There are many interesting facts from life in the biography of Mikhail Sholokhov. A selection of the most significant will help to peer into the personality of a remarkable Russian writer, who in the history of literature of the 20th century has no equal in terms of the level of understanding of this century, which is complex in all respects and the place of man in it.

• In 1965, Mikhail Sholokhov won the Nobel Prize in Literature. It is interesting to note that for several years, more precisely, eight times, his name was considered among the potential candidates for one of the most prestigious awards. In addition, the prize received by the writer was for the first time perceived in the Soviet Union as a great achievement.
• In 1928-1929, the first two volumes of the novel " Quiet Don". The young author drew attention to himself. However, universal recognition and world fame came to him much later - after the publication of the third and fourth books about the life of the Don Cossacks.
• A feature of Sholokhov's work has always been a large interval between volumes of one work. With a long delay - ten years, the end of the novel "The Quiet Don" came out.

  The second part of the book "Virgin Soil Upturned" was born even longer - about thirty years. And the alleged continuation of the novel "They Fought for the Motherland" did not work out at all. Of course, there is an explanation for everything, but the pattern - a stormy, daring start and a protracted ending - is obvious.

• It turns out that the publishing houses were afraid and refused to publish the third part of the epic about the fate of the Cossack Grigory Melekhov, concerning the events of the Civil War. M. Gorky helped to resolve the issue, who organized a meeting between the writer and Stalin at his dacha. Sholokhov was late for the meeting, or rather arrived on time, but due to the absence of the main guest, he decided to leave for a moment. The unfortunate moment dragged on for five minutes. During this time, the leader came, and now he met the late writer with hostility.
• Then a difficult conversation took place between Joseph Vissarionovich and the young writer. The leader of the country accused Sholokhov of sympathy for the enemies of the Bolsheviks - the white movement. The writer was not embarrassed and answered briefly and directly, they say, indeed, there is both sympathy and goodwill for the whites, because many of them come from simple, poor families, and at one time did not disdain to sit at the same table with privates. His answer did not reassure Stalin, and even vice versa - caused rejection, but, in the end, he gave the green light to the complete publication of the novel.

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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, which he spoke about 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, to 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 in 1965 will receive Nobel Prize with the approval of the Soviet government.

Back in 1958, when nominating 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.
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 mighty of the world this." 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.

Interesting Facts about Sholokhov will tell you about the personal life and work of this Soviet writer. He gained worldwide popularity after the publication of the novel The Quiet Flows the Don, for which he was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1. At birth, Mikhail Aleksandrovich received the surname Kuznetsov, and he became Sholokhov only at the age of 7.
2. After studying at the gymnasium for 4 years, Sholokhov was forced to drop out of school because the city in which he lived was captured by the Nazis. After the end of the war, the young man never resumed his studies.
3. When Sholokhov was in his 16th year, the soldiers of Nestor Makhno detained the food detachment he led. The guys were supposed to be shot, but the Makhnovists decided not to do this, releasing all the captives into the wild.
4. An interesting fact is that in the life of Sholokhov there was another episode when his life was in mortal danger. In 1922, while working as a tax inspector, he was arrested on suspicion of abuse of power. The commission sentenced Mikhail to death, but after 2 days the execution was replaced by 1 year of corrective labor.
5. In 1938, at the height of the famous Stalinist purges, Sholokhov was rearrested. One of the employees of the Cheka sent a petition to detain the writer, but the arrest still managed to be avoided.
6. Did you know that due to the ambiguous ending of The Quiet Flows the Don, the censors gave the novel serious criticism. But after the book was read and approved, all the critics fell silent.
7. During (1941-1945), the 2nd volume of Sholokhov's no less famous work, "Virgin Soil Uplift", was lost. Later it had to be restored again.
8. Until the end of his life, Mikhail Sholokhov lived in a small house in the village of Veshenskaya, where he was born. An interesting fact is that he transferred all his awards to charity. In particular, the entire Nobel Prize was spent on the construction of a school in his native village.
9. It is curious that Sholokhov is the only Soviet writer who received the Nobel Prize with the approval of the leadership. When the writer received the award, he did not bow to the Swedish monarch, as tradition requires. However, it is still unknown whether this gesture was intentional, or whether it was an accident.
10. Not so long ago it became known that initially the academicians allowed it to be possible to divide the prize between Sholokhov and.
11. Many streets and avenues are named after Sholokhov. Moreover, there is even a lilac variety called "Mikhail Sholokhov".
12. An interesting fact is that UNESCO declared 2005 the Year of Sholokhov.
13. Sholokhov died of laryngeal cancer, after which he was buried in the courtyard of his house, and not in the cemetery.
14. In 1942, during the bombing of the village of Veshenskaya, Sholokhov's mother also died in the same courtyard.
15. For many years there have been heated debates about who is the real author of The Quiet Flows the Flows Flows. By order of Stalin, a special commission was formed, before which Sholokhov had to prove his authorship. As evidence, he provided his own manuscripts, which completely satisfied the members of the commission. Later, these manuscripts were lost and found again only in 1999, which caused a new wave of controversy. Per last years v

Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov - public figure, famous writer, classic"official" Soviet literature, Hero of Socialist Labor twice, Nobel Prize winner, owner of a unique epic talent, who widely revealed himself in a difficult turning point for Russia. He is known as continuer of the traditions of realism L. N. Tolstoy in new vital material and in historical era country. Sholokhov received world fame thanks to his main work - the novel The Quiet Flows the Don, which is ranked to the most powerful novels of the 20th century.

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Mikhail Alexandrovich was born on May 11 (24), 1905 on the Kruzhilin farm of the Donskoy Army in the Veshenskaya region in a Cossack family. Mother comes from a Ukrainian peasant family, served as a maid, who against her will was given in marriage to the Cossack-ataman Kuznetsov, but she left him for a rich "out-of-town" clerk, the manager of a steam mill, Sholokhov, a native of the Ryazan province, growing wheat on Cossack land.

Their newborn illegitimate son Mikhail was initially given the surname of the mother's first husband and the boy was considered the "son of a Cossack" according to all Cossack privileges, and only in 1912 he began to be called the "son of a tradesman" after Kuznetsov passed away and his real father adopted him.

Sholokhov's childhood and youthful impressions had a great influence on the formation of his personality as a writer. Boundless expanse native land, the Don steppes and the verdant banks of the Don won his heart forever. From an early age, he absorbed the daily work on the ground, his native dialect and soulful Cossack songs.

Education in four grades and an uninvited war is the hard fate of a purposeful writer. Later he will say "Poets are born in different ways", or "I, for example, was born out of the Civil War ..."

Before the revolution, the entire Sholokhov family settled in Pleshakovo of the Yelanskaya village on a farm, where the head of the family worked as a mill manager. The father often took his son on trips around the Don and spent a lot of time with him during the holidays. On these trips, the future writer met the captive Czech Ota Gins and David Mikhailovich Babichev, who many years later entered his novel The Quiet Flows the Don under the names Shtokman and Davydka the Roller. Later, Sholokhov studied at the gymnasium and the parochial school.

Already a schoolboy, Sholokhov met the Drozdov family and his good friends become brothers Pavel and Alexei. But the friendship is short-lived due to the tragic circumstances that were associated with civil war deployed on the Don. The elder brother Pavel Drozdov dies in the first battles when the Red Army enters his native farms. Later Sholokhov would write about him in The Quiet Don under the name of Pyotr Melekhov.

Goals and achievements of the writer

In June 1918, young Sholokhov would become a personal witness to an acute class war when the German cavalry entered the county town of Boguchary, located next to his parent's farm. In the summer of the same year, the White Cossacks will occupy the Upper Don, and in the winter of 1919 the Red Army will enter the lands of Pleshakov, and in the spring the Veshensky uprising will break out.

During the uprising, Sholokhov moved to Rubezhnoye and observed the retreat of the rebels and the escape of the White Cossacks. He becomes an eyewitness of how they cross the Don, as he watches everything that happens from the front line.

In 1920, when Soviet power prevailed on the Don, the Sholokhovs moved to the village of Karginskaya, where later the brave son took an active part in the formation of power. He enters the Karginsky Primary School and receives knowledge in the class led by Mikhail Grigorievich Kopylov (whom Sholokhov writes about in the novel Quiet Flows the Don under his own name).

Not graduating from the Karginsky school due to a severe eye inflammation disease, and due to a forced trip to the Moscow eye clinic, which is also mentioned in the future novel, he remains in Moscow. After recovery, he enters the preparatory class of the Shelaputin gymnasium, then studies at the Bogucharov gymnasium. During an exciting study, he is interested in books by foreign and Russian classic writers, especially the works of Leo Tolstoy.

Sholokhov called literature and history his favorite sciences taught at the gymnasium, while he gives the greatest preference to literary studies; begins to write poems and stories, compose humorous skits. Later, he tries himself in the profession of a teacher of an educational program school, an accountant, a journalist, an employee of the stanitsa revolutionary committee, and others.

In the autumn of 1920, when the borders of the district were crossed by a detachment of Makhno and the bandits plundered and occupied the Karginsky village, Sholokhov was taken prisoner. The interrogation was conducted by Nestor Makhno and threatened with hanging in the event of another meeting with him.

The next year of Sholokhov's life turned out to be even more difficult, local gangs of Melikhov, Makarov Kondratiev, Makarov and Fomin were formed; detachments of Kurochkin, Maslakov and Kolesnikov broke through to the Don. Sholokhov actively participated in the fight against them until their complete disappearance.

In 1922, he again comes to Moscow to enter the workers' faculty, but they do not take him, since he is not a member of the Komsomol. The writer lives by odd jobs, goes to a literary circle called "Young Guard", develops his writing skills, publishes essays and feuilletons in newspapers, and then creates "Don stories", which in 1926 aroused great interest among readers.

In 1925, the writer returns to his native farm and begins his most important work - the novel "Quiet Don", for whose place in literature, he fights until 1940. Due to various kinds of criticism, the book goes a long and difficult way. The description of the events taking place on the Don is called “anathematically talented”, the description of the Cossack uprising of 1919 is not let out into the light, and only after Stalin intervenes in its fate, it becomes fully published and published.

For "Quiet Don" the writer receives the Order of Lenin, and in 1941 the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree.

In 1957 he publishes the story "The Fate of a Man". By the end of his life, he received the Lenin Prize for "Virgin Soil Upturned" and the Nobel Prize for the famous "Quiet Don".

Twice Hero of Labour, Honorary Doctor of European Universities and holder of 6 Orders of Lenin M. A. Sholokhov dies in 1984 due to diseases (diabetes, stroke and throat cancer), however, doctors were surprised at his perseverance and desire to write.

Sholokhov. Interesting facts from life

creative path The writer made a huge contribution to Russian literature. In the works of Sholokhov, the spirit of the people is felt, which today is a poetic heritage that reflects real events 19th and 20th centuries Sholokhov discovered new connections in spiritual and material principles between the world and man. His novels for the first time in the history of literature showed the working people in all their diversity, morality and the emotional nature of life.

Sholokhov's work, along with the famous world classics, is a model of world literature, and testifies to the boundless desire to express history using the example of the writer's own life at all its stages.

• First printed works are in 1923. After the publication of his feuilletons and poems in newspapers and metropolitan magazines, in the newspaper "Young Leninist" Sholokhov's stories were published under the title "The Mole", later they were all combined into collections: "Don stories", "Lazorev steppe", "About Kolchak, nettles and other things "(1926-1927).
• The most famous The writer was brought by his novel "Quiet Don", which he wrote from 1928 to 1932. His second famous novel is Virgin Soil Upturned, he worked on it until 1959 of his life.
• During the Second World War Sholokhov published such stories as "The Science of Hatred", "Cossacks", "On the Don", etc. In 1956, he wrote the story "The Fate of a Man" and took up writing the novel "They Fought for the Motherland", which are also known to a wide range of readers . Towards the end of his life, he retired from literature due to illness, and gave the awards he received to the construction of new schools.

Sholokhov. Chronological table of life and work

Mikhail Sholokhov was born on May 11 (24), 1905 on the Kruzhilin farm (now the Rostov region) in the family of an employee of a trading enterprise.

The first education in Sholokhov's biography was received in Moscow during the First World War. Then he studied at the gymnasium in the Voronezh province in the city of Boguchar. Arriving in Moscow to continue his education and not enrolling, he was forced to change many working specialties in order to feed himself. At the same time, in the life of Mikhail Sholokhov there was always time for self-education.

The beginning of the literary path

His works were first published in 1923. Creativity in the life of Sholokhov always occupied important role. After publishing feuilletons in newspapers, the writer publishes his stories in magazines. In 1924, the newspaper Molodoy Leninets published the first of a cycle of Sholokhov's Don stories - "The Mole". Later, all the stories from this cycle were combined into three collections: Don Stories (1926), Azure Steppe (1926) and About Kolchak, Nettles and Others (1927).

The heyday of creativity

Sholokhov became widely known for his work about the Don Cossacks during the war - the novel Quiet Don (1928-1932).

This epic eventually became popular not only in the USSR, but also in Europe, Asia, and was translated into many languages.

Another famous novel by M. Sholokhov is Virgin Soil Upturned (1932-1959). This novel about the times of collectivization in two volumes won the Lenin Prize in 1960.

From 1941 to 1945 Sholokhov worked as a war correspondent. During this time, he wrote and published several stories, essays ("The Science of Hatred" (1942), "On the Don", "Cossacks" and others).
Sholokhov's famous works are also: the story "The Fate of a Man" (1956), the unfinished novel "They Fought for the Motherland" (1942-1944, 1949, 1969).

It is worth noting that an important event in the biography of Mikhail Sholokhov in 1965 was the receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature for the epic novel "Quiet Flows the Don".

last years of life

From the 60s, Sholokhov practically ceased to engage in literature, he liked to devote time to hunting and fishing. He donated all his awards to charity (the construction of new schools).
The writer died on February 21, 1984 from cancer and was buried in the courtyard of his house in the village of Veshenskaya on the banks of the Don River.

Chronological table

Other biography options

• When Sholokhov came to woo one of the daughters of P. Ya. Gromoslavsky, the former Cossack ataman offered to marry his other daughter, the eldest Maria. In 1924 they got married. They lived in marriage for 60 years, four children were born in the family.
• Sholokhov was the only Soviet writer who received the Nobel Prize with the approval of the current government. He was called "Stalin's favorite", although Sholokhov is one of the few who were not afraid to tell the leader the truth.
• Around the name of Sholokhov, the problem of the authorship of his works periodically surfaced. After the publication of the novel The Quiet Don, the question arose: how such a young writer could create such a voluminous work in such a short period. By order of Joseph Stalin, a commission was even created, which, having studied the writer's manuscript, confirmed his authorship.
• In 1958, along with Sholokhov, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.