Sero Khanzadyan
Sero Nikolayi Khanzadyan (, , 1915 – June 26, 1998) was an Armenian writer and novelist. Childhood. Sero Khanzadyan was born in 1915 to a peasant family in the town of Goris, located in Zangezur (modern-day Syunik Province of Armenia). As a child, Khanzadyan's parents once told him "You will learn the value of the land once you grow up." Many times he had noticed how people, returning from work in the field, would return with mounds of soil on their clothes and shake them off on a naked rock in front of their houses. "The land is the  dearest thing that we have. Without the land there is no nation" – would be the words said by the characters of his novels. Life and works. Upon his graduation from the local pedagogical college, Khanzadyan worked as a schoolteacher. At the age of 18, he voluntarily joined the Red Army and participated in World War II, serving on the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts. He rose to the rank of captain in a mortar company in the 261st Rifle Regiment. Drawing from his personal combat experience, he wrote the novel "The Men of Our Regiment: Three Years, 291 Days" ("Mer gndi  mardik. Erek tari 291 or"). Completed in 1972, it became one of the most prominent works in the Soviet military fiction literature at the time. In 1950 he published his first novel, dedicated to the defense of Leningrad. One of the main ideas Khanzadyan promoted in his work was that the Armenians should fight shoulder to shoulder with the Russians, Ukrainians and other nationalities to protect their motherland. His two-volume novel "The Soil", published in 1954–55, tells the story of villagers in the post-war period. Khanzadyan often drew attention to the centuries-long relationship between Armenians and Russians  in his works. Later on he would use this idea in his historical novel "Mkhitar Sparapet" (1961) and other works. In an interview, Khanzadyan stated that the idea of writing the story of Mkhitar Sparapet and David Bek, two early 18th-century Armenian rebel commanders, while he had still been away at war. In "Mkhitar Sparapet", as elsewhere, the idea of the strong friendship between the Armenian and Russian people is placed at the center of the story. The work "Horovel" is a hymn to the strong will of a peasant, stubbornly following the path of plough despite the pain  and thirst. Besides the war, Sero Khanzadyan also wrote about the Armenian genocide, including his novel, "Six Nights". Khanzadyan also wrote about the life of the eighteenth-century Karabakh Armenian jester and folk collector Pele Pughi. In 1977, Khanzadyan wrote an open letter to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev calling for Nagorno-Karabakh's annexation to Soviet Armenia. Khanzadyan died in 1998. He is buried at the Komitas Pantheon in Yerevan. Legacy. Sero Khanzadyan left a great legacy in the field of Armenian literature, which was inspired by Soviet notions and ideas of internationalism, strong ties with the folk culture and  tradition. In his works he defends the ideals of humanism and love for one's homeland. In his latest years of his life, during an interview given to the Public TV of Armenia, he strongly criticized Bolshevik nationalities policy in the early 1920s and the decision to attach the regions of Nagorno-Karabagh and Nakhchivan to Soviet Azerbaijan.