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New Entries into the Museum Collection

The Museum collection is regularly enlarged with new museum pieces. In 2011 the collection fund was enlarged for 996 pieces, and within the first two months of 2012 it was joined by 141 museum pieces.

The documentary holding was joined by 64 pieces, which enlarged the basic collection groups of the holding – manuscripts, documents.

The most valuable entry is the manuscripts of the works by M.A. Sholokhov “They Fought for Their Country” and “Virgin Soil Upturned”. They show the painstaking work of M.A. Sholokhov over the texts of his books.

The document collection group increased for 26 pieces. The documents include the information earlier unknown about the relatives of the writer’s wife, M.P. Sholokhova, those who communicated with him in the 1930-s.

The entry into the collection “Material Monuments” has numbered 105 pieces. Among them there are personal belongings of the writer and his family (a desk set, table lamp), which joined the memorial collection.

A fresh acquisition of the Museum is a mill equipment of the company “Anton Erlanger and Co” of the early XX century. It will be used for the reconstruction of the mill complex in Stanitsa Karghinskaya, which is the prototype of Mokhov’s mill from the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don” by M.A. Sholokhov. The search for an analogous mill complex equipment was started in 2010, and now the Museum has made a unique purchase.

The “Paleontology” collection has increased for 64 pieces, it includes the fossil relics of plants and animals found in the expeditions about the surroundings of Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya and adjacent upper Don districts.

The collection of arms was enlarged for 31 pieces. It includes rifles and rifle accessories. All the objects are memorial.

The collection “Precious Metals and Precious Stones” includes a wine set (a jug with a cap, two cups, a tray), which was presented to M.A. Sholokhov on his 70^th anniversary by the CPSU Central Committee Secretariate, that is shown by the inscription on the jug body. The jug presented to M.A. Sholokhov is of memorial and historic value, besides, it is a highly artistic article. The set is made of the 916 hall-mark silver in the Leningrad production company “Russkie Samotsveti”, in 1974. The jug and cups are made in the enamel-on-filigree technique.

The collection “Fine Art” has enlarged for 18 pieces. The graphic collection includes the author’s lithography work (11 pieces) by the Honoured artist of the Russian Federation, Member of the Russian Union of Artists, Vladimir Ivanovich Begma, whose works are known in Russia and abroad.

The graphic works from the series “A Smell of Wormwood”, “In the Inmost of the Heart”, “Under a Green Canopy” and others are artistically valuable and provide a complete visualization of Sholokhov’s prose. To create his pictures the artist was inspired by lyric descriptions of nature in the works of Sholokhov.

The original graphic collection also comprises the works of the Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation Igor Vladimirovich Rebrov – the portraits of Alexander Mikhailovich Sholokhov and Anastasiya Danilovna Chernikova (Sholokhova), the parents of M.A. Sholokhov. These portraits were among the first in the series of graphic portraits by Igor Rebrov, enriching the museum collection of portrait graphics.

The book collection has enlarged for 256 pieces: books, journals, booklets, newspapers.

In 2011, the museum workers went on searching for the analogous books like those of the prewar book collection of M.A. Sholokhov. 16 books have been bought at the old book market: V. Bryusov. “Selected Poems”; Sh. Rustaveli. “A Hero in a Tiger Fell”. A Poem; J.B. Molier. “A Complete Collection of Works”; P-O.K. Bomarshe. “Trilogy”; M. Reid. “A Headless Rider”; J. Vernes. “A Mysterious Island”; W. Shakespeare. “A Complete Collection of Works”.

The collection of the gift books with inscriptions to M.A. Sholokhov has enlarged. It was joined by “Dog and Rifle Hunting” with an inscription of E. Permitin: “To Sholokhov, a friend, a brother, a keen hunter, a genius writer. On the day of his fiftieth anniversary. It is the best book in my hunting book collection. I am sure we’ll make a lot more fires in our life. E. Permitin. 24.V.55. Moscow”; “The Great War of 1914-1915 in Images and Pictures” presented to the writer by a journalist V. Drobyshev. The first page bears an inscription: “To Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov with love and respect for his powerful talent and nature. V.D..  August, 1975”.

The book collection “The Works by M.A. Sholokhov in Foreign Languages” was enlarged with the works published in Spain, Poland.

As always, the acquisition of monographs and collected papers by Sholokhov scholars, contemporary editions of the works by M.A. Sholokhov still goes on.

520 photographs and negatives entered into the collection of the “Photo-Film-Audio Sources”. The pictures show M.A. Sholokhov and the statesmen, Party figures, representatives of literature and art, his relatives, friends, acquaintances, the meetings of M.A. Sholokhov with young people, a trip to Kazakhstan, a visit of Y.A. Gagarin and young men of letters, Swedish newsmen and others to Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya.

The collection group “Film and Theatrical Performances after M.A. Sholokhov’s works” includes pictures from the shooting sites of the film “The Quiet Don” of 1956.

The Museum collection is made up by various methods and ways. The cultural values are acquired through gifts, presents and donations.

The family and relatives of M.A. Sholokhov greatly contributed to enlarging the memorial collection of unique valuable things: manuscripts, the writer’s personal belongings, presents, as well as the things belonged to his family and relatives.

The museum-workers are in search for the objects while going on historic and everyday-life expeditions, discovering monuments of history and culture in their location sites, when working in the archives, studying the propositions of the old book market.

Nataliya Tishchenko