Chingiz Aitmatov’s debut novel illustrates the most serious of all conceivable and inconceivable human atrocities, according to the author—the taking away of a living person’s memory. This also includes the people’s oblivion of their cultural traditions, which certainly leads to their decline.

Parallel to the journey of the main character and his moral degradation, in contact with modern civilization, Chingiz Aitmatov demonstrates how these actions affect the people themselves, the native village of Edigei.

History of creation

“And the day lasts longer than a century” is not only a line from Boris Pasternak’s famous poem “The Only Days,” but also the debut novel of the Russian-Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov. The work was first published in 1980, in the magazine " New world" Then it was published under the title “Stormy Stop”.

In 1990, in addition to the main novel, the story “The White Cloud of Genghis Khan” was published, which later became part of the main work. In the early 2000s, the novel began to be published again under the name “And the Day Lasts Longer than a Century.” And in 2013 it was included by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation in the list of “100 books for schoolchildren.”

Description of the work

The plot centers on a small railway siding located in the remote steppe of Central Asia. Local residents lead a calm, measured life here. The only connection with outside world- a siding where thundering trains rush by from time to time.

The work begins with a description of the move, where the reader meets the main character of the novel, Edigei, who is taking the body of his wise friend Kazangap to the ancient family cemetery in order to fulfill last will the deceased and pay tribute to the behests of their ancestors.

Arriving at the place, the hero discovers that on the site of the cemetery, on the ashes of many generations of the people of Edigei, a missile range has been built. Those who conceived and carried out its construction were far from respecting other people's graves and even more so traditions. Edigei is not allowed into the cosmodrome, which is surrounded by barbed wire. This is how the narrative of the novel begins, organically intertwined with ancient parables and legends.

Main characters

Edigey Buranny - main character novel. All his life he has worked at an abandoned railway station. Being a character who completely connects his life with the surrounding reality, he sees the common good as his destiny, his destiny. Therefore, I am completely ready to take responsibility not only for my actions, but also for everything that happens around me. With all his actions and desires, he strives to maintain harmony in the world and ensure that no one in the world feels bad.

Kazangap is a friend of Edigei. The main sage of the entire village, which is why he was known not only local residents, but also nearby villages.

Karanar is Edigei's camel, which he raised and which accompanies him throughout his journey. Together with Edigei, they unite their natural and tribal worldview, which is so closely intertwined with the mythology of Central Asia.

Analysis of the work

The novel amazingly combines the features of magical realism, deep storytelling and philosophical reflections that accompany the reader throughout the entire work.

The plot develops smoothly, so in total there are four main levels. The first introduces the reader to the main character of the novel, describes the funeral of Kazangap and the surrounding nature.

The second level, just in the style of magical realism, begins to develop in parallel with the first. Here Edigei first gets acquainted with a civilization alien to himself and arrives at the site of an ancient family cemetery, on which the Cosmodrome is now built.

At the third level, the reader gets acquainted with legends about mankurts, ancient parables and tales. A parallel is drawn between reality and mythology. The transition from tradition to modernity is shown through the construction of a cosmodrome in an ancient family cemetery.

The fourth level talks about future fate Edigei and the entire village upon returning to their native land. The main action here takes place in the post-war years.

Thus, in just a few stages, during which the reader gets acquainted with the mythology of Central Asia, Aitmatov illustrates the change in the moral mores of society and the decline of the people through the departure and abandonment of the traditional values ​​of their culture.

Trains in these parts ran from east to west and from west to east...

And on the sides of the railway in these parts lay great desert spaces - Sary-Ozeki, the Middle Lands of the Yellow Steppes. Edigei worked here as a switchman at the Boranly-Buranny junction. At midnight, his wife, Ukubala, sneaked into his booth to report the death of Kazangap.

Thirty years ago, at the end of forty-four, Edigei was demobilized after a shell shock. The doctor said: in a year you will be healthy. But for now he was physically unable to work. And then he and his wife decided to join the railway: maybe there would be a place for a front-line soldier as a security guard or watchman. We met Kazangap by chance, got into conversation, and he invited the young people to Buranny. Of course, the place is difficult - desolation and lack of water, sand all around. But anything is better than toiling without shelter.

When Edigei saw the crossing, his heart sank: there were several houses on the deserted plane, and then on all sides - the steppe... He did not know then that he would spend the rest of his life in this place. Thirty of them have been near Kazangap. Kazangap helped them a lot at first, gave them a camel for milking, and gave her a baby camel, which they named Karanar. Their children grew up together. They became like family.

And they will have to bury Kazangap. Edigei was walking home after his shift, thinking about the upcoming funeral, and suddenly he felt that the ground under his feet was shaking. And he saw how far in the steppe, where the Sarozek cosmodrome was located, a rocket rose like a fiery tornado. It was an emergency flight due to an emergency on a joint Soviet-American flight. space station"Parity". "Paritet" did not respond to signals from the joint control center - Obtsenupra - for over twelve hours. And then ships urgently took off from Sary-Ozek and from Nevada, sent to clarify the situation.

...Edigei insisted that the deceased be buried in the distant family cemetery of Ana-Beyit. The cemetery had its own history. The legend said that the Ruanzhuans, who captured Sary-Ozeki in past centuries, destroyed the memory of the captives with a terrible torture: putting a shiri - a piece of rawhide camel skin - on their heads. Drying under the sun, the shiri squeezed the slave’s head like a steel hoop, and the unfortunate man lost his mind and became a mankurt. Mankurt did not know who he was, where he was from, did not remember his father and mother - in a word, he did not recognize himself as a human being. He did not think about escaping, did the dirtiest, hardest work and, like a dog, recognized only his owner.

One woman named Naiman-Ana found her son turned into a mankurt. He tended his master's livestock. I didn’t recognize her, I didn’t remember my name, my father’s name... “Remember what your name is,” the mother begged. — Your name Zholaman."

While they were talking, the woman was noticed by the Ruanzhuans. She managed to hide, but they told the shepherd that this woman had come to steam his head (at these words the slave turned pale - for a mankurt there is no worse threat). They left the guy with a bow and arrows.

Naiman-Ana returned to her son with the idea of ​​convincing him to run away. Looking around, I searched...

The arrow hit was fatal. But when the mother began to fall from the camel, her white scarf fell first, turned into a bird and flew away shouting: “Remember, whose are you? Your father is Donenby! The place where Naiman-Ana was buried began to be called the Ana-Beyit cemetery - the Mother's rest...

Early in the morning everything was ready. Kazangap's body, tightly swaddled in a thick felt felt, was placed in a trailed tractor cart. There were thirty kilometers one way, the same amount back, and burial... Edigei rode ahead on Karanar, showing the way, a tractor with a trailer rolled behind him, and an excavator brought up the rear of the procession.

Various thoughts visited Edigei along the way. I remembered those days when he and Kazangap were in power. They did all the work that was needed while on the road. Now the young people are laughing: the old fools ruined their lives, for what? So it was for a reason.

...During this time, Paritet was examined by arriving cosmonauts. They discovered that the parity astronauts servicing the station had disappeared. Then they found an entry left by the owners in the logbook. Its essence boiled down to the fact that those working at the station had contact with representatives of an extraterrestrial civilization - the inhabitants of the planet Lesnaya Grud. The Lesnogrudians invited earthlings to visit their planet, and they agreed without informing anyone, including the flight directors, because they were afraid that for political reasons they would be prohibited from visiting.

And now they reported that they were on Lesnaya Gruda, talked about what they saw (the earthlings were especially shocked that there were no wars in the history of the owners), and most importantly -

oh, they conveyed the request of the Lesnogrudians to visit Earth. For this purpose, aliens, representatives of a technically much more advanced civilization than the earthly one, proposed creating an interstellar station. The world did not yet know about all this. Even the governments of the parties, informed about the disappearance of the astronauts, had no information about further developments of events. We were waiting for the commission's decision.

...And meanwhile Edigei was recalling an old story that Kazangap wisely and honestly judged. In 1951, a family arrived on the move - a husband, wife and two boys. Abutalip Kuttybaev was the same age as Edigei. They did not end up in the Sarozek wilderness because of a good life: Abutalip, having escaped from a German camp, ended up in the forty-third among the Yugoslav partisans. He returned home without losing his rights, but then relations with Yugoslavia deteriorated, and, having learned about his partisan past, he was asked to submit his resignation letter of his own free will. They asked in one place, in another... Having moved from place to place many times, Abutalip’s family ended up at the Boranly-Buranny junction. It seems that no one was forcibly imprisoned, but it seems that they were stuck in the Sarozeks for the rest of their lives. And this life was beyond their strength: the climate was difficult, the wilderness, the isolation. For some reason, Edigei felt sorry for Zarip most of all. But still, the Kuttybaev family was extremely friendly. Abutalip was a wonderful husband and father, and the children were passionately attached to their parents. They received help in their new place, and gradually they began to settle down. Abutalip now not only worked and took care of the house, not only fussed with the children, his and Edigei’s, but also began to read - after all, he was an educated man. He also began writing memories of Yugoslavia for children. This was known to everyone at the crossing.

By the end of the year, the auditor arrived, as usual. In between, he also asked about Abutalip. And some time after his departure, on January 5, 1953, a passenger train stopped at Buranny, which did not have a stop here, three people got out of it and arrested Abutalip. In late February it became known that the suspect Kuttybaev had died.

The sons waited for their father's return every day. And Edigei constantly thought about Zaripa with an inner readiness to help her in everything. It was painful to pretend that he didn’t feel anything special for her! One day he nevertheless told her: “Why are you being so tormented?.. After all, we are all with you (he wanted to say - me).”

Here, with the onset of cold weather, Karanar became enraged again - he began to rut. Edigei had to go to work in the morning, and therefore he released Atan. The next day, news began to arrive: in one place, Karanar killed two male camels and separated four queens from the herd; in another, he drove the owner who was riding off a she-camel. Then from the Ak-Moinak crossing they asked in a letter to take the atan, otherwise they would shoot him. And when Edigei returned home riding Karanar, he learned that Zaripa and the children had left for good. He brutally beat Karanar, had a fight with Kazangap, and then Kazangap advised him to bow at the feet of Ukubala and Zaripa, who saved him from harm and preserved him and his dignity.

This is the kind of person Kazangap was, whom they were now going to bury. We were driving and suddenly came across an unexpected obstacle - a barbed wire fence. The guard soldier told them that he had no right to let them in without a pass. The chief of the guard confirmed the same and added that in general the Ana-Beyit cemetery is subject to liquidation, and in its place there will be a new microdistrict. Persuasion did not lead to anything.

Kandagapa was buried not far from the cemetery, in the place where Naiman-Ana had her great cry.

...The commission that discussed the Lesnaya Breast proposal, meanwhile, decided: not to allow the return of former parity cosmonauts; refuse to establish contacts with the Forest Breast and isolate the near-Earth space from a possible alien invasion with a hoop of rockets.

Edigei ordered the funeral participants to go to the patrol, and he decided to return to the guardhouse and get the big bosses to listen to him. He wanted these people to understand: you cannot destroy the cemetery where your ancestors lie. When there was very little left to the barrier, a bright flash of a menacing flame shot up into the sky nearby. Then the first combat robotic missile took off, designed to destroy any objects that came close to to the globe. The second one rushed up behind it, and another, and another... The rockets went into deep space to create a hoop around the Earth.

The sky fell on his head, opening up in clouds of boiling flame and smoke... Edigei and the camel and dog accompanying him, distraught, ran away. The next day, Buranny Edigei went to the cosmodrome again.

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Chingiz Aitmatov

“And the day lasts longer than a century”

Trains in these parts ran from east to west and from west to east...

And on the sides of the railway in these parts lay great desert spaces - Sary-Ozeki, the Middle Lands of the Yellow Steppes. Edigei worked here as a switchman at the Boranly-Buranny junction. At midnight, his wife, Ukubala, sneaked into his booth to report the death of Kazangap.

Thirty years ago, at the end of 1944, Edigei was demobilized after a shell shock. The doctor said: in a year you will be healthy. But for now he was physically unable to work. And then he and his wife decided to go to work on the railway: maybe there would be a place for a front-line soldier as a security guard or watchman. We met Kazangap by chance, got into conversation, and he invited the young people to Buranny. Of course, the place is difficult - desolation and lack of water, sand all around. But anything is better than toiling without shelter.

When Edigei saw the crossing, his heart sank: there were several houses on the deserted plane, and then on all sides - the steppe... He did not know then that he would spend the rest of his life in this place. Thirty of them have been near Kazangap. Kazangap helped them a lot at first, gave them a camel for milking, and gave her a baby camel, which they named Karanar. Their children grew up together. They became like family.

And they will have to bury Kazangap. Edigei was walking home after his shift, thinking about the upcoming funeral, and suddenly felt the ground shaking under his feet. And he saw how far in the steppe, where the Sarozek cosmodrome was located, a rocket rose like a fiery tornado. It was an emergency flight due to an emergency on the joint Soviet-American space station Paritet. "Paritet" did not respond to signals from the joint control center - Obtsenupra - for over twelve hours. And then ships urgently took off from Sary-Ozek and from Nevada, sent to clarify the situation.

...Edigei insisted that the deceased be buried in the distant family cemetery of Ana-Beyit. The cemetery had its own history. The legend said that the Ruanzhuans, who captured Sary-Ozeki in past centuries, destroyed the memory of the captives with a terrible torture: putting a shiri - a piece of rawhide camel skin - on their heads. Drying under the sun, the shiri squeezed the slave’s head like a steel hoop, and the unfortunate man lost his mind and became a mankurt. Mankurt did not know who he was, where he was from, did not remember his father and mother - in a word, he did not recognize himself as a human being. He did not think about escaping, did the dirtiest, hardest work and, like a dog, recognized only his owner.

One woman named Naiman-Ana found her son turned into a mankurt. He tended his master's livestock. I didn’t recognize her, I didn’t remember my name, my father’s name... “Remember what your name is,” the mother begged. “Your name is Zholaman.”

While they were talking, the woman was noticed by the Ruanzhuans. She managed to hide, but they told the shepherd that this woman had come to steam his head (at these words the slave turned pale - for a mankurt there is no worse threat). They left the guy with a bow and arrows.

Naiman-Ana returned to her son with the idea of ​​convincing him to run away. Looking around, I searched...

The arrow hit was fatal. But when the mother began to fall from the camel, her white scarf fell first, turned into a bird and flew away shouting: “Remember, whose are you? Your father is Donenby! The place where Naiman-Ana was buried began to be called the Ana-Beyit cemetery - the Mother's rest...

Early in the morning everything was ready. Kazangap’s body, tightly swaddled in a thick felt felt, was placed in a trailed tractor cart. There were thirty kilometers one way, the same amount back, and burial... Edigei rode ahead on Karanar, showing the way, a tractor with a trailer rolled behind him, and an excavator brought up the rear of the procession.

Various thoughts visited Edigei along the way. I remembered those days when he and Kazangap were in power. They did all the work that was needed while on the road. Now the young people are laughing: the old fools ruined their lives, for what? So it was for a reason.

...During this time, Paritet was examined by arriving cosmonauts. They discovered that the parity astronauts servicing the station had disappeared. Then they found an entry left by the owners in the logbook. Its essence boiled down to the fact that those working at the station had contact with representatives of an extraterrestrial civilization - the inhabitants of the planet Lesnaya Grud. The Lesnogrudians invited earthlings to visit their planet, and they agreed without informing anyone, including the flight directors, because they were afraid that for political reasons they would be prohibited from visiting.

And now they reported that they were on Lesnogrudka, talked about what they saw (the earthlings were especially shocked that there were no wars in the history of the owners), and most importantly, they conveyed the request of the Lesnogrudians to visit Earth. For this purpose, aliens, representatives of a technically much more advanced civilization than the earthly one, proposed creating an interstellar station. The world did not yet know about all this. Even the governments of the parties, informed about the disappearance of the astronauts, had no information about further developments of events. We were waiting for the commission's decision.

...And meanwhile Edigei was recalling an old story that Kazangap wisely and honestly judged. In 1951, a family arrived on the move - a husband, wife and two boys. Abutalip Kuttybaev was the same age as Edigei. They did not end up in the Sarozek wilderness because of a good life: Abutalip, having escaped from a German camp, ended up in the forty-third among the Yugoslav partisans. He returned home without losing his rights, but then relations with Yugoslavia deteriorated, and, having learned about his partisan past, he was asked to submit his resignation letter of his own free will. They asked in one place, in another... Having moved from place to place many times, Abutalip’s family ended up at the Boranly-Buranny junction. It looks like no one was forcibly imprisoned, but it looks like they were stuck in saroseks for life. And this life was beyond their strength: the climate was difficult, the wilderness, the isolation. For some reason, Edigei felt sorry for Zarip most of all. But still, the Kuttybaev family was extremely friendly. Abutalip was a wonderful husband and father, and the children were passionately attached to their parents. They received help in their new place, and gradually they began to settle down. Abutalip now not only worked and took care of the house, not only fussed with the children, his and Edigei’s, but also began to read - after all, he was an educated man. He also began writing memories of Yugoslavia for children. This was known to everyone at the crossing.

By the end of the year, the auditor arrived, as usual. In between, he also asked about Abutalip. And some time after his departure, on January 5, 1953, a passenger train stopped at Buranny, which did not have a stop here, three people got out of it and arrested Abutalip. In late February it became known that the suspect Kuttybaev had died.

The sons waited for their father's return every day. And Edigei constantly thought about Zaripa with an inner readiness to help her in everything. It was painful to pretend that he didn’t feel anything special for her! One day he nevertheless told her: “Why are you being so tormented?.. After all, we are all with you (he wanted to say - me).”

Here, with the onset of cold weather, Karanar became enraged again - he began to rut. Edigei had to go to work in the morning, and therefore he released Atan. The next day, news began to arrive: in one place, Karanar killed two male camels and separated four queens from the herd; in another, he drove the owner who was riding off a she-camel. Then from the Ak-Moinak crossing they asked in a letter to take the atan, otherwise they would shoot him. And when Edigei returned home riding Karanar, he learned that Zaripa and the children had left for good. He brutally beat Karanar, had a fight with Kazangap, and then Kazangap advised him to bow at the feet of Ukubala and Zaripa, who saved him from harm and preserved him and their dignity.

This is the kind of person Kazangap was, whom they were now going to bury. We were driving and suddenly came across an unexpected obstacle - a barbed wire fence. The guard soldier told them that he had no right to let them in without a pass. The chief of the guard confirmed the same and added that in general the Ana-Beyit cemetery is subject to liquidation, and in its place there will be a new microdistrict. Persuasion did not lead to anything.

Kazangap was buried not far from the cemetery, in the place where Naiman-Ana had her great cry.

...The commission that discussed the Lesnaya Breast proposal, meanwhile, decided: not to allow the return of former parity cosmonauts; refuse to establish contacts with the Forest Breast and isolate the near-Earth space from a possible alien invasion with a hoop of rockets.

Edigei ordered the funeral participants to go to the patrol, and he decided to return to the guardhouse and get the big bosses to listen to him. He wanted these people to understand: you cannot destroy the cemetery where your ancestors lie. When there was very little left to the barrier, a bright flash of a menacing flame shot up into the sky nearby. Then the first combat robotic missile took off, designed to destroy any objects that approached the globe. The second one rushed up behind it, and another, and another... The rockets went into deep space to create a hoop around the Earth.

The sky fell on his head, opening up in clouds of boiling flame and smoke... Edigei and the camel and dog accompanying him, distraught, ran away. The next day, Buranny Edigei went to the cosmodrome again.

The plot takes place in Sary-Ozek at a deserted junction of the Boranly-Buranny trains. Around the railway there are solid yellow steppes and only a few houses and a spaceport. Edigei and his wife Ukubala lived in one, and his friend and very old acquaintance Kazangap and his family lived in the other. Edigei was a former military man, demobilized due to shell shock, and worked as a switchman at a crossing point.

One day his wife came to his booth and said that Kazangap had died. Edigei insisted on burial in Ana-Beyit - the family cemetery. Early in the morning, driving to the cemetery, Edigei recalled how he and Kazangap worked at the crossing. How the Paritet was examined at that time, how the cosmonauts disappeared, and how an inscription appeared in the logbook about contact with extraterrestrial civilization from the planet Lesnaya Grud. Without government permission, earthlings visited the alien planet and offered to visit Earth. The idea of ​​creating an interstellar station arose. We were waiting for the government's decision.

The commission took up the matter. After much deliberation, a decision was made that included a ban on the return of astronauts to Earth from the planet Forest Breast, and to prevent any future visit to Earth by aliens using a hoop of rockets.

After his friend’s funeral, Edigei asked all participants in the ceremony to return to the patrol, and he himself headed to his guardhouse to contact his superiors. He really wanted people to hear him and understand that they couldn’t demolish the cemetery, because their ancestors found peace there. But before he could get there, Edigei was stopped by a loud whistle, noise, and a lot of dust from the flames. The rocket launched, followed by the next, and the next, and another, another. These were robotic rockets launched by the government. They had only one goal - to protect the Earth from alien invasion by creating a protective hoop around the planet. Forgetting what he wanted and confused, Edigei ran headlong and without looking back, away.

Ch. Aitmatov - novel “Stormy Stop”. In this novel, Ch. Aitmatov raises the problem of historical memory, a person’s respect for his own roots, family, clan, and traditions. At the center of the story - dramatic fate a simple Kazakh railway worker Edigei Zhangeldin, nicknamed Buranny. The plot is the funeral of his only, dear friend Kazangap. However, the time frame of the novel is not limited to the present. We also see the hero’s past, the war and the difficult post-war period. Edigei had to endure a lot: he fought, and at the end of forty-four he was demobilized after a shell shock. Returning home, he learned of the death of his only child. And soon he met Kazangap, and he called him and his wife to the Buranny stop. I spent my whole life there. They experienced a lot together, Edigei and Kazangap, their children grew up together, there were both bitter and joyful moments. Kazangap gave Edigei a baby camel - Karanara. At the Buranny stop, Edigei met the teacher Abutalip Kuttybaev, whose whole meaning of life was in children, both his own and others. The teacher, who was captured during the war and fought in Yugoslavia, was taken away by the authorities as an unreliable person.

And Edigei experiences with bitterness this willfulness and lawlessness of the authorities, who want to depersonalize a person, deprive him of memory, thoughts about the past, the ability to think and reason. Here, for the first time, Aitmatov sounds the motif of the mankurt, a man without a past or future. So, in the description of the life of this Buranny stop-station, the whole fate of the country appears before us - the Patriotic War, post-war repressions, hard work, the construction of a nuclear test site.

The heroes Aitmatova, Edigey, Kazangap, teacher Abutalip Kuttybaev are real workers who embody the moral principle in life. They are opposed by Sabitzhan, the son of the late Kazangap, a man concerned only with his own career and well-being. He is trying to bury his father anywhere, “he’s a sweet, all-knowing son, he didn’t come to bury his father, but just to get rid of it, bury it somehow and leave quickly.” Sabitzhan arrived empty-handed, without a family; his father’s funeral is not a grief for him, but an empty formality, which he wants to get over quickly. Edigei is bitter and ashamed for the son of his own friend. “What kind of people went, what kind of people! - Edigei was indignant in his soul. “Everything in the world is important to them, except death!” And this haunted him: “If death is nothing for them, then it turns out that life has no value. What is the meaning, why and how do they live there?

In the same way, Edigei becomes disgusted when he talks with a visitor “in chrome boots” who found counter-revolutionary agitation in the notes of teacher Kuttybaev.

The mankurt motif continues to develop in the novel and in the theme of scientific and technological progress. Thus, Sabitzhan dreams of a time when people can be controlled using radio: “A person will do everything according to a program from the center. It seems to him that he lives and acts on his own, according to his own free will, but in fact, according to instructions from above. And everything according to a strict schedule. You need to sing - signal - you will sing. If you want to dance, the signal is that you will dance.

We need you to work, and you will work, and how!” But, according to the writer, the deprivation of a person’s individuality, his depersonalization is the result of violence against a person. “Remember your name” - this is the author’s thought that runs through the entire work. And the culmination of the development of this theme in the novel is the ancient legend about the Mankurts.

Let's remember the plot of the legend. The Ruanzhuans, who captured Sary-Ozeki in past times, turned their captives into mankurts by putting a shiri - a piece of rawhide camel skin - on their heads. Drying in the sun, the camel skin squeezed the slave's head, and the man lost his mind and became a mankurt. “Mankurt did not know who he was, where he came from, his tribe, he did not know his name, did not remember his childhood, his father and mother - in a word, Mankurt did not recognize himself as a human being. Deprived of an understanding of his own “I,” from an economic point of view, mankurt had a number of advantages. He was equivalent to a dumb creature and therefore absolutely submissive and safe. He never thought about running away. For any slave owner, the worst thing is a slave uprising. Every slave is potentially a rebel. Mankurt was the only exception of his kind - the impulses for rebellion and disobedience were completely alien to him. He did not know such passions. And therefore there was no need to guard him, keep guard, and especially suspect him of secret plans. Mankurt, like a dog, recognized only his masters.”

One Naiman-Ana woman decided to find the son of Zholaman, who disappeared during the battle with the Ruanzhuans. And she found him - he became a mankurt, grazing his master’s cattle. She tried to restore his memory, told him his name, talked about herself and her father, sang lullabies, but the Ruanzhuans noticed her and gave her son a bow and arrows so that he could deal with his mother. Mankurt was told that this woman wanted to harm him by steaming his head. And Zholaman killed his mother with a bow shot.

By creating the image of a mankurt, the writer sets one of the most important themes in the novel. Mankurt is a person who does not remember his past, is not aware of his connection with people, and is not responsible for anything. A person who has lost his memory, deprived of spiritual connections with the world, according to the writer, cannot be called a person. The loss of spiritual ties with the past, with one’s land, with the traditions of ancestors - all this leads to the destruction of personality.

And the writer projects ancient legend to modernity. So, Kazangap cannot be buried in the ancient Ana-Beyit cemetery. They plan to demolish the churchyard because a new microdistrict will be built on this site. The funeral procession is simply not allowed into the old cemetery. Edigey cannot understand this, he is trying to save Ana-Beyit. He wants to go to the region and talk to the authorities. He asks Sabitzhan for help, but he refuses him, fearing for his own career. And the hero calls Sabitzhan a mankurt. During the funeral, Edigei reads a prayer and thinks bitterly about the youth, about how they will live without these prayers. The hero understands that there are moments in life when only prayer gives a person peace of mind, but the younger generation is deprived of all this...

The novel's narrative structure is varied. Aitmatov includes various legends (the legend of the mankurts, the legend of the singer Raimaly-aga), myths (the myth of Genghis Khan, the myth of the Donenbai bird). The real plan of the narrative alternates with the fantastic: everything that happens on earth is monitored by representatives of the planet Lesnaya Grud, cosmic forces do not remain indifferent to the good and evil deeds of people. Aitmatov tells us about a civilization that is superior to earthlings in its intelligence (there have never been wars on the planet). Residents of Lesnaya Gruda want to make friends with earthlings, they invited our cosmonauts to visit, but even here special instructions from the authorities followed. With bitter irony, even a bit of sarcasm, Ch. Aitmatov writes about this: “...The commission that discussed the Forest Breast proposal, meanwhile, decided: not to allow the return of former parity cosmonauts; refuse to establish contacts with the Forest Breast and isolate the near-Earth space from a possible alien invasion with a hoop of rockets.”

Trains in these parts ran from east to west and from west to east...

And on the sides of the railway in these parts lay great desert spaces - Sary-Ozeki, the Middle Lands of the Yellow Steppes. Edigei worked here as a switchman at the Boranly-Buranny junction. At midnight, his wife, Ukubala, sneaked into his booth to report the death of Kazan-gap.

Thirty years ago, at the end of forty-four, Edigei was demo-bilized after a shell shock. The doctor said: in a year you will be healthy. But for now he was physically unable to work. And then he and his wife decided to go to work on the railway: maybe there would be a place for a front-line guard or watchman. We met Kazan-gap by chance, got into a conversation, and he invited the young people to Buranny. Of course, the place is difficult - desolation and lack of water, sand all around. But anything is better than toiling around without shelter.

When Edigei saw the crossing, his heart sank: there were several houses on a deserted plane, and then on all sides - the steppe... He did not know then that he would spend the rest of his life in this place. Thirty years of this was near Kazan-gap. Kazangap helped them a lot at first, gave them a female camel for milking, and gave a female camel from her, who was named Kara-nar. Their children grew up together. They became like family.

And they will have to bury Kazan-gap. Edigei was walking home after his shift, thinking about the upcoming funeral and suddenly felt that the ground under his feet was shaking and he saw how far in the steppe, where Saro was located -zek spaceport, a rocket rose like a fiery tornado. It was an emergency flight in connection with an emergency at the joint Soviet-American space station Paritet. “Parity” did not respond to signals from the joint control center - Obtse-nupra - for over twelve to twelve hours. And then the ships from Sary-Ozek and Nevada, sent to clarify the situation, urgently started.

Edigei insisted that the deceased be buried in the distant family cemetery of Ana-Beyit. The cemetery had its own history. The legend said that the Zhuan-Zhuans, who captured Sary-Ozeki in past centuries, destroyed the memory of the captives with a terrible torture: putting a shiri on the head - a piece of raw-mint camel skin. Drying under the sun, the width squeezed the slave's head like a steel hoop, and the unfortunate man lost his mind and became a mankurt. Mankurt did not know who he was, where he was from, did not remember his father and mother - in a word, he did not recognize himself as a person. He did not think about escaping, did the dirtiest, hardest work and, like a dog, recognized only his owner.

One woman named Naiman-Ana found her son turned into a mankurt. He tended the owner's livestock. I didn’t recognize her, I didn’t remember my name, my father’s name... “Remember what your name is,” the mother begged. “Your name is Zholaman.”

While they were talking, the woman was noticed by the Zhuan-Zhuans. She managed to hide, but they told the shepherd that this woman had come to steam his head (at these words the slave turned pale - for a mankurt there is no worse threat). The guy was left with a bow and arrows.

Naiman-Ana returned to her son with the idea of ​​convincing him to run away. Looking around, I searched...

The arrow hit was fatal. But when the mother began to fall from the camel, her white scarf fell first, turned into a bird and flew away shouting: “Remember, whose are you? Your father is Donenby! The place where Naiman-Ana was buried began to be called the Ana-Beyit cemetery - the Mother's rest...

Early in the morning everything was ready. Kazan-gap’s body, tightly wrapped in thick felt, was placed in a trailed tractor cart. There were thirty kilometers one way, the same amount back, and a stopover... Edigei rode ahead on Kara-nar, showing the way, a tractor with a trailer rolled behind him, and an excavator brought up the rear of the procession .

Various thoughts visited Edigei along the way. I remembered those days when he and Kazan-gap were in power. They did all the work that was necessary at the crossing. Now the young people are laughing: the old fools ruined their lives, for what? So it was for a reason.

During this time, the Par-Theta was examined by arriving cosmonauts. They discovered that the parity-cosmonauts serving the station had disappeared. Then they discovered the entry left by the owner in the logbook. Its essence boiled down to the fact that those working at the station had contact with representatives of extraterrestrial civilization - the inhabitants of the planet Lesnaya Grud. The Lesno-grudians invited earthlings to visit their planet, and they agreed without informing anyone, including the flight directors, because they were afraid that the political For some reason they will be prohibited from visiting.

And now they reported that they were on Lesnaya Grudya, talked about what they saw (the earthlings were especially shocked that there were no wars in the history of the owners), and most importantly, they conveyed the request of the Lesnaya Gruda residents to the village -thick the Earth. For this purpose, the aliens, representatives of a technologically much more advanced civilization than the earthly one, proposed to create an interstellar station. The world did not yet know about all this. Even the governments of the parties, informed about the disappearance of the cosmonauts, had no information about the further development of events. We were waiting for the commission's decision.

Meanwhile, Edigei was remembering an old story that Kazangap wisely and honestly judged. In 1951, a family arrived on the move - a husband, wife and two boys. Abutalip Kutty-baev was the same age as Edigei. They did not end up in the Saro-Zek wilderness because of a good life: Abutalip, having escaped from a German camp, ended up in the forty-third among the Yugoslav partisans. He returned home without losing his rights, but then relations with Yugoslavia deteriorated, and, having learned about his partisan past, he was asked to submit an application for dismissal under own desire. They asked in one place, in another... Having moved from place to place many times, the Abuta-lipa family found themselves at the Boranly-Buranny junction. It seems that no one was forcibly imprisoned, but it seems that they were stuck for the rest of their lives in the Saro-zeks. And this life was beyond their strength: the climate is difficult, the deafness, the isolation. For some reason, Edigei felt sorry for Zarip most of all. But still, the Kutta-baev family was extremely friendly. Abutalip was a wonderful husband and father, and the children were passionately attached to their parents. They received help in their new place, and gradually they began to settle down. Abutalip now not only worked and took care of the house, not only fussed with the children, his and Edigei’s, but also began to read - after all, he was an educated person. He also began writing memoirs about Yugoslavia for children. This was known to everyone on the road.

By the end of the year, the auditor arrived, as usual. In between, he also asked about Abuta-lipa. And some time after his departure, on January 5, 1953, a passenger train stopped at Buranny, which had no stop here, three people got off and arrested Abuta-lipa . In late February it became known that the person under investigation, Kutty-baev, had died.

The sons waited for their father's return every day. And Edigei constantly thought about Zaripa with an inner readiness to help her in everything. It was painful to pretend that he didn’t feel anything special for her! One day he nevertheless told her: “Why are you being so bothered?.. After all, we are all with you (he wanted to say - me).”

Here, with the onset of cold weather, Karanar became enraged again - he began to rut. Edigei had to go to work in the morning, and therefore he released Atan. The next day, news began to arrive: in one place, Karanar killed two male camels and took four queens from the herd; in another, he drove the owner, who was riding on horseback, off the camel. Then, from the Ak-Moinak junction, they asked in a letter to take away the atan, otherwise they would shoot him. And when Edigei returned home riding Kara-Nara, he found out that Zaripa and the children had all left. He brutally beat Kara-nar, had a fight with Kazangap, and then Kazangap advised him to bow at the feet of Ukubala and Zaripa, who saved him from harm, preserved him and their dignity .

This is the kind of person Kazangap was, whom they were now going to bury. We were driving and suddenly came across an unexpected obstacle - a fence made of barbed wire. The guard soldier told them that he had no right to enter without a pass. The chief of the guard confirmed the same and added that in general the Ana-Beyit cemetery is subject to liquidation, and in its place there will be a new micro-district. Persuasion did not lead to anything.

Kazan-gapa was buried not far from the cemetery, in the place where Naiman-Ana had her great cry.

The commission that discussed Lesnaya Grudya’s proposal, meanwhile, decided: not to allow the return of former parity cosmonauts; refuse to establish contacts with the Forest Breast and isolate the near-Earth space from a possible alien invasion with a hoop of rockets.

Edigei ordered the funeral participants to go to the patrol, and he decided to return to the guardhouse and get the big authorities to listen to him. He wanted these people to understand: you cannot destroy the cemetery where your ancestors lie. When there was very little left to the barrier, a bright flash of a menacing flame shot up into the sky nearby. Then the first combat robotic missile took off, designed to destroy any objects approaching the globe. After her, the second one rushed up, and another, and another... The rockets went into deep space to create a hoop around the Earth.

The sky collapsed on his head, opening up in clouds of boiling flame and smoke... Edigei and the camel and dog that accompanied him, distraught, ran away. The next day, Buranny Edigei again went to the cosmodrome.