Long echo of each other

Why will the East and the West be interconnected, even if they want to live separately, - on the example of common words and symbols, explains the poet and public figure Olzhas Suleimenov

From the editorial office
Olzhas Suleimenov is one of the few living large sixties, but he is more known to the world as a public figure, the chairman of the Nevada-Family movement, who was fighting (successfully) for the closure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear training ground. In addition, Suleimenov is also a linguist-language, who has been studying the interpenetration of cultures of different peoples and countries through the symbols of these states for many years, through their vocabulary and expressions. Actually, his book “Az and I” about the similarity of the monuments of the Turkic and Slavic cultures is still one of the most resonant (and at the same time most discussed and even controversial) works in the world of linguistics and philology.

Especially for the New Evrope, Suleimenov, who has been living in Almaty for many years, wrote a kind of linguistic manifest on how general features in languages ​​and cultures can and should combine living peoples.

The author’s opinion may not coincide with the position of the editors. Let us also clarify that in the text the author calls the city of his residence “Alma-Ata”, despite the correct writing of Almaty. The editors considered it appropriate to leave the author's style.

About the first words and images: convergence of world cultures

On February 13, 1976, a discussion of my book “Az and I” took place in the hall of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (on Volkhonka). We missed the hall according to the list - 47 people. Composition: academics, member scores, “ordinary” doctors of sciences (philologists). The discussion lasted from nine in the morning to six in the evening.

Closer to completion, they gave me a word. Among other things, in my Apology, I called an article by one Moscow linguist, with the main position of which I did not agree. I remember this place almost literally: “For the three centuries of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, only five or six Turkisms have fallen into the Russian language.”

In my speech, I proposed a three-hundred-year period of struggle and interaction of agricultural Rus' with the nomadic East to call another term (for example, interdependence). And secondly, or fifthly, the absurd "five or six Turkisms" caused my smaller statement that

In the Russian language, with careful study, 1001 Turkic word will be found. “And I'm ready to prove it!

1001 is a figurative expression meaning the concept of “many”. For many millennia of the neighborhood, struggle, interaction with each other, the ethnic groups of mankind have exchanged objects of both material and spiritual culture, therefore, many concepts and terms borrowed from those met in history are contained in the dictionary of many languages ​​(1001).

And most of them have not yet been recognized by linguists.

I have been fond of etymology since 1963 (this is the date of my first publication in the magazine "Spacious") and therefore, by the time of its application for 1001, both the experience of etymology and the knowledge of the ethmological dictionaries - Russian, Latin, Turkic, etc. already gave me the right to such a statement. Now you can calculate the time of my constant classes of archeology of the word and written signs: 1963–2023.

Sixty years.

How many years is a person actively engaged in linguistics after the end of the philological faculty?

Two or three years of graduate schools, then two or three years go to defend the dissertation (candidates for scientists). Some add a couple of years to protect the doctoral. And that's it. The active period of recognition of the material is limited to most “outstanding” linguists. Then the decades of teaching what remained and entrenched in memory for the first period of active knowledge.

***

In 1973, the V conference of writers of Asia and Africa was held in Alma-Ata. More than 80 delegations gathered in the capital of Kazakhstan. We prepared the conference for two years.

In 1971, the poet Mikhail Lukonin and I flew to Nairobi (Kenya) to meet with a group of African writers and determine the project of the program for the participation of representatives of the Black Continent.

It was there, in Nairobi, in the summer of 1971, I made one of my most important discoveries. Once I saw in the morning sky of this African city a born moon - a young month.

But what! ..

We, northerners, knew from childhood only one form of the month. And in the sky of the equator, the young moon looked amazing.

I realized that moon worship was born at the equator. The young moon was recognized as a more sacred, that is, a more useful luminary than the sun. The young moon shines, but does not warm. The full moon also shines, but it looks like the sun, which is always round. And the sun in Africa, and at the equator, could not be worshiped. Yes, of course, he shines, but he warms the devilishly! The sun could not become God in Africa, except perhaps the devil. Therefore, the first reasonable Africans at the equator recognized the young month by God, who helps with light. The round moon could not be compared with any other living object, so the priests of first -manism did not portray a round moon, otherwise the tribe would not understand what we worship, the moon or the sun.

And another advantage: the heavenly sign was associated with the earthly object - the horns of the buffalo.

This observation alone indicates the intellectual possibilities of a type that has arisen at the equator. Only Homo sapiens, unlike Homo Erectus and others, had figurative thinking. That is, according to the details, the image of the whole could imagine: the young month sailed in the Black Heaven, like the bright horns of a black bull, which became the Messenger of the God-moon on earth.

So the cult of the heavenly bull was born. The bull and all its herd were attached to Pantheon. And the man’s milk has learned to try. But not meat: the time has not yet come.

Makers, a man imitated: the male Homo sapiens, imitating the bull, became the head of the family, the clan. It was obliged to take care of the safety of the pack, look for the places of feeding and watering. The first crowns of primitive kings were probably like buffalo horns.

The Homo sapiens tribe moved from the equator to the north, continuing to worship the image of God, although the forms of the heavenly month changed, but the name “boQ”, “boh” was maintained ... And then the meaning appeared - “BOK”, side, one of the parts of the body.

The image of the horns of the heavenly bull gradually, for centuries, has changed for millennia, and instead of reverence for the image, faith appeared. Faith in the image, which was once a form of a real object. In this way, apparently, any religion passes.

Having passed Africa to the Mediterranean and crossing to another, northern shore, the most thinking Homo became convinced that the god-luna-a cool luminary-was already outdated and inferior to the sun, which shines and warming.

Those who believed in the Sun were hiding in mountain caves. Written traces left by them in the Paleolite in the mountains of Spain and the south of France reached us. The first sun -worshipers were hidden in the ancient penis, fearing the wrath of yesterday's co -religionists.

And how could they express the image of a new god in writing? Draw a circle to draw a circle on the wall of the cave?

But the full moon is round. We will not find out who was the first to portray the new God in the form of the denial of the former.

Someone from the first “revolutionaries” still continued to worship the very first image of God-by-by. And, denying him, he put on him the image of a spear - the line, V.

Thus, a written sign of denial was born - one of the most stable and ancients in writing. To cross out the image of the bull is “killing it with a spear”!

In the ancient Mediterranean, admirers of the moon gathered, some of whom were already becoming the sun worshipers. The sign of the denial of the moon began to be embodied in the terrible rite of extermination of bulls. Tavromachia was born where the sun -worship appeared, and there have been living its last years there. The sword should go strictly between the horns of the bull right in the heart. All these signs have survived, embodied in the rite.

There were probably attempts by acquaintances to portray the sun-god and simply round, but such a “sun” did not take root, for it was too similar to a round, full moon.

As a result, the sign of the denial of the moon-god began to be understood as the sacred sign of the sun-god.

***

Poetic vision will help scientists understand where the image of the earthly world was born.

He appeared where people realized the dome of the sky and the plane of the earth.

This image was born in the steppe.

The image of the sky with the sun turned into a model of the first house - the dome of the yurt and the circle of light. Then, however, they still worshiped the moon. But the sun served as light.

Then a cross -shaped shanirak appeared (a round baptized cross, the dome of the yurts is crowned. - Approx. Ed.). We already know how he took this form in the course of millennia. There are signs - a circle and a cross. And the sunny shanirah appeared.

The walls were strengthened, taking on steep forms over time: so they grew up at home. And then the Shanirak moved to the walls - windows appeared, cross -shaped so far.

So the world was created.

The details met, accumulated into a whole, connected and created the subject world of man. And then other worlds of culture. All future ideas and ideologies, logic and analogies, musical works and dumb artifacts come from those first images. The co -creation of man and nature created the world. The image of the world began with two halves: the curved dome of the sky above the plane of the steppe. Ancient steppe. For millennia, people diverged along the mountains, river valleys and sea coasts in search of food. There they survived. And those first sensations of space that gave rise to culture were lost. And now we are collecting them. Before the end. The unexpected end of this world, the approach of which is still experienced by only one of his representatives.

We help humanity realize:

You are standing before the end!

Get together!

Remember what you have done over all these years, centuries and millennia!

This is a call to humanity, which is aware of itself, its past and foresees the future that will not come if you do not catch on time.

We must inspire all nations: none of you opened the words first. They opened all together.

And the Kazakh yurt is not an annoying sign of the backwardness of nomads, but evidence of ancient history, the embodiment of the first images seen by man.

In the lowest cultural layers of Babylon (IV millennium BC), clay tables with drawings of the first yurts, which I considered to-tieroglyphs, were found.

We grabbed the tip - further the thread of events unfolds the paintings of the history of a thinking person ...

Awareness of the dome of the sky and earth is the first figurative thinking. There is a desire to bring two halves closer. The world already consisted of two halves. Someone realized the law of pairing. And their rapprochement was perceived as a rapprochement of Adam and Eve. Struggle and love. There is no life without this.

The rapprochement of the halves people carried through the centuries. From these combinations of signs, they created dwellings, houses, temples, countries. And they lived in them. They fought and loved.

Of these two concepts, everything happened. They allow you to live and not die. This expresses the main human gift. Neither the dog is given, nor the bull. Yes, and God is not given. And it is given to man.

Because God is one. And the thinking one is always a couple. He fights with the wrong thought, supports the right, overcomes contradictions. And those who want to be God, like some of our leaders, are fools. Fold fools. Because they are alone. They do not have two hemispheres of the brain, but one. And not even hemisphere, but a dead end. I talked with many leaders of the countries and I know this. For development, you need a dialogue, dispute. And they do not want to argue - only rule. Hear only yourself. And there is nothing to listen to.

***

I am thinking about what I dedicated for more than 60 years.

And I understand that our names are outdated. The organization that I head is called the Center for Combination of Cultures. Most still confuses this definition with small concepts of culture of regional and regional scale, not even reaching the national.

And we came to the rapprochement of world cultures. This will be done by the updated center. Alas, world cultures are fighting for millennia. And no world in this war is expected. Now the world will split into pieces.

We came to the understanding that humanity - the East and the West - are two halves of the same brain that die without each other.

When the idea is clearly expressed, it works, uniting the world.

This year, a decade of rapprochement of crops, proclaimed in 2013 on our initiative, has ended, but today suggests that such a decade should go on a century, and then in a millennium of rapprochement of cultures, having become an era of conscious interdependence for modern mankind.

Work on the rapprochement of cultures should continue in the intellectual centers of the world. The rapprochement of cultures is not limited only to the exchange of concerts “Songs and Dance” or exhibitions. Culture is, first of all, knowledge.

Therefore, our goal is to replenish the volume of knowledge raising a rational person (Homo sapiens). First of all, through school, university textbooks, through scientific works, conferences and fiction.

The main question that should be the basis of modern humanities - why are cultures consisting of the same basic elements?

When were the grains of contradictions and wars sown, over time growing into chronic diseases of mankind?

The center of convergence of world cultures should be created in Alma-Ata. We deserve this right.

Our center is the only world working in its special program based on the culture of knowledge. The knowledge of peoples about the origins and history of their development in dialogue and cooperation. About how the peoples arose and created the first systems of graphic signs and words. Knowledge of the causes of the discrepancies and conflicts of peoples from antiquity to modernity.

The disagreements of cultures and religions that do not heal centuries, bringing ethnic groups to bloody confrontations, can cure only confident knowledge of the causes of these disagreements, based on the truth proven by the whole scientific world. Knowledge widespread by schools and universities, research institutes and museums. Such knowledge illuminates the historical path into the future and the planetary consciousness of the peoples is formed.

... The building in which we work was built in 1936, which is also symbolic. In the same year, the first Constitution of the USSR was created, which in its own way was aimed at rapprochement of the peoples. I became one of the first citizens born with her. This time is the beginning of a new period, but also the end of the old era. Then they destroyed the last intellectuals of the early twentieth century. Among them was my father. I was four days old when he left. But finally, he-his life and fate-managed to convey to me some important information, the program that I developed all my life.

Our building is located on Kunaeva Street (former Karl Marx). These two figures also express this idea in their own way. We must not forget about this.

And on the wall of the building, you need to write the "Center for the convergence of world cultures." This would fix our idea, the appointment of the center and its address.

Alma-Ata is a city of apples, an apple is a symbol of agriculture and a sweet life. It is no coincidence that this fruit was preserved in the legends of the dramatic relations of two halves, love and the struggle of Adam and Eve, reflected in biblical traditions.

And we also emphasize this - we will pull all the characters into one point.

***

Once among the fragments of the fragmented world community, waking up in the stream of seething world history, having tasted the fruits of globalization, according to the law of the pendulum, we risk falling into a different extreme - to close in our own cultural matrix, holding on to its saving shell. In our opinion, the harmonious “and - and” instead of the antithesis “or - or” is able to resolve the difficulties of this difficult period that threatens to become the next ending of human history.

It is time to believe the poets to the world: the East and the West are two hemispheres of the brain, and they are interdependent. This model of consciousness is the most accurate form of interdependence prompted by nature.

It is necessary to strive to create a center that is truly established in the mind, but not officials, but people. Write in newspapers, magazines, social networks. Call other republics to participate in this.

We must receive support for the international community.

It is necessary to create a fund of the convergence of world cultures in Alma-Ata and make an appeal to all countries. We will turn to them with our formulas, clearly expressing the goal and ideology of our center.

And then we will receive support not only by UNESCO, working with which is included in our program, but also of other international organizations.

After a while, branches will arise in different parts of the Earth. And then we can influence world processes. To affirm the world in the minds of people. Close them closer: Azerbaijanis and Armenians, Russians and Ukrainians. So we will fight for a single world. The arising angles of the regions will unite the era of conscious interdependence. This will be the rapprochement of world cultures. And all the time to keep a symbol of the ideology of rapprochement over this process - the yurt, which connects Kerega (the base of the yurt, consisting of individual sections connected to each other. - approx. Ed.) And all other components.

We are convinced: these poetic insights, supported by the scientific knowledge of the updated center, will help the peoples avoid many wars, take a step towards themselves, recognizing themselves differently on routes to the future. To the conscious interdependence of all halves of this world.