In 1939, he entered the Moscow Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature [ru], but was there for only a year when he was drafted into the Red Army and served on the front in the Odesa and Rostov-on-Don areas.

Initially, he lived in Buguruslan, then studied at Baku State University[citation needed].

The central place in Melezh's work is made up by the novels of the Polesia Chronicles («Палеская хроніка»): People of the Marsh, The Storm's Breath and Snowstorm in December («Завеі, снежань»).

These novels portray the life in his homeland in the 1920s and 1930s: the establishment of socialism, forced collectivization, and dekulakization.

Melezh attempted to depict the history of this era truthfully, within the constraints imposed by the Soviet regime.