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Mikhail Sholokhov, a Soviet writer, journalist, and public figure, was born
11 (24) Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov (born May 1905) is a Soviet writer, journalist, public figure, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1939), winner of the first-degree Stalin Prize (1941), the Lenin Prize (1960) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1965), twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1967, 1980).
M. A. Sholokhov was born in the village of Kruzhilin in the village of Veshenskaya in Donetsk district of Don Army Region (now the village of Kruzhilinsky in Sholokhovsky district of Rostov region). His father, Alexander Mikhailovich, was a cattle buyer, worked as a clerk in a farm commercial enterprise, managing a steam mill. Her mother, Anastasia Danilovna (nee Chernikova), was the daughter of a serf peasant who served as a maid before her marriage.
In 1918, M. A. Sholokhov graduated from the 4th grade gymnasium in Boguchar, Voronezh Province. Due to the outbreak of the Civil War, the school was closed and M. A. Sholokhov returned home to his parents, having witnessed the Vyoshensky Uprising – the anti-Bolshevik uprising of the Don Cossacks in March-June 1919. In 1920-1922, he lived in the village of Karginskaya, worked as a statistician, teacher, and tax inspector. Since 1923, he lived in Moscow, where he went to continue his education, but could not enter the evening department of the workers ' faculty and supported himself with casual earnings. In 1926, he moved to the village of Veshenskaya.
During this period, M. A. Sholokhov became interested in literary activity. In 1923, he made his debut in print, in the newspaper "Molodezheskaya Pravda", with the feuilleton"Test". In 1924, in the newspaper "Young Leninist" published the story "Birthmark" - the first in a series of short stories, later included in the collections "Don stories (1926)," Azure Steppe "(1926)," About Kolchak, nettle and other things " (1927). In 1924, he joined the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP), and after its disbanding in 1932, he became a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR.
M. A. Sholokhov's world-famous novel-epic about the events of the Civil War in the south of Russia "The Quiet Don" (in four volumes), which the writer worked on from 1925 to 1940. The novel begins before the events of the First World War and ends in 1922. In the center of the plot is the fate of representatives of the Don Cossacks, the main one of which is the image of the Cossack Grigory Melekhov, full of tragedy and inner strength, breaking with the "old" world, but never accepting the "new" world. The novel, marked by a thorough knowledge of Cossack life and written in a lively, colorful language, was widely recognized and became a classic work of world literature of the XX century. In 1941, M. A. Sholokhov was awarded the Stalin Prize of the First degree for his novel "The Quiet Don", and in 1965 – the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a crucial time for Russia".
However, immediately after the publication of the first two books of the novel, M. A. Sholokhov's authorship was questioned. The question of authorship was also raised in the 1930s and 1970s. It was suggested that M. A. Sholokhov used the manuscript of the Cossack, writer, member of the White Movement Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov (1870-1920). Discussions continue to this day, but the hypothesis of F. D. Kryukov's authorship of "The Quiet Don" has not been scientifically confirmed.
The next well-known novel by M. A. Sholokhov was Virgim Soil Upturned, dedicated to the events of collectivization on the Don after the end of the Civil War. The first volume of the novel was published in 1932, and the second, final volume - in 1960. In the same year, the writer was awarded the Lenin Prize.
During the Great Patriotic War, M. A. Sholokhov was a war correspondent for the Sovinformburo, the Pravda and Krasnaya Zvezda newspapers, and published essays and short stories. He worked on the novel "They Fought for the Motherland", dedicated to the retreat of Soviet troops on the Don in the summer of 1942, which remained unfinished – only separate chapters of the work were published. In 1975, they were adapted into a film directed by S. F. Bondarchuk. M. A. Sholokhov's reflections on the fate of Soviet people during the war were also reflected in the best post-war work of the writer – in the novel "The Fate of Man" (1956-1957; film adaptation of 1959 directed by S. F. Sholokhov). Bondarchuk).
M. A. Sholokhov died on February 21, 1984 in the village of Veshenskaya at the age of 79. He was buried there in the courtyard of his own house.
Lit.: Венков А. В. «Тихий Дон»: Источниковая база и проблема авторства. М., 2010; Вёшенские вёсны: Слово земляков о М. А. Шолохове. Ростов н/Д., 1980; Лукин Ю. Б. О творческом пути Михаила Шолохова. М., 1950; Слюсаренко Л. М. Шолохов Михаил Александрович // Большая российская энциклопедия: научно-образовательный портал [Электронный ресурс] URL: https://bigenc.ru/c/sholokhov-mikhail-aleksandrovich-5f7f61/?v=8819104; Шолохов Михаил Александрович // ТАСС [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://tass.ru/encyclopedia/person/sholohov-mihail-aleksandrovich.
Based on the materials of Presidential Library:
Лежнев И. Михаил Шолохов: критико-биографический очерк. М., 1941;
The first Kuban ("Ice") campaign of the Volunteer Army // 1918: [digital collection]