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The Memorial Board Devoted to M.A. Sholokhov is Opened

The opening ceremony of the Memorial board devoted to M.A. Sholokhov took place on September, 23, 2009, in Moscow,in the editorial board of newspaper “Moskovskiy Komsomolets”. The bronze board moulded by the sculptor Zurab Tsereteli bears the words: “In the newspaper of the Moscow Komsomol League members in 1923-1925 with his first essays and “The Don Stories” Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov, the Nobel Prize Winner, entered the world literature”.

In 1923 the newspaper “Moskovskiy Komsomolets” was called “Yunosheskaya Pravda”, and in issue 35 of September, 19, the first satirical article “The Trial” (an incident from the life of a district of the Dvina Region). For the publication the author was paid 13 rubles. “That feuilleton, by the way, is read as very brave”, - this is an opinion of the “Moskovskiy Komsomolets” journalist Vera Kopylova (the article “The First “Trial” of Mikhail Sholokhov” on the site of “MK”).

On October, 30, 1923, in the “Yunosheskaya Pravda”, issue 44, a satirical article “The Three” was published (devoted to the workers’ faculty named after Pokrovskiy), and next year on April, 12, when the newspaper was renamed “Molodoy Leninets”, the feuilleton “Inspector” was published.

In the “Molodoy Leninets” there was also published the first work of fiction by M.A. Sholokhov – a short story “The Birthmark” (On December, 14, 1924). Here, in 1925, the short stories “Prodcommissar”, “Ilyukha”, “Bastard” and “The Way the Life Goes”, in 1926 – a story “The Foal”, and in 1927 – a short story “Wind”. As Sholokhov recollected: “A real calling to my literary work appeared in Moscow in 1923, when the first short stories about the Don life were being written”.

The memorial board opening ceremony was joined by the writer Leo Kolodnyi, the President of the International Sholokhov Committee Viktor Chernomyrdin, the leading scientific researcher of the World Literature Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the candidate of Philological Sciences Alexander Ushakov, the manager of the department of the manuscript and book holdings of the World Literature Institute named after M. Gorkiy, the candidate of Philosophic Sciences Mikhail Aivazyan, the First Secretary of the Moscow Union of Writers Evgheniy Sidorov, the architect Sandro Mirianashvili, the sculptor Zurab Tsereteli.

Leo Kolodnyi, speaking about the world significance of the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”, underlined: “It will be further translated into the languages of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante, into Chinese, but this great novel ensues from “The Don Stories”.

The writer never forgot about his first publications, and in honour of the 50^th anniversary of the first published short story sent to the “MK” a telegram which is kept by the chief editor.

O. Bakhtiyarova
The photo is taken from the site of
the newspaper “Moskovskiy Komsomolets”