G. A. BALASHOVA

Candidate of Philological Sciences

Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Sciences

Keywords: Ethiopia, repression, emigration, Christianity, history

The book " View from afar. My New Discovery of Ethiopia", written in English by a young Ethiopian woman, Rebecca Haile, a representative of the Ethiopian-American diaspora, is complex in genre - it is a travel book, it has a historical plan, it can be attributed to memoir literature, and it reads like a fascinating novel.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, literature in Ethiopia was mainly religious in nature and was written in the Old Ethiopian language Geez. Over time, it becomes an Amharic language (Amharic is the national language of the country), and only in the 60s of the XX century. the first works in English appeared. This was facilitated by increased repression by the reactionary monarchist regime and stricter censorship.

The need to communicate with an international audience, especially after the liberation of most African countries from colonial dependence, also prompted Ethiopian writers to use English. However, the English-language direction does not become dominant in Ethiopian literature, the predominant use of the Amharic language remained.

After the anti-feudal revolution of 1974, Mengistu Haile Mariam came to power, and the repression of dissidents reached a critical level (almost 200,000 people were killed and jailed). Mass migration of Ethiopians abroad, mainly to the United States, began. By the 2000s, it had already formed, having accepted into its ranks the Ethiopian intelligentsia, including writers.

In an atmosphere free of censorship, frank and bold works were written about the terrible past of Ethiopia. So, the novels of Fasil Ietbaryk "The Texture of Dreams" (2005), Dinau Mengistu "Beautiful things that heaven gives" (2005) became famous. Women writers became famous - for example, Maaze Mengistu "Under the Gaze of a Lion" and Rebecca Haile "A View from afar. My New Discovery of Ethiopia " (Chicago, 2007).

Diaspora literature has become a phenomenon in the development of English-language prose in Ethiopia. Its main topics are political issues.-

* Violence in Ethiopia, corruption, social inequality, human rights abuses. Rebecca Haile's novel opens up a new Ethiopia.

Rebecca Haile was born in Ethiopia, to an intelligent family. Her father, Getachew Haile, originally from what was then the province of Shoah, managed to escape poverty by receiving a religious education and a scholarship to study abroad. He received a bachelor's degree from the Coptic Theological College and the American University in Egypt, and later completed his doctoral dissertation in Semitic philology at the University of Tubingen in Germany. After 11 years in Germany, he returned to Addis Ababa, where he soon became Head of the Department of Ethiopian Language and Literature at Haile Selassie I University in 1965. He was closely associated with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church1, becoming a trustee of the Patriarchate and a representative of the Ethiopian Church at ^the World Council of Churches. In addition, in 1974, he was elected to represent what was then the province of Shoah in the Ethiopian Parliament. However, his religious activities and speeches in support of bishops irritated the Derg (Temporary Military Administrative Council-the main authority in the country under Mengistu Haile Mariam).

One day, during a small feast that Rebecca's parents regularly hosted at their home, inviting guests, soldiers came to arrest Getachew. During the arrest, he was wounded. His religious and international connections helped - the story of his injury and arrest got into the international press, and he was released. Getacheu was only 42 years old when he was paralyzed after being shot, and has been permanently confined to a wheelchair ever since.

A month after this tragic incident, Rebecca's family left Ethiopia, first to England, and then to the United States. In the United States, Professor Getachew, with the help of friends, found a job cataloging ancient Ge'ez manuscripts at a small Catholic university in central Minnesota.

Things were going pretty well for Rebecca, who went to Williams College. She then graduated from Harvard Law School, after which she worked as a clerk for a federal judge, and then in large law firms in Washington and New York.

She married a half - Armenian, half-Greek Genie. Despite these changes in her life, she longed to see Ethiopia again. She had completely forgotten the Amharic language and was afraid that she would soon forget Ethiopia as well.

In May 2001, 25 years after leaving for the United States, she consulted her husband and bought tickets to Ethiopia, and they flew to Addis Ababa.

In Ethiopia, Rebecca had a grandmother, the head of a large family that included numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins. My grandmother was a long-time widow, with six children and 21 grandchildren, many of whom lived in the United States. Rebecca was very worried as she drove to her home on the main central street of Addis Ababa, Piazza, fearing that her grandmother was probably very old, because she was already about 90 years old. But her grandmother was almost exactly as she remembered her, and so was the rest of her house. My grandmother was a remarkably resilient woman, the backbone of her small religious community.

Rebekah didn't feel like an outcast among her guests and family who hadn't forgotten her. She notes that after a visit to her grandmother, the feeling of a lonely American woman is completely different.

When it left her, she realized that she had a wonderful grandmother, her own story, and a home of her own. And that home was Ethiopia!

Another very interesting character in the novel was her uncle, engineer Tadesse. He worked on irrigation systems in Ethiopia. His belief that they are the ones that the country needs most helped him survive the twists and turns associated with the Derg and the "red terror" of Mengistu Haile Mariama.

He wrote his suggestions "How to eliminate famine in Ethiopia" and sent them to the Ethiopian Association of Engineers. One of his declarations read: "If only (30 years ago) we had made our slogan -' water for the farmer '- instead of 'land for the farmer', we would not be starving today!" Rebecca was proud of his insight, courage, and bright personality, and gave his characterization a proper place in the book.

However, most of the novel is devoted to traveling through the legendary cultural and historical sites of Ethiopia-Lalibela, Gondar, Lake Tana and, of course, Aksum -the heart of Ethiopia. Rebecca, like her sister, did not have the opportunity to visit these places when she lived in Ethiopia, so in fact she saw them for the first time in her life. It describes 11 temples dug into the rocks underground, in Lalibela. She was particularly struck by Axum, which, as she believed, "was the most ancient of these places, which can hardly be attributed to any category. ...Aksum is home to an extraordinary mix of ancient ruins, historic churches and modern trends that create a complex picture of science and national identity! " ²

Rebecca discovered three symbols of Ethiopian identity - the ancient Empire, the Christian Kingdom, and the diversity of modern ethnic groups.

After Axum, Gondar and Lalibela, the couple went to Oz. Tana, where the sources of the Blue Nile originate. It is also a region known in Ethiopia as the most important center of Ethiopian Christianity, a place where monks, monarchs and ordinary people come to join the religion. On the islands of this lake since ancient times there were famous monasteries and churches. On one of the islands - St. Gabriel's-the monastery had a library of rare Ethiopian manuscripts brought from all over Ethiopia.³

The initiator of this collection was Emperor Iyasu II (1730-1755) ^.4 There were so many ancient manuscripts in this library that modern scholars still find a wide field for research.

Rebecca realized that Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and the Church are fundamental elements of Ethiopian history and culture. She also realized that she herself was too far removed from these spiritual values, having attended only two religious rituals. Parents didn't take their children to church, which was probably why Rebecca didn't understand the intricacies of religious culture.

For the first time, she thought seriously about herself: "Who am I? I don't believe in God, like almost all Ethiopians, and I don't even know how to kiss the cross properly. I am 36 years old, married, but have no children. I don't know the Amharic language."

However, despite all this, she felt a strong connection with her country, and she "experienced powerful moments of this connection, which was strengthened in her regardless of time, geographical and cultural distance." ⁵

To the author of this essay, it seems that this book is not about a new discovery of Ethiopia, which Rebecca at the age of ten almost did not know, but the discovery of

her homeland, to which the voice of blood had led her.

Rebecca Haile's novel stands in stark contrast to other books about Ethiopia written by Americans or Europeans, who usually associated Ethiopia with war, famine, devastation, and poverty.

Rebecca saw it differently. She admires Ethiopia's great cultural heritage, its valiant past, and she respects it and considers it part of the world's civilization. Her view of her native country is so unique that it allows her to be considered a talented master of English-language modern prose. Turning to the historical origins of her homeland, Rebecca seems to find herself.

¹ Christianity is the dominant religion in Ethiopia. It penetrated the ancient state of Aksum, which preceded modern Ethiopia, in the fourth century A.D. The Aksumites adopted Monophysite Christianity, which was widespread in Egypt at that time. The Monophysites affirm the one divine nature of Christ in opposition to the dogma of his two essences - divine and human. The last dogma was adopted by the Fourth Ecumenical Council, which in 451 condemned Monophysitism as heresy. Subsequently, the Christianity of Ethiopia became composed of two hypostases - Monophysitism and Orthodoxy, the so-called teu-hedo, which means "unification" and is, in fact, a theological formula that means a way to unite the Divine and the Human in Christ. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the only one that uses this theological formula in its self - designation. The self-name of the church is the Ethiopian (Monophysite) Orthodox (Orthodox) Teuhedo Church (author's note).

^{Rebecca Haile.} 2 Held at a distance: My rediscovery of Ethiopia. Chicago, 2007, p. 75.

^{Bartnitsky A., Mantel-Nechko I.} 3 History of Ethiopia (translated into Russian), Moscow, Progress, 1976, p. 220.

⁴ Ibid.

^{Rebecca Haile.} 5 Op. cit, p. 185.

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