Translated material
Fatima Salkazanova in Ossetia
I’m going to Vladikavkaz to meet a woman who, in a short time, has turned for me from a distant professional reference into a dear person. I knew her name from my first year at the journalism department, but only met her in person last spring in Paris.
The famous French journalist of Ossetian origin Fatima Salkazanova, upon closer examination, transformed for me from a fighter for truth and a brave reporter into a very sweet, hospitable woman, combining European restraint, Ossetian nobility and boundless kindness.
The whole world probably knows about her highest professionalism and keen sense of justice. And the fate of a woman deserves special attention.
Fatima was born into a family of Moscow Ossetians. Her father was an engineer who built bridges. Mother is a high-class doctor. During the war, my father was captured by the Germans and ended up in Germany. He managed to escape and move to Italy in order to return to his homeland from there to “raise his daughters,” as it seemed to him. Instead, he ended up in Stalin's camp. The father could only secretly come to Moscow to see his family. To avoid the stigma of being the daughter of an enemy of the people, Fatima was recorded using her mother's last name. She lived with her mother and grandmother on Arbat and studied at a good school. Then one day I wrote an anti-Soviet text in the form of a letter to a certain Belgian friend. That’s when it all began: they were expelled from the pioneers, dragged for interrogations for several months in a row, during one of which they even hit him in the face with a fist so hard that they broke a tooth. Without finding out anything, Fatima was expelled from the 8th grade with a note in her personal file: “Without the right to enter secondary educational institutions of the Soviet Union,” and her mother was fired from the Ministry of Health and ordered to move away. The family left for Norilsk. Despite the KGB prohibitions, Fatima managed to finish school there. Then she returned to Moscow, where she had an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Institute of Oriental Languages at Moscow State University: she passed the exams with excellent marks, but without a reference from the city committee of the CPSU and membership in the Komsomol, it was impossible to enter. Later, for the sake of higher education, she nevertheless joined the Komsomol and entered the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University. She never had to study: six months later she was expelled for making friends with French students, one of whom she married and went to live in France.
Since 1963, this country has become a second home for Fatima. There were many difficulties here too. We lived with my husband and his parents in a tiny apartment. When Fatima became pregnant, her husband's father decided that she should have an abortion, since the family's financial situation was very modest. Fatima could not come to terms with this situation and the pregnant woman left home. Despite the difficulties, finding herself alone with a small child in her arms and without a means of support, she graduated from the Sorbonne, made a brilliant career (she devoted many years of her life to Radio Liberty), raised a good son and earned authority in the most prestigious circles of France .
A wonderful book “Fatima Salkazanova: in plain text” was written about her life and work. Must read!
Today Fatima lives in a Parisian suburb in a cozy three-story house, surrounded by a variety of vegetation (there are flowers, decorative bindweed, and vegetables). Her son Alexander or Sasha Pilois is a singer, lives in another city and rarely visits Paris. Fatima introduced me to his work through YouTube, where a clip of the singer and many concert videos are posted. To my question: “Are you proud of your son?”, she answered meaningfully: “I love him!”