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The Lines from Sholokhov’s Letters

The State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve carries out a painstaking search and collection of the writer’s letters, manuscripts which are a part of the documentary source in the study of his life and work.

Each new documentary stock entry becomes a real event not only for the museum-workers, but also for the wide public. So, when in December, 2010, we learned about letters and manuscripts of M.A. Sholokhov found in the State Kirov Region archives we immediately applied there for sending us the document copies.

We found out that the archives keep the manuscripts of the chapters of M.A. Sholokhov’s novels “They Fought for Their Country” and “Virgin Soil Upturned” which texts differ from those of the first publications in the newspaper “Pravda” and are of scientific interest for studies in the writer’s art. Sholokhov’s letters of 1942-1947, 1951-1957, his telegrams to D.V. Krupin, D.V. Krupin’s letters of 1953, 1958, to M.A. Sholokhov, letters of Mariya Petrovna Sholokhova to Mariya Gheorghiyevna Krupina of 1943, 1946, and others.

All the documents were found in the private archives of Vasily Gheorghiyevich Plenkov (1896-1979), an area historian, the Member of the USSR Union of Journalists. The letters and telegrams of M.A. Sholokhov and M.P. Sholokhova were obtained by V.G. Plenkov from the Krupins’ family in 1965.

According to the Expert Testing Commission attached to the Kirov Regional Archive Administration the documents were entered into the State Unique Document Register of the Russian Archives Holding.

The Sholokhovs and the Krupins were friend families. Dmitry Vasiliyevich Krupin 1895–1982) originated from the Orshan District the Vyatka Region (now the Mari El Republic), the secretary of the CPSU Central Committee in 1938-1959.

Here are the lines of one of Sholokhov’s letters to Krupin: “Dear Dmitry Vasiliyevich! Thank you very much for everything. Almost all that I brought from you were left in Vyoshenskaya during the bombardment. But all that – let it die. My greatest loss forever is my mother’s perish by a German bomb…” The letter dated July, 15, 1942, a week after the writer’s mother had perished.

Another letter reads:

“Kamyshin. 19. III. 44.

 “Dear Dmitry Vasiliyevich!

…A few days ago I returned from the trip about the Don region. I failed to visit Vyoshenskaya, as the spring had caught me on my way, and the rivers became impassable. I came bask from Stanitsa Kumylzhenskaya. But I had completed “the program” of visiting the other bank of the River Don, the places of the last year battles. (Sirotinsky bridge-head–Kletskaya).

A year has passed since the last shots died down, and everything around remembers the war: the villages are still in ruins, bomb and shell craters have not been overgrown with grass yet, the steppe is pitted all over with trenches, dug-outs, but the time is already affixing “a seal of oblivion” to all these… A broken German tank looks dreadful in the steppe, now wilderness…  The rusty monster has become a refuge for steppe birds.

I got on the tank and found some wool and bones of a field mouse; a kite or a red-footed falcon may have used it as a canteen and observation point…

Our trophy-men are still unable to collect all these chattels, and the broken enemy machines are “used” by birds to their liking. Not only German machines were not evacuated from the steppes. Between Mikhailovka and Levin Village I saw two our tanks looking in order. No battles were there, but one of our tank army moved towards the Don and those two tanks were left there, perhaps because of their engine disrepair. I think it is time to make use of them, but they are still standing on the road waiting for their masters… I remember what an awful labour it was, under enemy fire, for our evacuators to draw the broken, distorted machines out of the battlefield, and now I feel sad seeing such negligence. We economize with one hand and criminally waste with the other.

A country life is very hard now.

A sowing company is coming, but the main field is intended for millet growing. You know how whimsical this culture is, and the people are not quite sure of getting the harvest. And wheat situation is poor. Well, I’ll tell you everything about it when we meet. The figures are very interesting and they will be quite clear for yon, an experienced agriculturalist…

… In April, I am going to send you and the publisher another portion of my work. Now, I have written to you and feel as if I had visited you and had had your fine tea with lemon…

With best wishes of health. Give our best regards and wishes to Mariya Gheorghiyevna, Tamara and Vovka.

Tear off a sheet from your notebook and write some lines, that you are safe and sound, and greet Sholokhov. Something like that, though in brief; I’ll be glad even to that.

Yours sincerely. M. Sholokhov”.

And here is a mark in blue pencil: “Kamyshin, Stalingr. Naberezhnaya, 74”.

There are very few Sholokhov’s war time letters left, that is why the unique Kirov find is utterly important for the study in the writer’s art in the years of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

Lyudmila Afanasiyeva