Hrachya Kochar

Hrachya Kochar (; 19 January 1910 – 2 May 1965), born Hrachya Kochari Gabrielyan, was an Armenian writer and publicist. He won the first state prize of the Armenian SSR for his novella Patriarch (Nahapet), which was adapted into a film of the same name in 1977.

Biography Hrachya Gabrielian was born in 1910 in the Ottoman Empire, in the village of Kumlubucak (now located in the Taşlıçay district of the Ağrı Province of Turkey), historically located in the province of Bagrevand in Western Armenia. He lost both of his parents in the Armenian genocide: his mother died during their flight to Eastern Armenia, while his father, Kochar, also known as Kocho, who fought in Andranik's army, died in 1918. Hrachya Kochar chose his pseudonym in honor of his father. Along with other people from his village, Hrachya managed to escape the massacres and reach the Ejmiatsin region. In 1939, Kochar was penalized by the Party and left unemployed until Martiros Saryan found him work in the Committee for the Preservation of Historical Monuments. Kochar traveled around the Armenian republic to investigate the state of Armenian monasteries and chapels, summarizing his findings in the Album-Guidebook of the Goris and Sisian Regions.

From 1941 to 1945, Kochar served as a newspaper correspondent in the Red Army and participated in World War II. Kochar's writings from the front were published in a series of collections, starting with The Birth of Heroes (Herosneri tsnunde) in 1942. One of his short stories written during the war, "The General's Sister", was published in Pravda in 1945 and later translated into 24 languages. In his last years, he published White Book, a collection of stories that included the novellas Patriarch (Nahapet), The Yearning and Euphrates Bridge.

From 1946 to 1951, he was the secretary of the Writers Union of Armenia and the editor of the monthly Sovetakan Grakanutyun (Soviet Literature). In 1954 he edited the satirical magazine Vozni. That same year, Kochar chaired the rehabilitation committee for Charents.

Kochar wrote the script for the film Hyusisayin Tsiatsan (Northern Rainbow, Hayfilm, 1961). His works have been translated into Russian and other languages. He died in Yerevan in 1965.

Prizes Order of the Red Star State Prize of Armenian SSR for Patriarch