A Letter from A.I.Fridkin to “Voenizdat” Publisher
A letter from A.I.Fridkin to “Voenizdat” Publisher, September, 30, 1943.
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Enjoying the Holiday “Sholokhov Spring – 2011”
30.05.2011Over 35 thousand people gathered for the All-Russian literary folklore holiday “Sholokhov Spring” held on May, 27-29, in the writer’s home country.
The festive events began on Friday morning in Stanitsa Karghinskaya, then the holiday moved to Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya, where the young performers gathered for their children’s holiday “Vyoshenskiye Vesnushki”. Folk songs, dances, readings from Sholokhov’s works were the brightest and most impressive moments of the event.
A great attraction was a literary folklore session-party and a concert of folk song and dance groups, which was held in the evening at the House of Culture of Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya. The purport of all the composition was a narration about the most important events in the life of M.A. Sholokhov performed by the actors of the Rostov Academic Drama Theatre named after M. Gorkiy. The audience was greeted by the Rostov Region Minister of Culture A.A. Rezvanov, who said that Sholokhov Country had been visited by over 2,5 mln guests and performers within the whole period of holding “Sholokhov Spring”. This time more than 100 professional and amateur groups came to show their performances to the residents and guests of the Upper Don.
The residents and guests were warmly greeted by the honorary guest from Kazakhstan, a close friend of M.A. Sholokhov, B.Zh. Zhumagaliyev followed by the Ural Cossack A.P. Yalfimov, the member of the Russian Union of Writers, the head of the Cossack People’s Centre “Yaik”.
An hour earlier another noticeable event took place: an exhibition of paintings by the Honoured Artist of Russia V.I. Begma “On the Don Land” was opened in the People’s House of the State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve.
A.M. Sholokhov, director of the Museum-Reserve, joined the exhibition opening ceremony, noted the mastery of the artist, his skills and individual view of nature and man.
V.I. Begma thanked the Museum-Reserve, the audience for the unique opportunity of laying out his works in the stanitsa, which is connected forever with the name of the great author of the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”.
Next morning, on May, 28, a traditional reveille set out along the streets to flood the concert stages and grounds with dances and songs in the centre of the stanitsa.
The holiday in the writer’s home country of Kruzhilin Village was joined by the members of the official delegation. The guests were especially attracted by an old Cossack estate, where everyone can try to participate in agricultural routine works typical for the Cossacks of the XIX-XX centuries.
The centre of Vyoshenskaya was overcrowded with people moving from one concert stage to another, coming up to the food booths and souvenir stalls, joining the attractions and the “Town of Masters”. The whole day the holiday was displayed on-line on the official Museum Internet site.
The improvised Cossack houses welcomed their guests, served them round with traditional dishes, sang and danced entering the contest.
Meanwhile, at the stadium, in commemoration of the 106th anniversary of the writer, a football championship was held between the junior teams of the north districts of the Rostov Region. The team from Kashari scored 3:1 to win.
The official opening ceremony of the holiday took place in the afternoon at the central square. A salutatory address expressing a wish of keeping memory about the great man and great writer was made by S.I. Gorban, the First Deputy Head of the Rostov Region Administration. He said about progressing development of Vyoshenskaya and that the Museum became one of the leading museum-reserves of Russia. According to an agreement between the governor of the region V.Y. Golubev and the head of the Writer’s Union of Russia V.N. Ganichev the Sholokhov Centre is expected to be opened in Moscow.
As well, the holiday opening ceremony was joined by the Deputy Head of the Rostov Region Legislative Meeting N.F. Belyaev, the ataman of the Great Cossack Army, the Deputy of the State Duma V.P. Vodolatskiy, the Deputy Prefect of the South-East Administrative District of Moscow A.S. Naidanov.
Then the official delegation took part in the opening ceremony of the exhibition “Cossacks of Russia are Sentries of the Country” held in the People’s House.
The exhibition displayed interesting rarely exposed objects pertaining to the military history and everyday life of all the eleven Cossack armies of Russia. The exhibits for the layout were presented by the Russian Ethnographic Museum (Saint-Petersburg), the Rostov Regional Museum of Local Studies, the Novocherkassk Museum of the Don Cossack History and the State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve.
The members of the official delegation put flowers to the bust and to the tomb of the writer.
The day ended in a theatrical gala concert on the river bank. Thousands of people came to enjoy the performance of the folk song and dance groups from the Kuban, Moscow, Rostov, Volgograd regions, Ukrain, Kazakhstan, North Osetiya-Alaniya and many other places.
The concert was followed by a magnificent firework and a bright lazer show displaying turning over the pages of a holographic book symbolizing the work of M.A. Sholokhov, above the Don water, with 106 small lights floating down the river.
The final day of the “Sholokhov Spring – 2011”, Sunday, was given to the lovers of equestrian sport competitions.
The racing set out with a show of breaking-in, fancy riding, slashing rods, where the Azov horsemen were the best, though in some events the sportsmen from Rostov and Voronezh regions showed their best as well.
Leaving for home the guests of the “Sholokhov Spring” were brightly impressed with the holiday, and the detailed video records of it will always remind them about this genuine people’s holiday.
Alexey Kochetov