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A.M. Grachov, a Don Cossack, Far East Writer, Is 100

The 100^th  anniversary of Alexander Grachov. our countryman, a well-known Far East writer, is marked on June,22. His books with inscriptions are kept in the collection of the State M.A.Sholokhov Museum-Reserve.

In his youth, Alexander Grachov went to Sholokhov for advice in writing. Mikhail Andriasov writes in his book “True Stories of Vyoshenskaya”: “A thin nondescript boy wearing  homemade shoes plucked up boldness to come up to that author. The young writer having listened to the confused telling of the village lad spoke as if he had known Sanka for long. He supported him, advised him to read a lot, wished him a success”.

Later, having become a writer Alexander Grachov presented his books to his teacher “with love and deepest devotion”. They met in Vyoshenskaya many times, then in 1966, in Khabarovsk, where Sholokhov stayed for short on his way to Japan.

Alexander Matveyevich Grachov was born in 1912, in Merkulovsky Village, Voysko Donskoye Region (now Sholokhov District the Rostov Region). He had four years of village school, then went to school for young peasants in Stanitsa Meshkovskaya. In 1930 he took a course in Novochercassk cavalry school, but in 1932, his state of health caused his discharging from the Army, and he went to build Komsomolsk-on-Amur. There, in the Far East, he became engaged in journalism and writing.

The first book by Alexander Grachov was published in Khabarovsk: in his story “Secrets of Red Lake”(1948) he told about adventures of a group of geologists in the mountains of Sikhote-Alin. Of the same genre were the stories “The Fall of Tisima-Retto” (1956), “Through the March Snow” (1973). In 1965, in Moscow, the novel “The First Wood Cutting” was published, the idea of which had been entertained for many years. It was dedicated to the first builders of Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

The writer was utterly in love with the Far East nature and depicted it on the pages of his natural history books:” The Lodge by the Burukan Rapids” (1962), “Forest Rustles”(1970) and others. The last book “Travelling to the Country of Youth” was published in 1974.

The book “Secrets of Red Lake” (Moscow, Publisher “Molodaya Gvardiya”, 1954) bears an autograph of A.M.Grachov: ”To the great countryman, dear Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov, with love and deepest devotion, from the author, a Cossack of Merkulovsky Village. A.Grachov. Khabarovsk, December, 9, 1954.”

The book”Forest Rustles.A Story about Nature” (Publisher “Mysl”, 1970) bears an inscription:

“Dear Mikhail Alexandrovich!

Let this book remind you of a Don Cossack of Merkulovsky Village, about the man, who “betrayed” the Don-Father to build Komsomolsk-on-Amur from the first post, walk around the taiga and then write a book about this wonderful region.

For good memory about the Ussuri fish soup of 1967, May.

A.Grachov.

Khabarovsk, 20.10.70.”

Galina Govorukhina