Fedor Kryukov is a forbidden classic. Literary and historical notes of a young technician There is no filial succession in Russia

It turns out that on February 14, 2010, Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov, the same writer who was called the real author of “Quiet Don”, turned 140 years old.

The dispute over the authorship of “Quiet Don” continues. Fedor Kryukov is 140 years old. When will we read it?

In the last century they said: “For 70 years, the Soviet government has not been able to forgive Gumilyov for shooting him.”

But Gumilyov was read before the Soviet regime, and during, and after.

And this one is to blame. Let Gorky, Korolenko and Serafimovich read his prose, let his contemporaries call him “the Homer of the Cossacks”... He published most often under pseudonyms (Gordeev, Berezin, etc.) in the populist magazine “Russian Wealth”. There he served as Korolenko’s co-editor in the prose department. And all the time I took on some narrow, regional topics... No fame, no profit. And who, after 1905, wanted to read about the life of the Don Cossacks, if throughout Russia the very word “Cossack” was associated only with the whistle of a whip?

The lie of the Soviet myth: Kryukov is a third-rate writer.

Yes, open his first story “Gulebshchiki” (the author is 22 years old)…

Don speech has never sounded so bewitching.

...All I hear is: “Kryukov... Which Cossack officer is this? Leave it alone!..”

Since we are talking about a little-known writer, let’s touch on his biography.

Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky district of the Don Army Region. He is the son of a Cossack grain farmer. Mother is a Don noblewoman. The family has three children. (In 1918, the younger brother, who served as a forester, was removed from the train and torn to pieces by the Red Guards for appearing intelligent.)

He walked out of the Ust-Medveditsk gymnasium with a silver medal.

In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute (an institution with such requirements for students that even Alexander Blok, the son of a law professor and grandson of the rector of St. Petersburg University, had a hard time here). And he taught for thirteen years in Orel and Nizhny Novgorod.

In 1906 - deputy from the Don Army in the First State Duma.

There on June 13 he gives a speech against the use of Cossacks in punitive actions of the government. Since then, a certain Ulyanov (who is Lenin) has been very closely following the dangerous populist, his peer.

On Tolstoy’s eightieth birthday, Lenin’s article “Leo Tolstoy as a Mirror of the Russian Revolution” appeared in issue No. 35 of the Bolshevik newspaper Proletary (September 1908):

“Most of the peasantry cried and prayed, reasoned and dreamed, wrote petitions and sent “intercessors” - quite in the spirit of Leo Nikolaich Tolstoy! And, as always happens in such cases, Tolstoy’s abstinence from politics, Tolstoy’s renunciation of politics, the lack of interest in it and understanding of it, made it so that a minority followed the conscious and revolutionary proletariat, while the majority was the prey of those unprincipled, lackey, bourgeois intellectuals , who, under the name of cadets, ran from the Trudovik meeting to Stolypin’s front hall, begged, bargained, reconciled, promised to reconcile - until they were driven out with the kick of a soldier’s boot.”

All this is primarily about Kryukov, who was the first to raise his voice in defense of the Cossacks.

But back in 1906, in the article “Pyvishness in a Revolutionary Environment,” Kryukov was exposed as a dummy politician whose efforts to liberate the working people were laughable. And in 1913, in another article (“What is happening in populism and what is happening in the countryside?”), the future leader generously quotes Kryukov’s essay “Without Fire.” In fact, Lenin views its author as a new “mirror of the Russian revolution,” although he refrained from using this label, apparently not wanting to put the Don author on a par with a classic and thus add points to the “unauthoritative politician.”

In the same 1913, Kryukov polemicized with Lenin in “Quiet Don”. He tacitly agrees with the role assigned to him as a new “mirror,” but shows that the mover of the revolution is the people in power themselves, their selfishness, stupidity and mediocrity. And also Lenin’s supporters, zombified radicals like Shtokman, who do not know or understand either the Cossack or peasant Russian way of life, but whose goal is to destroy the entire people’s life, along with the good and the bad, to destroy everything - to the ground.

Kryukov answers him in a novel about the Cossacks, which he has been working on since the early 1910s.

This Kryukov polemic with Lenin was not seen, because the novel was not finished. Meanwhile, she has been in plain sight for 80 years, in “Quiet Don”.

In the second part of the novel, the merchant Mokhov reads the June volume of Russian Wealth. His son comes to him. And he denounces the employee Davydka.

“The roller, fired from the mill, spent whole nights sitting with Valet in the adobe delivery shop, and he, sparkling with evil eyes, said:

Noooo, sha-li-ish! They'll soon have their veins cut! For them, one revolution is not enough...” (TD: 2, III, 135).

This is the end of the chapter. And in the first lines of the next one appears the “stranger” Shtokman. The one that will lay the “larva of discontent”, and from it “in four years this strong and living embryo will emerge from the decrepit walls of the larva.”

October 25, 1917 minus four years and gives the end of October 1913. (Shtokman will arrive in Tatarsky on October 27).

The merchant Mokhov reads in the sixth book of “Russian Wealth” for 1913 the end of Kryukov’s Don essays, published under the general title “In the Depths. (Essays from the life of a remote corner).” He reads about another merchant who lives on the Don several miles from Mokhov and, like Mokhov, is leading the country straight into revolution.

At the same time, Mokhov’s thoughts are occupied with what will happen to Russia and his own business (in February 1917, he will go to General Listnitsky to seek answers to these questions).
Mokhov reads to himself, but the mirror system does not work.

Chasing Davydka away for an innocent joke, he himself raises a “living embryo.”

Such is the eternal debate on the familiar topic “who is to blame?” Only Kryukov needs it to be better for people, while Ulyanov needs it to be worse. (And he already knows what to do.)

Kryukov went to World War I as an orderly.

His opponent is still bored in Switzerland.

On Taganka in the “Library-Foundation of Russian Abroad” I look through the archive of Fyodor Kryukov and among the drafts of the front-line essay “Group B.” (1916) I come across a strange entry. It was made on the right page of a double sheet taken from a “memory book” (in our opinion, a notebook).

The book itself has apparently been lost.

At first glance at this piece of paper, it may seem that the text imprinted on it is worthy of the monumental, albeit very boring marginalia “nrzb.”: the width of the lowercase letters is almost microscopic - about 1 mm, a good half of the letters are indistinguishable from each other. It will be possible to decipher with the help of Natalia Vvedenskaya (and in two cases, TV journalist Viktor Pravdyuk and philologist from Nalchik Lyudmila Vorokova helped):

June 10th. We were walking at five o'clock. There were long shadows in the garden, the sun was not hot, the Neva brought smoke and welcome freshness. A criminal with a short beard and a gray face was stirring up the mown grass - it smelled like it was drying out. I saved one small penny. And where it flutters, the luminous fluff of buzluchki, or dandelions, rises - like see-through, small flies - swirls, curls, climbs into your face. A small butterfly flutters its wings and is all seedy; and everything smells of hay and the moisture of rain - meadow, sand. The soldier-sentry dreams, leaning on the barrel, the guards dream, looking with an unseeing gaze in front of them, the criminal and political ones dream. With their heads down, their hands behind them or in their pockets, everyone is thinking about something of their own... What? And it’s strange that we’re circling like this on these slippery stones, polished by prisoner’s feet, and not coming together in a circle, not singing a common song; and we would listen to her evening freshness and sensitivity, and our - albeit prisoner - songs would be touching, and the heart would immediately gain a lot, and I would feel in my lungs an ascent to the hearts of people - and community, and hope, and unity... Some kind of touching our snares and prison poetry... Now I understand “Glorious lake, bright Baikal...” and I’m ready to cry about this mountain longing for freedom, for a lost world...

The last word is written with an “i” - this, like Tolstoy, is about a world that is not the absence of war, but human community.

Before us is a page from a prison diary. Kryukov was imprisoned in Kresty in 1909 for signing the “Vyborg Appeal” - a call for civil disobedience (this is when the Tsar dissolved the First Duma).

The writer returns home, but by the decision of the Don Ataman he was sent into exile, unprecedented in Rus'. From the Don Army Region they were exiled to St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, however, they tried him. And therefore, three years later - a loner in “Kresty”. For three months.

And then he, a state councilor, worked for several years on Vasilyevsky Island at the Mining Institute. Librarian's assistant.

Dreams of “ascending to the hearts of people” will collapse in the spring of 1918.

He ends his essay “In the Corner,” which tells about those days:

“...They searched the bourgeoisie - both small and large - they confiscated, out of inspiration, everything that came to hand, sometimes even children’s toys, and hid in their pockets what was more valuable.<…>

Alexey Danilych, won’t you undertake to cut the wood? - I ask one of my laborer friends.

Once. Appointed to the commission.

Which one?

To the cultural... On the cultural side.

Ahh... that's a good thing.

Nothing: seven rubles daily allowance... has its own pleasantness..."

And this is before the Bolsheviks. Their invasion of the Don is still ahead.

Unlike Gumilyov, who was shot on a fabricated case, Kryukov was really guilty. He was, perhaps, the only one of all the famous Russian intellectuals of that time who really tried to stop the “Bolshevik invasion.” On the Don he was re-elected - now secretary of the Don Parliament. At the same time, he also edits a government newspaper.

Myopic, bookish, in 1918 he picked up a Cossack saber. In the very first battle, the horse under him was killed, and he was shell-shocked. He himself joked: “In my old age I had the opportunity to portray a general on a white horse...”.

Perhaps the most mysterious of all the deaths of Russian writers.

He did not “go among the people” like the older generation of populist intellectuals. He himself was a people. He spoke and thought in the folk language, sang a lot and willingly with the Cossacks, and collected their songs. All six lines of the epigraph to “The Quiet Don” “Our glorious land is not plowed with plows... - are fully quoted by Kryukov even three times.
His younger contemporary recalled:

“When Kryukov was at the height of his literary fame, there were already about a dozen of us students in the village, and we all eagerly and joyfully awaited his arrival for the summer holidays. We knew that our young ladies would laugh at his long, knee-length, blue and black satin shirts and patched pants. My sister in particular pestered him:

And why, F.D., are you all walking around in torn pants, if only you could wear good ones on holidays!

It’s a good idea, A.I., to chase women around the gardens - you’ll tear them anyway, so Masha (sister) won’t give me new pants.”

Cheerful man.

Only his colleagues in the literary workshop remembered his eternally sad eyes.

It is not difficult to explain why this intelligent, gentle man of left-wing convictions, with such sad eyes and such a sense of humor (ranging from something very Nabokovian to a simple Dedod-Shchukarsky one), not only “did not accept Soviet power”, but became with it fight actively. To do this, you just need to read his journalism from 1917-1919. Collection “Collapse. The Troubles of 1917 through the eyes of a Russian writer,” entirely from Kryukov’s articles, was published by the Moscow publishing house AIRO-XXI last year. (My friend and colleague Mikhail Mikheev found in the archive half-decayed files of Don newspapers, printed on wrapping paper, and together with him and a philologist from Nalchik, Lyudmila Vorokova, we prepared that book.)

When the first chapters of “Quiet Flows the Don” appeared in the magazine “October” in 1928, Kryukov’s surviving fans cried out loudly: “Yes, Fyodor Dmitrievich wrote this!” In March 1929, the newspaper Pravda shut their mouths: “... the enemies of the proletarian dictatorship are spreading a vicious slander that Sholokhov’s novel is allegedly plagiarized from someone else’s manuscript.” (Funny saying: slander about what is supposedly... plagiarism!)

In these ten years, those who were no longer screaming, but whispering, will be calmed down in Stalin’s style.

In 1974, in Paris, with a foreword by Solzhenitsyn, Irina Medvedeva-Tomashevskaya’s book “The Streams of the Quiet Don” was published. The book is about how the most famous Soviet novel was written by a fierce enemy of the Soviet regime.

Since the late 1980s, Kryukov began to be published little by little, but, as bibliographer A.A. Hare, ten volumes of his works are scattered throughout the periodicals of the late century before last and the beginning of the last century.

A number of parallels between Kryukov’s prose and “Quiet Don” were revealed by Rostov researcher Marat Mezentsev. Not all of them are convincing. But there were no electronic search engines then.

Oryol journalist Vladimir Samarin recalled how he was once struck by the intonation kinship between Kryukov’s story “The Swell” (1909) and the landscape descriptions of “The Quiet Don”:

“It smelled of sweaty earth and damp cherry smoke. In gray streams it crawled out of the chimneys and stood for a long time in thought over the thatched roofs, then reluctantly went down, quietly spread along the street and wrapped a turquoise veil over the willows at the end of the village. Above, between the disheveled braids of ruddy clouds, the sky was gently blue: the sun was rising.”

He will object: the intonation can coincide by accident.

But dozens of stylistic constructions, plot twists, rare epithets and never recorded sayings, author’s metaphors and dialect words that were not used by any Russian writer before or after Kryukov cannot just “coincide”. (Of course, except for the author of “Quiet Don”).

Stealing a novel from Kryukov was madness: there are a lot of self-quotes in his texts. (Each time the writer tried to improve on his former self.) But who knew in the 1920s that the Internet would appear? And it contains the National Corpus of the Russian Language.

In this collection, the volume of texts by Russian writers has already exceeded 150 million words.
When the Sholokhov manuscripts surfaced in the late 1990s, based on photocopies of several pages, researcher Zeev Bar-Sella suggested that this was not the original, but an illiterate copy of a literate original, also made according to pre-revolutionary spelling.

And in 2006, the Institute of World Literature published Sholokhov’s “drafts” and “white versions” of the novel. And thus he killed the nurtured myth. Because what we have in front of us is not drafts, but typical bullshit.

Sholokhov scholars claim that the classic author provided these manuscripts to the “plagiarism commission” in 1929.

The copyist acted like a poor student at recess: he blew it away without understanding the meaning of what he was copying. And here is the church "like a lion" turned into “like an ilew”, “wheeled moon”(moon) in "spike month". Sholokhovsky "fluffy goat" who is trampling in manure - in fact stewy(fat). “At the house” - “at the Don’s”. “Scepter of colors” - “spectrum of colors” etc.

Why do you need a copy if the text cannot be published?

Then, the original could not be shown. It was with yats, ers, “i”... This can be seen from dozens of incorrect readings.

I can imagine how Fadeev and Serafimovich swore...

The “drafts” fully confirmed the opinion of Academician M. P. Alekseev (1896-1981), who communicated with Sholokhov at the presidiums of the USSR Academy of Sciences: “Sholokhov could not write anything, nothing!” (I know from RAS academician Alexander Lavrov, a student of Alekseev).

However, this was clear even 80 years ago. Physicist Nikita Alekseevich Tolstoy recalled that his father A.N. Tolstoy fled Moscow when he was offered to head the very commission on plagiarism. And at home, to the question “Who wrote “Quiet Flows the Don?”, the only answer was: “Well, of course, not Mishka!”

Now that we have the electronic “National Corpus of the Russian Language” at hand, we can answer for sure: after all, Kryukov.

And Sholokhov scholars can no longer save Sholokhov, and they can no longer impose another author on “Quiet Don”.

Is it conceivable that two different writers would come up with a set of identical epithets for the word “voice”: viscous; octave, damp; farting; urging, etc., if it is known that the first author introduced these constructions into literature, and the second (in his own words) never read the first. And in the interval between the first and second, none of the Russian writers used these epithets in relation to the “voice”.

Hundreds of dialectisms (not only Don, but also Oryol, for example, “to show off” in the meaning of “to admire”) were first revealed in “Quiet Don”.

But it turned out that Kryukov had them much earlier.

At the same time, even Kryukov’s spelling errors are repeated: Ulesh(land share) - he actually lie down. (It’s just that in everyday speech it occurs mainly in the nominative case, and therefore the invariable “sh” sounds at the end.)

The methods of conveying interjections are also repeated:

«- A-and, darling..." ("Cossack") - "- A-and-and, my darling..." (TD: 1, XVIII, 92); "- Wow!.. Said!..” (“To the source of healing”) - “- Wow!.. Said!.. (TD: 2, V, 144); “-...I’m not afraid... what the heck..." ("Officer") - "- Well then, Bolsheviks - Bolsheviks..." (TD: 5, XXVIII, 374).

The graphics that convey expression also coincide:

«- That's it what kind of speaker is here? (“Silence”) - “- That's it it’s possible” (TD: 6, II, 24).; “-...by God, get married ( So! - A.Ch.). I recommend it. Very good!” (“New Days”) - “- Up on your feet? Very good! We’re taking Anna.” - And he narrowed his eyes suggestively: - Do you mind? You dont mind? Yes Yes Yes Yes, very good! (TD: 5, XXVII, 299-300).

Let’s add here several dozen “coincidences” of proverbs, sayings and quotes: fading dawn; “The Cossack works for the bull, the bull for the Cossack”; “We twist the tails of the bulls”; “the glory of the trumpet thunders”; “Our business is veal - eat and go to the nook”; “like peas out of a bag”; “like rain in autumn”; “like rust (rust) iron...”; "kuga green"; “don’t rustle!”; “they cut the heifer with a cucumber” and “the Shatskys are grippy guys”; “legs came together”; “drunk on dirt”; “old clamp” (first time for Kryukov); "horn with horn"; "row next to"; “The word is tin!”; Tatarnik(burdock as a symbol of inflexibility); “This is not lard, it will lump in.”

Dozens of microplots and everyday situations coincide. (But this is too big a topic, and we will not touch on it here).

Even the teasers are the same: tar, daub(about Don Ukrainians). And the same exclamation of admiration “Cat of a bitch!”, and the same curses: “-...Wait, you too will get caught someday! Thief! (“On the Quiet Don”. 1898); "- And you - stranger! Snatched someone else's, robbed..." ("In the corner". 1918) - "- Stranger! B... old! Thief! Stole someone else's harrow!..” (TD: 3, XIII, 273), etc..

They will say: well, it really was a coincidence. So what?.. Sholokhov also lived on the Don.

But “Quiet Don” is filled with Kryukov’s original metaphors. And this can no longer be a coincidence: between the ribs of the cart; cut(in TD - cropped) month; damaged month(due to which the fish does not bite); thoughtful chicken; tenacious povetelya with pink flowers; Bondar horse(i.e. barrel); gray wormwood(before Kryukov, gray hair is only about hair or beard!); headdress like a white burdock; Kalmyk knot; spicy(in TD - predatory) skopchy nose(osprey is a type of hawk); river scales(in TD - waves); a lapwing in a kuga and a song nearby; broad-backed(about a human); swim like an ax; body as good as ever(and not germinating) dough; jumped over the pole of the cart(In TD - carts); eve, the smell of honey and a worn-out dress; bullets are like peas; bullets and projectile like a drill; the face of the earth, pitted with smallpox; sharp back (the spine is visible); reddened(in TD - red-haired) boots; a man's face is like an old boot (So!- A.Ch.) boot (the latest example is the find of the Moscow researcher Savely Rozhkov), etc.

Before Kryukov, no one wrote like this:

"Thick honey smell came from large gold pumpkin flowers from a neighboring garden" (Kryukov. The story "Swell". 1909) - “...from the gardens came the honeyed scent of a blooming pumpkin.” (TD: part 6, LXI, 400).

But the rarest verb is to sing (sing): “- Is it much audible? - she exclaimed in surprise. - Oh you. Lord!.. I, I, in my old age, went to Spasovka make a song she got it in her head!.. It’s all about me, damn her... “Come on, let’s play, relieve the boredom, no one will hear.” What an old fool!.. - And they sang well! - Ermakov responded with sincere admiration.”(Kryukov. “Cossack Woman”. 1896) - “This is not a farewell. The Elanskys play like that. That's how they are are singing. A Great, devils , pull! - Prokhor responded approvingly..."(TD: 7, XIX, 187)

And another unique one:

« untied cunning - Kalmyk -nodes thin rope reins" ( "Spring is red." 1913) - "From this day tied in a Kalmyk knot there is anger between the Melekhovs and Stepan Astakhov.” ( TD: 1, XIV, 70).

«… getting stuck with your feet in severe hummocky arable land» ( "Swell") - “...wagging my legs over the hummocky plowed land”(TD: 3, VII, 296).

Or here's a railway scene:

“The whistle sounded again, and then some iron pans clanged, the carriage shook, dissatisfied, as it seemed to Yegorushka, creaked like an old man, but immediately came to his senses and, hiding his dissatisfaction, laughed with a rattling laugh: prr... frr... prr... frr... The small station with its lights quietly floated back in the warm dusk of a summer night. Yegorushka's father, having taken off his cap, began to cross himself frequently, and for company with him, the priest crossed himself twice, leisurely and earnestly. Meanwhile, at this time, past the carriage the water pump ran quickly, and behind her some small houses with glowing windows. Then outside the windows it became dark, and only the stars blinked over the edge of the earth. And now the carriage itself was running with a rattling knock and saying: oh-ho-ho... oh-ho-ho... so-so... so-so...” ( "To the source of healing").

What are these iron pans? Hint in "Quiet Don":

"After a few minutes the locomotive pulled the carriages, boobs clanged , the hooves of the horses, who had lost their balance from the jolt, began to clatter. Compound swam past the water pump, past rare squares of illuminated windows and dark, behind the canvas, birch clumps” (TD: 4, XV, 142).

And dozens, hundreds of dialectisms that Russian literature did not know before Kryukov. We find more than half of them in Quiet Don. But in the “Big Don Dictionary” there are 18 thousand dialectisms. How could two writers, taking a thousand each, guess almost two-thirds like that?

And here is a set of popular words:

antilerica - antileria; apolets - epaulettes; bishop; bonba; thief; shot(i.e. met); seriously; dokhtur - dokhtor; eroplan; stage - stage; libization - nibilized; Movtobil and neftonobil - antomabil; generally; society; loosen; pattern; jacket; help (help); accept(accept); skrosnoy - skrosz; strama; sobchat - to communicate; instrument; Vatera; fershal; fuligan - to fulgan; chizholy; sixteen.

Another myth: there is little dialectism in Kryukov’s prose, especially in the author’s speech.

American professor German Ermolaev argued that Fyodor Kryukov could not have written “Quiet Flows the Don,” because in the first editions “you can find” cases of incorrect use of the same words. So, “blink” is used in the sense of “flash”: “And he went... flashing his shirt", "Daria, blinking his hem...».

But this is also Kryukov. “...the shadow of his shaggy hat sweeps blinked from the door to the ceiling" ( "Dreams"), "Kirik blinked pitch-black, wide beard..." ( "Warrior").

Here comes F.F. Kuznetsov, having found in the manuscripts of the novel “a predatory drooping nose like a skopchina” (and also a “dragging kite nose”), writes:

“...Here too Sholokhov conducted a painful search for more precise words and more expressive details.<…>Of course, “a droopy kite nose” is much more accurate than a “dangling nose like a skopchina,” especially since it is difficult for a modern reader to understand what this word means. It comes from the dialect: “osprey” is a type of hawk (according to other sources, from the falcon family), that is, it really indicates a “kite” nose.”

Alas, in Kryukov’s earliest story there is such a portrait of a Cossack: “His nose was sharp, “skopchy”, eyebrows are thick and gray, and the eyes are small and yellow” (“Gulebshchiki”). The replacement of “eunuch” with kite was made to separate homonyms and avoid comical ambiguity.

Felix Kuznetsov is right when he refers to Serafimovich, “who rightly argued that “Quiet Don” could only have been written by a person who was born and raised in the Don region.”

On the tenth anniversary of the Great October Revolution, at a banquet at the National Hotel, Serafimovich introduced a modest young man to foreign guests:

My friends! Here's a new novel! Remember the name - “Quiet Don” and the name - Mikhail Sholokhov. Before you is a great writer of the Russian land, whom few people still know. But mark my words. Soon all of Russia will hear his name, and in two or three years the whole world!

How did Kryukov’s novel come to Sholokhov? Much has been written about this, but everything is just a version. There is only no doubt that the matter was arranged by Alexander Serafimovich, a fellow countryman and admirer of Kryukov. According to one of the Don versions, the manuscript was transferred by Kryukov’s sister to Serafimovich. Traces of his acquaintance with the unpublished novel also found their way into Iron Stream (1924). And he goes to work as editor-in-chief of the magazine “October” in order to publish Sholokhov’s novel. (Having typed it, he quits.)

In 1912, he wrote to Kryukov, saying that what he depicts “trembles the living thing, like a fish pulled out of the water, trembles with colors, sounds, movement.”

And with almost the same words, Serafimovich admonished the “Don Stories” of the young genius: “Like a steppe flower, the stories of Comrade Sholokhov stand as a living spot. It’s simple, bright, and you can feel what’s being told, right before your eyes. Figurative language, that colorful language that the Cossacks speak. It’s compressed, and this compression is full of life, tension and truth.”

And there are also notes from front-line writer Joseph Gerasimov (K. Kozhevnikov “Rain on Thursdays”, “Vestnik”, No. 19 (330), 2003). Before the war, he, a first-year student, came with his friend to the room of Serafimovich, who was performing in Sverdlovsk.

He drank milk during the conversation.

A friend, also a student, among other questions, will blurt out:

Is it true that Sholokhov did not write “Quiet Don” himself?.. That he found someone else’s manuscript?”

The master pretended that he had not heard - he reached for a second glass of milk... And when they said goodbye, he threw out a mysterious phrase: “For the sake of honest literature, one can enter into sin.”

“Only later,” wrote Gerasimov, “a belated guess dawned on me: he knew everything about the author of “Quiet Don,” but he lied, believing that it was for the good.”

But he really bowed to Kryukov. And I convinced myself that this was the only way to save the novel.

In his book about Sholokhov F.F. Kuznetsov revealed the secret of the numbers on one of the “drafts” of the Sholokhov manuscript. We are talking about the opening page of the second part of the novel:

“...But the beginning of the first chapter of the second part did not appear on this page. Instead there is a column of numbers written -

X	50 35
	1750
X	80
	140000

This is a calculation well known to every writer: the number of lines on a page - 50, multiplied by the number of printed characters in a line - 35, which gives 1750, then the number of characters on a page - 1750 is multiplied by the number of pages of the first part of the manuscript - 80, which gives 140 thousand printed characters .

Let us congratulate Sholokhov on his glorious discovery: we really have before us the calculation of the “sheet” of the first part of the novel. However, in the manuscript it takes up not 80, but 85 (plus 2 insert pages). There are indeed an average of 50 lines per page, but not 35, but 45-50 characters per line (of course, including spaces between words, as is customary in book publishing).

Sholokhov mechanically copied Kryukov’s idea.

This is actually 35-40 characters in a line of Kryukov’s draft manuscripts (“Bulavinsky rebellion”, “Group B.”). Kryukov’s handwriting was smaller than Sholokhov’s school one. Kryukov left half-page margins. Here he made edits, and here, in parallel with the first draft, he created a different version of the text.

Sholokhov was not embarrassed that the number of pages did not match (87 versus 80), and the number of characters in the line of his forgery was much greater than in the Kryukov manuscripts.

He just didn't understand anything. And, having copied someone else’s draft, he caught himself in the act.

However, he knew how to be frank with his party comrades.

In March 1939, at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the future Nobel laureate spoke about his creative method:

“In the units of the Red Army, under its red banners covered in glory, we will beat the enemy as no one has ever beaten him, and I dare to assure you, comrade delegates of the congress, that we will not throw field bags - we have this Japanese custom, well... not to your face. Let's collect other people's bags... because in our literary economy the contents of these bags will later be useful. Having defeated our enemies, we will also write books about how we defeated these enemies. These books will serve our people...”

Sholokhov kept silent about the fact that it was a bag with a novel by Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov.

To date, more than a thousand parallels between Kryukov’s prose and “Quiet Don” have already been identified. It will be many times more.

Let's repeat after Hamlet:

...After all, atrocities are essentially immortal.
Cover it with earth - they will still rise,
Even if it’s late, they will appear before people.

But not only the atrocities of Ulyanov and the Shtokmans were revealed. Russian speech appeared, of a practically destroyed class. Thanks to Kryukov with his musical and spiritual gift of listening to other people, he preserved it, just as birch bark letters preserved the ancient Novgorod language.

Of course, his prophetic prose will also appear. I will list only my favorites: “Gulebshchiki”, “To the source of healing”, “Comrades”, “Squall”, “Mother”, “Companions”, “Happiness”, “On the azure river”, “The worldly network”, “The Burning Bush” ", "Warrior", "One Soul", "Crawling".

The first story is dated 1892, the last - 1916.

And after the 16th year he did not write stories. Essays only.

Yes, "Quiet Don".

According to the official, but unconfirmed version (evidence - an anonymous telegram sent from somewhere unknown), in the spring of 1920 Kryukov died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, but still having a name and reporting some details, captured and shot by the Reds.

Welcome back, Fedor Dmitrievich!

P.S.A dictionary of parallels between Kryukov’s prose and “Quiet Don” on the writer’s birthday is posted on his website. Here is his “Incomplete Works”:

Fedor Kryukov. Early 20th century

Looking through maps and space images of the Don, you inevitably come to the conclusion that the topographic prototype of the Tatarsky farm is located sixty miles east of Veshenskaya. So, the Khovansky farm, whose very name is a secret bow from the Khovanshchina, the first spark of the Russian bourgeois-democratic revolution and the first attempt to introduce a parliamentary system in Russia. However, it's not about the name. It’s just that this place is identical in reality, proportions, and absolute distances to the one described in the novel. And there is no other one like it on the Don.

Let the attentive reader be convinced of this for himself:

The Khovansky farm is twelve versts from the Ust-Medveditskaya village, to the west along the Hetmansky Way. It is sheltered from the winds from the south by a chalk mountain, and in front of it is a high cliff and a sandy spit (so on the maps!), separated by an erik, a half-overgrown channel from Don to Don. On some maps the spit is depicted as an island, on others as a peninsula.

The left bank is inconvenient: Obdonsky forest, windbreaks, bare cheeks, valleys, sands. Here, just opposite the Melekhovs’ kuren, is what is called Prorva in the novel. This is a rare word that is not even included in the Don dictionaries, but the Dictionary of Russian Folk Dialects knows it (with the mark Don). Prorva - having washed the banks, a place where the river has washed a new channel for itself. Another Don meaning is a hole. Well, in TD this is a dry riverbed leading to the Don from a long and narrow, scimitar-shaped lake. Prorva fills and comes alive only during spring water yes summer showers. Then it purrs and rattles so much that it can be heard from the Melekhovs’ smoking area (which is at least half a mile away).

For Kryukov, Prorva is a native word. This was the name of the river of his childhood, a hard-working river flowing past the Glazunovskaya village: “A narrow river like Prorva with blooming, moldy water, and above the river cherry orchards and gray, brooding willows listen to the wheels groan, the water boils and seethes, and watching the sun catch the splashes, green as fragments of a bottle" [F. D. Kryukov. Dreams // “Russian Wealth”, 1908].

Let's start with the diagram (all pictures are clickable!):

...I posted a post with a geographical link between the Tatarsky farm and the real Khovansky farm. And his interpretation, confirmed by cartographic realities: Khovansky is the prototype of the Melekhovsky farm in the “Quiet Don”. There is simply no other place like this on the Don.

I received a response from St. Petersburg bibliographer Igor Shundalov. He discovered that the scimitar-shaped lake west of Tatarsky, which in the novel is called Tsarev Pond, was called Tsaritsyn Ilmen on the map of 1870 (translated from the Don as Tsaritsyn Lake).

The lake is exactly as described in the novel - two or three miles east of the farmstead, on the very bank of the Don, separated from the river only by a sandy ridge. And, as the centurion Listnitsky reports, it is located half a hundred miles from the station. The station is the Millerovo railway station; it appears more than once in the novel. However, according to this connection, a farm near Veshenskaya Stanitsa would also be suitable.

And here are the coordinates of Tsar’s Pond in the novel:
“Laughing, Gregory saddled the old queen left for the tribe andthrough the barn gates - so that my father would not see - he went out into the steppe. We went toI'll take a job under the mountain. The horses' hooves chomped and chewed the dirt. In a loaner nearbythe horsemen were waiting for them on the dried poplar: the centurion Listnitsky on a leana beautiful mare and about seven farm boys on horseback.
- Where to jump from? - the centurion turned to Mitka, adjusting his pince-nez and
admiring the powerful pectoral muscles of Mitka's stallion.
– From poplar to Tsarev Pond.
-Where is Tsarev Pond? – The centurion squinted myopically.
- And there, your honor, near the forest.
The horses were built. The centurion raised his whip over his head. Shoulder strap on his shoulderswelled up like a lump.
– When I say “three”, let them go! Well? One two Three!
The centurion was the first to rush, falling to the bow, holding his cap with his hand. Hewas a second ahead of the others. Mitka stood up with a confused and pale face.in stirrups - it seemed to Gregory that it took a painfully long time to lower the stallion onto the croup
a whip pulled over your head."

From the poplar and Tsarev Pond - three miles. It was already in the nineteenth, when the anti-Bolshevik uprising began, Kryukov moved the Melekhovsky farm closer to Veshenskaya. And in the first version of the novel, the name Khovansky was speaking for him (1682, the Streltsy rebellion led by Ivan Khovansky, the first attempt to establish a parliament in Rus').

Having described a specific area, but calling it by a different name, the artist hopes for reader recognition and recall of the real name. This happened in this case too. The point is in the name of the farm, which refers to a whole complex of literary and historical memories that are very relevant. But, of course, in the case when the unpronounced name itself is symbolic. This is what happened with Kryukov and the Khovansky farm.

The trace of the transfer of the farm to Veshenskaya was spotted by researcher A.V. Venkov: “Prokhor Zykov (part 6, chapter LIV) moves from Tatarskoye along the Don to the west (upstream) and passes the Rubezhin farmstead, which belongs not to Veshenskaya, but to Elanskaya village, the Vyoshensky yurt begins even higher (to the west). Accordingly, Tatarsky is located even east of Rubezhin and, moreover, does not belong to Vyoshenskaya, but to Elanskaya or even lower - Ust-Khopyorskaya village.”

Well, V.I. Samarin pointed out that the fellow countryman of the main characters, the merchant Mokhov, lives in a village located “not far from the mouth of the Khopr.”

And so it happened.

But the fact that the title came back so clearly: Khovansky is a race race for a loan to Tsarev (!) Pond, in which the nobleman Listnitsky loses to tomorrow’s punisher and executioner Mitka Korshunov.

To be honest, I didn’t even expect this.

I knew that given the total amount of coincidences, there could be no mistake. And I still sit there a little shocked.

By the way, a map of Tsaritsyn Lake from 1870. This year Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born. So the hydronym Tsaritsin Ilmen can be trusted. Another thing is that Kryukov needed Tsarev Pond here. As in the name of the farm, already during the Civil War, the name of the Tatar, an unbending, prickly flower, sung first by Leo Tolstoy and then by Fyodor Kryukov, was needed. In mid-November 1919 he writes:

“And I remember the wonderful image that the great writer of the Russian land found in “Hadji Murad” to depict the vital energy and counterforce of that virgin and deep-rooted human race that had entered into his native land, which amazed and captivated his heart with its selfless devotion - light -Tatar... He stood alone in the middle of a dug-up, furrowed field, black and dull, alone, chopped off, broken, smeared with black earth mud, still sticking up. “It was clear that the whole bush had been run over by a wheel and only then stood up and therefore stood sideways, but still stood - as if they had torn out a piece of his body, turned out his insides, torn off his arm, gouged out his eyes, but he still stood and did not surrender to man who destroyed all his brothers around him”...

I also think of my native Cossacks as an invincible flower-Tatar, who did not clung to the dust and ashes of the roadside in the lifeless expanse of the crucified homeland, who defended their right to a decent life and are now restoring a united Russia, my great fatherland, beautiful and absurd, shamefully annoying and inexpressibly dear and close to the heart."

And here is a Google image of Khovansky and its surroundings:

From the western edge of the farmstead to the “knee” of the Don there are four miles, from the eastern end to the far pond - three (everything is like in the novel). Further on, about two more miles to the huge farm meadow and “Aleshkin’s copse” (an oak forest is marked here on the military map of 1990; the same in the TD), even further east – Krasny Yar and the ford across the Don (historical name – Khovansky climb). From here old man Melekhov crosses himself before mowing to the east, “towards the little white pod of a distant bell tower.” This is the hipped bell tower of the Church of the Resurrection of the Lord (1782), dominating the area, the oldest building on the edge of the Ust-Medveditskaya village (eight versts from the Melekhov meadow). Moreover, from the Melekhovo meadow you can only see the bell tower facing west, which covers the body of the temple.

…On December 15, 2018, I receive an email greeting from the Don from Leonid Biryukov: “Why did old man Melekhov cross himself before mowing to the east “towards the little white pod of a distant bell tower”? Because the residents of the Khovansky farm, Ust-Medveditskaya village, were parishioners of the Resurrection Church of the Ust-Medveditskaya village, Ust-Medveditsk deanery.” GARO. F 226. Op. 3. D. 11739. L. 1–29 vol.

The bell tower of the Resurrection Church above the coastal cliff of the Ust-Medveditskaya village (“little white pod”). Archive photo.

Let us turn to the General Staff two-kilometer race in 1990.

The bell tower (look for the red “+” mark) is perfectly visible from the Khovansky climb (the mark is the red letter “X”), because the difference in height between the right and left banks is quite large.

* * *
It so happened that the sequence of the first chapters of the first part of the novel (from the second to the eighth) turned out to be inverted: neither the editor Serafimovich nor the young plagiarist appointed as the author were able to correctly restore the author's architecture of the text.

Similar errors of clumsy, violent editing were found in other parts of the novel; for this see, in particular, in the publications of Alexei Neklyudov: http://tikhij-don.narod.ru

How this could happen is an idle question.

The incomplete “manuscript” of the novel (“drafts” and “beloviki”), hastily prepared by Sholokhov in the spring of 1929 for the “plagiarism commission”, not only incriminates its producers, but also gives an idea of ​​the original drafts of “Quiet Don”. Mechanically reproducing the first author's edition, the editors inexperienced in textual criticism in the mid-1920s did not notice that the original author had significantly revised the initial edition of the novel and the sequence of chapters had changed somewhat.

At the end of April 2010, in an epistolary discussion about the chronology of the novel, Moscow researcher Savely Rozhkov suggested that the first eight pages with the history of the Melekhov family and morning fishing in the protograph were located after the night fishing scene (and before mowing), and fishing with his father and the sale of carp to the merchant Mokhov falls on Trinity Day. (Both the goose and the carp turn out to be very useful on this day. Like the “holiday shirt”... But there are other, not indirect, but direct indications. More on them below.)

In addition to Rozhkov, Alexey Neklyudov and the author of this note took part in that discussion. Having checked my colleague’s assumption, I was convinced of both the correctness and the need to transfer the morning fishing scene (but not the story of the Melekhov family).

In Chapter II, before starting to fish for carp, Gregory exchanges the following remarks with his father: “Where to go? - To the Black Yar. Let’s try it near this karshi, where Nadys sat” (p. 14).

Let us turn to Sholokhov’s “drafts”. Grigory says: “Why are you angry, Aksyutka? Are they really so expensive that they are on loan?..” (p. 28). Another thing in the TD edition, which was carried out in a more correct list: “Why are you angry, Aksyutka? Is it really more expensive than a loan?..” (TD: 1, VIII, 48).

Nady'shny– third day (DS). According to SRNG 1. the other day, recent; 2. Past, past. From the dialect nadys: “This ear on the third day is neither vshchira, nor the day before, but nadys” (DS). Well, na’dyshny – necessary (DS), from necessary. The scribe does not think about the meaning and therefore confuses “e” with “s”. (In the protograph, after the “d” there were as many as nine “hooks” in a row, so similar to each other in advanced handwriting.)

But what the nadyshny karsha and what is this ravine that old Melekhov is talking about?

And here they are. In Chapter IV (!) Aksinya advises:

“- Grisha, near the shore, kubyt, karsha. Need to circle.
A terrible shock throws Gregory far away. A thunderous splash, like from the yar(italics mine. – A. Ch.) a block of rock collapsed into the water” (p. 33).

Near this karsha (near a sunken elm tree) Gregory and Aksinya are sitting, mending the nonsense torn by the catfish. That’s why they run into a question from Dunyashka, who came running from the spit: “Why are you sitting here? Father sent me to quickly go to the spit.”

This “sitting” is what the old man will remind his son three days later on a morning fishing trip: “Where to go? - To the Black Yar. Let’s try it near this karshi, where Nadys sat” (p. 14).

...And where a hole was discovered in the nonsense that Grigory and Aksinya were leading, and where Grishka almost drowned. And where he almost seduced his neighbor's wife.

Gregory does not know that his father saw everything from the hawthorn bushes, and therefore now orders his son to drive to the place of the crime that almost happened.

That is why on the third day after that night fishing, Panteley Prokofievich, already dressed in a festive shirt, changed his mind about going to church. It is there, at the sunken karsha, that he must read his father’s instructions to his son, it is there that his morality will be most effective.

But why was that particular place chosen for night fishing?

In April-May, sterlet spawns on the Don. For this she chooses “spawning pits” - pools with a sandy and pebble bottom (just like this, with “kissed pebbles” near the spit near the Tatarsky farm). It is the sterlet that the experienced old man Melekhov is hunting for.

(For the localization of Black Yar, see the extract at the end of this text.)

The entire IV chapter is devoted to night fishing with nonsense, in a storm. Here is also the heap that Aksinya refused to Grigory, and the cunning Panteley watched this, waiting in the hawthorn thickets.

So, two days later, on the third, the old man decides to talk to his son and invites him to go fishing. At the same time, the old man is wearing a “festive shirt.” So in Sholokhov’s imitation of the “draft” on p. 9, copying protograph; in the publication it is much more muted, but also with a hint - a shirt “stitched with a cross” (!)

It happens on Trinity Sunday. On what other day will the tight-fisted merchant Mokhov definitely buy fresh carp, and the priest in the morning, but after the service, that is, at 11 o’clock, will hold an auction with a goose at the church fence?

After fishing, father and son meet people leaving mass and see a priest selling a goose in the church fence.

“People were crowding in the square near the church fence. In the crowd, the teacher, raising a goose above his head, shouted: “Fifty dollars! From-yes. Who is bigger?"

The goose twisted its neck, squinting its turquoise eyes contemptuously” (p. 19).

Why fifty dollars?

Yes, because fifty kopecks is 50 kopecks, and Trinity is Pentecost.

The need to move Chapter II (according to Sholokhov) to the place of VIII is confirmed by the beginning of the next, Chapter IX:

“All that was left of the Trinity in the farmyards was dry chobor scattered on the floors, the dust of crumpled leaves and the wrinkled, outdated greenery of felled oak and ash branches stuck near gates and porches. Meadow mowing began on Trinity Sunday..."

So, the chronology:

May 10, three days before Trinity (May 13/26, 1912) - fishing with nonsense in a loan from Karshi. Gregory almost drowned. In the shock he pesters Aksinya. Ch. IV.

S. L. Rozhkov believes that the day was not chosen by chance - it falls on Semik (an ancient mermaid holiday, celebrated on the seventh day after the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord). And it's hard to argue with that. In seven months near Black Yar, Aksinya (a purely mermaid in nature) almost drowned Gregory.

“Two days before Trinity” - farmsteads divide the meadow. Ch. VIII beginning.

The day before Trinity (“the next day in the morning”) – races, Gregory apologizes “for the money (the day before yesterday) in the loan” Ch. VIII continued.
Trinity: Panteley Prokofievich calls his son to go fishing and exiles him for karsha, at which he was sitting (on the third day). Ch. II.

The new numbering is given in Roman numerals, highlighted p/f, numbering according to the Sholokhov edition is in brackets. Sub-chapters that are not numbered are marked with asterisks. Each time they come as an addition to the chapter indicated by the number.

I(I). History of the Melekhov family. Prokofy and the death of his wife after the birth of Pantelei. * * * The Pantelei family.

II(III). Grigory came from the games in the morning. He waters the horse of his brother, who is going to serve today. At his mother’s request, Grigory wakes up Stepan and Aksinya Astakhov. * * * Seeing off the Cossacks to the May camps. Grigory waters the horse for the second time (Error when mixing drafts.) Grigory flirts with Aksinya. The Cossacks go to camps.
The latter is described through the eyes of Gregory: “The tall black horse swayed, lifting its rider in the stirrups. Stepan rode out of the gate with a hasty step, sat in the saddle as if he were rooted to the spot, and Aksinya walked alongside, holding the stirrup, and looked into his eyes from bottom to top, lovingly and greedily, like a dog.”
But on p. 18 of the “draft”, after the words of Pantelei Prokofievich, spoken on the day of night fishing (“- Let’s call Aksinya Stepanov, help Stepan asked me to mow him down, we must respect him”), followed by the lines crossed out with a blue pencil: “Grigory frowned, but in his soul he was glad at his father’s words. Aksinya did not leave his mind. All day he went over his morning conversation with her in his memory, her smile flashed before his eyes, and that loving dog-like look from bottom to top, with which she looked when seeing off her husband ... "
That is, both the farewell of the Cossacks and the late fishing take place on Semik (Thursday) May 10/23, 1912. This is indicated by the “nadys” uttered by the old man Melekhov after the “shaking” of the meadow two days before Trinity (in 1912 it fell on May 13/26; see below).

III(V). Petro Melekhov and Stepan Astakhov are going to training camp.

IV(VI). Overnight stay for the Cossacks going to the training camp.
It begins: “Near a forehead-shaped mound with a yellow sandy bald head we stopped for the night. There was a cloud coming from the west." This thunderstorm will be described in the next chapter: “A cloud walked along the Don from the west” (p. 19 of the manuscript).

V(IV). (Three days before Trinity. Thursday of the 7th week of Easter. Semik. Mermaid Week, Great Thursday May 10/23) “In the evening a thunderstorm gathered.” This refers to the evening after the Cossacks left for the camps. In the edition, this first phrase of Chapter IV sounds as it was corrected in the draft: “[The next day] In the evening a thunderstorm gathered” (p. 29). According to the manuscript, old man Melekhov says: “Stepan asked me to mow Nadys for him” (p. 18). So it is in the publication (p. 44).
Evening thunderstorm, fishing in delirium near the Black Yar near Karsha, far from the spit. Aksinya rejects Gregory. Pantelei Prokofievich sees everything from the hawthorn thickets.

VI(VII). Aksinya's life story. (Ends with the phrase: “After fishing with nonsense...”)

VII(VIII). “Two days before Trinity, the farmsteads divided the meadow” (on Friday). From this day “nadys” (the day before yesterday, on Wednesday, that is, on the eve of being sent to the camps), Stepan asked old man Melekhov to “mow him down.” The next day (Saturday, the day before Trinity) Mitka Korshunov wakes up Grigory. Horse racing with Listnitsky. Conversation between Gregory and Aksinya. Grigory asks for forgiveness for “borrowing more money,” that is, pestering him while fishing, which took place the day before yesterday, on Thursday.

VIII(II). Panteley Prokofievich goes fishing with his son Grigory. (Trinity, May 13/26, 1912). And he determines the place of fishing near the Black Yar: “near this karsha, where they were sitting,” that is, in Semik, three days ago. * * * Fishing. We caught a carp. Explanation between father and son. Mitka Korshunov. (“From mass, people scattered through the streets [...] People were crowding in the square near the church fence. In the crowd, the priest, raising a goose above his head, shouted: “Fifty dollars! Really. Who is more?”.) Shamili brothers. Merchant Sergei Platonovich Mokhov and his daughter.

IX. Meadow mowing began “on Trinity” (the day after Trinity). * * * While mowing, Grigory seduces Aksinya.

X. The merchant Mokhov opens the eyes of Pantelei Prokofievich to Grigory’s affair with Aksinya. Explanation of the old man Melekhov with Aksinya and Grigory. The old man beat his son.

XI. Camps. Stepan learns about Aksinya's betrayal.

XII. Nine days until Stepan arrives. Gregory and Aksinya.

P.S. DISCOVERY OF PHILOLOGIST MIKHAIL MIKHEEV

My old Moscow friend, Doctor of Philology Mikhail Mikheev, describing the archive of Fyodor Kryukov in the House of Russian Abroad, sent me several texts of Don songs collected by Kryukov while still a student. This is a separate notebook. Among the songs there is, in particular, the one that gave the title to the story “On the azure river” (L. 19 v): “On the azure river in that open field there was...”

Sholokhov captured the echo of this Kryukov name, giving the name “Azure Steppe” to one of the stories published under his name. And at the same time he stole another azure flower discovered by Kryukov: “ The dawn has faded, the battle is over": (" Azure steppe»).

But that's not what shocked me. In the same notebook there was a song written down by Fyodor Kryukov, the plot of which became the beginning of a love plot TD.

So, the field phonetic recording made by F. D. Kryukov ca. 1890 in large, still half-childish handwriting.

I would like to thank Mikhail Mikheev for permission to publish the lyrics of the song. I do this in my own poem. I’ll just make a reservation that the first word of this entry, which apparently over time prompted me to start the novel with this plot, initially only meant the beginning of the selection (not the text of the song, because the word “End” ends with both the first and the second, located below on the same song sheet):

– – –1

Start

It’s not the evening dawn that has begun to fade

Midnight star she has risen high

A good rascal butterfly went crazy

A brave, kind young man led his horse to water

I was talking to a good rogue woman

Let the soul of the grandmother spend the night with you,

Come, come, my good one, I’ll be at home

I have my own will at home.

Post[those] love*a white bed for you;

I’ll put three pillows in the head // End:–

—————————————————————

*A typo? – A. Ch.

House of Russian Abroad. Fund 14 (F. D. Kryukov. Works of Cossack folklore.). Inventory 1. E. x. 25. L. 44 rev. For a facsimile reproduction, see here, on Nestorian, in the note “The Find of the Philologist Mikhail Mikheev.”

On the back l. -23 litters: “May 1889”.

From this song the “fading dawn” appeared on the first page of the novel:

“The kids who were tending the calves after the run said that they saw how Prokofy in the evenings, when the dawns fade, carried his wife in his arms to Tatarsky, Azhnik, Kurgan. He sat her there on the top of the mound, with her back to the spongy stone worn away by centuries, sat down next to her, and so they looked at the steppe for a long time. We looked until while the dawn was fading, and then Prokofy wrapped his wife in a zipun and carried her home in his arms.”

Hence the strangeness of the story: Grishka, before his brother leaves, twice waters Stepanov’s horse on the Don, although there is a well at the base. (For the first time at night, and then in the morning. And only on the second attempt does he meet his “rogue butterfly” walking with buckets.

The ending of Chapter VIII is also written in the polemic between life and song:

“Surprised Grigory caught up with Mitka at the gate.

- Will you come to the game? - he asked.

- What's wrong? Or did you call me to spend the night?

Grigory rubbed his forehead with his palm and did not answer.”

This is not at all about the coincidence of one folklore cliché. It is in this song that the novel begins with the fact that a Cossack woman, left alone in the house (her husband, obviously, is serving) goes to get water at night and is met by a young Cossack who (at night!) went to water his horse. And she invites him to spend the night, since she is “alone at home” and “has her own will.”

The first chapters of TD became a detailed development of the plot of this song. Moreover, the song was recorded not by anyone, but by Kryukov.

……………………………………………………………

P.S. I received a letter from Alexey Neklyudov:

Andrey, in addition, a version of the same song is sung by the Cossacks when they go to military training:

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Oh you, little dawn,

She rose to heaven early...

Young, here she is, a woman

I went into the water late...

- Christonia, help!

And boy, he guessed

He began to saddle his horse...

Saddled the bay horse -

I started to catch up with the woman...

(Chapter 5 of Part 1)

I think it will be necessary to check which version is in the song collections, if any.

But in general it’s great...

…………………………………………………………

Abbreviations:

TD – “Quiet Don”
DS - Large explanatory dictionary of the Don Cossacks. M., 2003.

Below is a reconstruction of the sequence of the first twelve chapters of “Quiet Don”.
Text according to the edition: Sholokhov M. A. [Quiet Don: A Novel in Four Books]. // Sholokhov M. A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - M., 1956–1960:
http://feb-web.ru/feb/sholokh/default.asp?/feb/sholokh/texts/sh0/sh0.html

Andrey Chernov

Stanitsa Glazunovskaya. House of the writer F. D. Kryukov. Drawing from 1918

book one

Oh, our Father Quiet Don!

Oh, why are you, Quiet Don, running muddy?

Oh, how can I, quiet Don, not be troubled by the flow!

From the bottom of me, the quiet Don, cold springs flow,

In the middle of me, the quiet Don, the white fish is making me sick.

(Ancient Cossack song)

PART ONE

Melekhovsky yard is on the very edge of the farm. The gates from the cattle base lead north to the Don. A steep eight-fathom descent between mossy green chalk blocks, and here is the shore: a pearlescent scattering of shells, a gray, broken border of pebbles kissed by the waves, and beyond - the stirrup of the Don, boiling under the wind with blued ripples. To the east, behind the red thaw of hummocks, there is the Hetmansky Way, a gray wormwood, a brown road trampled by horse hooves, a living roadside, a chapel at a fork; behind it is a steppe covered with flowing haze. From the south is the chalk ridge of the mountain. To the west is a street piercing the square, running towards the loan.

After burying his father, Panteley became involved in the farm: he re-roofed the house, added half a tithe of land to the estate, built new sheds and a barn under tin. The roofer, according to the owner's order, cut a couple of tin roosters from scraps and mounted them on the roof of the barn. They amused the Melekhov base with their carefree appearance, giving him an appearance of self-satisfaction and prosperity.

Pantelei Prokofyevich began to grow heavy down the slope of the sliding years: he stood tall, slightly stooped, but still looked like a well-built old man. He was bone-dry, lame (in his youth he broke his left leg at an imperial horse-racing show), wore a silver crescent-shaped earring in his left ear, his raven beard and hair did not fade into old age, in anger he reached the point of unconsciousness and, apparently, this prematurely aged his once beautiful, but now portly wife, completely entangled in a web of wrinkles.

His eldest, already married son Petro resembled his mother: small, snub-nosed, with wild, wheat-colored hair, brown eyes; and the youngest, Grigory, took after his father: half a head taller than Peter, at least six years younger, the same as his father’s, a drooping kite nose, in slightly slanting slits, blue almonds of hot eyes, sharp slabs of cheekbones covered with brown, ruddy skin. Grigory was slouched in the same way as his father, even in their smile they both had something in common, a beastly quality.

Dunyashka is his father’s weakness - a long-armed, big-eyed teenager, and Petrova’s wife Daria with a small child - that’s the whole Melekhov family.

II(III of the first part)

Gregory came from the games after the first kochets. From the saplings the smell of peroxidized hops and the spicy dried herb of the Virgin Mary came to him.

He walked on tiptoe into the upper room, undressed, carefully hung up his festive trousers with stripes, crossed himself, and lay down. On the floor there is a golden slumber of moonlight cut through the cross of the window frame. In the corner, under embroidered towels, there is the dull shine of silver icons; above the bed, on a pendant, there is the viscous buzz of disturbed flies.

I was about to doze off, but my brother’s baby started crying in the kitchen.

The cradle creaked like an unoiled cart. Daria muttered in a sleepy voice:

Tsits, you filthy child! No sleep for you, no peace. - She sang quietly:

Where have you been?

- Guarded the horses.

- What did you watch out for?

- Horse with a saddle,

With golden fringe...

Grigory, falling asleep to the sound of a steady creak, remembered: “Tomorrow Peter will go to the camps. Dasha will be left with the child... We’ll have to mow without him.”

He buried his head in the hot pillow, insistently oozing into his ears:

- Where's your horse?

- It’s behind the gate.

- Where are the gates?

- The water took it away.

Gregory was jolted by the sound of a horse neighing. I guessed Petrov's combat horse from his voice.

With his fingers weak from sleep, he took a long time to button up his shirt, and again almost fell asleep to the flowing swell of the song:

- Where are the geese?

- They went into the reeds.

- Where are the reeds?

- The girls squeezed it out.

- Where are the girls?

- The girls got married.

- Where are the Cossacks?

- We went to war...

Broken by sleep, Grigory reached the stables and led his horse out into the alley. A cobweb tickled my face, and my sleep suddenly disappeared.

Along the Don, diagonally, there is a wavy, untrodden lunar road. There is fog over the Don, and starry millet above. The horse behind carefully rearranges its legs. The descent to the water is bad. On the other side, a duck quack, near the shore in the mud, a catfish hunting for small things turned up and splashed through the water with an Omaha.

Grigory stood by the water for a long time. The shore breathed fresh and damp. Small drops fell from the horse's lips. Gregory has a sweet emptiness in his heart. Good and thoughtless. Returning, I looked at the sunrise; the blue twilight had already dissolved there.

Near the stables I ran into my mother.

Is that you, Grishka?

And then who?

Did you water the horse?

“I watered him,” Grigory reluctantly answers.

Leaning back, the mother carries the kizeki in a curtain to the flood, shuffling with her old, flabby bare feet.

I would encourage the Astakhovs to go. Stepan and our Peter were getting ready to go.

The coolness puts a tight, trembling spring inside Gregory. The body is covered in prickly goosebumps. After three thresholds he runs up to the Astakhovs onto the echoing porch. The door is not locked. In the kitchen, Stepan is sleeping on a spread bed, with his wife’s head under his arm.

In the thinning darkness, Grigory sees Aksinya’s shirt fluffed up above her knees and her birch-white legs shamelessly spread out. He looks for a second, feeling his mouth go dry and his head swell in the cast-iron ringing.

Hey, who's there? Get up!

Aksinya sobbed from sleep.

Oh, who is this? Someone? - She fumbled fussily, her bare hand began to beat at her feet, pulling on her shirt. A speck of saliva dropped in a dream remained on the pillow; the glow of a woman's dream is strong.

It's me. Mother sent to encourage you...

We are infected... You can’t fit in here... We sleep on the floor because of fleas. Stepan, get up, do you hear?

About thirty Cossacks left the farm for the May camps. The meeting place is the parade ground. Around seven o'clock, carts with canvas booths, foot and horse Cossacks in May canvas shirts and equipment pulled up to the parade ground.

Petro was hastily stitching together a cracked piece of cloth on the porch. Panteley Prokofievich paced around Petrov’s horse, pouring oats into the trough, and occasionally shouted:

Dunyashka, did you sew up the crackers? Did you sprinkle the lard with salt?

All in a ruddy color, Dunyashka, like a swallow, traced the lines from the cooker to the smoking area, laughingly shrugging off her father’s shouts:

You, dad, manage your own business, and I’ll set my brother up in such a way that he won’t even bother Cherkassky.

Haven't eaten? - Petro inquired, slobbering and nodding at the horse.

“He’s chewing,” the father answered sedately, checking his sweatshirts with a rough palm. It’s a small matter - a crumb or piece of grass will stick to the sweatshirt, and in one transition it will rub the horse’s back into the blood.

Finish the Bay - give him something to drink, dad.

Grishka takes him to Don. Hey, Gregory, lead your horse!

A tall, lean Donetsk with a white star on his forehead went off playing. Grigory led him out the gate, lightly touching his withers with his left hand, jumped on him and took off at a sweeping trot. At the descent I wanted to hold on, but the horse lost his footing, became frequent, and began to skid downhill. Leaning back, almost lying on the horse’s back, Gregory saw a woman with buckets going down the mountain. He turned off the trail and, overtaking the stirred up dust, crashed into the water.

Aksinya came down the mountain, swaying, and shouted loudly from afar:

Mad devil! The weirdo didn’t get trampled by the horse! Just wait, I'll tell your father how you drive.

But, but, neighbor, don’t swear. You take your husband to the camps, maybe I’ll get by on the farm too.

Somehow I fucking need you!

If the mowing starts, just ask,” Grigory laughed.

Aksinya deftly scooped up a bucket of water from the scaffolding and, holding her wind-blown skirt between her knees, glanced at Grigory.

Well, is your Stepan ready? - asked Grigory.

What do you want?

What are you like... Is it possible to ask?

Got ready. Well?

So you remain a pathetic person?

So, then.

The horse tore his lips away from the water, chewed the flowing water with a creak and, looking at the other side of the Don, struck the water with his front leg. Aksinya scooped up another bucket; Throwing the yoke over her shoulder, she walked up the mountain with a slight swing. Grigory moved his horse after. The wind ruffled Aksinya’s skirt and picked up small fluffy curls on her dark neck. A cap embroidered with colored silk glowed on the heavy top of her hair; a pink shirt, tucked into a skirt, without wrinkles, covered her steep back and plump shoulders. Climbing up the mountain, Aksinya bent forward, a longitudinal hollow on her back clearly lay out under her shirt. Grigory saw the brown circles of the shirt faded under the armpits from sweat, and followed every movement with his eyes. He wanted to talk to her again.

You'll probably miss your husband? A?

Aksinya turned her head as she walked and smiled.

And then how? “You get married,” she said, taking a breath, she spoke intermittently, “get married, and then you’ll find out that they really miss their friend.”

Pushing his horse to level with her, Grigory looked into her eyes.

And some women are happy to see their husbands off. Our Daria begins to get fat without Peter.

Aksinya, moving her nostrils, breathed sharply; straightening her hair, she said:

The husband is not much, but he draws blood. Will we marry you soon?

I don’t know about dad. Probably after the service.

Young isho, don't get married.

There is only dryness. - She glanced from under her brows; Without opening her lips, she smiled sparingly. And then for the first time Grigory noticed that her lips were shamelessly greedy and plump.

He, sorting his mane into strands, said:

I have no desire to get married. Somebody will love it anyway.

Did you notice?

What should I notice... You are seeing Stepan off...

Don't flirt with me!

Will you hurt yourself?

I’ll say a word to Stepan...

I am your Stepan...

Look, brave man, a tear will fall.

Don't worry, Aksinya!

I'm not scaring you. Your business is with the girls. Let them embroider for you, but don’t look at me.

I'll definitely take a look.

Well, look.

Aksinya smiled reconcilingly and left the track, trying to get around the horse. Grigory turned him sideways, blocking the road.

Let me go, Grishka!

I won't let you in.

Don't be stupid, I need to get my husband together.

Grigory, smiling, excited the horse: he, stepping over, pressed Aksinya to the ravine.

Let go, devil, people out! When they see it, what will they think?

She cast a frightened glance around and walked away, frowning and not looking back.

On the porch, Petro said goodbye to his family. Gregory saddled his horse. Holding his saber, Petro hurriedly ran along the thresholds and took the reins from Grigory’s hands.

The horse, sensing the road, stepped restlessly, foaming, chasing the mouthpiece in its mouth. Catching the stirrup with his foot and holding the bow, Petro said to his father:

Don't bother bald people with work, dad! It dawns on me - we'll sell it. Gregory needs to ride his horse. And don’t sell the steppe grass: in the none meadow, you yourself know what kind of hay there will be.

Well, with God. “Good hour,” said the old man, crossing himself.

Petro, with his usual movement, threw his downed body into the saddle and straightened the folds of his shirt behind him, tied with a belt. The horse went to the gate. The head of the saber gleamed dimly in the sun, shaking in time with his steps.

Daria followed with the child in her arms. The mother, wiping her red nose with her sleeve and the corner of her curtain, stood in the middle of the base.

Brother, pies! I forgot the pies!.. Pies with potatoes!..

Dunyashka galloped towards the gate like a goat.

What are you yelling about, you fool! - Grigory shouted at her annoyedly.

There are pies left! - Dunyashka moaned, leaning against the gate, and tears fell onto her hot, smeared cheeks, and from her cheeks onto her everyday jacket.

From under her palm, Daria watched her husband’s white shirt, curtained with dust. Pantelei Prokofievich, swinging a rotten post at the gate, glanced at Grigory.

Just straighten the gate and put a parking lot on the corner. - After thinking, he added as he broke the news: “Petro has left.”

Through the fence, Grigory saw how Stepan was getting ready. Aksinya, dressed in a green woolen skirt, led him to his horse. Stepan, smiling, said something to her. He slowly, in a possessive manner, kissed his wife and did not remove his hand from her shoulder for a long time. The hand, burned by tan and work, turned coal black on Aksinya’s white blouse. Stepan stood with his back to Gregory; through the fence one could see his tight, beautifully shaved neck, wide, slightly drooping shoulders and - when he leaned towards his wife - the curled tip of his light brown mustache.

Aksinya laughed at something and shook her head negatively. The tall black horse swayed, lifting its rider in the stirrups. Stepan rode out of the gate with a hasty step, sat in the saddle as if rooted to the spot, and Aksinya walked alongside, holding the stirrup, and looked into his eyes from bottom to top, lovingly and greedily, like a dog.

So they passed the neighboring kuren and disappeared around the bend.

Grigory followed them with a long, unblinking gaze.

III(V of the first part)

It is sixty miles to the Setrakova farm, the camp meeting place. Petro Melekhov and Stepan Astakhov were traveling on the same chaise. With them are three more Cossack farmers: Fedot Bodovskov - a young Kalmyk and pockmarked Cossack, second in line of the Life Guards of the Ataman Regiment Khrisanf Tokin, nicknamed Hristonya, and battery Tomilin Ivan, who was heading to Persianovka. After the first feeding, Christon’s two-inch horse and Stepanov’s black horse were harnessed to the chaise. The other three horses, saddled, walked behind. The ruler was hefty and somewhat stupid, like most of the chieftains, Christonya. With his back bent like a wheel, he sat in front, blocking the light in the booth, frightening the horses with his booming octave bass. In the chaise, covered with a brand new tarpaulin, lay Petro Melekhov, Stepan and battery Tomilin, smoking. Fedot Bodovskov walked behind; apparently, it was not a burden for him to stick his crooked Kalmyk legs into the dusty road.

Christon's britzka was leading the way. Behind her were seven or eight more harnesses with tied saddled and bareback horses.

Laughter, screams, viscous songs, the gurgling of horses, and the jingle of empty stirrups swirled over the road.

Peter has a bag of bread in his head. Petro lies there and twirls his long yellow mustache.

- …on the! Let's play a service song?

It's hot. Everything has dried up.

There are no taverns in the nearby villages, don’t wait!

Well, start it. Yes, you are not an expert. Eh, Grishka is your dishkanit! It will pull, purely a silver thread, not a voice. We fought with him at games.

Stepan throws back his head, clears his throat, and begins in a low, sonorous voice:

Oh you, little dawn,

She rose to heaven early...

Tomilin puts her hand to her cheek like a woman, and picks it up in a thin, moaning voice. Smiling, tucking his mustache into his mouth, Petro watches as the busty battery worker’s knots of veins on his temples turn blue from effort.

Young, here she is, a woman

I went into the water late...

Stepan lies with his head towards Christona, turns, leaning on his hand; the tight, beautiful neck turns pink.

Christonia, help!

And boy, he guessed

He began to saddle his horse...

Stepan turns his bulging eyes to Petro with a smiling gaze, and Petro, pulling a mustache out of his mouth, adds a voice.

Christonya, opening his enormous stubble-covered mouth, roars, shaking the canvas roof of the booth:

Saddled the bay horse -

I started to catch up with the woman...

Khristonya places a yard-long bare foot on the edge and waits for Stepan to start again. He, with his eyes closed, his sweaty face in the shadows, gently leads the song, now lowering his voice to a whisper, now raising it to a metallic ringing:

Let me, let me, little woman,

Water the horse in the river...

And again Christ’s voices are crushed by the sound of bells and alarm bells. Voices from neighboring chaises also join in the song. The wheels click on the iron tracks, the horses sneeze from the dust, viscous and strong, like hollow water, a song flows over the road. From the drying steppe musk, from the burnt brown kuga, a white-winged lapwing takes off. He flies screaming into the ravine; turning his head, he looks with his emerald eye at the chain of carts covered in white, at the horses curling the delicious dust with their hooves, at the people walking along the side of the road in white shirts tarred with dust. The lapwing falls in the ravine, hits the drying grass trampled by the beast with its black chest - and does not see what is happening on the road. And along the road the chaises also rumble, the horses, sweating under their saddles, step just as reluctantly; only Cossacks in gray shirts quickly run from their chaises to the front, crowd around it, groaning in laughter.

Stepan stands at full height on the chaise, holds on to the canvas top of the booth with one hand, and briefly waves the other; pours out the smallest, undermining patter:

Don't sit next to me

Don't sit next to me

People will say - you love me,

Do you love me,

You come to me

Do you love me,

You come to me

And I am not of an ordinary family...

And I am not of an ordinary family,

Not simple -

Vorovsky,

Vorovsky -

Not simple

I love the prince’s son...

Fedot Bodovskov whistles; crouching, the horses break from their tracks; Petro, leaning out of the booth, laughs and waves his cap; Stepan, flashing a dazzling grin, mischievously shrugs his shoulders; and dust moves like a mound along the road; Christonya, in an unbelted long shirt, patty-haired, wet with sweat, walks squatted, spins on a flywheel, frowning and groaning, does a Cossack move, and monstrous, spread-out traces of his bare feet remain on the gray silk of the dust.

IV(VI of the first part)

Near a forehead-shaped mound with a yellow sandy bald head we stopped for the night.

A cloud was coming from the west. Rain oozed from her black wing. They watered the horses in the pond. Above the dam, sad willows humped in the wind. In the water, covered with stagnant greenery and the scales of wretched waves, lightning was reflected and distorted. The wind sparingly sprinkled raindrops, as if pouring alms onto the black palms of the earth.

The hobbled horses were allowed to graze, with three people assigned to guard. The rest lit fires and hung cauldrons on the poles of the chaises.

Khristonia cooked. Stirring the cauldron with a spoon, he told the Cossacks sitting around:

- ...The mound, therefore, is tall, like this. I say to the deceased father: “What, the ataman1 won’t strike us because, without any permission, we will begin to gut the mound?”

What is he lying about here? - asked Stepan, who had returned from the horses.

I’m telling you how the deceased father and I, the kingdom of heaven to the old man, were looking for a treasure.

Where did you look for him?

This, brother, is right behind the Fetisovaya beam. Yes, you know - Merkulov Kurgan...

Well, well... - Stepan squatted down and put a coal on his palm. Plumping his lips, he lit a cigarette for a long time and rolled it in his palm.

Here you go. So, dad says: “Come on, Christan, let’s dig up the Merkulov Kurgan.” He heard from his grandfather that there was buried treasure in it. And the treasure, therefore, is not given to everyone. Dad promised God: if you give me the treasure, I’ll build a beautiful church. So we decided and went there. The land is a village - there could only be doubt from the ataman. We arrive at night. They waited until it got dark, so they hobbled the mare, and climbed onto the top of her head with shovels. They started making noise right from the top of their heads. They dug a hole about two arshins, the ground was pure stone, and was stale from age. I'm sweaty. Dad keeps whispering prayers, but believe me, brothers, my stomach is so grumbling... In the summertime, therefore, you know the grub: sour milk and kvass... It will seize you across your stomach, death in your eyes - and that’s all! Dead father, may he rest in heaven, and says: “Ugh,” he says, “Christan, and you’re a bastard!” I’m reading a prayer, but you can’t hold back your food, there’s nothing to breathe. Go,” he says, “get off the mound, otherwise I’ll chop your head off with a shovel.” Through you, you bastard, the treasure may go into the ground.” I lay down under the mound and I’m suffering from stomach pain, I’m stabbed, but my dead father was a healthy devil! - one is digging. And he dug to the stone slab. Calls me. So I used a crowbar and lifted this slab... Believe me, brothers, it was a month's night, and under the slab it was shining...

Well, you’re lying, Christonia! - Petro couldn’t bear it, smiling and tugging at his mustache.

Why are you “lying”? Fuck you to teteri-yateri! - Christonya pulled up his wide trousers and looked around at the audience. - No, so I’m not lying! The true God is the truth!

Nail yourself to the shore!

That's how it shines, brothers. I - lo and behold, this turned out to be burnt coal. There were about forty of him there. Dad says: “Climb, Christan, scoop him out.” Useful Threw, threw this sham, it was enough until the light. In the morning, lo and behold, there he is.

Who? - asked Tomilin, who was lying on the blanket.

Yes, ataman, who? Rides in a carriage: “Who allowed it, so and so?” We are silent. He, therefore, grabbed us - and into the village. The year before last they summoned him to Kamenskaya for trial, but my dad guessed that he had already died. They wrote off with a paper that he was no longer alive.

Khristonya took down the pot of steaming porridge and went to the cart for spoons.

What about father? He promised to build a church, but never built it? - Stepan asked, waiting until Christonya returned with the spoons.

You're a fool, Styopa, what kind of coals did he build?

If he promised, it means he should.

There was no agreement regarding the coals, but the treasure...

The fire flickered with laughter. Christonya raised his rustic head from the cauldron and, not understanding what was happening, covered the voices of the others with a thick cackle.

V(IV of the first part)

In the evening a thunderstorm gathered. A brown cloud appeared over the farm. The Don, tousled by the wind, threw frequent, ridged waves onto the banks. Behind the levadas, dry lightning scorched the sky, thunder crushed the earth with rare peals. A kite wheeled about under the cloud, opening up, and was chased by crows screaming. The cloud, breathing a chill, moved along the Don, from the west. Behind the plot the sky turned black menacingly, the steppe was expectantly silent. In the farmstead the shutters were flapping, the old women hurried from vespers, crossing themselves, a gray column of dust swayed on the parade ground, and the first seeds of rain were already sown on the ground, burdened by the spring heat.

Dunyashka, dangling her pigtails, burned through the base, slammed the chicken coop door and stood in the middle of the base, flaring her nostrils, like a horse before an obstacle. Children were kicking in the street. The neighbor's eight-year-old Mishka was spinning around, squatting on one leg, with his father's oversized cap circling on his head, covering his eyes, and squealing shrilly:

Let it rain, let it rain.

We'll go into the bushes

Pray to God

Worship Christ.

Dunyashka looked enviously at Mishka’s bare feet, thickly strewn with tiptoes, fiercely trampling the ground. She also wanted to dance in the rain and wet her hair so that her hair would grow thick and curly; I wanted, just like Mishka’s comrade, to stand on the roadside dust upside down, with the risk of falling into the thorns, but my mother was looking out the window, angrily slapping her lips. Sighing, Dunyashka ran to the smoking area. The rain came down vigorously and frequently. Thunder burst just above the roof, and the fragments rolled across the Don.

In the entryway, father and sweaty Grishka were pulling rolled up nonsense from the side room.

Harsh threads and a gypsy needle, awesome! - Grigory shouted to Dunyashka.

A fire was lit in the kitchen. Daria village sewed up the delirium. The old woman, rocking the child, muttered:

You, old man, are good at making up stories. They would go to bed, everything goes out in price, and you burn it. What's the fishing like now? Where will the plague take you? Isho you will trample, the passion of the Lord will go to the base. Look, look, how it’s blazing! Lord Jesus Christ, queen of heaven...

For a second, the kitchen became dazzlingly blue and quiet: you could hear the rain scratching the shutters, followed by thunder. Dunyashka squeaked and fell face down into the delirium. Daria fanned the windows and doors with small crosses.

The old woman looked with terrible eyes at the cat fawning at her feet.

Dunka! Damn her, damn her... queen of heaven, forgive me, a sinner. Dunka, throw the cat out at the base. Screw you, evil spirit! So that you...

Grigory, dropping the head of his nonsense, shook in silent laughter.

Well, why are you jumping up? Tsit! - Pantelei Prokofievich shouted. - Ladies, sew it up quickly! Nadys Isho said: look at the delirium.

“And what kind of fish is this now?” the old woman stammered.

If you don't understand, shut up! Let's take the most sterlet on the spit. The fish immediately goes to the shore, afraid of the storm. The water is probably already muddy. Come on, run out, Dunyashka, listen - is Erik playing?

Dunyashka reluctantly moved sideways towards the door.

Who's going to wander? Daria can’t do it, she might get a cold in her chest,” the old woman continued.

Grishka and I, and with other nonsense, we’ll call Aksinya, one of the women.

Out of breath, Dunyasha ran in. Raindrops hung on her eyelashes, trembling. She smelled of damp black soil.

Erik is buzzing, it’s scary!

Will you come wandering with us?

Who's going to go?

Let's call Baba.

Well, throw on a zipun and gallop to Aksinya. If he goes, let him call Malashka Frolova!

“Enta won’t freeze,” Grigory smiled, “she has fat on her, like a good hog.”

“You should take some dry hay, Grishunka,” my mother advised, “put it under your heart, otherwise you’ll get a cold inside.”

Grigory, go get some hay. The old woman said the right word.

Soon Dunyashka brought the women. Aksinya, in a torn blouse belted with a rope and a blue underskirt, looked shorter and thinner. She, laughing with Daria, took off the scarf from her head, twisted her hair tightly into a knot and, covering herself, threw back her head and looked at Grigory coldly. Fat Malashka was tying up her stockings at the threshold and wheezing with a cold:

Did you take the bags? True God, we will not shake the fish.

We went to the base. The rain poured thickly on the softened ground, foamed the puddles, and slid down in streams towards the Don.

Gregory walked ahead. His causeless merriment was eroding him.

Look, dad, there's a ditch here.

It's so dark!

Hang in there, Aksyusha, with me, we’ll be in prison together,” Malashka laughs hoarsely.

Look, Grigory, is there no Maidannikov pier?

She is.

From here...conceive... - Panteley Prokofievich shouts, overpowering the whipping wind.

I can't hear you, uncle! - Malashka wheezes.

Wander, with God... I'm from the depths. From the depths, I say... Malashka, the devil is deaf, where are you going? I will go from the depths!.. Grigory, Grishka! Let Aksinya leave the shore!

Don lets out a moaning roar. The wind tears the slanting sheet of rain to shreds.

Feeling the bottom with his feet, Gregory plunged waist-deep into the water. The sticky cold crept up to my chest and tightened my heart like a hoop. A wave hits your face, your tightly closed eyes, like a whip. The nonsense inflates like a ball, pulling it deeper. Gregory's feet, shod in woolen stockings, slide along the sandy bottom. The komol is torn from his hands... Deeper, deeper. Ledge Legs fall off. The current rushes towards the middle and sucks in. Grigory rows forcefully towards the shore with his right hand. The black, swaying depths frighten him as never before. The foot happily steps on the shaky bottom. Some fish hits my knee.

Go deeper! - from somewhere among the viscous rabble, the father’s voice.

The drift, tilting, again crawls into the depths, again the current tears the earth from under his feet, and Grigory, lifting his head, swims, spitting.

Aksinya, is she alive?

Still alive.

No way, will it stop raining?

The little one stops, and then the big one starts moving.

You go slowly. If my father hears it, he will swear.

I was scared of my father too...

They drag on in silence for a minute. Water, like sticky dough, knits every movement.

Grisha, near the shore, kubyt, karsha. Need to circle.

A terrible shock throws Gregory far away. A thunderous splash, as if a block of rock had fallen from a ravine into the water.

Ah-ah-ah! - Aksinya squeals somewhere near the shore.

Frightened Grigory, having emerged, swims towards the cry.

Aksinya!

Wind and flowing sound of water.

Aksinya! - Grigory shouts, growing cold with fear.

E-gay!!. Gri-go-ri-iy! - the father’s muffled voice from afar.

Grigory throws swings. I grabbed something sticky under my feet with my hand: delirium.

Why didn’t you respond?.. - Grigory yells angrily, crawling ashore on all fours.

Squatting, trembling, they sort out the tangled mess. A month hatches from a hole in a torn cloud. Behind the loan, thunder speaks discreetly. The earth shines with unabsorbed moisture. The sky, washed by rain, is strict and clear.

Unraveling the nonsense, Grigory peers at Aksinya. Her face is chalky pale, but her red, slightly turned lips are already laughing.

“How it knocked me onto the shore,” she says, taking a breath, “I lost my mind.” I was scared to death! I thought you were drowned.

Their hands collide. Aksinya tries to stick her hand into the sleeve of his shirt.

How warm it is in your sleeve,” she says plaintively, “but I’m frozen.” Colic began to spread throughout my body.

Here he is, the damned catfish, where did he go!

Grigory opens a hole about an arshin and a half in diameter in the middle of the nonsense.

Someone is running from the scythe. Gregory guesses Dunyashka. From a distance he shouts to her:

Do you have threads?

Tutochka.

Dunyashka, out of breath, runs up.

Why are you sitting here? Father sent me to quickly go to the spit. We caught a bag of sterlets there! - There is undisguised triumph in Dunyashka’s voice.

Aksinya, flashing her teeth, sews up a hole in the nonsense. They run to the spit at a trot to keep warm.

Pantelei Prokofievich twirls his cigar with his fingers, ribbed by water and plump, like those of a drowned man; dancing, he boasts:

Once they wandered in - eight pieces, and another time... - he takes a break, lights a cigarette and silently points at the bag with his foot.

Aksinya looks in curiously. There is a grinding noise in the bag: a tenacious sterlet is rubbing.

Why did you fight back?

Som squandered his nonsense.

Somehow, the cells connected...

Well, let's get to the knee and go home. Come on, Grishka, why are you so excited?

Grigory steps with stiff legs. Aksinya is trembling so much that Grigory feels her trembling through his delirium.

Don't shake!

And I would be glad, but I won’t lose my breath.

Let's do this... Let's get out, damn this fish!

A large carp strikes through the bridge. Quickening his step, Grigory bends his shoulder and pulls his head, Aksinya, bent over, runs out to the shore. The water that has subsided back rustles across the sand and the fish flutter.

Shall we go through a loan?

The forest is closer. Hey, are you there soon?

Let's go, let's catch up. Let's rinse the nonsense.

Aksinya, wincing, squeezed out her skirt, picked up the bag with the catch on her shoulders, and almost trotted along the spit. Grigory was talking nonsense. We walked a hundred fathoms, Aksinya groaned:

My urine is gone! My legs were a bit sore.

Here's last year's hay, maybe you can warm up?

And then. By the time you reach home, you can die.

Gregory turned the head of the haystack on one side and dug a hole. The stale hay was filled with the hot smell of preli.

Get into the middle. It’s like being on a stove here.

Aksinya, throwing the bag, buried herself up to her neck in the hay.

What a blessing!

Trembling from the cold, Grigory lay down next to him. A gentle, exciting smell flowed from Aksinya’s wet hair. She lay with her head thrown back, breathing regularly with her half-open mouth.

Your hair smells like drunkenness. You know, like a white flower... - Grigory whispered, bending down.

She remained silent. Her gaze was foggy and distant, fixed on the damage of the wheeled moon.

Grigory, taking his hand out of his pocket, suddenly pulled her head towards him. She jerked sharply and stood up.

Keep quiet.

Let me go, otherwise I'll make noise!

Wait, Aksinya...

Uncle Panteley!..

Are you lost? - very close, from the hawthorn thickets, Panteley Prokofievich responded.

Grigory, clenching his teeth, jumped from the haystack.

Why are you making noise? Are you lost? - the old man asked as he approached.

Aksinya stood near the haystack, straightening the scarf that had been knocked over the back of her head, steam smoking above her.

There was no way to get lost, but I was freezing.

Bye, woman, and look, there’s a shock. Warm up.

Aksinya smiled, bending down to pick up the bag.

VI(VII first part)

Aksinya was married to Stepan, aged seventeen. They took her from the Dubrovka farm, on the other side of the Don, from the sands.

A year before the release, she plowed in the fall in the steppe, about eight miles from the farm. At night, her father, a fifty-year-old man, tied her hands with a tripod and raped her.

I’ll kill you if you utter a word and remain silent - I’ll sell you a plush jacket and leggings with galoshes. Just remember: I’ll kill you if anything happens... - he promised her.

At night, wearing only her tattered underwear, Aksinya ran into the farmstead. Lying at her mother’s feet, choking with sobs, she told... The mother and older brother, an ataman who had just returned from service, harnessed horses to a chaise, took Aksinya with them and went there to their father. Eight miles away, my brother almost set the horses on fire. The father was found near the camp. Drunk, he slept on a spread out coat, with an empty vodka bottle lying nearby. In front of Aksinya's eyes, the brother unhooked the barque from the chaise, lifted his sleeping father with his feet, briefly asked him something and hit the old man on the bridge of his nose with the chained barque. Together with his mother they beat him for about an hour and a half. Always meek, the elderly mother frantically pulled the hair of her unconscious husband, and his brother tried with his feet. Aksinya lay under the chaise, her head wrapped around her, silently shaking... Just before daybreak they brought the old man home. He moaned pitifully, rummaged around the room with his eyes, looking for the hidden Aksinya. Blood and whiting rolled from his torn ear onto the pillow. He died in the evening. People were told that a drunk fell from a cart and was killed.

And a year later, matchmakers arrived for Aksinya in a smart chaise. The bride liked the tall, thick-necked and handsome Stepan, and the wedding was scheduled for the autumn meat-eater. A pre-winter day approached, with frost and cheerful ringing of ice, and the young people were surrounded; From that time on, Aksinya settled in the Astakhov house as a young mistress. The mother-in-law, a tall old woman bent over by some cruel woman's illness, woke up Aksinya early the next day after the revelry, brought her into the kitchen and, aimlessly rearranging the stags, said:

That's it, my dear little darling, we took you not to fight and not to wait. Go milk the cows, and then go to the stove to cook. I am old, infirmity overcomes me, but you take the farm into your hands, it will fall on you.

On the same day, in the barn, Stepan deliberately and terribly beat his young wife. He hit me in the stomach, in the chest, in the back; he hit in such a way that people couldn’t see him. From that time on, he began to take on the side, got mixed up with walking zhalmerki, left almost every night, locking Aksinya in a barn or little house.

For a year and a half he did not forgive her for the insult: until the child was born. After that he calmed down, but was stingy with affection and still rarely spent the night at home.

A large multi-livestock farm kept Aksinya busy with work. Stepan worked with laziness: having combed his forelock, he went to his comrades to smoke, play cards, chat about farm news, and Aksinya had to clean up the cattle, and she had to manage the housework. My mother-in-law was a bad helper. After fussing, she would fall onto the bed and, stretching out her faded yellow lips, looking at the ceiling with eyes that were wild with pain, she moaned and curled up into a ball. At such moments, profuse sweat appeared on her face, stained with black, ugly, large moles, and tears accumulated in her eyes and often flowed down one after another. Aksinya, having given up work, hid somewhere in a corner and looked at her mother-in-law’s face with fear and pity.

A year and a half later, the old woman died. In the morning, Aksinya began having prenatal contractions, and by noon, an hour before the baby was born, her mother-in-law died on the move, near the door of the old stable. The midwife, who ran out of the kuren to warn the drunken Stepan not to go to the mother in labor, saw Aksinya’s mother-in-law lying with her legs crossed.

Aksinya became attached to her husband after the birth of her child, but she had no feelings for him, there was a bitter woman’s pity and habit. The child died before reaching the age of one year. The old life unfolded. And when Grishka Melekhov, flirting, stood across Aksinya’s path, she saw with horror that she was drawn to the affectionate black guy. He persistently, with brutal persistence, courted her. And it was this stubbornness that scared Aksinya. She saw that he was not afraid of Stepan, she sensed in her gut that he would not give up on her, and, not wanting this with her mind, resisting with all her might, she noticed that on holidays and on weekdays she began to dress up more carefully, deceiving herself, she strived more often catch his eye. She felt warm and pleasant when Grishka’s black eyes caressed her heavily and frantically. At dawn, waking up to milk the cows, she smiled and, not yet realizing why, remembered: “Today there is something joyful. What? Grigory... Grisha...” This new scarecrow filled her entire feeling, and in her thoughts she groped, carefully, as if across the Don on spongy March ice.

After escorting Stepan to the camps, I decided to see Grishka as little as possible. After catching the delirium, this decision became even more firmly established in her.

VII(VIII)

Two days before Trinity, the farmsteads divided the meadow. Panteley Prokofievich went to the division. He came back from there at lunchtime, groaned, dropped his chirps, and, savoring his legs worn out by walking, said:

We got a plot of land near Krasny Yar. The grass is not particularly good. The upper end reaches the forest, with bare cheeks here and there. The cowgrass skips by.

When should I mow? - asked Grigory.

From the holidays.

Will you take Daria, or what? - the old woman frowned.

Pantelei Prokofievich waved his hand - get rid of it, they say.

If you need it, we'll take it. Get ready to whine, what are you worth, it has opened up!

The old woman rattled the door and dragged the heated cabbage soup out of the oven. At the table, Panteley Prokofievich talked for a long time about the division and the roguish chieftain, who almost defrauded the entire gathering.

“He’s been cheating this year too,” Daria stood up, “the ulesh fought back, so he persuaded Malashka Frolova to go to hell.

An old bitch,” Panteley Prokofievich chewed.

Dad, who will dig and row? - Dunyashka asked timidly.

What are you going to do?

Alone, dad, it’s illegal.

We will call Aksyutka Astakhova. Stepan Nadys asked me to mow it for him. We must respect.

The next day, in the morning, Mitka Korshunov rode up to the Melekhovsky base on a saddled white-legged stallion. The rain was spattering. The gloom hung over the farm. Mitka, leaning over in the saddle, opened the gate and rode into the base. An old woman called him from the porch.

You, overwhelmed, why did you come running? - she asked with visible displeasure. The old desperate and pugnacious Mitka did not like her.

And what do you need, Ilyinishna? - Mitka was surprised, tying the stallion to the railing. - I came to Grishka. Where is he?

He sleeps under the barn. Well, did you get paralyzed? Pawns, so you can’t move?

You, aunty, need a nail in every hole! - Mitka was offended. Swinging, waving and snapping his elegant whip at the tops of his patent leather boots, he went under the canopy of the barn.

Grigory slept in the cart, which had been removed from the front. Mitka, squinting his left eye, as if aiming, pulled Grigory out with a whip.

Get up, man!

“Man” was the most abusive word for Mitka. Grigory jumped up like a spring.

What are you doing?

Waking up to dawn!

Don’t be stupid, Mitriy, before you get angry...

Get up, there's work to do.

Mitka sat down on the bed of the cart, whipping dried mud off his boot and said:

Grishka, I’m offended...

“But of course,” Mitka swore at length, “he’s not he, the centurion, that’s what he asks.”

In his hearts, without unclenching his teeth, he quickly threw out words, his legs trembled. Grigory stood up.

What centurion?

Grabbing him by the sleeve of his shirt, Mitka said more quietly:

Now saddle your horse and run to the borrower. I'll show him! I told him: “Come on, your honor, let’s try.” - “Lead, grit, all your friends and comrades, I will cover you all, because the mother of my mare in St. Petersburg won prizes at officer races.” Yes, for me, his mare and her mother - damn them! - but I won’t let the stallion gallop!

Gregory dressed hastily. Mitka followed on his heels; stuttering with anger, he said:

The same centurion came to visit Mokhov, the merchant. Wait, whose nickname is he? Kubyt, Listnitsky. He's so dull and serious. Wears glasses. Well, come on! Even though I’m wearing glasses, I won’t be able to overtake the stallion!

Laughing, Grigory saddled the old queen, left for the tribe, and through the barn gates - so that his father would not see - rode out into the steppe. We went to a place under the mountain. The horses' hooves chomped and chewed the dirt. In a field near a dried poplar, horsemen were waiting for them: the centurion Listnitsky on a lean, beautiful mare and about seven farm boys on horseback.

Where to jump from? - the centurion turned to Mitka, adjusting his pince-nez and admiring the powerful pectoral muscles of Mitka’s stallion.

From poplar to Tsarev Pond.

Where is Tsarev Pond? - The centurion squinted myopically.

And there, your honor, near the forest.

The horses were built. The centurion raised his whip over his head. The shoulder strap on his shoulder bulged.

When I say “three,” let’s go! Well? One two Three!

The centurion was the first to rush, falling to the bow, holding his cap with his hand. He was a second ahead of the others. Mitka, with a bewildered, pale face, stood up in his stirrups - it seemed to Grigory that it took a painfully long time to lower the whip pulled above his head onto the stallion’s croup.

From the poplar to Tsarev Pond - three miles. Halfway along the way, Mitka's stallion, stretching out into the arrow, overtook the centurion's mare. Gregory galloped reluctantly. Having fallen behind from the very beginning, he rode at a slow pace, watching with curiosity the retreating chain of gallopers, broken into links.

Near Tsarev Pond there is a sandy ridge caused by spring water. The yellow camel's hump was stunted and overgrown with sharp-leafed snake onions. Grigory saw how the centurion and Mitka jumped up onto the ridge at once and flowed down to the other side, with the rest sliding behind them one by one.

When he arrived at the pond, the sweaty horses were already standing in a heap, the dismounted guys surrounded the centurion. Mitka was shining with suppressed joy. Triumph was evident in his every movement. The centurion, contrary to expectation, seemed to Gregory not at all embarrassed: he, leaning against a tree, smoking a cigarette, said, pointing with his little finger at his, as if bathed, mare:

I made a mileage of one and a half hundred miles on it. I just arrived from the station yesterday. If it had been fresher, you would never have overtaken me, Korshunov.

Maybe,” Mitka was generous.

There is no faster horse in the whole area,” said the freckled boy, who was the last to gallop, with envy.

The horse is kind. - Mitka, with his hand trembling from the excitement he had experienced, patted the stallion’s neck and, smiling woodenly, looked at Grigory.

The two of them separated from the others and rode under the mountain rather than along the street. The centurion said goodbye to them rather coldly, put two fingers under his visor and turned away.

Already driving up the alley to the courtyard, Grigory saw Aksinya walking towards them. She walked, plucking a twig; I saw Grishka and bent my head lower.

Why are you ashamed, are we traveling by TV? - Mitka shouted and winked: - My Kalinushka, oh, a little bitter!

Grigory, looking ahead, almost passed by and suddenly hit the peacefully walking mare with a whip. She sat down on her hind legs and, looking up, splashed Aksinya with mud.

And-and-and, the devil is bad!

Turning sharply, running over Aksinya with a hot horse, Grigory asked:

Why don't you say hello?

You're not worth it!

That's why I slapped you - don't be proud!

Let me go! - Aksinya shouted, waving her hands in front of the horse’s muzzle. - Why are you trampling me with your horse?

It's a mare, not a horse.

Let me go anyway!

Why are you angry, Aksyutka? Is it really better to have a loan?..

Gregory looked into her eyes. Aksinya wanted to say something, but a tear suddenly appeared in the corner of her black eye; His lips trembled pathetically. She swallowed convulsively and whispered:

Get off it, Grigory... I'm not angry... I... - And I went.

Surprised Grigory caught up with Mitka at the gate.

Will you come to the game? - he asked.

What's so? Or did you call me to spend the night?

Gregory rubbed his forehead with his palm and did not answer.

VIII(II first part)

Rare stars swayed in the ashen dawn sky. The wind blew from under the clouds. The fog reared up over the Don and, spreading along the slope of the chalk mountain, slid into the holes like a gray headless viper. The left-bank Obdon region, the sands, valleys, reedy impassable paths, the forest in the dew - blazed with a frenzied cold glow. Beyond the line, the sun languished without rising.

In the Melekhov kuren, Prokofievich Pantelei was the first to wake up from sleep. Buttoning the collar of his shirt embroidered with crosses as he walked, he went out onto the porch. The grassy courtyard is lined with dewy silver. He released the cattle into the alley. Daria ran in her underwear to milk the cows. Dew splashed like colostrum onto the calves of her white bare feet, and a smoky, crushed trail lay across the grass across the bases.

Panteley Prokofievich looked at how the grass, crushed by Daria’s feet, straightened, and went to the upper room.

On the sill of the open window, the petals of the cherry tree that had bloomed in the front garden were deathly pink. Grigory was sleeping on his face, throwing his hand outwards.

Grishka, are you going fishing?

What are you? - he asked in a whisper and dangled his legs from the bed.

Let's go and sit until dawn.

Grigory, snoring, pulled his everyday trousers from the pendant, put them into white woolen stockings and put on his chirk for a long time, straightening the back that had turned up.

In the Sholokhov edition, due to an editorial oversight, this “peaceful” epigraph is preceded by another, “military” one (“Our glorious land was not plowed with plows...”), although logically it should open the second, military book, which was left without an epigraph. The epigraph to the third book (also a military one) corresponds to its contents. The epigraph to the remaining part of the 7th novel in the drafts is unknown, but probably this part should have been included in the third volume, which grew from numerous quotes from later White Guard memoirs and Bolshevik party articles. In this case, the logic of the three volumes (and the epigraphs to them) is as obvious as the polemic with the 19th century, the century of Leo Tolstoy: the formula of modern times is not War and Peace, but Peace - War - Civil War. Part 8 belongs entirely to Soviet imitators. ( Note A. Ch. In publications: “Somehow, damn it, I need you!”

Nowadays the village of Setraki, Chertkovsky district, Rostov region, is 60 versts from Veshenskaya and 120 versts from the village of Khovansky ( approx. A. Ch.)

Gas - kerosene

Fishermen do not boil “privadu” (fish food usually made from grains of wheat, rye or barley), but steam it. We find a correction missing in the editions in the “draft” manuscript: over “Did your mother cook porridge?” (“Draft”, p. 5) we read: “Did the mother soar?” However, in further “edits”: “Did your mother cook Privada?” (“Whitewashed,” p. 5); “Did mommy cook the bait?” (“Belovaya”, p. 5). ( Note A. Ch.)

In the publications there is a misspelling: “to the left.” But the right, sunless bank of the Don flowing in this place from west to east should be called the Black Yar. The old man pinpoints the fishing spot: “To the Black Yar. Let’s try it near this karshi, where Nadys sat.”

In Sholokhov’s “draft” (p. 6) “huge, an arshin of one and a half carp” later became “two arshin” (later editing with purple ink over black). But in nature, the maximum length of a carp is exactly one and a half arshins (a little more than a meter), and its weight is up to 20 kg. A carp weighing 15.5 pounds, as Grigory found out with the help of a steelyard (about 6.5 kg), all the more so cannot be “two-yards” (that is, almost half a meter), since the carp is a carp fish and simply cannot become so thin. This is a typical Sholokhov edit. In the first book we come across a number of similar examples: this is an increase in the supply of grain at the Mokhov mill (in poods), and an increase in the distance covered by a horseman per day. It was for notes of this kind (only not in someone else’s prose, but in financial documents) that the young accountant Mikhail Sholokhov was tried in 1922. ( Note A. Ch.)

In the Sholokhov edition: “...behind her the water rose like a slanting greenish sheet.” According to the “draft” (p. 7): “...behind it stood water like a short sheet.” According to “whitewashed” (p. 6) and “whitewashed” (p. 6): “... behind it the water rose like a slanting greenish sheet.” The editors failed to read the text: if a large fish lands on a hook, the standing water (in a kotlin/kolovina, near the shore, behind a sunken elm) will pound like a linen when washing and rinsing. ( Note A. Ch.)

Vieux- drawbar in a bullock harness. (Publishers' note.)

———————————————

MANDATORY RESTRANGEMENT OF A FRAGMENT IN THE THIRD BOOK OF TD

It is not for nothing that the Yar (meaning not a ravine, but a coastal cliff) near the spit cut off by Erik is called Black. As the yar looking east is called Red. And it is no coincidence that it was immediately clarified that the matter is happening “in a loan” (p. 33). In the Sholokhov edition, this yar is mistakenly attributed to the left bank twice (but not the first time!). But for seventy miles from Veshenskaya to Ust-Medveditskaya the Don flows east. Therefore, it is not the left bank, but the right bank that is “black,” that is, inaccessible to sunlight. The one with the scythe.

This looks most blatant in part 6, which describes Gregory’s visit to his division, dug in on the left bank opposite Tatarskoye, occupied by the Reds. Here the description of the right bank loan with many telling farm realities is assigned to the left bank. However, here is a completely different landscape: “The Left Bank Obdon region, sands, valleys, reedy impassable paths, forest in dew” (Book 1, Chapter II)

Fragment from p. 413–415 books. 3 should not precede Gregory’s visit to the positions of the Tatars dug in on the left bank, but should come immediately after:

“A hundred Tatar plastuns were too lazy to dig trenches.

They are inventing devilry,” Christonya said in a bass voice. - What are we, on the German front, or what? Roy, my brothers, the new ones, so the trenches are knee-deep. It’s a mental task, then, to dig such hardened earth two arshins deep? You can’t gouge it out with a crowbar, let alone a shovel.

They listened to him, dug trenches for lying on the gristly, steep ravine on the left bank, and made dugouts in the forest.

Well, now we have switched to the marmot position! - Anikushka, who had never been discouraged, joked. - We’ll live in the nuryas, the grass will be used for food, otherwise you’d have to crack all the pancakes with kaymak, meat, noodles with sterlet... Don’t you want some donnitschka?

The Reds were of little concern to the Tatars. There were no batteries against the farm. Occasionally, only from the right bank did a machine gun begin to rattle, sending short bursts at the observer leaning out of the trench, and then silence would reign for a long time.
The Red Army trenches were on the mountain. From there they also shot occasionally, but the Red Army soldiers only went to the farm at night, and then not for long.

Having approached the trenches of the Tatar plastuns, Grigory sent for his father. Somewhere far away on the left flank Christonya shouted:

Prokofich! Go quickly, so Grigory has arrived!..

Grigory dismounted, handed the reins to Anikushka as he approached, and from afar he saw his father limping hastily.

Well, great, boss!

Hello, dad.

Had arrived?

I got ready by force! Well, how are ours? Mother, where is Natalya?

Panteley Prokofievich waved his hand and frowned. A tear slid down his black cheek...

Well, what is it? What's wrong with them? - Grigory asked anxiously and sharply.

We haven't moved...

How so?!

Natalya went to bed completely within two days. Typhoid must... Well, the old woman didn’t want to leave her... Don’t be alarmed, son, everything is fine with them there.

What about the kids? Teddy bear? Porlyusica?

There too. And Dunyashka moved. I was afraid to stay... It's a girl's thing, you know? Zara and Anikushka's woman went to Volokhov. I've already been home twice. In the middle of the night I’ll move quietly on a longboat, and I’ll have a taste. Natalya is very bad, but the kids are fine, thank God... Natalya has no memory, she has a fever, and her lips are clotted with blood.

Why didn't you move them here? - Grigory shouted indignantly.

The old man became angry, resentment and reproach were in his trembling voice:

What did you do? Couldn't you have come running ahead of time to transport them?

I have a division! I had to transport the division! - Grigory objected passionately.

We heard what you are doing in Veshki...

Family, no matter what, and without any need? Eh, Gregory! You have to think about God if you don’t think about people... I wasn’t crossing here, otherwise wouldn’t I have taken them? My platoon was in Elani, but the Pokedovs reached here, the Reds had already occupied the farm.

I’m in Vyoshki!.. This matter doesn’t concern you... And you tell me... - Grigory’s voice was hoarse and strangled.

Yes, I'm okay! - the old man was frightened, looking back with displeasure at the Cossacks crowding nearby. - That’s not what I’m talking about... Keep your voice down, people are listening... - and he switched to a whisper. - You yourself are not a little child, you should know, but don’t worry about your family. Natalya, God willing, will get the hang of it, but the Reds won’t bully them. True, the summer heifer was slaughtered, but nothing happened. They had mercy and did not touch... They took about forty measures of grain. Well, going to war is not without its losses!

Maybe they could be taken away now?

There is no need, in my opinion. Well, where can I take her when she’s sick? And it's a risky business. Nothing for them either. The old woman looks after the farm, it makes me feel safer, otherwise there were fires in the farm.

Who got burned?

The parade ground was completely burned out. There are more and more merchant houses. The Korshunovs' matchmakers were completely burned. Matchmaker Lukinichna was at Andropov, and Grishak’s grandfather also stayed behind to look after the house. Your mother told me that he, Grishak’s grandfather, said: “I won’t move anywhere from my base, and the Anchichrists won’t come to me, they’ll be afraid of the sign of the cross.” In the end he began to get confused with his mind. But, as you can see, the beautiful people were not afraid of his cross, the kuren and courtyard were filled with smoke, and nothing was heard about him... Yes, it’s time for him to die. He made the house for himself twenty years ago, but he still lives... And your friend is burning the farm, he will perish into the abyss!

Mishka Koshevoy, damn him three times!

He is the true god! Ours had it, tortured you about you. He said to his mother: “As soon as we go over to this side, Gregory, your first next one, will be on
417
shvork He should hang from the tallest oak tree. “I won’t spoil the checkers about him,” he says, “even!” And he asked about me and grinned. “Where did the devil take this lame man,” he says? I would sit at home, he says, on the stove. Well, if I catch him, I won’t kill him to death, but I’ll knock down the weavers until the spirit leaves him!” What a waste it turned out to be! He walks around the farm setting fire into the merchants’ and priests’ houses and says: “For Ivan Alekseevich and for Shtokman, I will burn all of Vyoshenskaya!” Is this your voice?

Grigory talked with his father for another half hour, then went to the horse. In the conversation, the old man did not even hint another word about Aksinya, but Grigory was depressed even without this. “Everyone must have heard about it, since dad knows. Who could tell? Who, besides Prokhor, saw us together? Does Stepan really know?” He even gritted his teeth from shame, from anger at himself...

I talked briefly with the Cossacks. Anikushka kept joking and asked to send several buckets of moonshine for a hundred.

We don’t even need cartridges, as long as we have vodka! - he said, laughing and winking, expressively clicking his nail on the dirty collar of his shirt.

Gregory treated Christonya and all the other farmers to the tobacco he had stored; and just before leaving, I saw Stepan Astakhov. Stepan approached, slowly greeted, but did not shake hands.

Gregory saw him for the first time since the day of the uprising, peered inquisitively and anxiously: “Does he know?” But Stepan’s handsome, dry face was calm, even cheerful, and Grigory sighed with relief: “No, he doesn’t know!”

End of quote.
(TD: 6, LXIII, 413–417).

Next, Grigory is transported to “his (!) place” in order to secretly visit the family remaining on the other side at night - his mother, Natalya, children (for it is said that the Reds, entrenched on the mountain, do not enter the farm at night):

"Gregory moved in on your own loan before evening.

Everything here was familiar to him, every tree gave rise to memories... The road went along Devichya Polyana, where the Cossacks drank vodka every year on Peter’s Day after they “shaken” (divided) the meadow. The cape juts out into the Aleshkin forest.
414
A long time ago, in this then still nameless forest, wolves killed a cow that belonged to some Alexei, a resident of the Tatarsky farm. Alexey died, the memory of him was erased, just as the inscription on a gravestone is erased, even his last name is forgotten by neighbors and relatives, but the forest named after him lives on, stretching the dark green crowns of oaks and karaiches to the sky. Their Tatars cut down to make items necessary for household use, but from the stocky stumps in the spring, tenacious young shoots emerge, a year or two of inconspicuous growth, and again Aleshkin’s copse in the summer - in the malachite greenery of outstretched branches, in the fall - like in golden chain mail, in the red glow of carved oak leaves lit by matinees.

In the summer, in Aleshkin's copse, prickly blackberries thickly entwine the damp ground; on the tops of old Karaichs, smartly feathered rollers and magpies build nests; in the fall, when the invigorating and bitter smell of acorns and carrion oak leaves, migrating woodcocks briefly visit the copse, and in winter only the round printed footprint of a fox stretches like a pearl thread along the spread out white mat of snow. Grigory more than once in his youth went to set fox traps in Aleshkin’s woods...

He rode under the cool canopy of branches, along the old overgrown chariots of last year's road. I passed the Maiden Glade, got out to the Black Yar, and memories hit my head like hops. Near three poplar trees, as a boy I once chased a brood of flightless wild ducklings around the muzgochka, in the Round Lake I caught tench from dawn to evening... And nearby there was a tented viburnum tree. It stands on the outskirts, lonely and old. It can be seen from the Melekhovsky base, and every autumn Gregory, going out onto the porch of his kuren, admired the viburnum bush, from afar as if engulfed in a red tongued flame. The late Petro was so fond of pies with bitter and astringent viburnum...

Grigory looked around with quiet sadness at the places familiar from childhood. The horse walked, lazily driving away with its tail the midges thickly swarming in the air, brown angry mosquitoes.

Green wheatgrass and Arzhan grass gently bowed in the wind. The meadow was covered with green ripples.”

The text in bold indicates that the right bank path is described from the Khovansky climb (not far from the meadow in Krasny Yar, where the Melekhovsky plot was in 1912) to the back gate of the cattle base. This is the path from the ford, through Aleshkin's copse, Devichya Polyana, past Black Yar.

Well, the trenches of the farm hundred are on the left bank.
There is an obvious change of page here: having entered his plot of land, Grigory cannot end up on the left bank of the Tatars dug in there.

WORDS BRILLIANTLY ABSENT
in part 8 of “Quiet Don”,
tabloid forgery of the first Sholokhov scholars

Anonymous imitators who completed Quiet Don in 1940, with made a big mistake: focusing on the method of socialist realism (that is, on the ideological super task), they gave themselves away completely.

The last part of the novel does not contain what necessarily (and, as a rule, repeatedly!) appears in every volume of the novel - cars and airplanes, Maidans and loans, plots, swamps and mud.

In this last part there are no messengers, gypsies, accordions and accordionists, sparrows, snakes, redwort, alder, brooms, bees and sunflowers. Here they don’t know how to untie anything and don’t know the solutions.

There are no nouns “ruble” and “pillar”, there is no such thing as “curse”.

There is nothing crimson and nothing greenish. And no one “angry”. There are no words “power” and “emperor”, epithets “military” and “free” (and in the previous parts: “free life”; “free Don”; “Cossacks are free people”; “free, free sons of the quiet Don”) . There is, of course, no key concept “Quiet Don”. And - although people continue to die in hundreds and thousands - not a single word “corpse” (which appeared 41 times in previous chapters).

And there are no words with the root “sorrow.”

See the table here at the end of the page.

4.3.1920. – The writer Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov, the alleged author of the novel “Quiet Don,” has died.

(2.2.1870–4.3.1920) - Russian writer, Cossack, participant in the White movement. Born in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky district of the Don Army region, in the family of an ataman. Mother is a Don noblewoman. In total there were three children in the family.

Fedor graduated with a silver medal from the Ust-Medveditsk gymnasium, where he studied with F. Mironov (future commander of the 2nd Cavalry Army), A. Popov (future writer A.S. Serafimovich) and Pyotr Gromoslavsky (father-in-law of M.A. Sholokhov) .
In 1888 he entered the Imperial St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philosophy on government support, and received a very good education. Being a hereditary Don Cossack, Kryukov perfectly knew both the life of his native Don and its history, which he showed already in his first works.

While still a student, he began his literary career with the article “Cossacks at the Academic Exhibition”, published in the magazine “Donskaya Speech” (03/18/1890). After graduating (in June 1892) from the institute with a degree in history and geography, he collaborated with the Petersburg Newspaper until 1894, publishing short stories. The story of Don inspired the writer to write large historical essays from the Peter the Great era, “Gulebshchiki” (1892) and “The Shulgin Massacre” (1894), published in the journal “Historical Bulletin”.

In September 1893, he got a job as a boarding teacher at the Oryol men's gymnasium, where in August 1900 he became a supernumerary teacher of history and geography, simultaneously fulfilling his previous duties until 1904. Additionally, he taught history at the Nikolaev women's gymnasium (1894–1898) and Russian language at Oryol-Bakhtin Cadet Corps (1898–1905) and was a member of the provincial scientific archival commission. The first significant works of art from the life of the modern Don Cossacks, such as “Cossack Woman” (1896), “Treasure” (1897), “In Native Places” (1903), date back to this period of time. The long collaboration of Fyodor Dmitrievich with the writer V.G. dates back to the same time. Korolenko - editor-in-chief of the magazine "Russian Wealth" (from 1914 - "Russian Bulletin"), where from 1896 to 1917 F.D. Kryukov published 101 works of various genres.

During this period, he was subject to the general liberal-revolutionary and social-democratic fad. In April 1906, he was elected as a deputy from the Don, and was a member of the Labor Group. After the dissolution of the Duma in July 1906, he signed the “Vyborg Appeal”, for which he served a three-month prison sentence. In 1906–1907 participated in the Party of People's Socialists.

The period before 1914 is the most noticeable in the work of F.D. Kryukov, when he gained literary fame. He wrote dozens of novels and short stories, mainly about folk life on the Don. In 1911, he began work on a “big thing” - a novel about the life of the Don Cossacks. The total volume of works by F.D. Kryukov consists of at least 10 volumes, but during the writer’s lifetime only one volume was published - in 1914.

From the beginning F.D. Kryukov is at the front. He was a war correspondent and head of the Red Cross detachment of the State Duma in the Caucasus (1914 - early 1915). In November 1915 - February 1916 he was on the Galician front. He published numerous impressions in front-line essays from the life of military orderlies and a military hospital, which echo the military themes of the novel "Quiet Don".

Kryukov described the catastrophe in the essays “Collapse”, “New”, “New System”, showing the real picture of the spread of abomination and decay. In January 1918 he returned to the Don, where he took an active part in the war, and in June 1918 he was shell-shocked in battle. At the same time, he wrote a prose poem “Native Land”, which was distributed in the form of leaflets at the front. In August he was elected to the Military Circle and worked as its secretary. Since the fall of 1918, he was the director of the Ust-Medveditsk men's gymnasium and, obviously, it was during this period that he wrote the main parts of his novel dedicated to the civil war. Here, in November 1918, the 25th anniversary of his literary activity was widely celebrated. In 1918 – 1919 published in the magazine "Don Wave", in the newspapers "North of Don", "Priazovsky Krai".

At the beginning of 1920 F.D. Kryukov to the Caucasus and on March 4 died of typhus in the Nezaimanovsky farmstead near the village of Novokorsunskaya.

The manuscript of Kryukov's great novel remains unknown to us.

However, there is a reasonable version that it was precisely this that was used by M.A. Sholokhov for the novel Quiet Don, which he completed at the age of 22 (published in 1927) and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965. “for the artistic strength and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia”. Disputes surrounding authorship began immediately after the publication of the first chapters of the epic in 1928 and escalated after the publication in Paris in 1974 of a study by I.N. Medvedeva-Tomashevskaya (anonymously) under the title “The Stirrup of the Quiet Don (Riddles of the Novel).”

Solzhenitsyn first called Sholokhov a thief back in the 1960s, that is, during the latter’s active “creative” life, and not after his death, and in the book “The Calf Butted an Oak Tree” he cogently outlined the problem of the authorship of the great novel, calling it the main question of Russian literature of the twentieth century. In subsequent years, many domestic and foreign philologists and historians addressed this problem: R.A. Medvedev, M.T. Mezentsev, A.V. Venkov, Zeev Bar-Sella. The most fundamental research is the book by A.G. Makarov and S.E. Makarova's "Tatar Flower" (2001), where the complex composition of the novel is revealed and the historical and literary forgery carried out by a group of people, including Sholokhov, is convincingly proven. As a result of the research, it was concluded that the first two books of “Quiet Don” (parts 1–4) were written by F.D. Kryukov. The third book (parts 5–6) has a complex structure: it contains inserts from the memoirs of active participants in the white struggle -,; and red – N.E. Kakurina, A.A. Frenkel, as well as the addition of mainly ideological content at the level of official cliches of the 1920s. The fourth book (parts 7–8) is composed of texts also written by different people, including Kryukov.

The helpless objections of the Soviet “Sholokhov scientists” to this are also analyzed in detail by the above-mentioned researchers. The most significant argument in favor of Sholokhov’s authorship was the solemn discovery in 1999 of the manuscript of “The Quiet Don”, written in his handwriting, as if he could not rewrite someone else’s manuscript... Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya rewrote “War and Peace” several times, but as a co-author was not attributed to Lev Nikolaevich.

What is the evidence for the impossibility of Sholokhov (1904–1984) writing the main part of the text of the great epic “Quiet Don”?

1. The novel describes with photographic accuracy the life of the Don Cossacks and various social strata of pre-revolutionary Russia, which Sholokhov could not have known both due to his youth, and due to his non-Cossack origin and complete isolation from the described environment. The action of the novel begins in 1911, and natural phenomena are woven into a single context with the Orthodox calendar and are completely consistent with reality. Sholokhov could not physically or psychologically, being a 6-8 year old child, make any observations and records, although he could, of course, later study this time from documents, but in this case the first three books of the novel could not have been written by him in two or three years with such certainty of events.
2. Descriptions of life situations, adult family problems, relationships with women, with children, examples of the behavior of the main characters belonging to different social strata, speak of the rich life experience and natural observation of the author. You can’t write like that at 22... Moreover, work on the novel in this case should have begun several years earlier, in fact, in adolescence.
3. Dark spots in Sholokhov's biography. Upon deep study, everything that he wrote about himself later turned out to be either fiction or half-truths. And all the information about his “food commissar” and the battles with the Makhnovists, which had been exaggerated for so long in the literature and “memoirs” of the family, turned out to be a lie. He was never a participant in the hostilities that he talentedly and reliably described in the novel.
4. The most serious factual errors in the novel were made in the description of the battles of the First World War. The 12th Don Cossack Regiment, in which its hero Grigory Melekhov served, was never in East Prussia, and yet, in Grigory’s memoirs during the Upper Don uprising, East Prussia is constantly mentioned. The battles in Galicia in 1914, where the 12th Don Cossack Regiment actually fought, are described with high accuracy. Thus, the fate of the main characters of the novel seems to bifurcate, now they fight in East Prussia, now in Galicia. Meanwhile, regiments formed in the Upper Don District (10th, 11th and 12th Don Cossacks), which included the village of Veshenskaya, fought in Galicia, and in East Prussia - regiments formed in the Ust-Medveditsky District ( 3rd Ermak Timofeevich and 17th General Baklanov regiments). Namely, in the Ust-Medveditsky district in the village of Glazunovskaya, Kryukov was born and lived for a long time. As additional confirmation of the latest remarks, one can cite the testimony of S.V. Golubintsev (1897–1985) - a Don Cossack who fought during the First World War in the ranks of the 11th Izyum Hussar Regiment and returned to the Don along with the Cossacks of the 12th Don Regiment, the 1st hundred of which was commanded by Yesaul Tsygankov. On the way, the young officers sat in a circle and listened to Tsygankov’s memoirs, the details of which “later I read in Brazil in the first part of Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don.” Even then, I was surprised how he, being a teenager during the war, could know that in the 17th Don Cossack regiment of General Baklanov, officers wore red caps, which he talked about in such detail in the place where Chernetsov’s partisans are mentioned. And in general, I thought then, could he, a communist, talk so beautifully about the election of P.N. to atamans by the Don Circle. Krasnova. The only place where he made a mistake in his stories about the 12th Don Cossack Regiment is in the place where he says that the Cossacks killed their adjutant. This is a lie, because I rode with the Cossacks of the 12th Don Regiment to the Setrakov farm, and the Cossacks generally behaved very restrainedly and did not touch any of the officers... The name of the dashing anti-communist in the novel - Yesaul Kalmykov - also caught my eye, but here I even smiled. But this is our “dictator” Yesaul Tsygankov! I last met Yesaul Tsygankov on the Don in 1919 and after that I didn’t have to see him.” It is clear that Sholokhov could not have known Yesaul Tsygankov, as well as centurion Izvarin and other participants in those tragic events, as well as the details of the officers’ uniforms 17 of the Don General Baklanov Regiment, but F. D. Kryukov certainly could. And the phrase about the murder of the adjutant is definitely Sholokhov. And this fully corresponds to the research scheme of A.G. and S.E. Makarov.
5. In "Quiet Don" local Don figures are shown with accuracy and authenticity. Moreover, as established by A.V. Venkov, the appearance and habits of these people are described with photographic precision. The person writing the novel must have been familiar with them. And all of them were members of the Cossack Circle, whose secretary in 1918 was Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov. The thirteen-fifteen year old teenager Sholokhov could not even be near these people.
6. Modern researchers have rightly noted that Grigory Melekhov’s “blundering”, his suddenly awakening hatred of the officers of 1919-1920. have no basis or historical basis. These are later ideological insertions into the text of the novel. Cossack officers came from the same sociocultural environment as ordinary Cossacks, lived with them, as a rule, in the same villages, and access to the Novocherkassk Cossack Cavalry School was open to everyone. During the years of the civil war, a large number of Cossacks, like Grigory Melekhov, rose not only to officer ranks, but even became generals. However, even if we take into account the official version of the creation of the “Quiet Don”, the ever-doubting and truth-seeking Grigory does not fit in with the uncompromising communist Sholokhov, who strangled and poisoned every living thing in Soviet literature. Any author endows the main character of a work with some of his own traits and puts his thoughts into his mouth. Such is Pechorin, and the cornet, and then General Sablin from P.N. Krasnova. It is simply impossible to imagine Grigory Melekhov and Sholokhov in such a relationship.
7. Cossack songs are organically woven into the text of "Quiet Don". Sholokhov always said that he took their texts from collections of Don songs by Pivovarov and Listopadov. But in these collections there are no variants of the words of the songs used in the novel. Kryukov was one of the deepest experts in Cossack songwriting, he collected songs himself and sang superbly. In Sholokhov's other works there is not even a shadow of such use of folklore.
8. Sholokhov practically never left the Don, and had never been to St. Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad before the publication of the novel. Meanwhile, the descriptions of the northern capital in the novel are striking in their accuracy. It is also impossible to accurately describe a city where you have never been.
9. Low level of general culture in Sholokhov. One of the main arguments of the “Sholokhov scholars” regarding the author’s youth is the example of the creation of talented works by other great poets and writers. But we must not forget what environment they came from and what a brilliant education they had. Moreover, all their works were written either from personal experience (for example, “Hero of Our Time” by Lermontov), ​​or on the basis of a deep study of historical documents and, nevertheless, at a more mature age (for example, “The History of the Pugachev Rebellion” by Pushkin). What kind of education could a non-resident of the Veshenskaya village receive in the terrible conditions of the civil war? At the very least, a delay in achieving the required cultural and educational level was inevitable, but, judging by Sholokhov’s official biography, it did not happen. Meanwhile, later inserts in parts 1-4 of the novel and numerous ideological cliches in parts 5-6 indicate Mikhail Alexandrovich’s complete historical illiteracy. Everything is confused: the dates of the movement and battles of the Volunteer Army, the names of the generals who broke through the front of the Red Army and joined forces with the rebels in May 1919 are mixed up, and much more. All this confusion, according to specialist research, refers to later ideological insertions.
10. There is evidence from Professor Alexander Longinovich Ilsky, who worked in 1927 as a 17-year-old boy in the editorial office of Roman-Gazeta and witnessed Sholokhov’s “formation” as a writer: “Not only I, but everyone in our editorial office knew that the first 4 parts Sholokhov never wrote the novel "Quiet Don". It happened like this: at the end of 1927, the editorial office of M.A. Sholokhov brought one copy of the manuscript, 500 pages of typewritten text.” However, after the publication of the first 4 parts of the novel, rumors about plagiarism began to spread. Ilsky describes the atmosphere that reigned in society in those years. In conditions of the almost complete extermination of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia, a talented “proletarian author” with a good profile was needed. The main reactor of the Roman Newspaper, A. Grudskaya, through her friend who worked in Stalin’s secretariat, slipped the novel being published to the leader. I liked the novel, and Sholokhov was appointed as the representative ideological “author”. After the release of the famous letter from the board of RAPP signed by Serafimovich, Averbakh, Kirshon, Fadeev and Stavsky, for the slightest doubt about Sholokhov’s authorship he was threatened with execution. Later, almost all the witnesses, led by the Trotskyist Grudskaya, were repressed, and Ilsky entered a technical university, went to work in the field of technology and never touched this topic again.
11. The primitiveness of the further creative path of the “great writer”. Having created a novel of enormous artistic power about events and a time that he practically did not know, in record time, later, being a “classic of Soviet literature,” he never created anything significant. It is known that a real writer cannot help but write. There are plenty of examples of this. While in the wild conditions of Stalin's camps, Solzhenitsyn wrote in his head, memorizing large parts of the texts in order to later pour them onto paper. What about a “great writer”? Living constantly in Veshenskaya, having a lot of free time, receiving large money by Soviet standards and practically not needing anything, having access to any sources due to his position, there is almost nothing to write about, by the beginning of which he was about 40 years old (the heyday of creative strength for any person)! The war awakened the talents of a huge number of people who went through it. Viktor Astafiev, Boris Vasiliev, Vyacheslav Kondratiev, Vasil Bykov, Konstantin Simonov and many others left brilliant works about the war under all the ideological restrictions of the totalitarian regime, including those initially written in the table "The Great Writer Sholokhov" nothing but the primitive "Science of Hate" and “The Fate of Man,” which was rightly criticized by Solzhenitsyn, he did not create. “Work” on the novel “They Fought for the Motherland” supposedly “continued” until the end of the writer’s life, but not a single page was found, not even a single page of the written text!
12. And one more important point, also noted by almost all researchers. There is not a single evidence that anyone saw Sholokhov working at his desk or writing anything. If we take the already mentioned Pushkin, Lermontov and Byron as an example, then there are dozens of contemporaneous testimonies about how poets wrote poems impromptu in albums for women, on the cuffs of friends, for a bet during parties, and later these brilliant works were included in their complete works. collected works on equal terms with everyone else. Still, memories of Sholokhov boil down to how he loved fishing and drinking in nature.

What really happened? Why has “the main question of Russian literature of the twentieth century” still not been resolved? Having brought together all the available material, we can assume the following course of events related to the writing and publication of individual parts of the great epic, united under the general title “Quiet Don”.

The outstanding Russian writer, Don Cossack Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov, in 1911, at the age of 41, decided to write a “big thing” - a novel about the Don and the Don Cossacks, using his rich literary and life experience. He observed the life of both the Don and all of Russia. Being a sociable and charming person, he gained the love of ordinary people and recognition in the circles of representatives of Russian literature of that time. The outbreak of the Great War of 1914 and the subsequent events of the revolution and civil war sharpened his talent, raising him to the level of genius. The plots he saw at the front, in Petrograd and on the Don, were reflected in essays, short stories and smoothly flowed, in a slightly modified form, onto the pages of the epic novel “Quiet Don”, the first four parts of which were completely completed by 1917. The main place of action - Tatarsky village, Ust-Medveditsky district.

The main characters serve in the 3rd and 17th Don Cossack regiments and fight in the First World War in East Prussia - hence the East Prussian branch in the novel. Rapidly developing events on the Don constantly make adjustments to the text of the novel. The Verkhnedonsky uprising that broke out in 1919 so struck Fyodor Dmitrievich, who, as secretary of the Military Circle, had the opportunity to receive the most reliable information about the events that were boiling on both sides of the front, that he decided to change the storyline and move the Tatarsky farm in the novel to the Upper Don Okrug in Veshenskaya village. Hence the transfer of the place of service of the main characters during the First World War to the regiments recruited in the Upper Don District. However, not everything the writer managed to finalize and complete. The retreat of the Whites from the Don at the beginning of 1920 led him to Kuban, where Fyodor Dmitrievich died of typhus.

His entire rich literary archive fell into the hands of the former village ataman Pyotr Yakovlevich Gromoslavsky, who fiercely hated Kryukov because the writer exposed his financial fraud in 1913 and thereby deprived him of the ataman’s mace. Returning to the Don, fearing reprisals from the new government, Gromoslavsky gives his daughter Maria in marriage to the young Sholokhov, who, apart from a “clean” profile, had nothing in his soul. In order to secure his future, Gromoslavsky comes into contact with A.S. Serafimovich - a talented Don writer who went to serve the Bolsheviks and personally knew F.D. Kryukov as a one-time worker and writer. Gromoslavsky pursued selfish goals, what goals Serafimovich pursued is difficult to say. Perhaps in this way he wanted to somehow save the novel from destruction and oblivion, but this does not change the essence of the matter. Based on the richest archive of Kryukov for three years from 1926 to 1929. The first six parts of the novel "Quiet Don" were completed, then published under the name of Sholokhov.

Sholokhov himself most likely performed only technical work on rewriting texts. This alone, given the global nature of the narrative and its ideological adjustment, should have taken several years. The fourth book of the novel was most likely compiled by Serafimovich himself on the basis of Kryukov’s archives, since in it, despite the negative opinion of many modern researchers, there are still brilliant passages that Sholokhov, by definition, could not write on his own. Subsequently, other materials from Kryukov’s archive formed the basis for writing the most powerful passages in Sholokhov’s remaining works, with which “Quiet Don” was compared by many, including Norwegian, researchers. Naturally, the comparison results confirmed that it was written by the same author.

The interests of the Bolshevik government led by Stalin coincided with the interests of the Serafimovich-Gromoslavsky literary group, which explains the rapid publication of the novel and the “green street” given to it. For the rest of his life, Sholokhov tried to make minor adjustments to the text, trying to adjust it to the existing political moment and somehow smooth out glaring errors, but nothing worked for him. It did not work to turn a White Guard novel into a communist one, nor did it work to replace the great truth of life with ideological cliches. Like false notes in the greatest piece of music, they briefly offended the ears of the uninitiated reader in historical subtleties, without changing either the great essence of the novel or the attitude towards the main characters.

The main inspirers and organizers of the greatest historical forgery in world literature died of natural causes. Sholokhov himself grew old, still remaining a “classic of Soviet literature.” You can deceive people, but God cannot. You can steal a novel, but you cannot steal talent. A fool of the 1920s who can do nothing. He remained that way until old age, without writing anything comparable. Organized by the criminal authorities, the “genius” surrounded himself with a whole host of “researchers of his creativity” who received money, academic degrees, and built material well-being on this, like Gromoslavsky. It is this and only this that explains their apology for Sholokhov’s authorship, both before and now.

But the authorities always knew what they were doing. There is no doubt that the FSB archives contain a classified file on Sholokhov and company. That is why there is no academic publication of his works. That is why, when he died, there was not much fuss due to his rank. And that is why for all the time, from 1917 to 1991, not a single work by Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov was published. Only in 1993 was one volume of his works published - and that’s it. But libraries have all the pre-revolutionary magazines in which he published, and you can put together 10 volumes of his works. And this is another indirect proof of the guilt of both Sholokhov and those in power.

Indeed, after Stalin’s death, the works of many other writers who emigrated after the Civil War were widely published in the USSR. Pre-revolutionary works - almost all of them, some written in exile, but not containing criticism of the communist regime. The collected works of these writers could be read in every rural library. Ivan Bunin, for example, having lived abroad for more than 30 years, wrote many unpleasant things about the Bolsheviks. They simply weren’t published in Soviet times.

Kryukov could write such anti-Soviet works only for three years - from 1917 to 1920. It would seem, why not publish the pre-revolutionary works of a writer who was at one time liberal-minded and suffered from the tsarist regime along with members of the First State Duma, who was friends before the revolution with Korolenko, F.K. Mironov and A.S. Serafimovich, who supported the Bolsheviks, who was not repressed by the Soviet regime, but died of typhus during the Civil War? At least publish with the same reservations, as in the case of Bunin and Kuprin, that “he supposedly did not understand the great meaning of the revolution, went against it, and here is the result - premature death in the prime of his creative powers”? Why don’t they publish Kryukov’s works now, when 25 volumes in which the great philosopher leaves no stone unturned from the criminal government that collapsed 14 years ago have long been on sale? It seems that there is no logic in such silence about Kryukov?

But, nevertheless, it exists, and it lies in the fact that, as before, in all key positions both in government agencies, and in non-profit publishing houses and in literary magazines, there are people who are, to one degree or another, involved in the Soviet government and to her “Sholohology”, therefore the publication of the complete works of Kryukov is a death sentence to their academic degrees and positions. After a quick comparison, any amateur will understand who the author of "Quiet Don" is. After all, Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov remains an outstanding Russian writer even without “Quiet Don,” and Sholokhov, without a great novel, turns into an absolute zero.

But for now these are all hypotheses. Any past or future most in-depth literary studies will be only indirect evidence of the crime committed. Direct evidence is needed. It is known that the “Sholokhov archive”, where F.D.’s drafts were also stored with almost one hundred percent guarantee. Kryukov, “disappeared” during the evacuation from Veshenskaya in 1942. As if we were talking about collective farm accounting, and not about the departure of Stalin’s favorite to the rear. Why did they “look for” the manuscript for so long during Soviet times, and even 15 years after it? And what, Sholokhov himself was indifferent to the fate of his own manuscripts throughout the post-war period? Yes, with one word from him, all the power of the party apparatus and the KGB would be thrown into the search for the “great heritage of Soviet literature”...

It’s clear where the archive disappeared. Stalin loved to keep everyone “on the hook”, the best of which in the case of Sholokhov was precisely the manuscripts with traces of the crime. Isn't it time to reveal it? To do this, the Russian government must create a target commission and program to investigate yet another atrocity of the Bolshevik government. And let this not confuse anyone. Compared to what has already been opened, this is truly a trifle. How can the theft of one great novel overshadow the deaths of millions of innocent people? But this “trifle” is typical! It will once again emphasize the deceitfulness and criminality of Bolshevism and will return to world literature the name of the brilliant Russian writer and great patriot - Kryukov, who wrote in his last work “Tatar Flower”, explaining the name of the native farm of the main characters of “Quiet Don”, truly prophetic words consonant with and to our present time:

“I also think of my native Cossacks as an invincible Tatar flower, not clinging to the dust and ashes of the roadside, in the lifeless expanse of the crucified Motherland... I only managed to spend one day in it, looked at the ruins of the burned and devastated native nest, my native graves. There is sadness in my soul. And together - an even feeling of calm conviction that the stages determined by fate cannot be avoided on foot or on horseback. I look at the old chicken house destroyed by a shell, at the charred ruins - it’s insulting, bitter. But there is no despair! Let’s go through the crucible of cruel science, we will be smarter, more united, and, perhaps, we will organize our lives better.”

In order for life to truly become better, it is necessary, among other things, to return to Russian literature and to the cover of the academic edition of the novel the name of its great and true author - F.D. Kryukova. It is necessary to make an attempt to recreate the original text of “The Quiet Flows the Don”, providing it with detailed comments and, who knows, perhaps adding the missing passages if they were miraculously preserved in the archive. Why not? After all, as you know, “manuscripts don’t burn.” The name of Sholokhov, as well as the names of all those who “helped” him and justified his actions, should take their rightful place in history, next to Herostratus.

This article was written in 2005 to mark the “centenary” of Sholokhov. Then, indeed, nothing from Kryukov’s works was published, except for one mentioned book (1993). To date, the publishing house "AIRO XXI Century" (Association of Researchers of Russian Society), headed by Andrei Glebovich Makarov, the author of the study "Tatar Flower", has published seven books by Kryukov, united by topic. They can all be viewed on the publisher's website. In addition, in 2010 they published the book “Riddles and secrets of the Quiet Don: twelve years of searches and finds.” In particular, modern researchers have established about 1000 incorrect readings of the letter “yat” in the “manuscript”, that is, the copyist sometimes even changed the meaning of the words. But officially nothing has changed on this issue yet. Vice versa.

In November 2006, the first channel of central television showed a serial film by S.F. Bondarchuk's "Quiet Don", in which both historical events and the Soviet "canonical" text of the novel itself were terribly distorted. In general, recently it has become fashionable to return to the “experience” of the Soviet period in many areas of life, from cinema to public administration. The children and grandchildren of Sholokhov, Molotov, Khrushchev and other figures of the Soviet era, who by all concepts of Russian legality and international law are criminals against humanity, since they have the blood of millions of people on their conscience, constantly appear on television. It was they who signed the execution lists, calling to “strengthen the fight against the enemies of the people,” thereby becoming accomplices of Stalin’s crimes, and the “party mouthpiece” M. Sholokhov justified them on the radio and at party congresses.

As soon as someone dares to raise these “touchy” questions for the relatives of Soviet leaders and their apologists, cries are immediately heard: “Don’t touch the dead! Why bring up the past! Our fathers and grandfathers did many useful things!” What can you answer to this? Only the following: even the life of one of the most odious criminals of the twentieth century, Chikatilo, is not a continuous string of atrocities. He was a member of the CPSU, was considered a good family man, and benefited society by working in the vocational technical education system. But based on more than fifty episodes brought against him by the investigation, he was recognized as a monster. This is the same situation with the figures of the Soviet era listed above. They are criminals and there is no justification for them, despite a number of useful deeds that they have done. There will be not 50 episodes to charge them with crimes, but ten times more. Their children and grandchildren need to sit quietly and try to atone for their sins, like the relatives of Nazi criminals now living in Germany.

Why is it impossible to talk about this directly, but to throw mud at the Don generals, highly educated and cultured people on the screen, who did not spare their lives in the fight against those same Sholokhovs, Molotovs, Stalin, Trotskys and similar bandits who betrayed the Motherland and took part in its destruction and looting, is it possible? As if the heroes of Russia and the Don have no relatives, or simply people who respect their lives and feats?

One of Sholokhov’s defenders writes: “When they wash the bones of the dead, this is not Christian... And what difference does it make who wrote the great work of Russian literature?” But, firstly, history as a science only deals with studying the past, and history cannot be without evaluation. We consider Sholokhov and his “creativity” from the point of view of the historical possibility of him writing a great novel, and we come to the conclusion that the probability of such writing is close to zero, while for Kryukov it is more than possible.

If we were discussing with whom Sholokhov drank and whether he lost government funds at cards or not, then this would be “washing out the bones,” but in this case it is the restoration of historical truth and justice. For his similar defenders, it turns out that you can steal a novel, you can create a false myth, but you cannot expose the thief and the myth: an attack on “sacred things”, almost desecration of the religious feelings of believers! Secondly, the application of Christian morality to the Bolsheviks, in whose ranks Sholokhov was active, who exterminated millions of believers, blew up churches, destroyed more than 90% of the pre-revolutionary priesthood and 70% of the Cossacks is not only inappropriate, but also blasphemous in relation to their victims. And this blasphemy, unfortunately, continues, multiplying evil on our land...

Dmitry Mikhailovich Kalikhman, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Saratov.

Monument to Sholokhov on Gogolevsky Boulevard, erected on May 24, 2007 in front of the Russian Cultural Foundation. The author is sculptor Alexander Rukavishnikov.

Discussion: 19 comments

When will the anti-Soviet slanderers calm down???

In the Sholokhov manuscripts, generally written according to modern rules, traces of the old spelling remained: “trace”, “grandfather”, “sergeant”, “armiya”. Critics explain this by the fact that the original manuscript of the original author, which Sholokhov used, was written according to the old spelling. There are cases of erroneous reading of words written according to the old spelling, for example, the word “seraya” (“gray”, 2nd letter - “ѣ”, “yat”) turned into “raw” (“ѣ” is mistaken for “y”) .

When will the falsifier-advisers calm down and repent of their blasphemy?

well, it was in Bolshevik customs... there is a similar story in Kazakhstan. The poems of the talented but repressed poet, “enemy of the people” Magzhan Zhumabaev were published under the name... Dzhambul. And they are still moving from anthology to anthology. They knew in the writers' union , and those who led the union.
knew, but...

The author of the article is Kalikhman (the surname is annoying) Although the article is not bad, it is quite convincing. But such expressions as “Stalin’s crimes” and so on indicate that these are the words of either a narrow-minded person, or he is just an ordinary Kalikhman. Then it's not surprising. And I don’t trust the “Kalikhmans” in anything, ever. And I encourage others to do the same. Stalin for them is a litmus test.

From my point of view, the attitude towards Stalin is precisely a litmus test for determining the morality and spiritual health of a person on the one hand, and Satanism and masochism on the other. To separate loyalty to historical Russia from longing for the Soviet atheistic paradise with sausage for 2.20 on a foundation of human bones.
As for the author's surname, such of his fellow tribesmen (by the nationality of his ancestors) as generals Rennenkampf, Wrangel, Keller, Kappel, Dieterichs and many others - showed in Russian history precisely Russian Orthodox morality in its defense from the legion of Voroshilovs, Dybenok and Budyonny, led by the Trotskys and Schiffs. Anyone who is unable to understand this has no right to call himself Russian.

I completely agree with MVN that “the attitude towards Stalin is precisely the litmus test for determining the morality and spiritual health of a person”... But let’s try to figure out who hates Stalin today? I think MVN and Felix will agree that these are Jews, thieves, swindlers, prostitutes, various sexual perverts (there are many of them, so I won’t list them), brain-dead individuals zombified by the TV box and other media, and other people for whom gospel values ​​are unacceptable - “blinding eyes or stand across the throat." They are also cowardly publishers who do not dare to call a spade a spade. Scolding communists and Stalin is safe, but naming the real culprits is fraught. Question for MVN - which of the listed “human species” would you consider yourself to be??? Or who else, besides those listed, hates Stalin and Soviet power???

Your Majesty. I didn't call you here. Since you came to visit me with your demands, first decide for yourself the reasons for your love for the sadistic atheist and hatred for historical Russia, destroyed by your Jewish Bolsheviks: Are you a Satanist or a masochist? And why I, along with millions of victims of the anti-Russian system and fighters against it, hate both Satanism and masochism - you cannot understand by definition due to the lack of the necessary property of the soul. Thanks for using the litmus test.

Gentlemen are good. do not raise the provocative question of the authorship of “Quiet Flows the Don.” Nothing can diminish the glory of the journalist and publicist Kryukov. And that dispute is a well-known provocation and discord.

Vladimir is right: either Kryukov stole something, or someone stole something from him - what difference does it make if the author’s surname is “annoying”, and Stalin religiously observed the “Gospel commandments” and was hated by prostitutes. The discussion of “the main issue of Russian literature of the twentieth century,” according to Solzhenitsyn, turned out to be fruitful. However, this is also that provocative anti-Soviet and collaborator of the CIA, he inflated everything instead of writing “Virgin Soil Upturned” about the successes of socialism. By the way, for some reason everyone forgot about this masterpiece...

Good Mr. MVN, you have completely groundlessly attributed to me qualities and inclinations that I do not possess, so let me explain where I disagree with you. First of all, I inform you that I have long ago decided on the reasons for my love, respect and admiration for I.V. Stalin. The basis for this is the greatest achievements, accomplishments and deeds. I won’t list them, adequate people know them and not only in our country. Stalin is the greatest statesman and politician. In the twentieth century, there is no one to put next to him, and this is recognized by the greatest minds of mankind. Stalin was never a sadistic God-fighter; on the contrary, we owe him the preservation of Orthodoxy; with him, Kirill Gundyaev would not have gone to kiss the Pope. I did not and do not have hatred for historical Russia. I love and am proud of my ancestors, who fought and died for historical Russia for many centuries. The Jewish Bolsheviks have never been and never will be my people. I am not a Satanist or a masochist. I am a Russian Orthodox person. I was and still am. I really don’t understand what property of the soul I’m missing? But do I even have a soul? I would appreciate a more detailed explanation. Thank you.

First of all, you lack a sense of sin (associated with the presence of conscience). In particular, the sin of murder. The murders of millions of Russian people, how are you trying to justify some of Stalin’s “greatest achievements, accomplishments and deeds,” as if without the destruction of 66 million people (irrefutable statistics:) the achievements would have been impossible. If you yourself would like to serve as human fertilizer for these achievements, you are a masochist.
Further. You lack national identity and you are a traitor to your ancestors, “who fought and died for historical Russia for many centuries,” but which, in the service of Satan, was destroyed by the Jewish Bolsheviks and Stalin in their leadership. They destroyed the Orthodox statehood of the Third Rome, which held back the world's evil. If you justify this satanic revolution, you are a Satanist.
You are in no way a “Russian Orthodox person” because you believe that we owe the preservation of Orthodoxy not to the New Martyrs (victims of Lenin-Stalin) and not to God, but to the apostate and God-fighter “to Stalin.” That is, through the godless five-year plan, the decree of which he personally signed:
I ask you not to continue the discussion here anymore. Let us agree that we have directly opposite ideas about Russia and Orthodoxy, that is, directly opposite FAITH. And we will each remain with his own and each will receive from the Lord according to his faith.

Despite the absurdity of your arguments and feminine logic, I accept your proposal not to continue the discussion. Let's not "throw pearls before swine." Let's each remain with our own opinion.

The story is good, but a bit tedious at the end. Stylistically, it is close to “Virgin Soil Upturned,” but artistically it is much stronger. “A manuscript that doesn’t exist...” is very romantic, just like a “book of Veles”! Perhaps some fans of “The Quiet Don” fell so in love with this book that they even decided to find a worthy author to replace the party’s Sholokhov?

All the meanness and villainy, and in essence the Satanism of Judeo-Bolshevism, lies in the fact that they tried to show their vile and vile satanic power as the highest stage in the thousand-year history of Orthodox Russia and its great culture. And this is precisely the villainy and meanness of Sholokhov, who, having stolen the great work of the true Cossack and white warrior Kryukov, used it to justify Bolshevism.

I am far from knowing history, but I am deeply convinced that Sholokhov is not the author of "Quiet Don"

Let me doubt the date of death of Fyodor Dmitrievich. The evacuation from Novorossiysk described in “Quiet Don” was written by Kryukov, and it took place in mid-March 1920.

"- Well, the English guns bark sharply! But in vain they are irritating the Reds. There is no benefit from their shooting, there is just a lot of noise ...
- Stop the brutes! We don't care at all. - Smiling, Grigory touched his horse and rode down the street.
Six horsemen with drawn blades flew out towards him from around the corner, racing in a frenzied rush. The front rider had a scarlet bow bleeding on his chest like a wound."
Here is, perhaps, the author's last fragment. Truly Kryukovsky, with biblical parallels: horsemen of the apocalypse and the outcome.

Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov(February 2 (14), 1870, Glazunovskaya village, Ust-Medveditsky district of the Don Army region (currently Kumylzhensky district of the Volgograd region) - March 4, 1920 Nezaimanovsky village of the Kuban region) - Russian writer, Cossack, participant in the White movement.

Biography

Fyodor Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky district of the Don Army region. Ataman's son. Mother is a Don noblewoman. In total there were three children in the family. In 1918, his younger brother, who served as a forester, was removed from the train and killed by the Red Guards for appearing intelligent.

Fedor studied at the Ust-Medveditsk gymnasium (graduated with a silver medal) together with Philip Mironov (future commander of the 2nd Cavalry Army), Alexander Popov (future writer A. S. Serafimovich) and Pyotr Gromoslavsky (father-in-law of M. A. Sholokhov). In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute.

State Councillor. In 1893-1905 he worked at the Oryol gymnasium as a teacher of history and geography, and as a teacher in its boarding school. In 1906, he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Army region. He was a member of the Labor Group. On July 10, 1906, in Vyborg, after the dispersal of the State Duma of the 1st convocation, he signed the “Vyborg Appeal”, for which he was convicted under Art. 129, part 1, paragraphs 51 and 3 of the Criminal Code, served a three-month prison sentence in the St. Petersburg Kresty prison. At the end of 1906 and in 1907, one of the organizers and prominent ideologists of the Party of People's Socialists.

Head of the literature and art department of the magazine “Russian Wealth” (editor and co-publisher V. G. Korolenko). Teacher of Russian literature and history in gymnasiums in Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. Teacher of the poet Alexander Tinyakov.

During the First World War, he served in a medical detachment under the command of Prince Varlam Gelovani and wrote a number of essays from the life of a military hospital and military orderlies, which echo the military themes of “Quiet Don”. During the Civil War he supported the government of the All-Great Don Army. One of the ideologists of the White movement. Secretary of the Military Circle. In 1920, he retreated along with the remnants of the Don Army to Novorossiysk. He died in the hospital of the monastery of the Nezaimanovsky farm from typhus on March 4, and was buried there.

There is a version (I. N. Medvedeva-Tomashevskaya, A. I. Solzhenitsyn, etc.) according to which Fyodor Kryukov is the author of the “original text” of the novel “Quiet Don”, which was used by M. A. Sholokhov. Not all supporters of Sholokhov's plagiarism theory support this version.

Kryukov is the prototype of Fyodor Kovynev, an important character in A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s epic “The Red Wheel”.

Works of Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov

“Cossack village courts”, 1892 “Gulebshchiki”, 1892 “Shulgin massacre”, 1894 "Cossack Woman", 1896 “On the Quiet Don”, 1898 “In native places”, 1903 “From the diary of teacher Vasyukhin,” 1903 "Pictures of School Life", 1904 "To the Source of Healings", 1904 "Stanichniki", 1906 "Step in Place", 1907 "New Days", 1907 "Thirst", 1908 "Dreams", 1908 "Swell", 1909 "Comrades", 1909 "Otrada", 1909 "Squall", 1909 "Half an Hour", 1910 "In Cell No. 380", 1910 "Mother", 1910

"Corner Tenants", 1911 "Melkom", 1911 "Satellites", 1911 "Happiness", 1911 "Everyday life", 1911 “On the azure river”, 1911 “The Worldly Network”, 1912 "Officer", 1912 “Between the Steep Banks”, 1912 "Among the Coal Miners", 1912 "District Russia", 1912 "In the lower reaches", 1912 "Without Fire", 1912 "The Burning Bush", 1913 "In the Depths", 1913 "Melkom", 1913 "Father Nelid", 1913 "Melkom", 1914 "Silence", 1914 "From the South Side", 1914 "Near the War", 1914-1915

"Four", 1915 "Beyond Kars", 1915 "In Azerbaijan", 1915 "In the Deep Rear", 1915 "Warrior", 1915 "One Soul", 1915 "At the Battle Line", 1915 “In the sphere of military routine”, 1915 "First Election", 1916 "In the Corner", 1916 "Group B", 1916 “In the snowdrifts”, 1917 "Collapse", 1917 "Melkom", 1917 "New", 1917 "In the Corner", 1918 “The Military Circle and Russia”, 1918 “Visiting Comrade Mironov”, 1919 “After the Red Guests”, 1919 "Ust-Medveditsky combat area", 1919 “Tatar flower”, 1919

Selected editions

• In native places: A story. - Rostov n/a: . - 39 s.
• Cossack motives: Essays and stories. - St. Petersburg: 1907. - 439 p.
• Stories. T. I. - M.: Writers' Publishing House in Moscow, 1914.
• Officer: Tales and stories. / Kuban Library - Krasnodar: Book. publishing house, 1990. - 362 p. - ISBN 5-7561-0482-8.
• Stories. Journalism. - M.: Soviet Russia, 1990. - 571 p. - ISBN 5-268-01132-4.
• Cossack motifs: Tale, stories, essays, memoirs, prose poem. / Forgotten book - M.: Fiction, 1993. - 444 p. - ISBN 5-280-02217-9.
• Bulavinsky riot (1707-1708). A sketch from the history of Peter the Great's relationship with the Don Cossacks. Unknown manuscript of Fyodor Kryukov from the Donskoy archive of the writer. M.: AIRO-XXI; St. Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 2004. - 208 p. - ISBN 5-88735-124-1.
• Cossack tales: [tales, stories]. Moscow: Veche, 2005. - 384 p. - ISBN 5-9533-0787-X
• Homeland: Stories, essays. / F. D. Kryukov. - M.: MGGU im. M. A. Sholokhova, 2007. - 550 p. (Don literature) - ISBN 978-5-8288-1014-7
• Collapse. The Troubles of 1917 through the eyes of a Russian writer. - M.: AIRO-XXI, 2009. - 368 p. - ISBN 978-5-91022-087-8
• Fedor Kryukov. The Orthodox world of old Russia. - M.: AIRO-XXI, 2012. - 200 p. - ISBN 978-5-91022-077-9
• Fedor Kryukov. The era of Stolypin. Revolution of 1905 in Russia and the Don / Preface and compilation by A.G. Makarova. - M.: AIRO-XXI, 2012. - 362 p. - ISBN 978-591022-123-3
• Fedor Kryukov. Pictures of school life in old Russia. - M.: AIRO-XXI, 2012. - 328 p. - ISBN 978-5-91022-133-2
• Fedor Kryukov. During the German War. At the front and in the rear. - M.: AIRO-XXI, 2013. - 548 p. - ISBN 978-591022-177-6

Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov (February 2 (14) ( 18700214 ) , the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky district of the region of the Don Army (currently - Kumylzhensky district of the Volgograd region - on March 4, the Nezaimanovsky farm of the Kuban region) - Russian writer, Cossack, participant in the White movement.

Biography

Fyodor Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky district of the Don Army region. Son of the chieftain. Mother is a Don noblewoman. In total there were three children in the family. In 1918, his younger brother, who served as a forester, was removed from the train and killed by the Red Guards for appearing intelligent.

Fedor studied at the Ust-Medveditsk gymnasium (graduated with a silver medal) together with Philip Mironov (future commander of the 2nd Cavalry Army), Alexander Popov (future writer A. S. Serafimovich) and Pyotr Gromoslavsky (father-in-law of M. A. Sholokhov). He graduated in 1892.

Head of the literature and art department of the magazine “Russian wealth” (editor and co-publisher V. G. Korolenko). Teacher of Russian literature and history in gymnasiums in Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. Teacher of the poet Alexander Tinyakov.

During the First World War, he served in a medical detachment under the command of Prince Varlam Gelovani and wrote a number of essays from the life of a military hospital and military orderlies, which echo the military themes of “Quiet Don”. During the Civil War he supported the government of the All-Great Don Army. One of the ideologists of the White movement. Secretary of the Military Circle. In 1920, he retreated along with the remnants of the Don Army to Novorossiysk. He died in the hospital of the monastery of the Nezaimanovsky farm from typhus on March 4, and was buried there.

Kryukov is the prototype of Fyodor Kovynev, an important character in A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s epic “The Red Wheel”.

Works of Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov

“Cossack village courts”, 1892 “Shulgin massacre”, 1894 "Cossack Woman", 1896 “In native places”, 1903 “From the diary of teacher Vasyukhin,” 1903 "Pictures of School Life", 1904 "To the Source of Healings", 1904 "Stanichniki", 1906 "Step in Place", 1907 "New Days", 1907 "Thirst", 1908 "Dreams", 1908 "Comrades", 1909 "Otrada", 1909 "Squall", 1909 "Half an Hour", 1910 "In Cell No. 380", 1910 "Mother", 1910

"Corner Tenants", 1911 "Melkom", 1911 "Satellites", 1911 "Happiness", 1911 "Everyday life", 1911 “The Worldly Network”, 1912 “Between the Steep Banks”, 1912 "Among the Coal Miners", 1912 "District Russia", 1912 "In the lower reaches", 1912 "Without Fire", 1912 "The Burning Bush", 1913 "Melkom", 1913 "Father Nelid", 1913 "Melkom", 1914 "Silence", 1914 "From the South Side", 1914 "Near the War", 1914-1915

"Four", 1915 "Beyond Kars", 1915 "In Azerbaijan", 1915 "In the Deep Rear", 1915 "Warrior", 1915 "One Soul", 1915 "At the Battle Line", 1915 “In the sphere of military routine”, 1915 "First Election", 1916 "In the Corner", 1916 “In the snowdrifts”, 1917 "Collapse", 1917 "Melkom", 1917 "New", 1917 "In the Corner", 1918 “Visiting Comrade Mironov”, 1919 “After the Red Guests”, 1919 "Ust-Medveditsky combat area", 1919

Selected editions

• In native places: A story. - Rostov n/a: . - 39 s.
• Cossack motives: Essays and stories. - St. Petersburg: 1907. - 439 p.
• Stories. T. I. - M.: Book publishing house of writers in Moscow, 1914.
• Officer: Tales and stories. / Kuban Library- Krasnodar: Book. publishing house, 1990. - 362 p. - ISBN 5-7561-0482-8.
• Stories. Journalism. - M.: Soviet Russia, 1990. - 571 p. - ISBN 5-268-01132-4.
• Cossack motifs: Tale, stories, essays, memoirs, prose poem. / Forgotten book- M.: Fiction, 1993. - 444 p. - ISBN 5-280-02217-9.
• Bulavinsky riot (1707-1708). A sketch from the history of Peter the Great's relationship with the Don Cossacks. Unknown manuscript of Fyodor Kryukov from the Donskoy archive of the writer. M.: AIRO-XXI; St. Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 2004. - 208 p. - ISBN 5-88735-124-1.
• Cossack tales: [tales, stories]. Moscow: Veche, 2005. - 384 p. - ISBN 5-9533-0787-X
• Homeland: Stories, essays. / F. D. Kryukov. - M.: MGGU im. M. A. Sholokhova, 2007. - 550 p. (Don literature) - ISBN 978-5-8288-1014-7
• Collapse. The Troubles of 1917 through the eyes of a Russian writer. - M.: AIRO-XXI, 2009. - 368 p. - ISBN 978-5-91022-087-8
• Fedor Kryukov. The Orthodox world of old Russia. - M.: AIRO-XXI, 2012. - 200 p. - ISBN 978-5-91022-077-9
• Fedor Kryukov. The era of Stolypin. Revolution of 1905 in Russia and the Don / Preface and compilation by A.G. Makarova. - M.: AIRO-XXI, 2012. - 362 p. - ISBN 978-591022-123-3
• Fedor Kryukov. Pictures of school life in old Russia. - M.: AIRO-XXI, 2012. - 328 p. - ISBN 978-5-91022-133-2
• Fedor Kryukov. During the German War. At the front and in the rear. - M.: AIRO-XXI, 2013. - 548 p. - ISBN 978-591022-177-6

see also

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Notes

Literature

• Russian writers, 1800-1917: Biographical dictionary. M., 1994. T. 3. P. 187-189. ISBN 5-85270-112-2.
• State Duma of the Russian Empire, 1906-1917: Encyclopedia. Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia, 2008. ISBN 978-5-8243-1031-3.
• Astapenko M.P. He was called the author of “Quiet Don”. - Rostov-on-Don: Unity, 1991. - 112 p.
• Gornfeld A.G. Stories by Kryukov. // Criticism of the early 20th century. - M.: AST, Olympus, 2002. - P. 49-57.
• Fedor Kryukov, singer of Quiet Don. Reissue of the collection “Native Land” (Ust-Medveditskaya, 1918), dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the literary activity of the Russian writer F. D. Kryukov (1893-1918). Comp. A. G. Makarov and S. E. Makarova. - M.: AIRO-XX, 2003. - 88 p. ISBN 5-88735-091-1
• Smirnova E. A. Prose of F. D. Kryukov in the journalistic context of “Russian wealth”. Dissertation...cand. Philol. Sciences: 10.01.10. - Volgograd, 2004.
• Malyukova L. N. “And the collapse rolled with a roar...” The fate and creativity of F. D. Kryukov. - Rostov-on-Don: Donizdat, 2007. - 254 p. ISBN 5-85216-074-1

Links

• (biography of the writer, literary works, as well as an archive of photo and video materials)
• Documentary film "Cossack". Director I. Safarov. Russia, 2005. 44 min.

I convocation II convocation III convocation IV convocation

An excerpt characterizing Kryukov, Fedor Dmitrievich

Long live this brave king!
etc. (French song) ]
sang Morel, winking his eye.
Se diable a quatre…
- Vivarika! Vif seruvaru! sit-down... - the soldier repeated, waving his hand and really catching the tune.
- Look, clever! Go go go go!.. - rough, joyful laughter rose from different sides. Morel, wincing, laughed too.
- Well, go ahead, go ahead!
Qui eut le triple talent,
De boire, de batre,
Et d'etre un vert galant...
[Having triple talent,
drink, fight
and be kind...]
– But it’s also complicated. Well, well, Zaletaev!..
“Kyu...” Zaletaev said with effort. “Kyu yu yu...” he drawled, carefully protruding his lips, “letriptala, de bu de ba and detravagala,” he sang.
- Hey, it’s important! That's it, guardian! oh... go go go! - Well, do you want to eat more?
- Give him some porridge; After all, it won’t be long before he gets enough of hunger.
Again they gave him porridge; and Morel, chuckling, began to work on the third pot. Joyful smiles were on all the faces of the young soldiers looking at Morel. The old soldiers, who considered it indecent to engage in such trifles, lay on the other side of the fire, but occasionally, raising themselves on their elbows, they looked at Morel with a smile.
“People too,” said one of them, dodging into his overcoat. - And wormwood grows on its root.
- Ooh! Lord, Lord! How stellar, passion! Towards the frost... - And everything fell silent.
The stars, as if knowing that now no one would see them, played out in the black sky. Now flaring up, now extinguishing, now shuddering, they busily whispered among themselves about something joyful, but mysterious.

X
The French troops gradually melted away in a mathematically correct progression. And that crossing of the Berezina, about which so much has been written, was only one of the intermediate stages in the destruction of the French army, and not at all a decisive episode of the campaign. If so much has been and is being written about the Berezina, then on the part of the French this happened only because on the broken Berezina Bridge, the disasters that the French army had previously suffered evenly here suddenly grouped together at one moment and into one tragic spectacle that remained in everyone’s memory. On the Russian side, they talked and wrote so much about the Berezina only because, far from the theater of war, in St. Petersburg, a plan was drawn up (by Pfuel) to capture Napoleon in a strategic trap on the Berezina River. Everyone was convinced that everything would actually happen exactly as planned, and therefore insisted that it was the Berezina crossing that destroyed the French. In essence, the results of the Berezinsky crossing were much less disastrous for the French in terms of the loss of guns and prisoners than Krasnoye, as the numbers show.
The only significance of the Berezina crossing is that this crossing obviously and undoubtedly proved the falsity of all plans for cutting off and the justice of the only possible course of action demanded by both Kutuzov and all the troops (mass) - only following the enemy. The crowd of Frenchmen fled with an ever-increasing force of speed, with all their energy directed towards achieving their goal. She ran like a wounded animal, and she could not get in the way. This was proven not so much by the construction of the crossing as by the traffic on the bridges. When the bridges were broken, unarmed soldiers, Moscow residents, women and children who were in the French convoy - all, under the influence of the force of inertia, did not give up, but ran forward into the boats, into the frozen water.
This aspiration was reasonable. The situation of both those fleeing and those pursuing was equally bad. Remaining with his own, each in distress hoped for the help of a comrade, for a certain place he occupied among his own. Having given himself over to the Russians, he was in the same position of distress, but he was on a lower level in terms of satisfying the needs of life. The French did not need to have correct information that half of the prisoners, with whom they did not know what to do, despite all the Russians’ desire to save them, died from cold and hunger; they felt that it could not be otherwise. The most compassionate Russian commanders and hunters of the French, the French in Russian service could not do anything for the prisoners. The French were destroyed by the disaster in which the Russian army was located. It was impossible to take away bread and clothing from hungry, necessary soldiers in order to give it to the French who were not harmful, not hated, not guilty, but simply unnecessary. Some did; but this was only an exception.
Behind was certain death; there was hope ahead. The ships were burned; there was no other salvation but a collective flight, and all the forces of the French were directed towards this collective flight.
The further the French fled, the more pitiful their remnants were, especially after the Berezina, on which, as a result of the St. Petersburg plan, special hopes were pinned, the more the passions of the Russian commanders flared up, blaming each other and especially Kutuzov. Believing that the failure of the Berezinsky Petersburg plan would be attributed to him, dissatisfaction with him, contempt for him and ridicule of him were expressed more and more strongly. Teasing and contempt, of course, were expressed in a respectful form, in a form in which Kutuzov could not even ask what and for what he was accused. They didn't talk to him seriously; reporting to him and asking his permission, they pretended to perform a sad ritual, and behind his back they winked and tried to deceive him at every step.
All these people, precisely because they could not understand him, recognized that there was no point in talking to the old man; that he would never understand the full depth of their plans; that he would answer with his phrases (it seemed to them that these were just phrases) about the golden bridge, that you cannot come abroad with a crowd of vagabonds, etc. They had already heard all this from him. And everything he said: for example, that we had to wait for food, that people were without boots, it was all so simple, and everything they offered was so complex and clever that it was obvious to them that he was stupid and old, but they were not powerful, brilliant commanders.
Especially after the joining of the armies of the brilliant admiral and the hero of St. Petersburg, Wittgenstein, this mood and staff gossip reached its highest limits. Kutuzov saw this and, sighing, just shrugged his shoulders. Only once, after the Berezina, he became angry and wrote the following letter to Bennigsen, who reported separately to the sovereign:
“Due to your painful seizures, please, Your Excellency, upon receipt of this, go to Kaluga, where you await further orders and assignments from His Imperial Majesty.”
But after Bennigsen was sent away, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich came to the army, making the beginning of the campaign and being removed from the army by Kutuzov. Now the Grand Duke, having arrived at the army, informed Kutuzov about the displeasure of the sovereign emperor for the weak successes of our troops and for the slowness of movement. The Emperor himself intended to arrive at the army the other day.
An old man, as experienced in court affairs as in military matters, that Kutuzov, who in August of the same year was chosen commander-in-chief against the will of the sovereign, the one who removed the heir and the Grand Duke from the army, the one who, with his power, in opposition the will of the sovereign, ordered the abandonment of Moscow, this Kutuzov now immediately realized that his time was over, that his role had been played and that he no longer had this imaginary power. And he understood this not just from court relationships. On the one hand, he saw that military affairs, the one in which he played his role, was over, and he felt that his calling had been fulfilled. On the other hand, at the same time he began to feel physical fatigue in his old body and the need for physical rest.
On November 29, Kutuzov entered Vilna - his good Vilna, as he said. Kutuzov was governor of Vilna twice during his service. In the rich, surviving Vilna, in addition to the comforts of life that he had been deprived of for so long, Kutuzov found old friends and memories. And he, suddenly turning away from all military and state concerns, plunged into a smooth, familiar life as much as he was given peace by the passions seething around him, as if everything that was happening now and was about to happen in the historical world did not concern him at all.
Chichagov, one of the most passionate cutters and overturners, Chichagov, who first wanted to make a diversion to Greece, and then to Warsaw, but did not want to go where he was ordered, Chichagov, known for his courage in speaking to the sovereign, Chichagov, who considered Kutuzov benefited himself, because when he was sent in the 11th year to conclude peace with Turkey in addition to Kutuzov, he, making sure that peace had already been concluded, admitted to the sovereign that the merit of concluding peace belonged to Kutuzov; This Chichagov was the first to meet Kutuzov in Vilna at the castle where Kutuzov was supposed to stay. Chichagov in a naval uniform, with a dirk, holding his cap under his arm, gave Kutuzov his drill report and the keys to the city. That contemptuously respectful attitude of the youth towards the old man who had lost his mind was expressed to the highest degree in the entire address of Chichagov, who already knew the charges brought against Kutuzov.
While talking with Chichagov, Kutuzov, among other things, told him that the carriages with dishes captured from him in Borisov were intact and would be returned to him.
- C"est pour me dire que je n"ai pas sur quoi manger... Je puis au contraire vous fournir de tout dans le cas meme ou vous voudriez donner des diners, [You want to tell me that I have nothing to eat. On the contrary, I can serve you all, even if you wanted to give dinners.] - Chichagov said, flushing, with every word he wanted to prove that he was right and therefore assumed that Kutuzov was preoccupied with this very thing. Kutuzov smiled his thin, penetrating smile and, shrugging his shoulders, answered: “Ce n"est que pour vous dire ce que je vous dis. [I want to say only what I say.]
In Vilna, Kutuzov, contrary to the will of the sovereign, stopped most of the troops. Kutuzov, as his close associates said, had become unusually depressed and physically weakened during his stay in Vilna. He was reluctant to deal with the affairs of the army, leaving everything to his generals and, while waiting for the sovereign, indulged in an absent-minded life.
Having left St. Petersburg with his retinue - Count Tolstoy, Prince Volkonsky, Arakcheev and others, on December 7, the sovereign arrived in Vilna on December 11 and drove straight up to the castle in a road sleigh. At the castle, despite the severe frost, stood about a hundred generals and staff officers in full dress uniform and an honor guard from the Semenovsky regiment.