Bersanov was born in the village of
Shami-Yurt to
Chechen parents. His father died when he was five, leaving his mother to struggle to raise her four children. Nevertheless, Bersanov was regarded as an 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. Bersanov was unable to finish school, however, 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 23 February 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
steppes 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. He realized, however, 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 Gaysurkaev and Russian
Ivan Shumov, 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 is married 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. == Bibliography ==