Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov - Russian writer; the largest Russian prose writer, the most brilliant Soviet non-intellectual writer, who made the life of the Don Cossacks the subject of intense reader interest; Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR ( 1939 ), twice Hero of Socialist Labor ( 1967, 1980 ). Laureate of the Stalin ( 1941 ), Leninskaya ( 1960 ) and Nobel ( 1965 ) premiums.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov was born May 11 (24), 1905 on the Kruzhilin farm of the village of the Veshenskaya region of the Don Cossacks.

The illegitimate son of a Ukrainian woman, the wife of the Don Cossack A.D. Kuznetsova and a wealthy clerk (the son of a merchant, a native of the Ryazan region) A.M. Sholokhov. In early childhood, he bore the surname Kuznetsov, received an allotment of land as a "son of a Cossack." In 1913, after being adopted by his own father, lost Cossack privileges, becoming the "son of a tradesman."

He grew up in an atmosphere of obvious ambiguity, which, obviously, gave rise to a craving for truth and justice in Sholokhov's character, but at the same time the habit of hiding everything about himself as much as possible. Numerous legends were spread about Sholokhov's youth during his lifetime, which are not confirmed by anything, contradict historical facts and elementary logic, but the writer never refuted them. He graduated from the four classes of the gymnasium. During the Civil War, the Sholokhov family could be under attack from two sides: for the White Cossacks, they were "non-residents", for the Reds - "exploiters". Young Sholokhov did not have a passion for hoarding (like his hero, the son of a wealthy Cossack Makar Nagulnov) and took the side of the victorious force that established at least relative peace, served in the food detachment, but arbitrarily reduced the taxation of people of his circle; was on trial.

His elder friend and mentor (“mamunya” in letters addressed to her), a member of the RSDLP (b) since 1903 E.G. Levitskaya (Sholokhov himself joined the party in 1932 ), to whom the story “The Fate of a Man” was subsequently dedicated, believed that there was a lot of autobiographical in Grigory Melekhov’s “reelings” in The Quiet Don. Sholokhov changed many professions, especially in Moscow, where he lived for a long time from the end of 1922 to 1926. Then, after gaining a foothold in literature, he settled in the village of Veshenskaya.

In 1923 Sholokhov printed feuilletons, from the end of 1923- stories in which he immediately switched from feuilleton comedy to sharp drama, reaching tragedy. At the same time, the stories were not devoid of elements of melodrama. Most of these works were collected in the collections "Don stories" ( 1925 ) and "Azure Steppe" ( 1926, revised previous collection). With the exception of the story "Strange Blood" ( 1926) , where the old man Gavrila and his wife, who have lost their son, a white Cossack, nurse a communist food orderer and begin to love him like a son, and he leaves them, in the early works, Sholokhov's heroes are mostly sharply divided into positive ones (red fighters, Soviet activists) and negative, sometimes unadulterated villains (whites, "bandits", fists and fists). Many characters have real prototypes, but Sholokhov sharpens almost everything, exaggerates: death, blood, torture, hunger pangs are deliberately naturalistic. Favorite plot of a young writer, starting with "The Mole" (1923 ), - a deadly clash of the next of kin: father and son, siblings.

Sholokhov still unskillfully confirms his loyalty to the communist idea, emphasizing the priority of social choice in relation to any other human relationships, including family ones. In 1931 he republished Don Stories, adding new ones, which emphasized the comic in the behavior of the characters (later, in Virgin Soil Upturned, he combined comedy with drama, sometimes quite effectively). Then, for almost a quarter of a century, the stories were not reprinted, the author put them very low and returned them to the reader when, for lack of a new one, they had to remember the forgotten old.

In 1925 Sholokhov began a work about the Cossacks in 1917, during the Kornilov revolt, under the title Quiet Don (and not Donshchina, according to legend). However, this plan was abandoned, but a year later the writer again takes up the "Quiet Flows the Don", widely unfolding the picture of the pre-war life of the Cossacks and the events of the First World War. The first two books of the epic novel are being published in 1928 in October magazine. Almost immediately there are doubts about their authorship, too much knowledge and experience required a work of this magnitude. Sholokhov brought the manuscripts to Moscow for examination (in the 1990s, the Moscow journalist L.E. Kolodny gave a description of them, although not strictly scientific, and comments on them). The young writer was full of energy, had a phenomenal memory, read a lot (in the 1920s even the memoirs of white generals were available), asked the Cossacks in the Don farms about the "German" and civil wars, and knew the life and customs of his native Don like no one else .

The events of collectivization (and those preceding it) delayed work on the epic novel. In letters, including to I.V. Stalin, Sholokhov tried to open his eyes to the true state of things: the complete collapse of the economy, lawlessness, torture applied to collective farmers. However, he accepted the very idea of ​​collectivization and, in a softened form, with undeniable sympathy for the main communist characters, showed on the example of the Gremyachiy Log farm in the first book of the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned” ( 1932 ). Even a very flattened depiction of dispossession (“right-wing deviator” Razmetny and others) was very suspicious for the authorities and semi-official writers, in particular, the Novy Mir magazine rejected the author’s title of the novel “With Blood and Sweat”. But in many ways the work suited Stalin. The high artistic level of the book, as it were, proved the fruitfulness of communist ideas for art, and courage within the limits of what was permitted created the illusion of freedom of creativity in the USSR. "Virgin Soil Upturned" was declared a perfect example of the literature of socialist realism and soon entered into all school programs, becoming a mandatory work for study.

This directly or indirectly helped Sholokhov continue work on The Quiet Don, the release of the third book (sixth part) of which was delayed due to a rather sympathetic portrayal of the participants in the anti-Bolshevik Upper Don uprising of 1919. Sholokhov turned to Gorky and with his help obtained permission from Stalin to publish this book without cuts ( 1932 ), a in 1934 basically completed the fourth, last, but began to rewrite it again, probably not without increased ideological pressure. In the last two books of The Quiet Flows the Don (the seventh part of the fourth book was published in 1937-1938, eighth - in 1940) a lot of journalistic, often didactic, unambiguously pro-Bolshevik declarations appeared, quite often contradicting the plot and figurative structure of the epic novel. But this does not add arguments to the theory of “two authors” or “author” and “co-author”, developed by skeptics who irrevocably do not believe in the authorship of Sholokhov (A.I. Solzhenitsyn, I.B. Tomashevskaya among them).

In 1935 the already mentioned Levitskaya admired Sholokhov, finding that he had turned "from a 'doubter', a staggering one, into a firm communist, who knew where he was going, who clearly saw both the goal and the means to achieve it." Undoubtedly, the writer convinced himself of this, and although in 1938 almost fell victim to a false political accusation, found the courage to end The Quiet Flows the Don with the complete collapse of his beloved hero Grigory Melekhov, crushed by the wheel of cruel history.

There are more than 600 characters in the epic novel, and most of them perish or die from grief, deprivation, absurdities and the disorder of life. The civil war, although at first it seems “toy” to “German” veterans, takes the lives of almost all the heroes who are remembered and loved by the reader, and the bright life, for which it was supposedly worth making such sacrifices, never comes.

The epic content in The Quiet Flows the Don has not supplanted the novel, the personal. Sholokhov, like no one else, managed to show the complexity of a simple person (intellectuals do not arouse sympathy for him, in The Quiet Don they are mostly in the background and invariably speak bookish language even with Cossacks who do not understand them). The passionate love of Grigory and Aksinya, the true love of Natalya, the debauchery of Daria, the absurd mistakes of the aging Panteley Prokofich, the mother’s mortal longing for her son who does not return from the war (Ilyinichna according to Grigory) and other tragic life interweaving make up the richest gamut of characters and situations. The life and nature of the Don are meticulously and, of course, lovingly depicted. The author conveys the sensations experienced by all human senses. The intellectual limitations of many heroes are compensated by the depth and sharpness of their experiences.

In The Quiet Don, the writer's talent spilled out in full force - and almost exhausted. Probably, this was facilitated not only by the social situation, but also by the writer's ever-increasing addiction to alcohol. The Science of Hate story 1942) , who campaigned for hatred of the Nazis, in terms of artistic quality turned out to be below the average of the Don Stories. The level of printed in 1943-1944 chapters from the novel "They Fought for the Motherland", conceived as a trilogy, but never completed ( in the 1960s. Sholokhov attributed the "pre-war" chapters with talk about Stalin and the repressions of 1937 in the spirit of the already ended "thaw", they were printed with cuts, which completely deprived the writer of creative inspiration). The work consists mainly of soldiers' conversations and tales, oversaturated with jokes. In general, Sholokhov's failure in comparison not only with the first, but also with the second novel is obvious.

After the war, Sholokhov the publicist paid a generous tribute to the official state ideology, however, he noted the “thaw” with a work of rather high dignity - the story “The Fate of a Man” ( 1956 ). An ordinary person, a typical Sholokhov hero, appeared in a genuine moral greatness that he himself did not realize. Such a plot could not have appeared in the “first post-war spring”, which coincided with the meeting between the author and Andrei Sokolov: the hero was in captivity, he drank vodka without snacks so as not to humiliate himself in front of German officers - this, like the humanistic spirit of the story itself, was by no means not in line with the official literature nurtured by Stalinism. "The Fate of Man" turned out to be at the origins of a new concept of personality, more broadly - a new major stage in the development of literature.

The second book of "Virgin Soil Upturned", completed by the publication in 1960, remained basically only a sign of the transitional period, when humanism bulged out in every possible way, but thereby the desired was presented as real. "Warming" of the images of Davydov (sudden love for "Varyukha Goryukha"), Nagulnov (listening to cock singing, secret love for Lushka, etc.), Razmetnov (shooting cats in the name of saving pigeons - popular at the turn of the 1950s-1960s "Birds of the World"), etc. was emphasized "modern" and did not fit with the harsh realities of 1930, which formally remained the basis of the plot.

The writer L. K. Chukovskaya, in her letter to Sholokhov, predicted creative sterility after his speech at the XXIII Congress of the CPSU (1966) with defamation of those convicted for publishing works abroad (the first trial of the Brezhnev era against writers) A.D. Sinyavsky and Yu. M. Daniel. The prediction came true completely.

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Mikhail Sholokhov is the greatest writer of the 20th century, the author of cult works (“Quiet Flows the Don”, “Virgin Soil Upturned”), which were published not only on the territory of the USSR, but also in foreign countries. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov was born on May 11 (24 according to the new style) May 1905 in the north of the Rostov region, in the picturesque village of Veshenskaya.

The future writer grew up and was brought up as an only child in a family in a small house in the Kruzhilinsky farm, in which Alexander Mikhailovich Sholokhov, a raznochinets, and his wife Anastasia Danilovna lived. Due to the fact that Sholokhov's father worked for hire and had no official income, the family often traveled from place to place.

Anastasia Danilovna is an orphan. Her mother came from a Cossack family, and her father was a native of the serfs of the Chernigov province, later moved to the Don. At the age of 12, she went to serve to a certain landowner Popova and was married not out of love, but out of calculation for the rich stanitsa ataman Kuznetsov. After a dead daughter was born to a woman, she did an extraordinary act for those times - she went to Sholokhov.

Anastasia Danilovna was an interesting young lady: she was original and illiterate, but at the same time she was naturally endowed with a sharp mind and insight. The writer's mother learned to read and write only when her son entered the gymnasium in order to write letters to her child on her own, without resorting to the help of her husband.

Mikhail Alexandrovich was considered an illegitimate child (on the Don, such children were called “nakhalenki”, and, it’s worth saying, the Cossack guys did not like them), initially had the surname Kuznetsov and thanks to this he had the privilege: he received a “Cossack” land plot. But after the death of the previous spouse Anastasia Danilovna in 1912, the lovers were able to legalize their relationship, and Mikhail became Sholokhov, the son of a tradesman.

The homeland of Alexander Mikhailovich is the Ryazan province, he comes from a wealthy dynasty: his grandfather was a merchant of the third guild, he was engaged in buying up grain. Sholokhov Sr. worked as a buyer of cattle, and also sowed bread on the Cossack lands. Therefore, there was enough money in the family, at least the future writer and his parents did not live from hand to mouth.

In 1910, the Sholokhovs left the Kruzhilinsky farm due to the fact that Alexander Mikhailovich went to serve a merchant in the village of Karginskaya, which is located in the Bokovsky district of the Rostov region. At the same time, the future writer studied preschool literacy, for these purposes a home teacher Timofey Mrykhin was invited. The boy liked to pore over textbooks, he studied writing and learned to count.

Despite diligence in his studies, Misha was a mischievous person and loved to play outside with the neighboring boys from morning to evening. However, Sholokhov's childhood and youth are reflected in his stories. He scrupulously described what he had observed, and what gave inspiration and endlessly pleasant memories: fields with golden rye, a breath of cool breeze, the smell of freshly cut grass, the azure banks of the Don and much more - all this gave background to creativity.

Mikhail Sholokhov with his parents

Mikhail Alexandrovich entered the Karginsky parish school in 1912. It is noteworthy that the young man's teacher was Mikhail Grigoryevich Kopylov, who became the prototype of the hero from the world-famous "Quiet Flows the Don". In 1914, he fell ill with eye inflammation, after which he went to the capital for treatment.

Three years later, he was transferred to the Boguchar gymnasium for boys. Finished four classes. During his studies, the young man read the works of the great classics, in particular he adored the works and.

In 1917, the seeds of a revolution began to appear. Socialist ideas, and who wanted to overthrow and get rid of the monarchical system, were not easy for the peasants and workers. The requirements of the Bolshevik coup were fulfilled in part, and the life of a simple man in the street was changing before our eyes.

In 1917, Alexander Mikhailovich became the manager of a steam mill in the village of Elanskaya, in the Rostov region. In 1920, the family moved to the village of Karginskaya. It was there that Alexander Mikhailovich died in 1925.

As for the revolution, Sholokhov did not take part in it. He was not for the Reds and was indifferent to the Whites. Took the side of the winner. In 1930, Sholokhov received a party card, became a member of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

He showed himself from the best side: he did not participate in counter-revolutionary movements, he had no deviations from the ideology of the party. Although there is a “black spot” in Sholokhov’s biography, at least the writer did not refute this fact: in 1922, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, being a tax inspector, was sentenced to death for abuse of office.

Later, the punishment was changed to a year of compulsory labor thanks to the cunning of the parents, who brought a fake birth certificate to the court so that Sholokhov was tried as a minor. After that, Mikhail Alexandrovich wanted to become a student again and get a higher education. But the young man was not accepted to the preparatory courses of the workers' faculty, since he did not have the appropriate papers. Therefore, the fate of the future Nobel Prize winner was such that he earned his living by hard physical labor.

Literature

Mikhail Alexandrovich began to seriously engage in writing in 1923, his creative career began with small feuilletons in the newspaper Yunosheskaya Pravda. At that time, three satirical stories were published under the signature Mikh. Sholokhov: "Test", "Three", "Inspector". The story of Mikhail Sholokhov called "The Beast" tells about the fate of the food commissar Bodyagin, who, upon returning to his homeland, found out that his father was an enemy of the people. This manuscript was being prepared for publication in 1924, but the Molodogvardeets almanac did not consider it necessary to print this work on the pages of the publication.

Therefore, Mikhail Alexandrovich began to cooperate with the newspaper "Young Leninist". He also published in other Komsomol newspapers, where stories were sent that were included in the Donskoy cycle and the Azure Steppe collection. Speaking about the work of Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov, one cannot help but touch on the epic novel "Quiet Flows the Don", which consists of four volumes.

It is often compared in importance with another work of Russian classics - the manuscript "War and Peace". The Quiet Flows the Don is one of the key novels in the literature of the 20th century, which to this day is required reading in general educational institutions and universities.

Mikhail Sholokhov's novel Quiet Flows the Don

But few people know that because of the book that tells about the life of the Don Cossacks, Sholokhov was accused of plagiarism. However, disputes about the literary theft of Mikhail Alexandrovich have not subsided so far. After the publication of The Quiet Flows the Don (first two volumes, 1928, October magazine), discussions began in literary circles about the problem of the authorship of M. A. Sholokhov's texts.

Some researchers, and simply lovers of literature, believed that Mikhail Alexandrovich, without a twinge of conscience, appropriated the manuscript, which was found in the field bag of a white officer shot by the Bolsheviks. Rumor has it that there were anonymous calls. Some unknown old woman told the editor of the newspaper A. Serafimovich on the phone that the novel belongs to her murdered son.

Alexander Serafimovich did not react to provocations and believed that such a resonance was due to envy: people could not understand how the 22-year-old author acquired fame and universal recognition in the blink of an eye. The journalist and playwright Iosif Gerasimov pointed out that Serafimovich knew that The Quiet Flows the Don did not belong to Sholokhov, but did not want to add fuel to the fire. Sholokhovologist Konstantin Priyma was sure that in fact the stoppage of the publication of the third volume was beneficial to Trotsky's associates: the people should not have known about the real events that took place in Veshenskaya in 1919.

It is noteworthy that the eminent Russian publicist has no doubt that the true author of The Quiet Flows the Don is Mikhail Sholokhov. Dmitry Lvovich believes that the device underlying the novel is very primitive: the plot revolves around a confrontation between the Reds and Whites and the protagonist's throwing between his wife and mistress.

“A very simple, absolutely constructive children's scheme. When he writes the life of the nobility, it is clear that he does not know it at all ... When, therefore, dying, an officer on the battlefield bequeaths his wife to a friend, it is clear that he has misread the French, ”said the literary critic on the program“ Visiting ".

In the 1930s-1950s, Sholokhov wrote another brilliant novel dedicated to the collectivization of peasants - Virgin Soil Upturned. Military works were also popular, such as "The Fate of a Man" and "They Fought for the Motherland." Work on the latter was carried out in several stages: 1942-1944, 1949 and 1969. Shortly before his death, Sholokhov, like Gogol, burned his work. Therefore, the modern reader can only be content with individual chapters of the novel.

Mikhail Sholokhov's novel "Virgin Soil Upturned"

But with the Nobel Prize, Sholokhov had a very original story. In 1958, he was nominated for the prestigious award for the seventh time. In the same year, members of the Writers' Union visited Sweden and learned that, together with Boris Leonidovich, Sholokhov and other authors were being nominated. In the Scandinavian country, there was an opinion that the prize should go to Pasternak, however, in a telegram addressed to the Ambassador of Sweden, it was said that the USSR would have widely appreciated the award of the award to Mikhail Alexandrovich.

It was also said that it is high time for the Swedish public to understand that Boris Leonidovich is not popular with Soviet citizens and that his works are not worthy of any attention. It is easy to explain: Pasternak was repeatedly harassed by the authorities. The prize awarded to him in 1958 threw firewood. The author of Doctor Zhivago was forced to refuse the Nobel Prize. In 1965, Sholokhov also received laurels of honor. The writer did not bow to the Swedish king, who presented the award. This was explained by the character of Mikhail Alexandrovich: according to some rumors, such a gesture was made intentionally (the Cossacks do not bow to anyone).

Personal life

Sholokhov married in 1924 Maria Gromoslavskaya. However, he wooed Lydia, her sister. But the girls' father, the stanitsa ataman P.Ya. Gromoslavsky (postman after the revolution), insisted that Mikhail Alexandrovich should offer his hand and heart to his eldest daughter. In 1926, the couple had a girl, Svetlana, and four years later, a boy, Alexander, was born.

It is known that during the war the writer served as a war correspondent. He received the award of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree and medals. In character, Mikhail Alexandrovich was similar to his heroes - courageous, honest and rebellious. Rumor has it that he was the only writer who was not afraid and could look the leader straight in the eye.

Death

Shortly before his death (cause - cancer of the larynx), the writer lived in the village of Veshenskaya, was engaged in writing very rarely, in the 1960s he actually abandoned this craft. He liked to walk in the fresh air, was fond of hunting and catching fish. The author of The Quiet Flows the Don literally handed out his awards to the public. For example, the Nobel Prize “left” to build a school.

The great writer Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov died in 1984. Sholokhov's grave is not in the cemetery, but in the courtyard of the house in which he lived. In honor of the master of the pen, an asteroid was named, documentaries were filmed and monuments were erected in many cities.

Bibliography

• "Don stories" (1925);
• "Azure Steppe" (1926);
• "Quiet Don" (1928-1940);
• Virgin Soil Upturned (1932, 1959);
• "They fought for the Motherland" (1942-1949);
• "The Science of Hate" (1942);
• "The Word about the Motherland" (1948);
• "The Destiny of Man" (1956)

In Soviet schools, a novel was part of the compulsory literature curriculum, so the name of the author and Sholokhov's biography were briefly "on the lips." Today we read his works “The Fate of a Man”, “Cossacks”, “They Fought for the Motherland” and think about the fate of the heroes. To better understand the novels, you need to trace the life and creative path of the writer.

Mikhail Sholokhov lived for quite a long time - 78 years. Among the vicissitudes of a difficult fate, it is difficult to note the most important turns, but let's try to list the most important.

So, Sholokhov's biography briefly:

1. Birth in the family of a clerk (a native of the Ryazan province) and a woman from a Cossack family (a former maid).
2. Childhood, mother's stories, games in the vast native great Don.
3. Education - first in elementary school, then in the Boguchar gymnasium.
4. Working life: work as a teacher, unskilled worker, clerk ... Where fate did not throw Mikhail Alexandrovich!
5. Active participation in the struggle for the establishment of Soviet power. Marriage.
6. Work on works.
7. Work as a war correspondent.
8. Public activities, including as a people's deputy.
9. The last years, the fight against diseases, death in the village of Veshenskaya, where the writer spent many years with his wife and four children born in a single marriage.

This is in general terms. For the purpose of a more detailed acquaintance, you can break the life path by date.

It will be easier to isolate the main thing if you display the main dates in the table: Mikhail Sholokhov: biography by date

Period	Event
1905	The birth of a boy in the family of a Don Cossack and a native of Ryazan. Place of birth - farm Kruzhilin (near the village of Veshenskaya). The child was named Misha
Before 1912	Childhood years, games with peers, help for parents
1912	Admission to the Kargin Primary School
1912-1917	Continuation of studies in different schools, in the gymnasium
1918-1919	The years of the civil war, the establishment of the power of the White Cossacks in the native places where the young man lived
1920	The preponderance of power belongs to the Soviets. Full acceptance of Soviet power by young men Sholokhov and help to her.
1922-1923	Moving to Moscow. Study, work. Pen craving. The first works that saw the light: "Test", "Inspector".
From 1924 to the beginning of the Second World War	Life and work in his native Veshenskaya. Marriage, childbirth
The period of the Great Patriotic	Service as a war correspondent
post-war period	Continued writing, literary awards. Nobel Prize. Social activity.
1984	Severe illness, death

Sholokhov went this way, the chronological table of life shows that the writer waged a constant struggle with circumstances and difficulties. Difficult times required each person to make their own choice. The position of Mikhail Alexandrovich has always been this: with the people and for the people.

Main dates

The life and work of the writer are inextricably linked, therefore, knowing what events happened, it will be easier to understand the spiritual mood and accurately get on the wave of each of his works. It is impossible to remember everything, therefore, when studying this issue, it is worth paying attention to the most interesting facts from the writer's biography (and the most significant ones).

This is definitely:

• 1912 - the beginning of studies, the acquisition of knowledge;
• the years of the civil war - the development of one's own views, the definition of a civic position;
• WWII - the experience gained by Sholokhov near the front line is priceless;
• 1965 - World recognition: Nobel Prize.

Important! Mikhail Alexandrovich passionately loved his native Don steppe and the harsh, hardworking and fair people inhabiting it - the Cossacks, which was reflected in his work.

Creation

What is important in a person's life? Of course, first of all, his parents, family. Then - teachers, environment, friends. The writer never moved away from his roots, the word "Motherland" was not an abstract concept for him.

The biography of the writer by date is not the most important thing to remember. And turning his life into a chronological table, consisting of dry facts and dates, is also not necessary.

The most important thing is to understand that Sholokhov's work is a consequence of his life path.

If it were not for the revolution and the Civil War, if the writer had not had a chance to take part in the Great Patriotic War, then the most powerful of his works would hardly have been born:

• "Quiet Don";
• "The Science of Hate";

What happened in Sholokhov's life depended on his creativity and inspiration. The writer never invented his characters, and therefore the characters turned out to be so real, alive.

Note! Each of the characters is an almost exact portrait of a person whom the author met in life.

And Aksinya, and Grigory Melekhov, and his brother Peter - all these people (of course, under other names) Mikhail Alexandrovich knew well.

Of course, I had to work a little on the images, soften something, add something, but we can say with confidence: the heroes of the novels are people who really lived, loved, suffered, fought and hoped at that difficult time when the author had a chance to grow up and find a vitality. wisdom.

One of the main dates can be safely attributed to the period of 1918-1921, when there were battles for power between the reds and whites. Most likely, it was then that the character of the future writer was formed, his views were determined.

The second stage of personality formation is the years of the Great Patriotic War. It is during the great trials that it becomes clear what a person is and what he is capable of.

In addition, the author of The Quiet Flows the Don had to endure more than one arrest and face death. These dates are 1920 and 1938. First, the young man ended up in the hands of Nestor Makhno. The second is the arrest by the very authorities that Michael considered the most just on earth.

Some facts from the life of the writer evoke a feeling of respect and admiration for this outwardly very modest person. While still very young, Mikhail actively participated in the fight against the gangs of marauders who swarming on the Don in the turbulent and terrible post-revolutionary time.

Note! All his life, despite the recognition in Russia and in the world, he remained unpretentious in personal needs.

Place of Birth

Something interesting can be said about the place where the future writer was born. Place of Birth
writer Sholokhov - the village of Veshenskaya, which is part of the modern Rostov region.

Today it is a large settlement: about 10 thousand people live here. A small remark: the writer was not born in Veshenskaya itself, but on a farm near it.

At the beginning of the XX century. Veshenskaya was also not small: it had 1,200 inhabitants. During the youth of Mikhail Alexandrovich, the village became the center of the Upper Don uprising, here the White Cossacks tried to overthrow the Soviet government and establish other orders.

So Sholokhov's small homeland is one of the largest centers of the Civil War, which split Russia into two camps.

When the unrest of the Civil War was left behind, Mikhail Alexandrovich chose Veshenskaya as his permanent place of residence. Being a people's deputy, he managed to make life easier for fellow villagers: at his insistence, they laid a railway to the village of Bazkovskaya, and then built a bridge that connected the right and left banks of the Don. Today, the museum-estate of the writer is carefully guarded in Veshenskaya.

Many facts from the life of Sholokhov are described in textbooks and have not been a secret for a long time. But there are also "white spots" that have been revealed to us relatively recently.

So, the mother of Mikhail Alexandrovich, who served as a maid for the landowner, was forcibly given in marriage to the Cossack Kuznetsov. However, she did not love her husband, from whom she left for the manager of a steam mill (one of his professions) Alexander Sholokhov.

The lovers had a son, but the boy at first bore the surname Kuznetsov, since it was impossible to legitimize relations until the death of Kuznetsov, the official wife of the mother of the future writer. Therefore, Mikhail did not immediately become Sholokhov.

Mikhail Alexandrovich was engaged in self-education all his life.

• because of the revolutionary events had to leave one school after another;
• teach literacy to children and adults;
• work in the food order, work as a loader.

Interesting facts from his biography: he graduated from the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University and the Faculty of History and Philology of Rostov University. At the university, he met his future wife, who at first worked for him as an assistant secretary.

During the Civil War, young Mikhail and a detachment stumbled upon the gang of Nestor Makhno himself. If the guy was older, he wouldn't be in trouble. But the 15-year-old teenager behaved so courageously that the chieftain liked it, and he did not deal with him. He only promised: "If you get caught again, I'll hang you."

Another time, death looked into Sholokhov's face in 1922, when he showed "excessive zeal" in the course of collecting taxes. An arrest followed, but after 2 days the death sentence was replaced with a year of hard labor. Another arrest followed in the terrible year 1938. Someone slandered Sholokhov, and he was arrested, but imprisonment and death were avoided.

He had many awards: State Prizes, Stalin, Lenin, International Peace Prize. He was elected an honorary doctor of the University of Leipzig. In 1941, Mikhail Alexandrovich gave 4 of his state awards for the needs of the front: rocket launchers were purchased for the entire amount.

What did he die of

In recent years, the author of novels was seriously ill. What did a talented prose writer, an outstanding writer and public figure of the Soviet Union die of? From what exactly the Soviet prose writer died, the doctors precisely established. Vascular diseases undermined his health: he suffered two strokes in adulthood.

But the writer died due to another illness. He was diagnosed with cancer, which metastasized to the larynx. Sholokhov died in his homeland, in the village of Veshenskaya, where he spent almost his entire life.

Useful video: Life and career of M. A. Sholokhov

Conclusion

The fate of our great contemporary turned out to be difficult. Many times life seemed to test this man for strength of character and courage. Sholokhov withstood all the tests - just like the heroes of his works, and to the end remained a man for whom the ideals of justice, mutual assistance, sincerity and honesty were above all.

In contact with

MAIN DATES IN THE LIFE AND CREATIVITY OF M. A. SHOLOHOV

1905, May 24- on the farm Kruzhilin of the village of the Vyoshenskaya region of the Don Cossacks (now Vyoshenskaya, Rostov region), Alexander Mikhailovich Sholokhov and Anastasia Danilovna Kuznetsova (surname after her first husband; nee Chernikova) had a son, Mikhail. Father - from merchants, originally from the Ryazan region, from the city of Zaraysk; mother - originally from Chernihiv region, served as a maid in a manor house. Parents were in a civil marriage.

1910 - Alexander Mikhailovich with Anastasia Danilovna and son Misha move to the Karginsky farm.

1912 - Misha was admitted to the Karginsky parochial school for men in his second year of study.

1913 - A. M. Sholokhov and A. D. Kuznetsova got married (after the death of her official husband, an Ataman Cossack). Misha is "adopted" by his own father and recorded as "son of a tradesman".

1914 - due to an eye disease, A. M. Sholokhov takes his son to Moscow to the eye clinic of Dr. Snegirev. In the capital, Mikhail is assigned to a private gymnasium named after G. Shelaputin.

1915 - the father transfers his son to the Bogucharsky men's gymnasium in the Voronezh province.

1918, June - German troops approached Boguchar, the father takes his son from the gymnasium.

Autumn - sends his son to Vyoshenskaya gymnasium.

1919, March - June - in Vyoshenskaya, a counter-revolutionary Cossack uprising breaks out. The Sholokhov family again moves to the village of Karginskaya, where Soviet power is established in January.

1920 - the future writer works as a teacher for the eradication of illiteracy among the adult population, a clerk in the Karginsky stanitsa executive committee. He plays in the performances of the Karginsky Folk Theater, writes plays for him.

1921 - Mikhail was enrolled as an assistant accountant at the Karginsky Procurement Office.

1922 February - By order of the Donoblprodkom, Mikhail Sholokhov was sent to Rostov for training courses.

May - after completing the course, he was sent to food work in the village of Bukanovskaya.

October - Mikhail leaves for Moscow to continue his education. It is not possible to enter the workers' faculty - he was not a member of the Komsomol and did not have a Komsomol ticket. He works in the capital as a loader, paves roads with an artel of masons, serves as an accountant, tries his hand at literary work.

1923 - began to visit the literary association at the magazine "Young Guard" in the literary association of the magazine "Young Guard".

September - first publication in the newspaper "Youthful Truth": feuilleton "Test".

1924 January - returns to the Don, to the village of Bukanovskaya, marries Maria Petrovna Gromoslavskaya, daughter of the former stanitsa ataman, Bukanovskaya teacher. Young people get married in a church. They leave for Moscow, where they live for some time.

December - Sholokhov's short story "The Mole" was published in the newspaper "Young Leninist".

1925 - the writer's father died. Acquaintance with A. Serafimovich, which turned into a creative community. Sholokhov's stories "Bakhchevnik", "Shepherd", "Nakhalenok" and others are published in Komsomol periodicals.

1926 - Sholokhov's first collection "Don Stories" is published, then - "Azure Steppe" with a parting word from Serafimovich. The Sholokhov family settles forever in the village of Vyoshenskaya. The writer begins to create the novel "Quiet Flows the Don".

1928 January- The magazine "October" with the support of Serafimovich begins to publish the first book of "The Quiet Flows the Don" (No. 1–4); in the same year the second book of the novel (Nos. 5-10) was published there.

1929 - the beginning of the publication of the third book of The Quiet Flows the Don. Rumors of plagiarism are spreading. Sholokhov presents drafts of the novel for review by a special commission.

April - the newspapers Rabochaya Tribuna (April 24) and Pravda (April 29) publish a commission statement that the rumors are lies and slander against Sholokhov. The publication of the third book of the novel was suspended - the leaders of the RAPP accused the writer of justifying the Upper Don uprising; the writer did not agree to the proposed reductions and corrections.

1930 - Sholokhov receives an invitation from Gorky to visit him in Sorrento. Leaves together with Artem Vesely and V. Kudashov. Without waiting for a visa in Berlin, he returns to Vyoshenskaya.

1931 January- Sholokhov sends a letter to Stalin about the atrocities on the Don in the course of collectivization.

June - Sholokhov's meeting with Stalin through the mediation of Gorky, at which the fate of the further publication of the third book of The Quiet Flows the Don was positively decided.

Prohibition of the first film "Quiet Flows the Don" for ideological reasons.

1932 January - The publication of the third book of The Quiet Flows the Don is nearing completion. The journal "New World" begins to publish the first book of the novel "Virgin Soil Upturned".

Sholokhov joins the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, takes part in the fight against gross violations in collective farm construction on the Don, writes a letter to Stalin, demanding to investigate the cases of those who "mocked the collective farmers and the Soviet government", and those who directed these actions .

1933 - famine in the Don. In an effort to save fellow countrymen from death, Sholokhov sends letters to Stalin asking for help.

1934, September - as a delegate participates in the first congress of the Union of Soviet Writers, was elected a member of the board.

Trip to Sweden, Denmark, England and France.

1936 March - at the Bolshoi Theater the premiere of I. Dzerzhinsky's opera The Quiet Flows the Don (libretto edited by M. Bulgakov). Stalin's criticism of formalism in the production.

November - Novy Mir is starting to publish the seventh part of the fourth book of The Quiet Flows the Don (to be completed next March).

Sholokhov is included in the bureau of the International Association of Writers in Defense of Culture. Elected Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

1939 March - At the 18th Party Congress, Sholokhov, in a speech, expressed disagreement with the authorities' directives to justify repressions.

December- Sholokhov was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

February March- the last chapters of the novel are published in the "New World".

1941 - Sholokhov is awarded the Stalin Prize for The Quiet Flows the Don, despite the disagreement of many members of the Prize Committee.

June- on the second day of the Great Patriotic War, the writer transfers the prize to the National Defense Fund.

July - regimental commissar of the reserve M. A. Sholokhov becomes a war correspondent for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

Collaborated with Pravda and the Soviet Information Bureau.

1942 - Sholokhov receives a shell shock in a plane crash; months of treatment.

June - publishes the story "The Science of Hate".

July - during the bombing of Vyoshenskaya, the writer's mother died; the archive is almost completely lost (part of the manuscripts of two novels and letters).

1943 May - Sholokhov begins to publish in Pravda chapters from the novel They Fought for the Motherland.

1945 - Sholokhov ends the war in East Prussia. In May, two of his articles are published: "Appeal to the Soviet youth" and "Victory, which history did not know."

1946 - refuses Stalin's proposal to head the Writers' Union. Elected Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In Sweden, an article is published with a proposal to nominate Sholokhov for the Nobel Prize.

1949 - Stalin's letter of 1929 was made public, criticizing certain provisions in the description of the Civil War in The Quiet Don, which led to a number of forced alterations of the novel during reprinting, with which the author could not agree.

1954 December - as a delegate to the Second All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, Sholokhov delivers a keynote speech on improving the activities of the Writers' Union.

February - speech at the 20th Party Congress criticizing obsolete traditions in the activities of the Writers' Union.

Collected works of Sholokhov began to be published in the Young Guard and Goslitizdat. The story "The Fate of Man" is published.

1957 - the film "Quiet Flows the Don" directed by S. Gerasimov is released.

1958, September - Sholokhov begins to publish in Pravda chapters from the second book of the novel Virgin Soil Upturned.

1959, September - a trip to the USA as part of a delegation that accompanied N. S. Khrushchev; refusal to write anything for the collection following the trip. The film "The Fate of a Man" directed by S. Bondarchuk is released.

1960 - at the beginning of the year, the second book of Virgin Soil Upturned was published as a separate edition. Sholokhov was awarded the Lenin Prize for his novel.

1961 October - Sholokhov's speech at the XXII Party Congress with sharp critical remarks. Elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

1962–1963 - Sholokhov supported the publication of A. Solzhenitsyn's camp story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and A. Tvardovsky's poem "Terkin in the Other World."

1965 December- awarding the Nobel Prize to Sholokhov for the novel "Quiet Flows the Don"; presented in Stockholm on 11 December.

1967 July - receives a large group of young writers in Vyoshenskaya together with the first cosmonaut Yu. Gagarin.

The writer was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

1968 October - sent a letter to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU L. I. Brezhnev with a request not to delay the publication of new chapters of the novel “They Fought for the Motherland” for censorship reasons.

1974 summer - meeting with the film crew of the film "They fought for their homeland": director S. Bondarchuk, leading actors V. Shukshin, Yu. Nikulin, V. Tikhonov, etc.

A. Solzhenitsyn is launching a campaign abroad to accuse Sholokhov of plagiarism.

1975 May - gala evening at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow in honor of the 70th anniversary of M. A. Sholokhov; the hero of the day is absent - a stroke.

1978 March - a letter to L. I. Brezhnev criticizing the state of affairs in culture; The commission of the Central Committee of the party sharply condemned this appeal.

1980 - awarding Sholokhov the second title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

1981–1982 - the writer is active in public activities, does not leave the dream of creating a military trilogy. Deterioration of health.

1983 July - despite a serious illness, he completes journalistic articles and literary notes: “To the Readers of the Rodnye Niva Library” and “Appeal to Bulgarian Readers”.

September - last lifetime publication: an appeal to the writers of the world "Let's protect life before it's too late!", Published in the journal "Foreign Literature".

1984 January- the writer is in a Moscow hospital with a diagnosis of cancer. Here he gives the go-ahead for the publication of the collected works in the publishing house "Fiction".

February - returns home to Vyoshenskaya. Sends a telegram to the publishing house on the appointment of the compiler of the publication of the youngest daughter M. M. Sholokhova-Manokhina with the authority to restore some political notes in the Quiet Don.

February 23 - Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov was buried in the garden near his house, on the high bank of the Don, glorified by him.

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Questions

1. In what environment and under the influence of what events in the life of the country did the formation of Platonov the thinker and Platonov the artist take place?

2. How did Platonov's attitude to the revolution and its consequences change? What decisively did the writer not accept in contemporary Soviet reality?

3. What types does A. Platonov divide his heroes into?

Tasks

Prepare posts by topic:

“The work of life and serving it” (based on the story “The Secret Man”)

"Problematics of the story "The Secret Man"

(1905 - 1984)

Sholokhov was born on May 24, 1905 in the Kruzhilin farm, near the village of Veshenskaya, in the Don Cossack Region, was not a Cossack by birth. His father, Alexander Mikhailovich Sholokhov, was the son of a Russian merchant; mother, Anastasia Danilovna Chernikova, was from Ukrainian serfs. Michael's father wanted his son to get a good education and apparently have enough money to pay for it. Trained by a local teacher, in 1912 Mikhail entered an elementary school in the Kargin farm, where his parents lived at that time. In the 1914-1915 academic year, he attended a private gymnasium in Moscow. For the next three years he studied at a gymnasium in the city of Boguchar (Voronezh province), and from the autumn of 1918 he studied for several months at the Veshenskaya gymnasium. The teaching was interrupted by the civil war. Sholokhov tried to fill in the gaps in his education with abundant reading.

The fact that during the civil war Sholokhov lived almost all the time in the territory occupied by the Whites was of great importance. This must have been the main reason why he, in his own words, described in The Quiet Don "the struggle of the whites against the reds, and not the reds against the whites."

Since 1922, Sholokhov, living in his native places, worked in various positions for the new regime. He taught adults to read and write, and was a statistician for about a year. On December 2, 1921, he transferred to the Karginsky procurement office to the position of an assistant accountant, and a month later he was appointed clerk of the inspection department. The events of the period 1920-1922 provided themes for most of Sholokhov's early stories (which were reflected in The Quiet Don). The beginning of Sholokhov's literary career belongs to this period of his life.

In October 1922, Sholokhov left for Moscow in the hope of becoming a writer and continuing his education. The capital did not welcome the young pre-inspector with open arms. He was forced to work as a laborer, loader, bricklayer, clerk. This enriched his life experience, allowed him to better and deeper know the life of a simple worker. In Moscow, Sholokhov joined a group of Komsomol writers attached to the Young Guard magazine. Since 1923: “I am published in Komsomol newspapers and magazines,” Sholokhov said (although he himself repeatedly emphasized in his interviews the fact that he had never been a member of the Komsomol). However, the Komsomol newspaper Yunosheskaya Pravda was the first printed organ that provided Sholokhov with its pages.

In 1925 (this year Sholokhov's father died), the stories “Bakhchevnik”, “Shepherd”, “Nakhalenok”, the story “The Path-road” are printed one after another. In 1926, the first collection of Sholokhov's stories, Don Stories, Azure Steppe, appeared in print. The main theme of Sholokhov's early stories is the class struggle on the Don. The result of Sholokhov's many years of creative work was four large books of The Quiet Flows the Don. Already in 1928, the October magazine began publishing the novel Quiet Flows the Don. In 1941, the novel was awarded the State (Stalin) Prize of the first degree.

In 1932, Sholokhov was admitted to the CPSU (b), he was also elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1938, the Academic Council of the Institute of World Literature nominated Sholokhov as a candidate for a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in January, Sholokhov was awarded the Order of Lenin (for outstanding achievements in the development of Soviet literature, 6 times). In 1931-1932, Sholokhov made his first foreign trips to Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, and France.

During the Great Patriotic War, the writer did not stay away from the struggle. In military correspondence and essays, “he reveals the anti-human nature of the war unleashed by the Nazis. In 1943, Sholokhov began work on the novel They Fought for the Motherland.
In the post-war years, Sholokhov was engaged in a lot of social activities as a deputy of the Supreme Council. In 1957, Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov made a trip to Finland and Sweden, and in 1959 he went to Italy, France, Great Britain. In 1960 he became in the field of literature, and in 1962 Sholokhov was elected a doctor of law from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1965, M. Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize. In 1980 M.A. Sholokhov was awarded the second Golden Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor (awarded twice).

The Quiet Don novel

Around this work, disputes about the true authorship are still ongoing. Monographs, where the authorship of the great novel was disputed, were published far from Moscow. One of them - under the pseudonym "D" - was published through the efforts of A.I. Solzhenitsyn, entitled "The stirrup of the Quiet Flows the Don". This book was printed in Russian in Paris (which, you see, is rather suspicious). The other was written by Roy Medvedev, who did not hide his authorship, a well-known publicist and historian (formerly a dissident, then a People's Deputy of the USSR). His book has been printed in English and French in London and Paris. The appearance of these works sowed strong doubt in the minds of Russian readers regarding the authorship of Mikhail Sholokhov. Later, other authors of the popular novel began to appear, for example, Fedor Kryukov (who died in 1920, a forgotten Russian writer, a native of the Don). How to refute the assumptions, hypotheses developed by such authoritative people as A.I. Solzhenitsyn, R.A. Medvedev, the anonymous writer "D" and other literary critics who appeared in different cities of the country, contenders for the authorship of the novel "Quiet Don". The only evidence of Sholokhov's authorship could be the manuscripts. But there are no manuscripts of the first and second volumes of the novel, not a single page, in any of the archives. Namely, the first two volumes of The Quiet Flows the Don, published in 1928, gave rise to doubts about the authorship. This strange, at first glance, circumstance, when half of the novel is partially preserved, and the other half is not, there is a historical (logical) explanation. The writer's house on the Don came under fire when Veshenskaya was on the front line in 1942. Then the writer's mother was killed on the threshold of the house. At the same time, sheets of manuscripts written by the hand of Mikhail Sholokhov flew around the village. The soldiers used the sheets of the novel to smoke. There are eyewitnesses of this catastrophe. Some of the sheets were picked up and preserved by people who returned them to the author after the war. It would seem that such a tragedy, when the blood of a loved one drips onto the white sheets of a novel, when manuscripts perish during the hours of a national tragedy, could cool the ardor of the refutors, find compassion in the hearts of people. Doubts about the authorship of Sholokhov should have been dispelled, but the false authors did not calm down.

One literary critic Lev Kolodny decided to find the true author of The Quiet Flows the Don. Comparing episodes from the life of Sholokhov with the text of the novel, Kolodny became convinced that the author of The Quiet Flows the Don was Sholokhov. Hospital addresses, street names - everything is authentic, these are Moscow addresses. For example, Dr. Snegirev's eye clinic, Kolpachny Lane. These are by no means fictitious names. In a minute, having picked up a weighty volume of the Suvorin edition of the “Address and Reference Book for 1913”, not without reason called “All Moscow”, Lev Kolodny found out that K.V. Snegirev really was located on Kolpachny Lane, 11. According to eyewitnesses, acquaintances, friends, relatives, Sholokhov did visit the above places personally. Few people know that he had a permanent address in Moscow (this was verified by Kolodny on permanent mailing lists). “...manuscripts do not burn” - this was proved to us by Lev Kolodny in his book, thus confirming the authorship of Mikhail Sholokhov, the true author of the novel “Quiet Flows the Don”.

The Quiet Flows the Don is one of the most remarkable works of socialist realism, and its author should be awarded the highest award.

The history of the creation of the novel "Quiet Flows the Don"

Sholokhov conceived a great novel about the people and the revolution in the mid-1920s. The desire to create a novel about the Don, to show the Cossacks during the period of dramatic events that preceded the 1917 revolution arose in the writer while working on the Don stories and has not left him since. In October 1925, he began work on a novel, which was called "Donshchina". The book was conceived as a story, quite traditional for Soviet literature, about the fierce struggle for the victory of Soviet power on the Don in the autumn of 1917-spring of 1918. At the beginning of work on the novel, Sholokhov encountered great difficulties. He doubted that he would cope with the task, and also that he had chosen the right path.

After writing several chapters, Sholokhov put aside the manuscript of Donshchina for some time. Postponing work on Donshchina, Sholokhov began to think about a broader novel. So, in the process of work, the writer came up with the idea to trace the ideological revolution of the Don Cossacks, to reveal the reasons for the complications of his paths in a difficult time for Russia. He understood that without revealing the historically established conditions of life and life of the people, without explaining the reasons that prompted a significant part of him to take the side of the White Guards, the novel that began with the Kornilov rebellion, the campaign of the Cossack troops against Petrograd, would not solve the problem of the people's paths in the revolution. To do this, first of all, it was necessary to reveal the world of his life with all the complexities and contradictions. Pushing the narrative back to the time preceding the imperialist war, the writer sought to show the growth of revolutionary sentiment among his heroes, the scope of the people's struggle for a new life. The transition from one idea to another led to a change in the name of the novel - "Quiet Don".

The meaning invested in this name, Sholokhov sought to reveal with the whole figurative structure of the narrative, as an epic canvas about the fate of the Russian people in their struggle for freedom. The writer set a goal to create the very image of the “Quiet Don”, to show the life of the people and the important changes in it caused by the revolution. The main idea of ​​the writer is hidden in the title of the novel, which is also concentrated in epigraphs, borrowed, like the title of the novel, from folk art.
The idea of ​​a new novel, according to the author himself, fully matured at the end of 1926. After that, Sholokhov began to actively collect material. It was at this time that the writer moved to the village of Veshenskaya and forever connected his creative destiny with it. The work on the novel required hard and intense work. The life of the Cossack farm was familiar to the writer from childhood. But, despite this, Sholokhov made many trips to the surrounding farms and villages, recording the memoirs of participants and witnesses of the First World War and the revolution; stories of old people about the life and life of the Cossacks of those years. Collecting and studying Cossack folklore, the writer traveled to the archives of Moscow and Rostov to study newspapers and magazines, get acquainted with old books on the history of the Don Cossacks, special military literature, and contemporaries' memoirs of the imperialist and civil wars.
Sholokhov carefully thought out the plan of his novel, and later changed only the details, although, according to him, much had to be rethought and redone many times. Selecting and systematizing the material for the novel, Sholokhov did a huge and complex work of the historian. He resorted to the abundant use of documents, confirming the events and facts depicted by citing appeals, leaflets, telegrams, appeals, letters, declarations, resolutions and orders. Some chapters of the novel are entirely based on these documents. In the process of working on the structure of the book, the author had to intersperse a lot of events, facts, people and at the same time not lose the main characters in them.

A year later, the first book of the epic "Quiet Don" was published in the magazine "October", in 1928 - the second, which absorbed the once shelved chapters of "Donshchina". One could have expected the release of the third book just as soon, but suddenly the matter slowed down.

In the autumn of 1926, the writer sat down to work, and a year later the first book of the epic Quiet Flows the Don was published in the October magazine, in 1928 the second book, which absorbed the once shelved chapters of Donshchina. One could have expected the release of the third book just as soon, but suddenly the matter slowed down. The reason for everything turned out to be the problems of a “non-literary nature”. In the center of the narrative of the third book is the Cossack uprising of 1919, a topic too painful for the new government. A heated controversy begins around the chapters of this book, often taking the form of outright attacks. The writer and influential literary functionary A. Fadeev strongly recommends that the author immediately, in the third book, make Grigory Melekhov "ours". Sholokhov writes: “... Fadeev suggests that I make such changes that are unacceptable to me in any way ... I would rather not publish at all than do it against my will, to the detriment of both the novel and myself.” The reader had to wait several more years for the third book. The main character of the work, Grigory Melekhov, contrary to the author's urgent recommendations, did not come to true Bolshevism at all, but to his own home, to his son, to the land he had left.

The novel was finished in 1940. The novel, published as a separate edition in 1953, was mutilated by the editor's scissors: only in this, greatly "truncated" and "supplemented" form, it was allowed to the reader, and the author had to agree with the "editing". Not distorted by censorship and editorial interventions, Sholokhov saw the full text of his work printed only in 1980. In the collected works - fifty years after writing and four years before the end of life.