Mikhail Alexanderovich Sholokhov

Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov (Russian: Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Шо́лохов; May 24, 1905 – February 21, 1984) was a Soviet writer. He was elected as a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for several terms, served as secretary of the Soviet Writers Association, and twice won the Order of the Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1922, he went to Moscow and joined the Young Guards. The following year, he married a Cossack female teacher, Mary Ji Groslavskaya. And published his first short story "Birthmark". In 1924, he returned to the Don River and began to write. In 1928, the first part of "Quiet Don" was published in the Soviet magazine "October" and immediately gained fame. It immediately attracted attention at home and abroad. In Germany, the sales volume even exceeded that of Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front". The young Sholokhov became a world-class writer. From New Year's Eve 1956 to New Year's Day 1957, "A Person's Experience" was serialized in "Pravda". In 1965, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his book "Quiet Don". Another novel, "New Reclamation" is the sequel to "Quiet Don". In 1999, the manuscript of "Quiet Don" was found in the home of a distant relative of Sholokhov's close friend Kudashov. At that time, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Ministry of Finance to raise funds and purchased it for US$500,000. The Russian Expert Committee on Document Identification confirmed that the manuscript was indeed Sholokhov's handwriting. It is currently treasured at the "Golky Institute of World Literature". UNESCO decided to name 2005 the "Year of Sholokhov".