Update Two: Soviet Ghosts

Update Two: Soviet Ghosts

"Don Giovani" and the Theater:

As promised, my next post picks up at the opera. While I would love to say that I discovered a new artistic passion, it is more accurate to say that I found my potential for appreciating art extends only so far. Perhaps opera is just not my cup of tea. Either way, I was in for a spectacle and enriching experience, albeit without pure enjoyment. 

At intermission, my Russian professor asked how I was enjoying the performance. In the moment I was faced with lying or trying to articulate my distaste for "Don Giovani" in cultured terms that she could respect. In hindsight, I would describe my aversion towards the opera as the same hesitation I have to listen to Earl Scruggs for three hours. Earl Scruggs is a master of his craft. He should be considered one of the most technically gifted musicians in American history. But, would like to sit down and listen to him play for 3 hours at breakneck speed? No. Opera, to me in this moment was the same. It was abundantly clear that I was witnessing virtuosity. These performers had trained their entire lives to hit that particular note, at this particular volume (!), and with that particular vibrato, but to sit through three hours of their opera felt like a technically gifted, musical assault on the senses. I realize this is the perspective of an uncultured American, but it is my honest one. 

While taking in the music, I managed to appreciate the theater itself. The grandiose architecture, ornate decoration, and Soviet symbolism was all very familiar. The exterior and front-of-house were both nearly identical to other Stalin-era theaters I have been in. While the interior of the theater appeared similar as well, upon further examination the Theatre of Opera and Ballet was in fact very unique. On the walls, in the archways, and engraved on the tiling, was an amalgamation of Soviet, Kyrgyz, and Islamic symbolism. While the hammer and sickle played center stage, one could also find smaller patterns and symbols that are all but Soviet. The design of the archways resembles traditional Islamic architecture more than that of anything that exists in a purely Soviet conception. Even the "All the Soviet Peoples" mural on the ceiling (below) seems to play a balancing act between recognizing the vast diversity in what was the Soviet Union, but also what was maintaining the dominant ideology of the "Soviet Man". 

"All the Soviet Peoples"

    

"Ata Beyit"- Father's Grave Memorial Complex

After the past week, it now seems loaded to say Soviet nostalgia. Whether from the stories of my host-grandfather about his time studying in Moscow, or the way the people prefer to colloquially call streets by their Soviet names rather than their new Kyrgyz ones, I have felt a distinct Soviet memory in Kyrgyzstan. But not all memory of the Soviet Union is as positive as these stories may make it seem, and the complex at Ata Beyit exemplifies remembrance that is not so fond. 

The Ata Beyit complex memorializes four distinct traumas of the Kyrgyz past. The first monument, pictured left, memorializes those who died in the 1916 revolts fighting to free themselves as a colony of Imperial Russia. In 1916, several revolts ignited across Kyrgyzstan, and much of Central Asia, after an attempt was made to draft men into the Russian war effort during World War I. As smaller revolts formed into larger ones, many thousands were killed. In the ensuing violence, many chose to flee to neighboring China to find more security. Along the road, as well as after arriving in China, hundreds of thousands died of starvation and exhaustion, or were killed along the way. 

Our tour guide for the complex was an older, ethnically Russian woman. She was blunt and honest with her criticism, but simultaneously balanced in her historical assessment. Throughout the day, she would seem to tell it as it was. Discussing the various differences in historical interpretation, she provided us with different estimates of killed or disappeared during this period and the following eras of Soviet repression. During the 1916 revolt and subsequent "Walk of Death", she noted that some historians estimate thousands while others millions of dead. She seems to fall somewhere in between. 

The complex lies on the grounds of an old brick factory. The second monument of Ata Beyit (and reason for the complex's creation in the first place) commemorates 137 bodies discovered in the foundation of that very same factory. The story goes that in 1991 a woman professed knowledge of an undisclosed number of bodies located on the factory grounds. The woman would explain that her late husband was one of the few NKVD officers tasked with killing the men and women on that day. Only on her death bed and during the collapse of the Soviet Union, did the woman feel she could share this knowledge. Ultimately, they would discover some 137 bodies at the site and eventually a list of names of the deceased kept in a drawer at the NKVD headquarters of Bishkek some years later. 

One name on that list of the deceased happened to be the father of the very same Tchengiz Aitmatov that I mentioned in update one. Tchengiz Aitmatov, by then the icon of Kyrgyz and Soviet literature that he is today, used his money and influence to create this complex on the grounds of his father's grave. Aitmatov was born to politically influential parents. His father, a prominent communist politician and his mother the daughter of a powerful Tartar businessman, Aitmatov enjoyed a privileged life in his early childhood. But at 11 it all changed. Feeling threatened by a growing movement to form an independent, communist Kyrgyz state, Aitmatov's father along with 136 others were labeled by the CPSU as "enemies of the people". This charge meant not only death for the accused but amounted to what was essentially exile for their families as well. As family of an "enemy of the people", Aitmatov, his mother, and his siblings were barred from certain schools, employment, and made to be social pariahs. 

These events of his early childhood shaped Aitmatov as a writer and intellectual. Over time their status thawed and the children were allowed to attend school and gain status in Soviet society. Aitmatov's writing gained popularity and his father's disappearance was made history, until 1991 that is. 

After the discovery of the 137 bodies, Aitmatov funded the creation of the complex and his fathers grave lies in its own white marble tomb overlooking the city (pictured left). After his death in 2008, Aitmatov's requested his own burial to be next to his father's. 

Initially built to house just these two monuments, the complex has since grown. Since its independence from the USSR in 1991, Kyrgyzstan has been prone to political turmoil and instability. After revolutions in 2005 and 2010, and a recent coup d'état in 2020, the Kyrgyz joke that the only hobby they all share is revolution. While 2005 and 2020 should not be considered perfectly peaceful, the revolution of 2010 was particularly bloody. After dozens were killed in Bishkek by snipers atop the presidential palace, the government was forced to step down. Other ethnic Uzbeks were killed by government forces in the south of the country, but the monument at Ata Beyit memorializes only those who perished in Bishkek. 

Even this is not the most recent addition to Ata Beyit, On the very top of the hill are four more fresh mounds of dirt. Covered by small placards, these are the graves of four soldiers killed in border skirmishes on the Tajik border in the south. Not much has been noted about why these soldiers have been buried here, but next to such a striking collection of Kyrgyz nationalism and national memory it seems they too are considered part of the national story of Kyrgyzstan. 

Ata Beyit tells a story that stands in stark contrast with ones that reflect positively on the Soviet past. While my host-grandfather reflects fondly on the gains made in terms of education, infrastructure, and economic growth, even he recognizes the price that was paid. During the years of the Soviet Union, the Kyrgyz people lost aspects of their culture, language, and tradition that will never be regained. As our tour guide reflected, "It wasn't the just the Stalin repression or the Lenin repression, it was the Soviet repression". The total control of the USSR and the impressive and rapid development of the USSR at large came at an incredible and unsustainable cost. Millions upon millions of lives were lost in the Soviet project. Millions of families like Aitmatov's saw mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters disappear into thin air, their bodies only periodically discovered in basements of brick factories across the post-Soviet world. 

It seems to me that Kyrgyzstan remains haunted by these Soviet ghosts. Even today, Kyrgyzstan reckons with conflicting spheres of influence. Does Kyrgyzstan remain prominently fused to Russia or does it see another future away from its influence and domination? Reoccurring political violence is a distinct result of navigating these complicated geopolitical and cultural dynamics. Bishkek has most recently become home to tens of thousands of Russians fleeing sanctions, draft orders, and harsh authoritarianism. Apartment prices doubled over night and Russians now seek to establish a new life here, albeit perhaps temporarily. The fact also remains that I am in Kyrgyzstan to study Russian. Young people increasingly choose to speak Russian as their day-to-day language and the dominance of the Kyrgyz language becomes increasingly isolated to rural regions. While the decision to speak Russian is complicated by the pursuit of opportunity and even personal preference, it is the undeniable result of a colonial past and enduring colonial ties. Kyrgyzstan's history and experience remains distinctly complex and is something I hope to gain more insight into as I finish out my time here.