News

News

Sholokhov’s Slogan “For the Book” Is 75

75 years ago, on the 7^th of November, 1934, in the newspaper “The Bolshevistskiy Don” there was published an article by M.A. Sholokhov “To Have a Cultural Way of Life in the Kolkhoz”, where the writer raised a problem of “low cultural level in the working masses of our country”. The original title of the article was “For the Book”.

The journalism of Sholokhov is characterized by a civil courage and insight. The active social work – as the member of the Writers’ Union management, as the deputy – mostly determined the problems and genres of the writer’s speeches. His journalist works reflected the life in all its aspects – from the processes of socialist transformation of the country to the complicated phenomena of the literary movement.

Sholokhov always focused on the problems of culture. “… The librarianship is quite wretched… As a rule they never practise loud readings and discussions of the book read. The issues of culture are paid the least time and money”, - he writes in his article.

“And how are our clubs getting on now? – the author asks. – And are they true centres of culture or merely the spots for youth gathering to husk seeds and dance? An adult member of a kolkhoz still keeps away from attending the existing clubs, and does this because no work is going on in the clubs of cultural entertainment”.

75 years have passed, but however bitter it is to realize, many questions raised by Sholokhov in the newspaper article, are still topical. And though there are libraries in the villages, the young people are mostly fond of computer games, they do not read fiction. But a living word of the book in the age of universal computerization is quite irreplaceable.

G. Smirnova