Khozh-Akhmed Bersanov
Encyclopedia
Khozh-Akhmed Bersanov (born April 12, 1926 in Shami-Yurt, Chechnya
) is a famous Chechen
ethnographer and author
noted for his efforts to preserve Chechen culture throughout the 20th century.
Bersanov served as the head of the Chechen-Ingush
Ministry of Culture
for nearly forty years, and his prolific writings edified moral responsibility
and ethics
in Chechen culture.
However, Bersanov was unable to finish school as it had been closed during the war against Finland in 1939
, and all senior students were conscripted into the Red Army
while the others were forced to return home. He returned to work as a secretary
in his native village.
At the age of seventeen Khozh-Akhmed and his family were removed from Shami-Yurt to Kazakhstan
on February 23, 1944, as a result of the forced deportations of most Chechens to Central Asia
. The experience would profoundly affect his life and writing, as his time in the Kazakh
steppe
s led him to develop a more conscious appreciation for his Chechen homeland.
Bersanov returned with his family to Chechnya in 1957, acquiring his diploma
and working in various government jobs
, both in Chechnya and Kazakhstan. However, he realized that his passion was the development of Chechen
as a literary language, as many of the folk histories
and cultural traditions
had not been written down at the time, and they risked being lost to future generations after the deportation. He joined the faculty of the Chechen-Ingush Ministry of Culture in the mid-1960s, a time when increased cultural awareness had flourished throughout much of the North Caucasus
.
During this time, Bersanov wrote articles describing the Chechen people to newspapers internationally, as his writings were featured in Bulgaria
, Germany
, Poland
, and the United States
, as well as throughout the Soviet Union
. He also published the storybooks Lame Starling and Adventures of Hadji Murad in 1966, to popular reception from critics and the press, and gave him a certain degree of renown throughout the region. By the end of the decade, Khozh-Akhmed had become the head of the Chechen-Ingush Ministry of Culture, a position he would hold until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
.
Over the years, Bersanov published numerous books, many of which were tailored to a younger audience: In the Wake of the Father (1971) dealt with the experiences of Soviet World War II veterans, and the novels Spring (1979) and Golden Ring (1979) explored the lives of the veterans' sons. Horseman Steel Horse (1983) recounted the exploits of Chechen resistance during the Caucasian War
and the history of the Chechen people during peacetime. Friendship, Bonded by Blood (1986) told of the friendship between Chechen war veteran Magomed Gaysurkaeva and Russian Ivan Shumova, and probably his best-known book, Treasure of Wisdom, the Path to Happiness (1990), painted a reflective discourse on the Chechen code of honor
. The book's circulation soon exceeded five million, and drew glowing reviews from literary editors worldwide.
He once said, "Only books with a view to building and nurturing a whole human being will certainly benefit children. And not every book written on an excellent topic is in itself beautiful."
On April 12, 2006, Khozh-Akhmed Bersanov celebrated his eightieth birthday in the auditorium of the Chechen Ministry of Culture. Attending guests included writers, poets, journalists, leaders of the Chechen Republic Ministry of Culture, and former colleagues.
He is currently married to his wife of 56 years, with ten children, twenty-two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. His daughter Zalpa Bersanova
, also an ethnographer and author, was nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize
.
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...
) is a famous Chechen
Chechen people
Chechens constitute the largest native ethnic group originating in the North Caucasus region. They refer to themselves as Noxçi . Also known as Sadiks , Gargareans, Malkhs...
ethnographer and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
noted for his efforts to preserve Chechen culture throughout the 20th century.
Bersanov served as the head of the Chechen-Ingush
Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
The Chechen–Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, or Chechen–Ingush ASSR ;) was an autonomous republic within the Russian SFSR...
Ministry of Culture
Minister of culture
A culture minister is a Cabinet position in some governments responsible for protecting the national heritage of a country and promoting cultural expression....
for nearly forty years, and his prolific writings edified moral responsibility
Moral responsibility
Moral responsibility usually refers to the idea that a person has moral obligations in certain situations. Disobeying moral obligations, then, becomes grounds for justified punishment. Deciding what justifies punishment, if anything, is a principle concern of ethics.People who have moral...
and ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
in Chechen culture.
Biography
Khozh-Akhmed Bersanov was born in the village of Shami-Yurt to Chechen parents. His father died at the age of five, leaving his mother to struggle to raise her four children. Nevertheless, Bersanov was regarded as intellectual youth among his community—he had advanced two grades within one academic year at the boarding school in the nearby village of Sernovodsk—and was often seen as wise and helpful.However, Bersanov was unable to finish school as it had been closed during the war against Finland in 1939
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
, and all senior students were conscripted into the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
while the others were forced to return home. He returned to work as a secretary
Secretary
A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
in his native village.
At the age of seventeen Khozh-Akhmed and his family were removed from Shami-Yurt to Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
on February 23, 1944, as a result of the forced deportations of most Chechens to Central Asia
Population transfer in the Soviet Union
Population transfer in the Soviet Union may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population, often classified as "enemies of workers," deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite...
. The experience would profoundly affect his life and writing, as his time in the Kazakh
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
s led him to develop a more conscious appreciation for his Chechen homeland.
Bersanov returned with his family to Chechnya in 1957, acquiring his diploma
Diploma
A diploma is a certificate or deed issued by an educational institution, such as a university, that testifies that the recipient has successfully completed a particular course of study or confers an academic degree. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the word diploma refers to...
and working in various government jobs
Public sector
The public sector, sometimes referred to as the state sector, is a part of the state that deals with either the production, delivery and allocation of goods and services by and for the government or its citizens, whether national, regional or local/municipal.Examples of public sector activity range...
, both in Chechnya and Kazakhstan. However, he realized that his passion was the development of Chechen
Chechen language
The Chechen language is spoken by more than 1.5 million people, mostly in Chechnya and by Chechen people elsewhere. It is a member of the Northeast Caucasian languages.-Classification:...
as a literary language, as many of the folk histories
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
and cultural traditions
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
had not been written down at the time, and they risked being lost to future generations after the deportation. He joined the faculty of the Chechen-Ingush Ministry of Culture in the mid-1960s, a time when increased cultural awareness had flourished throughout much of the North Caucasus
North Caucasus
The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....
.
During this time, Bersanov wrote articles describing the Chechen people to newspapers internationally, as his writings were featured in Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, as well as throughout the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. He also published the storybooks Lame Starling and Adventures of Hadji Murad in 1966, to popular reception from critics and the press, and gave him a certain degree of renown throughout the region. By the end of the decade, Khozh-Akhmed had become the head of the Chechen-Ingush Ministry of Culture, a position he would hold until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)
The history of the Soviet Union from 1982 through 1991, spans the period from Leonid Brezhnev's death and funeral until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Due to the years of Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development, economic growth stagnated...
.
Over the years, Bersanov published numerous books, many of which were tailored to a younger audience: In the Wake of the Father (1971) dealt with the experiences of Soviet World War II veterans, and the novels Spring (1979) and Golden Ring (1979) explored the lives of the veterans' sons. Horseman Steel Horse (1983) recounted the exploits of Chechen resistance during the Caucasian War
Caucasian War
The Caucasian War of 1817–1864, also known as the Russian conquest of the Caucasus was an invasion of the Caucasus by the Russian Empire which ended with the annexation of the areas of the North Caucasus to Russia...
and the history of the Chechen people during peacetime. Friendship, Bonded by Blood (1986) told of the friendship between Chechen war veteran Magomed Gaysurkaeva and Russian Ivan Shumova, and probably his best-known book, Treasure of Wisdom, the Path to Happiness (1990), painted a reflective discourse on the Chechen code of honor
Honor code
An honour code or honour system is a set of rules or principles governing a community based on a set of rules or ideals that define what constitutes honorable behavior within that community. The use of an honor code depends on the idea that people can be trusted to act honorably...
. The book's circulation soon exceeded five million, and drew glowing reviews from literary editors worldwide.
He once said, "Only books with a view to building and nurturing a whole human being will certainly benefit children. And not every book written on an excellent topic is in itself beautiful."
On April 12, 2006, Khozh-Akhmed Bersanov celebrated his eightieth birthday in the auditorium of the Chechen Ministry of Culture. Attending guests included writers, poets, journalists, leaders of the Chechen Republic Ministry of Culture, and former colleagues.
He is currently married to his wife of 56 years, with ten children, twenty-two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. His daughter Zalpa Bersanova
Zalpa Bersanova
Zalpa Khozh-Akhmedovna Bersanova is a Chechen ethnographer and author who has written extensively on the Chechen people and the First and Second Chechen Wars. She is particularly noted for her beliefs that the values of Chechen society have survived the wars...
, also an ethnographer and author, was nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
.