Have the Mountains Fallen?: Two Journeys of Loss and Redemption in the Cold War

“A thought-provoking book about the long journey of the Kyrgyz people to independence” that melds the stories of Chingiz Aitmatov and Azamat Altay (Roza Otunbayeva, former president of the Kyrgyz Republic).

After surviving the blitzkrieg of World War II and escaping from three Nazi prison camps, Soviet soldier Azamat Altay fled to the West and was charged as a traitor in his homeland of Kyrgyzstan in Soviet Central Asia. Chingiz Aitmatov became a hero of Kyrgyzstan, propelled by family loss to write novels about the everyday lives of his fellow citizens. While both came from small villages in the beautiful mountainous countryside, they found themselves caught on opposite sides of the Cold War struggle between world superpowers. Altay became the voice of democracy on Radio Liberty, broadcasting back into his shuttered homeland, while Aitmatov rose through the ranks of Soviet society, a quiet rebel whose prose masked ugly truths about Soviet communism. Yet just as they seemed to be pulled apart by the divisions of the Cold War, they found their lives intersecting in compelling ways, joined by a common mission to save their people.

“The stories of Chingiz Aitmatov and Azamat Altay are best told together, a herculean task which Jeffrey B. Lilley’s Have The Mountain's Fallen? Two Journeys of Loss and Redemption in the Cold War manages deftly . . . Their story―because it is, in essence, a single story―is that of Kyrgyzstan itself, replete with tragedy and sacrifice, hope and triumph.”—The Diplomat

“A Cold War story that gives hope.”—Richard G. Lugar, United States Senator (Ret.)

© 2018 Indiana University Press (Ebook): 9780253034465

Release date

Ebook: January 25, 2018