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“To the Writer of My Heart…”

M.A.Sholokhov received lots of letters from the well-known people – men of letter, figures of science, art and cinema. In the family archives of the writer there is a letter from actor Pyotr Chernov, who acted in the films “The Quiet Don” and “Virgin Soil Upturned”.

“Dear Mikhail Alexandrovich! The Moscow Gorky Artistic Academic Theatre (МХАТ), where I have been working for more than 30 years, marks my 60^th anniversary. The Theatre is going to send you its official invitation.

On December 23, 1977, the Moscow Gorky Artistic Academic Theatre will show “Jupiter Laughs” (on the play by A.Cronin) with me starring. After the performance I may be complimented somehow on this occasion.

So I want to dare to invite you personally. If you or someone from your family happens to be in Moscow on that day, you are welcome to visit us in the Theatre, at this small jubilee. For me it would be the great honour and happiness.

Taking the opportunity I want to tell you that I love your writings with all my heart. Without them my life will likely lack a lot. Your books mean too much to me. They possess your ingenious artistic insight, your Leninist partisanship, your clear national veracity. And your ethics rises to such a height in them!

I am lucky, as an actor, to meet with each of your great works. In the film “Virgin Soil Upturned” I acted the role of Davydov, in “The Quiet Don” I acted as Bunchuk, in the radio show “They Fought for Their Country”– as Streltsov, and, besides, I recorded on the radio my reading of your fine story “The Worm-Hole”. See how I exploit you!

You gave me the main thing in man’s life – creativity. Painful creativity, when you want to master and achieve high art. I cannot judge the results, but all your images were very difficult for me to create. Everything had to be suffered through, and sometimes – to be wept out. But all those pains are happy pains, because they come from creativity and lead to creativity. Thank you for this!

If you allow, I’ll tell you some words about myself. I work…When I get a good role in the theatre or cinema, I work absorbedly and thank my fate for it; when I have nothing, I feel sad and hurt for wasting “gunpowder” and time for nothing.

My profession is beautiful, but, unfortunately, the opportunity of creative work depends on subjective, but not objective circumstances. That is why sometimes I feel sad not only for the reasons of age...

I beg your pardon, dear Mikhail Alexandrovich, for my boldness. But I wanted so much to talk to you privately, like to a friend, on short, – to the writer of my heart!

Sincerely yours. Pyotr Chernov. December 15, 1977.”

The meeting of P.G.Chernov and M.A.Sholokhov took place later, in October 1982, in the hospitable house of the writer in Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya, on the days of the 50^th anniversary of the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned”.

Yelena Popova

The article is prepared under the financial support of the Russian Foundation of Fundamental Research (RFFR). Project No 16-04-00166a.