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New Additions to the Museum Collection

In 2012, the Museum collection stock increased by 972 museum objects including 197 of those added to the documentary collection, 155 – to the ware collection, 99 – to the “Fine Art Collection”, 190 – to the book collection, 331 – to the photo-film-audio collection.

The main line of the acquisition is memorial things connected with the life and work of M.A.Sholokhov. The Museum collection stock is added from different sources: from the relatives of M.A.Sholokhov, from private collections, from antique stores, from the residents of the stanitsa and nearby villages. The acquisition is made through purchases, donations and gifts. In the previous year, 358 museum objects were purchased, 614 objects were donated to the Museum.

Invaluable contribution into the Museum collection was made by the writer’s relatives: they donated the manuscript of the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned”, a “Parker” fountain-pen, the things presented to M.A.Sholokhov and bought by the writer and his family members in foreign countries.

The pearl of the memorial collection is the manuscript of the novel by M.A.Sholokhov “Virgin Soil Upturned” (book 2, chapters 10, 13), which is of great cultural value, as it allows to judge about the working process of the writer over the texts of his books.

Among the materials donated by the relatives there are letters and greetings sent to M.A.Sholokhov: a salutatory address of L.I.Brezhnev with congratulations for Mikhail Alexandrovich on the Nobel Prize award, a letter of E.G.Levitskaya (1955), a letter of D.S.Likhachov (1962), letters of response from the veterans of the Great Patriotic war about the writer’s works, letters of confession from the people of different nationalities and age.

The sculpture collection includes a plaster bust of M.A.Sholokhov by the great Soviet sculptor, People’s Artist of the RSFSR, E.V.Vuchetich. There exist three busts of M.A.Sholokhov made by Eugeny Viktorovich of plaster, marble and bronze. All the three versions are the living model replicas made by the sculptor in clay, in 1958, when M.A.Sholokhov visited Rostov-on-Don.

A very important acquisition of 45 analogues of the writer’s prewar book collection, which are of cultural and historical value, was made at the antiquarian-used book market. Among them are rare editions of collected works by I.A.Bunin (1915), V.G.Korolenko (1914), F.I. Tyutchev (1913, A.F.Marx publisher), omnibus edition of L.N.Tolstoy (1912, I.D.Sytin Publishing Company); editions from the series “The World Literature Treasures”, “Russian Literature” (ACADEMIA Publisher, 1931–1935) and others. The elder daughter of the writer, S.M.Sholokhova, remembered that in 1935 Mikhail Alexandrovich brought from Paris a book of poetry by an emigrant poet A.P.Shpolyansky (Don Aminado) “Donning the Cloak” (1928). Sholokhov knew much of his poetry by heart. Exactly the same rare edition was purchased to recreate the book collection of M.A.Sholokhov.

Every object entering into the Museum stock has its unique history and way to the museum collection. Most of them will take their rightful place in the exhibitions and expositions of the Museum.

Nataliya Tishchenko