Mher Mkrtchyan – Hero of the Armenian Spirit

Chess Pawns. Mher Mkrtchyan liked to animate objects. Here is what he said about chess pawns: “When I look at pawns, when I think about their fate, by golly, I am reduced to tears.

For a single soldier to reach the eighth horizontal, it is necessary that almost all the others sacrifice themselves. For the sake of a great and lofty goal, sacrifices are needed. You can’t do without sacrifices.”

Mher Mkrtchyan’s Nose

Mher Mkrtchyan has never suffered from an inferiority complex. He was quite philosophical about the fact that many considered him the owner of a large nose.

Gogol said that we do not see our noses because they are on the moon. Perhaps Mher was the only exception – he himself admitted that he didn’t even think that his nose was big. Instead, he wondered why others’ noses were small.

Mher Mkrtchyan’s Nickname

Since childhood, Mher was nicknamed Frunzik. Nicknaming sons after heroes – this is how things were in the 1930s. He was nicknamed in honor of Soviet general Mikhail Frunze. Then, when the artist had already become famous, he felt some awkwardness from such a strange name.

He wanted to be known under his real name, the name that can be found among the Armenian kings, in the Armenian epic, legends, songs, and myths. But nothing really came of it. It was too late. Frunzik himself had become a legend. Some people called him Frunzik and others Mher.

In the last years of his life, the actor was supported by his younger brother. Mher Mkrtchyan died on December 29, 1993, in Yerevan from a heart attack at the age of 63. He was buried at the Komitas Pantheon in Yerevan. In the actor’s home city Gyumri, a monument was erected to him.