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On the Results of the III International Contest of School Essays on the Works by M.A.Sholokhov

The results of the III International Contest of School Essays on the Works by M.A.Sholokhov have been summed up. It was organized by the Department of Russian Literature of the Institute of Humanitarian Sciences and the Moscow City Pedagogical University jointly with the National M.A.Sholokhov Museum-Reserve and the all-national scientific educational journal “Mir Sholokhova”.

The contest ran from January 30, to February 28, 2017. It was purposed for attracting students of secondary schools to creative development of the artistic riches of the Russian literary classics, the works of M.A.Sholokhov, one of its outstanding representatives. For the contest details: http://eng.sholokhov.ru/museum/News/2017/n1429/

74 works were submitted to the contest. 61 essays came from 21 regions of the Russian Federation: Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, the Belgorod, Volgograd, Vologda, Kostroma, Moskovskaya, Nizhegorodskaya, Rostov, Smolensk, Tyumen regions; the Altai, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Primorsky territories; the republics of Buryatia, Dagestan, Tatarstan, Chuvash and Yakutia (Sakha). 13 works were received from near and far foreign countries: France, Belarus, the Kazakhstan Republic, the Uzbek Republic, and the Kyrgyz Republic. So, the international status of the contest was not only confirmed, but also consolidated.

Another feature of the contest was a higher quality of the essays and a bigger number of the laureates reaching 34 according to the jury’s decision. All the literate and independent works showing a definitely expressed author’s approach to developing the subject were marked with laureate diplomas.

Another positive result is a smaller number of plagiarized works – incorrect borrowing from the Internet and other sources. This year the jury refused to give contestant certificates to 10 school students who submitted their essays. Such decision was made even towards the authors who borrowed one or two extended phrases from the Internet. These facts show an apparent lack of students’ understanding of the peculiarity of creative work on the art of word and at least a lack of the teachers ‘attention to the pupils’ works of such kind.

In general, the contest showed its viability and a positive quality dynamics of the works submitted. It forms, now not very wide, but already a fairly stable, circle of the like-minded professionals both at schools and universities, and in the museum sphere, and helps to unite all the forces interested in the support for teaching Russian classics in the secondary school.

Sergey Vasilyev