The great Soviet writer M. A. Sholokhov was born on May 11 (24), 1905 on the Kruzhilin farm, once in Donetsk, and now in the Rostov region. Considering the topic “Sholokhov’s biography, briefly about the main thing”, it is certainly worth noting that the future writer was born under the name Kuznetsov, but then in 1912 he changed it to Sholokhov, but more on that later. He received his primary education in Moscow, back in the First World War, but then continued his studies at the gymnasium in the city of Boguchar (Voronezh province.). Then, in 1922, he returned to Moscow again to enter the institute, but without enrolling there in order to feed himself, he began to earn extra money as a laborer. Sholokhov spent his free time from work on self-education.

Biography of Sholokhov. Briefly the most important

His father - Sholokhov Alexander Mikhailovich - was from the Ryazan province. He was engaged in buying up cattle, sowed grain, was a clerk at a commercial enterprise, then a manager at a mill. The writer's grandfather was a merchant of the third guild.

The writer's mother was Anastasia Danilovna Chernikova, the daughter of a former serf and a settler to the Don. Having become an orphan, she was married off by her mistress-landowner Popova to the son of the Cossack stanitsa ataman Kuznetsov.

But then, nevertheless, she left her husband for Alexander Sholokhov. Their son was born illegitimate, and therefore at first bore the name Kuznetsov. Already after her official husband died in 1912, she was able to marry Sholokhov and rewrite her son in his last name.

Sholokhov's biography briefly and without exaggeration tells about the hard life of people who survived wars, poverty and devastation. The writer saw all this with his own eyes, and his fate did not differ from the fate of millions of other Russian people who had arrests, exiles and captivity, but Sholokhov was extraordinarily lucky, and he was able to live a life worthy of a Soviet person.

The beginning of creativity

He began publishing in 1923. At that time, these were feuilletons, but then stories followed them, which later, in 1926-1927. compiled three collections: “Azure Steppe”, “Don Stories”, “About Kolchak, Nettles and Others”.

But Sholokhov's greatest popularity was brought by the epic work " Quiet Don"(1928-1940). This work was translated into many languages ​​and became widely known not only in the Soviet Union, but also beyond its borders.

"Virgin Soil Upturned"

And then another no less famous literary masterpiece followed, a two-volume book about the times of collectivization - Virgin Soil Upturned (1932-1959). For him, the writer received the Lenin Prize.

Sholokhov's biography briefly tells that during the Second World War he served as a war correspondent and wrote several essays and stories: "The Science of Hatred", "Cossacks", "On the Don", etc.

Very famous works Sholokhov became "The Fate of a Man" (1956) and the novel, which remained unfinished - "They Fought for the Motherland" (1942-1969).

Nobel Prize and recent years

Sholokhov's biography (briefly) also notes the fact that in 1965 he was awarded one of the most prestigious world awards in the world of literature - the Nobel Prize - for the novel "Quiet Flows the Don". In general, the writer Sholokhov had many awards from the government, including the Stalin Prize (1941), the Lenin Prize (1960). He was an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939), twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1967, 1980). In 1943 he was given the rank of colonel.

In the 60s, Sholokhov wrote practically nothing, he liked to go fishing and hunting. He donated most of his money to charity.

In the winter of February 21, 1984, the writer died. He died of throat cancer. Sholokhov was buried in the courtyard of his house in the village of Veshenskaya, located on the banks of the Don River, famous by him.

With his wife M.P. Gromoslavskaya - the daughter of one of their Cossack chieftains - he lived in marriage for 60 years. He married her in 1924, and four children were born in their family.

Sholokhov: biography briefly. Table

M. A. Sholokhov was born

First published in newspapers

The books “Don Stories”, “About Kolchak, Nettles and Others”, “Azure Steppe” were published.

The literary epic "Quiet Flows the Don" was created

Written novel "Virgin Soil Upturned"

The work "The Fate of Man" was released

Received the Lenin Prize for the work "Virgin Soil Upturned"

Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize for The Quiet Flows the Don

1967, 1980

Awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, twice

February 21, 1984

He died of cancer and was buried in the village of Veshenskaya near the Don.

Mikhail Alexandrovich became one of the few Soviet writers who were allowed to tell the truth to the leader. His life and work organically intertwined in the period of building socialism. Studying the biography of Sholokhov briefly, it is impossible to doubt his talent and love for his land. But once in Soviet society, doubts nevertheless arose about his authorship of the works he wrote. However, the commission, created by order of Joseph Vissarionovich himself, having carefully studied his drafts and manuscripts, confirmed the authorship of his works.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov - the largest Soviet prose writer, laureate of the Stalin (1941), Lenin (1960) and Nobel (1965) prizes. His great artistic talent, which gradually withered under the influence of Soviet ideological dogmas, manifested itself primarily in the epic novel Quiet Flows the Don, one of the pinnacles of 20th-century literature.

Sholokhov was born on the Don, was the illegitimate son of a Ukrainian woman, the wife of the Don Cossack A.D. Kuznetsova and a wealthy clerk (the son of a merchant, a native of the Ryazan region) A.M. Sholokhov. IN early childhood bore the surname Kuznetsov and received an allotment of land as a “son of a Cossack”. In 1913, after being adopted by his own father, he lost his Cossack privileges, becoming the “son of a tradesman”; graduated from four classes of the gymnasium (which is more than that of the first Russian Nobel laureate in literature, I.A. Bunin).

During the Civil War, the Sholokhov family could be under attack from two sides: for the White Cossacks, they were “non-residents”, for the Reds they were “exploiters”. Young Mikhail he was not distinguished by a passion for hoarding (like one of his future heroes, the son of a wealthy Cossack Makar Nagulnov) and took the side of the victorious force that established at least relative peace. He served in the food detachment, but arbitrarily reduced the taxation of the people of his circle, for which he was on trial. His elder friend and mentor (“mamunya” in letters addressed to her), member of the party since 1903 (Sholokhov - since 1932) E.G. Levitskaya, to whom “The Fate of a Man” was subsequently dedicated, believed that Grigory Melekhov’s “reelings” in “The Quiet Don” contain a lot of autobiographical 11, p. 128]. The young man changed a large number of professions, especially in Moscow, where he lived for a long time from the end of 1922 to 1926. Having established himself in literature, he settled on the Don in the village of Veshenskaya.

In 1923, Sholokhov published feuilletons, from the end of 1923 - stories saturated no longer with superficial feuilletonism, but with sharp drama and tragedy with a touch of melodrama. Most of these works were collected in the collections Don Stories (1925) and Azure Steppe (1926). With the exception of the story “Alien Blood” (1926), where the old man Gavrila and his wife, who have lost their son, a white Cossack, nurse a hacked-up communist food orderer, begin to love him like a son, and he leaves them, in early works Sholokhov's heroes are basically sharply divided into positive (Red fighters, Soviet activists) and negative, sometimes "unalloyed" villains (whites, "bandits", kulaks and kulaks). Many characters have real prototypes, but Sholokhov sharpens almost everything, exaggerates; death, blood, torture, the pangs of hunger, he deliberately presents naturalistically. The favorite plot of the young writer, starting with "The Mole" (1923), is a deadly clash between the closest relatives: father and son, brothers. The neophyte Sholokhov invariably confirms his loyalty to the communist idea, emphasizing the priority of social choice over any human relationships, including family ones. In 1931, he republished Don Stories, supplementing the early collection with new ones, in which the comic prevailed; at the same time in “Virgin Soil Upturned” he combined comedy with drama, sometimes quite effectively. Then, for a quarter of a century, the stories were not reprinted, the author himself rated them low and returned them to the reader when, for lack of a new one, he had to recall the well-forgotten old.

In 1925, Sholokhov began a work about the fate of the Cossacks in 1917, during the Kornilov rebellion, under the title “Quiet Don” (and not “Donshchina”, according to a common legend). He quickly abandoned this idea, but a year later he began to work on The Quiet Don again, widely deploying pictures of the pre-war life of the Cossacks and the events of the World War. The first two books of the epic novel were published in 1928. The young writer was full of energy, had a phenomenal memory, read a lot (in the 1920s even the memoirs of white generals were available), asked the Cossacks in the Don farms about the “German” and Civil wars , and he knew the life and customs of his native Don like no one else.

The events of collectivization (and immediately preceding it) delayed work on the epic novel. In letters, including I.V. Stalin, Sholokhov tried to reveal the true state of affairs in the new society: the complete collapse of the economy, lawlessness, torture applied to collective farmers. He accepted the very idea of ​​collectivization and, in a softened form, with undeniable sympathy for the main characters - the communists, showed the processes of collectivization using the example of the Gremyachiy Log farm in the first book of Virgin Soil Upturned (1932). Even the rather flattened depiction of dispossession, the figure of the “right deviator” Razmetnov, etc. were very suspicious for the authorities and semi-official writers; in particular, the magazine New world” rejected the author’s title of the novel “With Blood and Sweat”. Ho as a whole, the work suited Stalin. The high artistic level of the book, as it were, proved the fruitfulness of communist ideas for art, created the illusion of freedom of creativity in the USSR. "Virgin Soil Upturned" was declared a perfect example of literature socialist realism.

The success of “Virgin Soil Upturned” directly or indirectly helped Sholokhov continue work on “The Quiet Don”, the publication of the third book (sixth part) of which was delayed due to a very sympathetic portrayal of the participants in the anti-Bolshevik Upper Don uprising of 1919. With the help of M. Gorky, Sholokhov obtained permission from Stalin for the publication of this book in its entirety (1932) and in 1934 basically completed the fourth, last one, but began to rewrite it again, probably not without the influence of the tightened political atmosphere. In the last two books of The Quiet Flows the Don (the seventh part of the fourth book was published in 1937-1938, the eighth - in 1940) there appeared a lot of journalistic, often didactically unambiguous pro-Bolshevik declarations, quite often contradicting the plot and figurative structure of the epic novel. But this does not at all confirm the theory of “two authors” or “author” and “co-author”, developed by skeptics who do not believe in the authorship of Sholokhov (A.I. Solzhenitsyn among them). In all likelihood, Sholokhov himself was his "co-author", retaining mainly art world created by him in the early 1930s. Although in 1938 the writer almost fell victim to a false political accusation, he nevertheless found the courage to end The Quiet Flows the Don with the complete collapse of his beloved hero Grigory Melekhov, a truth-seeker crushed by the wheel of cruel history.

In The Quiet Don, Sholokhov's talent burst out in full force - and was largely exhausted. The story “The Science of Hate” (1942), imbued with hatred for the Nazis, turned out to be below the average of the “Don Stories” in terms of artistic quality. The level of those printed in 1943-1944 was higher. chapters from the novel “They fought for the Motherland”, conceived as a trilogy, but never completed (in the 60s, Sholokhov wrote “pre-war” chapters with conversations about Stalin and the repressions of 1937 in the spirit of the already ended “thaw”, they were printed with banknotes). The work consists mainly of soldiers' conversations, oversaturated with jokes. In general, Sholokhov's failure in comparison not only with the first, but also with the second novel is obvious.

During the "thaw" Sholokhov created a work of high artistic merit - the story "The Fate of a Man" (1956). The second book of "Virgin Soil Upturned", published in 1960, remained basically only a sign of a transitional historical period. The “warming” of the images of Davydov (sudden love for Varyukha-goryukha), Nagulnov (listening to cock singing, etc.), Razmetnov (shooting cats in the name of saving pigeons) and others was emphasized “modern” and did not fit with the harsh realities of 1930 ., remaining the basis of the plot.

Human rights activist L.K. Chukovskaya predicted creative sterility to Sholokhov after his speech at the XXIII Congress of the CPSU (1966) with defamation of those convicted of literary works(the first trial of the Brezhnev era against writers) A.D. Sinyavsky and Yu.M. Daniel. Ho written by Sholokhov at his best time is a high classic of literature of the 20th century.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov was born on May 24, 1905 in the Kruzhilin village of the village of Vyoshenskaya in the Donetsk district of the Don Cossacks region (now the Sholokhov district of the Rostov region).

At the same time, Sholokhov took part in the handwritten newspaper "New World", played in the performances of the Karginsky People's House, for which he anonymously composed the plays "General Pobedonostsev" and "An Extraordinary Day".

In October 1922 he moved to Moscow, where he worked as a loader, a bricklayer, and an accountant in a housing department on Krasnaya Presnya. At the same time, he attended classes of the Young Guard literary association.

In December 1924, the newspaper "Young Leninist" published his story "The Mole", which opened the cycle of Don stories: "Shepherd", "Ilyukha", "Foal", "Azure Steppe", "Family Man" and others. They were published in Komsomol periodicals, and then compiled three collections, "Don Stories" and "Azure Steppe" (both - 1926) and "About Kolchak, Nettles and Others" (1927). "Don Stories" was read in manuscript by Sholokhov's countryman, writer Alexander Serafimovich, who wrote a preface to the collection.

In 1925, the writer began to create the novel "Quiet Don" about the dramatic fate of the Don Cossacks during the First World War and the Civil War. During these years, together with his family, he lived in the village of Karginskaya, then in Bukanovskaya, and since 1926 - in Vyoshenskaya. In 1928, the first two books of the epic novel were published in the October magazine. The release of the third book (the sixth part) was delayed due to a rather sympathetic portrayal of the participants in the anti-Bolshevik Upper Don uprising of 1919. To release the book, Sholokhov turned to the writer Maxim Gorky, with the help of whom he obtained permission from Joseph Stalin to publish this part of the novel without cuts in 1932, and in 1934 he basically completed the fourth - last part, but began to rewrite it again, not without tightening ideological pressure. The seventh part of the fourth book was published in 1937-1938, the eighth - in 1940.

The work has been translated into many languages.

In 1932, the first book of his novel "Virgin Soil Upturned" about collectivization was published. The work was declared a perfect example of the literature of socialist realism and soon entered into all school programs, becoming mandatory for study.

During the years of the Great Patriotic War(1941-1945) Mikhail Sholokhov worked as a war correspondent for the Soviet Information Bureau, the Pravda and Krasnaya Zvezda newspapers. He published front-line essays, the story "The Science of Hatred" (1942), and the novel "They Fought for the Motherland" (1943-1944), which was conceived as a trilogy, but was not completed.

The writer donated the State Prize, awarded in 1941 for the novel Quiet Flows the Don, to the USSR Defense Fund, and purchased four new rocket launchers for the front at his own expense.

In 1956, his story "The Fate of a Man" was published.

In 1965, the writer became a laureate Nobel Prize in literature "for the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia." Sholokhov donated the prize for the construction of a school in his homeland - in the village of Vyoshenskaya, Rostov Region.

IN last years Mikhail Sholokhov worked on the novel "They Fought for the Motherland". At this time, the village of Vyoshenskaya became a place of pilgrimage. Sholokhov was visited by visitors not only from Russia, but also from various parts of the world.

Sholokhov was engaged social activities. He was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the first to ninth convocations. Since 1934 - Member of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR. Member of the World Peace Council.

In the last years of his life, Sholokhov was seriously ill. He suffered two strokes, diabetes, then throat cancer.

On February 21, 1984, Mikhail Sholokhov died in the village of Vyoshenskaya, where he was buried on the banks of the Don.

The writer was an honorary doctor of philology from the Rostov and Leipzig universities, an honorary doctor of law from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Since 1939 he was a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Mikhail Sholokhov was twice awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor (1967, 1980). Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1941), the Lenin Prize (1960), and the Nobel Prize (1965). Among his awards are six Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, medals "For the Defense of Moscow", "For the Defense of Stalingrad", "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945".

In 1984, in his homeland in the village of Vyoshenskaya, Rostov Region, the State Museum-Reserve M.A. Sholokhov.

Since 1985, the Sholokhov Spring, the All-Russian Literary and Folklore Festival, has been held annually in the village of Vyoshenskaya. dedicated to the day writer's birth.
























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Attention! The slide preview is for informational purposes only and may not represent the full extent of the presentation. If you are interested in this work, please download the full version.

The purpose of the lesson: acquaintance with the life and work of M.A. Sholokhov; repetition of previously studied works of the writer; strengthening listening skills.

Lesson objectives.

  • Continue acquaintance with the life and work of the great Russian writer; to show the originality and uniqueness, the significance of M.A. Sholokhov's work for Russian literature;
  • Develop the ability to choose the main thing, keep a short note of the lecture, take notes.
  • To educate moral qualities, aesthetic taste of students.

Lesson type: combined.

Equipment.

  • multimedia installation.
  • Presentation “M.A. Sholokhov".

It doesn’t happen that you can save yourself in the cold all your life. (M. A. Sholokhov)

During the classes

1. Organizational moment.

2. Learning new material.

Viewing the presentation is accompanied by a teacher's story and a conversation with students on the previously studied works of M.A. Sholokhov. During the teacher's lecture, the children make a brief summary of the lecture.

slide number Activities of the teacher and students
Screensaver SHOLOKHOV Mikhail Alexandrovich
slide number 1 Born in the Voronezh province in 1905, died in 1984. He was a deputy of the Supreme Council, and a member of the CPSU, and an academician ... But behind all this fence of dry numbers is a living person with his own attitude and towards civil wars e, and to collectivization?
slide number 2 It may seem strange, but the scientific biography of M. A. Sholokhov has not yet been written. Meanwhile, Sholokhov is an extremely controversial figure, reflecting the contradictions of the Soviet era itself, the events of which to this day give rise to polar assessments, both in science and in public opinion.
slide number 3 Of course, any person is characterized primarily by the environment in which he was born and raised, his family and his attitude towards it.
slide number 4 Mom ... He is her only one. He taught her to read. She was proud of him. He will die during the bombing on July 8, 1942, one might say, in front of his son, who two days ago arrived at her village to heal after a severe concussion. She rejoiced, cried and blessed Stalin, whom Misha had met the day before.
slide number 5 The rest of his relatives, with purely political positions that time are simply dangerous. His wife Maria Petrovna is the daughter of a Cossack ataman. Her brother, a “religious minister”, was repressed twice. Another close relative, Vladimir Sholokhov, the headmaster of a local school, is accused of instilling “religious views” in the school, children reading the Bible.
slide number 6 Sholokhov began to study literature in 1923, publishing feuilletons, later stories in which two principles are strangely intertwined: the comic and the tragic. The first books are published in mass editions: "Alyoshkin's Heart", "Nakhalyonok".
slide number 7 These works main topic which - the Civil War, the activities of the food detachments, were later included in the collection "Don Stories". Sholokhov sharpens almost everything here, exaggerates: death, blood, torture, hunger pangs is deliberately naturalistic. Favorite plot young writer, starting with "Birthmark", - a deadly clash of the next of kin: father and son, siblings.
Video clip
slide number 8 In 1925, Sholokhov began work on the novel Quiet Flows the Don, drawing pictures of the pre-war life of the Cossacks, the events of the First World War. Almost immediately, doubts arise about the authorship of the novel; a work of this magnitude required too much knowledge and experience.
slide number 9 But the young writer is full of energy, reads a lot (in the 1920s even the memoirs of white generals were available), asks the Cossacks in the Don farms about the “German” and civil wars, and knows the life and customs of his native Don like no one else.
slide number 10 “Quiet Flows the Don” is a story not only about the grandiose Revolution, about the cataclysm experienced by Russia, about a man who found himself in a terrible meat grinder of the Civil War, but also a story about dramatic, tragic love.
slide number 11 Sholokhov writes about this surprisingly: Aksinya was reborn from the meadow mowing. As if someone made a mark on his face, burned the brand. When meeting with her, the women grinned maliciously, shook their heads after her, the girls envied, and she proudly and high carried her happy, but shameful head.
slide number 12 Sholokhov is a courageous man. Courage - at the age of twenty to aim at an epic, not to back down and finish "Quiet Flows the Don" the way he finished it. After all, Grigory Melekhov, having visited both the Reds and the Whites, having lost almost everything he had, returns home, realizing that for any person true values-this is the world, the house, the children, and not the class struggle at all.
slide number 13 The courage of the writer was appreciated: for the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize.
slide number 14 Sholokhov's courage is his relationship with Stalin. In times of repression, suffering people turned to major figures in science, culture, and art for help. "What we can do?! - they shrugged their hands. “We are powerless to help ...” And Sholokhov? .. He writes a stunning letter to Stalin about the misfortune of the early 30s: “The black wings of hunger are spread over the Quiet Don ...” Sholokhov stands up for the son of A. Akhmatova-Lev Gumilyov, helps the writer A. Platonov.
slide number 15 Paradoxically, the next novel, Virgin Soil Upturned, was written in support of collectivization.
slide number 16 The name - "Virgin Soil Upturned" - was not given by Sholokhov to the novel. It was pasted in the editorial office of the magazine. The author's is more truthful: "With blood and sweat", although not so beautiful. But Sholokhov would not have been Sholokhov if he had simply written a propaganda novel: what a wonderful language this work has, what bright characters! And the characters are just amazing.
slide number 17 The war prevented Sholokhov from completing his novel Virgin Soil Upturned. Throughout the Great Patriotic War, the writer was a war correspondent for the Soviet Information Bureau, Pravda and Krasnaya Zvezda, fought in battles near Smolensk and Rostov-on-Don, saw the defeat of the Nazis near Stalingrad.
slide number 18 Like everyone real writer, he, talking about cruel and tragic things, deeply believed in a person, his good beginning. The pinnacle of this optimism, love of life was the story “The Fate of a Man”.
slide number 19 Sholokhov's story is a story about what a terrible tragedy war is for a person, about the fate of a soldier who lost everything in this war, and an orphan boy. It is no coincidence that the writer says this about his heroes: “Two orphaned people, two grains of sand.”
Video fragment (scene with Vanyushka)
slide number 20 This scene is so touching, so emotional, you are so worried about the fate of Andrei Sokolov, a man whose eyes are “as if sprinkled with ashes”, that a desire to help involuntarily arises, and many children respond to this misfortune with their creativity.
slide number 21 You can have different attitudes towards the work of Mikhail Sholokhov, but one thing must not be forgotten: he was truly the son of his century. And sometimes the writer bent under the weight of the burden of historical time, but did not break, he still conveyed to his descendants the main thing - the truth. Because he did not cowardly try to free himself from the fetters of time. And from a bitter fate, his common fate with the people.

3. Summing up the lesson.

1. What new things did you learn today in the lesson from the life of M.A. Sholokhov?

2. How did you imagine the writer after listening to the story?

3. What personality traits of M.A. Sholokhov struck you, surprised you?

4. Explanation of homework.

Complete the design of the abstract on the life and work of N.V. Gogol, using the textbook material and electronic resources.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov(1905-1984) - famous prose writer, publicist. Born on the farm Kruzhilin, on the Don, near the village of Veshenskaya. Sholokhov's mother was from peasant family, father - a native of the Ryazan province, grew wheat on purchased Cossack land; served as a clerk in charge of a steam mill. The impressions of childhood and youth had a great influence on the formation of Mikhail Sholokhov as a writer. The boundless expanses of the Don steppes, the verdant banks of the majestic Don entered his heart forever. From childhood, he absorbed his native dialect, sincere Cossack songs. Since childhood, the writer was surrounded by a peculiar atmosphere: the life of the Cossacks, their daily work on earth, military service, mowing in the loan, plowing, sowing, wheat harvesting.

Sholokhov studied at the parochial school and gymnasium. In 1912 he entered the Karginsky elementary school, in a class taught by Mikhail Grigoryevich Kopylov (later Sholokhov portrayed him under his last name in the novel Quiet Flows the Don). Shortly thereafter, Mikhail Sholokhov fell seriously ill with inflammation of the eyes, and his father took him to an eye clinic in Moscow, to the same Snegirev hospital, in which the main character of The Quiet Don, Grigory Melekhov, also ends up. Without graduating from the Karginsky School, Sholokhov entered the preparatory class of the Moscow Shelaputin Gymnasium, and three years later continued his studies at the Bogucharov Gymnasium. During his studies, Sholokhov enthusiastically read books by Russian and foreign classic writers. He was especially impressed by the stories and novels of Leo Tolstoy. Among the sciences taught at the gymnasium, Sholokhov was most interested in literature and history. Giving preference to literature, at a young age he began to try his hand at poetry and prose, composing stories, humorous skits.

Before the revolution, the Sholokhov family settled on the Pleshakov farm of the Yelanskaya village, where the writer's father worked as a manager of a steam mill. In the summer, Mikhail came to his parents for the holidays, and his father often took him with him on trips around the Don. On one of these trips, Sholokhov met with David Mikhailovich Babichev, who entered the "Quiet Don" under the name of Davydka the Roller, who worked at the Pleshakov mill from the age of twelve. At the same time, the captive Czech Ota Gins, who is depicted under the name Shtokman in the novel "Quiet Flows the Don", worked at the Pleshakov mill. Here, in Pleshki, Sholokhov, a schoolboy, met the Drozdov family. The fate of the brothers Alexei and Pavel was tragic, which was connected with the civil war that unfolded on the Don. The elder brother of the Drozdovs, Pavel, died in the very first battles when the Red Army units entered the farms of the Yelanskaya village. Pavel Drozdov died almost the same way as Pyotr Melekhov in The Quiet Don.

When in June 1918 the German cavalry entered the quiet provincial town of Boguchary near the Don, Sholokhov was with his father, on the Pleshakov farm, located opposite the Yelanskaya village. At this time, an acute class war unfolded on the Don. In the summer of 1918, the White Cossacks occupied the Upper Don; at the beginning of 1919, units of the Red Army entered the area of ​​\u200b\u200bfarms of the Yelanskaya village, and in the early spring of the same year, the Veshensky uprising broke out. These tragic events unfolded in front of Mikhail Sholokhov. During the uprising, he lived in Rubezhnoye and watched the panicked retreat of the rebels, was an eyewitness to their crossing over the Don; was in the front line, when in September the troops of the Red Army again entered the Left Bank of the Don. By the end of the year, the White Cossacks, defeated near Voronezh, fled from the headwaters of the Don.

In 1920, when Soviet power was finally established on the Don, the Sholokhov family moved to the village of Karginskaya. Mikhail Sholokhov took an active part in the formation of Soviet power in his homeland. From February 1920, he worked as a teacher for the elimination of illiteracy among adults on the Latyshev farm; from the middle of the year - a journalist of the Karginsky stanitsa Council, then - a teacher in primary school; from the middle of 1921 - a stanitsa statistician in the village of Karginskaya; from January 1922 - the clerk of the village office, and after some time - the manufacturer of the village of Bukanovskaya.

At the end of September 1920, a detachment of many thousands of Makhno entered the district. One night, the gangs occupied the village of Karginskaya and plundered it. The Communists and Komsomol members had to hide for several days in the thickets of reeds along the Chir. During the battle near the Konkov farm, the bandits captured Sholokhov. Nestor Makhno interrogated him. In the event of a new meeting, he threatened the young man with the gallows.

The year 1921 on the Don, as in the Volga region, was very difficult - arid and hungry. Local gangs of Fyodor Melikhov, Kondratiev, Makarov acted on the Don, gangster detachments of Maslakov, Kurochkin, Kolesnikov broke through from the neighboring Voronezh province. The gang of Yakov Fomin, who more than once occupied and robbed the village of Karginskaya, committed atrocities with particular cruelty. At this time, Sholokhov took an active part in the fight against gangs, remaining on the Don until they were completely defeated.

In October 1922, Sholokhov arrived in Moscow, where he planned to continue his studies. But he failed to enter the workers' faculty, as he wanted. Being engaged in self-education, Sholokhov worked as a loader, a laborer, a clerk, and an accountant. And behind him was already a harsh school of civil war, the struggle for Soviet power on the Don. It was at this time, according to the writer himself, that “a real craving for literary work". In 1924, Sholokhov's stories began to be published in magazines, later combined into the collections Don Stories and Azure Steppe. The themes of these stories are the civil war on the Don, the fierce class struggle, and transformations in the countryside. The first collection - "Don Stories" - did not bring Sholokhov much popularity, but showed that a writer had entered Russian literature, able to notice in ordinary life important trends of his time.

In 1924, Sholokhov returned to the Don to the village of Veshenskaya, where he lived permanently from that time on. Here he began to write the novel Quiet Don (1928-1940), depicting the Don Cossacks during the First World War and the Civil War. The next significant work of Sholokhov was the novel "Virgin Soil Upturned" (1932-1960), which tells about a revolutionary turning point in the life of the village.

During the Great Patriotic War, Sholokhov was a war correspondent. Already in the first months of the war, his essays “On the Don”, “In the South”, “Cossacks”, etc. were published in the periodical press. The story “The Science of Hatred” (1942) was very popular among the soldiers. In 1943-44. chapters from the novel "They Fought for the Motherland" began to be printed (a new version of this work was published in 1969). A notable phenomenon in literature was Sholokhov's story "The Fate of a Man" (1956-57), in which tragic story life is shown in its inseparable connection with the trials in the life of the people and the state. The fate of Andrei Sokolov embodies the terrible evil of war and at the same time affirms faith in good. In a short work, the readers see the hero's life, which has absorbed the fate of the country. Andrei Sokolov is a peaceful worker who hates the war, which took away his whole family, happiness, and hope for the best. Left alone, Sokolov did not lose his humanity, he was able to see and warm a homeless boy near him. The writer ends the story with the certainty that near Andrey Sokolov's shoulder will rise new person, ready to overcome any trials of fate.

After the war, Sholokhov published a number of publicistic works: “The Word about the Motherland”, “The Struggle Continues” (1948), “Light and Darkness” (1949), “The Executioners Cannot Escape the Court of Nations!” (1950), etc. The connection of literature with life, in the understanding of Sholokhov, is, first of all, a connection with the people. “A book is a matter of suffering,” he said at the Second Congress of Writers. Many times in his statements, the idea is repeated that a writer should be able to tell the truth, no matter how difficult it may be; about what to evaluate artwork should be approached primarily from the point of view of historical veracity. According to the writer, only that art that serves the interests of the people has the right to life. “I am one of those writers who see for themselves the highest honor and the highest freedom in the unrestricted opportunity to serve the working people with their pen,” he said in a speech after the Nobel Prize was awarded to him in 1965.

In the last years of his life, Sholokhov was seriously ill, but he held on steadfastly. Even the doctors marveled at his patience. He suffered two strokes, diabetes, then throat cancer. And despite everything, he continued to write. Sholokhov's work made a huge contribution to literature. In his works, the poetic heritage of the Russian people was combined with the achievements of the realistic novel of the 19th and 20th centuries; he discovered new connections between the spiritual and material principles, between man and the outside world. In his novels, for the first time in the history of world literature, the working people appear in all their diversity and richness of types and characters, in such a fullness of moral and emotional life that puts them among the models of world literature.