What fact is not connected with the biography of Sholokhov. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov: list of works, biography and interesting facts

Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov is one of the most famous Russians of the period. His work covers the most important events for our country - the revolution of 1917, the Civil War, the formation of a new government and the Great Patriotic War. In this article we will talk a little about the life of this writer and try to consider his works.

Short biography. Childhood and youth

During the Civil War, he was with the Reds and rose to the rank of commander. Then, after graduation, he moved to Moscow. Here he received his first education. After moving to Boguchar, he entered the gymnasium. Upon graduation, he returned to the capital again, wanted to get a higher education, but could not enter. To support himself, he had to get a job. During this short period, he changed several specialties, continuing to engage in self-education and literature.

The first work of the writer was published in 1923. Sholokhov begins to cooperate with newspapers and magazines, writes feuilletons for them. In 1924, the story "The Mole" was published in "The Young Leninist", the first of the Don cycle.

True fame and the last years of life

The list of works by M. A. Sholokhov should begin with The Quiet Flows the Don. It was this epic that brought the author real fame. Gradually, it became popular not only in the USSR, but also in other countries. The second great work of the writer was "Virgin Soil Upturned", awarded the Lenin Prize.

During the Great Patriotic War, Sholokhov was at this time he wrote many stories dedicated to this terrible time.

In 1965, the year became significant for the writer - he was awarded the Nobel Prize for the novel Quiet Flows the Don. Starting from the 60s, Sholokhov practically stopped writing, devoting his free time to fishing and hunting. He gave most of his income to charity and led a quiet life.

The writer died on February 21, 1984. The body was buried on the banks of the Don in the courtyard of his own house.

The life that Sholokhov lived is full of unusual and bizarre events. We will present a list of the writer's works below, and now let's talk a little more about the fate of the author:

Sholokhov was the only writer who received the Nobel Prize with the approval of the authorities. The author was also called "Stalin's favorite".
When Sholokhov decided to woo one of the daughters of Gromoslavsky, the former Cossack chieftain, he offered to marry the eldest of the girls, Marya. The writer, of course, agreed. The couple lived in marriage for almost 60 years. During this time, they had four children.
After the release of The Quiet Flows the Don, critics began to doubt that the author of such a large and complex novel was really such a young author. By order of Stalin himself, a commission was established, which conducted a study of the text and issued a conclusion: the epic was indeed written by Sholokhov.

Features of creativity

The works of Sholokhov are inextricably linked with the image of the Don and the Cossacks (the list, titles and plots of the books are direct evidence of this). It is from the life of his native places that he draws images, motives and themes. The writer himself spoke about it this way: “I was born on the Don, grew up there, studied and formed as a person ...”.

Despite the fact that Sholokhov focuses on describing the life of the Cossacks, his works are not limited to regional and local topics. On the contrary, using their example, the author manages to raise not only the problems of the country, but universal and philosophical ones. Deep historical processes are reflected in the writer's works. Another distinctive feature of Sholokhov's work is connected with this - the desire to artistically reflect the turning points in the life of the USSR and how people who fell into this whirlpool of events felt.

Sholokhov was prone to monumentalism, he was attracted by issues related to social changes and the fate of peoples.

Early works

Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov began to write very early. The works (prose always remained preferable to him) of those years were devoted to the Civil War, in which he himself took a direct part, although he was still quite a youth.

Sholokhov mastered the writing skill from a small form, that is, from stories that were published in three collections:

"Azure steppe";
"Don stories";
"About Kolchak, nettles and other things."

Despite the fact that these works did not go beyond social realism and glorified Soviet power in many ways, they stood out against the background of other works of contemporary writers of Sholokhov. The fact is that already in these years, Mikhail Alexandrovich paid special attention to the life of the people and the description of folk characters. The writer tried to portray a more realistic and less romanticized picture of the revolution. There is cruelty, blood, betrayal in the works - Sholokhov tries not to smooth out the severity of time.

At the same time, the author does not romanticize death at all and does not poeticize cruelty. He places emphasis differently. The main thing is kindness and the ability to preserve humanity. Sholokhov wanted to show how "ugly the Don Cossacks simply died in the steppes." The originality of the writer's work lies in the fact that he raised the problem of revolution and humanism, interpreting actions from the point of view of morality. And most of all, Sholokhov was worried about fratricide, which accompanies any civil war. The tragedy of many of his heroes was that they had to shed their own blood.

Quiet Don

Perhaps the most famous book that Sholokhov wrote. We will continue the list of works by her, since the novel opens the next stage of the writer's work. The author took up writing the epic in 1925, immediately after the publication of the stories. Initially, he did not plan such a large-scale work, wishing only to portray the fate of the Cossacks in revolutionary times and their participation in the "suppression of the revolution." Then the book was called "Donshchina". But Sholokhov did not like the first pages he wrote, since the motives of the Cossacks would not have been clear to the average reader. Then the writer decided to start his story in 1912 and end in 1922. The meaning of the novel has changed, as has the title. Work on the work was carried out for 15 years. The final version of the book was published in 1940.

"Virgin Soil Upturned"

Another novel that was created by M. Sholokhov for several decades. A list of the writer's works is impossible without mentioning this book, since it is considered the second most popular after The Quiet Flows the Don. "Virgin Soil Upturned" consists of two books, the first was completed in 1932, and the second - in the late 50s.

The work describes the process of collectivization on the Don, witnessed by Sholokhov himself. The first book can generally be called a report from the scene. The author very realistically and colorfully recreates the drama of this time. Here there is dispossession, and meetings of farmers, and the killing of people, and the slaughter of cattle, and the plundering of collective farm grain, and the women's revolt.

The plot of both parts is based on the confrontation of class enemies. The action begins with a double plot - the secret arrival of Polovtsev and the arrival of Davydov, and also ends with a double denouement. The whole book rests on the opposition of reds and whites.

Sholokhov, works about the war: list

Books dedicated to the Great Patriotic War:

The novel "They fought for the Motherland";
The stories "The Science of Hatred", "The Fate of Man";
Essays "In the South", "On the Don", "Cossacks", "In the Cossack Collective Farms", "Infamy", "Prisoners of War", "In the South";
Publicism - “The struggle continues”, “The word about the Motherland”, “The executioners cannot escape the court of peoples!”, “Light and darkness”.

During the war, Sholokhov worked as a war correspondent for Pravda. The stories and essays describing these terrible events had some distinctive features that identified Sholokhov as a battle writer and even survived in his post-war prose.

The author's essays can be called a chronicle of the war. Unlike other writers working in the same direction, Sholokhov never directly expressed his view of events, the characters spoke for him. Only at the end did the writer allow himself to sum up a little.

Sholokhov's works, despite the themes, retain a humanistic orientation. At the same time, the main character changes a little. It becomes a person who is able to realize the significance of his place in the world struggle and understand that he is responsible to his comrades-in-arms, relatives, children, life itself and history.

"They fought for their country"

We continue to analyze the creative heritage that Sholokhov left (list of works). The writer perceives war not as a fatal inevitability, but as a socio-historical phenomenon that tests the moral and ideological qualities of people. From the fates of individual characters, a picture of an epoch-making event is formed. Such principles formed the basis of the novel "They Fought for the Motherland", which, unfortunately, was never completed.

According to Sholokhov's plan, the work was to consist of three parts. The first was to describe the pre-war events and the struggle of the Spaniards against the Nazis. And already in the second and third, the struggle of the Soviet people against the invaders would be described. However, no part of the novel was ever published. Only a few chapters have been released.

A distinctive feature of the novel is the presence of not only large-scale battle scenes, but also sketches of everyday soldier life, which often have a humorous coloring. At the same time, the soldiers are well aware of their responsibility to the people and the country. Their thoughts about home and native places become tragic as their regiment retreats. Therefore, they cannot justify the hopes placed on them.

Summing up

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov passed a huge creative path. All the works of the author, especially if we consider them in chronological order, confirm this. If we take the early stories and the later ones, the reader will see how much the writer's skill has grown. At the same time, he managed to maintain many motives, such as loyalty to his duty, humanity, devotion to family and country, etc.

But the works of the writer have not only artistic and aesthetic value. First of all, Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov strove to be a chronicler (a biography, a list of books and diary entries confirm this).

nakhalyonok

He was the illegitimate son of the daughter of a serf Anastasia Chernikova and not a poor commoner Alexander Sholokhov. The Cossacks called such children "disenfranchised impudent". The mother was given in marriage against her will by her "benefactor", the landowner Popova, to an elderly Cossack Stefan Kuznetsov, who recognized the newborn and gave him his last name.

And for some time Sholokhov, indeed, was considered the son of a Cossack. But after the death of Stefan Kuznetsov, the mother was able to marry her lover, and the son changed his last name from Kuznetsov to Sholokhov.

Until that time, the Sholokhovs lived in one of the Pushkar settlements of the Ryazan province, and in terms of their status as gunners they were close to the Cossacks. According to some sources, the future writer was born on the farm Kruzhilin of the village of Vyoshenskaya, according to others - in Ryazan.

It is possible that Sholokhov, “nonresident” by blood, was not a Cossack, but he grew up in a Cossack environment and always felt himself an integral part of this world, about which he spoke in such a way that the Cossacks, reading, howled: “Yes, it was about us!”.

Plagiarism

Sholokhov did not deny that his education was limited to 4 classes, but, for example, the vocational school did not prevent Gorky from becoming a classic of Russian literature, and he was never reproached for his lack of education. Sholokhov, indeed, was young, but Lermontov, who wrote Borodino at the age of 23, immediately comes to mind.

Another "argument": the lack of an archive. But, for example, Pasternak also did not keep drafts. Did Sholokhov have the right to "years of silence"? Like any creative person, no doubt. Paradoxically, it was Sholokhov, whose name thundered all over the world, that fell to such trials.

Shadow of Death

There were moments in Sholokhov's biography that he tried to hide. In the 1920s, Sholokhov was a "commissar" at the head of a food detachment. The entire detachment was captured by Makhno. Sholokhov was waiting for execution, but after a conversation with the father he was released (perhaps because of his young age or thanks to the intercession of the Cossacks). True, Makhno allegedly promised Sholokhov the gallows at the next meeting.

According to other sources, the father replaced the execution with whips. Sholokhov's daughter, Svetlana Mikhailovna, told from the words of her father that there was no captivity: they walked, walked, got lost, and then the hut ... They knocked. The door was opened by Makhno himself. According to another version, the Sholokhov detachment, which accompanied the convoy with bread, was captured by the intelligence of the Makhnovists. Today it is already difficult to say how it really was.

Another incident is also known: in the same years, Sholokhov received a stallion from one fist as a bribe. In those days, it was almost a common thing, but the denunciation followed precisely Sholokhov. He was threatened with execution again. According to other sources, Sholokhov was sentenced to death for "abuse of power": the young commissar did not tolerate formalism and sometimes underestimated the indicators for the collected bread, trying to reflect the real situation.

“Waited for death for two days, and then they came and released me.” Clearly, they could not simply release Sholokhov. He owed his salvation to his father, who made a solid bail, and presented Sholokhov's new metric to the court, according to which he was listed as 15 years old (and not almost 18 years old). At a young age, the “enemy” was believed, and the execution was replaced by a year in a juvenile colony.

Paradoxically, Sholokhov, escorted by an escort, for some reason did not reach the colony, but ended up in Moscow.

Bride is not wife

But the girls' father, a former Cossack ataman, advised the groom to take a closer look at the eldest and promised to make a man out of Sholokhov.

Having heeded the urgent "recommendation", Mikhail married the eldest, especially since by that time Maria was already working as an extra under the guidance of her future husband. Marriage "by order" will be happy - Sholokhov will become the father of four children and live with Maria Petrovna for 60 years.

Misha - "counter"

The Quiet Flows the Don will be criticized by Soviet writers, and White Guard émigrés will admire the novel. GPU chief Genrikh Yagoda remarks with a smirk: “Yes, Mish, you are still a counter. Your "Quiet Don" is closer to the whites than to us. However, the novel will receive Stalin's personal approval.

Later, the leader would also approve of a novel about collectivization. He will say: “Yes, we carried out collectivization. Why be afraid to write about it? The novel will be published, only the tragic title "With Sweat and Blood" will be replaced with a more neutral one - "Virgin Soil Upturned". Sholokhov will be the only one who will receive the Nobel Prize in 1965 with the approval of the Soviet authorities.

Back in 1958, when nominating for the Boris Pasternak Prize, the Soviet leadership would recommend that the Nobel Committee consider the candidacy of Sholokhov instead of Pasternak, who "as a writer is not recognized by Soviet writers."

The Nobel Committee, of course, does not heed the "requests" - Pasternak will receive the prize, who will be forced to refuse it in his homeland. Later, in an interview for one of the French publications, Sholokhov would call Pasternak a brilliant poet and add something completely seditious: Doctor Zhivago should not have been banned, but published.

By the way, Sholokhov was one of the few who donated his prizes for good deeds: the Nobel and Lenin Prizes for the construction of new schools, the Stalin Prize for the needs of the front.

"Favorite" Stalin

Even during his lifetime, Sholokhov becomes a classic. His name is well known far beyond the borders of the country. He is called "Stalin's favorite", and behind his back he is accused of opportunism.

Stalin really loved Sholokhov and created "good conditions for work." At the same time, Sholokhov was one of the few who was not afraid to tell Stalin the truth. With all the frankness, he described the leader, including severe hunger, wrote how "adults and children eat everything, from carrion to oak bark."

Did Sholokhov create his works on commission? Unlikely. It is well known that Stalin once wished Sholokhov to write a novel in which "truthfully and vividly, as in The Quiet Don, both heroic soldiers and great generals were depicted." Sholokhov began a book about the war, but he never got to the “great generals”. There was no place for Stalin in the third book of The Quiet Flows the Don, which came out on the occasion of the leader's 60th birthday.

There seems to be everything: Lenin, Trotsky, the heroes of the war of 1812, only the “benefactor” remained behind the scenes. After the war, Sholokhov generally tries to stay away from the "powerful ones." He refuses the post of general secretary of the Writers' Union and finally moves to Vyoshenskaya.

The fate of man

A dark stain on Sholokhov's reputation will remain his participation in the trial of the writers Sinyavsky and Daniel, who were accused of anti-Soviet activities. But before that, the writer either preferred not to participate in such disgusting campaigns, or, on the contrary, tried to do everything possible to help.

He will intercede before Stalin for Akhmatova, and after 15 years of oblivion, her book will be published. Sholokhov will save not only Lev Gumilyov, the son of Akhmatova, but also the son of Andrei Platonov, will intercede for one of the creators of Katyusha Kleimenov, and save the actress Emma Tsesarskaya, the first performer of the role of Aksinya, from the camps.

Despite numerous requests to speak in defense of Sinyavsky and Daniel, Sholokhov will deliver an accusatory speech against the "werewolves" who dared to publish their anti-Soviet works abroad. Was it a sincere impulse or was it the result of a mental breakdown? I think the second.

All his life, Sholokhov heard accusations behind him: talent was presented as a fake, directness turned into accusations of cowardice, loyalty to ideas was called venality, and good deeds were ostentation. The fate of Mikhail Sholokhov became a vivid reflection of millions of destinies of the writer's contemporaries.

SholokhovMichaelAleksandrovich(born May 11, 1905 - died February 21, 1984) - a famous Russian Soviet writer, a recognized classic of Russian literature, Nobel Prize winner, Hero of Socialist. Truda and Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Was born Michael Sholokhov May 11, 1905 in the village of Veshenskaya on the Kruzhilin farm. He studied from 1914 to 1918 in Moscow, as well as in the city of Boguchar, Voronezh province, and graduated from four classes of the gymnasium.

In 1920 he moved with his family to the village of Karginskaya, where he lived until 1922, served in the village revolutionary committee, worked as a clerk in a procurement office, and taught at an elementary school. After graduating from tax courses, he was appointed to the village of Bukanovskaya as a food inspector, where, having joined the food detachment, he took part in food distribution.

In the autumn of 1922 Sholokhov went to Moscow to continue his education, as well as to engage in writing in the capital. However, due to the lack of direction of the Komsomol and seniority, to enter the workers' faculty Sholokhov couldn't. Mikhail in Moscow needed to earn a living, so he worked as a bricklayer, handyman, loader. At the same time, he was engaged in self-education, joined the Komsomol and participated in the activities of the literary group "Young Guard".

Michael tries to write short literary works. In 1923, the first feuilletons by Mikhail Sholokhov were published in Yunosheskaya Pravda, and in 1924. - his first story "The Mole". Then other stories by Sholokhov were published, which were later combined in the collections "Azure Steppe" and "Don Stories".

In 1924, returning to his native village, Michael married Maria Gromoslavskaya. Subsequently, the Sholokhovs had four children.

Widespread fame (all-Union and even world) Sholokhov brought the novel "Quiet Don", dedicated to the Don Cossacks. This work, which combines several storylines, is called an epic and is considered one of the most striking examples of socialist realism literature.

Another famous novel by Sholokhov is called "Virgin Soil Upturned" and is dedicated to the movement of "25-thousanders", as well as collectivization on the Don. During the Great Patriotic War, the 2nd volume of "Virgin Soil Upturned" was lost, and restored it Sholokhov already in the post-war period.

During the war Sholokhov worked as a war correspondent and published several essays, as well as the story "The Science of Hate". Subsequently, Mikhail Sholokhov published excerpts from his unfinished novel entitled "They Fought for the Motherland", dedicated to the retreat of Soviet troops in 1942 on the Don. This novel Sholokhov wrote in three stages, and shortly before his death he burned the manuscript, so only separate chapters of this work were printed. Nevertheless, this novel was filmed in 1975 by director Sergei Bondarchuk, creating a two-part film that became one of the best films of Soviet cinema about the war.

In 1956 Sholokhov writes the story "The fate of man."

In 1965 Mikhail Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Until the end of life Michael Sholokhov lived in his village Veshenskaya, for the construction of a school in which he donated his Nobel Prize. Since the late 1960s, he has almost completely moved away from literary works.

February 21, 1984 Michael Sholokhov fell ill with cancer of the larynx and soon died.

The creative heritage of Mikhail Sholokhov

Sholokhov- a classic of Soviet literature, who made an invaluable contribution to it. One of the most significant features of Sholokhov's talent as a prose writer is his ability to notice in life and then reproduce in art the entire spectrum of human emotions - from tragic despair and hopelessness to unrestrained fun.

The novel “Quiet Don” created by Sholokhov was initially perceived ambiguously in the Soviet Union. The author gave a significant place in this novel to the White Cossacks, which caused criticism from Soviet critics. However, Stalin personally read this controversial novel and approved it for publication. "Quiet Flows the Don" was translated into European and then into Eastern languages and was a success abroad.

Sholokhov in his works he always gave the author's assessment of the events taking place in the country, as it was, for example, in Virgin Soil Upturned, where he highlighted the course of collectivization.

Sholokhov is one of the leading masters of literature of the genre of socialist realism, who made a significant contribution to world art, which consists in the fact that in his works the working people, almost for the first time in the history of world literature, appear in all the richness of characters and in the fullness of their emotional, moral and social life.

Sholokhov was repeatedly awarded various prizes: in addition to the Nobel Prize, he also received the Stalin Prize, the Lenin Prize, the Sophia Literary Prize, the International Peace Prize, etc.

Important dates in Sholokhov's biography

genus. 05/11/1905 - was born in the village of Veshenskaya Michael Sholokhov.

1914-1918 - studying at the gymnasium.

1920-1922 - living in the village of Kirginskaya.

1922 - Sholokhov's departure to Moscow.

1923 - Sholokhov's first feuilletons were printed.

1924 - Sholokhov's first story is published. The writer's marriage to Maria Gromoslavskaya. Work on "Quiet Don".

1932 - publication of the first volume of Virgin Soil Upturned.

1941-1945 - work as a war correspondent.

1956 - the story "The fate of man."

1959 - Volume II of Virgin Soil Upturned.

1965 - Nobel Prize.

02/21/1984 - death of Sholokhov.

Next to the name of Sholokhov, the problem of the authorship of the works published by him periodically pops up. It first rose back in the 1920s, when The Quiet Don was first published. Sholokhov's opponents were embarrassed by the surprisingly young age of the author, who created, and even in a short time, such a large-scale work that demonstrated a deep knowledge of the life of the Don Cossacks, areas located on the Don, military events that took place when Sholokhov was a child. Researchers of the writer's work respond to such an argument that this novel was not written by Sholokhov at the age of twenty, it was written for almost a decade and a half. Sholokhov spent a lot of time in the archives, talked with various people who later became the prototypes of the heroes of The Quiet Flows the Don. Another argument cited by opponents was the low, in their opinion, the level of Sholokhov's Don Stories. In 1929, to clarify this issue, it was even created, moreover, at the direction of Stalin, a commission that investigated this issue and eventually confirmed Sholokhov's authorship by examining the manuscript provided by him. However, the most important question remained unexplained - why Sholokhov, who clearly welcomed the Bolshevik government, wrote his novel about the "whites"?

It's interesting that Sholokhov became the first and only Soviet writer to receive the Nobel Prize with the consent of the Soviet party authorities. At the awards ceremony Sholokhov violated established etiquette by not bowing to the king of Sweden who presented the award. It is not known for certain whether this Sholokhov on purpose, to demonstrate to the whole world that the Cossacks are not going to bow to anyone but their people, or simply was not warned about this detail of etiquette.

May 24 marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of the great Russian writer Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov. A scientific biography of his life has not yet been written. The available research leaves a lot of white spots in his biography. Many of the events that the writer witnessed or participated in were often hushed up, and he himself, judging by the memoirs of his contemporaries, did not like to advertise the details of his life.

In addition, in the literature about M.I. Sholokhov, attempts were often made to give an unambiguous assessment of his personality and work. For a long time, his biography was polished, creating the ideal image of a “people's chronicler”. Meanwhile, in the fate of Sholokhov, one can find many inexplicable, sometimes paradoxical facts. We bring to your attention some of them.

1. Cheeky.

He was the illegitimate son of the daughter of a serf Anastasia Chernikova and a non-poor commoner Alexander Sholokhov. The Cossacks called such children "disenfranchised impudent". The mother was given in marriage against her will by her "benefactor", the landowner Popova, to an elderly Cossack Stefan Kuznetsov, who recognized the newborn and gave him his last name. And for some time Sholokhov, indeed, was considered the son of a Cossack. But after the death of Stefan Kuznetsov, the mother was able to marry her lover, and the son changed his last name from Kuznetsov to Sholokhov.

Interestingly, the Sholokhov family dates back to the end of the 15th century from the Novgorod peasant Stepan Sholokh and can be traced back to the merchant Mikhail Mikhailovich Sholokhov, the grandfather of the writer, who settled on the Don in the middle of the 19th century. Until that time, the Sholokhovs lived in one of the Pushkar settlements of the Ryazan province and, in terms of their status as gunners, were close to the Cossacks. According to some sources, the future writer was born on the farm Kruzhilin of the village of Vyoshenskaya, according to others - in Ryazan. It is possible that Sholokhov, “nonresident” by blood, was not a Cossack, but he grew up in a Cossack environment and always felt himself an integral part of this world, about which he spoke in such a way that the Cossacks, reading, howled: “Yes, it was about us!”.

2. Plagiarism.

Accusations of plagiarism haunted Sholokhov throughout his life. Even today it seems strange to many how a 23-year-old poorly educated person who does not have sufficient life experience could create the first book of The Quiet Flows the Don. Long periods of the writer's silence only added fuel to the fire: the theme of creative sterility surfaced again and again. Sholokhov did not deny that his education was limited to 4 classes, but, for example, the vocational school did not prevent Gorky from becoming a classic of Russian literature, and he was never reproached for his lack of education. Sholokhov, indeed, was young, but Lermontov, who wrote Borodino at the age of 23, immediately comes to mind. Another "argument" is the lack of an archive. But, for example, Pasternak also did not keep drafts.

Did Sholokhov have the right to "years of silence"? Like any creative person, no doubt. Paradoxically, it was Sholokhov, whose name thundered all over the world, that fell to such trials.

3. Shadow of Death.

There were moments in Sholokhov's biography that he tried to hide. In the 1920s, Mikhail Alexandrovich was a "commissar" at the head of a food detachment. The entire detachment was captured by Makhno. Sholokhov was waiting for execution, but after a conversation with the father he was released (perhaps because of his young age or thanks to the intercession of the Cossacks). True, Makhno allegedly promised Sholokhov the gallows at the next meeting.

Another incident is also known: in the same years, Sholokhov received a stallion from one fist as a bribe. Then - it was almost a common thing, but the denunciation followed precisely on Sholokhov. He was threatened with execution again. According to other sources, Sholokhov was sentenced to death for "abuse of power": the young commissar did not tolerate formalism and sometimes underestimated the indicators for the collected bread, trying to reflect the real situation. “Waited for death for two days, and then they came and released me.”

Clearly, they could not simply release Sholokhov. He owed his salvation to his father, who made a solid bail, and presented Sholokhov's new metric to the court, according to which he was listed as 15 years old (and not almost 18 years old). At a young age, the “enemy” was believed, and the execution was replaced by a year in a juvenile colony. Paradoxically, Sholokhov, escorted by an escort, for some reason did not reach the colony, but ended up in Moscow.

4. The bride is not the wife.

Sholokhov would stay in Moscow until the end of 1923, try to enter the workers' faculty, work as a loader, bricklayer, handyman, and then return home and marry Maria Gromoslavskaya. True, initially Mikhail Alexandrovich allegedly wooed her younger sister, Lydia. But the girls' father, a former Cossack ataman, advised the groom to take a closer look at the eldest and promised to make a man out of Sholokhov. Having heeded the urgent "recommendation", Mikhail married the eldest, especially since by that time Maria was already working as an extra under the guidance of her future husband. Marriage "at the behest" will be happy - Sholokhov became the father of four children and lived with Maria Petrovna for 60 years.

5. Misha - "counter".

Soviet writers will criticize The Quiet Flows the Don, and White Guard émigrés will be delighted. GPU chief Genrikh Yagoda remarks with a smirk: “Yes, Mish, you are still a counter. Your "Quiet Don" is closer to the whites than to us. However, the novel will receive Stalin's personal approval.

Sholokhov will be the only one who will receive the Nobel Prize in 1965 with the approval of the Soviet authorities. Back in 1958, when nominated for the Boris Pasternak Prize, the Soviet leadership would recommend that the Nobel Committee consider Sholokhov's candidacy instead of Pasternak, who "as a writer is not recognized by Soviet writers." The Nobel Committee, of course, does not heed the "requests" - Pasternak will receive the prize, who will be forced to refuse it in his homeland.

Later, in an interview for one of the French publications, Sholokhov would call Pasternak a brilliant poet and add something completely seditious: “Doctor Zhivago” should not have been banned, but published.”

6. "Beloved" Stalin.

It is known that Stalin once wished Sholokhov to write a novel in which "truthfully and vividly, as in The Quiet Don, both heroic soldiers and great generals were depicted." Sholokhov began a book about the war, but he never got to the “great generals”. There was no place for Stalin in the third book of The Quiet Flows the Don, which came out on the occasion of the leader's 60th birthday. There seems to be everything: Lenin, Trotsky, the heroes of the war of 1812, only the “benefactor” remained behind the scenes. After the war, Sholokhov generally tries to stay away from the "powerful ones." He refuses the post of general secretary of the Writers' Union and finally moves to Vyoshenskaya.

7. The fate of man.

A dark stain on Sholokhov's reputation will remain his participation in the trial of the writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, who were accused of anti-Soviet activities. But before that, he either preferred not to participate in such disgusting campaigns, or, on the contrary, tried to do everything possible to help. He will intercede before Stalin for Akhmatova, and after 15 years of oblivion, her book will be published.

Sholokhov will save not only Lev Gumilyov, the son of Akhmatova, but also the son of Andrei Platonov, he will save the actress Emma Tsesarskaya, the first performer of the role of Aksinya, from the camps. Despite numerous requests to speak in defense of Sinyavsky and Daniel, Sholokhov will deliver an accusatory speech against the "werewolves" who dared to publish their anti-Soviet works abroad. Was it a sincere impulse or was it the result of a mental breakdown? I think the second. All his life, Sholokhov heard accusations behind him: talent was presented as a fake, directness turned into accusations of cowardice, loyalty to ideas was called venality, and good deeds were ostentation. The fate of Mikhail Sholokhov became a vivid reflection of millions of destinies of the writer's contemporaries.

According to the site www.russian7.ru

For a long time, the biography of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov was polished, creating the ideal image of a “people's chronicler”. Meanwhile, in the fate of Sholokhov, one can find many inexplicable, sometimes paradoxical facts ...
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He was the illegitimate son of the daughter of a serf Anastasia Chernikova and not a poor commoner Alexander Sholokhov. The Cossacks called such children "disenfranchised impudent". The mother was given in marriage against her will by her "benefactor", the landowner Popova, to an elderly Cossack Stefan Kuznetsov, who recognized the newborn and gave him his last name.
And for some time Sholokhov, indeed, was considered the son of a Cossack. But after the death of Stefan Kuznetsov, the mother was able to marry her lover, and the son changed his last name from Kuznetsov to Sholokhov.

Interestingly, the Sholokhov family dates back to the end of the 15th century from the Novgorod peasant Stepan Sholokh and can be traced back to the merchant Mikhail Mikhailovich Sholokhov, the grandfather of the writer, who settled on the Don in the middle of the 19th century.
Until that time, the Sholokhovs lived in one of the Pushkar settlements of the Ryazan province, and in terms of their status as gunners they were close to the Cossacks. According to some sources, the future writer was born on the farm Kruzhilin of the village of Vyoshenskaya, according to others - in Ryazan.
It is possible that Sholokhov, “nonresident” by blood, was not a Cossack, but he grew up in a Cossack environment and always felt himself an integral part of this world, about which he spoke in such a way that the Cossacks, reading, howled: “Yes, it was about us!”.
Plagiarism
Accusations of plagiarism haunted Sholokhov throughout his life. Even today it seems strange to many how a 23-year-old poorly educated person who does not have sufficient life experience could create the first book of The Quiet Flows the Don. Long periods of the writer's silence only added fuel to the fire: the theme of creative sterility surfaced again and again.

Sholokhov did not deny that his education was limited to 4 classes, but, for example, the vocational school did not prevent Gorky from becoming a classic of Russian literature, and he was never reproached for his lack of education. Sholokhov, indeed, was young, but Lermontov, who wrote Borodino at the age of 23, immediately comes to mind.
Another "argument": the lack of an archive. But, for example, Pasternak also did not keep drafts. Did Sholokhov have the right to "years of silence"? Like any creative person, no doubt. Paradoxically, it was Sholokhov, whose name thundered all over the world, that fell to such trials.
Shadow of Death
There were moments in Sholokhov's biography that he tried to hide. In the 1920s, Sholokhov was a "commissar" at the head of a food detachment. The entire detachment was captured by Makhno. Sholokhov was waiting for execution, but after a conversation with the father he was released (perhaps because of his young age or thanks to the intercession of the Cossacks). True, Makhno allegedly promised Sholokhov the gallows at the next meeting.
According to other sources, the father replaced the execution with whips. Sholokhov's daughter, Svetlana Mikhailovna, told from the words of her father that there was no captivity: they walked, walked, got lost, and then the hut ... They knocked. The door was opened by Makhno himself. According to another version, the Sholokhov detachment, which accompanied the convoy with bread, was captured by the intelligence of the Makhnovists. Today it is already difficult to say how it really was.

Another incident is also known: in the same years, Sholokhov received a stallion from one fist as a bribe. In those days, it was almost a common thing, but the denunciation followed precisely Sholokhov. He was threatened with execution again. According to other sources, Sholokhov was sentenced to death for "abuse of power": the young commissar did not tolerate formalism and sometimes underestimated the indicators for the collected bread, trying to reflect the real situation.
“Waited for death for two days, and then they came and released me.” Clearly, they could not simply release Sholokhov. He owed his salvation to his father, who made a solid bail, and presented Sholokhov's new metric to the court, according to which he was listed as 15 years old (and not almost 18 years old). At a young age, the “enemy” was believed, and the execution was replaced by a year in a juvenile colony.
Paradoxically, Sholokhov, escorted by an escort, for some reason did not reach the colony, but ended up in Moscow.
Bride is not wife
Sholokhov would stay in Moscow until the end of 1923, try to enter the workers' faculty, work as a loader, bricklayer, handyman, and then return home and marry Maria Gromoslavskaya. True, initially Mikhail Alexandrovich allegedly wooed her younger sister, Lydia.

But the girls' father, a former Cossack ataman, advised the groom to take a closer look at the eldest and promised to make a man out of Sholokhov.
Having heeded the urgent "recommendation", Mikhail married the eldest, especially since by that time Maria was already working as an extra under the guidance of her future husband. Marriage "by order" will be happy - Sholokhov will become the father of four children and live with Maria Petrovna for 60 years.

Misha - "counter"
The Quiet Flows the Don will be criticized by Soviet writers, and White Guard émigrés will admire the novel. GPU chief Genrikh Yagoda remarks with a smirk: “Yes, Mish, you are still a counter. Your "Quiet Don" is closer to the whites than to us. However, the novel will receive Stalin's personal approval.
Later, the leader would also approve of a novel about collectivization. He will say: “Yes, we carried out collectivization. Why be afraid to write about it? The novel will be published, only the tragic title "With Sweat and Blood" will be replaced with a more neutral one - "Virgin Soil Upturned". Sholokhov will be the only one who will receive the Nobel Prize in 1965 with the approval of the Soviet authorities.

Back in 1958, when nominating for the Boris Pasternak Prize, the Soviet leadership would recommend that the Nobel Committee consider the candidacy of Sholokhov instead of Pasternak, who "as a writer is not recognized by Soviet writers."
The Nobel Committee, of course, does not heed the "requests" - Pasternak will receive the prize, who will be forced to refuse it in his homeland. Later, in an interview for one of the French publications, Sholokhov would call Pasternak a brilliant poet and add something completely seditious: Doctor Zhivago should not have been banned, but published.
By the way, Sholokhov was one of the few who donated his prizes for good deeds: the Nobel and Lenin Prizes for the construction of new schools, the Stalin Prize for the needs of the front.
"Favorite" Stalin
Even during his lifetime, Sholokhov becomes a classic. His name is well known far beyond the borders of the country. He is called "Stalin's favorite", and behind his back he is accused of opportunism.
Stalin really loved Sholokhov and created "good conditions for work." At the same time, Sholokhov was one of the few who was not afraid to tell Stalin the truth. With all the frankness, he described the leader, including severe hunger, wrote how "adults and children eat everything, from carrion to oak bark."

Did Sholokhov create his works on commission? Unlikely. It is well known that Stalin once wished Sholokhov to write a novel in which "truthfully and vividly, as in The Quiet Don, both heroic soldiers and great generals were depicted." Sholokhov began a book about the war, but he never got to the “great generals”. There was no place for Stalin in the third book of The Quiet Flows the Don, which came out on the occasion of the leader's 60th birthday.
There seems to be everything: Lenin, Trotsky, the heroes of the war of 1812, only the “benefactor” remained behind the scenes. After the war, Sholokhov generally tries to stay away from the "powerful ones." He refuses the post of general secretary of the Writers' Union and finally moves to Vyoshenskaya.
The fate of man
A dark stain on Sholokhov's reputation will remain his participation in the trial of the writers Sinyavsky and Daniel, who were accused of anti-Soviet activities. But before that, the writer either preferred not to participate in such disgusting campaigns, or, on the contrary, tried to do everything possible to help.
He will intercede before Stalin for Akhmatova, and after 15 years of oblivion, her book will be published. Sholokhov will save not only Lev Gumilyov, the son of Akhmatova, but also the son of Andrei Platonov, will intercede for one of the creators of Katyusha Kleimenov, and save the actress Emma Tsesarskaya, the first performer of the role of Aksinya, from the camps.

Despite numerous requests to speak in defense of Sinyavsky and Daniel, Sholokhov will deliver an accusatory speech against the "werewolves" who dared to publish their anti-Soviet works abroad. Was it a sincere impulse or was it the result of a mental breakdown? I think the second.
All his life, Sholokhov heard accusations behind him: talent was presented as a fake, directness turned into accusations of cowardice, loyalty to ideas was called venality, and good deeds were ostentation. The fate of Mikhail Sholokhov became a vivid reflection of millions of destinies of the writer's contemporaries.