When and by whom was the novel written? Quiet Don"- the manuscript of the White Guard Fyodor Kryukov or independent work Sholokhov?
On June 1, 1965, Mikhail Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize. Meanwhile, even at that time, disputes did not stop in the writer's homeland - was he really the author of The Quiet Flows the Don, a novel that critics called "War and Peace" of the 20th century?
The manuscript found in the bag
Doubts related to the authorship of The Quiet Flows the Don began almost immediately after the first volume was written, after the first magazine publications. Writers and critics were at a loss - could the twenty-two-year-old author, who did not receive a decent education, as they say, from a plow, create such a complete, realistic, comprehensive picture of the life of the Don Cossacks? Objectively, Sholokhov was not a contemporary of the events described - at that time he was still a small child; respectively, to write a novel that spans the layers of life different layers Russian society, he would have to, like Pushkin And Tolstoy working tirelessly with historical archives; meanwhile, there was no evidence that Sholokhov spent long hours in libraries.
In 1928, there was a rumor that the manuscript of the novel had been stolen from the field bag of a murdered White Guard. Fyodor Kryukov. It was rumored that after the publication of the beginning of the novel, the old mother of this Kryukov appeared with a demand to publish a book with the name of the original author on the cover.
Expert opinion
In 1929, a commission of writers was organized, among which were Fadeev And Serafimovich. Sholokhov was obliged to submit to the editors of the Pravda newspaper the manuscripts of the first three books of the novel and rough plan fourth. The experts conducted an investigation, compared the style of writing with Sholokhov's Don Stories - and concluded that they were written by one person, namely Mikhail Sholokhov.
In 1999, the lost manuscripts of the first two books of the novel were rediscovered - the very ones that Sholokhov presented to the commission. A graphological examination showed that the manuscript was indeed written by Sholokhov's hand.
That's just - written or rewritten from the original?
Confusion with historical facts
From the text of the novel, we learn that Grigory Melekhov, like other Cossacks from his farm, fought during the First World War in Galicia. However, in parallel with the Galician line, the Prussian line periodically appears in the novel - with unambiguous references to the fact that Melekhov managed to make war there too. And this despite the fact that the Cossack regiments of the Verkhnedonsky district, to which the village of Veshenskaya belongs, did not fight in East Prussia!
Where does such a mix come from? Most likely from mechanical connection two versions of the novel. In Prussia, as you know, the Cossacks of the Ust-Medveditsky district fought, where Fyodor Kryukov was from - the same White Guard Cossack, from whose bag the manuscript was probably pulled out. If we assume that Sholokhov used Kryukov's manuscript as the basis for The Quiet Flows the Don, then he can be considered Kryukov's co-author - but by no means the sole author of the novel.
Arguments against
Israeli literary critic Zeev Bra-Sella claims that there is not a single argument confirming that Sholokhov is really the author of the novel for which he was given the Nobel Prize. However, he sees many arguments against. So, he claims that the manuscript of the novel is an undoubted fake, and it is absolutely clear for what purposes it was made. In the manuscript, places were noted by experts, indicating that the person who copied it by hand (that is, Sholokhov himself) sometimes did not understand what was written at all: instead of the word “emotions” from the manuscript - “elusions”, instead of “Nazareth” - “infirmary” . Bra-Sella also claims that the "Don stories" were not created by Sholokhov - they are different in stylistic features and clearly belong to the pen different people; and there are serious doubts about the authorship of “Virgin Soil Upturned” - there are whole pieces of text there, surprisingly reminiscent of prose Andrey Platonov.
In addition, it is obvious that The Quiet Flows the Don was written by a man who received a good education - the text of the novel is teeming with allusions to Pushkin, Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Bunin, Blok, Merezhkovsky and even Edgar Poe. It is difficult to assume that a nugget from the Cossacks had access to such literature in his youth.
So modern literary critics are still puzzling over who is involved in the birth of a great novel.
Who actually wrote Quiet Flows the Don. In 1928 it was published literary work Quiet Don. The content of the trilogy is known very well and is studied in school curriculum in Russian literature.
But schoolchildren studying the novel are almost never told that the authorship of the novel is in doubt, and for decades scholars and critics have been arguing about who wrote this work.
Many even now say that neither The Quiet Flows the Don nor other works were written at all by M. Sholokhov. Let's try to understand why such an assumption arose and on what it is based.
Factors affecting the complexity of the issue of authorship of a novel
- Personal subjective opinion of researchers of M. Sholokhov's work,
- Different perception of the events of the Civil War by political groups and directions,
- Envy of individual representatives of the writing environment,
- The interest of some Soviet writers who feel sympathy or antipathy for M. Sholokhov,
- The versions of the Quiet Don were repeatedly altered, distorted and rewritten, which, according to some researchers, is a sign of work on a "foreign text".
Why there were doubts about authorship
An article in the October magazine (1928) reported that M. Sholokhov stole the manuscript of the novel from a deceased White Guard officer. The editorial office of this magazine was allegedly called with threats regarding the text stolen by M. Sholokhov. The situation with the publication of the novel was beneficial to Leon Trotsky, who hid certain aspects of the activities of the Reds on the Don.
How M. Sholokhov reacted to accusations of stealing the manuscript
- The manuscripts of the literary work were handed over to the commission of proletarian writers, which was led by V. Lenin's sister,
- The Pravda newspaper published an article calling information about plagiarism slander,
- In the 1930s, M. Sholokhov joined the Communist Party and published Virgin Soil Upturned. This weakens the talk of plagiarism.
Possible authors of the novel
In 1930, in the book in memory of L. Andreev, it was mentioned that the work was written by hand literary critic Sergei Goloushev. Later it turned out that S. Goloushev called "Quiet Don" his travel notes and wrote nothing more. in the 1930s, the Rostov Cossacks put forward a version about the authorship of Fyodor Kryukov, a Cossack writer who died of typhus in 1930. The father-in-law of M. Sholokhov served with Kryukov, and after his death, he gave the manuscript to the writer.
A philologist from Israel, Vladimir Nazarov, suggested that all the works of M. Sholokhov were collective work special services of the USSR, the purpose of which was propaganda. Alexei Golovnin wrote that the author of the novel is Nikolai Gumilyov. According to his version, N. Gumilyov was not shot, and he was hiding on the Don, where he continued his writing work.
The History of the Quiet Flows the Don Manuscripts
In the late 1920s the manuscripts of the novel were lost. M. Sholokhov left them with a friend who died in captivity during World War II. The friend's widow did not admit that she kept the manuscripts, and they were found only by her heirs. The manuscript was bought from them and carefully analyzed.
The structure of the manuscript: Of the 885 pages, about 600 were written by M. Sholokhov himself, the rest - by his wife and her sisters. The text written by M. Sholokhov is drafts, sketches, finishing pages, additions to the text. The manuscript is written in the handwriting of M. Sholokhov. Handwriting is recognizable and clear. Based on the analysis of the text, handwriting and the definition of the style of writing, it was proved that the novel was written by M. Sholokhov.
Versions that the book is plagiarism
The level of knowledge of young M. Sholokhov does not correspond to the content of the novel. Comparison of other works by M. Sholokhov with "Quiet Don" testifies to a sharp contrast in the descriptions of life and everyday life Don Cossacks. There are many chronological and stylistic errors in the novel. Errors in the sequence of events, critics explain by the fact that M. Sholokhov, creating a compilation from various parts of someone else's novel, did not quite understand the main idea of the real author.
Was created computer program, which checks the authorship of texts and detects plagiarism. The conclusion was that the first five parts of the novel were written by M. Sholokhov, and the 6th by someone else. The participation of F. Kryukov in writing the text was neither refuted nor confirmed. In addition, the 6th part of the book was written much faster than the rest of the works of M. Sholokhov.
Based on a digital analysis of various works of the 19th - early 20th centuries, it was concluded that F. Kryukov was the author of The Quiet Don and part of the Don Stories. With the help of computer processing, the heterogeneity of the style of The Quiet Don was revealed, in comparison with other works by M. Sholokhov. When analyzing the handwriting in the manuscripts, it was concluded that the mistakes made are typical only when rewriting someone else's text. Questions arose why there are few corrections in the manuscript, and some corrections are attempts to parse someone else's text.
The manuscript contains traces of pre-revolutionary orthography. Presumably, M. Sholokhov, rewriting someone else's text, did not quite understand the words correctly. Thus, for example, the word "raw" became the word "gray". A researcher from Israel compared the manuscripts found in the late 1990s (the same ones that M. Sholokhov provided for verification by the commission in the 1920s) with the earliest printed edition of the book. He came to the conclusion that the first edition contains errors that are no longer found in the found manuscript.
Thus, according to his version, the new manuscript was created by M. Sholokhov and his family later, especially for the commission. Apparently, the original manuscript testified to plagiarism, and therefore M. Sholokhov created new version. After suspicions of plagiarism subsided somewhat, M. Sholokhov allegedly “lost” the manuscript so that no one else would try to check it. When calculating the volume of the draft manuscript of the novel, it was found that it does not correspond to its real format.
Many features of the life and military uniforms of the characters in the first part of the novel date back to the period of the first decade of the 20th century. At that time, M. Sholokhov was a very small child and could not know such insignificant details in such detail. That is why, if he were a real author, he would not have started the novel from this period.
There are geographical inconsistencies in the novel The Quiet Flows the Don. M. Sholokhov confuses the names of the villages and their administrative subordination. A lot of matches were found in the texts of F. Kryukov and the novel "Quiet Don". Many coincidences are present only in Kryukov's personal notes, which have not been published. With the help of the electronic National Corpus of the Russian Language, many similar passages were found in the prose of Kryukov and Sholokhov.
Presumably parts 1-3 and 4 have different authorship. There are a lot of things in "Quiet Don" Cossack songs, which are not mentioned in other works of Sholokhov. The archival documents of F. Kryukov contain many of the texts present in the novel. M. Sholokhov strenuously denied acquaintance with the work of F. Kryukov, although even those who consider Sholokhov the real author admit that in his work he used materials and essays by F. Kryukov.
The incantations and prayers mentioned in The Quiet Don are typical for Northern Russia, and came to F. Kryukov from his friend, who collected Northern Russian folklore. M. Sholokhov cannot know these conspiracies and prayers. M. Sholokhov, during a speech at one of the party congresses, mentioned the contents of other people's field bags found, the contents of which would be useful in the literary economy.
Versions that the manuscript is evidence of the authorship of M. Sholokhov
The manuscripts of the first three parts of the novel discovered in 1999 are the main arguments in favor of authorship. The fact that M. Sholokhov was a little over 20 years old at the time of the creation of the novel cannot be considered the reason why he was not able to write a novel. Many writers created their works between the ages of 19 and 22. The lack of education of the author cannot speak of the impossibility of writing a novel. For this, self-education and high level general development.
M. Sholokhov did not have to be an eyewitness to the events described to write the novel. In the process of work, he collected archival materials, certificates, memoirs, maps. Many of the events described in the novel happened to people personally known to M. Sholokhov. They are topographically tied to the places where the writer lived. Coincidences with the texts of F. Kryukov are random and not numerous, they are everyday and informational in nature.
Presumably, the texts of S. Yesenin are more similar to the content of the Quiet Don. The version that the book is plagiarism was put forward by writers who were jealous of M. Sholokhov or were involved in political intrigues. The accusation that M. Sholokhov stole the texts of F. Kryukov is due to the fact that the villages of Vyoshenskaya and Glazunovskaya have always been rivals. The fact that the works of M. Sholokhov after writing the Quiet Don have a lower literary value, cannot be evidence of plagiarism.
So who wrote the landmark novel? The meaning of this work goes even beyond Nobel Prize in literature, which is awarded to this only literary work in the genre " socialist realism».
Here is what the famous literary critic S. Semanov wrote:
"Quiet Flows the Don", an amazing phenomenon in world literature. We are convinced that nothing like this has been created since the time of the Iliad (even if our opinion is debatable, but many will agree).
This, we repeat, is not an enthusiastic judgment of a lover of literature, but an assessment of a specialist in the field of literary criticism, that is, objective (as far as objectivity is possible for the humanities) science, about literature, its history, criteria for evaluating and analyzing works, etc.
In terms of modern slang- "weak" comparison! - Since the time of the Iliad - nothing like it!
Even if this assessment seems exaggerated to some, it is, apparently, not without well-known grounds.
Even aside from such strong judgments, the facts speak for themselves: the novel has been translated into mass foreign languages, and one of the earliest translations into English. The Russian emigration in the 30s read the novel, vigorously discussing it (this does not look like "socialist realism", however!). In 1965, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to M.A. Sholokhov for the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" with the wording: "For artistic power and the integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia.
Three film adaptations throughout the 20th century: 1930, 1958, 1992 And it seems that there are talks about a new film adaptation already in the 21st century, and this is natural: great works are filmed many times, then film critics and film fans argue about the merits and demerits of each of the versions.
A general comparison in terms of the level and significance of The Quiet Flows the Don is only with Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.
A discussion of the artistic merits of this, according to the Nobel Committee, an epic in scope work about Russia at a crucial time for her, is beyond the scope of our article. There is an extensive literary criticism: articles, monographs, reading a number of which will enrich anyone with the ability to read great literature.
We will try to understand the mystery, which literally from the day the first part of the novel was published in the late 20s. 20th century - haunts many and many - in the USSR, in exile, in foreign circles of readers and researchers, in today's Russia. This secret of the century has not been resolved to this day. Who wrote "Quiet Don"? - thousands of readers and researchers ask again and again. The last hosts, and they are undertaking the most varied and increasingly sophisticated methods, including Newest technologies computer analysis of texts - in an attempt to establish the true authorship. This very history of suspicions of plagiarism and attempts to solve the mystery is full of the most dramatic and fascinating collisions, worthy of description in a separate book: the history of attempts to establish the true authorship of The Quiet Flows the Don.
But why did Mikhail Sholokhov himself "not please" himself, as the only official author of the novel? What is he suspected of? No matter how funny and sad it may seem: in excessive youth. A twenty-year-old man could not create such a grandiose canvas of the era. After all, even the geniuses of literature in such early summers created, at best, poetic masterpieces, romantic stories, stories about love. Vivid works, breathing youth, freshness of feelings, but not life experience, subtle psychologism in recreating human characters, and finally, possession of an array of special information, in abundance, scattered in this socially -psychological novel-chronicle. Of course, with a certain amount of erudition, it is easy to give examples when almost equally young authors created prose works of similar scope.
The novels "A Hero of Our Time" by Mikhail Lermontov and "Buddenbrooks" by Thomas Mann (also a Nobel novel). This is just an illustration of the idea, there are many more examples.
This is not an evidentiary criterion.
But there is a much more significant criterion that calls into question the authorship of Sholokhov: educational level. If you have a great talent, you can create masterpieces in early youth and there are many examples of this in history.
As well as the reverse: when advanced years did not at all extinguish the creative power of writers, artists, composers, and scientists.
But even the greatest talent will not be fully revealed - without the appropriate preparedness, level of education, special skills, living environment - but you never know what affects the professional and creative development and development!
Sergei Yesenin could come with his simple educational baggage, but the natural talent of a poet - right on the threshold of the house he found with difficulty, where Alexander Blok lived - and amaze the recognized classic with the originality of the talent of the "peasant poet."
But could Mikhail Sholokhov, with his four-year education, short work as a staff correspondent, employment in Komsomol work - all this hardly left so much time for deep general and literary self-education, which could more than compensate for the lack of received official - to create, and even V as soon as possible, Quiet Don? An epic novel of the highest artistic level.
The maturity of the pen, even for a great master.
An author demonstrating mastery of military archive materials.
deep knowledge the subtleties of inter-party and inter-faction battles and the context of life State Duma early 20th century in Russia.
With traces in the text of the author's personal participation in the events civil war in the South, and on the side of the White Army?!
Neither Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov himself nor the party of his defenders and apologists gave any convincing answers to these naturally arising questions.
The subsequent fifty-year literary career of M.A. Sholokhov was crowned with all sorts of awards of official recognition, high positions in the literary and party spheres, the rank of the first classic Soviet literature with the study in the school curriculum. Translations, reprints, film adaptations, adaptations of the plots of works into the language of drama and opera.
Only the main thing was missing: a work equal in level to The Quiet Don. Even quantitatively Sholokhov for a long literary life, in which no one would put obstacles in his way with publications and apologetics, wrote very few works.
In addition to early, and own confession author, still very inept, although not devoid of charm, "Don stories" (before "Quiet Don") - the novel "Virgin Soil Upturned", interesting, but according to literary critics, not comparable with "Quiet Don". The most piercing story "The Fate of a Man." Unfinished novel "They fought for the Motherland." A number of more stories. That, perhaps, is all. No matter how one evaluates these works, already, undoubtedly, pen-owned M.A. Sholokhov, they are far from The Quiet Don. Yes, and Sholokhov himself, in his declining years, bitterly admitted in private conversations that he never managed to write something at least partially equal to I think that not only in " the fading of talent, but the point is utterly sugary praise from above and the lack of the right of critics to even a shadow ... in fact, normal professional criticism, while readers have a natural discordance of opinions: an artist must create in much more severe conditions in order not to lower his level.
And yet: if Sholokhov is not the author, then who is?! And how did Sholokhov manage to appropriate the authorship of the great novel (if he copied it from someone else)?
There is an old and many times disputed and newly put forward version of authorship: Fedor Kryukov.
The most, in our opinion, interesting in this undisputed version is the presence of much more psychological points on which it is easier to agree with Kryukov's version of authorship than Sholokhov's. Not evidence in itself, necessary and sufficient, but still... Today, Fyodor Kryukov is already called the "forbidden classic", standing on a par with Fyodor Dostoevsky.
A scrupulous long-term study was conducted by Irina Medvedeva-Tomashevskaya in the 60s, and at a considerable risk. Her monograph was subsequently published in 1974 in Paris - "The Stirrup of the Quiet Don" with a preface by A. Solzhenitsyn. In it, she substantiates the version of authorship in favor of Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov.
Let's trace in the shortest possible way biographical outline of this once famous Don writer: he was born on February 2 (14), 1870. in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky district, the land of the Don army in the family of a Cossack chieftain. A prosperous background made it possible to get an excellent education: he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute ( literary education!). State Councilor in the table of ranks Russian Empire. Deputy of the First State Duma (remember the knowledge of the party-factional struggle in the novel, the details of the activities of the Russian Duma!). Head of the Department of Literature and Art of the magazine " Russian wealth" - one of the best and most advanced literary magazines in pre-revolutionary Russia, edited by V.G. Korolenko, in which the best writers of Russia considered prestigious to be published. One of the founders of the People's Socialist Party. He taught Russian literature and history at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. Among his students was the poet Alexander Tenyakov.
And, finally, in the Civil War he was a member of the Volunteer white movement. Secretary of the Military Circle. One of those who are called "the ideologists of the White movement." Is it not from here that the knowledge that stunned many from within the smallest details everyday life and nuances that you have to go through yourself, and which Sholokhov could not know for sure, not even being in the Red Army. Subsequently, Sholokhov himself tried to explain that it was supposed to be such an artistic task: to write in many ways "from the whites", to penetrate in all depth into inner world the protagonist of the novel Grigory Melekhov, torn apart by contradictions.
In 1920, retreating with the remnants of Denikin's army to Novorossiysk, on the way F. Kryukov fell ill with typhus and soon died.
What happened to the field bag containing the manuscripts that Kryukov intended to publish abroad, in white emigration? - There is an unproven version that the field bag with Kryukov's manuscripts passed into the hands of a White Guard colleague and also a writer P.Ya Gromoslavsky. The latter was the father-in-law of Mikhail Sholokhov. Last fact irrefutable, others are at the level of rumors.
Is it possible to prove the authorship of Kryukov or Sholokhov objectively, using a computer analysis of stylistic features, the frequency of repetition of topics, motives, even individual words and turns of speech, etc., etc. Yes, such work was carried out, and abroad.
The Quiet Flows the Don is not an anonymous work. It was published by Mikhail Sholokhov, and, accordingly, he should be considered the only author until the opposite is proven, ”the Norwegian authors G. Hietso et al. summarized the computer study in the monograph“ Who wrote The Quiet Flows the Don? ”. Personally, I, the author of these lines, read this work with an abundance of digital computer statistics comparing the texts of Kryukov and Sholokhov. Computer in the 80s, when the study was conducted, issued: the author in more probability-Sholokhov.
Can a smart computer come up with an obvious absurdity? Is it possible to believe a dispassionate machine when psychologically it is almost impossible to accept such a conclusion? Khietso and others were later reproached for their open sympathy for Sholokhov and, consequently, for tendentiousness and bias in the construction of the calculation program.
However, the methodology is not so tendentious, and the computer that conducted the study on this program is not so lying. Huge work on comparing the texts of Kryukov and Sholokhov, on the analysis of inconsistencies with each other according to style features parts of the novel, done by many other researchers, showed: there is a kind of amalgam, a mixture of the literary handwriting of both writers! Time after time it doesn't get any easier! In the end, the point of view began to be affirmed (Marietta Chudakova and others) that Kryukov’s drafts were “based” on the novel, but the text was significantly supplemented, rewritten, revised, in places distorted by the hand of Sholokhov or those who ruled original text for him.
This is not a reservation: there is an even more eccentric version that Sholokhov did not write any of the works attributed to him at all, but was the Nobel "project" of the KGB, and various other writers wrote for him. (Now such shadow authors of successful "brands" are called "Negro").
Nevertheless, this hypothesis to us: that Sholokhov "did not write anything at all from the works attributed to him" seems doubtful, to say the least. It is impossible to live your whole life in such a monstrous lie.
And “The Quiet Flows the Don” ... I suppose it was the drama of Sholokhov’s whole life, when he was simply physically unable to reveal the whole truth about the creation greatest novel. Yes, and they would not have allowed: in the 30s, the “Maria Ulyanova Commission” to investigate “false fabrications about plagiarism” threatened in the most unambiguous way in the press with repressions to those who doubt the authorship of M. Sholokhov.
He just didn't belong to himself anymore.
There are more versions, and more ... But still, unproven.
S. Semanov, mentioned at the beginning of our article, wrote that in the history of literature there are cases of anonymity and unidentified at the level of strict evidence of the authorship of great works. Among others, he called "The Tale of Igor's Campaign". So, it turns out that not only the thickness of the centuries, but also the present can leave unsolvable riddles.
04/09/2011.
Mikhail Sholokhov wrote his main work, the epic novel Quiet Flows the Don, at the age of twenty-seven. Many for a long time could not - and did not want to - believe that such a young man was able to write one of central works in Russian literature. For decades, the question of the authorship of The Quiet Flows the Don has remained one of the most discussed in domestic literary criticism. The new film adaptation of the epic novel, which was masterfully shot by S. Ursulyak, served as the beginning of a new round of gossip and speculation around The Quiet Flows the Don. Not a single page of the manuscripts of the first and second volumes of the novel has been preserved in the archives - and this played into the hands of M. Sholokhov's ill-wishers. The well-known Moscow journalist L. Kolodny for many years collected testimonies of Sholokhov's friends and acquaintances, eyewitnesses to the creation of the epic, found manuscripts of the first and second volumes of the novel, drafts, versions written by M. Sholokhov. The proposed book is a fascinating literary investigation that will once and for all dispel all doubts about the authorship of The Quiet Flows the Don.
A series: Main movie premiere 2015
* * *
by the LitRes company.
© Kolodny L.E., 2015
© TD Algorithm LLC, 2015
Dedicated to my wife Faina Kolodnaya, who helped secretly photocopy the manuscripts of The Quiet Flows the Don
The book is prefaced by an article by Brian Murphy, Honorary Professor of the University of Wales, a well-known scholar of Sholokhov, who translated the novel into English language. It came out after the first articles in the Moscow media about the found manuscripts in scientific journal New Zealand Slavonic Journal dedicated to Slavic philology in 1992. And was the first response of a specialist.
Brian Murphy first published a book review in 1996 in the English journal Slavonic and East European Review, which specializes in Slavic and East European philology. He refers to the publications of Lev Kolodny in the media, which gave him reason to consider the problem of the authorship of The Quiet Flows the Don.
"Quiet Don" - the end of the myth
In Moscow, L. E. Kolodny seems to have finally put an end to the constant claims that the Nobel Prize winner Sholokhov is a plagiarist.
Mikhail Sholokhov was born in 1905 and published two collections of short stories in 1925 and 1926. At the end of 1925, Sholokhov began working on his masterpiece, The Quiet Flows the Don. The first two books of the novel appeared in 1928 and caused a sensation. The work gave complete picture the life of the Cossacks before the First World War, traced the fate of the most loyal elements tsarist army. The essay ended with a tragic clash between whites and reds on the Don.
Almost at the same time, some members of the Moscow intelligentsia wondered whether such a work could have come out of the pen. young man whose school education was interrupted by the revolution at 13? Rumors of plagiarism began to spread. A specially appointed commission considered the essence of the issue. The commission was headed by a veteran of Soviet literature writer A. Serafimovich. Members of the commission looked through the manuscript that Sholokhov brought to Moscow - about a thousand pages written by his hand. To their delight, they stated that there was no reason to accuse the author of plagiarism.
The third book of The Quiet Flows the Don met with great difficulties when it appeared in print. This part of the novel tells mainly about the Cossack uprisings against Soviet power in 1919. The young Cossacks were not essentially white, but they took up arms in the face of unprecedented repression that the Bolsheviks unleashed on their villages, raping women, passing countless sentences on innocent victims.
In that most critical moment civil war, the advance of the communists to the south was stopped. Thirty thousand of the best Russian Cossack soldiers took up arms to hold back the advance of the Red Army to the Don, in this important region. Sholokhov experienced all these events himself, as a child. In the twenties, he talked a lot with former rebels, especially with one of the leaders of the Cossack uprising against the Soviet regime - Kharlampy Yermakov, who became the prototype of the protagonist of the work - Grigory Melekhov.
Sholokhov showed the excesses of Soviet politics in the novel and was forced to fight with conservative editors for the right to publish what he wrote. In 1929, he went on to publish the novel in the ultra-Orthodox magazine October. But this publication was suspended after the appearance of the 12th chapter. E. G. Levitskaya, a friend of Sholokhov, convinced Stalin not to make cuts in the novel, which the editors insisted on (M. Gorky and M. Sholokhov himself convinced Stalin of this. - Note. ed.). Apparently, Stalin heeded her arguments. And thanks to Stalin's consent, the end of the third book was published in the journal in 1932. The third book came out the following year.
Kolodny recently showed that the reason for the delay in publication, which fell to the lot of the fourth book, was mainly the opinion of Stalin's entourage that Melekhov, in accordance with the laws of socialist realism, should have become a communist. Sholokhov did not give up his point of view, saying that this was a falsification of the philosophy of his protagonist.
The chapters of the last, fourth book of the novel began to be published in 1937. Quiet Flows the Don was not fully published until 1940.
Sholokhov lived in a small town in the central part of the Don. In fairness, it must be said that in the 30s the writer repeatedly risked his life, during the years of repression, protecting local leaders from an unjust trial. But in post-war years he began to enjoy notoriety for attacks on dissident writers, in particular, Sinyavsky and Daniel, who fell into the dock. Because of this, Sholokhov was rejected for the most part Russian public. The old accusations of plagiarism were revived in 1974 in connection with the publication in Paris of an anonymous monograph entitled The Stirrup of the Quiet Don. It put forward the point of view that the work was mainly written by the white Cossack officer writer Fyodor Kryukov. A. Solzhenitsyn wrote a preface to this book he published. The cloud of accusation began to grow again due to the support of this point of view by other writers, in particular, Roy Medvedev. The authorship of Kryukov, however, was rejected by Geir Hetso, who computerized the Quiet Flows the Don and unequivocally established that the creator of the entire work was Sholokhov. The potential scandal, however, looked too attractive to be left alone. And until now, some researchers are practicing alternative theories;: one of them, for example, was promoted long time on Leningrad television.
Kolodny gave a resolute rebuff to such speculations, inflicted, as the French say, "coup de grace", that is, the last blow of the executioner, depriving the condemned of life, by publishing several original manuscripts of Mikhail Sholokhov. Kolodny made public the fact that 646 pages of unknown early manuscripts are in one of the private archives. On some pages there are dates marked by Sholokhov's hand, starting with "autumn 1925". In March 1927, the author calculated that the first part by that time contained 140 thousand printed characters, which averaged three printed sheet text. The drafts are of exceptional interest not only because they prove the authorship of Sholokhov, but also because they shed light on the implementation of his plans, the technology of creativity. The author originally intended to describe the execution of the Bolsheviks Podtelkov and Krivoshlykov in 1919. But in order to give readers an idea of who the Cossacks were, he considered it necessary to start the story with the events of 1912, to show life as it was during the days of the former regime.
Sholokhov did big number corrections in the text, replacing not only individual words and phrases, but also rewriting entire chapters.
Initially, the first book began with the departure of Pyotr Melekhov for military training in the camp. Thanks to the manuscripts, it is clear that the writer then decided to start the chronicle with a description of the murder of the Turkish grandmother Grigory Melekhov by the Cossacks. In an early manuscript, the author left the surname of the prototype Ermakov behind the main character, although he changed his name Kharlampy to Abram. After Abram Ermakov killed the first German soldier, he became disgusted with the war. This scene did not remain in the novel, but finds a parallel in the final text of The Quiet Flows the Don, in the first book, third part, chapter V, where Grigory slashes an Austrian soldier with a saber.
On February 4, 1992, Moskovskaya Pravda published the unknown 24th chapter of The Quiet Don, which describes Grigory's wedding night. This scene contrasts sharply with his previous love affairs, especially with the Cossack woman whom he raped. She was a virgin. Surprisingly, the author himself removed this scene, since it diverged from the general line of the work, where Gregory appears noble, in contrast to the atrocious colleagues surrounding him.
Today, with accusations of plagiarism firmly under control, we can hope that early versions of The Quiet Flows the Flows River will be able to be published.
Kolodny L. Here it is, the manuscript of The Quiet Flows the Don (with the conclusion of the forensic expert, handwriting expert Yu. N. Pogibko) // Moskovsky Pravda, May 25, 1991.
Kolodny L. Manuscripts of the Quiet Flows the Don // Moscow. No. 10. 1991
Kolodny L. Manuscripts of the Quiet Don. Autographed by Sholokhov // Rabochaya gazeta, October 4, 1991.
Kolodny L. Who will publish my Quiet Flows the Don? // Book Review, 1991, No. 12.
Kolodny L. Unknown "Quiet Don" (with the publication of the first, early version of "Quiet Don", part 1, chapter 24) // Moskovskaya Pravda, February 4, 1992.
Manuscripts of the "Quiet Don" // Questions of Literature, No. 1, 1993
Black drafts // Questions of Literature, No. 6., 1994
Brian Murphy, Professor (England)
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The following excerpt from the book Who wrote "Quiet Flows the Don"? Chronicle of Literary Investigation (L. E. Kolodny, 2015) provided by our book partner -
