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The Results of the Two International Sholokhov Contests

The National M.A.Sholokhov Museum-Reserve jointly with the Department of Russian Literature of the Moscow City Pedagogical University during March 1–31, 2019, held the V International contest of school essays on the works of M.A.Sholokhov and the III International contest of methodical works of the teachers.

This time the essay topics offered were significantly more difficult. One of them suggested consideration of the role of using gradation technique in the works of the writer, another one was related to theatrical interpretations of the texts by M.A.Sholokhov. Each topic was developed in the interesting, original papers.

Deliberately the most difficult was the topic referring the teacher and the student to the recent scientific publication of the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”; none of the contestants decided to develop it. Nevertheless, its inclusion, perhaps, was not unhelpful, as it focused on the results of the work of textologists and researchers, who “cleared” the novel of the accretions caused by the reasons extraneous to the author’s will. The example of using this unique scientific edition for the secondary school will be given in the journal “Mir Sholokhova”.

Besides increasing the complexity of the topics offered, the most important issue of the contest was the fight against plagiarism. The efforts made were generally successful: no plagiarism was found in any of the works submitted.

The number of the essays submitted, now really creative, have begun gradually growing again. The organizing committee received 32 essays from several regions of Russia (Moscow, the regions of Moscow, Volgograd, Voronezh, Rostov, Chuvashia), Kazakhstan, Belarus.

It is gratifying that the organizing committee can rely upon the like-minded people – participants of the contests. Among them there is Margarita Eduardovna Pavlyuk, a teacher of the Russian language and literature of the Daryinskoye Village secondary school (the Republic of Kazakhstan), Alina Igorevna Murzina, a guide of the Memorial Museum of M.A.Sholokhov (Daryinskoye Village, the Republic of Kazakhstan), Yekaterina Vladimirovna Tsomaya, a teacher of the Russian language and literature of the Orlov secondary school of the Azov District the Rostov Region, Galina Nikolayevna Usachova, a teacher of the Russian language and literature of the Oblivskaya secondary school of the Rostov Region, and others.

The contest is joined by the students of the secondary special educational institutions, who traditionally show high grades (A.S.Ugbasova, the Volgograd Region, L.S.Erzhigit, the Republic of Kazakhstan, and others).

The contest once again showed a live interest of schoolchildren and their teachers for the work of M.A.Sholokhov, underlined the great artistic level and pedagogical potential of his works.

The methodical works of the teachers were also informative, and some of them will be published in the journal “Mir Sholokhova”.

Sergey Vasilyev