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November 22 marks the birthday anniversary of legendary Armenian commander and Artsakh war hero Leonid Azgaldyan. He would have turned 80 today.

He was as an Armenian physicist who rose to prominence as a military leader during the first Nagorno- Karabakh war and is best known as one of the founders and commander of the Artsakh Liberation Army.

Leonid was born in Tbilisi in 1942. Some time later his family moved to Yerevan. He was a physicist by training, graduating from the Physics Department of the Yerevan State University and working at various scientific institutions.

At the beginning of the Karabakh Movement he found himself on the frontline of the struggle. From February 1990 he was the commander of a military unit called the Liberation Army. He organized the self-defense of a number of regions and participated in the first liberation battles.

In 1991, he and his friends founded a military organization called the Independence Army. He served as its commander-in-chief till the end of his life.

Leonid Azgaldyan was killed near the village of Tonashen in the Martakert region on June 21, 1992. The circumstances of his death remain a mystery until now.

Azgaldyan was posthumously awarded with the title of Hero of Artsakh.