Mikhail Sholokhov’s son Mikhail: “having once again squandered the entire fee with his friends, his father made excuses to his mother: “The money is burning my pocket. Look how bad people live! “Could an inexperienced youth write such a wise, vital book?”

The book will be presented in Moscow on the eve of Viktor Chernomyrdin’s birthday: it was he who ensured that the manuscript was found and purchased from the previous owners. A Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent met with a person who knows everything about the novel: Alexander Fedorovich Struchkov, CEO publishing house "Moscow Writer", together with Sholokhov's daughter, he worked for almost ten years on restoring the author's text of "Quiet Don". Didn't like Sholokhov participial phrases The manuscript of “The Quiet Don,” from which the novel is now being printed at the Kharkov book factory Globus, was brought by Mikhail Sholokhov to Moscow in 1929 for a commission to establish authorship, and then handed over to his close friend Vasily Kudashev. From that moment on, the text disappeared for many 70 years. Kudashev’s widow insisted that the novel disappeared during the move, but after her death “ Quiet Don» unexpectedly found. “We immediately decided not to edit Sholokhov’s text, but to convey to the reader the novel in its original form, down to every Sholokhov comma, period, dash, exclamation, questioning, emphasis in words,” says Alexander Struchkov. - Therefore, they refused not only from editing, but also from proofreading the final text of the manuscript of the first two books of the novel, certified by Sholokhov. For example, Mikhail Aleksandrovich did not consider it necessary to highlight participial phrases in commas... Alexander Struchkov considers the way the Soviet editors dealt with the original text of “Quiet Don” to be real barbarism. While working with the original source, he and Sholokhov’s eldest daughter, philologist Svetlana Mikhailovna, found out that more than 1,800 words were deleted from the novel, and more than 10 thousand edits were made. Entire pieces of text were crossed out and replaced, and what remained was edited mercilessly according to the understanding of the editors, who were very far from the life and everyday life of the Cossacks... But, alas, it has still not been possible to restore everything - the texts of some chapters have not been found. According to Alexander Struchkov, the pages that describe the execution of Fyodor Podtelkov should be sought in the cases of Vyacheslav Menzhinsky or Genrikh Yagoda, the then leaders of the GPU. One letter replaced the meaning Differences between “Quiet Don”, replicated in Soviet years, and the original text of the novel begins literally from the first sentences: “A steep eight-fat descent between mossy green chalk blocks, and here is the shore: a mother-of-pearl scattering of shells, a damp, broken border of pebbles kissed by the waves, and beyond, the stirrup of the Don boiling under the wind with blued ripples.” In the Soviet version, the border was “gray” for some reason. Alexander Fedorovich gives an example of how replacing just one letter changed the meaning of what was written. For example, Colonel Vasily Chernetsov, preparing soldiers for a clash with the Red Guards, says: “NagNyom!” After the Bolshevik editorship, the harmless “Let’s begin” was published. The Bolsheviks cannot be bent?! Or Sholokhov wrote: “Stepan added a dirty word,” but in the dissected novel the editors wrote: “Stepan added a dirty word.” Another example: in the original, “Chubatiy looked at the officer with a smoking sidelong glance and, slamming his hat at his feet, burst out, for the first time during his time in the regiment, with a heart-rending cry.” The editors replaced the incomprehensible epithet “smoky” (rising) with “smoky.” The XXV chapter of the fifth part of the 2nd book of “Quiet Don” seemed ideologically incorrect to the Soviet censorship. In it, Bolshevik Anna Pogudko dreams of how she will live under socialism. The girl’s dreams are simple: about geraniums on the window and a canary in a cage. “On holidays we will invite guests, and we ourselves will go to the same respectable inhabitants. You will bake Sunday pies, you will cry if the dough fails. There will be savings...” In order not to breed philistinism in Soviet society, this chapter was removed from the final edition of the novel. Inserted Lenin “into a lousy topic” In the draft of the manuscript, Alexander Struchkov found an interesting sketch about the leader of the world proletariat. Sholokhov inserted the characters' arguments about whether Lenin was a Cossack between two remarks about lice. “Chikamasov invited him to go to bed with him. Crossing himself for the coming sleep, as he went to bed, he warned: “You, Ilya Mitrich, may be going to bed without fear, so excuse me... We, my friend, have lice.” If you get enough, don’t be offended. Out of anguish, such a vigorous louse was bred, it’s just a disaster, each one is as tall as a Kholmogory heifer.” What follows is a dialogue about Lenin’s “Russian” roots, and it ends again with a lousy topic: “Bunchuk did not fall asleep soon. He was indeed thickly covered with lice..." - If the censors had sniffed it out then, Sholokhov would have had a bad time... This insert appears in subsequent editions, but Lenin was combed there by the editors. Sholokhov is a Cossack, and it turns out that he hated the Bolsheviks, hated Lenin, and therefore mentioned him in this context. And the editors edited the text,” the researcher notes with regret. Why did Sholokhov endure mockery of his text? According to Svetlana Mikhailovna, her father once said with annoyance: “I wrote it, and you do whatever you want... Read “Quiet Don” carefully, everything is written there.” - Sholokhov was wise, he did not get involved in a fight with “academicians”, otherwise the novel would have been killed. It is important that Sholokhov wrote “Quiet Flows the Don” and managed to publish it even edited for the sake of the time when the Russian language was being disseminated, so it was read avidly, says Alexander Fedorovich.

DIRECT SPEECH Svetlana SHOLOHOVA: “My father spent the Nobel Prize on a trip to Japan” The writer’s eldest daughter devoted her entire life to her father’s work; she is considered the keeper of his legacy; to this day she lives in Veshenskaya and has no plans to leave it. - Svetlana Mikhailovna, will you go to Moscow for the presentation of “Quiet Don”?- I would really like to go, but I can’t - my age and health don’t allow it. My grandson and great-grandson will probably be there. - Do your grandchildren know the work of Mikhail Sholokhov as well as you?- I don’t think it’s that good, but they read, they know... - Did you manage to get only the author’s manuscript of the first two books of “Quiet Don”, and the third and fourth books were preserved in any form?- No, our house was bombed, the war destroyed everything. The manuscripts disappeared, as did his library and the diaries that his father kept. The manuscripts of the first two volumes were preserved only because they were in Moscow. - You were with your father when he received the Nobel Prize. What struck you then?- The pomp of the ceremony itself, great attention to our delegation. My father was the only nominee for literature, all the store windows had his portraits, his books were sold - in English, Swedish, German. He was recognized on the streets, there was no way for journalists. Mom and Dad were received by King Gustav IV of Sweden. - You were probably preparing, sewing some special outfits...- No, we didn’t sew, we just bought it in a store in Finland. Buy from us in 1965 Evening Dress, gloves, etc. was simply impossible. We were invited to the embassy and told what was needed for the ceremony. My father had to sew a tailcoat - in Finland at Stockman. My father borrowed money to buy evening clothes from our ambassador, and way back I gave it away from the prize. - How did Mikhail Alexandrovich dispose of the Nobel Prize, did he have such an opportunity?- He, as he wanted, took the whole family to Japan. We have been several times to Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland. He knew Europe well, but not the East, he was interested, especially since the Japanese had been inviting him for a long time. Before the war, a Japanese correspondent came to see him and wrote to him all her life. When we arrived in 1966, she was already old and greeted us. We spent more than a month in Japan. Mom, dad, we, two of us from the Writers' Union were with us. The Pope took Lukin, his first editor. So we had a big group there. And when we arrived from Japan, my father got sick, driving on our roads was very bumpy, he bought a Mercedes, but gave it to Sasha (Sholokhov’s eldest son), and he himself drove a Volga. Natalya AMIRKHANYAN (“KP” - Kharkov”) BY THE WAY

"Quiet Don" is difficult to read without a dictionary. The editors of the new edition provided explanations in the footnotes for the text of more than four thousand words - rarely used, as well as words and sayings of the Upper Don Cossack dialect with accents indicated. FROM THE KP DOSSIER Svetlana Mikhailovna SHOLOKHOVA was born in 1926. She is a philologist. IN different years worked as a journalist, teacher, worked at the Sholokhov Museum. It was she who spent six and a half months reading the purchased manuscript of “The Quiet Don.” Natalya AMIRKHANYAN (“KP” - Kharkov) Photo courtesy of Alexander Struchkov. You can discuss this topic on our website.

Maria Petrovna Gromoslavskaya was born in 1902 in the village of Bukanovskaya in the family of the village ataman Pyotr Yakovlevich Gromoslavsky. The daughter of a clergyman and ataman, Maria Petrovna entered the diocesan Ust-Medveditsky school. After seven years of study, when I started Civil War, the students went home. Maria Petrovna was given a document: “Release until further notice.” For some time Maria Petrovna taught in primary school in his native village. Then she worked for the food commissar Mikhail Sholokhov: she, with her excellent handwriting, replaced the typist and worked as a clerk. Young Sholokhov was captivated by the girl’s unusual beauty and her strong character. I was glad that I evoked a response.

In January 1924, Mikhail Alexandrovich and Maria Petrovna got married. They raised and raised four children, they have many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Mikhail Alexandrovich and Maria Petrovna Sholokhov celebrated their golden wedding together.

The eldest daughter, Svetlana Mikhailovna (1926), a philologist by training, taught literary theory at the Tallinn Pedagogical Institute. Due to the frequent moves of her military husband, she worked in different cities. Now Svetlana Mikhailovna is the scientific secretary of the M. A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve. Has a son and grandchildren.

The eldest son, Alexander Mikhailovich (1930-1990), candidate of biological sciences, after graduating from the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy in Moscow, worked as a researcher in Nikitsky botanical garden in Yalta. Alexander Mikhailovich and his wife Violetta Antonovna have three daughters and grandchildren.

The second son, Mikhail Mikhailovich (1935), graduated from the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University, candidate philosophical sciences, taught. Now he lives with his family in Veshenskaya and is working on memories of his father. Wife Valentina Ismailovna is in charge Memorial house-museum M. A. Sholokhov, son Alexander Mikhailovich - director of the museum-reserve. Mikhail Mikhailovich and Valentina Ismailovna have two grandchildren.

Youngest daughter, Maria Mikhailovna (1938), has a higher philological education. She worked at the Sovremennik publishing house. She edited the last lifetime edition of the collected works of M. A. Sholokhov. Has a daughter, son and two granddaughters.

Sholokhov always believed in Victory

Conversation with the daughter of the great Russian writer Svetlana Sholokhova

Svetlana Mikhailovna Sholokhova, the writer’s eldest daughter, graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Leningrad State University. A.A. Zhdanova, worked as a teacher at a pedagogical institute, a journalist, editor at the publishing house "Children's Literature", an employee of the Institute of Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, currently - scientific secretary State Museum-Reserve M.A. Sholokhov. On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Victory Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War and on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the writer’s birth, we asked Svetlana Mikhailovna to answer several of our questions.

- Svetlana Mikhailovna! The poet once correctly noted that “there is a harsh truth in numbers” - and this truth in our case sounds truly symbolic: in the same year and even in the same month the sixtieth anniversary of the Victory over fascism and the centenary of his birth are celebrated M.A. Sholokhov. In this regard, I would like to ask: what did the Great Patriotic War for Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov as a writer and person, for the entire Sholokhov family?

As for all people - terrible tragedy. The loss of loved ones, the loss of everything dear. And for my father, it was also a severe nervous shock, the loss of the archive and library, shell shock, from which he subsequently never recovered.

- On the eve of the war, you were a high school student at the Veshenskaya school. How do you remember the pre-war situation in the village?

The Veshenskaya school, in terms of the composition of its teachers and their experience, was one of the best in the area, and perhaps in the region. Teachers Timofey Timofeevich Mrykhin, Lukiya Andreevna Mrykhina, Nadezhda Andreevna Soldatova, Georgy Zinovievich Losev and others taught their students with amazing selflessness, regardless of personal time, sometimes staying for hours, explaining and understanding, almost determining by their eyes whether the student understood or not. Understood. The school staged plays and concerts, a lot of clubs worked, it was well staged physical training. It seemed that after all the shocks we were just beginning to live: there was a theater in the village, artists came. And we took part in all circles, hikes, events - everywhere. Our parents did not limit us.

- How was the news of the start of the war received in Veshenskaya, on the Don? How did Mikhail Alexandrovich and Maria Petrovna greet this news?

In my opinion, this was not even a surprise. Because when we were in Estonia, which had just been annexed, and were returning with mom and dad at the beginning of 1941 through Moscow, some trenches were already being dug in the Alexander Garden. The situation was alarming, everyone lived in anticipation of something, maybe not war, but some events, and maybe even war. Therefore, the news of the war, on the one hand, was a surprise, but on the other hand, it was not thought that it would be so soon. The message came to Veshenskaya, as elsewhere, - V.M. spoke on the radio. Molotov.

- When did your family evacuate from the front-line village? By whom, how and where was this evacuation organized? Where was the writer’s archive at this time? What were the living conditions like in the rear?

At that time I worked on a collective farm (at that time all high school students worked on a collective farm), in Kolundaevka. Since the summer we worked on weeding, then harvesting, it came to sunflowers, and it was already October. Somewhere on the 12th or 13th, the driver, Vasily Yakovlevich Popov, came to pick me up in my father’s car and said: “Let’s go home, your family will be evacuated.” On October 14, we left Veshenskaya in the direction of the village of Slashchevskaya, then to the Volga. Near Kamyshin we crossed to the other side and stopped in Nikolaevka. There were three cars. Dad's two cars. One is an old Ford, and the second is a ZIS-101, a long, beautiful limousine. My mother’s sisters with their children and grandmothers went to evacuate; there were a lot of people, so the cars were jam-packed. But I don’t know who provided the truck for the things, Raipo or someone else. But they didn’t take any belongings in particular. Why? Because we didn’t believe that the Germans could reach Veshenskaya. It was far away, and we thought: we are leaving, because dad is leaving for the front, and he must take us out. We did not expect this, although the Germans were already near Moscow on October 14.

We stopped in Nikolaevka. We were first given an “apartment” above the guardhouse. There was some kind of garrison, where Mkrtchyan was the commander, he trained some soldiers. We didn’t live in this apartment for long; they quickly found a house for us, because all the kindergartens were closed and a kindergarten house became available. They gave it to us because about 20 of us in total were evacuated. V.Ya.’s family was also with us. Popova. We didn't take anything special with us. Everything was left at home, in Veshenskaya. And the house stood like that until 1942, until June everything was safe and sound. No one was guarding him, everything was just closed. We arrived in July 1942 ago, in Veshenskaya, just our family, in one car. We arrived, and then we had to quickly leave from here under bombing.

After our return, we lived in Veshenskaya for ten days. And suddenly cars started driving through the Bazkovo Mountain towards the village, towards the wooden bridge across the Don. The machines were huge, sapper machines, there were a lot of them. In Veshenskaya, under every bush there were cars, soldiers around them. Some military man came to dad (I think it was Knyazev) and said: “Why are you sitting? The Germans are already near Rossosh!” We said that we had listened to the news before and it was reported that the Germans were retreating. “The Germans are moving towards Veshenskaya, and the bridge in this area is the only one left on the Don, which means that all units will be evacuated through it, and perhaps the bombing will begin soon!”

Near wooden bridge another bridge was built, a pontoon one. Large vehicles could not cross our bridge. In the morning we went to Don to look. Tanks were moving across the bridge, huge vehicles. Some military man told us: “Go home from here and don’t stick your nose out. And don’t let them come close to the bridge.” Apparently they were already expecting the bombing. accumulated great amount equipment on the other side, in the bend, between Bazki and Veshenskaya.

When we came home, literally half an hour later, my father, hearing a specific rumble, said that German bombers were flying. And indeed, from the direction of Bazkov, three, in my opinion, planes appeared. Mom immediately went to the cellar, all the little ones and grandmothers. The cellar in the yard is an ordinary one, where potatoes and cabbage were stored - everyone went there, and my friend and I, remembering how we were taught in military lessons, hid in the shadows, pressed ourselves against the glacier on the shadow side and watched as they took off from the plane and flew down bombs. And right there, approximately where the post office is now, the first explosions were heard. Father and Lugovoi were lying under the fence right in the yard. Father saw that we were standing and shouted to go down to the cellar.

When the planes took off, he suggested: “Now they will refuel and from the same direction, from Millerovo, they will fly in again. Get ready and quickly!” We loaded up and headed towards the Solontsovsky farm. They stopped there and looked around. Anna Petrovna, our aunt, wore an apron and arrived there in it. Her father said that the main thing was to take the documents with her, but she only had a spool of thread in her apron pocket. The father said: “We’ll come back in the evening and pick up everything we need.”

- When and how did M.A. find out? Sholokhov that his mother was killed by a German bomb? Did he manage to return to Veshenskaya on the day of her funeral? Where were you in those tragic days of July 1942?

He wanted to take his grandmother right away, but she said: “No, the cow will come, the chickens will scatter. You’ll come pick me up in the evening, then I’ll go with you.” While we were traveling to Solontsovsky, German planes returned and the second bombing began. It was there that my grandmother died. The bomb hit right into the barn in the barnyard, and she was nearby, and she was cut by shrapnel. My father was going to go in the evening to pick her up, take winter things, because we left in what we were wearing, and then some man on a horse galloped to Solontsovsky and said: “Mikhail Alexandrovich, your mother died.” Father immediately returned to Veshenskaya and returned to us only at ten in the evening. The situation was such that they managed to bury the grandmother right in the yard, in the vegetable garden. They made a grave, and then, in 1944, they reburied him at the Veshensky Stanitsa Cemetery. We returned to Nikolaevka, at that time the Germans began to break through to Stalingrad, and my father took us to Kazakhstan. We drove through the steppe. They gave him two trucks in Nikolaevka, and we, all 22 people, left for Darinka - a village 30 km from Uralsk. When we arrived there, we saw adobe huts rooted in the ground, not a single big house, only a school and a one-story cinema. No greenery, bare steppe. The aunts began to roar. There I graduated from the 10th grade of the Darya school, Kazakh language taught. And in 1943, I left alone to go to university in Moscow. Our family moved to Kamyshin, and we were already returning home from Kamyshin in 1944.

- When did Mikhail Alexandrovich learn about the loss of his archive and library? Did he take any measures to find them without delay or after?

When we left for the first time around October 14, 1941, we actually couldn’t take anything with us, and we had to preserve the archive. My father ordered oak boxes approximately 120 by 80 cm made of thick boards. The inside was covered with oilcloth, which was removed from the tables. He put his archive in one of the boxes, but not all of it, of course, only the main thing. There was more, there were many options for each chapter, for each book. He took the main items and left the rest on the desk as it was. Of course, they couldn’t take the library with them either.

When we arrived in July 1942, everything was intact, because Vladimir Aleksandrovich Sholokhov and Ivan Petrovich Gromoslavsky remained in Veshenskaya. They were left here in the village in case it was necessary to organize guerrilla warfare. They are local, they know everything. Then Uncle Volodya was mobilized in 1942. The boxes were buried in the hayloft, near which the grandmother was killed. And when we arrived, they first unearthed the box with the utensils. In it (the other one had an archive) there were frying pans and pots - kids need something to cook with. The next day after our arrival, the head of the Veshensky NKVD came to my father and said: “There is a car at the district committee building, the district committee archive is being loaded. They will load theirs and take your archive to send to safe place" Since it was impossible for us to carry the box in the car due to limited space, my father gave it to us. Well, as usual, out of his gullibility, he didn’t take a receipt or anything. That's all. Where was he taken? Or was it bombed? Or was it thrown out?.. That’s how the archive disappeared, and the library was stolen for rolled cigarettes and smokes. Although one of the military later reported in a letter that some officer from the Stalingrad Front allegedly came to Veshenskaya. The commander specially allocated him a truck to transport Sholokhov’s library. It is now impossible to confirm or deny this. My father wrote to PK Lugovoy about his archive, asking whether the archive was intact, whether the library was intact, and what was left in the house? I don’t know what Lugovoi answered him. So there were attempts to search, but to no avail.

- It’s impossible not to remember M.A.’s telegram. Sholokhov to the People's Commissar of Defense of the country in June 1941, the writer's stay at the fronts, in the active army. With what impressions and how often did he visit his family? What were you talking about? Did you find time to write?

It’s hard to say how often Mikhail Alexandrovich came from the front. He came to take his family out of evacuation. Then he flew to Nikolaevka after the shell shock. Stalin personally gave him three months of leave for treatment. Then he invited him to Georgia, but his father said that he would go to his own people. And with a terrible shell shock I was in Nikolaevka, at that time I could neither eat nor drink. And so he returned home in short “forays”, because he was a special correspondent for Pravda, Krasnaya Zvezda and Sovinformburo. He was often called to Moscow by first one, then another, then still others for meetings.

In particular, in 1941, why was he not surrounded near Moscow? He, Fadeev and Petrov were summoned to some meeting in Moscow by Shcherbakov. He then supervised creative organizations, including the Writers' Union. And as soon as they left for Moscow, the cauldron closed, and it was no longer possible to get out of it. Therefore, in vain was Matilda Emelyanovna Kudasheva’s resentment that her father did not call Vasily Mikhailovich from the front to take away the manuscript of “The Quiet Don” from him. He could not call him, because he himself was on this front, somewhere very close. And it so happened that Vasily Mikhailovich was surrounded. V.M. Kudashev was terribly short-sighted, in addition, his glasses broke, and he was practically blind, did not know where to run. He was captured and died sometime in 1944 in a concentration camp. His father searched for a long time, Matilda Emelyanovna searched for him, and then a man was found who was in captivity with him. He told Matilda Emelyanovna about this.

In general, military operations made a terrible impression on my father. Even after the war for a long time he screamed and jumped up at night. Apparently, he dreamed of everything he saw at the front.

- Sholokhov, undoubtedly, was aware of the state of affairs at the fronts. Did the writer give an assessment of the state of affairs on various sectors of the front? Did you notice the efforts of literary workers and writers at that time in one direction or another?

He is a civilian, he could not give an assessment, but he saw how often thousands of our soldiers died in vain, and, of course, he could not help but react, creative people have more raw nerves, or something.

He highly valued the work of writers on the fronts and considered it very necessary.

- Roads M.A. Sholokhov at the fronts, what were they like? Did they make him different, and if so, what were those changes?

He visited the Northern, Western, and Southwestern fronts. I was near Debaltsevo, on the Stalingrad front, in Koenigsberg. He was not constantly, like Simonov, at the front, but went to some site, was there for some time, and then he was released to “unsubscribe.” In addition, he was already working then, since 1943, on the chapters “They Fought for the Motherland,” and they were immediately published.

Of course, he changed a lot; the war was a terrible shock for him. After all, he firmly believed that we would defeat any enemy with “little loss of blood and a mighty blow on foreign territory,” and suddenly there was such a retreat and huge casualties.

- It’s no secret that M.A. During the war, Sholokhov turned to I.V. Stalin with a request for a meeting. What did he want to say to the Supreme Commander?

No one but him can answer this question. The meeting did not take place. Apparently, my father wanted to tell Stalin how everything really happened, when the war began, what losses we suffered, about what he saw on Western Front near Moscow. Maybe so, I don't know.

- Is it possible to name something that the writer took away as the main thing from this war? Did he always believe in Victory?

He always believed in Victory. And the main thing that he took away from this war was that his love for the people, for people who could endure, overcome, and sacrificed their lives for the sake of their country, intensified even more.

- Creative people They usually think in images. What was for him a symbol of war and a symbol of Victory?

Probably, this can be judged by “The Fate of Man”: the symbol of victory is our people, our soldier who will endure everything. He was always a winner.

- How do you remember the father of those years, purely outwardly: did it suit him? military uniform, did he have a weapon and what kind, did he put on the uniform of a Red Army colonel after the war?

My father wore a uniform just like the military. She suited him very well. He was always smart and internally very disciplined, and then, of course, he had a weapon. Both Konev and other marshals gave him weapons at the fronts when he visited them. He had a Mauser, a Walther, and a revolver. Well, there was a PPSh assault rifle, which was always in the car. After all, in the South-West, my father drove his car along the front lines with his driver Vasily Yakovlevich Popov. And he wore the uniform until the order for demobilization in 1946.

- Svetlana Mikhailovna! How did your personal fate develop in the post-war years?

After all, I married a military sailor, and even a border guard. Therefore, fate tossed us along all sea borders Soviet Union, starting from the Baltic states and ending with the North. We were in the Arctic, Kamchatka, and Georgia.

Even then it was difficult to get a job in the Baltics because I didn’t know the local language. But I worked in Tallinn. This was my first job. Tallinn pedagogical institute, Department of Russian Language and Literature. I arrived when I was still a Komsomol member, having just graduated from Leningrad University, Faculty of Philology. She came to register with the Komsomol, the Republican Central Committee of the Komsomol. They did not have district committees, there was only one Central Committee. They saw that I graduated from the Faculty of Philology, but they didn’t have enough teachers at the Department of Russian Language and Literature, and they simply sent me there. I received such a “load”. It was in the spring, and I had to start work on September 1st. There were no textbooks, they gave me courses: literary theory, children's literature and literature XVIII century. And I went to Leningrad, to the “public”, sat there for six months, created my own developments for all courses. In general, I taught all these courses to both correspondence and full-time students.

Then my husband was transferred and we left. And so on endlessly. In Kamchatka, I worked first at a school, then at a branch of the Khabarovsk Pedagogical Institute. And then, when we came to Kamchatka for the second time, I was already working as a correspondent for Kamchatskaya Pravda. I traveled around Kamchatka on business trips.

Actually, I first entered Moscow University at the Faculty of Chemistry, completed 3 years, but then I was poisoned by bromine during class, burned my respiratory tract, and the doctors forbade me to work in a chemical laboratory. I had to choose another faculty. At this time I married A.M. Turkov, we moved to Leningrad. There I entered the philological faculty of Leningrad University as a first-year student, where I studied from 1946 to 1952. Afterwards I was immediately sent to Estonia. And I, a recent student, studied with me, including correspondence teachers with 20 years of experience.

This is how my fate turned out after the war. Then we were transferred to Moscow, we were in Georgia for 2.5 years, and all last years, until the death of her husband, they lived in Leningrad. After that, I went to Moscow, worked at IMLI for some time, and then decided to move home to Veshenskaya. Now I live here and work in a museum.

- Did M.A. remember and how often? Sholokhov war? Did he single out front-line soldiers from the general mass of people? After all, he himself was a front-line officer.

He is always very touching, with great love and treated the soldiers with respect. If the letter was from a soldier, then it was clear that his request would be fulfilled if possible. He helped them as much as he could. And after the war there was virtually no money, because there were few reprints then. But I know that my father sent two of them stipends every month. He sent one to Krasnoyarsk, but I don’t remember the other. Both of them were called up to the front from universities, and after the war they wanted to finish their studies and turned to Sholokhov as their last hope. I don’t remember their last names, but this was the fact. Many people thought that it was easy for him, that he was a “millionaire,” but sometimes he couldn’t help us when we were studying.

Until the end he considered himself liable for military service. Some kind of military vein lived somewhere in him. Before the war, he still wore a paramilitary uniform. So, a tunic, breeches, and boots were familiar to him.

- In February 2005, front-line soldiers and villagers held a meeting dedicated to two anniversaries, and called it “M.A. Sholokhov is a fellow countryman, a fellow soldier, a front-line soldier.” What would you like to say to those who remember and honor the memory of M.A. Sholokhov, especially on the days of the 60th anniversary of the Victory and his upcoming anniversary.

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped us survive during the evacuation, who believed in Victory with us, everyone who now honors the memory of my father, and does not try to denigrate him and his work, his faith in the bright future of his people.

I am ashamed of those imaginary friends who sang his praises and then, when the wind turned, threw mud at him. Many have never seen him, have not communicated, have not been to Oyster mushrooms and, having heard enough of literary gossip, are now throwing out all this dirt on the pages of newspapers, magazines, television programs, talking intelligently about what he was like, how much he drank, etc. d. All this is disgusting, but history will put everything in its place. Or rather, life. After all, history is now written by everyone for themselves. Now Vlasov is a hero, and Gastello and Sailors are crazy, and our army came to Europe not as a liberator, but as “occupiers”... God be with them, with these idiots from history. My father was very worried about the approach of perestroika, and thank God that he did not live to see the collapse of the great power, to see its humiliation.

Thanks again to my friends (there are almost none left now, and there weren’t that many) for remembering and publishing his books, and for preparing so solemnly to celebrate his 100th birthday. But who needs it more: him, after death, or us, on whose shoulders the difficult burden of perestroika and reforms has fallen? And what else do we have to go through with our long-suffering country?

Apparently, we need to remember more often those who created the glory of our state, who raised it to such a height, so as not to lose ourselves and the country somewhere on the outskirts of history.

The conversation was conducted by A. Kochetov

Art. Veshenskaya, Rostov region.

The Sholokhovs were a Russian merchant family, who moved to the Don quite a long time ago. Yes, my great-grandfather Mikhail Alexandrovich wrote an epic about the life of the Don Cossacks at the beginning of the twentieth century, but it turns out that he himself was not a Cossack. And only on the female side we have Cossack roots - my great-grandmother Maria Petrovna was the daughter of an ataman. She worked with Mikhail Aleksandrovich, who was still very young at the time, in the village executive committee, and when he became very ill, she came to visit him. According to family legend, having recovered, future writer gave her a tea rose and proposed. They lived happily together for sixty years in the village of Vyoshenskaya, Rostov region. My great-grandfather also settled the characters of his “Quiet Flows the Flow of the Flow” in Vyoshenskaya, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965. Thanks to the enormous popularity of the novel, translated into almost all languages ​​of the world and published in tens of millions of copies, a pilgrimage to Vyoshenskaya began during the life of Mikhail Alexandrovich. Immediately after his death, in 1984, the Sholokhov Museum-Reserve was created in these places, with which many members of our family are in one way or another connected: my father Alexander Mikhailovich is its director, grandfather Mikhail Mikhailovich before last days throughout his life he served as its chief consultant, and his widow, my grandmother Valentina Ismailovna, remains the manager of the estate house to this day.

Until I was eighteen, I also lived in Vyoshenskaya, and then entered the acting department of the St. Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts in Rostov-on-Don. When I was in my second year, it was closed and we were all offered to transfer to St. Petersburg, so three years ago I ended up here. After moving to St. Petersburg, I was very happy: it warmed my soul that no one here knew me and did not look at me solely as a great-grandson Nobel laureate. After all, our village is not very large; together with nearby farmsteads, about nine thousand people live in it, and rumors spread rapidly throughout Vyoshenskaya. As a child, it was not particularly pleasant when you constantly heard whispers behind your back: “This is Sholokhov...” and when all Veshki instantly learned about your failures at school - this is how they usually shorten the name of local residents. It seems to me that every carrier famous surname I’m not happy with the stigma of being an “heir” - people don’t perceive you as an independent person.

Great-grandfather never hoarded: in 1941 he received Stalin Prize for "Quiet Don" and bought four missile launchers for the front with it, and in 1960 transferred Lenin Prize, awarded to him for the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned”, to the construction fund new school in the village of Karginskaya. But stories about Mikhail Alexandrovich’s utter wealth still circulate, and I even collect them. So, someone says that Sholokhov was the only one in the Soviet Union who had a personal plane, which he allegedly bought after receiving the Nobel Prize - and its size in those years was equal to only twenty-six thousand dollars, which is already an airliner. What amuses me most is the gossip that Mikhail Alexandrovich had his own bike rental in Vyoshenskaya. And the most absurd story says that, it turns out, I didn’t have a great-grandfather: the teacher inspired my Moscow acquaintances at the philology department that Sholokhov was “a well-publicized circle of writers headed by Alexander Serafimovich.”

The setting of the estate, which has now been turned into a museum, quite modest, there was no chic in the house. The display case displays a tailcoat, an evening dress and a mink cape, in which my great-grandfather and great-grandmother were present in Stockholm in 1965 at the reception of the Swedish King Gustav VI Adolf after receiving the Nobel Prize. But in Everyday life Mikhail Alexandrovich dressed very modestly: being twice a Hero of Socialist Labor, a holder of many orders, he never wore them and joked with the phrase: “I don’t want to spoil my jacket.” He wore a semi-military jacket both at home and when hunting and fishing. By the way, the passion for hunting duck or goose was passed on to me; I go there with my father. school years, but this right still had to be earned.

Having returned to Vyoshenskaya, I am going to start as a tour guide - I want to experience museum life in all its manifestations. Most of my friends in St. Petersburg, having learned about my plans, exclaim: “Back to the village, and even to the museum? What are you doing?!” Young people have a stereotype that a museum is a boring job for older people. But we don’t just have a literary or memorial museum, namely the museum-reserve - its task, among other things, is to preserve nature, which was described in the works of Sholokhov. This is 38 thousand hectares on the territory of three districts of the Rostov region! In addition to the pre-war house and the post-war estate of Mikhail Alexandrovich in Vyoshenskaya, it includes parents' house my great-grandfather and a typical Cossack farmstead on the Kruzhilinsky farmstead. The house in which the writer grew up, the parish school and a working mill in the village of Karginskaya, as well as a stable with horses and carriages from different times - all these are also part of the reserve. An entire department in the museum deals with intangibles. cultural heritage: employees record local dialect and songs, study ethnographic features Cossacks. In addition, every year in May we organize folk festival“Sholokhov Spring” includes fairs, performances by folk groups, and master classes for children on various crafts. And last summer in Rostov-on-Don in a restored merchant's house Sholokhov Center opened - ours Exhibition Center in the regional capital. There are plans for a large exhibition at the St. Petersburg Derzhavin Museum in 2017. There is definitely something to do in the museum; you won’t be bored.

In Veshenskaya, where the writer lived, the traditional “Sholokhov Spring” is taking place these days. holiday festival folklore groups and visiting literary and pop stars. About the holiday, about the truth of Sholokhov’s biography and books, about what kind of person he was, our conversation with eldest daughter writer, museum researcher Svetlana Sholokhova.

Before the holiday

Russian newspaper: Svetlana Mikhailovna, what are your feelings on the eve of the holiday?

Svetlana Sholokhova: I would like to go to some uninhabited island and wait out all this Sabantuy there. Brother Misha says: I should hide in a hole. And our grandfather here is the only one repeating: Mikhail Alexandrovich would have torn his head off for this. My father couldn't stand celebratory anniversaries. Although his 50th, 60th and 70th birthdays were celebrated magnificently and he had to participate in it, willy-nilly, he did not like fuss and anything unnatural.

RG: But we need to celebrate the centenary.

Sholokhov: Certainly!

RG: In Veshki, as a matter of course, they are waiting for the president. They name the right signs: the airport has been repaired, new lights have been installed. However, we are accustomed to this; Stalin corresponded with Sholokhov, Khrushchev came to visit.

Sholokhov: Khrushchev himself asked to visit us. It was some kind of nightmare. A week before, a special team arrived; there were battles right there; there could have been unexploded shells. A bomb hit our house, and it either exploded or not. They were looking for this bomb and there was chaos. They pitched a tent with government communications in our yard. The cooks arrived, the food was sealed. But when they caught the sterlet, the father said: “The one who knows how to cook it will cook the sterlet - Anna Antonovna (she lived with us as a member of the family, she went hunting with her father to Kazakhstan). Your cook has never seen a live sterlet, only ice cream."

RG: Did Khrushchev live in your house?

Sholokhov: Yes, then there was neither a hotel nor a sanatorium, there was nowhere to accommodate him. On this occasion, we were all evicted from our rooms.

RG: Why did Khrushchev come to Sholokhov?

Sholokhov: God knows their bosses, what motivates them. His father did not come to visit him. Although Khrushchev invited his father to hunt, and he went. I just didn't hunt. Because a real hunter will not shoot a deer that is being driven towards you. They all needed something from their father. Maybe they wanted to show that they had a friendship with the writer. Or they hoped that he would immortalize them in his books. Well, they already have enough fame. Everyone said that Stalin wanted his father to show him in his novel. But my father didn’t show it. Not in "Quiet Don", nowhere. He did not seek the friendship of the great. Everyone says that father was Stalin's favorite. And I remember that he once said that Stalin had the eyes of a tiger. A tamed tiger can be petted, it will purr like a big cat, but can always kill with one movement of its paw.

RG: When Sholokhov went to Moscow to Stalin to stand up for himself, who was sentenced to arrest and execution in Rostov, and his already arrested friends, was it a huge life risk?

Sholokhov: Yes. And Stalin saved him. He didn’t allow me to imprison him or shoot him. Many were released from prisons in the Veshensky district after their father’s intercession. But when in 1949 the 12th volume of Stalin’s works was published with a letter to the UN, where he wrote that Sholokhov made grave mistakes in “Quiet Don,” but this does not mean that he is a bad writer, they stopped publishing my father. Not published from 1949 to 1953. We have a huge family; during the war, every penny of our money was lost, we have nothing to live on, and you can’t feed your family on fees for essays. My father asked for an appointment with Stalin, wrote a letter (it has now been published), in which he asks to accept and explain what his mistakes were. But for some reason Stalin did not accept him.

RG: What special has been done for Sholokhov’s anniversary? What new research has come out?

Sholokhov: We have just brought it from Moscow and have not yet unpacked the “Chronicle of Life” prepared by the staff of our museum - a thick volume of documented facts of my father’s life - by day, month and year. All the i's are dotted there. When did Sholokhov see Makhno? Where was his first publication? Employees of the Sholokhov Moscow Pedagogical University published the “Dictionary of the Quiet Don”, I read it, good dictionary. A book about my father, written by Valentin Osipov, was published in the ZhZL series. My brother Misha and I, however, tore the manuscript to smithereens due to many errors, but the book came out.

RG: Is interest in Sholokhov growing?

Sholokhova: But it seems to me that the 100th anniversary will pass and my father will no longer be republished.

Who stole from whom

RG: Is the effect of the supposedly “stolen “Quiet Don” still in effect? ​​All sorts of conspiracy theories about his fate are still popular in Moscow. For example, the last thing I heard was that Sholokhov was actually Alexander Popov, born from the landowner for whom he served mother.

Sholokhov: I remember reading an article that my father was a scout for Denikin. Or - that there was a madman in our basement who wrote “Quiet Flows the Flow of the Don”, and my father only printed it. Not to mention the extraordinary castles, where the walls are almost decorated with gold, a steamship under the coast and a private plane. Whatever comes into someone's head is written, it is considered a sensation.

My father lived for 78 years, 60 of them in literature, but no one ever bothered to write him literary biography. And he himself did not write anything in his autobiographies other than “he was born, got married, joined the party, was not convicted.” That's why all sorts of speculation arises. The grandmother actually had an eldest child from Kuznetsov, her first husband, a daughter, Olya, but she died when she was not even a year old. The husband beat the grandmother to death, she ran away from him and, indeed, worked as a maid for the landowner. There Alexander Mikhailovich, our grandfather, met her. They lived in a civil marriage, since the first husband was alive and they could not get married. Later, records were discovered about the wedding of Alexander Mikhailovich with Anastasia Danilovna, when the grandmother’s first husband died. My father was already about 8 years old at that time. I think that before that he was not recorded in any documents - neither by Kuznetsov, nor by Sholokhov, they christened him Mikhail and that’s it. And only then the grandfather adopted his own son.

RG: Was your grandfather a wealthy man?

Sholokhov: No, he worked for someone all the time. First, he was a clerk in his brother’s shop, then he was a manager at the mill. But he had enough educated person. I ordered Niva. And I wanted to give it to my son a good education. Therefore, first my father was sent to the Moscow gymnasium, then to the Bogucharskaya, and when the money was not enough, he studied at the Veshenskaya gymnasium for several months, and that’s it, his studies ended, the Civil War began.

My grandfather’s brother Nikolai Mikhailovich kept a shop in Veshenskaya. The Sholokhovs were merchants from Zaraysk, Ryazan region (by the way, the Don begins there), who moved here in late XVIII century. In Zaraysk, little has been preserved about our family, but one local historian even compiled something like a family tree: in the Pushkarskaya Sloboda in Zaraysk there lived a gunner, Firs Sholokhov. All the Sholokhovs came from this Firs.

RG: What can the surname itself mean?

Sholokhov: I can only tell you a joke. Dad had his closest friend, Uncle Vasya Kudashov, who died in the war. His father told him: what kind of surname do you have? “Where were you going?” And he told him: yours is no better - “He walked and groaned.”

RG: What to answer to the numerous whistleblowers of Sholokhov?

Sholokhov: That for some reason no one puts people who know the facts and hold documents in their hands in front of a television camera and orders books for them.

Recently a work was published in which the heroes of "Quiet Don" were recounted and their names were named real people who lived here with us and are mentioned in the novel.

RG: I remember that Pelageya Kharlampyevna Ermakova, the daughter of the famous Ermakov, the prototype of Grishka Melekhov, came to our school.

Sholokhov: And next to Misha, my brother, lives Ivan Nikolaevich Borshchov, during the Veshensky uprising his grandfather killed the commissar, who shot all the arrested Cossacks here. In "Quiet Don" he was bred from his father under the name Chernichkin, if under his own, he would have been shot. But the Borshchovs knew that Chernichkin, who killed the commissar, was their grandfather. However, you and I call it the prototypes of the main and minor characters. And in "Quiet Don" many people appear under their own names - this is 200 superfluous person of more than 800 characters in the novel. In our museum, the head of the isofund is Valya Leonova, nee Serdinova, her relative Serdinov appears in “Quiet Don”. I tell our museum girls: instead of writing all sorts of nonsense, take the names of these real characters, meet their descendants, ask questions, write them down. These are the same Shamil brothers from the novel, these are the Drozdovs from Pleshaki, Shamil is their street nickname. Grandfather and grandmother rented an apartment from them and my father himself witnessed the scene that was later described in “Quiet Don” - how the murdered Pyotr Melekhov was brought home.

RG: I listen to you and think that these idiotic revelations rob Sholokhov of his life, experience, courage, his brilliant testimony about the tragedy of history and human destinies. They are stealing from us the history of our grandfathers, the Veshensky uprising. Why aren't you suing?

Sholokhov: My father never answered these things. Only in 1929 did he prove - with manuscripts, drafts, materials - that he wrote his books. Then he said: I'm tired.

RG: At one time I wanted to write a book consisting half of testimonies of real people whose fates are prototypical, and half of surveys modern writers: Do you believe that “Quiet Don” was not written by Sholokhov?

Sholokhov: And who would you ask?

RG: Bitova. Iskander.

Sholokhov: Bitov wrote that “Virgin Soil Upturned” is a popular print, and Maidannikov could not walk around in his pants, since the Cossacks exported 40 thousand pounds of grain.

RG: Creative environment complex. Sometimes it seems that creativity is a proud thing.

Sholokhov: Mikhail Alexandrovich was not a proud person, either literary or human. Although he was confident in himself. When the first stories appeared, I told my mother: I will be published abroad. He felt his capabilities. But he never had envy towards anyone. I was happy about everyone good work, he gathered us together - “well, sit down, listen” - and read.

RG: What did Mikhail Alexandrovich like to read?

Sholokhov: I loved Bunin. Both his poetry and prose. Tyutcheva. Baratashvili. Yesenina. Akhmatov. He also liked the emigrant poet from Odessa Shpalyansky, who wrote under the pseudonym Don Aminado. In 1939, Dad brought a collection of his poignant Parisian poems, “Throwing on a Cloak.”

From a blade of grass to the sun

RG: What do you most often remember when you think about your father and your family?

Sholokhov: I have very fond memories of trips abroad; my father wanted to show us another world. And, of course, the Nobel celebrations are something fabulous, completely unlike anything else. A huge hall, music, glitter of jewelry, ladies in long gloves and evening dresses from Dior and Chanel, journalists in tails. The impression that I was in Pushkin’s times. We are also in evening dresses, but from some ordinary store.

RG: His Nobel Prize was a breakthrough and the establishment of Russia in the 20th century as a country of strong and original culture. How did your father take the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize?

Sholokhov: It caught him hunting in Kazakhstan. They started nominating him for the Nobel Prize almost in 1935, they kept pushing him forward, but, in my opinion, he was always sure that someday he would be given anyway. Well, they gave it. So what? Money didn't mean anything special to him. Everyone asked him for them, he gave them and forgot. Nobody returned his debts.

RG: What kind of worldview did your father live with?

Sholokhov: This was the man always in good mood. Even when it was hard for him, he never shifted his troubles onto the shoulders of others. Smiling, friendly, hospitable, loving to joke and play pranks on someone without malice. Of course, he saw the shortcomings of the last time - before perestroika. I asked: why don’t you tell me? He answered: it’s like banging your head against a wall. He is now accused of all sins, attributing many things. As if Pasternak almost died because of him. But when we arrived in Paris, I remember how, at a meeting with the colony and embassy workers, he was asked a question about the novel that had just been published. He replied that he did not like the novel because it was fragmented, lacked clear storylines and the author’s clear attitude towards his characters. But he summed it up: the novel needs to be published, I don’t see anything anti-Soviet there. My God! They immediately wrote a denunciation against him to the Central Committee. The materials of the meeting dedicated to this statement by Sholokhov in Paris have now been declassified. The ambassador was sent an order: to explain to Comrade. Sholokhov that you can’t speak like that.

RG: How did he feel about all these explanations?

Sholokhov: With humor, of course. Although we traveled abroad with an accompanying person under the guise of an interpreter and always lived in embassies, we were not allowed in hotels. Anyone who wanted could come there. The emigrants wanted to meet their father. General Krasnov said: it doesn’t matter to me that he is a communist, it is important that he wrote a highly artistic work. And the truth. My father was asked to leave a thousand times. And publish “there”, and live. And, of course, he would live there differently than here. But he loved his land.

RG: What did he expect and want from his children?

Sholokhov: Don't know. He loved us. I never imposed my opinions or tried to give advice. Even when we asked him about them, he said: he has his own head on his shoulders. I introduced him to my fiancé, but I knew that he would never in his life say that this was not the case. If you make a mistake, you will answer yourself. And so it is with Sasha. And with Misha. And with Masha. We grew up very freely, no one watched us. They wanted to jump from the old bridge in the middle of the Don and swim on a board - they jumped. We wanted to go for snowdrops to Endova, about 10 kilometers away - we left for the whole day. The only thing is that my father could gather us with all our friends, pack a full car and go hunting or fishing.

RG: What did Sholokhov love about his land?

Sholokhov: Everything from a blade of grass to the sun. In 1941, along with his manuscripts, his phenological diaries, which he kept with all his talent, disappeared.

Unfortunately, this is all irrevocable.

Time is running out. And it remains misunderstood.