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A Don Cossack Sofronov

On January, 19, it was the 100^th anniversary of Anatoliy Vladimirovich Sofronov, the great writer, poet, publicist, playwright and a public figure.

In the native land of Mikhail Sholokhov, in the Upper Don villages and stanitsas, Sofronov is considered to be their countryman, his creative work being well-known and widely loved. A Don Cossack by origin, Anatoliy spent his childhood and youth in Stanitsa Ust-Medveditskaya (now a town of Serafimovich).

Sofronov was an ardent admirer of the work of Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov. To answer the question of a foreign journalist “Do your people love Sholokhov? Anatoliy Sofronov said, it was an idle question. “Only those to whom Russian literature is alien can not love Sholokhov”.

Among the admirers of Sholokhov’s work the most popular are the essays and articles about the meetings with the Nobel laureate, reflections about his creative work. In the Don libraries the book “Sholokhov’s edited in 1975 is always in great demand. Still popular are the plays by A. Sofronov about a young Kuban Cossack woman, a kolkhoz cook, Pavlina Khutornaya (“A Cook”, “A Married Cook”, “Pavlina”), a coloured comedy film “A Cook” with the songs based on his verses.

The people are fond of the songs based on the verses of Anatoliy Sofronov, many of which became really folk: “The Bryansk Forest”, “Lilac and Bird-Cherry have Bloomed in the Garden…”, “Rostov…” and others. Many professional and folk performers have no idea that the popular “folk Cossack” song “A Cossack was going home on furlough in spring…” (“Cossack”) appeared after the war, in 1946, with the verses written by Anatoliy Sofronov and the music – by Mikhail Fradkin.