1. Introduction
2. Biography
3. The main features of creativity.
4. Quiet Don
5. Grigory Melekhov
6. Aksinya
7. Bolsheviks
8. "The fate of man"
9. The value of Sholokhov's work
10. Bibliography
Introduction
In the 1930s, the world-famous novels by M. Sholokhov "Quiet Flows the Don" and "Virgin Soil Upturned" (1st book) were published. Sholokhov is an outstanding writer of our country, the greatest master of artistic expression. His works are widely known both in our country and far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union.
“... A remarkable phenomenon in our literature is Mikhail Sholokhov,” said A. Tolstoy ... “He came to literature with the theme of the birth of a new society in the throes and tragedies of social struggle. In The Quiet Don, he unfolded an epic, saturated with the smells of the earth, a picturesque canvas from the life of the Don Cossacks. But this does not limit the larger theme of the novel:
“Quiet Flows the Don” in terms of language, cordiality, humanity, plasticity is a pan-Russian, national, folk work.
“Sholokhov's work is a masterful one,” A. V. Lunacharsky wrote about Virgin Soil Upturned. - A very large, complex, full of contradictions and rushing forward content is dressed here in a beautiful verbal figurative form ... "
Biography
Ikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov was born on May 24, 1905 on the Don, on the Kruzhilin farm, into a working-class family. He studied first at the parochial school, and then, until 1918, at the gymnasium. During the Civil War, Sholokhov lived on the Don, served in the food detachment, and participated in the fight against white gangs. In 1920 he created a Komsomol cell in one
from the stations. At the end of the war, Sholokhov worked as a bricklayer, a laborer, and an accountant. The literary activity of the writer began in 1923. In 1925, his first book, Don Stories, was published.
Sholokhov belongs to the generation of Soviet writers who were shaped by the revolution, civil war, and socialist construction.
A. Fadeev said this well: “When, after the end of the civil war, we began to converge from different parts of our vast Motherland - party, and even more non-party young people, we were amazed at how common our biographies were with the difference in individual destinies. Such was the path of Furmanov, the author of the book “Chapaev”… Such was the path of the younger and, perhaps, the more talented Sholokhov among us… We entered literature wave after wave, there were many of us. We brought our personal experience of life, our individuality. We were united by the feeling of the new world as our own and love for it.”
After the publication of the first stories, Sholokhov returned to the Don, to his native village. “I wanted to write about the people among whom I was born and whom I knew,” he recalled.
In 1926, Sholokhov began working on The Quiet Don. The first book of the novel was published in 1928, the second in 1929, the third in 1933, and the fourth in 1940. Already the first books of The Quiet Flows the Don made Sholokhov's name widely known.
Gorky and Serafimovich took an active part in the literary fate of Sholokhov. Serafimovich wrote a preface to the Don Stories. He was the first to note in the author an outstanding talent, knowledge of life, great visual power, vivid imagery of language. Gorky helped the writer print the third book of The Quiet Flows the Don, which some critics tried to discredit.
During the Great Patriotic War, Sholokhov was an active participant in the struggle of the Soviet people against the fascist invaders. He wrote a number of essays and the story The Science of Hate (1942). At the same time, Sholokhov began work on a novel about the Great Patriotic War, They Fought for the Motherland. Separate chapters were published in 1943-1944 and in 1949. They depict heavy heroic battles waged by the Soviet Army in the summer of 1942 on the distant approaches to Stalingrad.
A significant artistic achievement of the writer was the story "The Fate of a Man", printed on the pages
Pravda in 1957. The story quickly became known to the whole world. Based on it, the talented Soviet film director and actor S. Bondarchuk created a wonderful film under the same name.
In 1959, Sholokhov completed the second book of Virgin Soil Upturned, thus completing the entire novel as a whole.
For the first and second books of Virgin Soil Upturned, the writer was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1960. In 1965, Sholokhov was awarded the international Nobel Prize.
Currently, Sholokhov continues to work on the novel "They Fought for the Motherland."
The main features of creativity.
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All life and literary activity of Sholokhov is connected with the Don. The writer passionately loves his native places; in the life of the Don Cossacks, he draws themes, images, material for his works of art.
Sholokhov himself emphasized: “I was born on the Don, grew up there, studied, formed as a person and a writer and was brought up as a member of our great Communist Party and I am a patriot of my great, powerful Motherland. I am proud to say that I am also a patriot of my native Don region.”
Remarkable in brightness and strength, the artistic depiction of the life of the Don Cossacks is an important feature of Sholokhov's creative activity.
This does not mean at all that Sholokhov is a writer of some purely local, regional theme. On the contrary, on the material of the life and life of the Don Cossacks, he was able to reveal deep processes of broad historical significance. And here it should be noted the second most important feature of his work - the desire to artistically capture the turning, milestone periods in the life of our country, when the struggle of the new, socialist world against the old, bourgeois one appears in the most acute fierce and dramatic form. The Civil War (“Quiet Flows the Don”), collectivization (“Virgin Soil Upturned”) and the Great Patriotic War (“They Fought for the Motherland”, “The Fate of a Man”) are the three periods in the life of our people on which the artist’s attention is focused.
The third feature of Sholokhov's talent is connected with this - epic breadth, a penchant for monumental artistic canvases, for deep social generalizations, for raising big questions about the historical fate of the people.
The heroes of Sholokhov's works are ordinary working people. Their thoughts, sorrows and joys, their desire for happiness and justice, their struggle for a new life invariably interests the artist.
And, finally, it is necessary to note an essential feature of the writer's creative method - his dislike for any idealization of reality. Steadily follow the harsh truth of life, embody reality in all its contradictions, in all its complexity and versatility, in all its contrasts, without at all smoothing out the most intense sharpness of conflicts that arise in the difficult and complex process of the birth of a new, communist world, such. An artistic starting principle, which Sholokhov invariably adheres to.
Quiet Don
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These principles, most fully manifested in the novel "Quiet Flows the Don", were already reflected in the first book of the writer - "Don Stories". The main theme of the stories is the class struggle on the Don. It is not family ties and feelings, but the place of people in the fierce class struggle that determines their relationship with each other. Often even fathers and children, siblings become mortal enemies. In the story "Kolovert", the old Cossack Kramskov and his two sons, who went to the Reds, are captured by the Whites. They are shot by their youngest son Mikhail, a white officer. In the story “Bakhchevnik”, the father is the commandant of the White Guard military court, an executioner and torturer, and his son Fyodor is a Red Army soldier. Fyodor, wounded in the leg, is pursued by the whites. The father discovers him in the melon and is going to deal with him. Then the youngest son Mitya, in order to save his brother, kills his father. In the story "Wormhole", the Komsomol member Styopka hates with a burning hatred his father Yakov Alekseevich the fist and the world-eater. In punishment for the fact that the bulls allegedly disappeared through the fault of Styopka, Yakov Alekseevich and his eldest son brutally kill a Komsomol member.
Drawing the furious malice of the enemies of the revolution, their bloody deeds, Sholokhov proves that, on the contrary, among the revolutionary Cossacks, who were forced to defend a new life in fierce battles, high and noble qualities were manifested - readiness for self-sacrifice, heroic courage and true humanity.
If in the "Don Tales" the struggle of classes was depicted mainly within the narrow limits of the Cossack family, then this theme is developed in a completely different way in "Quiet Don". The Quiet Flows the Don is one of the most outstanding works of Soviet fiction. M. I. Kalinin, in a conversation with young writers in 1934, said: “The Quiet Don” I consider our “best work of art. Some passages are written with exceptional force.”
A. M. Gorky attributed The Quiet Flows the Don to books that "gave a broad, truthful and most talented picture of the civil war."
Based on the best achievements of Soviet literature in depicting the civil war, Sholokhov managed to create a deeply innovative and original work.
In The Quiet Don, Sholokhov, first of all, appears before us as a master of epic narration. The artist unfolds a vast historical panorama of turbulent dramatic events widely and freely. "Quiet Flows the Don" covers a period of ten years, from 1912 to 1922.
The action in the novel develops on two levels - historical and domestic, personal. But both these plans are given in inseparable unity. The patriarchal idyll of Melekhov's youth is destroyed on a personal level by his love for Aksinya, and on a social level by Gregory's clash with the cruel contradictions of historical reality... The denouement of the novel is also organic. In terms of personal, this is the death of Aksinya. In terms of socio-historical, this is the defeat of the White Cossack movement and the final triumph of Soviet power on the Don;
Both intertwining storylines - personal and historical - are completely exhausted. The tragic collapse of the hero is logical and complete.
In the first book, the action begins before the war and ends in the sixteenth year. It speaks about the life and life of the village, about the youth of Grigory Melekhov, about the events of the imperialist war.
The second book covers the period from October 1916 to the spring of 1918. The February days of 1917, the Kornilov region, Great October, the beginning of the civil war on the Don - that's what stands in the center of the book.
The chronological framework of the third book: spring 1918 - May 1919. It depicts the fierce struggle of the Soviet people with the White Guard counter-revolution in the south. And finally, the fourth book, covering the period from the spring of 1919 to 1922, tells about the complete defeat of the White Cossack movement and the final victory of Soviet power on the Don, the Imperialist war, the revolution, the civil war - these are the historical events that found their artistic reflection.
The action in the novel takes place on the Western front, in St. Petersburg and Moscow. But the main scene of action is the Cossack village. The historical fate of the Don Cossacks during the war and revolution is the main content of Sholokhov's epic. Sholokhov worked out the social question of great importance and significance - the path to revolution and socialism of the broad masses of the people.
The transition of the masses to the side of the revolution and socialism can be traced in the fate of the Cossacks. This determined the special character of the portrayal of the class struggle in The Quiet Don.
The Cossacks were distinguished by a number of peculiar social features. For many years, tsarism regarded the Cossacks as its zealous and devoted servants, not so much in wars against external enemies, but in the struggle against the revolutionary people, against the liberation movement. The Cossacks were placed in special, privileged conditions. They often did not know those disasters and hardships that the Russian working people endured. Among them, hostility was kindled towards national minorities, towards all non-Cossacks, nonresidents. This developed in the Cossacks a sense of class superiority, made it difficult for revolutionary ideas to penetrate their environment, and during the years of the civil war made part of the Cossacks an obedient instrument of the White Guard counter-revolution.
Of course, there was a class stratification on the Don. And there the struggle of the labor Cossacks against the kulaks and landowners unfolded. But the above circumstances gave the civil war on the Don a special bloody bitterness. In The Quiet Don, Sholokhov tried with all his might to reveal the extraordinary sharpness and unprecedented bitterness of class battles among the Cossacks.
The civil war was a life-and-death war between the two main camps - the camp of the revolutionary people, led by the communists, and the counter-revolutionary camp, which united the landowners, the bourgeoisie, and the kulaks. These main opposing forces are reflected in The Quiet Don. Here we see, on the one hand, the landowner Listnitsky, the Korshunov kulaks, the merchant Mokhov, the White Guard generals and officers - the vicious enemies of the Soviet people, people deprived of honor and conscience, executioners and murderers. Their program is clear and distinct. They want to drown the revolutionary people in blood and restore the old, tsarist order in order to again be able to enjoy all the blessings of life, ruthlessly exploiting the workers and peasants.
The revolutionary people and their selfless defenders, spokesmen for their interests, the revolutionaries Podtelkov, Bunchuk, Shtokman, Kotlyarov, Mikhail Koshevoy, Pogudko, are waging a mortal war against them.
But the focus of the writer's attention is not on these two main, opposing class camps, but on Grigory Melekhov, the spokesman for the moods of the vacillating, intermediate social forces. Melekhov's life, his youthful years, the story of his marriage to Natalya, love for Aksinya, his participation in the imperialist war, and then in the civil war and,:
finally, his spiritual devastation is what forms the plot outline of the novel. Grigory Melekhov is at the center of The Quiet Flows the Don, not only in the sense that he receives the most attention: almost all the events in the novel either take place with Melekhov himself or are somehow connected with him.
Grigory Melekhov
For in those days there will be such sorrow,
which has not been since the beginning of creation...
even to this day it will not be ... betray
brother to brother to death, and father
children; and the children will rise
parents and kill them.
From the gospel
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the same represents Grigory Melekhov? Melekhov is characterized in the novel in many ways. His youthful years are shown against the backdrop of the life and life of the Cossack village. Sholokhov vividly depicts the patriarchal way of life of the village. The reader clearly sees such features of Cossack life as the spirit of courage and love of freedom, high concepts of military honor and, at the same time, bestial cruelty, darkness, blind hatred for newcomers, non-residents. Already in the initial chapters of the novel, which constitute a kind of prologue to The Quiet Flows the Don, a wild and disgusting scene of reprisal against Grigory's grandmother, whom the Cossacks suspected of witchcraft, is depicted. Features of darkness and savagery are expressed in the scene of the battle at the mill between the Cossacks and visiting Ukrainian peasants.
The character of Grigory Melekhov is formed under the influence of conflicting impressions. The Cossack village instills in him from an early age courage, straightforwardness, courage, and at the same time she inspires him with many prejudices that are passed down from generation to generation. Grigory Melekhov is smart and honest in his own way. He passionately strives for truth, for justice, although he does not have a class understanding of justice. This is a bright and large person, with great and complex experiences. And with all this, Sholokhov emphasizes the disastrous behavior of Grigory. Melekhov's tragedy lies in the fact that he failed to merge with the revolution and, by the inevitable force of circumstances, found himself in the camp of its worst enemies. The impasse in which he found himself, a spiritual collapse is a just retribution for the break with the people, with the great truth of the revolution.
According to his social position, Grigory Melekhov is a middle peasant. He is both an owner and a worker. The feeling of ownership distances him from the revolution, connects him with the bourgeois world; the feeling of the worker, on the contrary, brings him closer to the revolutionary proletariat, arms him against the exploiters and parasites. These contradictory tendencies are intensified and complicated by class prejudices. Fluctuations between irreconcilable class poles, between fighting hostile camps, the search for an unrealizable "third way" in the revolution - not with the Reds and not with the Whites - this is what determines Melekhov's behavior.
In the final scenes of the novel, Sholokhov reveals the terrible emptiness of his hero. Melekhov lost his most beloved person, Aksinya. Life has lost in his eyes all
meaning and all meaning. Even earlier, realizing the agonizing tragedy of his situation, he says: “I fought off the whites, I didn’t stick to the reds, and I swim like manure in an ice hole ...” And now, having buried Aksinya, he realizes that it’s all over. “He said goodbye to her, firmly believing that they parted for a short time. With his palms he diligently flattened the damp yellow clay on the grave mound and knelt beside the grave for a long time, bowing his head, swaying quietly.
There was no need for him to rush now. Everything was over."
The image of Grigory Melekhov contains a large typical generalization. The impasse in which he found himself, of course, did not reflect the processes that took place in the entire Cossacks. The typicality of Gregory lies in something else. Socially instructive is his tragic fate, the fate of a man who did not find his way in the revolution.
Drawing the drama of Melekhov, the writer, as it were, asserts: a person cut off from the people, from revolutionary truth and not finding the strength in himself to get on the right path, will inevitably suffer a moral catastrophe. This break of Gregory with the people building a new life, Sholokhov conveyed in Melekhov's dream, which is clearly allegorical in nature. “Gregory saw in a dream a wide steppe, a regiment deployed, preparing for an attack. From somewhere in the distance, a drawn-out “Squadron…” rushed when he remembered that the girths were released from the saddle. With force he stepped on the left stirrup, the saddle crawled under him ... Seized by shame and horror, he jumped from his horse. to tighten the girths, and at this time he heard the rumble of horse hooves, which had instantly arisen and already rapidly receding. The regiment went on the attack without him ... "
In the image of Melekhov, Sholokhov pronounced a verdict on the inconsistency and depravity of the “third way” in the revolution and revealed the tragic doom and death of a man who broke with the people
Aksinya
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The image of Aksinya, drawn with remarkable skill, runs through the whole novel. World literature does not know of another work where the writer penetrated so deeply into the inner world of a peasant woman, a simple woman from the people. Aksinya is a complex nature and rich in her own way, with strong and deep feelings. The fate of Aksinya is also tragic. Love for Gregory, huge and all-consuming, concentrated in itself all the brightest that she had in her sorrowful life. A faithful companion and friend of Gregory, she not only shares with him all the hardships, not only experiences all the humiliations, all the bitterness of her ambiguous position, but also becomes a victim of fatal mistakes. Melekhova Aksinya shares the tragic fate of Grigory himself. She, too, could not find her way in life. Her love for Gregory was not able to give her true happiness, to make life meaningful and meaningful. This love eventually led Aksinya to death.
With great artistic skill, Sholokhov illuminated the inner world of his heroes. Their joys and sorrows, their love and their tragedy are conveyed by various means of art. In particular, the landscape becomes an effective means of psychological analysis for the writer. The eighth part of the novel opens with a scene magnificent in its artistic expressiveness. After a severe and debilitating illness, Aksinya regains strength and health. Very soon, tragic events will play out in her life that will lead her to death. But now she is full of joy and an unreasonable feeling of happiness. And this is how she perceives the picture of spring: “The world appeared before her in a different, miraculously renewed and seductive way. With sparkling eyes, she looked around excitedly, childishly fingering the folds of her dress. The foggy distance, the apple trees in the garden flooded with melt water, the wet fence and the road behind it with last year's deeply washed ruts - everything seemed to her unprecedentedly beautiful, everything bloomed with thick and delicate colors, as if illuminated by the sun ...
Thoughtlessly enjoying the life that had returned to her, Aksinya felt a great desire to touch everything with her hands, to look at everything. She wanted to touch the currant bush blackened by dampness, to press her cheek against the branch of an apple tree covered with a bluish velvety bloom, she wanted to step over the ruined fence and go through the mud, without roads, to where, beyond the wide log, the winter field was fabulously green, merging with the foggy distance, the winter field .. ."
Sholokhov managed here with high and perfect art to convey all the charm of spring with its dazzling light, beauty and joy in organic unity with Aksinya's mood.
In the same, the eighth part, there is another scene. Aksinya died, and Grigory buried her. He realizes with painful clarity that it's all over for him. It was a complete disaster. It is extremely characteristic that Aksinya's funeral also takes place in the bright light of a summer morning. But if in the first passage Sholokhov conveyed a feeling of joy by the very picture of nature, now Grigory's gloomy, mournful experiences are expressed by the same means of landscape painting:
“In the smoky haze of the dry wind, the sun was rising over the fierce. Its rays silvered the thick gray hair on Gregory's uncovered head, gliding over his pale and terrible face in its immobility. As if awakening from a heavy sleep, he raised his head and saw above him a black sky and a dazzlingly shining black disk of the sun.
Bolsheviks
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In addition to Grigory and Aksinya, the central characters of the novel, representatives of the revolutionary Bolshevik people occupy an important place in the diverse gallery of characters in The Quiet Flows the Don.
Among the Bolsheviks depicted in the novel, we see workers: the blacksmith Garanzha, the locksmith Shtokman, the machinist Kotlyarov, the worker Pogudko. They are characterized by boundless devotion to the cause of the people, high moral qualities. The love of Bunchuk and Anna Pogudko is distinguished by great strength of feeling, purity and chastity.
In his heroes, Sholokhov emphasizes their tireless and energetic struggle for the political enlightenment of the masses, for the revolutionary education of the people. Indicative in this sense are Garanzhi's conversations with Grigory, the propaganda work of the underground Bolshevik Shtokman. Communists are given in the novel as spokesmen for the brightest aspirations of the people, leaders and mentors of the masses.
Sholokhov was most successful in the image of Mikhail Koshevoy. Almost the same age as Grigory Melekhov, a native Cossack by origin, he grew up with Grigory on the Tatar farm. Koshevoy, however, took a completely different path. Sholokhov directly contrasts Koshevoy with Melekhov. Grigory says that Koshevoy belongs to those people to whom everything was clear from the very beginning and who "have their own straight roads, their own ends." And he says this with a feeling of obvious envy.
Koschevoi is depicted multifaceted. Sholokhov emphasizes in him his love for life and the passion of his nature, seething energy, implacable hatred of enemies. “On enemies that live in vain in this world, my hand is firm!” he says. It is quite natural that at the end of the novel he becomes chairman of the farm revolutionary committee and appears before us as a representative of the victorious Soviet power. At the same time, the writer emphasizes in Koshevoy the features of excessive straightforwardness in solving complex and difficult issues of social education.
If in Grigory Melekhov the destructive power of property and the class of reactionary prejudices of the Cossacks is expressed, then in Koshevoy, on the contrary, healthy revolutionary, democratic principles are embodied; they eventually prevailed among the Cossacks and caused them to go over to the side of Soviet power, to the side of socialism.
The same principles are expressed in the leader of the revolutionary Cossacks - Podtelkov. Fedor Podtelkov is one of the outstanding figures of the young Soviet power on the Don. He was chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee, military commissar and commander of the Don Soviet Army. In the second book
"Quiet Don" Sholokhov painted the image of Podtelkov - his activities on the Don and death at the hands of white executioners.
The Quiet Flows the Don has been translated into many foreign languages, received worldwide recognition and is one of the most remarkable works of socialist realism.
"Destiny of Man"
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As already mentioned, in the post-war years, Sholokhov, in addition to the second book of Virgin Soil Upturned, wrote the story The Fate of a Man.
This story was a very significant artistic achievement of the writer.
The story is based on a real fact. In 1946, while hunting, Sholokhov met a driver with his little adopted son near a steppe rivulet. And he told the writer a sad story about his life. The story of a casual acquaintance greatly captured the artist. Biographers testify: “Then the writer returned from hunting unusually excited and was still under the impression of meeting with an unknown driver and a boy.
I’ll write a story about it, I’ll definitely write it, ”
However, the writer returned to the confession of his casual acquaintance only ten years later.
During this time, the material of life, apparently, crystallized and acquired a more generalized character, and thus, we have before us not just a talented record of an everyday event, but a work of art created according to all the laws of typification. This is also indicated by the program title: the fate of man. In order for the history of a random encounter to be able to claim such a broad generalization, it must have contained something very typical and significant.
Some motifs of "The Fate of a Man" were already contained in another work by Sholokhov - in the story of the war years "The Science of Hate". Both here and there we are talking about Soviet soldiers who were taken prisoner; the scenes of seeing off to the front coincide; there are similarities in what Gerasimov and Sokolov saw in the German rear. But the comparison of the stories convinces:
what was only outlined in The Science of Hate, in The Destiny of Man has acquired full-fledged artistic expression.
"The fate of man" refutes the conjectures of our enemies. who claim that Soviet literature bypasses the dark sides of life, eschews everything that brings suffering and grief. The fate of Sokolov, told by the writer, is one of the eloquent refutations of such views. And at the same time, a truly Soviet writer interprets the harsh and gloomy aspects of life without falling into despair, into hopeless pessimism. It is interesting to note that Sholokhov wrote The Fate of Man, to some extent arguing with the “literature of the lost generation” that arose in the West after the First World War. This is how, according to biographers, Sholokhov's desire to write a story matured ten years after meeting with a former front-line soldier: “... once, while in Moscow, reading and re-reading the stories of foreign masters - Hemingway, Remarque and others - depicting a man doomed and powerless, the writer returned to the same theme. Before my eyes again resurrected, revived the picture of an unforgettable meeting with the driver at the river crossing. Those thoughts and images that he had matured, hatched, were given a new impetus and given a specific form and direction. Without looking up from his desk, the writer worked hard for seven days. And on the eighth, from under his magic pen, a wonderful story “The Fate of a Man” came out ... "
The works of the “lost generation” had their own undeniable historical truth. Great artists felt that the monster of militarism was approaching humanity,
that it threatens the very existence of the world, all the great values created by the labor, efforts, sweat and blood of hundreds of generations. They felt that the bourgeois civilization that gave birth to militarism was built on false and disastrous foundations. In the literature of the "lost generation" there was a very strong and sincere protest against militarism. But this protest was largely weakened by the fact that the war acted as a fatal and irresistible force, with which nothing could be done: all that remained was to curse it.
Sholokhov also takes in "The Fate of a Man" situations, as it were known to Western masters: the immense suffering that befell a person because of the war - captivity, the death of relatives, a destroyed home. But Sokolov emerges from the terrible whirlpool of war not devastated, not despairing. He retains genuine humanity and responsiveness in his soul. In the novels of Remarque and Hemingway, the only, in essence, manifestation of humanity in an atmosphere of bestiality and savagery was love for a woman. This is the only area where the personality has still retained the warmth of the human heart. In Sokolov, this warmth of the heart is expressed in a different way: the little adopted child, abandoned by the war, whom he adopted, becomes, as it were, a symbol of unfading humanity, which the war could not crush.
That is why the story, in contrast to the “literature of the lost generation”, is painted in optimistic tones.
The landscape scenes of the story-picture of early spring are still a difficult, uncomfortable, gloomy time, which, however, foreshadows warmth, sun, flourishing. In these landscape sketches, the first post-war days seem to sound with their difficult tasks, difficult and unsettled life and hardships, and with their hopes and expectations,
There are two narrators in The Fate of a Man. Sokolov simply and unpretentiously tells about his fate, and before the reader there is an image of an ordinary Soviet man - courageous, warm-hearted, steadfast, who was not broken by the terrible hardships of war.
But then the voice of the second narrator is heard - the writer himself, who listens to the confession of his hero. In this voice sounds the artist's boundless love for our people, compassion for everything that they had to endure in the war, unquenchable faith in the moral strength of the people.
Sholokhov's penetrating and humane narration about the tragic fate of Sokolov, about the suffering and torment that the war brought him and millions of other Soviet people, about his courage and inexhaustible spiritual stamina, has become widely known both here and all over the world.
The value of Sholokhov's work
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first steps in literature, Sholokhov raised the most important question of the time, the question of the world-historical struggle between the social
ism and the old, possessive world. In "Don Stories" the writer drew attention to the intransigence, the bloody fierceness of this fight, breaking even family and family ties. In The Quiet Don, the writer conveyed the grandiose scale of this battle, when the socialist world had to defend its right to life in fierce battles with the counter-revolution with arms in hand. In this struggle the Soviet system won, but the struggle was not yet over. The figure of Grigory Melekhov, left at the crossroads in the finale, acquires a symbolic meaning to some extent. It was not enough to defeat the counter-revolution on the battlefields. It was necessary to defeat another no less powerful enemy - the power of property, skills, ideas, instincts, brought up over the centuries. This struggle, no less dramatic, was captured by Virgin Soil Upturned.
Mikhail Sholokhov is a truly folk writer in the deepest and truest sense of the word. His attention was always attracted by the historical fate of the working masses, he was invariably agitated by their worries and sorrows, their joys and victories.
The heroes of his books are simple, ordinary people of labor. The writer treats them with sympathy, sympathy and love, he sees their rich spiritual inner world, he affirms their inalienable right to happiness. With great power, brightness and penetration, Sholokhov creates a whole gallery of unforgettable images of ordinary people.
Sholokhov is folk in the very origins of his skill. Vitality, truthfulness, the ability to reproduce reality in all its harsh drama are combined with the artlessness and intelligibility of the artistic form. Sholokhov is an enemy of unjustified complexity in literature, of all kinds of intricate formal experiments. He writes about the masses of the people and strives to ensure that his word reaches the people.
Sholokhov's books have become a truly artistic chronicle of the Soviet era, a chronicle that captures the great and heroic deeds of the people, transforming life on the basis of freedom, happiness and justice.
Bibliography
Russian SOVIET literature, edition 17, A. Dementiev, E. Naumov, L. Plotkin, Prosveshchenie Publishing House, Moscow, 1968
Russian literature and writers, E. Kukshin, Enlightenment, Moscow, 1947
Mikhail Sholokhov was born on May 11 (24), 1905 on the Kruzhilin farm (now the Rostov region) in the family of an employee of a trading enterprise.
The first education in Sholokhov's biography was received in Moscow during the First World War. Then he studied at the gymnasium in the Voronezh province in the city of Boguchar. Arriving in Moscow to continue his education and not enrolling, he was forced to change many working specialties in order to feed himself. At the same time, in the life of Mikhail Sholokhov there was always time for self-education.
The beginning of the literary path
His works were first published in 1923. Creativity in the life of Sholokhov has always played an important role. After publishing feuilletons in newspapers, the writer publishes his stories in magazines. In 1924, the newspaper Molodoy Leninets published the first of a cycle of Sholokhov's Don stories - "The Mole". Later, all the stories from this cycle were combined into three collections: Don Stories (1926), Azure Steppe (1926) and About Kolchak, Nettles and Others (1927).
The heyday of creativity
Sholokhov became widely known for his work about the Don Cossacks during the war - the novel Quiet Don (1928-1932).
This epic eventually became popular not only in the USSR, but also in Europe, Asia, and was translated into many languages.
Another famous novel by M. Sholokhov is Virgin Soil Upturned (1932-1959). This novel about the times of collectivization in two volumes won the Lenin Prize in 1960.
From 1941 to 1945 Sholokhov worked as a war correspondent. During this time, he wrote and published several stories, essays ("The Science of Hatred" (1942), "On the Don", "Cossacks" and others).
Sholokhov's famous works are also: the story "The Fate of a Man" (1956), the unfinished novel "They Fought for the Motherland" (1942-1944, 1949, 1969).
It is worth noting that an important event in the biography of Mikhail Sholokhov in 1965 was the receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature for the epic novel "Quiet Flows the Don".
last years of life
From the 60s, Sholokhov practically ceased to engage in literature, he liked to devote time to hunting and fishing. He donated all his awards to charity (the construction of new schools).
The writer died on February 21, 1984 from cancer and was buried in the courtyard of his house in the village of Veshenskaya on the banks of the Don River.
Chronological table
Other biography options
- When Sholokhov came to woo one of the daughters of P. Ya. Gromoslavsky, the former Cossack ataman offered to marry his other daughter, the eldest Maria. In 1924 they got married. They lived in marriage for 60 years, four children were born in the family.
- Sholokhov was the only Soviet writer who received the Nobel Prize with the approval of the current government. He was called "Stalin's favorite", although Sholokhov is one of the few who were not afraid to tell the leader the truth.
- Around the name of Sholokhov, the problem of the authorship of his works periodically surfaced. After the publication of the novel The Quiet Don, the question arose: how such a young writer could create such a voluminous work in such a short period. By order of Joseph Stalin, a commission was even created, which, having studied the writer's manuscript, confirmed its authorship.
- In 1958, along with Sholokhov, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The world that Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov represents is truly the embodiment of such qualities of the Russian people as patriotism, humanity and love for truth. This is clearly seen in the ideas that he conveyed to readers through his literary works. If you suddenly feel like finding out the real and undisguised truth about the Civil War, then you should start reading the Quiet Don. And, if you are interested in the whole process of the formation of collectivism in the Soviet state, then, in addition to other literature, it is better to read his “Virgin Soil Upturned”.
And, of course, those who are interested in the period in the history of the Soviet Union - the Great Patriotic War - love to read his unfinished novel "They Fought for the Motherland." All these and other works of Mikhail Alexandrovich are a real reflection of the historical upheavals that the whole country was then experiencing, and which the author himself witnessed, as his biography tells.
Short biography of Sholokhov
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov is a well-known Russian prose writer who, in a fascinating way, revealed to the world the life and culture of the Don Cossacks. The Soviet writer is deservedly twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1967,1980), Laureate of the Stalin Prize (1941), Lenin Prize (1960), and the Nobel Prize (1965). And in 1939, Mikhail Alexandrovich received a degree - Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
Childhood and youth Sholokhov M.A.
Sholokhov Mikhail Aleksandrovich was born in 1905 on May 11 (24) on a farm called Kruzhilin of the Vyoshenskaya village, which belonged to the region of the Donskoy army (the modern name is the village of Vyoshenskaya, Rostov region). Sholokhov was born into a family of peasants. His mother, Anastasia Danilovna Kuznetsova, was the wife of a Don Cossack and worked as a maid for the landowner Popov, and Mikhail's father, Alexander Mikhailovich Sholokhov, was a wealthy clerk. At the beginning of his childhood, Mikhail Aleksandrovich bore the surname of his stepfather Kuznetsov and, by right of inheritance, could have received a land allotment as a “son of a Cossack”. However, after the death of his stepfather, his mother, taking little Mikhail with her, went to live with his own father Sholokhov A.M., who adopted him. And now, instead of the “son of a Cossack”, the young Mikhail Sholokhov became the “son of a tradesman”, he was forced from childhood to endure the obvious ambiguity of the position of his family (mother is a Cossack, and his father is a visitor from Ryazan, the son of a merchant). Perhaps, such an atmosphere fixed from an early age in the character of Mikhail Alexandrovich an attraction to justice, truth and some secrecy about his true origin.
Mikhail Sholokhov studied first at a parochial school, then, after moving to the Kargin farm (1910), and when he was seven years old, he was admitted to a male one-class school, after which he graduated from four classes of the male Bogucharsky gymnasium. This was the end of his childhood education.
In 1919, Sholokhov witnessed the Upper Don Cossack uprising, which he would later describe in his novel Quiet Flows the Don. And a year later, after this uprising, Mikhail Sholokhov is already going to work: he was a school teacher (the direction is the elimination of illiteracy), he served as the revolutionary committee of the village, he also worked as an accountant and even a journalist. When strife between the “reds” and “whites” began in the country, the young Sholokhov ultimately took the side of the victorious side, which, in his opinion, contributed to the formation of at least relative peace between the brothers. It all seemed to him that it was a great evil to raise a hand against his own fellow villager or brother by blood or spirit - to such an extent he hated the Civil War! Therefore, Sholokhov, when he served in the food detachment as an inspector of the Bukanovskaya village (1921), without the permission of the command, significantly reduced the taxation of people, especially those who were closer to him and the poorest of all. For this, he was under trial by the new government and was first sentenced to death, but after changing the sentence, supporters of the government gave him a short suspended prison sentence.
Arrival in Moscow, marriage, return home and the beginning of a writing career
In 1922 M.A. Sholokhov, whose writer's biography is just beginning here, comes to Moscow to enter the working faculty, but he is not accepted due to the fact that he is not a Komsomol member. Then Mikhail does not despair and still tries to stay in Moscow, while working hard for several years. He had to work at such heavy and small jobs as a loader, a bricklayer, an accountant and other odd jobs. But it is here that he tries to write and publish his essays in magazines and newspapers. He also becomes an active member of the Young Guard literary circle. In Youthful Truth, his feuilletons are published: "Test", "Three" (1923).
A year later, Sholokhov marries Maria Petrovna, with whom he lived until the end of his days. And in 1925 he, together with his wife, returned to his homeland. It was the air of his native farm, spacious beauty and steppe distances, and the peacefully flowing Don that inspired him to write further. At home, he publishes his "Don stories", which immediately attracted the attention of readers. He also begins work on his famous novel The Quiet Flows the Don.
In 1926, the collection "Azure Steppe" was published. In 1928, the first two books of The Quiet Don were published in the October magazine, which immediately caused violent controversy among the opinions of critics and famous writers, such as M. Gorky, because they were, first of all, embarrassed by their young age. Sholokhov is 23 years old, and an incredibly talented novel. Regarding the third book of The Quiet Don, the censorship of the new government found fault with its sentimental display of the Upper Don Cossack uprising, they say, it would be necessary to describe such events dryly and not so sympathetically towards the Cossacks. Apparently, for this reason, Sholokhov temporarily leaves the writing of The Quiet Don and embarks on a new one - Virgin Soil Upturned, where he described with great enthusiasm the formation and collectivization of lands on the Don. The publication of "Virgin Soil Upturned" was in 1932. And in 1940, already completed, by order of I.V. Stalin, the last book of The Quiet Flows the Don, and in the first year of the Great Patriotic War (1941) was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Stalin Prize.
In a rather long period of the Second World War, M.A. Sholokhov enters the service as a war correspondent for the newspapers Pravda and Krasnaya Zvezda. And at the end of 1942, he began to write the novel "They Fought for the Motherland", which had to be published in fragments over a long period from 1943 to 1954.
Continuation of creativity, titles, awards and death of the Russian writer Sholokhov M.A.
Like any biography, the biography of Mekhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov is coming to an end, although his creative legacy still lives on. While working as a war correspondent, the writer had to visit five fronts and describe the events taking place there. It was for this kind of military merit that he was awarded the title of Companion of the Order of Glory (1945). And in 1955 he was awarded another Order of Lenin. A couple of years later, Sholokhov wrote the story "The Fate of a Man", and in 1960 he was awarded the Lenin Prize for the second book of Virgin Soil Upturned. In 1965, he was awarded the Nobel Prize, and he was recognized as one of the best Russian literary writers. In the same year, Sholokhov was awarded a degree - Doctor of Philology from Rostov State University, and in Germany, Leipzig University, he was elected an Honorary Doctor. And again, awards - the award of the Order of the Hero of Socialist Labor in 1967 and 1980. In Bulgaria - the Order of Cyril and Methodius, I degree (1973). 1975 - world-class award for an outstanding contribution to reconciliation between peoples in the field of culture in Stockholm. On May 23, 1981, a monument-bust of M.A. was opened in the village of Veshenskaya. Sholokhov.
On February 21, 1984, Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov dies in his native land, in the village of Veshenskaya, where he was buried.
MIKHAIL ALEKSANDROVICH SHOLOKHOV
Life dates: May 24, 1905 - February 21, 1984
Place of Birth: farm Kruzhilinsky, village Vyoshenskaya, Rostov region, Russia
Russian Soviet writer and screenwriter, journalist. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1965).
Notable works: "Don Stories", "Azure Steppe", "Quiet Don", "Virgin Soil Upturned", "They Fought for the Motherland", "The Science of Hatred", "The Fate of a Man", "Nakhalyonok", "Fedotka"
Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov was born on May 24, 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 “sassy”, 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.
The house where Mikhail Sholokhov was born
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 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, especially adored the works of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol and Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.
In 1917, the seeds of a revolution began to appear. 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 Alexandrovich, being a tax inspector, was sentenced to death for exceeding his official powers.
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.
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.
In December 1923 he returned to the Don. On January 11, 1924, she gets married in the Bukanovskaya Church with Maria Petrovna Gromoslavskaya, the daughter of the former stanitsa ataman.
Maria Petrovna, having graduated from the Ust-Medveditsky diocesan school, worked in Art. Bukanovskaya was first a teacher in an elementary school, then a clerk in the executive committee, where Sholokhov was an inspector at that time. Having married, they were inseparable until the end of their days. The Sholokhovs lived together for 60 years, raising and raising four children.
December 14, 1924 M.A. Sholokhov publishes the first work of art - the story "Birthmark" in the newspaper "Young Leninist". Joins the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers.
Family of Mikhail Sholokhov
In 1925, Mikhail Alexandrovich begins to create the novel Quiet Flows the Don. During these years, the Sholokhov family lived in Karginskaya, then in Bukanovskaya, and since 1926 in Vyoshenskaya. In 1928, the Oktyabr magazine began publishing Quiet Don.
After the publication of the first volume of the novel, difficult days come for the writer: success with readers is overwhelming, but an unfriendly atmosphere reigns in writers' circles. Envy of a young writer, who is called a new genius, gives rise to slander, vulgar fabrications. The position of the author in describing the Upper Don uprising is sharply criticized by the RAPP, it is proposed to throw out more than 30 chapters from the book, to make the main character a Bolshevik.
Sholokhov is only 23 years old, but he steadfastly and courageously endures attacks. He is helped by confidence in his abilities, in his vocation. To stop malicious slander, rumors of plagiarism, he turns to the executive secretary and member of the editorial board of the Pravda newspaper, M. I. Ulyanova, with an urgent request to create an expert commission and give her the manuscripts of The Quiet Don. In the spring of 1929, the writers A. Serafimovich, L. Averbakh, V. Kirshon, A. Fadeev, V. Stavsky spoke in Pravda in defense of the young author, relying on the conclusions of the commission. The rumors stop. But spiteful critics will more than once attempt to denigrate Sholokhov, who speaks honestly about the tragic events in the life of the country, does not want to deviate from historical truth.
The novel was finished in 1940. In the 1930s, Sholokhov began work on the novel Virgin Soil Upturned. 
During the war, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov was a war correspondent for the Soviet Information Bureau, the Pravda and Krasnaya Zvezda newspapers. He publishes front-line essays, the story "The Science of Hatred", the first chapters of the novel "They Fought for the Motherland." The State Prize awarded for the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" Sholokhov transfers to the USSR Defense Fund, and then acquires four new rocket launchers for the front at his own expense.
For participation in the Great Patriotic War, he has awards - the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, medals "For the Defense of Moscow", "For the Defense of Stalingrad", "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945", "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War".
After the war, the writer finishes the 2nd book of "Virgin Soil Upturned", works on the novel "They Fought for the Motherland", writes the story "The Fate of a Man".
Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov - Nobel, State and Lenin Prizes in literature, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, holder of an honorary doctorate in law from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, PhD from the University of Leipzig in Germany, Doctor of Philology from Rostov State University , Deputy of the Supreme Council of all convocations. He was awarded six Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, and other awards. In the village of Vyoshenskaya, a bronze bust was erected to him during his lifetime. And this is not a complete list of prizes, awards, honorary titles and public duties of the writer.
Mikhail Sholokhov at the Nobel Prize ceremony
The works of M.A. Sholokhov were published 1408 times with a total circulation of 105,349,943 copies in more than 90 languages of the world.
Until the end of his days he lived in his house in Vyoshenskaya (nowadays a museum). He transferred the Stalin Prize to the Defense Fund, the Lenin Prize for the novel "Virgin Soil Upturned" was transferred to the disposal of the Karginsky Village Council of the Bazkovo District of the Rostov Region for the construction of a new school, the Nobel Prize - for the construction of a school in Vyoshenskaya.
He was fond of hunting and fishing. Since the 1960s, he has actually moved away from literature.
Died M.A. Sholokhov February 21, 1984. Mikhail Sholokhov was buried in the village of Vyoshenskaya on the banks of the Don, but not in the cemetery, but in the courtyard of the house in which he lived.
In the year of the death of the writer in his homeland, the State Museum-Reserve M.A. Sholokhov.
MIKHAIL ALEKSANDROVICH SHOLOKHOV
(1905-1984)
The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Sholokhov "for the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia." We are talking about the epic novel (a major work about significant historical events) "Quiet Flows the Don", which the writer created as a very young man - he was not even 30. Only thanks to this work Sholokhov could go down in the history of Russian and world literature. But during his creative life, he created many brilliant stories (“The Fate of a Man”, “Nakhalenok”, “Mole”) and the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned”, began work on the novel “They Fought for the Motherland”, which was later skillfully filmed by director S. F. Bondarchuk.
Most of the writer's works are devoted to the life of the Don Cossacks. Sholokhov's debut collection "Don Stories" impressed readers with the imagery of the language spoken by the Cossacks and simple but intense plots. These are stories about the clash of the White Cossacks with the Red revolutionaries, about the fratricidal struggle on the Don. The author did not justify violence - he brought the harsh, cruel truth about the Civil War to literature. In his image, this is a massacre of one's own against one's own, it destroys families, separates fathers and children. The story "Birthmark" is about one of these episodes. In the turmoil of the war, the father unknowingly kills his revolutionary son, whom he has not seen for many years, but the next minute he recognizes him by a noticeable mole on his leg - his father has the same one. From despair and inescapable grief, he puts a bullet in his mouth.
But there are also bright moments in the years of difficult clashes. The seven-year-old boy Misha from the story "Nakhalenok", a mischievous and reckless man, meets his father who has returned from the Civil War. From that day on, the old pranks do not occupy Misha: his father tells him about the struggle against poverty, injustice, oppression - against the old world with which he fought. And the boy has a new, albeit not yet realized goal in life - to stand for justice, for human dignity.
The image of a man who rose to defend his homeland appears in Sholokhov's articles and essays during the Great Patriotic War. So, the hero of the short story "The Fate of a Man" gained worldwide fame. Driver Andrei Sokolov tells the story of his life: the horrors of captivity, the loss of all loved ones. But severe trials did not break Andrei: he retained a wide, open soul of love and kindness. At the end of the story, he goes along with the six-year-old orphan Vanyushka, adopted by him, forward into the future.
Sholokhov's work attracts many representatives of art. Drama performances and operas are based on his works. The heroes of "The Quiet Flows the Don", "Virgin Soil Upturned", "The Fate of a Man", the early stories of the writer, the audience saw on the screen.
The drawing is based on a photograph by M. A. Sholokhov, 1970.
Russian writers and poets of the twentieth century: a set of visual aids "Great Literature" / ed. project T.V. Tsvetkova.- M.: TC Sphere, 2015.- 12 p., ill.
Monuments to Mikhail Sholokhov
Monuments to the literary heroes of Mikhail Sholokhov
(1905-1984) Soviet writer
Mikhail Sholokhov is a famous Soviet prose writer, the author of many stories, novels and novels about the life of the Don Cossacks. For the scale and artistic power of the works describing the life of the Cossack villages in a difficult critical period, the writer was awarded the Nobel Prize. The creative achievements of Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov were highly appreciated in their own country. He twice received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, became the laureate of the most significant Stalin and Lenin Prizes in the Soviet Union.
Childhood and youth
Mikhail Sholokhov's father was a wealthy merchant's son, he bought up cattle, rented land from the Cossacks and grew wheat, at one time he was the manager of a steam mill. The writer's mother was from former serfs. In her youth, she served on the estate of the landowner Popova and was married against her will. After a while, the young woman leaves her husband, who never became a native, and goes to Alexander Sholokhov.
Mikhail is born in 1905. An illegitimate boy is recorded in the name of the official husband of the mother. This well-known fact of the biography of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov had a great influence on the future writer, developing a heightened sense of justice and a desire to always get to the bottom of the truth. In many works of the author it will be possible to find echoes of a personal tragedy.
M.A. Sholokhov received the surname of his real father only after the wedding of his parents in 1912. Two years before that, the family had left for the village of Karginskaya. The biography of this period contains brief data on Sholokhov's initial education. At first, a local teacher regularly studied with the boy. After the preparatory course, Mikhail continued his studies at the gymnasium in Boguchar and completed the 4th grade. Classes had to be abandoned after the arrival of German soldiers in the city.
1920-1923
This period is quite difficult not only for the country, but also for the future writer. Some of the events that took place in Sholokhov's life during these years are not mentioned in any short biography.
At the new place of residence, the young man receives the position of a clerk, and then a tax inspector. In 1922, he was arrested for abuse of power and almost immediately sentenced to death. Mikhail Sholokhov was saved by the intervention of his father. He made a rather large amount as a deposit and brought to court a new birth certificate, in which the age of his son was reduced by more than 2 years. As a minor, the young man was sentenced to corrective labor for one year and sent under escort to the Moscow region. To the colony M.A. Sholokhov never made it, and later settled in Moscow. From that moment on, a new stage began in Sholokhov's biography.
The beginning of the creative path
The first attempts to publish his early works fall on a short period of residence in Moscow. Sholokhov's biography contains brief information about the life of the writer at this time. It is known that he sought to continue the betrothal, but due to the lack of the necessary recommendation from the Komsomol organization and data on work experience, it was not possible to enter the workers' faculty. The writer had to be content with small temporary earnings.
M. A. Sholokhov participates in the work of the literary circle "Young Guard", is engaged in self-education. With the support of an old friend L.G. Mirumov, an experienced Bolshevik and a staff member of the GPU, in 1923 the first works of Sholokhov saw the light: “Test”, “Three”, “Inspector General”.
In 1924, the publication "Young Leninist" printed on its pages the first story from the collection of Don stories released later. Each short story in the collection is partly a biography of Sholokhov himself. Many of the characters in his works are not fictional. These are real people who surrounded the writer in childhood, adolescence and later.
The most significant event in Sholokhov's creative biography was the publication of the novel Quiet Flows the Don. The first two volumes were printed in 1928. In several storylines, M. A. Sholokhov shows in detail the life of the Cossacks during the First World War, and then the Civil War.
Despite the fact that the protagonist of the novel, Grigory Melekhov, never accepted the revolution, the work was approved by Stalin himself, who gave permission for printing. Later, the novel was translated into foreign languages and brought Sholokhov Mikhail Aleksandrovich worldwide popularity.
Another epic work about the life of the Cossack villages is Virgin Soil Upturned. The description of the process of collectivization, the eviction of the so-called kulaks and sub-kulakists, the created images of activists speak of the author's ambiguous assessment of the events of those days.
Sholokhov, whose biography was closely connected with the life of ordinary collective farmers, tried to show all the shortcomings in the creation of collective farms and the lawlessness that quite often took place in relation to ordinary residents of Cossack villages. The general acceptance of the idea of creating collective farms was the reason for the approval and appreciation of Sholokhov's work.
After some time, "Virgin Soil Upturned" is introduced for compulsory study in the school curriculum, and from that moment Sholokhov's biography is studied on a par with the biographies of the classics.
After a high assessment of his work, M. A. Sholokhov continued to work on The Quiet Don. However, the continuation of the novel reflected the growing ideological pressure that was exerted on the author. Sholokhov's biography was supposed to be a confirmation of another transformation of a doubter in the ideals of the revolution into a "solid communist."
A family
Sholokhov lived all his life with one woman, with whom the entire family biography of the writer is connected. The decisive event in his personal life was a brief meeting in 1923, after returning from Moscow, with one of the daughters of P. Gromoslavsky, who was once the stanitsa ataman. Arriving to woo one daughter, Mikhail Sholokhov, on the advice of his future father-in-law, marries her sister, Maria. Maria graduated from high school and at that time taught at an elementary school.
In 1926 Sholokhov became a father for the first time. Subsequently, the writer's family biography is replenished with three more joyful events: the birth of two sons and another daughter.
Creativity of the war and post-war years
During the war, Sholokhov worked as a war correspondent, his creative biography during this period was replenished with brief essays and stories, including "Cossacks", "On the Don".
Many critics who studied the writer's work said that M. A. Sholokhov spent all his talent on writing The Quiet Flows the Don, and everything written after was much weaker in artistic skill than even the earliest works. The only exception was the novel "They Fought for the Motherland", which was never completed by the author.
In the post-war period, Mikhail Sholokhov was mainly engaged in journalistic activities. The only strong work that has replenished the author's creative biography is "The Fate of a Man".
Authorship problem
Despite the fact that Mikhail Sholokhov is one of the famous Soviet prose writers, his biography contains information about several proceedings related to allegations of plagiarism.
“Quiet Flows the Don” attracted particular attention. Sholokhov wrote it in a very short time for such a large-scale work, and the biography of the author, who was a child at the time of the events described, also aroused suspicion. Among the arguments against Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov, some researchers cited the fact that the quality of the stories written before the novel was much lower.
A year after the publication of the novel, a commission was created, which confirmed that it was Sholokhov who was the author. The members of the commission examined the manuscript, checked the biography of the author and established facts confirming the work on the work.
Among other things, it was established that Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov spent a long time in the archives, and the biography of a real colleague of his father, who was one of the leaders of the uprising depicted in the book, helped create one of the main storylines.
Despite the fact that Sholokhov was subjected to similar suspicions, and his biography contains some ambiguities, the role of the writer in the development of literature of the 20th century can hardly be overestimated. It was he, like no one else, who managed to accurately and reliably convey all the variety of human emotions of ordinary workers, residents of small Cossack villages.
