Daily life of heroes
We know about today’s heroes just as much as about the past and forgotten ones: There were bold, strong and noble. That’s it.
When Soviet Union was demolished the same happened with the pantheon of its heroes. Or better to say, one group of idols was replaced by another one. Myasnikyan, Guy, Lalayants, Spandaryan hadvanished, giving the stage to Dro, Nzhdeh and Aram Manukyan, who in turn had disappeared during one day in 1920-ies upon arrival of Bolsheviks. It was yesterday that Maxim Gorky was a famous writer, a world known genius that inspired the whole humanity, including Armenian-American artist Arshile Gorky who borrowed his pen name. And then one day Gorky disappeared from the heading of "Литературная газета", and no one remembers him since then. As if he was deprived of his books copyrights and was exiled to unknown direction. The issue is not a change of idols. Brand new political force brings its heroes and retired idols of the opposite side. The interesting part is that the society is missing a long-term memory.
The reason for instant erasing of heroes from society’s memory is that people know almost nothing about them besides the pathetic rhetoric. They are not perceived as a humans but rather than a cardboard heroes of the May Day Demonstration. The poster character shouldn’t have a personal history, his/her life belongs to millions, s/he is a hero. The only language you can speak with him is a language made of slogans… Once a guy living next door to the poet Charents house-museum said: “Do you remember Charents’ syringe on the display? It was always there. Now they took it away!...On the other hand it is better, when I was looking at it I was dreaming about the shot…” Charents syringe –he was a drug addict - was the fingerprint left in his city, one of the many fingerprints, with disappearing of which a human being turns into the official poster character.
The story repeats with Post-Soviet heroes. The fact of opening of Njdeh statue in Armenia was angrily commented by Russian media and politicians as a praising of Nazism. Instead of shooting back a justification based on analysis of historical facts, Armenia replied by pathetic and emotional articles. If fact, it couldn’t be other way around, because the National Hero’s status does not allow anyone to discuss about Njdeh. As long as we have this situation it wouldn’t be a surprise if some new coming political party, say, revolutionary democrats replace the existing gallery with the new one consisting of Nalbandyan, Abovyan and Gertsen.
Such a memory loss can be cured by analyzing and talking about them as individuals and public figures. Historical facts will not harm their image but will allow looking at them from different ahgles. For example, people say that the US founding fathers were under the dope when announcing the Declaration of Independence. More confidently they say that Washington and Jefferson had acres of land under marijuana, and may use it not for industrial and medical purposes only. I’m not sure that this story degrades the Founders efforts to create a new country of a law, not at all. Or another one: Twelve US presidents, including Washington and Jefferson, were keeping slaves (eight of which did it while in the office) at the same historical moment when they were putting into the Constitution the basic human freedoms. This controversy is a source for intense public debate and findings about the leaders and their time, and prevents them to become a granite-made and bronze-cast idols.
It’s almost a quarter of century that Bolsheviks Lalayants and Knunyants were forgotten. Before that for many decades we were walking down the streets named after them, not even wanting to know who they are. If we know that, we can evaluate their role in the history instead of accepting blindly what the ruling party declares and hastily replace one group of heroes with another.
With this picture we are beginning to publish Forgotten Stories on Revolutionaries, where you can learn about the daily life of the former heroes.
The reason for instant erasing of heroes from society’s memory is that people know almost nothing about them besides the pathetic rhetoric. They are not perceived as a humans but rather than a cardboard heroes of the May Day Demonstration. The poster character shouldn’t have a personal history, his/her life belongs to millions, s/he is a hero. The only language you can speak with him is a language made of slogans… Once a guy living next door to the poet Charents house-museum said: “Do you remember Charents’ syringe on the display? It was always there. Now they took it away!...On the other hand it is better, when I was looking at it I was dreaming about the shot…” Charents syringe –he was a drug addict - was the fingerprint left in his city, one of the many fingerprints, with disappearing of which a human being turns into the official poster character.
The story repeats with Post-Soviet heroes. The fact of opening of Njdeh statue in Armenia was angrily commented by Russian media and politicians as a praising of Nazism. Instead of shooting back a justification based on analysis of historical facts, Armenia replied by pathetic and emotional articles. If fact, it couldn’t be other way around, because the National Hero’s status does not allow anyone to discuss about Njdeh. As long as we have this situation it wouldn’t be a surprise if some new coming political party, say, revolutionary democrats replace the existing gallery with the new one consisting of Nalbandyan, Abovyan and Gertsen.
Such a memory loss can be cured by analyzing and talking about them as individuals and public figures. Historical facts will not harm their image but will allow looking at them from different ahgles. For example, people say that the US founding fathers were under the dope when announcing the Declaration of Independence. More confidently they say that Washington and Jefferson had acres of land under marijuana, and may use it not for industrial and medical purposes only. I’m not sure that this story degrades the Founders efforts to create a new country of a law, not at all. Or another one: Twelve US presidents, including Washington and Jefferson, were keeping slaves (eight of which did it while in the office) at the same historical moment when they were putting into the Constitution the basic human freedoms. This controversy is a source for intense public debate and findings about the leaders and their time, and prevents them to become a granite-made and bronze-cast idols.
It’s almost a quarter of century that Bolsheviks Lalayants and Knunyants were forgotten. Before that for many decades we were walking down the streets named after them, not even wanting to know who they are. If we know that, we can evaluate their role in the history instead of accepting blindly what the ruling party declares and hastily replace one group of heroes with another.
With this picture we are beginning to publish Forgotten Stories on Revolutionaries, where you can learn about the daily life of the former heroes.
Revolutionary interview
Maxim Gorky’s interview with Kamo, an exceptional worker in the field of revolutionary technology.
Kamo by Maxim Gorky, 1932 | (Excerpts from the essay)
In November-December 1905, in my apartment, in the house on the corner of Mokhovaya and Vozdvizhenka, where the All-Russian Central Executive Committee had recently been located, there lived a fighting squad of Georgians, twelve men. Organized by L.B. Krasin and subordinated to a group of Bolshevik comrades, the Committee, which tried to lead the revolutionary work of the Moscow workers, this squad carried a communications service between the districts and guarded my apartment during the meeting hours.
By nightfall, exhausted with the hard work and dangers of the day, the warriors gathered home and, lying on the floor of the room, told each other about what they had experienced over the past day. All these were young men at the age of eighteen or twenty-two, and they were commanded by Comrade Arabidze (an artist of the Georgian drama comrade Vaso Arabidze), a man of about thirty, an energetic, strictly demanding and heroic revolutionary. If I´m not mistaken, he was the one who shot in 1908 General Azancheyev-Azanchevsky, the chief of one of the punitive detachments in Georgia.
Arabidze was the first person from whom I heard the name of Kamo and the stories about the activities of this exceptionally bold worker in the field of revolutionary technology.
The stories were so amazing and legendary that even on those heroic days it was hard to believe that a man was able to combine in himself so much almost fairy-tale courage with constant success in work and extraordinary resourcefulness with the childish simplicity of the soul.
By nightfall, exhausted with the hard work and dangers of the day, the warriors gathered home and, lying on the floor of the room, told each other about what they had experienced over the past day. All these were young men at the age of eighteen or twenty-two, and they were commanded by Comrade Arabidze (an artist of the Georgian drama comrade Vaso Arabidze), a man of about thirty, an energetic, strictly demanding and heroic revolutionary. If I´m not mistaken, he was the one who shot in 1908 General Azancheyev-Azanchevsky, the chief of one of the punitive detachments in Georgia.
Arabidze was the first person from whom I heard the name of Kamo and the stories about the activities of this exceptionally bold worker in the field of revolutionary technology.
The stories were so amazing and legendary that even on those heroic days it was hard to believe that a man was able to combine in himself so much almost fairy-tale courage with constant success in work and extraordinary resourcefulness with the childish simplicity of the soul.
I then thought that if I wrote everything I heard about Kamo, no one would believe in the real existence of such a person, and the reader will accept the image of Kamo as a novelist´s fiction. And almost everything that Arabidze told me, I explained to myself by the revolutionary romanticism of the narrator.
But, as is often the case, it turned out that reality exceeds "fiction" by its complexity and brightness.
But, as is often the case, it turned out that reality exceeds "fiction" by its complexity and brightness.
Soon the stories about Kamo were confirmed to me by N. N. Flerov, a man whom I knew back in 1992 in Tiflis, where he worked as a proofreader in the newspaper Kavkaz.
Two years later, on the island of Capri, Leonid Krasin again reminded me about Kamo. We were recalling our comrades, and he smiled and asked:
- And remember, in Moscow you were surprised that I winked at the dapper Caucasian officer on the street? You, surprisingly, asked - who is this? I told you: Prince Dadeshkeliani, whom I know from Tiflis. Remember? It seemed to me that you didn´t believe in my acquaintance with such a peacock and seemed even suspected me of mischief. That was Kamo. He played the role of a prince perfectly! Now he is arrested in Berlin and incarcerated in such conditions that, probably, won´t survive. He´s gone insane. Between us - not quite gone, but this is unlikely to save him. The Russian embassy demands his extradition as a criminal. If the gendarmes know even half of everything that he did, they will hang Kamo.
- And remember, in Moscow you were surprised that I winked at the dapper Caucasian officer on the street? You, surprisingly, asked - who is this? I told you: Prince Dadeshkeliani, whom I know from Tiflis. Remember? It seemed to me that you didn´t believe in my acquaintance with such a peacock and seemed even suspected me of mischief. That was Kamo. He played the role of a prince perfectly! Now he is arrested in Berlin and incarcerated in such conditions that, probably, won´t survive. He´s gone insane. Between us - not quite gone, but this is unlikely to save him. The Russian embassy demands his extradition as a criminal. If the gendarmes know even half of everything that he did, they will hang Kamo.
When I told everything I heard about Kamo, and asked Krasin - how much is the truth here, he answered after a while:
- Quite possible that everything is true. I also heard all these stories about his extraordinary ingenuity and audacity. Of course, the workers wanting to have their hero, may be somewhat decorate Kamo´s feats, creating a revolutionary legend, realizing its class-educational significance. Anyway he is an extraordinary guy. Sometimes it seems that he is spoiled by luck and acting mischievous and theatrical. But this doesn´t root in the frivolity of youth, not in boasting and not in romanticism, but from some other source. He mischiefs very seriously, at the same time acting as if through the dream, disregarding reality.
The most amazing of his exploits is an ingenious simulation that deceived the wise Berlin psychiatrists. But the skillful simulation did not help Kamo, the government of Wilhelm II still issued him to the gendarmes of the Tsar, and, sealed in shackles, he was taken to Tiflis, and placed in the psychiatric ward of the Mikhailovsky hospital. If I´m not mistaken, he feigned insanity for three years. His escape from the hospital in Tiflis is also a fantastic trick.
- Quite possible that everything is true. I also heard all these stories about his extraordinary ingenuity and audacity. Of course, the workers wanting to have their hero, may be somewhat decorate Kamo´s feats, creating a revolutionary legend, realizing its class-educational significance. Anyway he is an extraordinary guy. Sometimes it seems that he is spoiled by luck and acting mischievous and theatrical. But this doesn´t root in the frivolity of youth, not in boasting and not in romanticism, but from some other source. He mischiefs very seriously, at the same time acting as if through the dream, disregarding reality.
The most amazing of his exploits is an ingenious simulation that deceived the wise Berlin psychiatrists. But the skillful simulation did not help Kamo, the government of Wilhelm II still issued him to the gendarmes of the Tsar, and, sealed in shackles, he was taken to Tiflis, and placed in the psychiatric ward of the Mikhailovsky hospital. If I´m not mistaken, he feigned insanity for three years. His escape from the hospital in Tiflis is also a fantastic trick.
Personally, I met Kamo in 1920 in Moscow, in the apartment of Fortunatova, my former apartment on the corner of Vozdvizhenka and Mokhovaya.
Bold, strong man with a typical Caucasian face, with a good, very attentive and stern gaze of soft dark eyes, he was dressed in the Red Army soldier´s uniform.
By his cautious and uncertain movements, it was obvious that he is a bit uncomfortable in unaccustomed environment. It immediately became clear that the inquiries about revolutionary work bored him and that his mind is busy with completely different task. He was preparing to enter the military academy.
-It´s hard to understand science,- he said sourly, slapping, stroking a textbook with his palm, as if caressing an angry dog. "There are not many drawings. It is necessary to make more pictures in books, so that you can immediately see what a dislocation is. Do you know what it is?"
I did not know, and Kamo smiled embarrassed, saying:
- See what I´m talking about...
Bold, strong man with a typical Caucasian face, with a good, very attentive and stern gaze of soft dark eyes, he was dressed in the Red Army soldier´s uniform.
By his cautious and uncertain movements, it was obvious that he is a bit uncomfortable in unaccustomed environment. It immediately became clear that the inquiries about revolutionary work bored him and that his mind is busy with completely different task. He was preparing to enter the military academy.
-It´s hard to understand science,- he said sourly, slapping, stroking a textbook with his palm, as if caressing an angry dog. "There are not many drawings. It is necessary to make more pictures in books, so that you can immediately see what a dislocation is. Do you know what it is?"
I did not know, and Kamo smiled embarrassed, saying:
- See what I´m talking about...
This first meeting with Kamo caused me a warm sympathy, and the further, the more he amazed me with the depth and accuracy of his revolutionary feelings.
It was absolutely impossible to combine everything that I knew about the legendary audacity of Kamo, about his superhuman will, amazing self-control, with the man who was seating in front of me at a table loaded with textbooks.
It is incredible that, after experiencing such a prolonged exertion of strength, he remained such a simple, sweet fellow and kept his soulful youth, freshness, strength.
It was absolutely impossible to combine everything that I knew about the legendary audacity of Kamo, about his superhuman will, amazing self-control, with the man who was seating in front of me at a table loaded with textbooks.
It is incredible that, after experiencing such a prolonged exertion of strength, he remained such a simple, sweet fellow and kept his soulful youth, freshness, strength.
When I asked him about the past, he reluctantly confirmed all the unusual stories about him, but frowned and added little new, unfamiliar to me.
It goes without saying that most of all I wanted to understand how such a "simple-minded"such a found the strength and ability to convince psychiatrists in his alleged madness.
But he did not seem to like asking about it. He shrugged his shoulders, reluctantly, unenthusiastic:
-Well, how shall I put it? I had to do that! I was saving myself, thinking that I”m useful for revolution.
He stopped, even closed his eyes and, tightly clasping his fingers in one fist, spoke slowly:
- What can I say? They pulp me, they beat me on the legs, tickle me and things like that ... But you can´t touch a soul with your hands, right? One made me look in the mirror. I looked: it wasn՝t my face in the mirror, it was a skinny stranger, hair overgrown, eyes wild, head shaggy – an ugly one! Even scary.
- I bared the teeth. And thought: "Maybe I really went mad?"
Very terrible moment! Then I figured out to spill in the mirror. They both looked at each other like crooks, you know. I think they liked it - the man forgot himself!
After a pause, he continued quietly:
- I thought a lot: will I stand or really go crazy? That was not good at all. I did not believe myself, you know? I felt as if I was hanging above the cliff. And for what I hold on - I do not see.
And, after a pause, he gave a wide grin.
It goes without saying that most of all I wanted to understand how such a "simple-minded"such a found the strength and ability to convince psychiatrists in his alleged madness.
But he did not seem to like asking about it. He shrugged his shoulders, reluctantly, unenthusiastic:
-Well, how shall I put it? I had to do that! I was saving myself, thinking that I”m useful for revolution.
He stopped, even closed his eyes and, tightly clasping his fingers in one fist, spoke slowly:
- What can I say? They pulp me, they beat me on the legs, tickle me and things like that ... But you can´t touch a soul with your hands, right? One made me look in the mirror. I looked: it wasn՝t my face in the mirror, it was a skinny stranger, hair overgrown, eyes wild, head shaggy – an ugly one! Even scary.
- I bared the teeth. And thought: "Maybe I really went mad?"
Very terrible moment! Then I figured out to spill in the mirror. They both looked at each other like crooks, you know. I think they liked it - the man forgot himself!
After a pause, he continued quietly:
- I thought a lot: will I stand or really go crazy? That was not good at all. I did not believe myself, you know? I felt as if I was hanging above the cliff. And for what I hold on - I do not see.
And, after a pause, he gave a wide grin.
-They know their business, of course, their science. But they don´t know us, Caucasians ( here: people living in the large area of Caucasus mountains, located on the intersection of Europe and Asia). Maybe for them every Caucasian is crazy? In addition, he is a Bolshevik. I was thinking then about it. So what? Let´s continue and see whether you will get me mad or all the way around? Nothing came out of it. They stayed with what they have, I stayed with my own. In Tiflis, I was no longer tortured like this. Apparently, they thought that the Germans can´t be mistaken.
From all that he told me, it was the longest story.
From all that he told me, it was the longest story.
