The exhibition features a shoulder-length sculpture of Mikhail Sholokhov, a writer and member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, who was twice named Hero of Socialist Labor and is regarded as one of the greatest Russian prose writers of the 20th century. The sculpture captures the writer’s distinctive appearance with his lush wavy hair, high forehead, dorsal hump, and mustache. The base of the sculpture is oval and rests on a square pedestal, and the sculpture itself is gray.
The bust of Sholokhov was given to Vitaly Zakrutkin for his 70th birthday by his loyal friend Stepan Ivanovich Shamray, who was the first secretary of the Semikarakorsk District Party Committee.
For Vitaly Zakrutkin, everything associated with the name of Mikhail Sholokhov was sacred. In 1935, he met both Alexander Serafimovich and Mikhail Sholokhov. A strong friendship between Zakrutkin and Sholokhov truly began after the Great Patriotic War.
The front-line writers, of whom there were many in the Don region, formed a group called the Don Writers’ Company, led by Mikhail Sholokhov. The Don writers gathered at congresses, conferences, round tables, and literary evenings with students and youth from Rostov-on-Don and other cities in the region.
Other writers also visited Mikhail Sholokhov in Veshenskaya. They learned a lot from the talented fellow countryman, received advice and friendly help from him.
Vitaly Zakrutkin wrote, “What a joy it was to see and hear Sholokhov, read the poems of Pushkin and Gumilyov to him, admire the starry sky together, and think about the future!“
After such meetings, Vitaly Zakrutkin dedicated enthusiastic articles to Sholokhov, which were published in both regional and central newspapers. In 1969, Zakrutkin also published a substantial essay titled “The Azure Color” about the outstanding contemporary writer.
In 1968, Mikhail Sholokhov, the author of the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”, attended a ceremonial anniversary meeting in the Kochetovskaya Stanitsa to celebrate Vitaly Zakrutkin’s 60th birthday. Photographs, including the museum ones, serve as a record of this event.
Vitaly Zakrutkin wrote, “We come to the world of Mikhail Sholokhov, and each of us, once within it, necessarily becomes kinder, purer, and better.”
