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First Publications of the Story “Alyoshka’s Heart”

95 years ago, on March 31, 1925, the story "Alyoshka" of Mikhail Sholokhov, subsequently published under the name "Alyoshka’s heart", was first published in the “Journal of Peasant Youth” No.5

In the same year, the story was published in mass circulation as a separate book in the State Publishing House. In 1926, it entered the collection “Don Stories” with a preface by A. Serafimovich (publishing house “Novaya Moskva”), and in 1931 - the collection “Azure Steppe. Don stories. 1923-1926" (publishing house" Moscow Association of Writers").

The story was processed several times by the writer. So, in the original version - in the “Journal of Peasant Youth” - the first two chapters of the story were omitted, the story began with the third chapter, and ended with the scene of the main character being accepted into the ranks of the RKSM at the Komsomol meeting. In a separate edition (1925) and the collection “Don Stories” (1926), the story began from the first chapters, but the ending is different: in the collection - with the death of Aleshka; in a separate edition – with the salvation of the protagonist.

M. Sholokhov actively collaborated with the "Journal of Peasant Youth" (in 1935 it was transformed into the two-weekly "Young Collective Farmer", in 1962 - "Rural Youth"), publishing his early stories in it. In February 1925, the story "The Shepherd" was published in it. Sholokhov handed over the manuscript of this story to the chief editor Nikolai Trishin through Vasily Kudashov. Later in his article “At the source. To the 55th anniversary of M. Sholokhov” N. Trishin writes: “I read the heading “Shepherd” ... The author was struck by the tenacious look of the author, extraordinary imagery and a colorful language ... ".

The writer met the editor in chief a few days later, when Sholokhov went to the editorial office to find out about the fate of the story. Here is what N. Trishin recalls: “It was January 1925. These days I happened to be a witness of how an amazing literary biography of one twenty-year-old “boy from a plow ...” was conceived.”

On November 10, 1925, the magazine published the story “Curved Stitch”, and in 1926 the stories “Kalosha” and “Foal”.

Galina Govorukhina