Vladimir VASILIEV

Sholokhov and the Nobel Prize: background

The names of the Nobel Prize winners were announced by the Committee in the press on October 15, 1965. A month later, on November 16, in a conversation with Swedish journalists, Sholokhov noted that “the awarding of the Nobel Prize to him was, to a certain extent, a surprise for him,” and during a press conference in Stockholm, as one of the Scandinavian newspapers wrote, “he even allows himself joke about it” and agrees with the claim that he wins the Nobel Prize “thirty years late”.

The idea of ​​Sholokhov as the most worthy candidate for the Nobel Prize first sounded in the foreign press, in particular in Swedish newspapers, in 1935, when Quiet Flows the Don had not yet been completed, but its author was already known as “world famous”, “world writer ”, and the novel - “Soviet“ War and Peace ””. Completed in 1940, “Quiet Flows the Flows of the Don” could not be considered by the Swedish Academy as a work worthy of the Nobel Prize due to political considerations related to the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. The turning point in the fight against Nazi Germany, and subsequently the decisive contribution to the victory over fascism in World War II, to a large extent raised the world authority of the Soviet Union, and the name of Sholokhov, as the undisputed Nobel laureate, again became one of the achievements of world literature of the 20th century that dominated the assessments. . “In the field of literature,” Literaturnaya Gazeta wrote in 1946, “in recent years, the candidacy of M. Sholokhov, a writer who is well known and loved in Sweden, has been repeatedly nominated.” However, the Cold War, which became especially aggravated in the world in 1948-1953 and took on new, more sophisticated forms from the mid-1950s, left a powerful imprint on the state of everyday world humanitarian thought, which descended to elementary Soviet propaganda propaganda. “The Western reader,” H. McLean and W. Vickery wrote about this time, “gets an idea of ​​Soviet literature not from ... Soviet literature itself, and not even from critical reviews. His idea of ​​Soviet literature was formed from newspaper articles ... about the events of Moscow literary life ... In the West, we tend to discuss ... the social behavior of Soviet writers ... rather than talk about the aesthetic merits or style of their work ... Truly literary works ... served us most often as sources for sociological conclusions. Literature in the proper sense did not interest us” (Maclean H. and Vickery W. The Year of Protest. New York, 1956. P. 4, 28). A similar mindset found expression in the awarding of the Nobel Prizes in 1953 to the British Prime Minister W. Churchill (in literature), the father of the Cold War (speech in Fulton in 1946), and to the former US Secretary of Defense, General of the Army J. Marshall, one one of the active initiators of the militaristic revival of West Germany and US hegemony in Europe. In the next volume of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, published hot on the heels of this event, it is noted: “... the awarding of N[obel] prizes, especially for literary works and activities in favor of peace, is often determined by the political interests of reactionary circles.”

The ideological preferences of the Swedish Academy were too obvious, and it seems far from accidental that the Nobel Committee, in the form of objectivity and impartiality, decided to weaken the impression of the emerging practice in awarding prizes and turned to the oldest Russian writer, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences S.N. Sergeev-Tsensky with a request to propose a candidate for the Nobel Prize "no later than February 1954."

“In response to your appeal,” Sergeev-Tsensky wrote to the Nobel Committee, “I consider it an honor to propose the Soviet writer Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1953. A full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Mikhail Sholokhov, in my opinion, as well as in the recognition of my colleagues and the masses of readers, is one of the most outstanding writers of my country. He enjoys worldwide fame as a great artist of the word, masterfully revealing in his works the movements and impulses of the human soul and mind, the complexity of human feelings and relationships.

Hundreds of millions of readers around the world know Sholokhov's novels "Quiet Flows the Don" and "Virgin Soil Upturned" - highly humanistic works, imbued with deep faith in man, in his ability to transform life, make it bright and joyful for everyone.

“Quiet Don”, “Virgin Soil Upturned” and other works by Sholokhov, according to the information at my disposal, were published in the USSR before January 1, 1954 in 412 editions in 55 languages. The total circulation of publications is 19,947,000 copies. Sholokhov's books have been translated into dozens of foreign languages ​​and published in large numbers. All this testifies to their extraordinary popularity and usefulness for mankind.

Coming from the common people, from a family of Don Cossacks, Mikhail Sholokhov lives among his countrymen. He closely links his work with life and the interests of ordinary Soviet people. In their life and struggle, he draws material for his works, among them he finds the heroes of his books. In works of art, he raises questions that are most exciting to our contemporaries.

Sholokhov's novel "Quiet Flows the Don", by all accounts, is a classic work of Soviet literature. This is an epic about the Don Cossacks in the turbulent years - 1912-1922. It poses great moral and humanistic problems - about the ways of human development, about the fate of entire classes and individuals. In excellent realistic paintings, the writer reveals the bright and dark sides of life. It shows the struggle against social evil for the triumph of the bright beginnings of life. Love and hate, the joy and suffering of the heroes are described by Sholokhov with great insight, knowledge of life and sympathy for man.

In the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned”, Sholokhov truthfully and with captivating artistic skill shows the restructuring of the old way of peasant life by the collective farm Cossacks. He reveals the high moral qualities of the Soviet peasant - the source and basis of his unparalleled feat in creating a new way of life on the basis of collective farming.

Mikhail Sholokhov is one of those major Russian writers who continue and develop the best achievements of Russian classical literature and create excellent examples of realistic art.

The work of Mikhail Sholokhov undoubtedly serves the progress of mankind, the strengthening of friendly ties between the Russian people and the peoples of other countries.

I am deeply convinced that it is Mikhail Sholokhov who has a priority over other writers for receiving the Nobel Prize.

Please accept my assurance of deep respect for you.
Full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR S. Sergeev-Tsensky”.

The proposal of the Nobel Committee to Sergeev-Tsensky was first discussed in principle, starting with the board of the Writers' Union and ending with the Central Committee of the CPSU, whether to accept it or not, use it "for a publicly motivated refusal to participate to some extent in the work of this public organization with the exposure of this an organization that is an instrument of warmongers, or for a motivated nomination of one of the writers as an active fighter for peace” (B.N. Polevoy to M.A. Suslov, January 21, 1954). When the issue was resolved in favor of the last consideration, the discussion of the candidacy, in particular Sholokhov, began in the same order, and the agreement on the text of the letter that motivated his nomination. Finally, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU at a meeting on February 23, 1954 decided:

"1. Accept the proposal of the Union of Soviet Writers of the USSR to nominate the writer Sholokhov M.A. as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1953.

2. To agree with the text of the response of the writer Sergeev-Tsensky to the Nobel Committee at the Swedish Academy presented by the Union of Soviet Writers ...

3. Submit for approval by the Presidium”.

Some time later, the Nobel Committee responded to the submission of Sergeev-Tsensky, dated March 6, 1954: “The Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy accepted with interest your proposal to award the Nobel Prize to M.A. Sholokhov.

Since offers must come to us no later than February 1st, Your proposal has reached us too late to be discussed for this year.

However, Sholokhov will be nominated as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for 1955, that is, in 1956 (emphasis mine. - V.V.).

In the answer of the Nobel Committee, attention is drawn to a very tangible emphasis on the formal side of resolving the issue. In the Committee's proposal to the Soviet academician, it was said that a candidate for the prize should be submitted "no later than February" (see above). The last words cannot be understood or interpreted otherwise than during the month of February, and not by February 1st. In other words: Sergeev-Tsensky was delayed with an answer for some two or three days, and, as they say in such cases, if there was good will, the formal moment could easily be overcome.

The postponement of Sholokhov's candidacy to 1956 cannot but suggest that the Swedish Academy has already decided on the 1955 Nobel Prize. It was received by the Icelandic writer H. Laskness, the author of the notes "Russian Fairy Tale" (1938, twice visited the USSR in the 30s), full of faith in the socialist transformation of life, laureate of the International Peace Prize (1953), who, having visited the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin in October 1953, began to move away from sharp criticism of bourgeois social relations.

The expectation that Sholokhov received the Nobel Prize in 1956 did not come true either - it was awarded to the Spanish modernist poet J. Jimenez (1881-1958).

The issue of awarding the Nobel Prize to Sholokhov again became aggravated in connection with the publication of B. Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago abroad. Rejected by the editors of Soviet magazines and publishing houses, the novel was transferred by its author in May 1956 abroad and, translated in great haste, was first published on November 15, 1957 in Italian, then - before the end of the year - was released in English, Norwegian, French and German languages. Read by the world's progressive public in an unprecedented rush and received huge press, "Doctor Zhivago", unknown to anyone in the original language until August 24, 1958, was nevertheless accepted by the Nobel Committee for discussion as a work of the "great Russian epic tradition" (although, according to the exact definition of D.S. Likhachev, this is “not even a novel”, but “a kind of autobiography”, and a lyrical autobiography.Even the reasonable statements of Sovietologists that “Pasternak’s novel, not published in the USSR ... can be considered as a work of Soviet literature”, turned out to be easily overcome and not of significant importance (see: Maclean H. and Vickery W. The Year of Protest, 1956. P. 3).

Since for the first time in history Russian Soviet literature was represented by Pasternak’s novel in its highest achievement, a sharp political struggle unfolded around the candidacy for the Nobel Prize, in which superior forces, even if only in the form of listing only newspapers and magazines and other means of operational information, cannot be taken into account. . “Recently, in the Swedish Pen Club, which unites a significant part of the writers,” G.M. Markov April 7, 1958 - a discussion of the candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature took place. Four candidates were discussed: Sholokhov, Pasternak, Pound, Moravia. The discussion was in the nature of a referendum. The absolute majority of the participants in the discussion spoke in favor of Sholokhov. Filed his vote for Sholokhov and Prince Wilhelm, exercising patronage over the Pen Club. Thus, Swedish cultural figures who are benevolent towards us consider Sholokhov's chances for the prize to be real.

At the same time, Erik Asklund and Sven Stork, referring to their personal connections with people who are well aware of the Swedish Academy that awards the prize, told us that among the highest circles of this academy there is a certain opinion in favor of Pasternak, and we are talking about a possible division of the prize between Sholokhov and Pasternak.

Wishing that justice would prevail with regard to Sholokhov, our Swedish friends expressed their wishes for intensifying the struggle for Sholokhov. The Soviet press could provide significant assistance in favor of Sholokhov. Facts and examples about the international popularity of Sholokhov, about his wide popularity in the Scandinavian countries would play a positive role, as they would strengthen the positions of Sholokhov's supporters. Obviously, other measures are not ruled out, in particular, speeches by the most prominent foreign and Soviet cultural figures on this issue in various print media in Scandinavian and other countries.

The fight over the candidates for the Nobel Prize coincided with a change in strategy in the conduct of the "cold war" of the West and the United States with the East, Asia and "barbarism". If earlier it was waged against socialism in general and as a whole, now its character has assumed more sophisticated and concrete forms. Its goal was to count on the split of the new social system from the inside, to stake on the dismemberment of the “monolith” into “pieces”, the division of the single socialist camp into the countries of the faithful and those opposed to them, and the societies into groups of “mossy reactionaries” and dissidents, into people who are slavishly committed” dilapidated values”, and free individuals and “personalities”. As D. Kennedy formulated a new task in the war against communism when he took office: “There is no point in talking about massive retaliation, by doing this we only strengthen the red bloc. Now we should look for ways to split this bloc” (Kennedy J.F. The strategy of Peace. New York, 1960. P. 44). In accordance with the "new thinking" and B. Pasternak's novel "was used as a psychological weapon in the Cold War" (Brown E. Russian Literature since the Revolution. New York, 1973. P. 273).

In the current situation, the position of Sholokhov the Communist could not be different than it was formulated in the note of the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU L. Ilyichev and the head of the Department of Culture of the Central Committee of the Party D. Polikarpov dated October 21, 1958: “... if Comrade Sholokhov is awarded the Nobel prize for this year, along with Pasternak, it would be expedient that, as a sign of protest, comrade Sholokhov defiantly refuse it and declare in the press his unwillingness to be the winner of the prize, the award of which is used for anti-Soviet purposes ... ”(Center for the Storage of Modern Documents, fund 5, list 36, file 61, sheet 52).

The realistic assessment of the literary merits of Doctor Zhivago by individual Western critics did not influence the choice of the Swedish Academy and was lost in a host of frank political praises and ideological enthusiasm. Long before the announcement of the Nobel Prize winner, the French weekly Ar, in its issue of January 29, 1958, wrote: “It was not so much the literary, but the political significance of Doctor Zhivago that brought him to the fore.” “Pasternak became famous in the West even before they got acquainted with his work,” the “Figaro literer” echoed him. Pasternak’s novel, Gustav Gerling noted in the West German Mercur, “can by no means be considered a completely successful work: it is populated by figures with a very poorly defined psychology, chaotic in construction.” The Dutch bourgeois newspaper saw nothing in Doctor Zhivago except "affection, literary clumsiness, strained symbolism and wasteful use of characters." “It seems to me,” the French critic Andre Rousseau admitted, “that Pasternak’s realism ... is very close to banality and even vulgar naturalism. Be that as it may, in this case you do not feel that irresistible force with which great works usually capture us ... ”. V. Nabokov called the novel Doctor Zhivago “painful, mediocre, false”, and Graham Greene called it “clumsy, crumbling like a deck of cards”.

Rare reasonable voices were muffled, however, by powerful pathetic rhetoric: “The stagnation of Soviet literature lasted ... until the appearance of Doctor Zhivago in 1958” (Guerney B. An Anthology of Russian Literature in the Soviet Period from Gorki to Pasternak. New York, 1960. P. XXII); “the novel stands in brilliant solitude”, “a bestseller in Europe”, “the voice of another Russia” (Slonim M. Russian Soviet Literature: Writers and Problems. New York, 1964. P. 228, 230); “Nobel Prize against Communism” (signature under the portrait of Pasternak in the Viennese newspaper Neue Courier in the issue on the eve of the announcement of the Nobel laureates), etc.

“We could partially imagine and understand the reaction of the Soviet public to Pasternak being awarded the Nobel Prize for the novel “Doctor Zhivago” (in 1958. - V.V.), - W. Vickery argued, - if they imagined our indignation and accusations of disloyalty that could flare up in the USA against some well-known American writer who wrote a book on an extremely sensitive topic, due to which it was refused to be printed in the USA , and the author sent the manuscript to the USSR, and then received the Lenin Prize for Literature...” (Vickery W. The Cult of Optimism: Political and Ideological Problems of Recent Soviet Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963. P. 93–94 ).

While in France in April 1959, Sholokhov was asked by a correspondent of the Parisian evening newspaper France-Soir about his opinion on the Pasternak case (meaning the exclusion of the author of Doctor Zhivago from the Writers' Union and his refusal of the Nobel Prize. - V.V.), “gave an all the more remarkable answer because several Soviet diplomats listened to him without finding any reaction”: “The collective leadership of the Union of Soviet Writers lost their cool. Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago should have been published in the Soviet Union instead of banned. It was necessary that Pasternak be defeated by his readers, instead of bringing him up for discussion. If we acted in this way, our readers, who are very demanding, would have already forgotten about it. As for me, I think that the work of Pasternak as a whole is devoid of any significance, except for his translations, which are brilliant. As for the book Doctor Zhivago, the manuscript of which I read in Moscow, it is a formless work, an amorphous mass that does not deserve the title of a novel.”

Without resorting to a political assessment of Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago, Sholokhov indirectly reproached the Swedish Academy for neglecting the artistic side of literature, which at one time, even at the dawn of the Nobel Prizes, claiming world recognition, was pointed out in a rather sharp form by the largest Swedish writer August Strindberg: “... let's get rid of the masters who do not understand art, undertaking to judge it. And if necessary, let's give up Nobel money, dynamite money, as they are called” (quoted from: Kozhinov V. Nobel myth // Writer's diary, 1996, March-April, p. 8).

A few days before the official announcement of the next Nobel laureate in 1964, the French writer and philosopher Jean Paul Sartre sent a letter to the Swedish Academy in which he refused the prize and asked to award it to some other artist. When the Nobel Committee announced his name as a laureate, the writer, through the Swedish embassy in Paris, for the second time decisively rejected such a high recognition, motivating his refusal by a long vow not to receive any awards and not to associate himself with the Nobel Foundation and the committee, obliging him to profess certain political and public opinions and sympathies. “Under the current conditions,” Sartre said, “the Nobel Prize objectively looks like an award either to Western writers or to recalcitrants from the East. She, for example, did not crown Pablo Neruda, one of the greatest poets in America. There was never a serious talk about Louis Aragon, who, however, deserves it. It is worthy of regret that the prize was awarded to Pasternak before Sholokhov, and that the only Soviet work awarded the award is a book published abroad ... ”(Literaturnaya gazeta. 1964. October 24. P. 1).

Charles Snow and Pampela Hansford Johnson expressed support for Sholokhov's candidacy for the award. “We are convinced,” they wrote, “that Sholokhov's works are of great and enduring value. This is how we think and ask the Nobel Committee to address precisely this aspect of the problem. It is clear that the novel as an art form is now constantly debated, and there is no consensus on how the novel should develop in the future.<···>In our opinion ... Sholokhov created a novel that is the best of its kind for a whole generation. This is Quiet Don. Other works by Sholokhov may not be on the same level, but The Quiet Flows the Don is a realistic epic worthy of War and Peace. If not as great as "War and Peace", insofar as it does not contain that work of self-consciousness, but worthy of comparison with "War and Peace". And this work is much more tragic than War and Peace. It is significant that the most significant and most recognized work of Soviet literature depicts the sad death of the main characters, with the exception of a child, whose life flickers like a flame of hope. It is worth comparing the endings of "War and Peace" and "Quiet Flows the Don". In one case, the family happiness of Pierre and Natasha, in the other - Grigory Melekhov, persecuted, on the verge of death, who came, perhaps, for the last time to see his son ”(Archive of IMLI RAS, f. 520, op. 1, No. 62 ).

Charles Snow, on the other hand, suggested that the Institute of World Literature, represented by its director, his longtime friend I.I. Anisimov to present Sholokhov for the Nobel Prize and prepare materials about the writer (biography, bibliography, rationale). “Each of the awards,” writes D. Urnov, “is motivated by a special wording. Not for individual works, but for some exceptional feature of the whole work, the Nobel Prize is awarded. So, Kipling received for "masculinity of style." Hemingway - "for the influence of stylistic skill." Sholokhov's wording developed by itself: "Uncompromising truthfulness."

Do you think it's them (Nobel Committee. - V.V.) will pass? - asked Ivan Ivanovich (Anisimov. - V.V.), looking through and signing the relevant papers” (Bolshoi Ivan: A Book about I.I. Anisimov. M.: Pravda, 1982 (Spark Library, No. 22). P. 41).

Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize, as indicated in the diploma of the laureate, “in recognition of the artistic strength and honesty that he showed in his Don epic about the historical phases of the life of the Russian people”.

In the summer of 1965, in order to clarify the attitude of Soviet writers to the fact (if any) of awarding the Sholokhov Prize to Moscow, the Vice President of the Nobel Committee visited Moscow. “Recently in Moscow,” Sholokhov wrote to L.I., First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Brezhnev on July 30, 1965 - was the vice-president of the Nobel Committee.

In a conversation at the Writers' Union, he made it clear that this year the Nobel Committee would obviously discuss my candidacy.

After the refusal of Jean Paul Sartre (last year) to receive the Nobel Prize, citing the fact that the Nobel Committee is biased in its assessments and that it, this committee, in particular, should have long ago awarded the Nobel Prize to Sholokhov, the visit of the Vice President cannot be regarded otherwise, like intelligence.

Just in case, I would like to know how the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU will react if this prize is (contrary to the class convictions of the Swedish committee) awarded to me, and what will my Central Committee advise me?<···>At the end of August I will go to Kazakhstan for 2-3 months, and I would be glad to have news before I leave.” The letter contains the opinion of the department of culture of the Central Committee of the CPSU: “... awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature to comrade. Sholokhov M.A. it would be a fair recognition on the part of the Nobel Committee of world significance for the work of an outstanding Soviet writer. In this regard, the department sees no reason to refuse the award if it is awarded.” Here is the resolution-conclusion: “To agree with the proposals of the department. P.Demichev, A.Shelepin, D.Ustinov, N.Podgorny, Yu.Andropov” - and reference: “Comrade. Sholokhov M.A. reported 16.VIII.65. G. Kunitsyn”.

Mikhail Sholokhov (1905-1984) - Russian prose writer, journalist, screenwriter. He received the Nobel Prize in 1965 for his contribution to world literature (the epic novel about the Russian Cossacks "Quiet Don"). In 1941 he became a laureate of the Stalin Prize, in 1960 - the Lenin Prize, in 1967 and 1980 - the Hero of Socialist Labor.

The future outstanding writer was born in 1905 (farm Kruzhilin, Veshenskaya village) in a prosperous family, his father was a clerk of a commercial store and the manager of a steam mill, his mother was a Cossack by birth, she was a servant in the panorama estate Yasenevka, she was forcibly married to a Cossack stanitsa ataman Kuznetsova. After parting with him, Anastasia Chernyak began to live with Alexander Sholokhov, their son Mikhail was born out of wedlock and was called Kuznetsov (after the name of her ex-husband), until they officially divorced, and she married Alexander Sholokhov in 1912.

After the head of the family got a new job in another village, the family moved to a new place of residence. Little Misha was taught to read and write by a local teacher invited to the house, in 1914 he began to study in the preparatory class of the Moscow Men's Gymnasium. 1915-1918 - studying at the gymnasium in the city of Boguchary (Voronezh province). In 1920, after the Bolsheviks came to power, the Sholokhovs moved to the village of Karginskaya, where his father became the head of a procurement office, and his son was in charge of office work in the village revolutionary committee. Having completed the Rostov tax courses, Sholokhov became a food inspector in the village of Bukanovskaya, where, as part of the food detachments, he participated in the food appraisal, was captured by Makhno. In September 1922, Mikhail Sholokhov was taken into custody, a criminal case was initiated against him, and even a court sentence was passed - execution, which was never carried out. Thanks to the intervention of his father, who made a large bail for him and corrected his birth certificates, according to which he became a minor, he was released already in March 1923, having been sentenced to a year of corrective labor in a juvenile colony and sent to Bolshevo (Moscow region).

Having gone to the capital, Sholokhov tries to become a workers' faculty member, which he does not succeed, since he lacks work experience and the direction of the Komsomol organization. The future writer worked part-time as a laborer, attended various literary circles and training sessions, the teachers at which were well-known personalities such as Alexander Aseev, Osip Brik, Viktor Shklovsky. In 1923, the newspaper Yunosheskaya Pravda published the feuilleton "Test" by Sholokhov, and later several more works "Three", "The Government Inspector".

In the same year, after visiting his parents who lived in the village of Bukanovskaya, Sholokhov decided to propose to Lydia Gromoslavskaya. But convinced by the future father-in-law (the former stanitsa ataman) to “make a man out of him”, he does not marry Lydia, but her older sister, Maria, with whom they had four children in the future (two sons and two daughters).

At the end of 1924, the newspaper "Young Leninist" published Sholokhov's story "The Mole", which was included in the cycle of Don stories ("Shepherd", "Foal", "Family Man", etc.), later combined into collections "Don Stories" ( 1926), "Azure Steppe" (1926), "About Kolchak, nettles and other things" (1927). These works did not bring the author much popularity, but marked the advent of a new writer in Soviet Russian literature, able to notice and reflect in a vivid literary form important trends in the life of that time.

In 1928, living with his family in the village of Veshenskaya, Sholokhov began work on his most grandiose brainchild - the epic novel in four volumes, The Quiet Don, in which he reflected the fate of the Don Cossacks during the First World War and further civil bloodshed. The novel was published in 1940, was highly appreciated by both the country's party leadership and Comrade Stalin himself. During the Second World War, the novel was translated into many Western European languages ​​and gained great popularity not only in Russia, but also far beyond its borders. In 1965, Sholokhov was nominated for the Nobel Prize, and became the only Soviet writer to receive it with the personal approval of the then leadership of the Soviet Union. In the period from 1932 to 1959, Sholokhov wrote another of his famous novels in two volumes about collectivization, Virgin Soil Upturned, for which he received the Lenin Prize in 1960.

During the war years, Mikhail Sholokhov served as a war correspondent, at that difficult time for the country, many stories and novels were written that described the fate of ordinary people who fell into the millstones of war: the stories "The Fate of a Man", "The Science of Hatred", the unfinished story "They fought for the motherland." Subsequently, these works were filmed and became a real classic of Soviet cinema, which made an indelible impression on the audience, striking them with their tragedy, humanity and unchanging patriotism.

In the post-war period, Sholokhov published a series of journalism "The Word about the Motherland", "Light and Darkness", "The Struggle Continues", etc. In the early 60s, he gradually moved away from literary activity, returned from Moscow to the village of Veshenskaya, went hunting and fishing. He gives all the awards he received for his literary achievements to the construction of schools in his native places. In the last years of his life, he was seriously ill and stoically endured the consequences of two strokes, diabetes, and, in the end, an oncological disease of the larynx - throat cancer. His earthly journey ended on February 21, 1984, his remains were buried in the village of Veshenskaya, in the courtyard of his house.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin handed out the Nobel Prize to friends

In December 1933, the Paris press wrote: Without a doubt, I.A. Bunin - in recent years - the most powerful figure in Russian fiction and poetry», « the king of literature confidently and equally shook hands with the crowned monarch».

The Russian emigration applauded. In Russia, however, the news that a Russian emigrant received the Nobel Prize was treated very caustically. After all, Bunin negatively perceived the events of 1917 and emigrated to France. Ivan Alekseevich himself experienced emigration very hard, was actively interested in the fate of his abandoned homeland, and during the Second World War he categorically refused all contacts with the Nazis, having moved to the Maritime Alps in 1939, returning from there to Paris only in 1945.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. 1901

It is known that Nobel laureates have the right to decide for themselves how to spend the money they receive. Someone invests in the development of science, someone in charity, someone in their own business. Bunin, a creative person and devoid of "practical ingenuity", disposed of his bonus, which amounted to 170,331 crowns, completely irrationally.

The poet and literary critic Zinaida Shakhovskaya recalled: “ Returning to France, Ivan Alekseevich ... apart from money, began to arrange feasts, distribute "allowances" to emigrants, and donate funds to support various societies. Finally, on the advice of well-wishers, he invested the remaining amount in some kind of “win-win business” and was left with nothing.».

Ivan Bunin is the first émigré writer to be published in Russia. True, the first publications of his stories appeared already in the 1950s, after the death of the writer. Some of his novels and poems were published in his homeland only in the 1990s.

Dear God, what are you for?
He gave us passions, thoughts and worries,
Thirst for business, glory and comfort?
Joyful cripples, idiots,
The leper is the happiest of all.
(I. Bunin. September, 1917)

Boris Pasternak refused the Nobel Prize

Boris Pasternak was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature "for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel" annually from 1946 to 1950. In 1958, last year's Nobel laureate Albert Camus again proposed his candidacy, and on October 23, Pasternak became the second Russian writer to be awarded this prize.

The writers' environment in the poet's homeland took this news extremely negatively, and already on October 27, Pasternak was unanimously expelled from the Writers' Union of the USSR, at the same time submitting a petition to deprive Pasternak of Soviet citizenship. In the USSR, Pasternak was associated with receiving the award only with his novel Doctor Zhivago.

The Literary Gazette wrote: “Pasternak received “thirty pieces of silver”, for which the Nobel Prize was used. He was rewarded for agreeing to play the role of bait on the rusty hook of anti-Soviet propaganda ... An inglorious end awaits the resurrected Judas, Doctor Zhivago, and his author, whose lot will be popular contempt ".

The mass campaign launched against Pasternak forced him to refuse the Nobel Prize. The poet sent a telegram to the Swedish Academy, in which he wrote: Because of the significance that the award awarded to me has received in the society to which I belong, I must refuse it. Do not take my voluntary refusal as an insult».

It is worth noting that in the USSR until 1989, even in the school curriculum on literature about Pasternak's work, there was no mention. The director Eldar Ryazanov was the first to decide to massively acquaint the Soviet people with the creative work of Pasternak. In his comedy "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!" (1976) he included the poem "There Will Be No One in the House", transforming it into an urban romance, performed by the bard Sergei Nikitin. Later, Ryazanov included in his film "Office Romance" an excerpt from another poem by Pasternak - "To love others is a heavy cross ..." (1931). True, he sounded in a farcical context. But it is worth noting that at that time the very mention of Pasternak's poems was a very bold step.

Easy to wake up and see
Shake verbal rubbish from the heart
And live without clogging in the future,
All this is not a big trick.
(B. Pasternak, 1931)

Mikhail Sholokhov, receiving the Nobel Prize, did not bow to the monarch

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965 for his novel The Quiet Flows the Flows Flows the Flows Flows and went down in history as the only Soviet writer to receive this award with the consent of the Soviet leadership. The diploma of the laureate says "in recognition of the artistic strength and honesty that he showed in his Don epic about the historical phases of the life of the Russian people."

Gustav Adolf VI, who presented the award to the Soviet writer, called him "one of the most outstanding writers of our time." Sholokhov did not bow to the king, as prescribed by the rules of etiquette. Some sources claim that he did it intentionally with the words: “We, the Cossacks, do not bow to anyone. Here in front of the people - please, but I will not be in front of the king ... "

Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, the commander of a sound reconnaissance battery, who rose to the rank of captain during the war years and was awarded two military orders, was arrested in 1945 by front-line counterintelligence for anti-Sovietism. Sentence - 8 years in camps and life exile. He went through a camp in New Jerusalem near Moscow, Marfinskaya "sharashka" and the Special Ekibastuz camp in Kazakhstan. In 1956, Solzhenitsyn was rehabilitated, and since 1964 Alexander Solzhenitsyn devoted himself to literature. At the same time, he worked immediately on 4 major works: The Gulag Archipelago, The Cancer Ward, The Red Wheel and In the First Circle. In the USSR in 1964 they published the story "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", and in 1966 the story "Zakhar-Kalita".

On October 8, 1970, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize "for the moral strength gleaned from the tradition of great Russian literature." This was the reason for the persecution of Solzhenitsyn in the USSR. In 1971, all the writer's manuscripts were confiscated, and in the next 2 years, all his publications were destroyed. In 1974, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued, according to which, for the systematic commission of actions incompatible with belonging to the citizenship of the USSR and damaging the USSR, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was deprived of Soviet citizenship and deported from the USSR.

Citizenship was returned to the writer only in 1990, and in 1994 he and his family returned to Russia and became actively involved in public life.

Nobel Prize winner Joseph Brodsky in Russia was convicted of parasitism

Iosif Alexandrovich Brodsky began to write poetry at the age of 16. Anna Akhmatova predicted a hard life for him and a glorious creative destiny. In 1964, in Leningrad, a criminal case was opened against the poet on charges of parasitism. He was arrested and sent into exile in the Arkhangelsk region, where he spent a year.

In 1972, Brodsky turned to Secretary General Brezhnev with a request to work in his homeland as a translator, but his request remained unanswered, and he was forced to emigrate. Brodsky first lives in Vienna, London, and then moves to the United States, where he becomes a professor at New York, Michigan and other universities in the country.

On December 10, 1987, Joseph Brosky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his comprehensive work, saturated with the clarity of thought and the passion of poetry." It is worth saying that Brodsky, after Vladimir Nabokov, is the second Russian writer who writes in English as his native language.

The sea was not visible. In the white mist
swaddled on all sides of us, absurd
it was thought that the ship was going to land -
if it was a ship at all,
and not a clot of fog, as if poured
who whitened in milk.

(B. Brodsky, 1972)

Interesting fact

At different times, such famous personalities as Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Franklin Roosevelt, Nicholas Roerich and Leo Tolstoy were nominated for the Nobel Prize at various times, but never received it.

Sholokhov Mikhail Alexandrovich (born May 11, 1905 - died February 21, 1984) - a famous Russian Soviet writer, a recognized classic of Russian literature, Nobel Prize winner, Hero of Socialist. Truda and Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Biography

Mikhail Sholokhov was born on May 11, 1905. in the village of Veshenskaya on the Kruzhilin farm. He studied from 1914 to 1918 in Moscow, as well as in the city of Boguchar, Voronezh province, and graduated from four classes of the gymnasium.

In 1920 he moved with his family to the village of Karginskaya, where he lived until 1922, served in the village revolutionary committee, worked as a clerk in a procurement office, and taught at an elementary school. After graduating from tax courses, he was appointed to the village of Bukanovskaya as a food inspector, where, having joined the food detachment, he took part in food distribution.

In the autumn of 1922 Sholokhov went to Moscow to continue his education, and also to engage in writing in the capital. However, due to the lack of direction of the Komsomol and seniority, Sholokhov could not enter the workers' faculty. Mikhail in Moscow needed to earn a living, so he worked as a bricklayer, handyman, loader. At the same time, he was engaged in self-education, joined the Komsomol and participated in the activities of the literary group "Young Guard".

Mikhail tries to write small literary works. In 1923, the first feuilletons by Mikhail Sholokhov were published in Yunosheskaya Pravda, and in 1924. - his first story "The Mole". Then other stories by Sholokhov were published, which were later combined in the collections "Azure Steppe" and "Don Stories".

In 1924, returning to his native village, Mikhail married Maria Gromoslavskaya. Subsequently, the Sholokhovs had four children.

Widespread fame (all-Union and even world) Sholokhov brought the novel "Quiet Don", dedicated to the Don Cossacks. This work, which combines several storylines, is called an epic and is considered one of the most striking examples of socialist realism literature.

Another famous novel by Sholokhov is called "Virgin Soil Upturned" and is dedicated to the movement of "25-thousanders", as well as collectivization on the Don. During the Great Patriotic War, the 2nd volume of "Virgin Soil Upturned" was lost, and Sholokhov restored it in the post-war period.

During the war, Sholokhov worked as a war correspondent and published several essays, as well as the story "The Science of Hate". Subsequently, Mikhail Sholokhov published excerpts from his unfinished novel entitled "They Fought for the Motherland", dedicated to the retreat of Soviet troops in 1942 on the Don. Sholokhov wrote this novel in three stages, and shortly before his death, he burned the manuscript, so only separate chapters of this work were printed. Nevertheless, this novel was filmed in 1975 by director Sergei Bondarchuk, creating a two-part film that became one of the best films of Soviet cinema about the war.

In 1956, Sholokhov wrote the story "The Fate of a Man".

In 1965 Mikhail Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Until the end of his life, Mikhail Sholokhov lived in his village of Veshenskaya, for the construction of a school in which he donated his Nobel Prize. Since the late 1960s, he has almost completely moved away from literary works.

The creative heritage of Mikhail Sholokhov

• Sholokhov is a classic of Soviet literature, who made an invaluable contribution to it. One of the most significant features of Sholokhov's talent as a prose writer is his ability to notice in life and then reproduce in art the whole range of human emotions - from tragic despair and hopelessness to unrestrained fun.
• The novel “Quiet Don” created by Sholokhov was initially perceived ambiguously in the Soviet Union. The author gave a significant place in this novel to the White Cossacks, which caused criticism from Soviet critics. However, Stalin personally read this controversial novel and approved it for publication. "Quiet Flows the Don" was translated into European and then into Eastern languages ​​and was a success abroad.
• Sholokhov in his works always gave the author's assessment of the events taking place in the country, as was the case, for example, in Virgin Soil Upturned, where he highlighted the course of collectivization.
• Sholokhov is one of the leading masters of the literature of the genre of socialist realism, who made a significant contribution to world art, which consists in the fact that in his works the working people, almost for the first time in the history of world literature, appear in all the richness of characters and in the fullness of their emotional, moral and social life.
• Sholokhov was repeatedly awarded various prizes: in addition to the Nobel Prize, he also received the Stalin Prize, the Lenin Prize, the Sophia Literary Prize, the International Peace Prize, etc.

Important dates in Sholokhov's biography

• genus. 05/11/1905 - Mikhail Sholokhov was born in the village of Veshenskaya.
• 1914-1918 - studying at the gymnasium.
• 1920-1922 - living in the village of Kirginskaya.
• 1922 - Sholokhov's departure to Moscow.
• 1923 - Sholokhov's first feuilletons were printed.
• 1924 - Sholokhov's first story is published. The writer's marriage to Maria Gromoslavskaya. Work on "Quiet Don".
• 1932 - publication of the first volume of Virgin Soil Upturned.
• 1941-1945 - work as a war correspondent.
• 1956 - the story "The fate of man."
• 1959 - Volume II of Virgin Soil Upturned.
• 1965 - Nobel Prize.
• 02/21/1984 - death of Sholokhov.

• Next to the name of Sholokhov, the problem of the authorship of the works published by him periodically pops up. It first rose back in the 1920s, when The Quiet Don was first published. Sholokhov's opponents were embarrassed by the surprisingly young age of the author, who created, and even in a short time, such a large-scale work that demonstrated a deep knowledge of the life of the Don Cossacks, the areas located on the Don, and the military events that took place when Sholokhov was a child. Researchers of the writer's work respond to such an argument that this novel was not written by Sholokhov at the age of twenty, it was written for almost a decade and a half. Sholokhov spent a lot of time in the archives, communicating with various people who later became the prototypes of the heroes of The Quiet Flows the Don. Another argument cited by opponents was the low, in their opinion, the level of Sholokhov's Don Stories. In 1929, to clarify this issue, it was even created, moreover, at the direction of Stalin, a commission that investigated this issue and eventually confirmed Sholokhov's authorship by examining the manuscript provided by him. However, the most important question remained unexplained - why did Sholokhov, who clearly welcomed the Bolshevik government, write his novel about the "whites"?
• Interestingly, Sholokhov became the first and only Soviet writer to receive the Nobel Prize with the consent of the Soviet party authorities. At the award ceremony, Sholokhov violated established etiquette by not bowing to the King of Sweden, who presented the award. It is not known for sure whether Sholokhov did this on purpose to demonstrate to the whole world that the Cossacks are not going to bow to anyone but their people, or simply was not warned about this detail of etiquette.

The Nobel Prize in 2016 went to American Bob Dylan. The Swedish academics decided to award the singer for "creating new poetic expressions in the great American song tradition." He became the tenth American Nobel Prize winner, but there are only five Russian writers on this list. The award was received by Ivan Bunin, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Sholokhov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky. The latter at the time of delivery already lived in the United States, but this did not become a real American.

For Russian writers, the Nobel Prize in Literature was both a reward and a curse. Only one of the laureates was approved by the Soviet government, the rest were ostracized: some more, some less.

Swedish academicians present laureates not only with diplomas and medals, but also with money. How did the Russian writers dispose of the prize?

Ivan Bunin was the first Russian recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. This happened in 1933. The jury appreciated the "rigorous skill" with which the writer "developed the traditions of Russian classical prose." The USSR did not like the choice of Swedish academicians. He was condemned in Soviet newspapers, but things did not go beyond publications, since Bunin had long lived abroad.

The size of the Nobel Prize for Literature Ivan Bunin amounted to 715 thousand French francs. However, the writer could not practically dispose of such wealth. He gave part of the money to his emigrant colleagues, squandered part, and invested another part in some kind of scam.

Boris Pasternak

The second Nobel Prize in Literature, which went to the Russian writer, was awarded 25 years later, in 1958. Formally, the winner - Boris Pasternak - did not receive it himself, since such persecution began against him that he was forced to refuse the award. The Swedish Academy agreed with Pasternak's decision and only in 1989 was able to give a diploma and a medal to the writer's son.

The persecution of Boris Pasternak because of the Nobel Prize was so large-scale that the writer was immediately expelled from the Union of Writers of the USSR and was even going to be deprived of citizenship.

Mikhail Sholokhov was included in the list of Nobel Prize winners in literature in 1965. “For the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia,” the jury members explained their choice. The leadership of the USSR liked the choice of academicians. Sholokhov was the only one who received the award and was approved by the government of his native country. The writer distinguished himself during the presentation. He broke protocol by refusing to bow to the Swedish king.

Sholokhov received 62 thousand dollars. He spent most of the money on travel. Together with his children, he traveled to England, France, Italy, visited Japan. In London, the writer bought gifts for friends, 20 English sweaters cost him 3 thousand dollars. The writer gave another part of the money for the construction of a library and a club in the Rostov region.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn had problems in 1970 because of the Nobel Prize. The leadership of the USSR was offended when they found out who it was decided to present the award to. The government considered this decision "politically hostile". The writer himself could not even go to the awards ceremony, as he was sure that they would not let him go home.

The money received by the fourth Russian Nobel laureate lay in Western banks for several years. When Solzhenitsyn nevertheless emigrated to the United States, they were very useful to him: the writer bought an estate in the state of Vermont.

The last Russian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize was the poet Joseph Brodsky. The presentation took place in 1987, Brodsky was already living and working in the USA at that time. The poet turned out to be more practical than all his predecessors. He listened to the advice of friends and opened a Russian restaurant in New York. He still works in Manhattan today.