laid down by our ancestors is the oldest embodiment of life itself,

vitality and endurance, patience, and struggle with difficulties on the path of life. Kh. Sadykov

noted the most fruitful roots of Aitmatov's mythologist in Kyrgyz folklore. According to the

researcher, the writer discovered the amazing properties of artistic modeling of reality, and the

depth of symbolism in legends, fairy tales, and parables. “Aitmatov, as it were, reads and

comprehends folk traditions, legends, parables in a new way, looking for philosophical grains in

them<.>. The myth serves for him as an extended metaphor, highlighting, like fire, the content

structure of the work: the author made the myth work on the idea of ​the work, of course, not

mechanically, not at the level of boring didactics, but at the level of moral and philosophical

generalization ”(Sadykov Kh., 24- 25.)

Aitmatov is not a unique author who used the allegorical meaning of myths and legends

in his works. Myths and legends are used by different authors as part of the literary text.

Examples of the use of myths in his work can be found in T. Mann, F. Kafka, J. Joyce, G.

Marquez, Goethe, Dante, N. Gogol, A. Pushkin, etc. Many authors included in their works inset

stories, myths, or legends as "stories within stories". These texts play a huge role, guiding the

reader and setting a certain tone for the work. Legends and myths contain a profound moral that

leads the reader to certain thoughts, and makes him think and draws appropriate conclusions

from them. Legends are most often associated with the events of past times, it is an ancient

narrative, through which the author tries to give an answer to a question or explain a

phenomenon (Savchuk, 2017).

Studies by literary scholars and linguists speak of the rich mythological and folklore

material that has been analyzed and woven into the plots of Aitmatov's works. "Myth is one of

the central phenomena in the history of culture and the most ancient way of conceptualizing the
surrounding reality and human essence. Myth is the primary model of all ideology and the

syncretic cradle of various types of culture - literature, art, religion and, to a certain extent,

philosophy and even science" (Meletinsky, E.M.). As an element of collective consciousness,

myth seeks to organize man's idea of the world and determine man's place in this world. The

mythological consciousness of man of the primitive epoch was understood as fantastic imaginary

beliefs in which there were seeds of artistic images and representations, norms correcting human

behavior, i.e. morality. Myth, as a special way of representing and systematizing the world and

human nature, contains the beginning of the common features of different national artistic

systems. But at the same time, mythologization as a way of the universality of the depicted

contains national and unique originality of works belonging to different national works of

literature.

Aitmatov defines the role of legends, parables, and myths as a means of moral education

for the people. The whole life and destiny of Aitmatov are full of different tragic and happy

moments. In my opinion, the events of the writer's life influenced his work. It was not easy for

him as a child. His father's repression, life under the pressure of human condemnation as the son

of an enemy of the people, then the war, forced him to grow up quickly and take on the

responsibilities of an adult, etc. Perhaps this is the wisdom of Aitmatov's worldview.

The person who imbued him with love, understanding, and pride in his nation from his

childhood was his grandmother, "a woman of exceptional charm and intelligence”. His

grandmother opened the door for him to the world of fairy tales and songs. Aitmatov recalled

that she always took him with her, whether it was just to visit, to weddings or even to funerals.

She was a skillful storyteller, she invented and told him her dreams. And, if grandmother's short

dreams did not satisfy little Aitmatov, she went to the neighbors to "borrow" someone's dream.
From his childhood, she told him Kyrgyz fairy tales, old songs, stories, and tall tales. She used to

take him to summer nomads in the mountains. According to Aitmatov's recollections,

"nomadism is not just a movement with herds from place to place, but a great economic and

ritual procession. a kind of exhibition of the best harness, the best decorations, the best high

horses, the best packing of packs on camels and carpets-pompons, with which the luggage was

covered. A display of the best girls and singer-improvisers performing mourning (if one left the

place where one died) and travel songs, I caught these vivid spectacles at their very end, then

they disappeared with the transition to sedentary life" (Aitmatov, p. 172). His words confirm his

admiration for, reverence for, and respect for folk traditions. He grew up in the atmosphere of

these legends, heard from his grandmother and the old people of his native village. From

childhood, he was accustomed to appreciating and loving to the Kyrgyz language and national

oral folk art. Aitmatov shows his respect with the words “Native language! How much has been

said about this? And the miracle of native speech is inexplicable. Only the native word, known

and comprehended in childhood, can fill the soul with poetry, born from the experience of the

people, awaken the first sources of national pride in a person, and deliver aesthetic pleasure in

the multidimensionality and ambiguity of the language of the ancestors. Childhood is not only a

glorious time, childhood is the core of the future human personality. It is in childhood that true

knowledge of native speakers is laid, and then there is a feeling of belonging to the surrounding

people, to the surrounding nature, to the native culture”. He carried a caring attitude to his native

language and national coloring through all his works, stating that "the big Kyrgyz village serves

as a refuge for me. Many of the ideas, characters, and images are prompted by the life of these

people". His talent for depicting problems from the national to the global is peculiar.
 Analyzing his works, Aitmatov says, "I am trying to introduce into contemporary realistic

prose what is a legacy of past culture: myth, legend, legend. After all, in the past people have

tried to make sense of the world through artistic images of the past, and that sense of the past had

its topicality each time. A lot of water has flowed since then, but I believe that elements of the

mythological consciousness of the world can be adapted to the modern way of thinking. So the

theme of memory is important to me in many ways. But first of all, you have to realize what

historical memory is, which is what's important to both the artist and the reader today. People

remember everything or should remember everything. Someone is right to say: it is hard for him

who remembers everything. So, let us have a hard time, but we must not forget the lessons of the

past. And let those lessons affect us in everything: our behavior, our consciousness, and our

actions. Man must be, above all, a man, he must live in harmony with others like him, in

harmony with nature, and he must be a bearer of high ideals. In the story "The dog running by

the sea" I wanted to show what kind of relationship generations can have, that the memory of the

father, brother, grandfather, and forebears are inseparable from the entire life of subsequent

generations.

Yan Ding-Jia, in her dissertation work on the poetics of Aitmatov's mythology, argues

that for mythological thinking characteristic elements such as the unity of man and nature,

"totemism and taboo," "spatial and temporal syncretism, the symbolism of numbers, binary

oppositions". He notes that in Aitmatov's works the binary oppositions "life - death",

"man-nature" and "society - nature" are repeatedly encountered. The opposition and unanimity of

these images accentuate their inseparability (Yan Ding-Jia, p. 126). According to Kolesnikoff

myths serve not only as a link between the past and the future but also show the action of the

narrative to be realistic. Ancient tales penetrate deeply into the plot of a work, its characters, its
morality, and the struggles that underlie the work. It can be a struggle between people and the

forces of nature (Kolesnikoff, 1992).

In his novel And the Day Lasts Longer Than a Century. Aitmatov puts the legend of the

mankurts at the heart of the narrative. The mankurts in Aitmatov's work were called slaves who

were forcibly deprived of their memory. The process of depriving them of their memory was

cruel and inhumane. Those who survived this inherently monstrous act became devoted slaves

for life. They have no name, no memory, nothing. There is only a master and a perpetual fear that

he will have his head boiled off and the hat that is forever stuck to his head will be removed. And

knowing this, people who were kin became mancurts and never tried to save their loved ones

again. And only one Naiman-ana did not want to put up with it. A mother's heart will always be

hopeful. She decided to tell her son who he was, and who his father and ancestors were.

No one remembers Zhuan-Zhuan is anymore, and there is no evidence of their stay on the

Saryozek steppes, but people will always remember the atrocities committed by these people and

the legend of Naiman-ana. It turns out that legends and modernity will be intertwined, and the

role of these legends and myths is great for modern man. The legend of the mancurts is closely

related to the novel’s idea, to its philosophical message. People who have lost touch with their

history and forgotten their past are likened to mankurts. I think that the memory of the past helps

a person to make the right decisions. Only by making mistakes do we learn and grow. People

start wars when they forget what the war brought in the past, what suffering. Aitmatov's legends

are in some ways a warning to future generations, a demonstration of what can happen if we

forget, a kind of intimidating factor. The theme of memory runs like a red thread in the work.

Aitmatov highlights that 'a man without a sense of history, without memory of the past, who is

forced to reconsider his place in the world, a man deprived of the historical experience of his
own and other peoples, lacks any perspectives and can only live for the present, for the day. The

Kyrgyz have a concept of the seven forefathers. Every child, especially a boy, should remember

and know his seven ancestors. They say that a tree without roots is a lifeless log. Preserving the

memory of one's ancestors is not only a tribute but also a show of caring for one's loved ones.

In the novel, Sabitzhan as a modern mankurt with deprived of memory, and devoid of

personality uses other people's borrowed "orders" and "instructions" instead of his thoughts and

even his own words. He is controlled. After all, it is through his mouth that the author talks about

radio-controlled people, that the state will decide when and what a person should do, what to

think, what to want, and what not to want. The author speaks veiledly of totalitarianism, under

which the man is not free to decide his fate, he turns into a puppet, a puppet who submits to the

will of the state.

In opposition to Sabitzhan, the author nominates Abutalip Kuttybaev. He is a man of

honor, words, and justice. Abutalip will not allow himself to become a mankurt, a slave of the

state machine. He would rather die than allow others, such as Tansykbaev, to use him for their

purposes. He, like Genghis Khan's centurion, Erdene, will not hide and hide. He will look fate

squarely in the eye and accept death, for the sake of the future, for the sake of children, and for

the sake of justice.

Aitmatov's mythology is a way of revealing the author's worldview, a way of revealing

cultural and social problems, the philosophical understanding of the world. The problems raised

in Aitmatov's work are still relevant today, because they relate to current issues, they relate to the

eternal question of good and evil.

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