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"To One of the Closest Friends in My Heart in War and Writing ..."

A long and strong friendship connected Mikhail Sholokhov with many Don writers: Alexander Serafimovich, Anatoly Kalinin, Anatoly Sofronov, Pyotr Lebedenko, Vitaly Zakrutkin. 

85 years ago, the first meeting between Mikhail Sholokhov and Vitaly Zakrutkin took place. 

In his book "Azure Color", published in 1965, to the 50th anniversary of Mikhail Sholokhov’s birth, Vitaly Zakrutkin spoke about his first meeting with Sholokhov in the stanitsa Vyoshenskaya, where he arrived with a letter by Alexander Serafimovich: “The three and a half hours, which I spent for the first time in the house of Mikhail Sholokhov, seemed to me a short moment. With rapture I listened to his short stories about hunting, about steppe animals and birds, about fishing, about old and young villagers, his fellow countrymen with their difficult fates". 

Later Mikhail Sholokhov and Vitaly Zakrutkin often met in Rostov, in Moscow, in the stanitsas Vyoshenskaya and Kochetovskaya. During their meetings, no matter what the conversation was about, it wpould invariably turn to the military topic, as the Great Patriotic War left a deep mark on the lives of the both writers. Mikhail Sholokhov closely followed the work of Vitaly Zakrutkin. Vitaly Zakrutkin was from the galaxy of followers of the Sholokhov traditions in Russian literature. 

In the memorial house-museum of Vitaly Zakrutkin there is a book by Mikhail Sholokhov "Virgin Soil Upturned" with a dedication: "To one of my closest friends in war and writing, Vitaly Zakrutkin, whom I love and believe in just as strongly ...". 

In his article "The World of Sholokhov" Vitaly Zakrutkin wrote: "We come to the world of Mikhail Sholokhov, and each of us, being in it, necessarily becomes kinder, cleaner and better."

Natalia Kirsanova
Ekaterina Karbysheva