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Letters to M.A.Sholokhov about Filming “The Quiet Don”

The Year of Russian Cinema is over. Many interesting and important events were dedicated to it, and it is clear now that the theme of cinematography achievements important for our society will remain popular in future.

Of great interest are the materials connected with filming the works by M.A.Sholokhov (19 in total). Thousands of letters to the writer about the films are kept in the collection stores of the Museum-Reserve.

Thus, in June 1955, M.A.Sholokhov received a letter from A. Kalashnikov, director of the M.Gorky Film Studio, reading that “…the film studio is going to start a serious and responsible creative work – making a big two-part feature film after your novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”. The filming is entrusted to S.A.Gerasimov. We would like you to write a screenplay for the film. If you do not plan working over the screenplay, please, let us know about your consent to filming your works, so as S.Gerasimov, the film director, could fulfill the work over the literary screenplay under your kindly consultation.”

A year later, in June 1956, a director’s screenplay by S.Gerasimov on the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don” was sent from the film studio for reading (we learn about it from the letter of Britikov, Director of the M.Gorky Film Studio, to M.A.Sholokhov). The writer approved the screenplay. In August 1956, the filming began. It was joined by nearly 200 personages, the cast was magnificent. Besides the professionals that starred there were many crowd scenes.

Among the letters of the collection there is one written to Sholokhov just from the film set. The author of the letter, G.A.Popova, “a Cossack woman of Stanitsa Migulinskaya, who grew all her life in the Don country”, writes: “…At present I live in Kamensk and take part in the crowd scenes on your epopee “The Quiet Don” by Gerasimov and Rapoport (the film director and cameraman, respectively) at the M.Gorky Moscow Film Studio.”

G.A.Popova does not fully agree with the filming: “… Here I can give an example: in the scene of a fight at the mill, the women are dressed hit or miss wearing Tambov, Ryazan or Moldavian clothes. Can’t our Cossack women have been dressed in this way in 1914?

Another scene is meeting Cossacks in Vyoshki. In the crowd scenes only aged women were taken, about 16 of them, dressed atypically for Cossack women, unattractively and in a modern way. And the horsemen, Cossacks. It caught my

eye, that no Cossack had a whip, only one of them had a long switch in his hand. Is that a warrior? It angers me deeply. They set battle scenes so niggardly, that I feel painful and sad for the Don, for your epic novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”…”

And then: “I would very much like you to visit us in Kamensk and see the filming. After all, this three-part film will be shown to the wide world. I may misunderstand you, but I worry a lot about your work “And Quiet Flows the Don” and about all Cossacks of the Don.” The letter is dated 5 December, 1956.

After the film was shown, from October 1957, letters started coming to Vyoshenskaya, to Sholokhov, from the viewers of our country.

T.G.Chernykh from Verkhny Studenets Village, the Lipetsk Region, in her letter of 23 January shares her impressions with M.A.Sholokhov about the film: “Yesterday, January 22, 1958, we saw the film “The Quiet Don” part one. Usually we have here only a single cinema session, because mostly young people go to the cinema. When we learned that the film “The Quiet Don” was brought, there was an unusual excitement. The crowd of people who gathered near the village club at 6 o’clock was so great, that even two sessions were not enough for them to see the film. Today, on January 23, the third session is shown, what was quite unusual in our village. Even old illiterate women came to the cinema. I heard their whoops: “That is good! Now we like it!” They were ready to sit up all the night to see the second and the third parts.

This morning they were all very excited. The people discussed the film at school, in the village council, in the shop. Everywhere, wherever you go, the talk, excitement, discussions are the same. All are unanimous about Grigory. He is considered to be good, strong and superordinary by nature. But the female images caused different opinions: some took the side of Natalya, others took the side of Aksinya. Certainly, I am in love with Aksinya. Natalya is also strong-willed, but on the other hand, I feel sorry about her. But we also sympathize with Stepan, when he entered his house abandoned by Aksinya, who had joined Grigory to leave for the Listnitsky’s place. To my mind, Aksinya embodies a beauty of feeling. She excites me very much.

Excuse me, please, Mikhail Alexandrovich, for bothering you, but I can’t be silent. I can’t work today and I think I should write to you. It is wonderful, how you could experience the life in all its diversity in order to create such a thing.

On behalf of all the folks of Studenets I wish you long life and endless fruitful work!’

A.N.Reshetov from Kislovodsk writes to M.A.Sholokhov on November 3, 1964, about the events of the Civil War in the Don region as described in the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”.

“Dear Mikhail Alexandrovich! I cordially congratulate you and your family on the 47th anniversary of Great October! I wish you health, good mood, long years of happy life and peace to the world. Let your pen be always active and give us, your readers and admirers, a pleasure of new wonderful works for the glory of our beloved Motherland.

A few words about myself. I am, as you may know, a former chairman of the regimental revolutionary committee and assistant commander of the 27th Don Cossack regiment of the 1st Northern Revolutionary Cossack detachment of the Donrevkom Forces. I am a comrade-in-arms of the Don heroes Fyodor Podtyolkov and Mikhail Krivoshlykov in the fight against Kaledin government for establishment of the Soviet power in the Don region. Much attention was paid by you, Mikhail Alexandrovich, to this famous regiment in the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”.

The second part of the film “The Quiet Don”, evidently, under your support, shows the defeat of the large punitive officer detachment of Colonel Chernetsov near Stanitsa Glubokaya in January 1918, where heroic actions of the Red Cossacks of the 27th regiment played their crucial role. Regiment Commander V.I.Sedov and I commanded in that fierce battle against Chernetsov’s chasteners, but, unfortunately, we were not shown in the film, as our names, except for Golubov, are not mentioned in the novel. I do not claim it though being an active participant and a living witness of those terrible events in the Don region which you so truthfully and vividly described in the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”.

You quite truthfully displayed the combat operations of the 27th regiment and the behaviour of eccentric Golubov, who commanded the detachment in our storming Novocherkassk of February 25, as a stronghold of the Don and Russian counterrevolutionary government headed by General Nazarov, who commanded replacing Kaledin.

A lot more can be said, but this is quite enough to ensure the reliability of these historical facts. That is why your name, Mikhail Alexandrovich, is widely known in the world as a creator of the remarkable immortal work “And Quiet Flows the Don”, which is especially dear for me. Everything you have written and write, or you are written about in the Soviet Union, is the subject of my fascinating

reading and collecting in my home archives to share sometimes with my friends and comrades…”

The novel “And Quiet Flows the Don” by M.A.Sholokhov is the most outstanding epic work of the XX century, and that is why it was filmed four times: beginning with the first silent film of 1930 and ending with the TV version of 2015.

Lyudmila Afanasyeva

The article is prepared under financial support of the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Fund (RHSF). Project No 16-04-00166a