An exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the beginning of Sholokhov's epic novel and the 120th anniversary of the writer opened at the Museum of Contemporary Russian History on the day Donbass returned to Russia.
The very lands that Mikhail Alexandrovich wrote about in the 20s and 30s.
Alexander Sholokhov, the writer's grandson, said at the presentation: “Today is not only 100 years of the novel, today is 100 years of the events described in the novel. And after 100 years, these events are repeated again.”
The exhibition “The Century of the Quiet Don” was conceived at the MA Sholokhov Museum-Reserve as a story not only about the book, but also about the author's talent and firmness of faith, about his civic courage.
…Fiction newspaper since 1925 with “The Don Story”. This is a portrait of the 20-year-old author – beardless, 20 years old, wearing a fur hat. Then he began writing a book about the Cossacks during the Kornilov campaign, but quickly stopped. “The reader did not understand – what kind of Cossacks are these? What kind of Region of the Don Army is this?… I began to think about a broader novel,” Sholokhov recalled…
The organizers recreate the environment of a Cossack village at the exhibition, here you will learn what a chekmen (Cossack caftan) and husariki (Cossack women's shoes) are, you will remember the names of real and imaginary Cossack heroes of World War I…
The late twenties and thirties were a decisive time in the writer's life and his novel.
In the display case is an issue of the magazine “October”, in which 28-29 volumes 1 and 2 and the first part of volume 3 of “Quiet Don” were published. But then everything stalled. An excerpt from Pravda with a collective letter from writers defending the author accused of plagiarism – signed by members of the committee acquitting Sholokhov. Correspondence with Alexander Fadeev: the new editor-in-chief of “October” demanded that descriptions of the brutal massacres of the Reds during the suppression of the Veshenian uprising be removed and that Grigory become a Bolshevik. Otherwise the novel will not be published. But the 25-year-old author did not write the impossible – and defended his rights, even before Stalin.
Sholokhov is in the photo with his friends, Veshensky and other communists – and next to him again is his appeal, this time written in 1938, to Stalin – to protect them, who were captured and tortured. And at his request, they were soon released.
The writer's letters, photographs, documents, countless manuscripts are interspersed with uniforms, weapons, military awards, banners, banners… Diary of Captain Pavel Kudinov: leader of the Veshensky uprising (in the Soviet years known only from the “Quiet Don”), described in detail in the novel, emigration, return, period of service, written to Sholokhov. Writing desks, Olympia typewriters, writing instruments and oil lamps were brought to the exhibition from the Veshenskaya Museum-Reserve.
And of course, the main treasure of the exhibition is the original manuscript of the first two books of “Quiet Don”, which IMLI transferred to the exhibition. These pages were considered lost during the writer's lifetime, but they were only found on the eve of the 100th anniversary of his birth – when once again a wave of doubts arose about who the author of “Quiet Don” was.
Mikhail Alexandrovich awarded and distributed all his state awards. The exception was the 1965 Nobel Prize for Quiet Don. At the exhibition were Sholokhov's mermaid suit, turquoise evening dress with mink coat by Maria Petrovna Sholokhova…
“I hope my books help people become better, have clearer souls, awaken love for humanity, and the desire to actively fight for the ideals of humanism and the progress of humanity.” – the writer said in his speech accepting the Nobel Prize. “If I succeed to some degree, I'm happy.”
