Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov , 1905-84, Russian novelist. Sholokhov won international fame for an epic novel of his native land, The Silent Don (4 vol., 1928-40; tr. in 2 vol., And Quiet Flows the Don, 1934, and The Don Flows Home to the Sea, 1941). The work, which won a Stalin Prize in 1941, describes the effect of World War I, the revolution, and the civil war on the lives of the Don Cossacks. A propagandistic novel, Virgin Soil Upturned, deals with the collectivization of agriculture; it won a Lenin Prize in 1960. Its first volume is Seeds of Tomorrow (1932-33, tr. 1959), and the second is Harvest on the Don (1960, tr. 1960). Sholokhov was awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature, being the first officially sanctioned Soviet laureate.

Bibliography: See E. J. Simmons, Russian Fiction and Soviet Ideology; studies by D. H. Stewart (1967) and M. Klimenko (1972).

Sholokhov, Mikhail Alexandrovich (1905–84) Soviet novelist. Sholokhov became famous for his novel about his native land, Tikhy Don (1928–40); translated as And Quiet Flows the Don (1934) and The Don Flows Home to the Sea (1940). He received the 1965 Nobel Prize in literature.