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The First Publication of the Story “The Fate of a Man” Is 55

The story “The Fate of a Man” by M.A. Sholokhov was first published 55 years ago in the newspaper “Pravda” in the last issue of 1956 and in the first issue of 1957. Till now the story arouses reader’s excitement.

The story is a confession of an ordinary Russian man about his life, joy, suffering and a great steadfastness, about grief and losses brought to the people by the war.

The story was based on the narration of an unknown driver to Sholokhov at the ferry across the overflown  River Yelanka. On coming home the writer said to his wife: “I will make a fine story… The most interesting fate…”

However it took years to realize the story as a complete work of art. The conception being framed for a long time though, the story was written within a few days.

The protagonist, Andrey Sokolov, experienced a severe wound, captivity, loss of his family. Man would seem to be unable to withstand the severe test befallen him, but he found strength in himself to live on. To live for the sake of the boy he met, who became close to his heart. The war took everything from Vanya too: his house was burned out, his mother was killed by a bomb, his father perished at the front. And Sokolov, being unable to recover his own mutilated life, gave the child hope and belief in the future saying that he was his real father, who was considered perished.

And only his eyes betrayed a ceaseless pain of a soldier: “Have yon ever seen eyes as if ash powdered, filled with such a deep deadly sorrow, that it is hard to look into them?”

“The Fate of a Man” is not simply the fate of the soldier Andrey Sokolov. It is a story about the life of a man having a typical war time destiny. The epopee of a person embraces the essence and spirit of the great exploit of all the people. The writer related to the world the severe truth about the enormous cost that the Soviet people had paid for the right of the humanity for their future.

The short story was issued by the publishing houses of “Molodaya Gvardiya”, “Pravda”, “Voenizdat”, “Goslitizdat” as well as was broadcasted over the All-Union Radio.

The writer E.N. Permitin recollected: “…I was lucky to follow the success of the story “The Fate of a Man”, when I stayed in Vyoshenskaya with the Sholokhovs. On the days the story was broadcasted the table was piled up with letters. They were written by the people who had already survived the horrors of the fascist captivity, by the families of perished soldiers, working people, collective-farmers, teachers, scientists, Soviet and foreign writers, such as Hernest Hemingway, Erich Remark, many reporters. Every other day the flow of letters had increased. It was impossible for the writer and his people to answer even a hundredth part of them”.

In 1959 the film director S. Bondarchuk shot the film “The Fate of a Man”.

Galina Smirnova