Museum Collection
A Letter of D.K.Makeyenko to Sholokhov
A letter of D.K.Makeyenko, March, 2, 1944. Military Mail 03425
Dear comrade Sholokhov!
One of your enthusiastic readers, a Red Army lieutenant, is writing to you. When I read the first passages of your novel “They Fought for Their Country”, I was even dazzled – so great it was!
That is the life! That is the realism! I read the passages to my soldiers. I often read aloud, but I have never met such an attentive audience and such an enthusiastic silence. Since then, “They Fought for Their Country” has become our favourite thing, which we read and reread countless times. We have these cuttings stuck in a notebook, which I always keep in my field bag. Recently we have added the last published chapters. But however carefully I took care of the notebook, the newspaper cuttings have been worn out and wiped with the time. Withal, we haven’t got the last chapter of those published in the autumn and we can’t find it anywhere.
We were told that a separate book with these passages was issued, but under our condition we can’t get it anywhere.
Dear comrade Sholokhov! Complying with the request of my soldiers I appeal to you: could you, please, send us at least one copy of this book. We ask you kindly. And we’ve got one more request. We would like Petka Lopakhin, our favourite personage, to get through the whole war and remain alive. We would like Berlin to see him and the whole world to wonder at a simple and great Russian soldier, Pyotr Lopakhin. We are looking forward to the publication of the novel “They Fought for Their Country”. I am sorry to be immodest, but my boys send in advance their congratulations to you for awarding the first Stalin Prize of 1944 for this book.
We apologize for the trouble, but in case you can’t answer and meet the request, then, please, ask someone else who can do this.
With the warmest regards!
Lieutenant Makeyenko D.
Our address:
Military Mail 03425
Makeyenko Donat Kazimirovich
March, 2 1944.”
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