News

News

“He Liked to Do Good to People”

On December 13, it is the 110th anniversary of Evgheny Mikhailovich Sholokhov, a cousin of M.A.Sholokhov. Evgheny Mikhailovich was near and dear to the writer from his childhood and during his lifetime.

E.M.Sholokhov was born in 1906, in Karghin Village of Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya the Donetsk District of the Voisko Donskoye Region (now Stanitsa Karghinskaya of the Bokovsky District the Rostov Region). Evgheny spent his young years in the Don region. He was a member of the Vyoshensky District Committee of the Young Communist League. In 1924, he left for Georgia and worked as gardener near Sukhumi. As a member of the district Committee of the Young Communist League he was given a pass to study at the technical school of the Moscow University. However, on meeting in Moscow his old friends, his former coworkers in Vyoshenskaya, who studied in the Moscow military infantry school, he decided to become a military man.

On graduating from the military school in the early 1930s Evgheny Mikhailovich served as company political instructor in Cherepovets. There he met with his future wife, Tamara Vasilyevna. In 1932, their daughter Liya was born. Soon the family moved to Novgorod, where in different garrisons Evgheny passed almost all of his prewar military service.

On his regular vacations E.M.Sholokhov always wanted to visit the Don country at least for a week, to see his cousin Mikhail. They went fishing together, talked much about literature. He was the first to hear “Tales from the Don” read by M.A.Sholokhov. In his family library, Evgheny carefully kept the first editions of the writer’s books with autographs.

Evgheny had an opportunity to attend the shooting of the first film “The Quiet Don”. There, Mikhail introduced him to Emma Tsesarskaya and said she was the very Aksinya he imagined.

When the Great Patriotic War broke out, E.M.Sholokhov was appointed Commissar of the 502th regiment of the 177th Infantry Division. On July 19, 1941, he was badly wounded and died. The soldiers remembered Commissar Sholokhov to be the soul and conscience of the regiment, he was loved and respected for his bravery, heartiness and fair demands.

The death of his cousin was a shock for M.A.Sholokhov. He said: “It was a good, a very decent man. He liked to do good to people. Like millions of Soviet

people he gave his life for our Motherland, and this always deserves a good memory of the people.”

Nataliya Kirsanova