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“Sholokhov Spring”

The All-Russian literary-folklore holiday “Sholokhov Spring” took place in the Upper Don country, on May, 25-27,2012, with the support of the Russian Federation Ministry of Culture. It gathered over two hundred folk groups from different parts of Russia and foreign countries as well as thousands of admirers of the great writer’s literary art, all those who are interested in the life and culture of the Don Cossacks and are fond of the genuine people’s art.

This year the festivity started in Stanitsa Karghinskaya, where the writer spent his childhood and youth and began his literary career. There was held a festival of children arts and crafts.

Next was the children’s literary-folklore holiday of “Vyoshenskiye Vesnushki”, which was dedicated to the 75^th anniversary of the Rostov Region and to the 70^th anniversary of the Upper Don liberation from the German fascist invaders. The interactive program devoted to the significant dates was joined by more than two hundred schoolchildren. A children gala concert took place on the central square. The audience enjoyed the performance of the amateur folk groups. Young reciters performed excerpts from the favourite Sholokhov’s works.

     An artistic and journalistic recital “The  Singer of the Don Country” was held in the Palace of Culture of Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya. The residents and guests of the stanitsa enjoyed the folk dances and songs of the amateur groups from Stanitsa Bokovskaya, Penza, Lugansk ( Ukrain), Alania, the Kalmyk Republic, Rostov-on-Don, Voronezh, Krasnodar and Moscow regions, and others.

Larisa Vasiliyeva, a poetess and prose-writer, who had visited Vyoshenskaya in a group of young writers nearly 45 years before and met with M.Sholokhov, noted: “This meeting was memorable also because it can be called home to my creative life, and up to now it has been a source of strength for my work. Thank you, residents of Vyoshenskaya, for your keeping the memory of your great countryman.

The second day of the holiday began with a colourful parade of the folk groups.

Then a concert began simultaneously at two venues, where the performers from different parts of the Rostov, Volgograd, Voronezh, Moscow, Krasnodar and Stavropol regions, the Kalmyk Republic, Dagestan, North Ossetia, Ukrain and Byelorussia took part.

At the same time a folklore holiday took place in Kruzhilin Village, in the writer’s home country, which was visited by the members of the field meeting of the Commission on the organization of state support and development of the distinctive Cossack culture of the Council under the President of Russia for the Cossacks. The members of the Commission learned about the peculiarities of culture and life of the Upper Don Cossacks in the reconstructed farmstead of the late XIX and early XX centuries. It was a rare opportunity for the guests to plunge into the atmosphere of the old village life described by M.A.Sholokhov in his novel ’The Quiet Don”.

On the central square there were set up stylized Cossack houses from the northern districts of the Rostov Region, the guests were welcomed warmly, treated with delicious dishes of the Don cuisine and entertained with Cossack folk songs and dances. And in the park there was held a picture exhibition, where masters of decorative-applied art exposed their works.

The guests of honour congratulated the residents and guests on the people’s holiday, the birthday of the great counryman, spoke warmly and cordially about the value of the literary art of Mikhail Sholokhov at present. The Deputy Governor of the Rostov Region,S.B.Bondarev, read the greeting of the Presidential Adviser on Culture, V.I.Tolstoy: “Nowadays, the name of Sholokhov is one of the most famous and attractive. And at the beginning of the new, XXI century, he is still one of the truly people’s writers. Sholokhov is rightly called a chronicler of his home land”.

An exhibition of the State A.S.Pushkin Museum from Moscow was opened in the Excursion-Exhibition Centre “The People’s House”. In the Palace of Culture there was held an art exhibition of a sculptor  N.V.Mozhayev, the author of the works devoted to M.A. Sholokhov and the personages of his books.

The day ended in a gala concert at the embankment of the River Don. The singers and dancers performed on the stage set up on the water surface,in the bright program ”The Country of the Quiet Don”,which joined talented actors of different generations and nationalities. The holiday firework was a beautiful and bright chord glorifying the country of Sholokhov. Colourful clusters of fires were falling down on the black water of the Don, where 107 candles were slowly floating in honour of the birthday of the great Russian writer, glorifier of the Don land, chronicler of the XX century, Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov.

The holiday continued with a disco, where young residents and guests entertained themselves far into the night, and songs were heard in the streets till morning. On Sunday morning a horse-racing took place outside the stanitsa, where horsemen from the whole region took part.

During the days of “Sholokhov Spring” the sites of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov were visited by thousands of admirers of the writer’s work. And each visitor learned more about the life and work of the writer, got familiar with the environment in which he lived and worked as a writer, and got warm feelings of the hospitable residents of  Vyoshenskaya.

The holiday brightly impressed all those who visited it. And the Internet users were able to take part in the people’s festivity virtually during the online Webcast of the holiday on the Museum-Reserve website.

Olga Bakhtiyarova