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The Keeper of the Hearth and Home

On February, 1, 2011, it was the 110^th anniversary of Mariya Petrovna Sholokhova, the wife of the writer. Earlier the date of her birthday was considered to be February, 8, 1902, but the senior research worker of the State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve V.V. Leonova managed to find out in the State Archives of the Volgograd Region the documents proving the fact that Mariya Petrovna was born on February, 1 (January, 19, according to Julian calendar), 1901.

Before the Revolution girls’ days of birth in Cossack families were not registered, and that is why many women did not know for sure the date of their birth. But the destinies of boys, future warriors, were treated with consideration: the dates of their birth were put down obligatory on the top of the family trunk.

The Gromoslavskiys family was no exception, and the dates of birth in the passports of Mariya Petrovna and her three sisters, Lidiya, Anna and Polina, as it is clear now, did not conform to the real ones. The Parish Register was considered to be lost in the 1940-s after the Pokrov church was destroyed. However, now the documents have been found in the Volgograd Regional State Archives.

According to the Parish Register of the Pokrov church of Stanitsa Bukanovskaya which are kept in the archives, the exact dates of birth are: of Sholokhova (Gromoslavskaya) Mariya Petrovna – on January, 19 (Julian style), 1901; of Kirillova (Gromoslavskaya) Lidiya Petrovna – on June, 2 (Julian style), 1902; of Sholokhova (Gromoslavskaya) Anna Petrovna and Zaitseva (Gromoslavskaya) Polina Petrovna – on November, 19 (Julian style), 1905.

Mariya Petrovna Gromoslavskaya was born in Stanitsa Bukanovskaya, the Tsaritsyn Region, to the family of the stanitsa’s ataman.

From 1911 she studied in the Ust-Medveditskiy diocesan school, and when the Civil war began, she went to her parents and worked as teacher in Bukanovskaya primary school.

In Bukanovskaya Mariya Petrovna got acquainted with a young purveyance inspector Mikhail Sholokhov. “Lida, my sister, and I were going once from the kitchen-garden, where we picked up potatoes. It had just stopped raining and we were dirty with mud walking along the road. And he met us half-way, talked with us, asked, where from we were going…”

When, in the autumn of 1922, Sholokhov left for Moscow to continue his education, Mariya Gromoslavskaya gave him a word to wait for him. In January of 1924 the young people were wedded in the Bukanovskaya church and registered their marriage in the Podtyolkovskiy registry office (Stanitsa Kumylzhenskaya).

Since that time on Mariya Petrovna was always close by her husband. She rewrote by hand his first short stories, later she retyped his “The Don Stories”, “And Quiet Flows the Don”, “Virgin Soil Upturned”. M.P. Sholokhova recollected: I’ve been rewriting by hand for five or six years. Then a typewriter appeared. I’ve kept Misha’s letter from Moscow: “I’m saving you from rewriting. I’ve bought a typewriter for you for 60 roubles”. He and I mastered it quickly.

When Mikhail Alexandrovich was elected Deputy of the USSR Supreme Council, Mariya Petrovna became his assistant in sorting out a great deal of correspondence, typed answers to the letters.

“They look as though tied with a string, - S.M. Sholokhova, the writer’s elder daughter recollects. – Mother always lived Father’s life, she had none of her own. She was to write something for Father or to type, or to join him for hunting and fishing… He had never gone anywhere without her…” In hunting and fishing Mariya Petrovna sometimes was more a success than her husband. She was steady and accurate in shooting, sure in fish catching”. For many hours she could stay in a small trench in rain and snow waiting for the game to come. And nothing could distress her more but a failure in fishing or hunting.

M.M. Sholokhova, the writer’s younger daughter, told: “Our mother had a firm character. This firmness was not that is called pride or obstinacy, but rather self-control. Mother never raised her voice at anyone, tried not to hurt anybody. And she managed it. She was very kind, responsive, tender and patient. She was not dominating over us, children, let us be utterly independent in our deeds, but strictly looked after us. We felt it and tried not to disappoint our parents.

Our father could not do without our mother. When she was out for some minutes he began looking for her and asking, where Marusya was. He didn’t let her make even a step from him, and didn’t make a step without her either. He loved her very much. I don’t know, what kind of man my father would be, if my mother weren’t with him. She is his first reader, his first worder, adviser and companion holding the same views”.

Mariya Petrovna had kept in secret for a long time the warm cordial letters of Mikhail Aleksandrovich, which were dear for her, as “a wife, a loving and beloved woman…”. She was a real keeper of the family hearth, foundations and traditions of the family. The whole of her time, and thoughts, and her heart completely belonged to her dearest people – her husband and children.

In January of 1984, when Mikhail Aleksandrovich was in Moscow hospital, he remembered the important date, the sixtieth anniversary of their married life. On the 11^th of January he presented his Marusya a bouquet of roses. A month later Mikhail Alexandrovich was gone…

Having been left without her husband, Mariya Petrovna kept a tight hold upon herself, but as the children recollect, she was quietly going out like a candle”. She still remained the centre of the family, taking care of each of the children, grandchildren and great- grandchildren, was considerate to all around her and tried to help everyone.

When she was told about her merits in the life of her husband – writer, she noted: “Well, what is my merit?... We simply understood each other. Where he could write better, there we are to live. He said once: “How good it is, Marusya, that we are alike”.

The Sholokhovs had lived 60 years together. They raised four children: Svetlana (1926), Alexander (1930-1990), Mikhail (1935) and Mariya (1938).

Mariya Petrovna outlived her husband for 8 years. She deceased on January, 20, 1992, and was buried next to the tomb of Mikhail Aleksandrovich.

N. Kirsanova
V. Leonova