Sholokhov detailed biography. Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov: list of works, biography and interesting facts
Questions
1. In what environment and under the influence of what events in the life of the country did the formation of Platonov the thinker and Platonov the artist take place?
2. How did Platonov’s attitude towards the revolution and its consequences change? What did the writer resolutely not accept in contemporary Soviet reality?
3. What types does A. Platonov divide his heroes into?
Tasks
Prepare messages on the following topics:
“The Work of Life and Service to It” (based on the story “The Hidden Man”)
“Problematics of the story “The Hidden Man”
(1905 - 1984)
Sholokhov was born on May 24, 1905 in the village of Kruzhilino, near the village of Veshenskaya, in the Don Army Region, and was not a Cossack by origin. His father, Alexander Mikhailovich Sholokhov, was the son of a Russian merchant; mother, Anastasia Danilovna Chernikova, was a native of Ukrainian serfs. Mikhail's father wanted his son to receive a good education and apparently have enough money to pay for it. Prepared by a local teacher, Mikhail entered primary school in the Kargin farmstead in 1912, where his parents lived at that time. In the 1914-1915 academic year he attended a private gymnasium in Moscow. For the next three years, he studied at a gymnasium in the city of Boguchar (Voronezh province), and in the fall of 1918 he studied for several months at the Veshenskaya gymnasium. The teaching was interrupted by the civil war. Sholokhov tried to fill the gaps in his education by reading extensively.
The fact that during the civil war Sholokhov lived almost all the time in territory occupied by whites was of great importance. This must have been the main reason why he, in his own words, described in “Quiet Don” “the struggle of whites with reds, and not of reds with whites.”
Since 1922, Sholokhov, living in his native places, worked in various positions for the new regime. He taught literacy to adults and was a statistician for about a year. On December 2, 1921, he transferred to the Karginsk procurement office to take the place of assistant accountant, and a month later he was appointed clerk of the inspection department. The events of the period 1920-1922 provided themes for most of Sholokhov’s early stories (reflected in “Quiet Don”). The beginning of Sholokhov’s literary career dates back to this period of his life.
In October 1922, Sholokhov left for Moscow in the hope of becoming a writer and continuing his education. The capital did not greet the young inspector with open arms. He was forced to work as a laborer, loader, mason, and clerk. This enriched his life experience and allowed him to better and more deeply understand the life of a simple worker. In Moscow, Sholokhov joined a group of Komsomol writers at the Young Guard magazine. Since 1923: “I am published in Komsomol newspapers and magazines,” said Sholokhov (although he himself repeatedly emphasized in his interviews the fact that he had never been a member of the Komsomol). However, the Komsomol newspaper “Yunosheskaya Pravda” was the first print media that provided Sholokhov with its pages.
In 1925 (this year Sholokhov’s father died), the stories “Bakhchevnik”, “Shepherd”, “Nakhalenok”, and the story “The Path-Road” were published one after another. In 1926, the first collection of Sholokhov’s stories “Don Stories”, “Azure Steppe” appeared in print. The main theme of Sholokhov's early stories is the class struggle on the Don. The result of Sholokhov’s many years of creative work were four large books of “Quiet Don”. Already in 1928, the magazine “October” began publishing the novel “Quiet Don”. In 1941, the novel was awarded the State (Stalin) Prize of the first degree.
In 1932, Sholokhov was accepted into the CPSU (b), and he was also elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1938, the Academic Council of the Institute of World Literature nominated Sholokhov as a candidate for full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in January, Sholokhov was awarded the Order of Lenin (for outstanding achievements in the development of Soviet literature, 6 times). In 1931-1932, Sholokhov made his first foreign trips to Germany, Sweden, Denmark, England, and France.
During the Great Patriotic War, the writer did not stay away from the struggle. In military correspondence and essays, “he reveals the anti-human nature of the war unleashed by the Nazis. In 1943, Sholokhov began work on the novel “They Fought for the Motherland.”
In the post-war years, Sholokhov was involved in a lot of social activities as a deputy of the Supreme Council. In 1957, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov traveled to Finland and Sweden, and in 1959 he traveled to Italy, France, and Great Britain. In 1960 he became
winner of a prize in literature, and in 1962 Sholokhov was elected Doctor of Law at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1965, M. Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize. In 1980, M.A. Sholokhov was awarded the second Gold Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor (awarded twice).
Novel "Quiet Don"
There is still controversy surrounding this work about its true authorship. Monographs where the authorship of the great novel was disputed were published far from Moscow. One of them - under the pseudonym “D” - was published through the efforts of A.I. Solzhenitsyn, entitled “The Stirrup of the Quiet Don”. This book was published in Russian in Paris (which, you see, is quite suspicious). The other was written by Roy Medvedev, who did not hide his authorship, a famous publicist and historian (formerly a dissident, then a people's deputy of the USSR). His book was published in English and French in London and Paris. The appearance of these works sowed strong doubts in the minds of Russian readers regarding the authorship of Mikhail Sholokhov. Later, other authors of the popular novel began to appear, for example, Fyodor Kryukov (who died in 1920, a forgotten Russian writer, a native of the Don). How to refute assumptions and hypotheses developed by such authoritative people as A.I. Solzhenitsyn, R.A. Medvedev, the anonymous writer “D” and other literary critics who have appeared in different cities of the country, contenders for the authorship of the novel “Quiet Don”. The only evidence of Sholokhov's authorship could be manuscripts. But there are no manuscripts of the first and second volumes of the novel, not a single page, in any of the archives. Namely, the first two volumes of “Quiet Don”, published in 1928, gave rise to doubts regarding the authorship. There is a historical (logical) explanation for this strange, at first glance, circumstance, when half of the novel is partially preserved and the other half is not. The writer's house on the Don came under fire when Veshenskaya found herself on the front line in 1942. Then the writer’s mother was killed on the threshold of the house. At the same hours, sheets of manuscripts written by the hand of Mikhail Sholokhov flew across the village. The soldiers used sheets of the novel for smoking. There are eyewitnesses to this disaster. Some of the sheets were collected and preserved by people who returned them to the author after the war. It would seem that such a tragedy, when the blood of a loved one drips onto the white pages of a novel, when manuscripts are lost in the hours of national tragedy, could cool the ardor of the refuted people and find compassion in the hearts of people. Doubts regarding Sholokhov’s authorship should have been dispelled, but the false authors were not appeased.
One literary critic, Lev Kolodny, decided to find the true author of “The Quiet Don.” Comparing episodes from the life of Sholokhov with the text of the novel, Kolodny was convinced that the author of “Quiet Don” was Sholokhov. Hospital addresses, street names - everything is authentic, these are Moscow addresses. For example, the eye clinic of Dr. Snegirev, Kolpachny Lane. These are by no means fictitious names. Within a minute, having picked up the hefty volume of Suvorin’s edition of the “Address and Reference Book for 1913,” not without reason called “All Moscow,” Lev Kolodny learned that the eye hospital of K.V. Snegireva was really located on Kolpachny Lane, 11. According to eyewitnesses, acquaintances, friends, relatives, Sholokhov actually visited the above places in person. Few people know that he had a permanent address in Moscow (this was verified by Kolodny using permanent postal addressees). “...manuscripts do not burn” - Lev Kolodny proved this to us in his book, thus confirming the authorship of Mikhail Sholokhov, the true author of the novel “Quiet Don”.
The novel “Quiet Don” is one of the most remarkable works of socialist realism, and its author should be awarded the highest award.
The history of the creation of the novel "Quiet Don"
Sholokhov conceived a great novel about the people and revolution in the mid-20s. The desire to create a novel about the Don, to show the Cossacks during the period of dramatic events preceding the revolution of 1917, arose in the writer while working on the Don stories and has not left him since then. In October 1925, he began work on a novel called “Donshchina.” The book was conceived as a completely traditional story for Soviet literature about the brutal struggle for the victory of Soviet power on the Don in the fall of 1917 and spring of 1918. At the beginning of work on the novel, Sholokhov encountered great difficulties. He doubted that he could cope with the task, and also that he had chosen the right path.
Having written several chapters, Sholokhov put aside the manuscript of “The Don Region” for some time. Having put aside work on The Don, Sholokhov began to think about a broader novel. So, in the process of work, the writer came up with the idea of tracing the ideological revolution of the Don Cossacks, revealing the reasons for the complications of their paths in difficult times for Russia. He understood that without revealing the historically established conditions of life and life of the people, without explaining the reasons that prompted a significant part of them to take the side of the White Guards, the novel, begun by the Kornilov rebellion, the campaign of the Cossack troops on Petrograd, would not resolve the problem of the people’s paths in the revolution. To do this, first of all, it was necessary to reveal the world of his life with all the complexities and contradictions. By moving the narrative back to the time before the imperialist war, the writer sought to show the growth of revolutionary sentiment among his heroes, the scope of the people's struggle for a new life. The transition from one idea to another led to a change in the name of the novel - “Quiet Don”.
Sholokhov sought to reveal the meaning embedded in this title through the entire figurative structure of the narrative, as an epic canvas about the fate of the Russian people in their struggle for freedom. The writer set a goal to create the very image of the “quiet Don”, to show the life of the people and the important changes in it caused by the revolution. The title of the novel contains the main idea of the writer, which is also concentrated in epigraphs borrowed, like the title of the novel, from folk art.
The idea for the new novel, according to the author himself, fully matured at the end of 1926. After this, Sholokhov began actively collecting material. It was at this time that the writer moved to the village of Veshenskaya and forever linked his creative destiny with it. Working on the novel required persistent and intense work. The life of a Cossack farm was familiar to the writer from childhood. But, despite this, Sholokhov made many trips to the surrounding villages and villages, recording the memories of participants and witnesses of the First World War and the Revolution; stories of old people about the life and everyday life of the Cossacks of those years. Collecting and studying Cossack folklore, the writer traveled to the archives of Moscow and Rostov to study newspapers and magazines, get acquainted with old books on the history of the Don Cossacks, special military literature, and the memoirs of contemporaries about the imperialist and civil wars.
Sholokhov carefully thought out the plan for his novel, and in the future he changed only the details, although much, according to him, had to be rethought and redone many times. In selecting and systematizing material for the novel, Sholokhov did a tremendous and complex job as a historian. He resorted to abundant use of documents, confirming the depicted events and facts by quoting appeals, leaflets, telegrams, appeals, letters, declarations, decrees and orders. Some chapters of the novel are entirely based on these documents. In the process of working on the structure of the book, the author had to intersperse many events, facts, people and at the same time not lose the main characters in them.
A year later, the first book of the epic “Quiet Don” was published in the “October” magazine, and in 1928 the second book, which absorbed the once-delayed chapters of “The Don Region,” was published. One could have expected the release of the third book just as quickly, but unexpectedly things slowed down.
In the autumn of 1926, the writer sat down to his planned work, and a year later the first book of the epic “Quiet Don” was published in the magazine “October”, in 1928 - the second, which absorbed the once-delayed chapters of “The Don Region”. One could have expected the release of the third book just as quickly, but unexpectedly things slowed down. The reason for everything turned out to be problems of a “non-literary nature.” At the center of the narrative of the third book is the Cossack uprising of 1919, a topic too painful for the new government. The chapters of this book are surrounded by heated controversy, often taking the form of outright attacks. The writer and influential literary functionary A. Fadeev strongly recommends that the author immediately, in the third book, make Grigory Melekhov “ours.” Sholokhov writes: “... Fadeev invites me to make changes that are unacceptable to me in any way... I would prefer not to publish at all than to do it against my desire, to the detriment of both the novel and myself.” The reader had to wait several more years for the third book. The main character of the work, Grigory Melekhov, contrary to the urgent recommendations of the author, did not come to true Bolshevism, but to his home, to his son, to the land he left behind.
The novel was completed in 1940. Published as a separate edition in 1953, the novel was mutilated by the editor’s scissors: only in this greatly “truncated” and “added” form was it allowed to the reader, and the author had to agree to the “edits.” Sholokhov would see the full text of his work published, undistorted by censorship and editorial interference, only in 1980. In the collected works - fifty years after writing and four years before the end of his life.
Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov(1905-1984) - famous prose writer, publicist. Born on the Kruzhilin farmstead, on the Don, near the village of Veshenskaya. Sholokhov's mother came from a peasant family, his father came from the Ryazan province, grew wheat on purchased Cossack land; served as a clerk and manager of a steam mill. The impressions of childhood and youth had a great influence on the formation of Mikhail Sholokhov as a writer. The boundless expanses of the Don steppes, the green banks of the majestic Don entered his heart forever. From childhood, he absorbed his native dialect and soulful Cossack songs. Since childhood, the writer was surrounded by a peculiar atmosphere: the life of the Cossacks, their daily work on the land, hard military service, mowing for a loan, plowing, sowing, harvesting wheat.
Sholokhov studied at a parochial school and gymnasium. In 1912, he entered the Karginsky elementary school, in the class taught by Mikhail Grigorievich Kopylov (later Sholokhov portrayed him under his own name in the novel “Quiet Don”). Soon after this, Mikhail Sholokhov became seriously ill with eye inflammation, and his father took him to an eye hospital in Moscow, to the same Snegirevsk hospital where the main character of “Quiet Don”, Grigory Melekhov, also ends up. Without graduating from the Karginsky School, Sholokhov entered the preparatory class of the Moscow Shelaputin Gymnasium, and three years later he continued his studies at the Bogucharov Gymnasium. During his studies, Sholokhov enthusiastically read books by Russian and foreign classic writers. He was especially impressed by the stories and novels of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Among the sciences taught at the gymnasium, Sholokhov was most interested in literature and history. Giving preference to literature, in his youth he began to try his hand at poetry and prose, composing stories and humorous sketches.
Before the revolution, the Sholokhov family settled in the Pleshakov farmstead of the Elanskaya village, where the writer’s father worked as a steam mill manager. In the summer, Mikhail came to his parents for vacation, and his father often took him with him on trips around the Don. On one of these trips, Sholokhov met with David Mikhailovich Babichev, who entered the “Quiet Don” under the name of Davydka the Roller, who worked at the Pleshakovo mill from the age of twelve. At the same time, the captive Czech Ota Gins, who is depicted in the novel “Quiet Don” under the name Shtokman, worked at the Pleshakovo mill. Here, in Pleshki, Sholokhov the high school student met the Drozdov family. The fates of the brothers Alexei and Pavel were tragic, which was associated with the civil war that unfolded on the Don. The Drozdovs' elder brother Pavel died in the very first battles when Red Army units entered the villages of the Elanskaya village. Pavel Drozdov died almost the same way as Pyotr Melekhov in "Quiet Don".
When in June 1918 the German cavalry entered the quiet Don district town of Boguchary, Sholokhov was with his father, on the Pleshakov farm, located opposite the Elanskaya village. At this time, an acute class war unfolded on the Don. In the summer of 1918, the White Cossacks occupied the Upper Don; at the beginning of 1919, units of the Red Army entered the area of the farmsteads of the Elanskaya village, and in the early spring of the same year the Veshensky uprising broke out. These tragic events unfolded before the eyes of Mikhail Sholokhov. During the uprising, he lived in Rubezhnoye and observed the panicky retreat of the rebels, and was an eyewitness to their crossing the Don; was in the front line when, in September, Red Army troops re-entered the Left Bank of the Don. By the end of the year, the White Cossacks, defeated near Voronezh, fled from the upper reaches of the Don.
In 1920, when Soviet power was finally established on the Don, the Sholokhov family moved to the village of Karginskaya. Mikhail Sholokhov took an active part in the formation of Soviet power in his homeland. From February 1920, he worked as a teacher to eliminate illiteracy among adults at the Latyshev farm; from the middle of the year - a journalist at the Karginsky village council, then - a teacher in an elementary school; from mid-1921 - village statistician in the village of Karginskaya; from January 1922 - clerk of the village office, and after some time - producer of the village of Bukanovskaya.
At the end of September 1920, Makhno’s detachment of thousands entered the district. One night, gangs occupied the village of Karginskaya and plundered it. The communists and Komsomol members had to hide in the reeds along Chir for several days. During the battle near the Konkov farm, bandits captured Sholokhov. Nestor Makhno interrogated him. In case of a new meeting, he threatened the young man with the gallows.
1921 was a very difficult year on the Don, as well as in the Volga region - dry and hungry. Local gangs of Fyodor Melikhov, Kondratiev, Makarov operated in the Don, and bandit detachments of Maslakov, Kurochkin, Kolesnikov broke out from the neighboring Voronezh province. The gang of Yakov Fomin committed especially cruel atrocities, which more than once occupied and plundered the village of Karginskaya. At this time, Sholokhov took an active part in the fight against gangs, remaining on the Don until they were completely defeated.
In October 1922, Sholokhov arrived in Moscow, where he intended to continue his studies. But he failed to enter the workers' school as he wanted. While self-educating, Sholokhov worked as a loader, laborer, clerk, and accountant. And behind us was already the harsh school of civil war, the struggle for Soviet power on the Don. It was at this time, according to the writer himself, that a “real craving for literary work” arose. In 1924, magazines began to publish Sholokhov’s stories, which were later compiled into the collections “Don Stories” and “Azure Steppe”. The themes of these stories are the civil war on the Don, the fierce class struggle, and transformations in the countryside. The first collection - “Don Stories” - did not bring Sholokhov much popularity, but showed that a writer had entered Russian literature who was able to notice the important trends of his time in ordinary life.
In 1924, Sholokhov returned to the Don village of Veshenskaya, where from that time he lived permanently. Here he began writing the novel "Quiet Don" (1928-1940), depicting the Don Cossacks during the First World War and the Civil War. Sholokhov’s next significant work was the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned” (1932-1960), which tells about the revolutionary turning point in the life of the village.
During the Great Patriotic War, Sholokhov was a war correspondent. Already in the first months of the war, his essays “On the Don”, “In the South”, “Cossacks”, etc. were published in periodicals. The story “The Science of Hatred” (1942) was very popular among soldiers. In 1943-44. Chapters from the novel “They Fought for the Motherland” began to be published (a new version of this work was published in 1969). A notable phenomenon in literature was Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of a Man” (1956-57), in which the tragic story of life is shown in its inextricable connection with trials in the life of the people and the state. The fate of Andrei Sokolov embodies the terrible evil of war and at the same time affirms faith in goodness. In a small work, the reader is shown the life of the hero, incorporating the fate of the country. Andrei Sokolov is a peaceful worker who hates the war, which took away his entire family, happiness, and hope for the best. Left alone, Sokolov did not lose his humanity; he was able to see and warm a homeless boy next to him. The writer ends the story with the confidence that a new person will rise near Andrei Sokolov’s shoulder, ready to overcome any trials of fate.
After the war, Sholokhov published a number of journalistic works: “The Word about the Motherland”, “The Struggle Continues” (1948), “Light and Darkness” (1949), “The Executioners Cannot Escape the Judgment of Nations!” (1950), etc. The connection between literature and life, in Sholokhov’s understanding, is, first of all, a connection with the people. “A book is a labor of labor,” he said at the Second Congress of Writers. Many times in his statements the idea is repeated that a writer must be able to tell the truth, no matter how difficult it may be; that the evaluation of a work of art should be approached primarily from the point of view of historical truthfulness. According to the writer, only art that serves the interests of the people has the right to life. “I am one of those writers who see for themselves the highest honor and the highest freedom in the unfettered opportunity to serve the working people with my pen,” he said in a speech after being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965.
In the last years of his life, Sholokhov was seriously ill, but remained steadfast. Even the doctors were surprised at his patience. He suffered two strokes, diabetes, and then throat cancer. And, despite everything, he continued to write. Sholokhov's creativity made a huge contribution to literature. In his works, the poetic heritage of the Russian people was combined with the achievements of the realistic novel of the 19th and 20th centuries; he discovered new connections between the spiritual and material principles, between man and the surrounding world. In his novels, for the first time in the history of world literature, the working people appear in all the diversity and richness of types and characters, in such a completeness of moral and emotional life that puts them among the examples of world literature.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov was born on May 24, 1905 in the Kruzhilina farm of the village of Vyoshenskaya, Donetsk district of the Don Army Region (now Sholokhovsky district of the Rostov region).
In 1910, the Sholokhov family moved to the Kargin farm, where at the age of 7 Misha was admitted to a men's parish school. From 1914 to 1918 he studied at men's gymnasiums in Moscow, Boguchar and Vyoshenskaya.
In 1920-1922 works as an employee in the village revolutionary committee, as a teacher to eliminate illiteracy among adults in the village. Latyshev, a clerk in the procurement office of the Donfood Committee in Art. Karginskaya, tax inspector in Art. Bukanovskaya.
In October 1922 he left for Moscow. He works as a loader, mason, and accountant in the housing administration on Krasnaya Presnya. He meets representatives of the literary community, attends classes at the Young Guard literary association. The first writing experiments of the young Sholokhov date back to this time. In the fall of 1923, “Youthful Truth” published two of his feuilletons - “Test” and “Three”.
In December 1923 he returned to the Don. On January 11, 1924, he got married in the Bukanovskaya Church to Maria Petrovna Gromoslavskaya, the daughter of the former village ataman.
Maria Petrovna, having graduated from the Ust-Medveditsk Diocesan School, worked in Art. Bukanovskaya was first a teacher in an elementary school, then a clerk in the executive committee, where Sholokhov was an inspector at that time. Having got married, they were inseparable until the end of their days. The Sholokhovs lived together for 60 years, raising and raising four children.
December 14, 1924 M.A. Sholokhov publishes his first work of fiction - the story “Mole” in the newspaper “Young Leninist”. Becomes a member of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers.
Sholokhov’s stories “The Shepherd”, “Shibalkovo Seed”, “Nakhalyonok”, “Mortal Enemy”, “Alyoshkin’s Heart”, “Two Husband”, “Kolovert”, the story “Path-Road” appeared on the pages of central publications, and in 1926 they published collections “Don Stories” and “Azure Steppe”.
In 1925, Mikhail Alexandrovich began creating the novel “Quiet Don”. During these years, the Sholokhov family lived in Karginskaya, then in Bukanovskaya, and since 1926 - in Vyoshenskaya. In 1928, the magazine “October” began publishing “Quiet Don”.
After the publication of the first volume of the novel, difficult days begin for the writer: the success among readers is stunning, but an unfriendly atmosphere reigns in writing circles. Envy of a young writer, who is called a new genius, gives rise to slander and vulgar fabrications. The author's position in describing the Verkhnedon uprising is sharply criticized by RAPP; it is proposed to throw out more than 30 chapters from the book and make the main character a Bolshevik.
Sholokhov is only 23 years old, but he endures attacks steadfastly and courageously. Confidence in his abilities and in his calling helps him. In order to stop malicious slander and rumors of plagiarism, he turns to the executive secretary and member of the editorial board of the Pravda newspaper M.I. Ulyanova with an urgent request to create an expert commission and transfers to her the manuscripts of “Quiet Don”. In the spring of 1929, writers A. Serafimovich, L. Averbakh, V. Kirshon, A. Fadeev, V. Stavsky spoke in Pravda in defense of the young author, based on the conclusions of the commission. The rumors stop. But spiteful critics will more than once make attempts to denigrate Sholokhov, who honestly speaks about the tragic events in the life of the country and does not want to deviate from the historical truth.
The novel was completed in 1940. In the 30s, Sholokhov began work on the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned.”
During the war years, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov was a war correspondent for the Sovinformburo, the newspapers Pravda and Krasnaya Zvezda. He publishes front-line essays, the story “The Science of Hate,” and the first chapters of the novel “They Fought for the Motherland.” Sholokhov donated the state prize awarded for the novel “Quiet Don” to the USSR Defense Fund, and then purchased four new missile launchers for the front with his own funds.
For participation in the Great Patriotic War he received awards - the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, medals “For the Defense of Moscow”, “For the Defense of Stalingrad”, “For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945”, “Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War” Patriotic War."
After the war, the writer finishes the 2nd book of “Virgin Soil Upturned”, works on the novel “They Fought for the Motherland”, writes the story “The Fate of a Man”.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov - laureate of the Nobel, State and Lenin Prizes in Literature, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, holder of an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Leipzig in Germany, Doctor of Philology from Rostov State University , deputy of the Supreme Council of all convocations. He was awarded six Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, and other awards. During his lifetime, a bronze bust was erected in the village of Veshenskaya. And this is not a complete list of prizes, awards, honorary titles and public responsibilities of the writer.
It is rare that a famous cultural figure manages to achieve worldwide recognition and fame during his lifetime. The creative life of Mikhail Sholokhov is a happy exception. During his lifetime, he received the title of academician, Hero of Socialist Labor, became a laureate of the State and Lenin Prizes, and received the prestigious Nobel Prize. The writer was not only treated kindly by the authorities, but also received truly popular love and recognition of his talent. Life and work harmoniously “fit” into the biography of the country of socialism.
Brief biography of Sholokhov
Mikhail Sholokhov was born on May 11, 1905 in the Kruzhilin village of the Vyoshenskaya Region of the Don Army. Mikhail's childhood and youth are full of contradictory facts, assumptions, even the most fantastic ones, which the writer never publicly refuted during his lifetime, but also did not confirm. Actually, during this period, famous, public people in our country did not like to talk about their personal lives, and this was not accepted. The general public recently learned that Misha Sholokhov was an illegitimate child, although until the age of 8 he bore the name of the Cossack Kuznetsov and even had a plot of land as the son of a Cossack. But in 1913, his own father, merchant A.M. Sholokhov, adopted him, and the boy lost all Cossack privileges and became simply the son of a tradesman. All these events, of course, left their mark on Sholokhov’s character. He tried to uphold justice and, if possible, avoid lies. The family had a hard time during the Civil War: for the Reds they were exploiters, and for the Whites they were “out-of-towners.”
In the 20s, after graduating from the 4th grade of the gymnasium, Mikhail ended up in Moscow. He worked as a loader, laborer and clerk. I met members of a literary circle and began to try myself as a writer.
Sholokhov's creativity
Like many young writers of the 20s, Mikhail Alexandrovich began by writing feuilletons. Then he wrote several stories and in 1925 the collection “Don Stories” was published, and in 1926 another one – “Azure Steppe”. These stories are full of acute drama, which sometimes reaches the point of tragedy. These works cannot be called talented or highly artistic, but they were in tune with the ongoing social changes. Despite his youth, he managed to see a lot, so the events of his works are based on real events, and their characters were written from living, not fictional people. But either youthful maximalism, or the desire to become one of the winners as quickly as possible, makes his heroes somewhat sketchy, clearly dividing them into red and white. The red ones are always positive, and the white ones are always negative characters. The most popular plot of the young writer is a deadly confrontation between father and son, or between siblings, which necessarily ends in blood, torture and death.
The epic "Quiet Don"
Against the background of these not very strong works, the release in 1928 of the first parts of the epic novel “Quiet Don” allowed doubts to arise about the authorship, and Sholokhov had to submit the manuscript of the novel and drafts for examination, which confirmed the authorship of Mikhail Alexandrovich. Until now, this idea plagiarism is again beginning to be exaggerated. Most often, some doubts arise due to the fact that a work of such magnitude requires not only great knowledge, but also a lot of experience. At the same time, they completely lose sight of the fact that the young writer was very energetic, had a phenomenal memory, and In the 20s, even the memories of white generals were available. He knew the life, customs, and customs of the Don Cossacks firsthand. Many closely familiar with his life believe that this novel is largely autobiographical. This was especially evident in the throwings of its main character, Grigory Melikhov who always tries to be honest and tries to find justice.
"Virgin Soil Upturned"
The collectivization of the peasantry, which did not bypass the Cossacks, postponed the end of the “Quiet Don” indefinitely. The unfolding events of dispossession made a huge impression on Sholokhov. He even wrote a letter to Stalin, in which he outlined all the negative aspects of this period. His vision of collectivization, somewhat softened version, he sets out in the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned,” which becomes a programmatic work in the study of modern literature. By 1940, Sholokhov finished Quiet Don and nothing as powerful and talented would come from his pen. For all the remaining years, he will be engaged in government and social activities, permanently living on his beloved Don. He will die where he was born - in the village of Veshenskaya, Rostov region, in 1984.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov is the largest Soviet prose writer, laureate of the Stalin (1941), Lenin (1960) and Nobel (1965) prizes. His great artistic talent, which gradually faded under the influence of Soviet ideological dogmas, manifested itself primarily in the epic novel “Quiet Don” - one of the pinnacle phenomena of literature of the 20th century.
Sholokhov was born on the Don, the illegitimate son of a Ukrainian woman, the wife of the Don Cossack A.D. Kuznetsova and a rich clerk (the son of a merchant, a native of the Ryazan region) A.M. Sholokhov. In early childhood he bore the surname Kuznetsov and received an allotment of land as a “Cossack son.” In 1913, after being adopted by his own father, he lost his Cossack privileges, becoming the “son of a tradesman”; graduated from four classes of the gymnasium (which is more than the first Russian Nobel laureate in the field of literature I.A. Bunin).
During the Civil War, the Sholokhov family could have been under attack from two sides: for the white Cossacks they were “non-residents”, for the red ones they were “exploiters”. Young Mikhail was not distinguished by a passion for hoarding (like one of his future heroes, the son of a wealthy Cossack Makar Nagulnov) and took the side of the victorious force, which established at least relative peace. He served in the food detachment, but arbitrarily reduced the taxes of people in his circle, for which he was put on trial. His elder friend and mentor (“Mamunya” in letters addressed to her), party member since 1903 (Sholokhov - since 1932) E.G. Levitskaya, to whom “The Fate of Man” was later dedicated, believed that there was a lot of autobiography in the “vacillations” of Grigory Melekhov in “Quiet Don” 11, p. 128]. The young man changed a large number of professions, especially in Moscow, where he lived for a long time from the end of 1922 to 1926. Having established himself in literature, he settled on the Don in the village of Veshenskaya.
In 1923, Sholokhov published feuilletons, and from the end of 1923 - stories, no longer saturated with superficial feuilletonism, but with acute drama and tragedy with a touch of melodrama. Most of these works were collected in the collections “Don Stories” (1925) and “Azure Steppe” (1926). With the exception of the story “Alien Blood” (1926), where the old man Gavrila and his wife, having lost their son, a white Cossack, nurse a hacked communist food contractor, begin to love him like a son, and he leaves them, in Sholokhov’s early works the characters are mostly harsh are divided into positive (red fighters, Soviet activists) and negative, sometimes “pure” villains (whites, “bandits”, kulaks and kulak members). Many characters have real prototypes, but Sholokhov sharpens and exaggerates almost everything; He presents death, blood, torture, and the pangs of hunger in a deliberately naturalistic manner. The young writer’s favorite plot, starting with “The Birthmark” (1923), is a deadly clash between close relatives: father and son, siblings. The neophyte Sholokhov invariably confirms his loyalty to the communist idea, emphasizing the priority of social choice over any human relationships, including family ones. In 1931, he republished “Don Stories,” supplementing the earlier collection with new ones in which comedy prevailed; At the same time, in “Virgin Soil Upturned” he combined comedy with drama, sometimes quite effectively. Then, for a quarter of a century, the stories were not reprinted; the author himself rated them low and returned them to the reader when, for lack of anything new, he had to remember the well-forgotten old ones.
In 1925, Sholokhov began a work about the fate of the Cossacks in 1917, during the Kornilov rebellion, called “Quiet Don” (and not “Donshchina,” according to a common legend). He quickly abandoned this idea, but a year later he began anew to “Quiet Don”, widely developing pictures of the pre-war life of the Cossacks and the events of the World War. The first two books of the epic novel were published in 1928. The young writer was full of energy, had a phenomenal memory, read a lot (in the 20s even the memoirs of white generals were available), asked Cossacks in the Don farms about the “German” and Civil Wars , and knew the life and customs of his native Don like no one else.
The events of collectivization (and those immediately preceding it) delayed work on the epic novel. In letters, including to I.V. Stalin, Sholokhov tried to reveal the true state of affairs in the new society: the complete collapse of the economy, lawlessness, torture applied to collective farmers. But he accepted the very idea of collectivization and in a softened form, with undeniable sympathy for the main characters - the communists, he showed the processes of collectivization using the example of the Gremyachiy Log farm in the first book of “Virgin Soil Upturned” (1932). Even a very smooth image of dispossession, the figure of the “right draft dodger” Razmetnov, etc. were very suspicious to the authorities and official writers; in particular, the magazine “New World” rejected the author’s title of the novel “With Blood and Sweat.” But on the whole the work suited Stalin. The high artistic level of the book seemed to prove the fruitfulness of communist ideas for art and created the illusion of freedom of creativity in the USSR. “Virgin Soil Upturned” was declared a perfect example of the literature of socialist realism.
The success of “Virgin Soil Upturned” directly or indirectly helped Sholokhov to continue work on “Quiet Don”, the printing of the third book (sixth part) of which was delayed due to a very sympathetic depiction of participants in the anti-Bolshevik Verkhnedonsky uprising of 1919. With the help of M. Gorky, Sholokhov obtained permission from Stalin to publish this book in its entirety (1932) and in 1934 he basically completed the fourth and last one, but began to rewrite it again, probably not without the influence of the tightened political atmosphere. In the last two books of “Quiet Don” (the seventh part of the fourth book was published in 1937-1938, the eighth in 1940) many journalistic, often didactically unambiguous pro-Bolshevik declarations appeared, often contradicting the plot and figurative structure of the epic novel. But this does not at all confirm the theory of “two authors” or “author” and “co-author”, developed by skeptics who do not believe in Sholokhov’s authorship (among them A.I. Solzhenitsyn). In all likelihood, Sholokhov himself was his own “co-author,” preserving mainly the artistic world he created in the early 30s. Although in 1938 the writer almost fell victim to a false political accusation, he nevertheless found the courage to end “Quiet Don” with the complete collapse of his beloved hero Grigory Melekhov, a truth-seeker crushed by the wheel of cruel history.
In “Quiet Don” Sholokhov’s talent splashed out in full force - and was largely exhausted. The story “The Science of Hatred” (1942), imbued with hatred of the fascists, was below average in artistic quality from the “Don Stories.” The level of those published in 1943-1944 was higher. chapters from the novel “They Fought for the Motherland,” conceived as a trilogy, but never completed (in the 60s, Sholokhov wrote “pre-war” chapters with conversations about Stalin and the repressions of 1937 in the spirit of the already ended “thaw”, they were printed with banknotes). The work consists mainly of soldier conversations, oversaturated with jokes. In general, Sholokhov’s failure in comparison not only with the first, but also with the second novel is obvious.
During the “thaw” period, Sholokhov created a work of high artistic merit - the story “The Fate of a Man” (1956). The second book, “Virgin Soil Upturned,” published in 1960, remained basically just a sign of the transitional historical period. The “warming” of the images of Davydov (sudden love for Varyukha-goryukha), Nagulnov (listening to a rooster crowing, etc.), Razmetnov (shooting cats in the name of saving pigeons) and others was emphasized “modern” and did not fit in with the harsh realities of 1930 ., remaining the basis of the plot.
Human rights activist L.K. Chukovskaya predicted creative sterility for Sholokhov after his speech at the XXIII Congress of the CPSU (1966) with the defamation of those convicted for literary works (the first trial of the Brezhnev era against writers) A.D. Sinyavsky and Yu.M. Daniel. But what Sholokhov wrote in his best time is a high classic of 20th century literature.
