Quiet was written. Who wrote the novel "Quiet Don"

Mikhail Sholokhov wrote his main work, the epic novel “ Quiet Don", at the age of twenty-seven. For a long time, many could not - and did not want - to believe that such a young man was capable of writing one of central works in Russian literature. For decades, the question of the authorship of “Quiet Don” remained one of the most discussed in Russian literary criticism. The new film adaptation of the epic novel, which was skillfully directed by S. Ursulyak, served as the beginning of a new round of gossip and speculation around “Quiet 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 famous Moscow journalist L. Kolodny for many years collected testimonies from Sholokhov’s friends and acquaintances, eyewitnesses to the creation of the epic, and found manuscripts of the first and second volumes of the novel, drafts, and 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 Don.”

A series: Main film premiere 2015

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by liters company.

© Kolodny L.E., 2015

© TD Algorithm LLC, 2015

Dedicated to my wife Faina Kolodnaya, who helped secretly photocopy the manuscripts of “The Quiet Don”

The book is prefaced by an article by Emeritus Professor of the University of Wales Brian Murphy, a famous Sholokhov scholar and translator of the novel into English language. It came out after the first articles in the Moscow media about the found manuscripts in the scientific journal New Zealand Slavonic Journal, dedicated to Slavic philology in 1992. And it was the first response of the specialist.

Brian Murphy was the first to publish a review of the book in 1996 in the English journal Slavonic and East European Review, specializing in Slavic and East European philology. He refers to Lev Kolodny’s publications in the media, which gave him reason to consider the problem of the authorship of “Quiet Don” to be resolved.

"Quiet Don" - the end of the myth

In Moscow, L. E. Kolodny seems to have finally put an end to the constant statements that 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 novel Quiet Don. The first two books of the novel appeared in 1928 and caused a sensation. The product gave full picture life of the Cossacks before the First World War, traced the fate of the most loyal elements tsarist army. The work ended with a tragic clash between whites and reds on the Don.

Almost at the same time, some representatives of the Moscow intelligentsia began to wonder whether such a work could have come from the pen of young man, whose school education was interrupted due to the revolution at the age of 13? Rumors of plagiarism began to spread. A specially appointed commission examined the essence of the issue. The commission was headed by a veteran Soviet literature writer A. Serafimovich. The commission members looked at the manuscript that Sholokhov brought to Moscow - about a thousand pages written in his hand. To their satisfaction, they stated that there was no reason to accuse the author of plagiarism.

The third book of “Quiet Don” encountered great difficulties when it appeared in print. This part of the novel talks mainly about the Cossack uprisings against Soviet power in 1919. The young Cossacks were not essentially pro-white, but they took up arms in the face of unprecedented repression that the Bolsheviks brought upon their villages, raping women and passing countless sentences on innocent victims.

At that most critical moment of the civil war, the communist advance to the south was stopped. Thirty thousand of Russia's finest Cossack soldiers took up arms to hold back the Red Army's advance toward the Don, an important region. Sholokhov experienced all these events himself as a child. In the twenties, he communicated a lot with former rebels, especially with one of the leaders of the Cossack uprising against Soviet power, Kharlampy Ermakov, who became the prototype for the main character 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 continued publishing 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 magazine in 1932. On next year the third book has been published.

Kolodny recently showed that the reason for the delay in publication, which befell the fourth book, was mainly the opinion of Stalin’s entourage that Melekhov, in accordance with the laws 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 main character.

The chapters of the last, fourth book of the novel began to be published in 1937. Quiet Don was not published in its entirety 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 unfair trial. But in post-war years he started using notoriety for attacks on dissident writers, in particular Sinyavsky and Daniel, who ended up in the dock. Because of this, Sholokhov was rejected for the most part Russian public. Old accusations of plagiarism were renewed 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 a white Cossack officer, writer Fyodor Kryukov. A. Solzhenitsyn wrote the preface to this book he published. The cloud of accusations 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 computer-searched “Quiet Don” and unequivocally established that the creator of the entire work was Sholokhov. The potential scandal, however, looked too attractive to leave alone. And still some researchers are practicing alternative theories; one of them, for example, was promoted long time on Leningrad television.

Kolodny gave a decisive rebuff to this kind of speculation, inflicting, as the French say, a “coup de grace,” that is, the executioner’s final blow, depriving the condemned man 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 in 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 was an average of three printed sheets text. The drafts are of exceptional interest not only because they prove Sholokhov’s authorship, but also because they shed light on the implementation of his plans and 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 begin the story with the events of 1912, to show life as it was during the previous 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 begin the chronicle with a description of the murder of the Turkish grandmother Grigory Melekhov by the Cossacks. In the early manuscript, the author left the surname of the prototype Ermakov for the main character, although he changed his name Kharlampiy to Abram. After Abram Ermakov killed the first German soldier, he felt disgusted with the war. This scene did not remain in the novel, but finds a parallel in the final text of “Quiet Don”, in the first book, third part, chapter V, where Gregory chops down an Austrian soldier with a saber.

On February 4, 1992, Moskovskaya Pravda published the unknown 24th chapter of Quiet Don, which describes the first wedding night Gregory. This scene contrasts sharply with his previous love affairs, especially with a 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 around him.

Today, when accusations of plagiarism have been reliably stopped, we can hope that it will be possible to publish early versions of The Quiet Flows the Don.

Kolodny L. Here it is, the manuscript of “The Quiet Don” (with the conclusion of a forensic expert, handwriting expert Yu. N. Pogibko) // Moskovskaya Pravda, May 25, 1991.

Kolodny L. Manuscripts of “The Quiet Don” // Moscow. No. 10. 1991

Kolodny L. Manuscripts of "The Quiet Don". With Sholokhov’s autograph // Rabochaya Gazeta, October 4, 1991.

Kolodny L. Who will publish my “Quiet Don”? // Book Review, 1991, No. 12.

Kolodny L. Unknown "Quiet Don" (with the publication of the first, early version“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 given introductory fragment of the book Who wrote "Quiet Don"? Chronicle of a literary investigation (L. E. Kolodny, 2015) provided by our book partner -

When and by whom was the novel “Quiet Don” written - 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 continued in the writer’s homeland - was he really the author of “Quiet Flows the Don,” a novel that critics called “War and Peace” of the 20th century?

Manuscript found in a bag

Doubts related to the authorship of “Quiet Don” began almost immediately after the first volume was written, after the first journal publications. Writers and critics were perplexed - could a twenty-two-year-old author, who had not received 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; accordingly, to write a novel covering the layers of life of different strata Russian society, he would have to, like Pushkin And Tolstoy work tirelessly with historical archives; meanwhile, there was no evidence that Sholokhov spent long hours in libraries.

In 1928, a rumor spread that the manuscript of the novel had been stolen from the field bag of a murdered White Guard Fedora Kryukova. It was rumored that after the publication of the beginning of the novel, this Kryukov’s old mother showed up demanding that a book be published with the name of the real author on the cover.

Expert opinion

In 1929, a commission of writers was organized, among whom were Fadeev And Serafimovich. Sholokhov was obliged to submit to the editors of the newspaper Pravda the manuscripts of the first three books of the novel and rough plan fourth. Experts conducted an investigation, compared the writing style with Sholokhov’s “Don Stories” - and concluded: 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 same ones that Sholokhov presented to the commission. A graphological examination showed that the manuscript was indeed written by Sholokhov.

But - was it 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 fight 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 this confusion come from? Most likely - from a mechanical connection of two versions of the novel. As is known, the Cossacks of the Ust-Medveditsky district fought in Prussia, where Fyodor Kryukov was from - the same White Guard Cossack from whose bag the manuscript was possibly pulled out. If we assume that Sholokhov used Kryukov’s manuscript as the basis for “Quiet Flows the Don,” then he can be considered Kryukov’s co-author – but not the sole author of the novel.

Arguments against

Israeli literary scholar Ze'ev 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 it. Thus, he claims that the manuscript of the novel is an undoubted fake, and it is absolutely clear for what purposes it was prepared. Experts noted places in the manuscript that indicate that the person who copied it by hand (that is, Sholokhov himself) sometimes absolutely did not understand what was written: instead of the word “emotions” from the manuscript - “evolution”, instead of “Nazareth” - “infirmary” . Bra-Sella also claims that “Don Stories” were not created by Sholokhov - they are different in stylistic characteristics and clearly belong to the author different people; and there are serious doubts about the authorship of “Virgin Soil Upturned” - there are whole pieces of text there that are surprisingly reminiscent of prose Andrey Platonov.

In addition, it is obvious that Quiet Don was written by a person who received a good education - the text of the novel is teeming with allusions to Pushkin, Gogol, Saltykova-Shchedrin, Bunina, Blok, Merezhkovsky and even Edgar Poe. It is difficult to imagine that a nugget from the Cossacks had access to such literature in his youth.

So modern literary scholars They are still scratching their heads about who was involved in the birth of the great novel.

Who wrote "Quiet Don"

To many modern schoolchildren Literature is getting more and more difficult. How to read four volumes of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” or approximately the same volume of Sholokhov’s “Quiet Don” in the era of gadgets. Although, perhaps, these are the works that best reflect Russian national character.

Russia Day is celebrated during this long weekend. And this is a reason to talk about the mystery of “Quiet Don”. Who actually wrote this book? The dispute over authorship has haunted me all my life. Nobel laureate Sholokhov, it does not subside even today. The correspondent of the MIR 24 TV channel, Roman Galperin, tried to reveal the secret.

Stanitsa. It’s unlikely that anyone would have known about this Cossack village on the outskirts of the Rostov region if it weren’t for “Quiet Don”. The novel brought its author Mikhail Sholokhov world fame.

In the very center of the village on the banks of the Don there is a monument to the heroes of the “Quiet Don” Gregory and. Initially sculptural composition was located in Rostov-on-Don, but 20 s extra years she was transported back here to small homeland Sholokhov.

The triumph of Russian literature. Sholokhov is awarded the Nobel Prize. But behind this success all these years hid the real tragedy of one of the main Soviet writers. After the publication of the first two volumes in the magazine “October” in 1929, Sholokhov was accused of plagiarism.

“This story could not help but arise. And since 1929, with periodicity, it has different options repeats itself during the thaw, then during perestroika,” said Natalya Kornienko, head of the department at the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

And whoever it was attributed to. It was believed that Sholokhov appropriated the manuscript of a white officer who was shot by the Bolsheviks. According to another version, the draft of “Quiet Don” was brought back from the Civil War by Mikhail Alexandrovich’s father-in-law. Later the name of the Cossack writer and participant appeared White movement Fedor Kryukov. This version was also followed. It did not bother Alexander Isaevich that, according to documents, Kryukov died in 1920 from typhus.

“For Solzhenitsyn, this happened because of writer’s envy. He wanted to write a big novel about the revolution. But better than Sholokhov he can't write. He had envy. He could not create such an image,” explained publicist, teacher, historian Roy Medvedev.

“I don’t need to do research that Kryukov could not write. This is a completely different prose. She is different in her attitude, intonation and talent,” said Galina Vorontsova, a senior researcher at the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Veniamin Krasnushkin, a Don writer who worked under the pseudonym Viktor Sevsky, was also appointed as the author. His “Quiet Don,” assures Russian-Israeli literary critic Zeev Bar-Sella, was found by Soviet security officers and published under the authorship of Sholokhov.

“It was he, and no one else, who began remaking the novel into a more Soviet one. Sevsky took a sharply Bolshevik position. And he was on the side of the whites. This can be seen in the novel as well. Everything is described from the white side,” said linguist-researcher, Israeli literary critic, publicist and journalist Zeev Bar-Sella.

Bar-Sella is the author, perhaps, of the most. He assures that Sholokhov did not write a single work. “Quiet Don”, “Virgin Soil Upturned”, “They Fought for the Motherland” belong to the pen of other writers. And Sholokhov is a project of Soviet security officers.

“Russian literature is great. It was necessary to show something commensurate with achievements and coming Soviet Union. OGPU decided actual problems. I had to show it now cultural achievements. They showed it,” says the researcher.

The writer had connections with the security officers, confirms Sholokhov’s grandson Alexander Mikhailovich. True, completely opposite. The intelligence services planned to get rid of him. Comrade Stalin personally saved us. But in disputes within the literary fraternity, the leader’s patronage did not help. Until the end of his days, Sholokhov was accused of literary theft.

“The arguments come down to a very small circle. He was unusually young. One of the Soviet writers of the 1920s said, if I couldn’t write something like this, how could he? This is such envy,” says Mikhail Sholokhov’s grandson Alexander Sholokhov.

The second argument is education. The official biography says that Sholokhov graduated from only four classes of the gymnasium. But it is one of the most complex novels in world literature. Dozens storylines. Colossal time frames. The action takes place during the First World War, October revolution and the Civil War, which divided the Cossacks into Reds and Whites. Critics assured: well, an illiterate person could not write such a sophisticated work. And Sholokhov’s appearance and behavior were suggestive.

IN Soviet years Roy Medvedev was one of Sholokhov's main opponents. A well-known publicist doubted the authorship of “Quiet Don”. It's all the writer's fault. He, if we speak modern language, was outside the party, did not communicate with his brothers in writing. He lived not in Moscow, but in distant Veshenskaya.

“Sholokhov himself retained neither talent nor genius. He was detained drunk by the police. He was an alcoholic,” noted publicist and writer-historian Roy Medvedev.

Sholokhov tried not to respond to attacks. Only once did he turn to the party newspaper Pravda. Lenin's sister Maria Ulyanova organized a commission. Experts called the accusations against Sholokhov malicious slander. The writer himself explained everything simply.

“I was young then. He worked with fury. The impressions were fresh, and best years growing up is given to him. The adolescent look is the best. He will see everything,” said Sholokhov.

For a long time he had the main trump card - the lack of a manuscript of the novel. She was found in 1999. Today it is kept at the Institute of World Literature. The manuscript contains 885 pages, 605 written by Sholokhov. Three examinations were carried out. And the conclusion leaves no doubt that the textual study of this manuscript makes it possible to solve the problem of the authorship of “The Quiet Don.”

But even after that, the issue was not settled. Most literary scholars are sure: the theme of the authorship of “Quiet Don” is eternal. This is no longer a dispute about literature, but about politics, which will arise at every turning point Russian history.

So who wrote the epoch-making novel? The significance of this work goes even beyond the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded to this only literary work in the genre of “socialist realism”.
Here is what the famous literary critic S. Semanov wrote:
"Quiet Don" is an amazing phenomenon in world literature. We are convinced that nothing like this has been created since the time of the Iliad (even though our opinion is controversial, many will agree).”
This, we repeat, is not an enthusiastic judgment of a literature lover, but an assessment of a specialist in the field of literary criticism, that is, an objective (as far as objectivity is possible for the humanities) science about literature, its history, criteria for evaluating and analyzing works, etc.
To put it in modern slang - a “not 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 if we ignore such strong judgments, the facts speak for themselves: the novel has been translated into a lot of foreign languages, and one of the earliest translations was 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 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 is talk of a new film adaptation already in the 21st century, and this is natural: great works are filmed many times, then film experts and film fans argue about the merits and demerits of each version.
A general comparison in terms of the level and significance of “Quiet Don” is only with “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy.
Discussion artistic merit This, according to the Nobel Committee, epic in scope work about Russia at a turning point for it, is beyond the scope of our article. There is an extensive literature on this topic 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 that has literally been around since the publication of the first part of the novel in the late 20s. 20th century - haunts many, many, in the USSR, in emigration, in foreign circles of readers and researchers, in today's Russia. This mystery of the century has not been resolved to this day. Who wrote "Quiet Don"? - thousands of readers and researchers ask themselves again and again. The latter hosts, and they are undertaking a wide variety of and increasingly sophisticated methods, including Newest technologies computer analysis of texts - in attempts to establish true authorship. This very story of suspicions of plagiarism and attempts to resolve 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 Don.”
But what did Mikhail Sholokhov himself, as the only official author of the novel, “dislike”? 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 literary geniuses are so early summer 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, scattered in abundance in this socio-psychological chronicle novel. Of course, with a certain erudition, it is not difficult to cite 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 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 casts doubt on Sholokhov’s authorship: educational level. If you have great talent, you can create masterpieces in early youth, and there are many examples of this in history.
As well as the opposite: when old age did not dampen the creative power of writers, artists, composers, scientists.
But even the greatest talent will not be fully revealed - without appropriate preparedness, level of education, special skills, living environment - you never know what affects professional and creative formation and development!
Sergei Yesenin could come with his simple educational background, but with his natural talent as a poet, right to the threshold of the house he had found with difficulty, where Alexander Blok lived, and amaze the recognized classic with the originality of the talent of a “peasant poet.”
Could Mikhail Sholokhov, with his four-year education, short-lived work as a special 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 official received - create, and even V as soon as possible, "Quiet Don"? An epic novel of the highest artistic level.
Maturity of the pen even for a great master.
An author demonstrating mastery of military archive materials.
Deep knowledge of the intricacies of inter-party and inter-factional battles and the context of the life of the State Duma of the early 20th century in Russia.
With traces in the text of the author’s personal participation in the events of the 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 kinds of awards of official recognition, high positions in the literary and party spheres, the rank of the first classic of Soviet literature with study in 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 “Quiet Don”. Even quantitatively, during his long literary life, in which no one would interfere with his publications and apologetics, Sholokhov wrote very few works.
In addition to the early, and by the author’s own admission, still very inept, although not devoid of charm, “Don Stories” (before “Quiet Don”) - the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned” is interesting, but according to literary scholars, cannot be compared with “ Quiet Don." The most piercing story “The Fate of Man.” The unfinished novel “They Fought for the Motherland.” A few more stories. That's probably all. No matter how you evaluate these works, which undoubtedly belonged to the pen of M.A. Sholokhov, they are far from “Quiet Don”. And Sholokhov himself, in his declining years, bitterly admitted in private conversations that he never managed to write anything at least partly equal in I think that it’s not only a matter of “fading talent”, but an extremely cloying praise from above and the lack of critics’ right to even a shadow of... actually, normal professional criticism, and among readers - a natural discord in judgments: an artist must create in much more severe conditions, so as not to reduce your 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)?
There is a long-standing and many times disputed and newly put forward version of the authorship: Fyodor Kryukov.
The most interesting thing, in our opinion, in this controversial version: is the presence of much more psychological points on which it is easier to agree with Kryukov’s version than Sholokhov’s. Not evidence in itself, necessary and sufficient, but still...Today Fyodor Kryukov is already called a “forbidden classic”, ranking alongside Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Meticulous multi-year study conducted by Irina Medvedeva-Tomashevskaya in the 60s, and with considerable risk. Her monograph was subsequently published in 1974 in Paris - “The Stream of the Quiet Don” with a foreword by A. Solzhenitsyn. In it, she provides a rationale for the version of authorship in favor of Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov.
Let us briefly trace the biographical outline of this once famous Don writer: born February 2 (14), 1870. in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsk district, land of the Don Army in the family of a Cossack ataman. Prosperous origins made it possible to receive 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 literature and art department of the magazine “Russian Wealth” - one of the best and most advanced literary magazines in pre-revolutionary Russia, published under the editorship of V.G. Korolenko, in which the best writers in Russia considered it prestigious to publish. One of the founders of the “People's Socialists” party. He taught Russian literature and history in the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. Among his students was the poet Alexander Tenyakov.
And finally, in Civil War was a member of the White Volunteer Movement. Secretary of the Military Circle. One of those who are called “ideologists of the White movement.” Isn’t this where the knowledge from the inside that has stunned many comes from? 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 this was the artistic task set: to write largely “from the whites,” to penetrate in all depths into inner world The main character of the novel, Grigory Melekhov, is 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 the white emigration? - There is an unproven version that the field bag with Kryukov’s manuscripts passed into the hands of a fellow White Guard soldier and also writer P. Ya Gromoslavsky. The latter was the father-in-law of Mikhail Sholokhov. The last fact is irrefutable, the others are at the level of rumors.
Is it possible to prove the authorship of Kryukov or Sholokhov objectively, using computer analysis of stylistic features, frequency of repetition of themes, motifs, even individual words and turns of speech, etc., etc. Yes, such work was carried out, and abroad.
"Quiet Don" is not an anonymous work. It was published by Mikhail Sholokhov, and accordingly he should be considered the sole author until the contrary is proven,” Norwegian authors G. Hjetso and others summarized the computer research in the monograph “Who wrote “Quiet Don”?” Personally, I, the author of these lines, read this work with an abundance of digital computer statistics on the comparison of texts by Kryukov and Sholokhov. A computer in the 80s, when the research was carried out, showed that the author was most likely Sholokhov.
Can a smart computer produce obvious absurdity? Should we believe an impassive machine when it is almost impossible to accept such a conclusion psychologically? Khyetso and others were later reproached for openly sympathizing with Sholokhov and, consequently, for tendentiousness and bias in constructing the calculation program.
However, the methodology is not so biased, and the computer that conducted the research using this program is not so lying. Enormous work on comparing the texts of Kryukov and Sholokhov, on analyzing the inconsistencies with each other in terms of stylistic features of parts of the novel, done by many other researchers, showed: there is a kind of amalgam, a mixture of the literary styles of both writers! It's not getting any easier hour by hour! In the end, the point of view began to be established (Marietta Chudakova and others) that Kryukov’s drafts were “the basis” of the novel, but the text was significantly supplemented, rewritten, revised, and 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, but was a Nobel “project” of the KGB, and various other writers wrote for him. (Nowadays such shadow authors of successful “brands” are called "Negroes")
Nevertheless, to us this hypothesis: about the fact 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 “Quiet Don”...I believe it was the drama of Sholokhov’s entire life, when he was simply physically unable to reveal the whole truth about the creation of his greatest novel. And they wouldn’t have allowed it: in the 30s, the “Maria Ulyanova Commission” to investigate “false fabrications about plagiarism” threatened in the most unambiguous way in the press with reprisals for those who doubted the authorship of M. Sholokhov.
He simply no longer belonged to himself.
There are other 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 uncertainty 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 centuries, but also modernity can leave unsolvable mysteries.
04/09/2011.