This old photo was taken in the 1910s. It portrays Pyotr Yakovlevich Gromoslavsky whose daughter Maria later became the wife of the famous Soviet writer Mikhail Sholokhov. The photo was taken in the Volgograd District, in the Ust-Medveditskaya stanitsa which is nowadays known as the town of Serafimovich.
In this photo, Pyotr Gromoslavsky is depicted in a three-quarter length and a three-quarter view. Back then, photographers always used painted backdrops. In this case, it is a canvas with a view of nature and light transparent cloth on either side.
The father of Mikhail Sholokhov’s wife is portrayed standing. He is wearing the uniform of an officer of the Life-Guards Cossack Regiment. On his chest are military decorations — in total, five orders and medals. On his head is a Cossack cap. He is also wearing a baldric across his chest, and on his belt is a sword in a scabbard always with a sword knot (lanyard) decorated with a tassel.
Pyotr Gromoslavsky was born in 1870 in the Krasnokutsky hamlet of the Ust-Medveditsky District, populated by the Cossacks of the Don Host Oblast. He graduated from the eparchial school in his stanitsa. After his father’s death, Pyotr was sent to the Bukanovskaya stanitsa, a small settlement on the right coast of the Khopyor River. There, Gromoslavsky worked in a church grammar school.
Then, for around seven years, Sholokhov was the ataman of the Bukanovskaya stanitsa. After 1915, he worked as a parish clerk at the local church and held the rank of a collegiate registrar which granted the hereditary title of an honorary citizen.
The year of 1919 marked the beginning of the Upper Don rebellion against the Soviet regime which became one of the most tragic episodes of the Russian Civil War and was described by Sholokhov in an almost documentary manner in his novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”. Pyotr Gromoslavsky and his elder son volunteered to join the Slashchyovskaya-Kumylzhenskaya Militia of the Red Army. That summer, the former ataman was captured by the White Army. He was court-martialed and sentenced to eight years of hard labor. Gromoslavsky started serving the penalty in the Novocherkassk prison. However, several months later, the Red Army retook the town and set him free.
Gromoslavsky returned to the Bukanovskaya stanitsa and took up the job as the head of the land department. Around the same time, Sholokhov visited the town as a tax inspector. Gromoslavsky got acquainted with the future writer in 1922. They started meeting regularly and discussing work. During one of their conversations, Sholokhov mentioned that he was looking for a statistician. Gromoslavsky suggested his elder daughter Maria.
Over time, Mikhail and Maria became friends. When they entered a relationship, Sholokhov started visiting the Gromoslavsky house frequently.
