Fedor Kryukov works. Literary and historical notes of a young technician. The most primordial of the rights of autocracy

Fedor Kryukov. Early 20th century

Looking through the maps and satellite images of the Don, you involuntarily come to the conclusion that the topographical prototype of the Tatarsky farm is located sixty miles east of Veshenskaya. So, Khovansky farm, whose very name is a secret bow from 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 terms of reality, proportions, and absolute distances to that described in the novel. And there is no other like it on the Don.

Let the attentive reader see for himself:

Farm Khovansky - twelve miles from the Ust-Medveditskaya village, to the west along the Getman's 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 (as on the maps!) Spit, separated by an erikom, a half-overgrown channel from the Don to the Don. On some maps the spit is depicted as an island, on others as a peninsula.

The left bank is inconvenient: Obdon forest, windbreaks, goloschechins, valleys, sands. Here, just opposite the Melekhovs' kuren, is what is called Prorva in the novel. This is a rare word that did not even get into the Don dictionaries, but the Dictionary of Russian Folk Dialects knows it (with a note Don). Prorva - washing the banks, the place where the river washed a new channel for itself. Another Don meaning is a tear. Well, in TD it is a dry channel leading to the Don from a long and narrow scimitar-shaped lake. Prorva is filled and comes to life only during water springs and summer showers. Then she rumbles and rattles so that she can be heard from the Melekhovs' kuren (and this is at least half a verst).

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

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

... I posted a post with a geographic reference of the Tatarsky farm to 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 it on the Don.

I received an answer from the St. Petersburg bibliographer Igor Shundalov. He discovered that the scimitar-shaped lake to the west of Tatarsky, which in the novel is called the Tsar's Pond, on the map of 1870 was called the Tsaritsyn Ilmen (translated from the Don Tsaritsyn Lake).

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

And here are the coordinates of Tsar's Pond in the novel:
“Laughing, Grigory saddled the old uterus left for the tribe andthrough the humane gates - so that the father would not see - went to the steppe. We drove toI'll take it under the mountain. The hooves of the horses, champing, chewed on the mud. In a place nearequestrians were waiting for them from the dried poplar: the centurion Listnitsky on a leana beautiful mare and a man, seven farm boys on horseback.
- Where to jump? the centurion turned to Mitka, adjusting his pince-nez and
admiring the mighty pectoral muscles of Mitka's stallion.
- From the poplar to the Tsar's Pond.
- Where is the Tsar's Pond? The centurion narrowed his eyes short-sightedly.
- And there, your honor, near the forest.
The horses were built. The centurion raised his whip over his head. Shoulder strapswollen bump.
- As I say "three" - let it go! Well? One two Three!
The first rushed the centurion, falling to the bow, holding his cap in his hand. Heone second ahead of the others. Mitka, with a perplexedly pale face, half roseon the stirrups - it seemed to Grigory, painfully for a long time he lowered the stallion onto the croup
lash pulled over the head.

From the poplar and the Tsar's Pond - three versts. This is already in the nineteenth, when the anti-Bolshevik uprising began, Kryukov moves the Melekhovsky farm closer to Veshenskaya. And in the first version of the novel, the speaker for him was the name Khovansky (1682, the Streltsy rebellion led by Ivan Khovansky, the first attempt to establish a parliament in Rus').

Having described a specific locality, but calling it by a different name, the artist counts on the reader's recognition and on recalling the real name. This is what happened in this case as well. The thing is the name of the farm, referring to a whole complex of literary and historical memories, very relevant. But, of course, in the case when the unpronounced name itself is symbolic. So it happened with Kryukov with the Khovansky farm.

Researcher A.V. Venkov noticed the trace of the transfer of the farm to Veshenskaya: “Prokhor Zykov (part 6, ch. LIV) moves from Tatarsky along the Don to the west (upstream) and passes the Rubezhin farm, which does not belong to Veshenskaya, but to Elanskaya the village, Vyoshensky yurt begins even higher (traps). Accordingly, Tatarsky is located even to the east of Rubezhin, and even more so it does not belong to Vyoshenskaya, but to Elanskaya or even lower - Ust-Khopyorskaya stanitsa.

Well, V.I. Samarin pointed out that the fellow countryman of the main characters, the merchant Mokhov, lives in the village, located "near the mouth of the Khopra."

And so it happened.

But the fact that the name backfired so clearly: Khovansky - a 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 with the total amount of matches, there can be no error. And still I sit a little shocked.

By the way, a map with Tsaritsyn Lake in 1870. This year Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born. So the hydronym Tsaritsin Ilmen can be trusted. Another thing is that it was Tsarev Pond that Kryukov needed here. As in the name of the farm, already during the civil war, the name of a Tatar man, an unbending, prickly flower, sung first by Leo Tolstoy, and then by Fedor 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 strength of opposition to that virgin and deep-rooted human race that entered the native land, which amazed and captivated his heart with its selfless devotion, - light - Tatar ... He alone stood in the midst of a blasted, furrowed field, black and dull, alone, chopped off, broken, smeared with black earth mud, still sticking up. “It was clear that the whole bush was run over by a wheel and after that it rose and therefore stood sideways, but still stood - it was as if a piece of the body had been pulled out of it, the insides had been pulled out, an arm had been torn off, eyes had been gouged out, but it still stands and does not surrender to a person. who destroyed all his brethren around him...

I also think of my native Cossacks as an irresistible Tatar flower, not clinging to the roadside dust and dust in the lifeless expanse of the crucified homeland, defending their right to a decent life and now restoring united Russia, my great fatherland, beautiful and absurd, shamefully annoying and inexpressibly expensive and close to the heart.

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

From the western edge of the farm to the "knee" of the Don, four miles, from the eastern end to the far pond - three (everything, as in the novel). Further on, about two versts to a huge farm meadow and Alyoshkina copse (an oak forest is marked here on the military map of 1990; so in the TD), further east - Krasny Yar and a ford across the Don (historical name - Khovansky climb). From here, the old man Melekhov is baptized before mowing to the east, "on a little white pod of a distant bell tower." This is the dominating hipped bell tower of the Church of the Resurrection of the Lord (1782), the oldest building on the edge of the Ust-Medveditskaya village (it is eight miles from the Melekhovy versts meadow). Moreover, only the belfry looking to the west is visible from the Melekhovsky meadow, which covers the body of the temple.

... On December 15, 2018, I receive an electronic greeting from the Don from Leonid Biryukov: “Why was the old man Melekhov baptized before mowing to the east“ on a white pod of a distant bell tower ”? Because the inhabitants of the farm of Khovansky Ust-Medveditskaya village were parishioners of the Resurrection Church of the village of Ust-Medveditskaya, Ust-Medveditskaya deanery. GARO. F 226. Op. 3. D. 11739. L. 1–29 rev.

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

Let us turn to the General Staff two-kilometer route 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 height difference 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 assigned to the authors, were able to correctly restore the author's architecture of the text.

Similar errors of clumsy, forced montage were also 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 “white drafts”), 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 The Quiet Flows the Don. Mechanically reproducing the first author's edition, the assemblers inexperienced in textual criticism of 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 selling 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. About them below.)

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

In Chapter II, before starting to fish for carp, Grigory exchanges such remarks with his father: “- Where to rule? - To the Black Yar. Let's try it near the entoy karshi, where we sat on the top” (p. 14).

Let us turn to Sholokhov's "drafts". Grigory says: “Why are you angry, Aksyutka? Is it really for the breathless, that in a loan? .. ”(p. 28). Other in the publication of the TD, which was carried out in a more correct list: “- Why are you angry, Aksyutka? Is it really more breathable, what a loan? .. ”(TD: 1, VIII, 48).

Nady'shny- the third day (DS). According to SRNG 1. the other day, recent; 2. Past, past. From the dialect nadys: “This ush on the third day is neither wide nor the day before, but nadys” (DS). Well, breathable - necessary (DS), from necessary. The scribe does not think about the meaning and therefore confuses "e" with "y". (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 inspiratory karsha and what kind of yar is this, about which the old man Melekhov speaks?

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

“- Grisha, near the coast, Kubyt, Karsha. Need to circle.
A terrible push throws Gregory far away. A roaring splash, like from Yar(emphasis mine. - A. Ch.) collapsed into the water lumps of rock” (p. 33).

At this karshi (near the sunken elm tree) Grigory and Aksinya are sitting, darning the nonsense torn by the catfish. That is why they run into the question of Dunyashka, who has come running from the spit: “- Why are you sitting here? Batyanka sent for them to go to the spit as soon as possible.

This “sitting” will remind the old man to his son three days later on the morning fishing: “- Where to govern? - To the Black Yar. Let's try it near the entoy karshi, where we sat on the top” (p. 14).

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

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

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

But why was the place chosen for night fishing?

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

(On the localization of Cherny Yar, see the extract at the end of this text.)

The entire IV chapter is devoted to night fishing with nonsense, in a storm. Right there is the shock that Aksinya refused Grigory, and the cunning Pantelei watched this, waiting in the thickets of hawthorn.

So, two days later, on the third day, the old man decides to talk to his son and calls him to go fishing with fishing rods. At the same time, the old man is wearing a “holiday shirt”. So in Sholokhov's imitation of the "draft" on p. 9, copying the protograph; in the edition, however, it is much more muffled, but also with a hint - a shirt “embroidered with a cross” (!)

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

After fishing, the father and son meet people dispersing from mass and see how a ktitor sells a goose in the church fence.

“People crowded in the square near the church fence. In the crowd, the ktitor, raising a goose above his head, shouted: “Fifty kopecks! From yes. Who is bigger?"

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

Why a fifty?

Yes, because a fifty kopeck is 50 kopecks, and the Trinity is Pentecost.

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

“The only thing left of the Trinity was in the farmyards: dry chobor, scattered on the floors, dust of crumpled leaves and wrinkled, obsolete greenery of cut oak and ash branches stuck near the gates and porches. Meadow mowing began with the Trinity ... "

So the chronology:

May 10, three days before the Trinity (May 13/26, 1912) - fishing with a bullshit in a loan near Karshi. Gregory nearly drowned. In a mop, he sticks to 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 Ascension Day). And it's hard to argue with that. In seventy at the Black Yar, Aksinya (a purely mermaid nature) almost drowned Gregory.

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

The day before Trinity (“the next day in the morning”) - horse races, Gregory apologizes “for the breathlessness (the day before yesterday) in the loan” Ch. VIII continuation.
Trinity: Pantelei Prokofievich calls his son for fishing and refers to the karsha, at which the nadys (of the third day) were sitting. Ch. II.

The new numbering is given in Roman numerals, italicized n/f, the numbering according to the Sholokhov edition is in brackets. Asterisks indicate subchapters that are not numbered. Each time they go as an addition to the chapter indicated by the number.

I(I). The history of the Melekhov family. Prokofy and the death of his wife after the birth of Panteley. * * * Panteley's family.

II(III). Gregory came back from the games in the early morning. Watering the brother's horse, who is going to serve today. At the request of his mother, Grigory wakes up Stepan and Aksinya Astakhov. * * * Seeing the Cossacks to the May camps. Grigory waters the horse for the second time (Mistake when mixing drafts.) Grigory flirts with Aksinya. The Cossacks leave for the camps.
The latter is described through the eyes of Gregory: “The tall black horse swayed, lifting the rider in the stirrup. Stepan rode out of the gate with a hurried step, sat in the saddle, as if dug in, and Aksinya walked beside him, holding on to the stirrup, and from the bottom up, lovingly and greedily, like a dog, looked into his eyes.
But on p. 18 of the “draft”, after the words of Panteley Prokofyevich, said on the day of night fishing (“- We’ll click Aksinya Stepanov, Stepan nadys asked me to help him, we must respect”), the lines crossed out in blue pencil follow: “Grigory frowned, but in his heart he was delighted with his father’s words. Aksinya did not go out of his mind. All day he went over in his memory the morning conversation with her, her smile flickered before his eyes, and that loving-dog look from bottom to top, as she looked when she saw off her husband ... "
That is, both seeing off the Cossacks and late fishing take place on Semik (Thursday) May 10/23, 1912. As indicated by the “nadys” pronounced by the old man Melekhov after “shaking” the meadow two days before the Trinity (in 1912, it fell on May 13/26; see below).

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

IV(VI). Overnight stay of the Cossacks going to the training camp.
It begins: “Near a mound with a forehead, with a yellow sandy bald head, they stopped to spend the night. There was a cloud coming from the west." This thunderstorm will be described in the next chapter: “The cloud was moving 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, Maundy Thursday, May 10/23) “A storm gathered in the evening.” This refers to the evening after the departure of the Cossacks to the camps. In the edition, this first phrase of Chapter IV sounds like it was corrected in the draft: “[The next day] A thunderstorm gathered in the evening” (p. 29). According to the manuscript, old Melekhov says: “Stepan asked me to mow him down” (p. 18). So it is in the edition (p. 44).
Evening thunderstorm, fishing with a bullshit in the borrowing at Cherny Yar near Karshi, far from the spit. Aksinya rejects Gregory. Pantelei Prokofievich sees everything from the thickets of hawthorn.

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

VII(VII). “Two days before Trinity, the farmers shared the meadow” (Friday). From that day on, "puff up" (the day before yesterday, on Wednesday, that is, on the eve of being sent to the camps), Stepan asked the 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 Grigory and Aksinya. Grigory asks for forgiveness for "breathing in the loan", that is, pestering on a fishing trip, which was the day before yesterday, on Thursday.

VIII(II). Pantelei Prokofievich goes fishing with his son Grigory. (Trinity, May 13/26, 1912). And he determines the place of fishing near the Black Yar: “near the entoy karshi, where they sat on the top”, that is, in Semik, three days ago. * * * Fishing. Caught carp. Explanation of father with son. Mitka Korshunov. (“From mass, people scattered through the streets […] People crowded in the square near the church fence. In the crowd, the ktitor, raising a goose above his head, shouted: “Fifty kopecks! From-yes. Who is more?”.) Brothers Shamili. Merchant Sergei Platonovich Mokhov and his daughter.

IX. Meadow mowing began "from the Trinity" (on the day after the Trinity). * * * At the mowing, Grigory seduces Aksinya.

x. The merchant Mokhov opens Panteley Prokofievich's eyes to Grigory's affair with Aksinya. Explanation of the old Melekhov with Aksinya and Grigory. The old man beat his son.

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

XII. Nine days before the arrival of Stepan. Grigory 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 Diaspora, sent me several texts of Don songs collected by Kryukov as a student. This is a separate notebook. Among the songs there is, in particular, the one that gave the name to the story “On the Azure River” (L. 19v): “On the Azure River in an open field it was ...”

Sholokhov seized the echo of this Kryukov title, 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»).

It just didn't shock me. In the same notebook was a song written by Fyodor Kryukov, the plot of which became the plot of a love story TD.

So, the field phonetic record made by F. D. Kryukov c. 1890 in a large, still childish handwriting.

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

– – –1

Start

Not the evening dawn began to fade

Midnight star she rose high

Good rogue butterfly pashla pashla

A remote, kind young man led a horse to water

I talked to a good rogue grandmother

Let me, let the soul of a grandmother spend the night to shelter you,

Come, come, my dear, I'll be at home

I have my own will at home.

post[te] lu*you have a white bed;

I'll put three pillows in my little head // End: -

—————————————————————

*Mistake? - A. Ch.

House of the Russian Abroad. Fund 14 (F. D. Kryukov. Works of Cossack folklore.). Description 1. E. x. 25. L. 44v. For a facsimile reproduction, see here, on the Nestorian, in the note "Find of the philologist Mikhail Mikheev."

On the back L. -23 litters: "May 1889".

From this song, and got on the first page of the novel "fading dawn":

“The children who pastured the calves behind the drive said that they saw how Prokofy in the evenings when the dawns wither, he carried his wife in his arms to the Tatar, azhnik, mound. He planted her there on the top of the barrow, with his back to the porous stone worn down by centuries, sat next to her, and for a long time they looked at the steppe. Looked until while the dawn faded, and then Prokofy wrapped his wife in an zipun and carried him home in his arms.

Hence the strangeness of the story: before his brother leaves, Grishka waters Stepanov's horse twice 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 “butterfly rogue” walking with buckets.

In the polemic of life with the song, the ending of Chapter VIII is also written:

Surprised Grigory caught up with Mitka at the gate.

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

– What is it? Or did you call 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, serves), goes for 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, because "alone at home" and she has "her own will."

The first chapters of the TD became a detailed development of the plot of this song. At the same time, the song was recorded not by someone, but by Kryukov.

……………………………………………………………

P.S. Received a letter from Alexey Neklyudov:

Andrei, in addition, the Cossacks sing a variant of the same song when they go to military training camps:

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

Oh, you, dawn-lightning,

Rising early to heaven...

Young, here she is, wench

Late on the water went ...

- Christonya, help!

And the boy, he guessed

He began to saddle his horse ...

Saddled a bay horse -

Began to catch up with a woman ...

(Chapter 5 of the 1st part)

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

And in general - it's great ...

…………………………………………………………

Abbreviations:

TD - Quiet Don
DS - Big explanatory dictionary of the Don Cossacks. M., 2003.

Below is a reconstruction of the sequence of the first twelve chapters of The Quiet Flows the Don.
Text according to the publication: Sholokhov M.A. [Quiet Flows the Don: A novel in four books]. // Sholokhov M.A. Collected works: In 8 vols. - 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 1918

book one

Oh, our father Quiet Don!

Oh, what are you, Quiet Don, you mutnehonek flowing?

Oh, how can I, quiet Don, not cloudy leaks!

From the bottom of me, quiet Dona, cold keys are beating,

In the middle of me, quiet Dona, a white fish stirs.

(Old Cossack song)

PART ONE

Melekhovsky yard - on the very edge of the farm. The gates from the cattle base lead north to the Don. A steep eight-yard descent between moss-covered chalk blocks, and here is the shore: a mother-of-pearl scattering of shells, a gray broken border of pebbles kissed by waves, and further on - the stirrup of the Don boiling under the wind with blued ripples. To the east, behind the red hummock wattle fences, is the Hetman's Way, sagebrush gray, a brown, living roadside trampled by horse hooves, a chapel at a fork; behind it is the steppe covered with flowing haze. From the south - the chalk ridge of the mountain. To the west - a street that runs through the square, running towards the place of residence.

After burying his father, Panteley got into the household: he re-covered the house, cut to the estate from half a dozen ghouls of land, built new sheds and a barn under tin. The roofer, on the master's order, cut out a pair of tin roosters from scraps, strengthened them on the roof of the barn. They amused the Melekhovsky base with their carefree appearance, giving it a self-satisfied and prosperous look.

Pantelei Prokofyevich twitched under the slope of his sagging years: he was wide, slightly stooped, but still looked like an old man of good proportions. He was dry in bones, chrome (in his youth he broke his left leg at the imperial review at the races), wore a silver crescent-shaped earring in his left ear, his black beard and hair did not shed until old age, in anger he reached unconsciousness and, apparently, this prematurely aged his once beautiful, and now completely entangled in a web of wrinkles, portly wife.

His eldest, already married son, Petro, resembled his mother: small, snub-nosed, with lush, wheat-colored hair, brown-eyed; and the youngest, Grigory, stomped on his father: half a head taller than Peter, at least six years younger, the same drooping vulture nose as Bati, blue tonsils of hot eyes in slightly slanting slits, sharp slabs of cheekbones covered with brown, ruddy skin. Grigory stooped in the same way as his father, even in the smile they both had something in common, animalistic.

Dunyashka - her father's weakness - a long-armed, big-eyed teenager, and Petrov's wife Daria with a small child - that's the whole Melekhov family.

II(III of the first part)

Gregory came back from the games after the first kochet. From the senets he smelled the smell of sour hops and spicy dried herbs of the Mother of God.

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

I was about to doze off, but my brother's child began to cry in the kitchen.

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

Hush, you filthy child! No sleep for you, no rest. - She sang softly:

Where were you?

- She guarded the horses.

- What did you watch out for?

- A horse with a saddle

With golden fringe...

Grigory, falling asleep under a measured lulling creak, remembered: “Tomorrow Peter should go to the camps. Dasha will stay with the child ... We must mow, we will do without him.

He buried his head in a hot pillow, annoyingly oozing into his ears:

- And where is your horse?

- It's behind the gate.

- Where is the gate?

- The water took away.

Gregory was shaken by the boisterous neighing of a horse. By the voice I guessed Petrov's drill horse.

With fingers exhausted from sleep, he buttoned his shirt for a long time, again he almost fell asleep to the fluid swell of the song:

- Where are the geese?

- They went into the reeds.

- And where are the reeds?

- The girls squeezed out.

- Where are the girls?

- The girls got married.

- Where are the Cossacks?

- Went to war...

Broken by sleep, Grigory made his way to the stables and led his horse out into the alley. A web of spider web tickled his face, and suddenly the dream disappeared.

Along the Don, obliquely - a wavy, untraveled lunar path. Over the Don - fog, and at the top of the star millet. The horse behind cautiously rearranges its legs. The descent to the water is bad. On the other side, a duck quack, near the shore in the mud, turned up and thumped on the water like an omaha, a catfish hunting for a trifle.

Gregory stood by the water for a long time. The shore breathed damp and insipid Prelu. A fractional drop 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 semi-darkness had already resolved there.

Near the stables I ran into my mother.

Is that you, Grishka?

And then who.

Have you watered the horse?

Drink, reluctantly replies Gregory.

Leaning back, she carries her mother in a curtain to the flood of kizeki, shuffling around with senile, flabby bare feet.

I would go and encourage the Astakhovs. Stepan with our Peter was going to go.

The coolness puts a tight, trembling spring into Grigory. Body in prickly goosebumps. After three thresholds, he runs up to the Astakhovs on the echoing porch. The door is not locked. In the kitchen, Stepan is sleeping on a spread floor, his wife's head under his armpit.

In the thinned darkness, Grigory sees Aksinya's shirt fluffed up above the knees, birch-white, shamelessly spread legs. He stares for a second, feeling his mouth dry and his head swell in the cast-iron ringing.

Hey, who's there? Get up!

Aksinya sobbed from sleep.

Oh who is it? Someone? - fussily fumbled, her bare hand thrashed at her feet, pulling on her shirt. There was a speck of saliva dropped in a dream on the pillow; strong glowing woman's dream.

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

We’re contagious… You can’t fit in here… We sleep on the floor from fleas. Stepan, get up, do you hear?

About thirty Cossacks left the farm for the May camps. Place of gathering - parade ground. By seven o'clock, wagons with canvas booths, foot and horse Cossacks in May canvas shirts, in equipment, stretched to the parade ground.

On the porch, Petro was hastily sewing together a cracked timber. Panteley Prokofyevich was pacing near Petrov's horse, pouring oats into the trough, occasionally shouting:

Dunyashka, did you sew up the crackers? Did you season the salo with salt?

All in a ruddy color, Dunyashka, like a swallow, drew bases from the cooker to the smoker, laughingly dismissed her father's shouts:

You, dad, manage your business, and I’ll put my brother in such a way that Cherkassky won’t turn up.

Didn't eat? inquired Petro, drooling over the fight and nodding at the horse.

He chews, - the father answered sedately, checking the sweatshirts with a rough palm. It's a small matter - a crumb or a bull will stick to a sweatshirt, and in one transition into blood it will rub the horse's back.

Finish Bay - give him a drink, dad.

Grishka leads to the Don. Hey, Gregory, lead the horse!

A tall lean bottom with a white star on his forehead went playfully. Grigory led him out the gate, - slightly touching his withers with his left hand, jumped up on him and from his place - a sweeping trot. At the descent, I wanted to hold back, but the horse lost its footing, became more frequent, and went downhill with a bait. Leaning back, almost lying on the horse's back, Grigory saw a woman descending downhill with buckets. He turned off the stitch and, overtaking the stirred up dust, crashed into the water.

Aksinya was descending from the mountain, swaying, and from afar shouted loudly:

Damn crazy! The miracle did not stop the horse! Just wait, I'll tell my father how you drive.

But-but, neighbor, do not swear. You take your husband to the camps, maybe I can do the farm.

Somehow n[a] hell[a] I need you!

Mowing starts - you ask for it, - Grigory laughed.

Aksinya deftly scooped up a pail of water from the yoke and, pinching her wind-blown skirt between her knees, glanced at Grigory.

Well, is your Stepan going? asked Gregory.

What about you?

What are you ... Ask, eh, you can’t?

Gathered. Well?

Are you staying, so-to be, zhalmerkoy?

Became so.

The horse tore his lips from the water, chewed the flowing water with a creak, and, looking at the other side of the Don, hit the water with his front foot. Aksinya scooped up another bucket; throwing a yoke over her shoulder, she went up the mountain with a slight swing. Grigory touched the horse next. The wind ruffled Aksinya's skirt, touched the small fluffy curls on her swarthy neck. On a heavy knot of hair, a flaming hat embroidered with colored silk, a pink shirt tucked into a skirt, without wrinkling, embraced a steep back and full shoulders. Climbing the mountain, Aksinya leaned forward, a longitudinal hollow on her back clearly lay out under her shirt. Grigory saw the brown circles of his shirt, which had faded under the armpits from sweat, and followed every movement with his eyes. He wanted to talk to her again.

Will you miss your husband? A?

Aksinya turned her head as she walked and smiled.

And then how. You get married, - taking a breath, she said intermittently, - get married, and then you find out, they miss your friend.

Pushing his horse, leveling with her, Grigory looked into her eyes.

And some women are glad to see them off, as their husbands are seen off. Our Daria begins to get fat without Peter.

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

Husband - he is not really, but draws blood. Will we marry you soon?

I don't know about dad. Must be after service.

Young isho, don't get married.

Dryness alone. - She glanced sideways; Without parting her lips, she smiled mischievously. And then for the first time Grigory noticed that her lips were shamelessly greedy, puffy.

He, sorting the mane into strands, said:

There is no desire to marry. Somebody will love it.

Did you notice?

Why should I notice ... You see Stepan off ...

You don't play with me!

Hurt?

I'll say a word to Stepan...

I am your Stepan...

Look, brave, a tear will drip.

Don't scare me, Aksinya!

I don't scare. Your business with the girls. Let them embroider your ducks, but don't look at me.

I will take a look.

Well, look.

Aksinya smiled reconcilingly and left the stitch, trying to get around her horse. Grigory turned him sideways and blocked the road.

Let go, Grishka!

I won't let you.

Don't be foolish, I need to collect my husband.

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

Let go, devil, people out! Will they see what they think?

She darted a frightened glance from side to side and passed, frowning and not looking back.

On the porch, Petro said goodbye to his family. Gregory saddled his horse. Holding the saber, Petro hurriedly ran down the sills, took the reins from Grigory's hands.

The horse, sensing the way, uneasily stepped over, foamed, chasing the mouthpiece in his mouth. Catching the stirrup with his foot, holding on to the bow, Petro said to his father:

Bald people don’t work hard, dad! Overshadows - we will sell. Grigory to handle the horse. And look, don’t sell the steppe grass: in the meadow there is none, you yourself know what kind of hay will be.

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

Petro, with a habitual movement, threw his downed body into the saddle, straightened behind the folds of his shirt, pulled together by a belt. The horse went to the gate. The head of a saber shone dimly in the sun, quivering in time with the steps.

Daria followed with the baby in her arms. Mother, wiping her reddened nose with her sleeve and the corner of the curtain, stood in the middle of the base.

Brother, pies! I forgot the pies!.. Potato pies!..

Dunyashka galloped to the gate like a goat.

What are you talking about, you fool! Grigory shouted angrily at her.

There are pies left! - leaning against the gate, Dunya moaned, and on smeared hot cheeks, and from her cheeks on an everyday jacket - tears.

Daria watched her husband's white shirt, covered with dust, from under her palm. Pantelei Prokofievich, shaking the rotten post at the gate, glanced at Grigory.

Take the gate and fix it and stop at the corner. - After thinking, he added, as he reported the news: - Petro left.

Through the wattle fence, Grigory saw how Stepan was getting ready. Dressed up in a green woolen skirt, Aksinya brought his horse to him. Stepan, smiling, said something to her. He slowly, in a businesslike way, kissed his wife and for a long time did not remove his hand from her shoulder. Her hand, burnt by sunburn and work, was coal black on Aksinya's white blouse. Stepan stood with his back to Grigory; through the wattle fence one could see his tight, beautifully shaven neck, broad, slightly drooping shoulders, and - when he leaned towards his wife - the twisted tip of his blond mustache.

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

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

Grigory followed them with a long, unblinking glance.

III(V of the first part)

To the village of Setrakov - the place of the camp gathering - sixty miles. Petro Melekhov and Stepan Astakhov rode on the same britzka. With them are three more Cossack farmers: Fedot Bodovskov, a young Kalmykish and pockmarked Cossack, second-in-command of the Life Guards of the Ataman Regiment Khrisanf Tokin, nicknamed Khristonya, and batteryman Tomilin Ivan, who was heading to Persianovka. In the britzka, after the very first feeding, they harnessed Christon's two-inch horse and Stepan's black horse. The other three horses, saddled, followed behind. Ruled by a hefty and foolish, like most chieftains, Christonya. With his back bent like a wheel, he sat in front, blocking the light into the booth, frightening the horses with his booming octave bass. In the britzka, covered with a brand new tarpaulin, lay, smoking, Petro Melekhov, Stepan, and the batteryman Tomilin. Fedot Bodovskov walked behind; it was evident that it was not a burden to him to stick his crooked Kalmyk legs into the dusty road.

Khriston's chaise was in charge. Behind her stretched seven or eight more teams with tied saddled and unsaddled horses.

Laughter swirled over the road, screams, lingering songs, horse squawking, empty stirrups ringing.

Peter has a bread bag in his head. Petro lies and twists his long yellow mustache.

- …on the! Let's play service?

It's hot. Everything dried up.

There are no taverns on nearby farms, don't wait!

Well, start. Yes, you are not an artist. Eh, Grishka is your diskanit! It will pull, a pure silver thread, not a voice. We fought with him at the games.

Stepan throws back his head, clearing his throat, starts in a low sonorous voice:

Oh, you, dawn-lightning,

Rising early to heaven...

Tomilin, like a woman, puts his hand to his cheek, picks it up in a thin, groaning undertone. Smiling, stuffing a mustache into his mouth, Petro watches how the busty batteryman's knots turn blue from the effort of the veins on his temples.

Young, here she is, wench

Late on the water went ...

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

Christina, help!

And the boy, he guessed

He began to saddle his horse ...

Stepan shifts the smiling look of his bulging eyes to Pyotr, and Pyotr, pulling his mustache out of his mouth, joins his voice.

Khristonya, gaping her exorbitant bristled mouth, roars, shaking the tarpaulin roof of the booth:

Saddled a bay horse -

Began to catch up with a woman ...

Khristonya puts a yard-long bare foot on a rib and waits for Stepan to start again. He, with his eyes closed, - a sweaty face in the shade, - affectionately leads the song, then lowering his voice to a whisper, then raising his voice to a metallic ring:

Let me, let me, little woman

Water the horse in the river...

And again Christon's voices are crushed with a bell-tocsin horn. Voices pour into the song from neighboring chaises. Wheels on iron passages clatter, horses sneeze from the dust, viscous and strong, hollow water, a song flows over the road. From the drying up steppe muzga, from the burnt brown kuga, a white-winged lapwing takes off. He flies screaming into the hollow; turning his head, he looks with an emerald eye at the chain of wagons covered in white, at the horses curlying the savory dust with their hooves, at the people in white shirts tarred with dust walking along the side of the road. The lapwing falls in a hollow, strikes with its black chest into the drying grass crushed by the beast - and does not see what is happening on the road. And along the road, the carts rumble just as reluctantly, the horses sweating under the saddles step over; only the Cossacks in gray shirts quickly run from their britzkas to the front, huddle around her, groan in laughter.

Stepan stands to his full height on the britzka, with one hand he holds on to the canvas top of the booth, with the other he briefly waves; sprinkles with the smallest, undermining tongue twister:

Don't sit next to me

Don't sit next to me

People will say you love me

Do you love me,

You walk to me

Do you love me,

You walk to me

And I'm not a simple family...

And I'm not a simple family,

Not simple -

Vorovskogo,

Vorovsky -

Not simple

I love the prince's son...

Fedot Bodovskov whistles; squatting, rushing from the traces of the horses; Petro, leaning out of the booth, laughs and waves his cap; Stepan, flashing a dazzling smile, mischievously shrugs his shoulders; and along the road, dust moves like a mound; Khristonya, in an unbelted long shirt, shaggy, wet with sweat, walks in a crouch, whirls like a flywheel, frowning and groaning, makes a Cossack, and on the gray silken dust there are monstrous sprawling traces of his bare feet.

IV(VI of the first part)

Near the forehead, with a yellow sandy bald head, they stopped to spend the night.

Clouds were coming from the west. Rain dripped from her black wing. They watered the horses in the pond. Over the dam, bleak willows hunched in the wind. In the water, covered with stagnant greenery and the scales of miserable waves, lightning was reflected and distorted. The wind sparingly sprinkled with raindrops, as if pouring alms on the black palms of the earth.

The hobbled horses were allowed to popas, appointing three people to guard. The rest made fires, hung cauldrons on the drawbars of the carts.

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

- ... The mound, therefore, is high, like this. And I say to the deceased-bata: “But what, the ataman1 will not strike us because, without any, therefore, permission, we begin to gut the mound?”

What is he talking about here? Stepan asked, returning from the horses.

I tell how the deceased father and I, the kingdom of heaven to the old man, were looking for a treasure.

Where did you look for it?

This, brother, is already behind the Fetisova beam. Yes, you know - Merkulov Kurgan ...

Well, well ... - Stepan squatted down, put a piece of coal in his palm. Flapping his lips, he lit a cigarette for a long time, rolling it in his palm.

Here you go. So, dad says: "Come on, Christan, let's dig up the Merkulov mound." He heard from his grandfather that there was a buried treasure in it. And the treasure, it became, is not given to everyone in the hands. Dad promised God: if you give back, they say, the treasure - I will build a beautiful church. So we decided and went there. Stanishnaya land - doubt from the ataman could only be. We arrive at night. They waited for the pokel to grow dark, so they hobbled the mare, and themselves with shovels climbed to the top of the head. They started buzzing right from the top of the head. They dug a hole about two arshins deep, the earth was pure stone, it was grunting from old age. I sweat. Dad keeps whispering prayers, but, brothers, believe me, my stomach is grumbling so much ... In the summer, so, grub is known to you: sour milk and kvass ... It will catch across the stomach, death in the eyes - and that's it! The deceased father, the kingdom of heaven to him, and says: “Fu,” he says, “Christan, and you bastard! I read a prayer, but you can’t hold back food, breathe, so there’s nothing to do. Go, - he says, - get off the mound, otherwise I'll chop off your head with a shovel. Through you, bastard, the treasure can go into the ground. I lay down under the mound and suffer from my stomach, I took a prick, and the dead father was a healthy devil! - digs one. And he dug to the stone slab. Calls me. So, I lifted it up with a crowbar, lifted this slab ... Believe me, brothers, it was a monthly night, and it shines under the slab ...

Well, you're lying, Christonya! said Petro, smiling and tugging at his moustache.

What are you "breaking"? You went to the teteri-yateri! - Khristonya pulled up his wide trousers and looked around the listeners. - No, it became-be, I'm not lying! The true god is true!

Get to the shore!

So, brothers, and shines. I - look, and this, it became, burnt coal. There it was about forty measures. Batya says: "Climb, Christan, rake him out." Helpful. Threw, threw this stramota, until the light was enough. In the morning, it became, look, and he - here he is.

Who? asked Tomilin, who was lying on a blanket.

Yes, chieftain, who. Rides in a cab: "Who allowed, such and such?" We are silent. He began to rake us up - and to the village. The year before last, they were summoned to court in Kamenskaya, and dad guessed - he managed to die. They signed off with paper that he was no longer alive.

Khristonya took down the cauldron of steaming porridge and went to the wagon for spoons.

What is the father? He promised to build a church, but did not build it? Stepan asked, waiting until Khristonya returned with the spoons.

You are a fool, Styopa, what kind of coals is he, then, building a ba?

Once he promised, it means he must.

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

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

V(IV of the first part)

By evening a storm had gathered. Over the farm there was a brown cloud. The Don, tousled by the wind, threw ridged frequent waves onto the shores. Behind the levadas, dry lightning scorched the sky, crushing the earth with rare peals of thunder. Under the cloud, opening, a kite was circling, screaming, chasing him with crows. A cloud, breathing a chill, walked along the Don, from the west. Behind the loan, the sky grew menacingly black, the steppe was expectantly silent. Closing shutters banged in the farm, old women hurried from Vespers, crossing themselves, a gray column of dust swayed on the parade ground, and the first grains of rain were already sown on the earth burdened with 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 bucking in the street. The neighbor's eight-year-old Mishka spun around, crouching on one leg - on his head, closing his eyes, his father's oversized cap circled, - and squealed piercingly:

Rain, let the rain fall.

We'll go to the bushes

pray to God

Bow down to Christ.

Dunyashka looked enviously at Mishka's bare feet, densely strewn with chicks, fiercely trampling the ground. She also wanted to dance in the rain and wet her head so that her hair would grow thick and curly; I wanted, just like Mishka's comrade, to stand upside down on the roadside dust, with the risk of falling into thorns, - but my mother looked out the window, angrily smacking her lips. Sighing, Dunyashka ran to the hut. The rain came down hard and frequent. Thunder burst above the roof, fragments rolled over the Don.

In the passage, father and sweaty Grishka were pulling a rolled-up log from the side.

Harsh threads and a gypsy needle, helluva lot! shouted Grigory to Dunyashka.

A fire was lit in the kitchen. To sew up the nonsense of the village Daria. The old woman, rocking the child, muttered:

You, old man, are made up of inventions. You would go to bed, everything goes up in price, and you burn. What is the catch now? Where will the plague take you? Isho peretopnete, there to go to the base of the passion of the Lord. Look, look, how it blazes! Lord Jesus Christ, queen of heaven...

In the kitchen for a second it became dazzling blue and quiet: you could hear the rain scratching the shutters, followed by a gasp of thunder. Dunyashka squeaked and poked her face into the ravine. Darya fanned the windows and doors with small crosses.

The old woman gazed with terrible eyes at the cat that was caressing at her feet.

Dunka! Go-oh-no you, good ... queen of heaven, forgive me, a sinner. Dunka, throw the cat to the bases. Get out, you evil spirit! So that you ...

Grigory, dropping the log of nonsense, was shaking in soundless laughter.

Well, what are you up to? Click! shouted Pantelei Prokofievich. - Baba, sew up fast! Nadys isho said: look around the nonsense.

And what a fish now, - the old woman hinted.

If you don't understand, shut up! We'll take the most sterlet on the spit. The fish goes to the shore at once, afraid of the storm. The water must have gone murky. Come on, run out, Dunyashka, listen - Erik is playing?

Dunya reluctantly, sideways, moved towards the door.

Who will wander? Daria can’t, she might get a cold in her chest, ”the old woman did not let up.

Grishka and I, and with other nonsense - we will call Aksinya, one of the women isho.

Out of breath, Dunyasha ran in. On the eyelashes, quivering, raindrops hung. She smelled of damp black soil.

Erik is buzzing, it's scary!

Are you going to roam with us?

And isho who will go?

Let's call Bab.

Well, put on a zipun and ride to Aksinya. If he goes, let him call Malashka Frolov!

Enta will not freeze, - Grigory smiled, - she has fat on her, like on a good boar.

You should take dry hay, Grishunka, - advised the mother, - put it under your heart, otherwise you will catch a cold inside.

Grigory, wind up for hay. The old woman said the right word.

Soon Dunyashka brought the women. Aksinya, in a torn blouse girded with a rope and a blue underskirt, looked smaller and thinner. She, laughing with Darya, took off her handkerchief from her head, twisted her hair tighter into a knot, and, covering herself, throwing back her head, coldly looked at Grigory. Fat Malashka was tying up her stockings at the threshold, wheezing with a cold:

Did you take bags? True God, we do not stagger the fish.

Went to the base. Rain poured thickly on the softened earth, foamed puddles, and slid down to the Don in streams.

Gregory walked ahead. It was washed away by his unreasonable joy.

Look, dad, there's a ditch.

What a darkness!

Hold on, Aksyusha, we'll be in prison together, - Malashka laughs hoarsely.

Look, Grigory, can't the Maidannikovs' pier?

She is.

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

Can't hear it, uncle! - Malasha wheezes.

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

Don has a moaning roar. The wind tears the slanting cloth of the rain to shreds.

Feeling the bottom with his feet, Grigory plunged into the water up to his waist. A sticky cold crept up to his chest, tightened his heart like a hoop. In the face, in tightly closed eyes, as if with a whip, a wave lashes. The nonsense is inflated with a ball, pulls inward. Gregory's feet, shod in woolen stockings, slide along the sandy bottom. Komol is torn from the hands ... Deeper, deeper. ledge. Legs are torn off. The current impetuously carries to the middle, sucks. Grigory with his right hand rows to the shore with force. The black, rippling depths frighten him more than ever. The foot joyfully steps on the shaky bottom. Some kind of fish knocks on the knee.

Go deeper! - from somewhere out of the viscous black voice of the father.

The delusion, tilting, again creeps into the depths, again the current tears the earth from under its feet, and Grigory, raising his head, swims, spitting.

Aksinya, is she alive?

Live for now.

Does it stop raining?

The little one stops, the big one starts moving.

You are slowly. The father will hear - he will swear.

He was scared of his father, too ...

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

Grisha, near the shore, Kubyt, Karsha. Need to circle.

A terrible push throws Gregory far away. A roaring splash, as if from a ravine a lump of rock fell into the water.

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

Frightened Grigory, having surfaced, swims to the cry.

Aksinya!

Wind and the flowing sound of water.

Aksinya! - growing cold with fear, shouts Grigory.

E-gey!!. Gri-go-ri-y! - from afar muffled fathers voice.

Gregory throws a wave. Something viscous underfoot, grabbed his hand: nonsense.

Why didn’t she respond? .. - Grigory angrily yells, getting out on all fours to the shore.

Squatting down, trembling, they sort out the nonsense tangled in a lump. A moon hatches from a hole in a torn cloud. Behind the loan, thunder speaks with restraint. The earth is glossy 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 twisted lips are already laughing.

How it will knock me ashore, - she says, taking a breath, - she has lost her mind. Fled to death! I thought you drowned.

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

How warm you have something in your sleeve, - she says plaintively, - and I froze. Colic went through the body.

Here he is, damned somyaga, where he hit!

In the middle of the log, Grigory opens a hole about an arshin and a half across.

Someone is running from the scythe. Grigory guesses Dunyashka. Still from afar shouts to her:

Do you have threads?

Tutochka.

Dunya, out of breath, runs up.

Why are you sitting here? Batyanka sent for them to go to the spit as soon as possible. We caught a bag of sterlets there! - There is undisguised triumph in Dunya's voice.

Aksinya, chatting her teeth, sews up a hole in the nonsense. At a trot, to keep warm, they run to the spit.

Pantelei Prokofievich is twisting the cigarette with his fingers, ribbed with water and plump, like those of a drowned man; dancing, boasting:

Once wandered - eight pieces, and another time ... - he takes a breather, lights up and silently points his foot at the bag.

Aksinya peers in with curiosity. There is a grinding crack in the bag: a tenacious sterlet is rubbing.

And what did you get away with?

Catfish squandered nonsense.

Somehow, the cells were hooked ...

Well, let's get to the knee and go home. Wander, Grishka, why have you got the hang of it?

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

Don't shake!

And I would be glad, but I won’t translate the spirit.

Here's what... Let's get out, damn it, this fish!

A large carp hits through the bullshit. Accelerating his pace, Grigory bends the rod, pulls the pole, Aksinya, bending over, runs out onto the shore. Water rushes back on the sand, fish trembles.

Shall we go through the borrowing?

Forest closer. Hey, you, there, soon?

Come on, let's catch up. Let's rinse the nonsense.

Wincing, Aksinya wringed out her skirt, picked up the bag with the catch on her shoulders, and almost trotted along the spit. Gregory was talking nonsense. A hundred fathoms passed, Aksinya groaned:

My urine is gone! Legs with a couple went.

Here is last year's mop, can you get warm?

And then. As long as you reach the house, you can die.

Grigory turned his cap on one side and dug a hole. The stale hay wafted with the hot smell of preli.

Get in the middle. It's like an oven here.

Aksinya threw down her sack and buried herself up to her neck in the hay.

That's a blessing!

Shivering from the cold, Grigory lay down beside him. From Aksinya's wet hair flowed a gentle, exciting smell. She lay with her head thrown back, breathing steadily through her half-open mouth.

Your hair smells like a drug. You know, like a sort of white flower ... - Grigory whispered, bending over.

She said nothing. Foggy and distant was her gaze, fixed on the detriment of the wheeled moon.

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

Keep quiet.

Let go, or I'll make a noise!

Wait, Aksinya...

Uncle Pantelei!

Ai lost? - quite close, from the thickets of hawthorn, responded Pantelei Prokofievich.

Grigory, closing his teeth, jumped from the hay.

What are you making noise? Ai lost? - coming up, asked the old man.

Aksinya stood near the mound, straightening a handkerchief knocked to the back of her head, steam rising from her.

There is no way to get lost, but it was, to freeze.

Ty, woman, and here, looking, mop. Get warm.

Aksinya smiled, stooping for the sack.

VI(VII of the first part)

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

A year before the issue, she plowed in the autumn in the steppe, about eight versts 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 if you keep quiet, I’ll make a plush jacket and leggings with galoshes. So remember: I'll kill if anything ... - he promised her.

At night, in one tattered underwear, Aksinya ran to the farm. Lying at her mother's feet, choking on sobs, she told ... Mother and older brother, an ataman, who had just returned from service, harnessed the horses to the britzka, put Aksinya with them and went there, to their father. For eight miles, my brother nearly set the horses on fire. The father was found near the camp. Drunk, he slept on a spread out zipun, an empty bottle of vodka was lying around. In front of Aksinya's eyes, the brother unhooked the baroque from the britzka, lifted the sleeping father with his feet, briefly asked him something, and struck the old man on the bridge of the nose with the chained barge. Together with his mother, they beat him for an hour and a half. The always meek, aged mother frantically pulled her hair out of her mind, the brother tried with his feet. Aksinya was lying under the britzka, her head wrapped around her, shaking silently... The old man was brought home before light. He mooed plaintively, rummaged around the room with his eyes, looking for the hidden Aksinya. From his severed ear, blood and whiteness rolled onto the pillow. He died in the evening. People were told that the drunk fell from the cart and killed himself.

A year later, matchmakers arrived in an elegant britzka for Aksinya. The bride liked the tall, round-necked and stately Stepan, and a wedding was scheduled for the autumn meat-eater. Such a pre-winter day approached, with frost and a cheerful ice ringing day, the young people were wrapped around; from that time on, Aksinya settled in the Astakh house as a young mistress. The mother-in-law, a tall old woman bent over by some kind of cruel woman’s illness, woke Aksinya early the next day after the party, led her into the kitchen and, aimlessly rearranging the horns, said:

That's what, my dear son-in-law, we took you not to mess around and not to lie down. Go ahead and milk the cows, and then get to the stove to cook. I am old, weakness overcomes, and you take the economy into your hands, it will fall behind you.

On the same day, in the barn, Stepan deliberately and terribly beat his young wife. He beat me in the stomach, in the chest, in the back; beat in such a way that it was not visible to people. From that time on, he began to take on the side, got mixed up with the walking zhalmerki, left almost every night, locking Aksinya in the barn or gorenka.

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

A large multi-animal farm dragged Aksinya to work. Stepan worked lazily: having combed his forelock, he went to his comrades to smoke, to play cards, to chat about farm news, and Aksinya had to clean up the cattle, turn the household over to her. The mother-in-law was a poor helper. Having fussed, she fell on the bed and, stretching her faded yellow lips into a thread, looking at the ceiling with eyes furious with pain, groaned, huddled into a ball. At such moments, her face, stained with black, ugly large moles, sweated profusely, tears accumulated in her eyes and often, one after another, flowed down. Aksinya, quitting her job, would hide somewhere in a corner and look with fear and pity at her mother-in-law's face.

A year and a half later, the old woman died. In the morning, Aksinya began having prenatal pains, 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 hut to warn the drunken Stepan not to go to the mother-in-law, saw Aksinya's mother-in-law lying with her legs crossed.

Aksinya became attached to her husband after the birth of the 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. The old life unfolded. And when Grishka Melekhov, flirting, stood in Aksinya's way, she saw with horror that she was drawn to the affectionate black guy. He stubbornly, with bullish persistence, courted her. And it was this stubbornness that was terrifying to Aksinya. She saw that he was not afraid of Stepan, she felt in her gut that he would not give up on her like that, and, not wanting this with her mind, resisting with all her might, she noticed behind herself that on holidays and on weekdays she began to dress up more carefully, deceiving herself, strove 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, she recalled: “Today there is something joyful. What? Grigory ... Grisha ... " This new scarecrow filled her whole feeling, and in her thoughts she groped, carefully, as if across the Don on March porous ice.

After seeing Stepan to the camps, she decided to see Grishka as little as possible. After catching with nonsense, this decision became even stronger in her.

VII(VIII)

Two days before Trinity, the farmers shared the meadow. Pantelei Prokofievich went to the division. He came from there at lunchtime, gruntingly threw off his chirps and, savoryly scratching his legs, worn out by walking, said:

We got a plot near Krasny Yar. The grass is not very good. The upper end reaches the forest, in some places there are goloschechins. The feather jumps.

When to mow? asked Gregory.

From the holidays.

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

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

Need it - take it. At noon, collect what you are worth, opened up!

The old woman rattled the damper, dragged the heated cabbage soup out of the oven. At the table, Pantelei Prokofievich talked for a long time about the carve-up and the crooked ataman, who almost swindled the entire gathering.

He cheated for a year, ”Daria interceded,“ they beat off the uleshi, so he persuaded Malashka Frolov to quit.

Old bitch, - chewed Pantelei Prokofievich.

Father, but who will dig, row? Dunyashka asked timidly.

And what are you going to do?

Alone, father, uncontrollably.

We will call Aksyutka Astakhov. Stepan nadys asked me to mow him down. We must respect.

The next day, Mitya Korshunov rode up to the Melekhovsky base on horseback on a saddled white-legged stallion. Rain splashed. Khmar hung over the farm. Mitka, leaning over in his saddle, opened the gate and rode into the base. An old woman called out to him from the porch.

You, zaburunny, what did you resort to? she asked with visible displeasure. The old desperate and pugnacious Mitka did not like.

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

Sleeping under the barn. You, well, al paralik hit? Pawns, so you can't move?

You, aunty, are a nail in every hole! Mitka was offended. Swinging, waving and snapping his elegant whip on the tops of his patent leather boots, he went under the shed shed.

Grigory was sleeping in the cart removed from the front. Mitka, screwing up his left eye, as if taking aim, pulled Grigory out with his whip.

Get up, man!

"Man" was the most abusive word for Mitya. Gregory jumped up like a spring.

What are you?

Waking up!

Don't be foolish, Mitriy, until you get angry...

Get up, there's work to be done.

Mitka sat down on the bed of the cart, lashing the dry dirt from his boot, and said:

Grishka, I'm sorry...

Why, - Mitka swore longly, - he is not him, - the centurion, just asks.

In his hearts, without opening his teeth, he quickly threw out words, shaking his legs. Gregory got up.

What centurion?

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

Saddle up your horse and let's run to the place. I'll show him! I told him so: "Come on, your honor, let's try." - "Lead, grit, all your comrade friends, 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 his mother - but damn them! - and I will not let the stallion jump!

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

He came to visit Mokhov, the merchant, this same centurion. Wait, whose nickname is he? Kubyt, Listnitsky. Such a dull, serious. Wears glasses. Well, come on! Even though I'm wearing glasses, but I won't dare to overtake a stallion!

Laughing, Grigory saddled up the old womb, left for the tribe, and through the humous gates - so that his father would not see - rode out into the steppe. We drove to the place under the mountain. The hooves of the horses, champing, chewed on the mud. In a haven near a dried-out poplar, horsemen were waiting for them: the centurion Listnitsky on a lean, beautiful mare and about seven peasant children on horseback.

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

From poplar to Tsar's pond.

Where is Tsar's Pond? The centurion narrowed his eyes short-sightedly.

And there, your honor, near the forest.

The horses were built. The centurion raised his whip over his head. The epaulette on his shoulder was swollen.

As I say "three" - let it go! Well? One two Three!

The first rushed the centurion, falling to the bow, holding his cap in his hand. He was one second ahead of the others. Mitka, with a perplexedly pale face, half rose in his stirrups - it seemed to Grigory that he was languishingly lowering the whip pulled up over his head onto the stallion's croup.

From the poplar to the Tsar's Pond - three versts. Halfway along, Mitkin's stallion, stretching into an arrow, overtook the centurion's mare. Gregory galloped reluctantly. Having lagged behind from the very beginning, he rode in a sparse outline, watching with curiosity the receding, broken into links tenacious galloping.

Near the Tsar's Pond there is a sandy ridge, alluvial from spring water. The camel's yellow hump was stunted with holly snake onions. Grigory saw how the centurion and Mitka jumped up on the ridge at once and ran down to the other side, the rest slid behind them one by one.

When he drove up to the pond, the sweaty horses were already standing in a bunch, the dismounted guys surrounded the centurion. Mitka shone with restrained joy. Celebration shone in his every move. The centurion, contrary to expectations, seemed to Grigory not in the least embarrassed: he, leaning against a tree, smoking a cigarette, said, pointing with his little finger at his mare, as if redeemed:

I made a run of a hundred and fifty miles on it. Just arrived from the station yesterday. If it were fresher, you would never, Korshunov, overtake me.

It might be, - magnanimous Mitka.

There is no frisky stallion all over the district, - envious, said the freckled boy who rode last.

Kind horse. - Mitka patted the stallion's neck with a trembling hand from the excitement he had experienced and, smiling woodenly, looked at Grigory.

The two of them separated from the rest, drove under the mountain, and not the street. The centurion bade them a cold farewell, put two fingers under his visor, and turned away.

Already driving up the alley to the yard, Grigory saw Aksinya walking towards them. She walked, plucking a twig; I saw Grishka - lowered her head.

What are you ashamed of, are we going by TVs? Mitka shouted and winked: “My Kalinushka, oh, bitter little one!

Grigory, looking in front of him, almost drove past and suddenly hit the peacefully walking mare with a whip. She sat down on her hind legs - glancing, splashed Aksinya with mud.

And-and-and, the devil is bad!

Turning sharply, running into Aksinya with a heated horse, Grigory asked:

Why don't you say hello?

You don't deserve it!

For this, I slapped - do not be proud!

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

This is a mare, not a horse.

Let it go anyway!

Why are you angry, Aksyutka? Is it really for more breathless, that in a borrowing? ..

Gregory looked into her eyes. Aksinya wanted to say something, but a tear suddenly hung in the corner of her black eye; lips twitched sadly. She swallowed hard and whispered:

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

Surprised, Grigory caught up with Mitka at the gate.

Are you coming to the game? he asked.

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

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

VIII(II of the first part)

Rare stars swayed in the ashen dawn sky. The wind was blowing from under the clouds. Mist reared over the Don, and, spreading along the slope of the chalk mountain, slithered into the pits like a gray headless viper. The left-bank Obdon, sands, valleys, reedy impassability, a forest covered in dew - blazed with a frenzied cold glow. Beyond the line, not rising, the sun languished.

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

Pantelei Prokofievich looked at the straightening of the grass, crushed by Darya's feet, and went to the upper room.

On the sill of the open window, the petals of the cherry blossoms that had blossomed in the front garden were deathly pink. Grigory was sleeping face down, throwing his arm out.

Grishka, are you going fishing?

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

Let's go, let's sit down.

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

In the Sholokhov edition, due to an editorial oversight, this “peaceful” epigraph is preceded by another, “military” one (“Our glorious land has not been plowed up…”) Although, logically, it should open the second military book left without an epigraph. The epigraph to the third book (also military) corresponds to its content. The epigraph to the 7th part of the novel that remained in the drafts is unknown, but probably this part should have been included in the third volume, which has grown from numerous quotations from later White Guard memoirs and party Bolshevik articles. In this case, the logic of the three volumes (and their epigraphs) is as obvious as the controversy 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 the publications: “- Somehow the devil, I need you!”

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

Gas - kerosene

Fishermen "bait" (feeding for fish, usually from grains of wheat, rye or barley) do not cook, but soar. We find a correction missing in the editions in the “draft” manuscript: over “Did your mother cook porridge?” (“Chernovaya”, p. 5) we read: “- Did mother soar bait?” However, in further “editions”: “Did your mother cook the bait?” (“Rewhitened”, p. 5); “Did Mom cook the bait?” (“Belovaya”, p. 5). ( Note. A. Ch.)

In the editions of the description: "to the left." But the right, sunless bank of the Don flowing in this place from the west to the east of the Don should be called the Black Yar. The old man accurately determines the place of fishing: “To the Black Yar. Let's try it near the entoy karshi, where we used to sit."

In Sholokhov's "draft" (p. 6) "huge, a yard and a half carp" later became "two yards" (later edited in purple ink over black). But in nature, the maximum length of a carp is exactly one and a half arshins (a little over a meter), and the weight is up to 20 kg. Carp at 15.5 pounds, as Grigory found out with the help of a steelyard (about 6.5 kg), all the more cannot be “two-harshine” (that is, almost half a meter), since the carp is a stewy fish and simply cannot lose weight like that. Before us is a typical Sholokhov's correction. In the first book we meet 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 the rider in a day. It was for this kind of postscripts (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 Sholokhov's edition: "...behind her, water rose like an oblique greenish canvas." According to the "draft" (p. 7): "...behind it stood water in a short sheet." According to "whitened" (p. 6) and "white" (p. 6): "... behind her, water rose in an oblique greenish sheet." The editors failed to read the text: if a big fish sat on the hook, stagnant water (in the kotlin / kolovina, near the shore, behind the sunken elm) will thump like a linen when washing and rinsing. ( Note. A. Ch.)

vieu- a drawbar in a bull harness. (Approx. publishers.)

———————————————

OBLIGATORY REPLACEMENT OF THE FRAGMENT IN THE THIRD BOOK OF TD

Yar (meaning not a ravine, but a coastal cliff) near the spit cut off by Erik is not in vain called Black. As the Yar, looking to the east, is called Red. And it is no coincidence that it is immediately clarified that the matter is taking place “in a loan” (p. 33). In the Sholokhov edition, this ravine is twice (but not for the first time!) mistakenly attributed to the left bank. But for seventy miles from Veshenskaya to Ust-Medveditskaya, the Don flows to the east. And therefore, “black”, that is, inaccessible to sunlight, is not the left, but the right bank. The one with the scythe.

This looks most egregious in the 6th part, which describes a visit by Grigory to his division, dug in on the left bank opposite the Tatarsky occupied by the Reds. Here, the description of the right-bank settlement with many speaking farm realities is referred to the left bank. However, there is a completely different landscape here: “The Left Bank Obdon, sands, valleys, reedy impassability, a forest covered with dew” (Book 1, ch. II)

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

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

They invent devilry, - Christonya bassed. - What are we, on the German front, or what? Roy, brothers, stripped, so-to be, trenches knee-deep. Is it a mental matter, then, to dig such a congealed earth two arshins deep? Yes, you can’t gouge it with a crowbar, not like a shovel.

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

Well, here we have moved to the marmot position! - wisecracked Anikushka, who never lost heart. - We will live in nury, the grass will go to live, otherwise you would all crack pancakes with kaimak, meat, noodles with sterlet ... Don't you like sweet clover?

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

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

Prokofich! Go quickly, now, Gregory has arrived! ..

Grigory dismounted, handed the reins to Anikushka, who came up, and from a distance he saw his father hurriedly limping.

Well, great, boss!

Hello dad.

Had arrived?

Violently assembled! Well, how are ours? Mother, where is Natalya?

Pantelei Prokofievich waved his hand and grimaced. A tear slipped down his black cheek...

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

Didn't move...

How so?!

Natalya lay down clean in two days. Typhus, it must be... Well, the old woman didn't want to leave her... Don't be scared, son, everything is fine with them there.

And the kids? Mishatka? Polyushka?

There too. And Dunya has moved. I was afraid to stay ... Girl's business, you know? At once, with Anikushkina's woman, they went to Volokhov. And I've been home twice. In the middle of the night I will quietly move on the longboat, well, and I tried it. Natalya is very bad, but the kids are fine, thank God ... Natalyushka is without memory, she has a fever, her lips are parched with blood.

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

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

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

I have a division! I had to send the division! Gregory objected passionately.

We heard what you do in Veshki...

Family, kubyt, and without the need? Hey Gregory! You have to think about God, if you don’t think about people ... I didn’t cross here, otherwise wouldn’t I have taken them? My platoon was in Elani, but the Pokedovs came here, the Reds had already occupied the farm.

I'm in Veshki! .. This matter does not concern you ... And you tell me ... - Grigory's voice was hoarse and strangled.

Yes, I'm nothing! - the old man was frightened, looking with displeasure at the Cossacks crowding nearby. - That's not what I'm talking about... And you're quieter than the Gutar, people, over there, are hearing... - and switched to a whisper. - You yourself are not a tiddly child, you yourself should know, but do not hurt your soul about the family. Natalya, God willing, will get a feeling, but the Reds don't beat them. True, they slaughtered the summer heifer, but nothing like that. They had mercy and did not touch ... The grains took forty measures. Well, yes, going to war is not without damage!

Maybe they could be taken away?

No need, in my opinion. Well, where to take her, ill? And yes, it's risky. They have nothing there. The old woman looks after the household, it is so calmer for me, otherwise there were fires in the farm.

Who got burned?

The place was all burned out. There are more and more merchant houses. The matchmakers of the Korshunovs were completely burned. The matchmaker Lukinichna went to Andropov at once, and Grishak's grandfather also stayed at home to keep watch. Your mother told me that he, Grishak’s grandfather, said: “I won’t move anywhere from my base, and the Anchichrists won’t come up to me, they’ll be afraid of the sign of the cross.” In the end, he began to interfere with the mind. But, as you can see, the beautiful ones were not frightened by his cross, the hut and the farmstead were engulfed in smoke, and nothing was heard about him ... Yes, it’s time for him to die. I made a domovina for myself twenty years ago, but everything lives on ... And your friend's farm burns down, he is an abyss!

Mishka Koshevoy, may he be cursed three times!

He is a true god! We had one, he tortured about you. He said so to his mother: “How will we go over to the ent side - Grigory, your first regular will be on
417
a bolt. Hang him on the highest oak. I'm talking about him, - he says, - and I won't spoil the checkers! And he asked about me and grinned. “And entogo,” he says, “where the devils carried the lame? I would sit at home, - he says, - on the stove. Well, and if I catch it, I won’t kill it to death, but I’ll dump the whips until the spirit comes out of it! Here's the breakdown! He walks around the farm, sets fire to merchants and priests' houses and says: “For Ivan Alekseevich and for Shtokman, I will burn the whole Vyoshenskaya!” Is that your voice?

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

I had a short talk 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 there is vodka! - He said, laughing and winking, expressively snapping his fingernail on the dirty collar of his shirt.

Grigory treated Khristonya and all the other farmers with the stocked tobacco; and just before leaving, I saw Stepan Astakhov. Stepan came up, slowly greeted, but did not shake hands.

Grigory 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).

Then Grigory crosses over to “his (!) Asylum” 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, having dug in on the mountain, do not enter the farm at night):

Gregory has entered to your borrowing before evening.

Everything here was familiar to him, every tree gave rise to memories ... The road went along the Maiden's Meadow, where the Cossacks annually drank vodka on Peter's Day, after they "shaken" (divided) the meadow. The cape protrudes into the Alyoshkin copse.
414
A long time ago, in this then still nameless copse, wolves slaughtered a cow that belonged to some Alexei, a resident of the Tatarsky farm. Alexei died, the memory of him was erased, as the inscription on the gravestone is erased, even his surname is forgotten by neighbors and relatives, and the copse, named after him, lives on, pulling the dark green crowns of oaks and karaichs to the sky. Their cut down by Tatars for crafts necessary for household items, but from the stocky stumps in the spring tenacious young shoots are swept out, a year or two of inconspicuous growth, and again Alyoshkin's copse in the summer - in the malachite green of outstretched branches, in the fall - as in golden chain mail, in the red glow of carved oak leaves lit by matinees.

In summer, in the Alyoshka copse, the prickly brambles densely entwine the damp earth, on the tops of the old Karaichs, elegantly feathered rollers and magpies build their nests; in autumn, when the smell of acorns and oak-carrion is invigorating and bitter, migrating woodcocks stay in the woods for a short time, and in winter only a round printed fox trail stretches like a pearl thread across the spreading white felt of snow. Grigory more than once in his youth went to set traps for foxes in Aleshkin copse ...

He rode under the cool shade of the branches, along the old overgrown chariots of last year's road. I passed the Maiden's Glade, got out to the Black Yar, and memories hit my head like a hop. About three poplars, as a boy, he once chased a brood of still non-flying wild ducklings along the muzgochka, in Round Lake from dawn to evening he caught tench ... And nearby - a tented tree of viburnum. It stands on the outskirts, lonely and old. It can be seen from the Melekhovsky base, and every autumn Grigory, going out onto the porch of his hut, admired the viburnum bush, from a distance, as if engulfed in a red tongued flame. The late Petro was so fond of pies with bitter and astringent viburnum...

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

The green wheatgrass and the Arzhanian leaned gently in the wind. The meadow was covered with green ripples.

The text in bold indicates that the right-bank path from the Khovansky stile is described (not far from the meadow in Krasny Yar, where in 1912 there was a Melekhov plot) to the rear gate of the cattle base. This is a path from the ford, through Aleshkin copse, Maiden's meadow, past Chernoy Yar.

Well, the trenches of the farm hundred are on the left bank.
There is a clear rearrangement of the page: having entered his place of residence, Grigory cannot be on the left bank near the Tatars who have dug in there.

WORDS BRILLIANTLY ABSENT
in the 8th part of the "Quiet Don",
tabloid forgery of the first Sholokhovists

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

In the last part of the novel, there is nothing that is obligatory (and, as a rule, repeatedly!) found in every volume of the novel - cars and airplanes, Maidans and loans, plots, swamps and muzgi.

There are no messengers, gypsies, accordions and harmonists, sparrows, snakes, red-headed, alder, brooms, bees and sunflowers in this last part. Here they do not know how to untie anything and do not know the outcomes.

There are no nouns "ruble" and "column", there is no such thing as "cursing".

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”) . No, of course, and the key concept of "Quiet Flows the Don". And - although people continue to die in the hundreds and thousands - not a single word "corpse" (which occurred 41 times in previous chapters).

And there are no words with the root "sorrow".

See the table here at the end of the page.

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

Biography

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

Fedor studied at the Ust-Medveditskaya gymnasium (he 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 Institute of History and Philology.

State Councillor. In 1893-1905 he worked at the Oryol gymnasium as a teacher of history and geography, an educator in her boarding school. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks region. He was a member of the Labor Group. On July 10, 1906, in Vyborg, after the dissolution 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 prison Crosses. At the end of 1906 and in 1907 he was one of the organizers and prominent ideologists of the People's Socialist Party.

Head of the Literature and Art Department of the Russian Wealth magazine (editor and co-publisher V. G. Korolenko). Teacher of Russian literature and history in the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. Educator of the poet Alexander Tinyakov.

During the First World War, he served in the sanitary 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 The Quiet Flows the 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 Nezaimanovsky farm monastery from typhus on March 4, and was buried there.

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

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

Works by Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov

"Cossack stanitsa courts", 1892 "Gulebshchiki", 1892 "Shulgin massacre", 1894 "Cossack", 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 healing", 1904 "Stanichniki", 1906 "Step on the spot", 1907 "New Days", 1907 "Thirst", 1908 "Dreams", 1908 "Swell", 1909 "Comrades", 1909 "Joy", 1909 Flurry, 1909 "Half an hour", 1910 "In Cell No. 380", 1910 "Mother", 1910

"Corner tenants", 1911 "In a glimpse", 1911 "Satellites", 1911 "Happiness", 1911 "Weekdays", 1911 "On the Azure River", 1911 "Network of the World", 1912 "Officer", 1912 "Between steep banks", 1912 "Among the miners", 1912 "District Russia", 1912 "In the lower reaches", 1912 "Without fire", 1912 "Burning Bush", 1913 "In the depths", 1913 "In a glimpse", 1913 "Father Nelid", 1913 "In a glimpse", 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 "Soul One", 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 "Crash", 1917 "In a glimpse", 1917 "New", 1917 "In the corner", 1918 "Military circle and Russia", 1918 "Visiting Comrade Mironov", 1919 "After the red guests", 1919 "Ust-Medveditsky combat site", 1919 "Flower-Tatarnik", 1919

Individual editions

• In native places: A story. - Rostov n/a: . - 39 p.
• Cossack motives: Essays and stories. - St. Petersburg: 1907. - 439 p.
• Stories. T. I. - M .: Publishing house of writers in Moscow, 1914.
• Officer: Novels and stories. / Kuban Library - Krasnodar: Book. publishing house, 1990. - 362 p. - ISBN 5-7561-0482-8.
• Stories. Publicism. - M.: Soviet Russia, 1990. - 571 p. - ISBN 5-268-01132-4.
• Cossack motives: Tale, short stories, essays, memoirs, prose poem. / Forgotten book - M.: Fiction, 1993. - 444 p. - ISBN 5-280-02217-9.
• Bulavinsky rebellion (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. Moscow: AIRO-XXI; St. Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 2004. - 208 p. - ISBN 5-88735-124-1.
• Cossack stories: [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. 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 on the Don / Foreword and compilation by A.G. Makarov. - 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. In the German war. At the front and in the rear. - M.: AIRO-XXI, 2013. - 548 p. - ISBN 978-591022-177-6

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• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philology, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philology, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philology, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philology, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philology, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philology, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philology, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philology, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philology, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philology, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:

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

Biography

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

Fedor studied at the Ust-Medveditskaya gymnasium (he 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.

Head of the Literature and Art Department of the Russian Wealth magazine (editor and co-publisher V. G. Korolenko). Teacher of Russian literature and history at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. Educator of the poet Alexander Tinyakov.

During the First World War, he served in the sanitary 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 The Quiet Flows the Don. During the Civil War, he supported the government of the 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 Nezaimanovsky farm monastery 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 by Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov

"Cossack stanitsa courts", 1892 "Shulgin massacre", 1894 "Cossack", 1896 "In native places", 1903 "From the diary of teacher Vasyukhin", 1903 "Pictures of school life", 1904 "To the source of healing", 1904 "Stanichniki", 1906 "Step on the spot", 1907 "New Days", 1907 "Thirst", 1908 "Dreams", 1908 "Comrades", 1909 "Joy", 1909 Flurry, 1909 "Half an hour", 1910 "In Cell No. 380", 1910 "Mother", 1910

"Corner tenants", 1911 "In a glimpse", 1911 "Satellites", 1911 "Happiness", 1911 "Weekdays", 1911 "Network of the World", 1912 "Between steep banks", 1912 "Among the miners", 1912 "District Russia", 1912 "In the lower reaches", 1912 "Without fire", 1912 "Burning Bush", 1913 "In a glimpse", 1913 "Father Nelid", 1913 "In a glimpse", 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 "Soul One", 1915 "At the battle line", 1915 "In the sphere of military routine", 1915 "First Election", 1916 "In the corner", 1916 "In the snowdrifts", 1917 "Crash", 1917 "In a glimpse", 1917 "New", 1917 "In the corner", 1918 "Visiting Comrade Mironov", 1919 "After the red guests", 1919 "Ust-Medveditsky combat site", 1919

Individual editions

• In native places: A story. - Rostov n/a: . - 39 p.
• Cossack motives: Essays and stories. - St. Petersburg: 1907. - 439 p.
• Stories. T. I. - M .: Publishing house of writers in Moscow, 1914.
• Officer: Novels and stories. / Kuban Library- Krasnodar: Prince. publishing house, 1990. - 362 p. - ISBN 5-7561-0482-8.
• Stories. Publicism. - M.: Soviet Russia, 1990. - 571 p. - ISBN 5-268-01132-4.
• Cossack motives: Tale, short stories, essays, memoirs, prose poem. / forgotten book- M.: Fiction, 1993. - 444 p. - ISBN 5-280-02217-9.
• Bulavinsky rebellion (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. Moscow: AIRO-XXI; St. Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 2004. - 208 p. - ISBN 5-88735-124-1.
• Cossack stories: [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. 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 on the Don / Foreword and compilation by A.G. Makarov. - 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. In 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: A Biographical Dictionary. M., 1994. T. 3. S. 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 The Quiet Flows the Don. - Rostov-on-Don: Unity, 1991. - 112 p.
• Gornfeld A. G. Kryukov's stories. // Criticism of the beginning of the XX century. - M.: AST, Olympus, 2002. - S. 49-57.
• Fedor Kryukov, singer of the 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 work 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.
Ce diable a quatre…
- Vivarika! Wif seruvaru! sidblyaka…” the soldier repeated, waving his hand and really catching the tune.
- Look, smart! Go ho ho ho! .. - coarse, joyful laughter rose from different sides. Morel, grimacing, laughed too.
- Well, go ahead, go on!
Qui eut le triple talent,
De boire, de battre,
Et d "etre un vert galant ...
[Having a triple talent,
drink, fight
and be kind...]
- But it's also difficult. Well, well, Zaletaev! ..
“Kyu…” Zaletaev said with an effort. “Kyu yu yu…” he drew out, diligently protruding his lips, “letriptala, de bu de ba and detravagala,” he sang.
- Oh, it's important! That's so guardian! oh… ho ho ho! “Well, do you still want to eat?”
- Give him some porridge; after all, it will not soon eat up from hunger.
Again he was given porridge; and Morel, chuckling, set to work on the third bowler hat. Joyful smiles stood on all the faces of the young soldiers who looked at Morel. Old soldiers, who considered it indecent to engage in such trifles, lay on the other side of the fire, but occasionally, rising on their elbows, looked at Morel with a smile.
“People too,” said one of them, dodging in his overcoat. - And the wormwood grows on its root.
– Oo! Lord, Lord! How stellar, passion! To frost ... - And everything calmed down.
The stars, as if knowing that now no one would see them, played out in the black sky. Now flashing, then going out, now shuddering, they busily whispered among themselves about something joyful, but mysterious.

X
The French troops were gradually melting away in a mathematically correct progression. And that crossing over the Berezina, about which so much has been written, was only one of the intermediate steps in the destruction of the French army, and not at all the decisive episode of the campaign. If so much has been written and written about the Berezina, then on the part of the French this happened only because on the Berezinsky broken bridge, the disasters that the French army had previously suffered evenly, suddenly grouped here at one moment and into one tragic spectacle, which everyone remembered. On the part of the Russians, 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 be exactly as planned, and therefore they insisted that it was the Berezinsky crossing that killed the French. In essence, the results of the Berezinsky crossing were much less disastrous for the French in the loss of guns and prisoners than the Red, as the figures show.
The only significance of the Berezinsky crossing lies in the fact that this crossing obviously and undoubtedly proved the falsity of all plans for cutting off and the validity of the only possible course of action required by both Kutuzov and all the troops (mass) - only following the enemy. The crowd of Frenchmen ran with an ever-increasing force of speed, with all their energy directed towards the goal. She ran like a wounded animal, and it was impossible for her to stand on the road. This was proved not so much by the arrangement of the crossing as by the movement on the bridges. When the bridges were broken through, unarmed soldiers, Muscovites, women with children, who were in the French convoy - everything, under the influence of inertia, did not give up, but ran forward into the boats, into the frozen water.
This endeavor was reasonable. The position of both the fleeing and the pursuing was equally bad. Staying 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 placed on a lower level in the section 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 desire of the Russians to save them, were dying of cold and hunger; they felt that it could not be otherwise. The most compassionate Russian commanders and hunters of the French, the French in the Russian service could not do anything for the prisoners. The French were ruined by the disaster in which the Russian army was. It was impossible to take away bread and clothes from hungry, necessary soldiers, in order to give them not to harmful, not hated, not guilty, but simply unnecessary Frenchmen. Some did; but that was the only 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 to this collective flight.
The farther the French fled, the more miserable their remnants were, especially after the Berezina, on which, as a result of the St. Petersburg plan, special hopes were placed, 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 teasing him were expressed more and more strongly. Joking and contempt, of course, was expressed in a respectful form, in a form in which Kutuzov could not even ask what and for what he was accused. He was not spoken seriously; reporting to him and asking his permission, they pretended to perform a sad ceremony, and behind his back they winked and tried to deceive him at every step.
All these people, precisely because they could not understand him, it was recognized that there was nothing to talk about with the old man; that he would never understand the full depth of their plans; that he would answer his phrases (it seemed to them that these were only phrases) about the golden bridge, that it was impossible to come abroad with a crowd of vagabonds, etc. They had already heard all this from him. And everything he said: for example, that you have to wait for provisions, that people are without boots, it was all so simple, and everything they offered was so complicated and clever that it was obvious to them that he was stupid and old, but they were not powerful, brilliant commanders.
Especially after the unification 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, shrugged his shoulders. Only once, after the Berezina, did he get angry and write to Bennigsen, who delivered the following letter to the sovereign separately:
“Due to your painful seizures, if you please, Your Excellency, upon receipt of this, go to Kaluga, where you await further command and appointment from His Imperial Majesty.”
But after Benigsen's departure, the Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich came to the army, who made the beginning of the campaign and was removed from the army by Kutuzov. Now the Grand Duke, having arrived at the army, informed Kutuzov about the displeasure of the Emperor for the weak successes of our troops and for the slowness of movement. The Sovereign Emperor himself intended to come to the army the other day.
An old man, just as experienced in court affairs as in military affairs, that Kutuzov, who in August of that 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, by his power, in opposition to 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 it was not just from court relations that he realized this. On the one hand, he saw that the military business, 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 weariness in his old body and the need for physical rest.
On November 29, Kutuzov entered Vilna - his good Vilna, as he said. Twice in his service, Kutuzov was governor in Vilna. In the rich surviving Vilna, in addition to the comforts of life, which he had been deprived of for so long, Kutuzov found old friends and memories. And he, suddenly turning away from all military and government concerns, plunged into an even, familiar life as much as he was given rest by the passions that boiled around him, as if everything that was happening now and about to happen in the historical world did not concern him at all.
Chichagov, one of the most passionate cut-offers and overturners, Chichagov, who wanted to first make a diversion to Greece, and then to Warsaw, but did not want to go where he was ordered, Chichagov, known for his bold speech with the sovereign, Chichagov, who considered Kutuzov blessed by himself, because when he was sent in the 11th year to conclude peace with Turkey, in addition to Kutuzov, he, convinced that peace had already been concluded, admitted to the sovereign that the merit of making peace belongs 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 dagger, holding his cap under his arm, gave Kutuzov a drill report and the keys to the city. That contemptuous respectful attitude of young people towards the old man who had gone out of his mind was expressed to the highest degree in the whole appeal of Chichagov, who already knew the accusations leveled against Kutuzov.
Speaking with Chichagov, Kutuzov, among other things, told him that the carriages with dishes he had recaptured 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.] - flaring up, said Chichagov, who wanted to prove his case with every word and therefore assumed that Kutuzov was also preoccupied with this. Kutuzov smiled with his thin, penetrating smile and, shrugging his shoulders, answered: - Ce n "est que pour vous dire ce que je vous dis. [I only want to say what I say.]
In Vilna, Kutuzov, contrary to the will of the sovereign, stopped most of the troops. Kutuzov, as his close associates said, unusually sank and physically weakened during his stay in Vilna. He reluctantly took care of the affairs of the army, leaving everything to his generals and, while waiting for the sovereign, indulged in a dispersed life.
Having left with his retinue - Count Tolstoy, Prince Volkonsky, Arakcheev and others, on December 7 from Petersburg, the sovereign arrived in Vilna on December 11 and drove straight to the castle in a road sleigh. At the castle, despite the severe frost, there were about a hundred generals and staff officers in full dress uniform and an honor guard of the Semenovsky regiment.

THE PROBLEM OF THE ALTERNATIVE CANDIDATE
What certainly cannot be, because it can never be, is that the "Quiet Flows the Don" falls from the sky or that it writes itself. If there is a grandiose epic, which is sometimes called the greatest novel of the twentieth century (the thesis is debatable, but still ...), then there must be a person who wrote it. And even if we assume that the novel had several authors and co-authors, then they were still specific people with names and surnames, with biography facts. And in any case, there should be one person who wrote the main part of the novel in the form in which we know it - the fate of the protagonist Grigory Melekhov, his relatives and friends, and retell it in an inimitable language full of charm. Perhaps, for some, the Don Stories seem like a too low start for such an epic, but the assumption looks even stranger that it could have been written by a person who had not previously recommended himself in literature at all.

There are already more than a dozen “applicants” for the title of the author of “The Quiet Flows the Don” - from Lev Gumilyov to Serafimovich. All of them, for one reason or another, are not suitable for this role. Serafimovich's candidacy is out of the question, if only because he did not even try to support the publication of the third volume of The Quiet Flows the Flowston, which was suspended for censorship reasons. To whom this argument is not enough, he can look into the "Iron Stream" and check how much this work "similar" to "Quiet Flows the Don". The “version” about Lev Gumilyov is so ridiculous that I don’t even want to comment. Most often, they try to look for a “real author” among Cossack writers - participants in the White movement, but even among them with suitable candidatures, so to speak, not a lot. For example, Roman Kumov died at the beginning of 1919, i.e. even theoretically could only write the first two volumes. Another "applicant to the authors" Ivan Rodionov, being in exile in 1922, published his novel about the civil war "Victims of the evening: Not fiction, but reality." The only similarity with "Quiet Don" is that both works are devoted to the Civil War and most of the action takes place on the Don, and also that one of the episodes is the Ice Campaign. In all other respects, there is NOTHING in common between the two novels - neither in style, nor in the worldview of the author (“Evening Victims” was written from frankly Black Hundred positions), neither in characterization, nor in terms of talent. At the same time, Rodionov lived until 1940, never claimed to be the author of The Quiet Flows the Don. Sometimes people are called as "authors" and "co-authors" of the novel, whose involvement in literary activity in general, at least, is in question. For example, Sholokhov Gromoslavsky's father-in-law (who, by the way, had sons in addition to his daughter). He, according to the statements of anti-Sholokhov scholars, allegedly "dabbled in literature" and published under the pseudonym Slavsky. True, no references are given to either Gromoslavsky's publications or sources of information about his role in his son-in-law's literary career. It seems that no one, it seems, has yet proposed the candidacy of the prototype of Grigory Melekhov Kharlampy Ermakov!

FYODOR KRYUKOV
The most popular "candidate" for "real authors" is Fyodor Kryukov, a Cossack writer and public figure, the author of numerous stories and essays dedicated to the Don region. It is worth noting that he is perhaps the only “pretender” whose authorship his supporters are really trying to prove by publishing his works and their own articles with a comparative analysis of his prose and the text of The Quiet Flows the Don.

Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District, Don Cossack Region. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of History and Philology. In 1893-1905 he worked at the Oryol gymnasium as a teacher of history and geography. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossack Region. During the Civil War - an active participant in the White movement, one of its ideologists. He died of typhus in early 1920.

Well, let's see who - Sholokhov or Kryukov is more suitable for the role of the author of The Quiet Flows the Don.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PROSE
Supporters of the version of Kryukov's authorship prove their hypothesis mainly by comparing the text of The Quiet Flows the Don with Kryukov's prose and finding parallels. For example, they identified a number of similarities in "local" or "micro-plots", i.e. the similarity of individual episodes.

Here are a few examples of such coincidences.

From the Makarovs' book "Around the Quiet Don: From Myth-Making to the Search for Truth."
Kryukov:
A line of red wagons with horses moves slowly and carefully... A bunch of Cossacks on the platform still trades for two or three minutes because of sunflower seeds... runs after the train, catches up with it and clinging to the steps, travels on weight for some time... then safely disappears in the belly of the car.
Quiet Don:
A drowsy silence cradled in the red cars for a long time ... The train had already started, and the Cossacks were all jumping into the car.

Kryukov:
“Old man Kozma Fedoseevich brought bread on a platter, the general devoutly crossed himself, kissed the bread and handed it to the adjutant ... Then the general went up to the line of old people and did not say, but exclaimed ... - Great, villagers!
And the stanitsa, not very unanimously, but loudly and diligently, shouted:
“We wish you good health, Your Excellency.”
Quiet Don:
General Sidorin glanced at the crowd over his head and said loudly:
- Hello, gentlemen!
- Greetings, Your Excellency! - the farmers began to chatter in disarray. The general graciously accepted the bread and salt from the hands of Panteley Prokofievich, said "thank you" and handed the dish over to the adjutant.

Kryukov:
“There were a lot of quarrels in families because of this money: the old men demanded that the money go to the family, and the women strove to hide them especially ... But Marina knew how to get along with the daughters-in-law, they gave her money, and she separated a piece of them - for outfits over and above the normal budget."
Quiet Don:
- Well, what about the money?
- What is money? Daria raised her eyebrows in surprise.
- Money, I ask, where are you going?
- And this is my business, wherever I want, I will go there!
You live in a family, you eat our bread. Darya called Ilyinichna to gorenka, shoved two pieces of paper at twenty rubles into her sleeve.

Here is an example from Andrey Chernov's article "FEDOR KRYUKOV -" QUIET DON "Materials for a parallel dictionary of dialectisms, speech clichés and author's tropes."
Fedor Kryukov:
“Kraev, leaning over the table, drew a horse's head on a newspaper sheet. Kuznetsov followed his drawing and whispered: "Can't you have naked women?" Draw for me: I love death ”(“ New Days ”, Ch. XIII). -
Quiet Don:
“Chubov lay on the bed and, listening to the voices of those who were talking, examined a drawing of Merkulov, nailed to the wall, yellowed from tobacco smoke: a half-naked woman, with the face of Magdalene, smiling languidly and viciously, looks at her bare chest.<…>
- That's good! - looking up from the picture, he exclaimed ... ".

It is not difficult to notice that in all cases typical situations are described: boarding a train, meeting a high-ranking person, difficulties in family relationships because of money, and, well, men's interest in pictures with naked women. What is surprising in the fact that two different writers writing about the same realities turned out to have similar coincidences?

The same can be said about the coincidences in the use of dialectisms or colloquial forms of words, as well as proverbs, sayings, songs: this is all that is among the people, and if two writers write on the same material (in this case, about the Don Cossacks), then there is nothing surprising that they also have “intersection points”.

I note that Kryukov has fewer dialectisms than in The Quiet Don or Virgin Soil Upturned, and they occur (not counting those that describe ethnographic realities) exclusively in the direct speech of the characters, while in the works of Sholokhov - in number and in the author's speech. (Remember: "On the side of the road is a grave mound ..."). Moreover, the dialect forms of the two writers do not always coincide. For example, Kryukov has the word “kabyt”, in “Quiet Don” - “kubyt” (as if), Kryukov - “want”, in “Quiet Don” and in “Virgin Soil Upturned” - “huch” (although) . I have never come across Kryukov's words that are found both in "The Quiet Don" and in "Virgin Soil Upturned", such as "sideways", "gut", "azhnik", etc.

There is nothing exclusive in the overwhelming majority of metaphors coinciding in The Quiet Don and in Kryukov's prose. So, for example, from the "first hundred author's trails", which, according to one of the "anti-Sholokhov-Kryukovists" Andrey Chernov, got from Kryukov's essays and stories in "Quiet Don", only a few like "green clouds of trees" or "pox on the face land" can claim the title of artistic finds, and most of them are rather banal: watermelon - naked / short-haired head, fanning out (scatter in different directions), the smell of strong sweat, a copper-red sunset, an unblinking look, smacking ... n-but , telegraph poles were leaving, etc.. Interestingly, if we look in more detail, will it not turn out that in the case of really original author's tropes, there are more discrepancies than similarities?

If we talk about the general impression, then Kryukov's tone of presentation is predominantly calm, measured, often sentimental, the narration is often drawn out because of which it becomes boring, in the author's speech there are archaisms missing in The Quiet Don (languishing with aspirations, unrestricted, hopes are built, etc. .d.), and metaphors are often banal. The calm tone is connected not with the nature of the events described, but with the character of the author; in the same tone, close to the epic, was written, for example, the "Shulgin massacre", dedicated to the dramatic events that preceded the Bulavin uprising. In Kryukov's prose, there is not even close to that drama, anguish and paradoxes that make Don Stories related to Quiet Don. An overly detailed description of the feelings of the characters by Kryukov for me (I admit that it is subjective) brings him closer not to the psychologism of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, but rather to sentimentalism in the spirit of Karamzin. And one more thing: I, I confess, am not a fan of grandfather Shchukar's tales. (Nagulnov, who is studying English, seemed funnier to me.) But Kryukov, in my opinion, is too serious, he has almost no humor.

(For a more detailed and more professional comparison of the poetics of Kryukov's prose and The Quiet Don, as well as a number of other aspects, see the book by F. Kuznetsov: The Quiet Don: The Fate and Truth of a Great Novel)

Summing up, we note that if, as the opponents of Sholokhov's authorship argue, between the "Don Tales" and "Virgin Soil Upturned", on the one hand, and "The Quiet Don", on the other, there is too big a gap, and they are too dissimilar, in order to to be written by the same person, then KRYUKOV'S PROSE FROM THE "QUIET DON" IS EVEN FURTHER IN STYLE AND MANNER OF PRESENTATION, AND ALSO NOT CLOSE IN THE LEVEL OF TALENT.

It can be noted that the similarities between The Quiet Don and other works of Sholokhov are also recognized by some "anti-Sholokhov scholars". But they explain this similarity either by “slicing” from “Quiet Don”, or by “stylization under “Quiet Flows the Don”. To be honest, I have a hard time imagining how the “cutting” process should have looked like in practice. Leafing through "Quiet Flows the Don", writing out suitable words, phrases, landscapes and inserting them into a new text? Well, well, if Sholokhov (or the one who "wrote for Sholokhov") "cut" something from someone, then it is unlikely that this "someone" was Kryukov.

AGE AND LOW START
Opponents of Sholokhov's authorship point out that the "nominal", as they are convinced, author, at the time of the appearance of The Quiet Flows the Don, was too young to write such an "adult" novel. In addition, in their opinion, there is too big a gap between The Don Tales and The Quiet Don to allow one to “jump” from one to the other at one moment.

A “mirror” argument can be put forward against his “main opponent”: at the time of the alleged writing of The Quiet Don, Kryukov was an elderly man and a writer with many years of experience, writing all his life in a certain manner, significantly different from how the Quiet Don was written. , and at a lower level.

It turns out that, from this point of view, the positions of Sholokhov and Kryukov are at least equal. Taking into account the fact that "Don Stories" is still closer in style to "The Quiet Don" than Kryukov's prose, Sholokhov's position is better.

SHOLOKHOV - "NON-CITY".
The Cossack origin of Kryukov is perhaps the only position in which Kryukov, as a potential author of The Quiet Flows the Don, has an advantage over Sholokhov.
But it also decreases, given that Kryukov was also not “one of his own” for the mass of villagers: he belonged to the Cossack intelligentsia. Here is how it is written on this occasion on the website dedicated to Kryukov: “... he is a “stranger”, “frock coat” for the villagers wearing stripes; "intelligent", "Cossack vice versa". More than once, Kryukov, who is whole, truthful in front of himself and the reader, will experience this duality, the “unsteadiness” (his favorite word) of his position .... ”http://krukov-fond.ru/biografiyamironov.html
It can be seen that in the "Quiet Don" representatives of the Cossack intelligentsia, i.e. of the layer to which Kryukov belonged, appear only as episodic characters (for example, Izvarin), and there is no character that could be considered his author's "I". The fact that Grigory Melekhov is not suitable for the role of Kryukov's "alter-ego", I think, is not worth explaining. Listnitsky is not suitable for this role either: neither by age (Listnitsky is about 30, Kryukov is under 50), nor by social status (Listnitsky is a rich landowner and military man, Kryukov is a Cossack intelligentsia), nor by political views (Listnitsky is a monarchist and conservative, Kryukov before the revolution belonged to the liberal populist wing).

A higher level of education is also sometimes cited as an advantage for Kryukov. From my point of view, THIS IS NOT AN ADVANTAGE AT ALL. To write the "epic of the century", the main thing is talent, and there were quite a lot of writers with an incomplete education, but who left a mark on literature, just at that time. The most striking example is Maxim Gorky.

"NOT THAT PERSON"
Many are convinced that Sholokhov was incapable of writing "The Quiet Flows the Don" due to his moral qualities.
The moral qualities of Sholokhov are a topic for special discussion.

And as for Kryukov's personality: he was too calm a person to write such a novel full of Shakespearean passions.

MORE "RED" OR MORE "WHITE"?
Kryukov, as mentioned above, was an active participant in the White movement, and if he wrote a “big thing”, then most likely it would be about an anti-Bolshevik Cossack uprising, similar to the one to which Quiet Don is dedicated. For a Rappovist* and the future (at the time of writing the TD) member of the CPSU(b) Sholokhov, the choice of such a topic looks somewhat strange. But on verification and here everything turns out to be NOT SO UNIQUE. I will dwell on the ideological aspect in more detail later, in other articles, so far I will only note a few key points, as it seems to me.

Thus, in The Quiet Don there are many details that contradict the ideas about the White Guard author, and, in particular, directly contradict the ideas that Kryukov expressed in his publicism of the Civil War period. I will highlight some of them:
1) The novel shows the cruelty of ALL participants in the Civil War - both the "Reds", and the Cossack rebels, and the "Whites" in the narrow sense of the word.
Kryukov's essays show only the cruelty of the "Reds".

2) Grigory Melekhov cannot stand officers, and in all his conflicts with them, the author's sympathies are invariably on his side.
Kryukov either writes about the unity of the Cossacks, regardless of rank, or condemns anti-officer sentiments.

3) With obvious sympathy, it is said about the unwillingness of the Cossacks to fight on the fronts of the First World War, and subsequently, in the Civil War outside the Don Cossack Region.
During the First World War, Kryukov advocated a “war to a victorious end”, during the Civil War he wrote about the unwillingness of the Cossacks to fight outside their native villages with obvious condemnation, characterizing it as “selfishness”.

4) In general, the position of the author of "The Quiet Flows the Flows the Don" can be called a position "above the fight" - the author does not idealize, but does not demonize either side. Sympathy is noticeable in favor of the rebel Cossacks, but not in favor of the "whites" themselves.
Kryukov's position is the position of a representative of one of the opposing camps.

According to supporters of the plagiarism version, episodes of The Quiet Flows the Don that contradict the “white” idea are “inserts from the co-author”. Let's assume that this is so. But there are a few things to note here:

Firstly, there are quite a lot of episodes and motifs that contradict the “white” idea in The Quiet Don, they are “scattered” throughout the novel and do not stand out stylistically from the general series. (I’ll clarify: I’m talking now about episodes that are organically included in the plot, and not about “ideologically correct” comments.) For example, anti-officer sentiments among the Cossacks and Grigory personally run through the entire officers to ordinary Cossacks as cattle, in the third and fourth volumes a number of episodes demonstrate tense relations (Grigory Melekhov's skirmish with General Fitzlerhaurov and the subsequent disbandment of the division commanded by Grigory, the Cossacks abandoned by "volunteers" in Novorossiysk, etc.). The same applies to the depiction of the cruelty of all sides of the war. If these and other points are “inserts from the co-author”, then it turns out that The Quiet Don, in the form in which we know it, has undergone a serious revision and it’s not a fact that such an objective novel is worse than the original (if any) pro-Bolgarde novel, but any the search for a “real” author loses its meaning: the author of the edition known to us remains the real author, just as, for example, Alexei Tolstoy is the author of Pinocchio.

Secondly, what should be done in this case with episodes that do not correspond to either the “white” or “red” idea, for example, Grigory Melekhov’s statements, including in the fourth volume, that “neither of them nor these conscience"? Who owns their authorship?

Thirdly, the question arises, if Sholokhov (or another hypothetical co-author) had the ability to "transform" the novel from a pro-Bolgarian one into an objective one, why he was unable to bring the matter to the end and "clean up", at least in small things, a number of ideologically unrestrained moments , for example, to remove the “choir muzzle” in the description of the appearance of the “class-conscious proletarian” Jack or cowardly behavior at the beginning of the uprising of Mikhail Koshevoy, etc., not to mention adding an ideologically correct ending, i.e. bring the main character to the Bolsheviks?
For those who have not read The Quiet Flows the Don or read it a long time ago and do not remember, I will say: the novel ends with Grigory Melekhov throwing away his weapons and returning home. He, contrary to the conjuncture, never comes to Bolshevism, he stands on the threshold of his native home, holding his son Mishatka in his arms: “That was all that remained in his life, which still made him related to the earth and to all this huge, shining under the cold sun of the world. With these words, one of the greatest epics of the 20th century ends.
Opponents of Sholokhov's authorship often argue that it was impossible to add another end. This statement seems to me more than controversial: if the novel was unfinished, then nothing prevented the "co-author" from adding the end that was convenient for him. For example: Grigory Melekhov returns to his native Tatarsky farm not from anywhere, but after serving in the First Cavalry of Semyon Budyonny. Why not end The Quiet Flows the Don in the way that was required by ideological expediency: to force Grigory to say a couple of phrases after returning about how he rethought everything and finally understood on whose side the “great human truth” is. So why didn't Sholokhov (or another imaginary "co-author") take advantage of this opportunity? Moreover, we take into account that quite serious pressure was put on Sholokhov in order to force him to fit the “epopee of the century” to the ideological canon: one of the then “Lithuanian leaders” Alexander Fadeev directly demanded “to make Melekhov his own”, in the late 20s - early The most zealous critics of The Quiet Flows the Don in the 1930s went as far as to call the novel “an outburst of terry counter-revolution,” and criticism of TD for ideological inconsistency continued at least until the end of the 1930s. And if in such conditions Sholokhov did not bring the novel to the “ideologically correct condition”, then this means that REGARDLESS OF WHETHER HE WAS THE AUTHOR OF THE “QUIET DON” OR NOT, HE WAS AGREED WITH EVERYTHING WRITTEN, AND THAT THE “QUIET DON” WAS DEAR TO HIM EXACTLY WHAT HE IS. This circumstance reduces, if not completely disavows, the argument against Sholokhov's authorship "from ideology".

At the end of the subtopic, I will make a small digression. It is difficult to say for sure what was really in the head of this or that person who died N decades ago. The issue of ideology, from my point of view, cannot be reduced to a straightforward scheme: for the “whites” or “for the reds”. The worldview of each individual person is a complex set of attitudes, and adherence to a particular ideology does not yet mean agreement with all the views that are expressed within the framework of this ideology, and also does not exclude criticism of "individual shortcomings" in the implementation of the ideal, specific personalities or their deeds. In addition, it should be borne in mind that a person’s views on certain issues may change over time.
This remark does not apply to Kryukov, who at the time of the supposed writing of The Quiet Flows the Don was a mature man who consciously chose to support one of the sides in the Civil War. It is almost unbelievable that in his journalism and speeches he actively supported some ideas, and at the same time wrote a novel filled with others, often directly opposite.
But it fully applies to Sholokhov: he, unlike Kryukov, had no choice, he had to live under the conditions of a communist dictatorship and adapt to it, regardless of whether he dissociated all the official guidelines or not, and it is quite possible to admit that he, while supporting the communist idea as a whole, did not split, for example, the view of the Cossacks as a stronghold of the counter-revolution. It can also be seen that the views expressed by him several decades or even years after the writing of The Quiet Flows the Don say little about his own views at the time of writing the novel.

STATION VYOSHENSKAYA
"Quiet Don", as you know, is dedicated not to the anti-Bolshevik Cossack movement in general, but specifically to the Upper Don (another name - Vyoshensky) uprising.

The action takes place in the places where Sholokhov lived both during the Civil War and afterwards.

Kryukov was a native of the village of Glazunovskaya in the Ust-Medveditsky district, and it is in these places that most of his works take place. During the Civil War, the Ust-Medveditsky District became the scene of no less dramatic events than the Verkhnedonsky District: an uprising broke out here in the middle of 1918, and Fyodor Kryukov was one of its organizers and direct participants.

So, FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE CHOICE OF THE NOVEL'S LOCATION, THE ADVANTAGE IS CLEARLY ON SHOLOKHOV'S SIDE. And here it’s not even a matter of who had more opportunities to collect material about the uprising - let’s say Kryukov also had it - through the letters of the Vyoshentsy (although direct communication, of course, is better than letters), and not who knew better the topography of the Vyoshensky yurt (Sholokhov undoubtedly knew it better) and that the events in Kryukov’s native Ust-Medvedve district were no less worthy of being depicted in artistic prose. IF KRYUKOV WROTE A "BIG THING", HE WOULD DEDICATED IT TO THE EVENTS IN HIS NATIVE LANDS, OF which HE WAS A DIRECT PARTICIPANT, and not to what happened in places unfamiliar to him, and about which he knew by hearsay. Moreover, there is no evidence either that Kryukov even visited the area of ​​the Vyoshensky uprising, or that he was generally more interested in them than he needed for other activities.

DID SHOLOHOV WRITE TOO FAST?
In the autumn of 1925, Sholokhov began to write a story called "Donshchina", dedicated to the Kornilov rebellion and Kornilov's campaign against Petrograd and later included as an integral part in "Quiet Don". Having written several printed sheets, he postponed the work and resumed it about a year later - in November 1926, and by August 1927 the first two volumes were ready. (By the way, if he had a finished manuscript, then why couldn’t he say that the idea of ​​the novel in the form in which we know it arose in 1925 or even earlier, and why even start writing a novel from the events indirectly related to the main storyline, and also why did he need to postpone work for almost a year?) Sholokhov graduated from Quiet Flows the Don in early 1940.

If the author of The Quiet Flows the Don was Kryukov (or another member of the White movement), then he would have to work at a decent speed. He would have had more than enough time only to write the first volume; in a limited time, the second volume should have been written, which describes the events of 1917 - the first half of 1918, the events of the 19th year, to which the third volume and part of the fourth are devoted, Kryukov had to describe almost instantly, "in hot pursuit."
Even greater should be the speed of his work, if we accept the version of the Makarovs. In their opinion, after the beginning of the Vyoshensky uprising, Kryukov changed the plot of the already begun novel and transferred the actions from his native Ust-Medveditsky district to Verkhnedonsky, as a result of which two editions appeared. The differences between them, in particular, lie in the fact that the heroes are fighting on different fronts of the First World War: in the first edition - in Prussian, where the Ust-Medveditsky Cossacks were sent, in the second - in Galicia; with the "automatic reduction of two editions into one", according to the Makarovs, there was confusion with where Grigory and other characters are fighting. In this case, it turns out that Kryukov had to work in 1919 at a very fantastic speed and in about a year - from February 1919, when the Upper Don uprising began to February 1920, when he died of typhus, not only write about one and a half volumes, but also significantly rework what was written earlier.

Moreover, if we compare the speed of Sholokhov's work known to us with the hypothetical speed of Kryukov's work, then at least two points must be taken into account:
Firstly, when they talk about the speed with which Sholokhov wrote, they mean WRITING ACTUALLY - WITHOUT CONSIDERATION OF PREPARATORY WORK in the form of collecting material and maturation of the plot. We do not know for sure how long the preparatory part of the work took from Sholokhov; we can definitely say that at least a year: from writing at the end of 1925 several printed sheets of the story "Donshchina" - to the start of work on the version of the novel known to us in November 1926, plus - some time earlier to collect material for "Donshchina". We also do not know how much he managed to think over the plot and images of the characters, sitting down at his desk.
If we are talking about the terms theoretically allotted to Kryukov (or another applicant from among the White Guards), then during this time he had to complete ALL the work - from the maturation of the idea to the actual writing.
Secondly, Kryukov was not an outside observer of the events of the revolution and the Civil War. Immediately after the February Revolution, he was actively involved in the political struggle: in the spring of 1917 he took part in the organization of the Congress of Cossacks and in the creation of the Union of Cossack troops, was elected a deputy of the revived Cossack circle. During the Civil War, Kryukov participated in the White movement both as a secretary of the Cossack circle, and as an editor of the Donskie Vedomosti newspaper, and as an active publicist (only in 1919 he wrote more than 30 articles and essays), plus - numerous moving from place to place and public performance. In addition, Kryukov took part in the actual hostilities: 1) as already mentioned, in the middle of 1918 he was among the organizers and participants in the Ust-Medvedev uprising, during the fighting he was shell-shocked; 2) at the end of 1919, Kryukov left his job in the Military District and newspaper editing and went into the army. It turns out that in 1917-1918, if he had time to write a novel, then very little, and in 1919 there was no time left at all.

In summary: at least FOR THE THIRD VOLUME THE ADVANTAGE IN TIME IS ON THE SIDE OF SHOLOKHOV.

THE PROBLEM OF THE FOURTH VOLUME
If for the first three volumes we hypothetically, we can still assume that they were written by Kryukov (or another White Guard author), then MOST PART OF THE FOURTH VOLUME COULD NOT BE WRITTEN EVEN THEORETICALLY: THE ACTIONS IN THE FINAL PART OF THE NOVEL ARE DEVELOPING IN THE PERIOD WHEN IT ALREADY WAS NOT ALIVE.

Opponents of Sholokhov's authorship are trying in every possible way to belittle the fourth volume of The Quiet Flows the Don, calling it either an "imitation", or even a "tabloid craft". Well, it's a matter of taste. Perhaps the fourth volume seems weaker to some than the first three. To me - no. And I think that the majority of those who have read The Quiet Flows the Don will agree with me: THE FOURTH VOLUME IS A LOGICAL CONTINUATION AND COMPLETION OF THE FIRST, IT DOES NOT CAUSE A SENSATION OF A BREAK NEITHER IN STYLISTIC (differences, if any, are insignificant), NOR IN CHARACTERISTICS, NOT FOR THE MAIN IDEAS IN THE NOVEL; IT IS DIFFICULT TO SAY ABOUT HIM THAT HE IS WEAKER THAN THE REST, RATHER THE REVERSE, and what you definitely CANNOT SAY about the fourth volume is THAT HE IS "REDder" than the rest.

At the same time, SHOLOKHOV IS THE ONLY AMONG THE SMALLLY SUITABLE CANDIDATES WHO HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO WRITE THE ENTIRE NOVEL FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END.

DOCUMENTATION?
The only document that supporters of the version of Kryukov's authorship refer to is a letter from his fellow countryman and student V. Vityutnev, dated February 1, 1917: "Remember, you said that you were going to write a big thing on the topic: Cossacks and war - what are you working "But, perhaps, frequent shifts from one place to another make it difficult to concentrate." From it, we can rather conclude that if Kryukov wrote a “big novel”, he began it shortly before the February Revolution, and not on the eve of the First World War, as many anti-Sholokhov scholars claim, and it is not a fact that Kryukov continued to work on it during the turbulent years of the revolution and civil war... The fact that it does not follow from the text of the letter that the novel planned by Kryukov is precisely "The Quiet Don", I think, is not worth explaining.

I must say that during the Civil War, Kryukova really thought that her tragic events should be captured in the artistic word. Here is what he said about this: “Maybe someday the time will come - an impartial, epicly calm narrator with sufficient completeness and consistency will portray the picture that only a dry protocol is now able to convey ..... Maybe, stepping back to distance, in the healing distance of time, a holistic display of the great hardship of the people, the misfortune of the Cossacks, will be created. Now there is no strength to do this ..... (F. Kryukov. After the red guests. Donskie Vedomosti, August 4/17, 1919) I.e. Kryukov considered writing an epic canvas a matter of the future - “maybe the time will come someday”, but now - “there is no strength”.

The fact that Kryukov was working on a "great novel", and even more so that he could be the author of "The Quiet Flows the Don", was never said by anyone who knew him closely. So, the son of Fyodor Kryukov, Dmitry Kryukov, was one of the prominent figures of the Cossack abroad, he repeatedly wrote about his father and never mentioned that he was working on a “big thing” during the Civil War. A close friend of the writer V. Vityutnev (the same one who asked Kryukov if he was working on a novel) answered the question of whether Kryukov could be the author of The Quiet Flows the Don bluntly answered: “I was connected with F. D. Kryukov for many years friendship and was privy to the plans of his plans, and if some attribute to him the “loss” of the beginning of The Quiet Flows the Don, then I know for sure that he never thought of writing such a novel.

Interestingly, the Sholokhov archive, which died during the Great Patriotic War, is almost proof of plagiarism for anti-Sholokhov scholars. But Kryukov’s archive was mostly preserved: the writer left part of the archive in St. Petersburg with one of his friends, leaving after the February Revolution to the Don, the other part - with relatives during the retreat of the White Army at the end of 1919. For some reason, the supporters of the “Kryukov’s” version are not embarrassed by the fact that in Kryukov’s archive it was not possible to find not only the drafts of The Quiet Don, but in general any indication of his work on the novel.

On the whole, the available evidence suggests that KRYUKOV "TIHIY DON" DID NOT WRITE AND NEVER STARTED WRITING THE "GREAT NOVEL ABOUT THE COSSACKS" IN GENERAL. Not before that he was in the turbulent years of the Civil War.

TOTAL
The only position in which Kryukov, as a potential candidate for the authors of The Quiet Flows the Don, has some advantage is Cossack origin.
On the other hand, Sholokhov has advantages in at least four positions:
1) like the author of "Don Tales" and "Virgin Soil Upturned", which are closer to the "Quiet Don" than Kryukov's prose;
2) as a resident of the village of Vyoshenskaya, where the main actions of the novel unfold;
3) as a person who had the opportunity to write a novel from beginning to end, while the probability of writing a third volume by Kryukov tends to zero, and writing a fourth volume by him is excluded;
4) Documents and testimonies of contemporaries speak against Kryukov's authorship.

The same objections as against Kryukov can be put forward against other alleged White Guard authors, in particular, against Veniamin Krasnushkin (Sevsky) proposed by Zeev Bar Sella: none of them was a direct witness to the Vyoshensky uprising, they all had to work in extremely tight deadlines in the unstable situation of the Civil War and did not have the opportunity to finish the novel, and all the evidence, if any, that any of them could be the author of The Quiet Flows the Don is extremely unreliable and based on rumors. Opponents of Sholokhov's authorship also did not show a single writer to the general public whose style would be close to The Quiet Don. She rummaged through the Internet in search of Krasnushkin's prose, but found only a small historical sketch of "Ignatov Hillock" in fiction. It does not look like "Quiet Flows the Don", however, the story is too short, so it is impossible to judge unambiguously. Regarding Krasnushkin and others, I can only draw theoretical conclusions: if their work was really close in style to The Quiet Don, then their "supporters" would make every effort to popularize it. And so it remains to be assumed that they are even further from the "Quiet Don" than Kryukov.

In general, it can be stated that ANY ALTERNATIVE CANDIDATE FOR THE AUTHORS OF THE "QUIET DON" IS SUITABLE FOR THIS ROLE WORSE THAN SHOLOKHOV. I’ll finish with what I started from: WHAT IT CAN’T BE DEFINITELY BECAUSE IT CAN NEVER HAPPEN, THIS IS THAT THE “QUIET DON” FALL FROM THE SKY OR WRITE ITSELF.

Note.
* Rappovets is a member of RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers).