World Abaza Congress

A poet, writer, philosopher who brilliantly possessed the language: his aphorisms truly impressed: "How simply it is said, but how accurate, how deep!". He is a kind genius who has lived a long and, probably, happy life: he was engaged in his favorite work, to which he devoted himself entirely, and during his life earned both the people's love and the recognition of the authorities, something that was not given to every writer. His books have been translated into dozens of languages and are still in demand - thousands of copies are proof of that. Fazil Iskander himself called himself a Russian writer who glorified Abkhazia - it is here that his characters live, be it the famous Sandro or the boy Chik, here the events of all his most famous works took place.

Fazil Iskander was born on March 6, 1929 in Sukhum. His grandfather Ibrahim Iskander was a wealthy Persian who founded one of the first brick factories in the town. Fazil Abdulovich himself was a half Persian: his father Abdul, the eldest of Ibrahim's sons, married Abkhaz woman Lelia Michelia, who was descended from the Abkhaz village of Dzhgerda. Fazil Iskander was fluent in the Abkhaz language, but he always wrote in Russian, despite his Persian-Abkhaz origin, largely because of the enormous influence on his formation of Russian literature, he considered himself a representative of Russian culture.

The writer's childhood took place in Sukhum, and most often he spent summer with his mother's parents in Chegem (part of the Dzhgerda village - ed.). Today, thanks to the writer, Chegem is known far beyond its borders - here the writer has placed the hero of his main work, "Sandro from Chegem".

In 1938, the father of the future writer was deported to Iran, mother Lelia Michelia was was raising children, since the family has not been reunited. Childhood memories often served as the basis for many of the writer's works.

After graduating from the Sukhum School No. 3 with a gold medal, Fazil Iskander entered the Library Institute in Moscow, where he studied for three years, and then in 1954 transferred to the Gorky Literary Institute. Being a student, Iskander met a famous Soviet writer and poet Konstantin Simonov. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the beginning writer left some of his poems with Simonov, who later read them and sent to Iskander in Abkhazia his critical remarks, highlighting the good ones and pointing to the unsuccessful poems.

In 1954, by assignment after the institute (in the USSR, after completing the training, young specialists were obliged to work for several years in the place where they were sent, assigned by the state - ed.) he got into Bryansk as a literary employee of the "Bryansk Komsomolets" newspaper. Later - to the city of Kursk, to the editorial office of the "Kurskaya Pravda" newspaper. As an employee of this edition, Iskander writes an article against the "corn campaign" launched in those years - the mass introduction of corn culture in agriculture (campaign began after the visit of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to the US. Being impressed by the production of corn, he ordered to start growing this crop at home. However, different climatic conditions played a role and attempts to massively introduce corn in the USSR ended in failure - ed.). The article was not published. Later, the writer will return to the story of ridiculing such unviable campaigns in the story "Constellation of Kozlotur".

The first book by Fazil Iskander, a collection of poems "Mountain Trails", was published in Sukhum in 1957. By that time, Iskander had already returned to his homeland and worked as an editor in the Abkhaz branch of the main union organ of printing, "Gosizdat".

Iskander begins writing prose in 1962. The novel "Constellation of Kozlotur", published in 1966 in the magazine "New World", brought him real fame. In the story, the writer made fun of breeding a new breed of animal - a cross between a goat and a mountain aurochs. It was the brightest satire in which many local officials recognized themselves.

Fazil Iskander met his wife, a Muscovite Antonina Khlebnikova, on the Sukhum promenade. This moment is even described in the story "Constellation of Kozlotur", and later shown in the same film.

After the wedding, the newlyweds moved to Moscow. Soon the family had two children - a son Alexander and a daughter Marina.

Fazil Iskander lived outside his homeland for about forty years. It is in Moscow that he begins to write a lot about Abkhazia. "One day, while in Moscow, I decided to write an epic about life in Abkhazia with a center in Chegem," the writer told in an interview with Abkhaz television.

The most significant work of Fazil Iskander was the novel "Sandro from Chegem". A collection of short stories united by one hero, the author himself attributed to the genre of a rogue novel. In the USSR, the novel was first published in the "New World" magazine in 1973. But the work was subjected to severe censorship. The author agreed to the publication only because there were certain financial difficulties, and he also understood that if he did not make concessions, nothing he had written would be published. However, what the editors did with his novel didn't give him any peace after publication. The text of "Sandro from Chegem" was, according to Iskander, "monstrously trampled." He even wrote a letter to the editor in which he demanded to return the manuscript.

The novel "Sandro from Chegem" was published in full only in the late seventies, early eighties by the famous American publishing house "Ardis", created by Karl and Elenday Proffer and specializing in the publication of Russian-language literature, which could not be published in the USSR or was published with serious censorship. They published Nabokov, Aksenov, Brodsky and many others. It was in the publishing house "Ardis" that two volumes of "Sandro from Chegem" were published. In total, the book consisted of more than 800 pages; for comparison, "Sandro from Chegem", which was published in the USSR, had only 240 pages. Subsequently, the novel was translated into many languages of the world.

In the difficult years of the totalitarian regime in the USSR, Iskander always had a rather active civil position. And this often put him in an unpleasant situation - they stopped publishing him.

: In 1979, the story of Iskander "The Little Giant of Big Sex" is published in the notorious collection "Metropol". It was the so-called uncensored literary collection, published outside the State Publishing House, which published those writers who essentially adhered to dissident views and could not count on the fact that their stories would be published in the state publishing house. The scandal erupted, compilers and authors of the collection "called for an answer." Iskander was among those who were reprimanded. After the incident with "Metropol", the writer's works did not see the light for several years, they were not published. It continued until about the mid-eighties, only with the beginning of perestroika (an attempt by Mikhail Gorbachev to carry out a number of serious political reforms in the USSR — ed.) Iskander's works began published again.

Of great importance in the work of Iskander are also stories about Chik, united under the common title "Chik's Childhood". The Chik's prototype is the writer himself as a child, and in the town of his childhood Mukhus one can easily recognize Sukhum.

A special role in the work of Iskander is played by humor and laughter. But this is not stinging laughter, not teasing, not a desire to engage in moralizing, Iskander's laughter has completely different motives.

In 1989, Fazil Iskander was one of 11 deputies from the Abkhaz ASSR in the 12th Supreme Soviet of the USSR, where he worked until the Supreme Soviet self-dissolution in 1991. In the future, he no longer engaged in politics.

Fazil Iskander was awarded many different awards, including in 1989 he was awarded the USSR State Prize, in 1991 the Academician Andrei Sakharov Prize "For courage in literature", in 2002 in Abkhazia he was awarded the highest award of the republic - the order "Honor and fame", I degree. He is also the winner of the Pushkin Prize, the Leo Tolstoy Yasnaya Polyana Prize, and at the Big Book Prize awards ceremony he was awarded a special prize "For Honor and Dignity". In 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev presented Fazil Abdulovich with the Order "For Services to the Fatherland" and described him as a person who "symbolizes the age-old traditions of friendship between our peoples" (Abkhazia and Russia - ed.). In addition, n 2014, the writer from the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin received the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art.

Twice Fazil Iskander was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature, but both times unsuccessfully.

The writer left a great literary legacy. In addition to the listed works, this is the parable story "Rabbits and boas", the dialogue story "Thinking of Russia and the American", the story "School waltz, or the energy of shame", "Camp of a man", "Man and his environs", stories "Grandfather", "The Story of the Sea" and many others.

His prose is so vivid, juicy, rich in images that it is not surprising that his works were turned into movies more than once, and even though Iskander himself said that the film greatly simplifies what the author laid down in the narrative, films in his works are loved and revered by viewers. Among them are "Time of happy discoveries", "Feasts of Baltasar, or a night with Stalin", "Let us part good," "Oh, Marat" and others.

The latest adaptation of Iskander was the story "Sofichka." The film was made by a student of the famous Russian director Alexander Sokurov, Kira Kovalenko.

Writer Fazil Iskander died in his sleep on July 31, 2016 at the age of 88. He died surrounded by relatives and friends at his dacha near Moscow in Peredelkino. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.

The memory of the writer who praised Abkhazia is perpetuated in many areas of society. A commemorative coin with the image of Fazil Iskander was issued in the series "Outstanding personalities of Abkhazia". In Sukhum there are three chamber sculptures of heroes who came down from the pages of the books of Iskander - the boy Chik, his girlfriend Nika and Penguin-philosopher. The republic hosts an annual Fasil Iskander International Festival of Human Culture. The memory of Fazil Iskander is immortalized even in outer space - one of the minor planets is named after him. But the main thing - he perpetuated himself with his books - as long as they are read, Iskander will be alive in people's memory.

Already after the writer's death, the Fazil Iskander International Literary Prize was established in Russia in three nominations: prose, poetry and screenplay based on the works of Iskander. The name of Fazil Iskander was given to the State Russian Drama Theater in Sukhum. The Ministry of Culture and Preservation of Historical and Cultural Heritage of Abkhazia has announced a competition to create the best monument for the 90th anniversary of the writer in 2019.