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The Second Book of “Virgin Soil Upturned” is 55

In 2014, it is the 55^th anniversary of publication of the second book of the novel by M.A.Sholokhov “Virgin Soil Upturned”, where the writer showed the dramatic character of the events taking place in the Don region in the 1930-s.

After finishing in December of 1939, the fourth book of the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”, in 1940, M.A.Sholokhov focused entirely on the second book of “Virgin Spoil Upturned”. But the work was interrupted by the Great Patriotic War.

Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya was repeatedly subjected to bombing by the fascist air force. On July, 8, 1942, one of the bombs hit the yard of the Sholokhovs. According to the witnesses of those events the writer’s library was taken away from the half-destroyed house. It could have been left in one of the settlements on the way to Stalingrad or was lost in the city during the fighting and fire.

The archives were also lost. Being previously transferred for storage to the district department of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs the archives were kept in the building of this office and according to the writer “were abandoned by the staff…in a hasty flight from Vyoshenskaya”. Besides the manuscripts of “And Quiet Flows the Don” and other works, Stalin’s letters, notebooks, phonological diaries, letters of Russian and foreign writers and other valuable papers the archives contained a draft version of the second book of “Virgin Soil Upturned”.

After the war M.A.Sholokhov had to bring back the lost pages and to create the second book of the novel anew. The chapters of the novel were published in the newspaper “Pravda” and in journals “Oktyabr” and “Neva” from 1954 to 1959.

The novel has gained the world recognition. It was translated into many foreign languages. In 1960, the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned” was awarded the Lenin Prize, which Sholokhov donated for construction of the new school in Stanitsa Karghinskaya, where he studied long ago.

Nataliya Kirsanova
Ekaterina Karbysheva