Sero Khanzadyan
Biography
Sero Khanzadyan, born November 20 (December 3) 1915 to the family
of a ploughman at the ‘Roof of Armenia,’ town of Goris,
located in the rough mountains of Zangezur, where every bit of fertile
ground is taken in a battle against solid rocks and burning sun.
Little Sero’s parents used to tell 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 keep
the pieces of ground stuck to their clothes and shake it 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.
Upon his graduation from pedagogical college the young man worked
as a schoolteacher. He started a diary, which later on led him to
the career in literature. Some of his first works were published
before the WWII. They were “brought up” and inspired
by the land of Zangezur and working days of its people. They were
also inspired by a dream of a brighter future. In “The Last
Tears” (1940) Meghrab has spent all his life to bring the
water up on a mountain to irrigate dry land. “I will not leave
my native land!” – is his immovable reply; and thanks
to the help of other people in the village the dream comes true.
This attachment to one’s land serves as a foundation upon
which the author has created all his work. A leitmotiv of it is
the old song of an Armenian ploughman – ‘Horovel.’
One can ‘hear’ it in “The Land,” historical
novel “Mkhitar Sparapet,” “Kadjaran,” and
other books by Khanzadyan. In “Thirsty – Give me Water,”
‘Horovel’ is a hymn to the strong will of a peasant,
stubbornly following the plough despite the pain and thirst.
In his work the writer with great respect and honor describes the
ancient customs of his people and thousands of years old constructions
– some of the most valued monuments of the past. However,
with all the respect to the past he does not idealize it. It is
not on the dead, but on a live, soil that his heroes want to live
and Meghrab’s dream comes true. Both ‘The Land’
and ‘Horovel’ are integral parts of life and development
for Khanzadyan.
At the age of 18 Sero Khanzadyan voluntarily joined the Red Army
and participated in the World War Two rising to the rank of the
Commander of a mortar company. His personal combat experience and
ability to derive general conclusions helped him to create “The
Battle Diary” (“Three Years: 291 Days”). The novel,
written in 1972, was one of the most prominent works in the Soviet
military fiction literature at the time. The kind-hearted characters
of Khanzadyan’s stories are relentless in their struggle against
an armed enemy, as they fight to protect their families, their land,
and their country. At the same time they do not confuse the German
nation to consist all of enemies, but distinguish among those carrying
out massacres and those of the deceived, desperate and suffering
mass of people. Reading the “Diary” one would feel that
the war was a personal war for the author. For him it was not just
a war for the Soviet Union, but also for the existence of the Armenian
nation.
“Unrealized death – is death, but the realized death
– is the eternity!” This ancient Armenian saying, runs
as the primary theme in Khanzadyan’s work, as his heroes,
Armenians, fight shoulder to shoulder to Russians, Ukrainians and
other nationalities to protect their motherland. He often recalls
the long history of strong Armenian and Russian relations that have
evolved over the centuries. Later on he would use this idea in his
“Mkhitar Sparapet” and other works. Khanzadyan in one
of his interviews mentioned that the work on a story about Mkhitar
Sparapet and David Bek, the great defenders of the Armenian nation
of the early 18th century, had begun while he was still at the war.
In “Sparapet,” as elsewhere, the idea of the strong
friendship between the Armenian and Russian people is in the center
of the story.
Besides the war, Sero Khanzadyan writes about, as has already been
mentioned, Armenian history and specifically one of its darkest
pages, the Armenian Genocide of 1915. One of his best novels “Six
nights” is about that. The philosophical idea of the story
is the precedence of the humanity over the evil, as the story’s
two main characters save a newborn baby, although at the cost of
the life of one of them. As he dies, Asour, the young man who has
saved the baby, says: “It’s not the child that must
no die, but the one who has caused the horrific massacres and antagonized
common, kind people against each other. The murder of the children
is the evil, despite of his nationality!”
Sero Khanzadyan has created a great legacy of literature work inspired
with ideas of internationalism, strong ties with the folk culture
and tradition. In his works he defends the ideals of humanism and
love to one’s motherland. His ideas of kindness and peace
are fully realized and therefore are in eternity.
by Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan
based upon J. Petrovsky and
introduction to S. Khanzadyan’s “Mkhitar Sparapet”
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