Mikhail Sholokhov
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov (Russian: Михаил Александрович Шолохов, IPA: [ˈʂoləxəf];[2] 24 May [O.S. 11 May] 1905 – 21 February 1984) was a Russian novelist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is known for writing about life and fate of Don Cossacks during the Russian Revolution, the civil war and the period of collectivization, primarily in his most famous novel, And Quiet Flows the Don.
Sholokhov was born in Russia, in the “land of the Cossacks” – the Kruzhilin hamlet, part of stanitsa Vyoshenskaya, in the former Administrative Region of the Don Cossack Host. His father, Aleksander Mikhailovich Sholokhov (1865–1925), was a member of the lower middle class, at different times a farmer, a cattle trader, and a miller. Sholokhov’s mother, Anastasia Danilovna Chernikova (1871–1942), the widow of a Cossack, came from Ukrainian peasant stock (her father was a peasant in the Chernihiv oblast). She did not become literate until a point in her life when she wanted to correspond with her son. His family were not Don Cossacks, but inogorodnye (“outlanders”), the rather disparaging term used by the Don Cossacks for outsiders who settled in the territory of the Don Cossack Host by the banks of the river Don. The inogorodyne tended to be much more poorer than the Don Cossacks and were excluded from voting for officials in the Host government (the Don Cossack Host were allowed to elect almost of its leaders except for the ataman who headed the Host who was always appointed by the Emperor).[3]
Sholokhov attended schools in Karginskaya [ru], Moscow, Boguchar, and Veshenskaya until 1918, when he joined the Bolshevik side in the Russian Civil War at the age of 13. He spent the next few years fighting. During the Russian Civil War, the inogorodnye tended to support the Reds while the Don Cossacks tended to support the Whites.
Sholokhov began writing at 17. He completed his first literary work, the short story “The Birthmark”, at 19. In 1922 Sholokhov moved to Moscow to become a journalist, but he had to support himself through manual labour. He was a stevedore, a stonemason, and an accountant from 1922 to 1924, but he also intermittently participated in writers’ “seminars”. His first published work was a satirical article, The Test (19 October 1923).[4] In 1924 Sholokhov returned to Veshenskaya and began devoting himself entirely to writing.[1] In the same year he married Maria Petrovna Gromoslavskaia (1901–1992), the daughter of Pyotr Gromoslavsky, the ataman of Bukanovskaya village. They had two daughters and two sons.
Sholokhov’s first book Tales from the Don, a volume of stories largely based on his personal experiences in his native region during World War I and the Russian Civil War, was published in 1926. The story “Nakhalyonok”, partly based on his own childhood, was later made into a popular film.
In the same year, Sholokhov began writing And Quiet Flows the Don, which took him fourteen years to complete (1926–1940). It became the most-read work of Soviet fiction and was heralded as a powerful example of socialist realism, and it earned him both the 1941 State Stalin Prize and the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature. It deals with the experiences of the Cossacks before and during World War I and the Russian Civil War.[1]
Another novel, Virgin Soil Upturned, which earned a Lenin Prize, took 28 years to complete. It is composed of two parts, Seeds of Tomorrow (1932) and Harvest on the Don (1960), and reflects life during collectivization in the Don area.
The short story “The Fate of a Man” (1957) was made into a popular Russian film.
During World War II Sholokhov wrote about the Soviet war effort for various journals. He also covered the devastation caused by Wehrmacht troops along the Don. His mother was killed when Veshenskaya was bombed in 1942.
Sholokhov’s unfinished novel They Fought for Their Country is about World War II (known in the Soviet Union, and now in Russia, as the Great Patriotic War).
Sholokhov’s collected works were published in eight volumes between 1956 and 1960.
