"Grigory Melekhov" was shot. Who really was the prototype of Grigory Melekhov from “Quiet Don” The One Who Didn’t Shoot

After the publication of the first part of “Quiet Don” in the magazine “October”, its author, young Mikhail Sholokhov, was bombarded with letters asking whether the hero of the novel, Grigory Melekhov, had a prototype? The author remained silent and only in 1964, when receiving the Nobel Prize, admitted that the real Grishka existed, but did not name him. Researchers of the writer’s work were able to find out his identity.

Dashing Cossack

The prototype of Grigory Melekhov was a Cossack from the Bazki farm, whose name was Kharlampy Ermakov. Like the bookish Grishka, his grandmother was a Turkish woman, whom his grandfather brought back from a campaign. For their hot temper and dark appearance, neighbors called the Ermakov family, like the Melekhovs, “Turks.” Kharlampy lived for 36 years, of which 10 years he was at war. The era of the Civil War was a complex and ambiguous time, and the same was the fate of the Cossack Ermakov.

During the First World War, Kharlampy distinguished himself as a brave soldier and dashing grunt, for which he received all four St. Georges. During the war he was shell-shocked and wounded 14 times. The Cossack meets the beginning of the Civil War with the rank of cornet, and after being wounded he finds himself in the village of Kaminskaya.

Like the bookish Grishka, Kharlampy accepts the revolution and joins the revolutionary Cossacks of Fyodor Podtelkov. During the battle with Chernetsov’s Cossacks, Ermakov quarrels with the commander over chopped up prisoners and, wounded, leaves for the village of Veshenskaya. When the Veshenskaya Uprising broke out in March 1919, Ermakov joined it.

The reason that changed the political views of the Cossack Kharlampy was the terror unleashed by the Bolsheviks on the Don, carried out according to Sverdlov’s order for “decossackization”, dated January 24, 1919. During the retreat of the “whites” from Moscow, Ermakov was already a captain. After a series of defeats and the flight of the command abroad, Kharlampiy refuses to emigrate. He and his men surrender and go over to the “Reds” side.

Ermakov fights with Wrangel and the White Poles in the 1st Cavalry Army. The legendary Budyonny remembered the Cossack Ermakov and said that he was one of the best grunts. As you can see, the fate of the Don Cossack Kharlampy fully corresponds to the life stages of Grigory Melekhov.

A friend from the Bazki farm

Young Mikhail Sholokhov, already a relatively well-known writer on the Don, often visited his friend Fedor at the Bazki farm. During evening gatherings, Sholokhov meets his friend’s neighbor Kharlampy Ermakov. In private conversations, the writer learns the details of the Cossack’s life - about Turkish blood, the conflict with Podtelkov, which almost ended with his execution, and the tossing between the red and white sides.

Ermakov’s daughter Pelageya Shevchenko recalled that Sholokhov often visited their family and talked for a long time with his father. The meticulous Sholokhov wrote down everything that was said. The young writer read the first chapters of his novel aloud to Ermakov, who listened and made adjustments if necessary. Two people so different from each other came together against the backdrop of love for the Don and misunderstanding of the policy pursued by the authorities towards the Cossacks.

After the publication of the novel in 1928, one of the highest police officials hissed in Sholokhov’s direction: “You’re Mishka Kontrik.” It is believed that Stalin saved the young writer and his epic. The novel plausibly shows the mistakes of the “decossackization” policy, which was initiated by Stalin’s enemy Yakov Sverdlov.

Life after the war

During his turbulent life, the Don Cossack Kharlampy served the Tsar for 5 years, a year and a half in the White movement and 3 years in the Red Army. Ermakov spent more than two years in Soviet prisons. In January 1923, Melekhov’s prototype was dismissed from the army and sent on leave as a former “white”. On February 23 of the same year, he was arrested on charges of organizing the Veshensky Uprising.

The investigation was based on denunciations, which stated that Ermakov, having enormous authority among the Cossacks, openly mocked the Soviet regime. The villagers wrote a collective petition in his defense and recalled how Kharlampy prevented the Red Army soldiers from being shot.

Ermakov was released on bail, and in May 1925 the case was closed. Kharlampy got a job in the village council and often visited the parents of Mikhail Sholokhov. They recalled that Ermakov got into the yard by jumping over a fence on horseback. This episode well characterizes the character of the Cossack. In January 1927, there was a new arrest on the same charge, and on June 17, Cossack Ermakov was shot.

Mikhail Sholokhov did not forget the Ermakov family. He came to their home and talked with Pelageya for a long time, and helped Kharlampy’s son Joseph, who, like his father, loved horses very much, to get a job at a stud farm.

Monument from the people

In 1980, an emergency occurred in the village of Veshenskaya. On the banks of the Don, an unknown person erected a monument weighing 90 kilograms. There was a sign on it with the inscription “To the prototype of the main character of The Quiet Don, a dashing grunt and a desperately brave man. 1893 - 1927." The monument was erected by a simple Soviet worker from Nizhny Novgorod, Ivan Kaleganov.

The man was reading a novel and decided to perpetuate the memory of Ermakov. To achieve his goal, he sold his Volga and bought the necessary materials. Ivan transported parts of the monument several times in a backpack and buried the elements on the banks of the Don. When everything was ready, he assembled the monument in one night, which stood for a week. Now the monument is kept in the Sholokhov Museum.

Kharlampiy Vasilievich Ermakov

Esaul. Prototype of Grigory Melekhov - the main character of M. A. Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don”

Mikhail Sholokhov, the world-famous Soviet novelist, Nobel Prize laureate in 1965, when creating “Quiet Flows the Don”, made the main character his fellow countryman, whom he knew personally and with whom he talked a lot about his life. Today it can be argued that the prototype of Grigory Melekhov was truly the legendary personality of the Cossack Don during the First World War and the Civil War - Kharlampy Vasilyevich Ermakov...

This man, even for the times of the Civil War in Russia, had an amazing personal tragedy. He lived only a little over 36 years. Of these, he was in military service for ten years, but what?! For five years he faithfully served “God, the Tsar and the Fatherland” in the old Russian army. He served in the Red Army for three and a half years. He served in the White Army for a year and a half.

And, besides, he spent two and a half years in Soviet prisons until he was shot as a “counter-revolutionary” and “enemy of the people.” The decree on the execution of Kh. V. Ermakov was signed by the well-known in the history of the USSR Genrikh Yagoda, who was involved in the massive Stalinist repressions, and who in 1927 was still only the deputy chairman of the OGPU.

And Kharlampy Ermakov began his life’s journey in the same way as the overwhelming majority of the Don Cossacks at the turn of two centuries.

...Born in the Bazki farm (or Antipovsky farm) of the village of Vyoshenskaya Region of the Don Army (now Rostov region). He grew up and was raised in a healthy working Cossack family. He graduated from the Vyoshensk two-year parochial school.

I read a lot, educating myself. Kharlampy Ermakov thoroughly supplemented his education while already in the service. In 1914, he completed training command and general education courses in Novocherkassk; in 1917 - short-term training at the Novocherkassk Cossack Military School; in 1921 - red courses in Taganrog.

The young Cossack began active service in January 1913. Until 1916, he served in the 12th Don Cossack General Field Marshal Prince Potemkin-Tauride Regiment, which was on the Russian-German front. He received the rank of sub-sergeant and was a platoon sergeant.

There is no doubt that Kharlampy Ermakov was a true hero of the First World War, since during the first two years of hostilities the brave Don Cossack of the village of Veshenskaya (like Sholokhov’s Grigory Melekhov) was awarded the full St. George’s bow. That is, he had all four St. George Crosses - 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th degrees - and four St. George medals “For Bravery”!

It should be taken into account that the Cossack Ermakov was wounded 14 (!) times during this time and had a concussion. In November 1916, having received a serious wound in his left arm, he was sent from the front for treatment to the Rostov hospital, from where he was then sent home.

In June 1917, he was mobilized into the 2nd Don Cossack reserve regiment, stationed in the village of Kamenskaya. According to the Statute of St. George, a full cavalier of St. George is promoted to officer - to cornet. In Kamenskaya he met October 1917 and the beginning of the Civil War on the Don, which became the most difficult and controversial period in his life, as well as in the fate of the Sholokhov hero.

...Initially, the cornet Kharlampy Ermakov sided with the Soviets, joining the detachment of F.G. Podtyolkov. In a battle with a detachment of Kaledin officer V.M. Chernetsov (the legendary hero of the White Don) near the village of Likhoy, he is wounded and sent home.

In the village of Veshenskaya in February 1918, he was first elected ataman, then chairman of the executive committee of the same village, and soon, when the power changed again, he became an assistant to the village ataman. But peaceful life lasted only two months for Ermakov.

In the summer and autumn of 1918, Kharlampiy Ermakov served in the ranks of the White Don Army of General Krasnov. The Cossack officer fights on the anti-Bolshevik Northern Front as part of the 26th Don Cossack Regiment, where he was a sergeant-major. The regiment fought in the Tsaritsyn and Balashov directions.

In December 1918, together with the Cossacks of his regiment, he abandoned the front and returned home to the village of Veshenskaya. There, by the will of fate, he (like Grigory Melekhov) took an active part in the Verkhnedonsky (or Vyoshensky) Cossack uprising of 1919, which broke out on March 12.

First, the cornet Kharlampy Ermakov was elected commander of the rebel hundred, then commander of the Cossack regiment, and soon after that he was appointed commander of the detachments of the Kargalinsky combat area, consolidated into a division under his command.

Naturally, the question arises: why did a recent front-line soldier, who abandoned the ranks of the White Cossack army of General Krasnov, tired of the war with its bloodshed, take up arms again? What made him do this? Why did the hero of the First World War again begin to participate in a new war for himself, the Civil War?

The reason was compelling and deadly for a man who wore officer’s shoulder straps on his shoulders and “royal” crosses and medals on his chest. The red military units that entered the Upper Don, having received a circular letter from the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated January 24, 1919, signed by Ya. M. Sverdlov, began to carry out a large-scale “decossackization” operation. In many places it resulted in a genuine genocide of the Cossack population, mass executions of Cossacks - old people and people of military age.

Officer Kharlampiy Ermakov, in accordance with the requirements of the above document, was subject to unconditional destruction as a “class enemy.” That’s why he found himself in the ranks of the participants in the Veshensky uprising, who defended their lives, their families, their way of life and the right to be called Cossacks.

Cornet Ermakov commanded his consolidated division until the Vyoshensky rebels united with the White Army. When the group of Major General A.S. Sekretov approached the village of Veshenskaya, he surrendered command of the division and was appointed as an officer for assignments at his headquarters. In August 1919, in a battle near the village of Filimonovskaya, he was wounded in the left arm and again ended up in the hospital.

In October, the recovered Kharlampiy Ermakov was appointed assistant regiment commander for the economic unit, then for the combat unit. The new ataman of the All-Great Don Army, General A.P. Bogaevsky, first promoted him to centurion, and a month later to esaul.

The White troops in the South of Russia were retreating after Denikin’s failed campaign against Moscow. Part of the Don White Cossack Army went to Kuban. At the beginning of March 1920, near the village of Georgievskaya, Ermakov with a large group of Donets was captured by the Red-Greens.

White Cossack prisoners of war soon joined the ranks of the Red Army. Red Army soldier Kharlampiy Ermakov takes part in the capture of Novorossiysk. Soon he becomes the commander of a cavalry squadron, then takes over the duties of the commander of the 3rd separate cavalry regiment.

At the head of this regiment, which became part of the 1st Cavalry Army, he took part in battles on the Polish Front and participated in the capture of the city of Lvov. Then his regiment is transferred along with other Budennovsky units to the Southern Front, against the Russian army of General Wrangel.

Ermakov feels that the distrust of the former white officer in his person, despite all his military valor, has not weakened among the red command. He is filtered twice in the Special Departments of the 1st Cavalry Army and the Southwestern Front. But they don’t find anything compromising him.

Ermakov was reassigned to the 82nd Cavalry Regiment, which included many Don Cossacks. After the end of the war in Crimea, the regiment is transferred to the Don, which still lives with the echoes of the Civil War. There he is assigned to fight the rebel “gangs” of Popov and Andrianov.

In mid-1921, a new appointment followed - commander of the junior commanders school (divisional cavalry school) in the city of Maikop. Ermakov continued to rise through the ranks of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA)...

But clouds were already gathering over his head. The commander of the North Caucasus Military District, a loyal associate of Stalin, one of the leaders of the military opposition at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b), K. E. Voroshilov launched a merciless fight against former officers. In February 1923, senior painter Kharlampiy Ermakov was dismissed from the ranks of the Red Army.

He returns to the village of Veshenskaya, to his native village of Bazka. He is invited to work on the village council. But in the same 1923, Ermakov was arrested. The investigation did not produce evidence against him, and the following year the former white and red officer was released on bail. The decision to release was made by the regional court.

Ermakov meets with the young, already famous writer Mikhail Sholokhov, his fellow countryman. He tells him about his fate, about his participation in wars, about his service in three armies - the Russian Imperial, White and Red. The fate of the Cossack hero, striking in its personal tragedy, struck Sholokhov. This is how the idea of creating “Quiet Flows the Don” with its main character Grigory Melekhov appeared.

In January 1927, Kharlampy Ermakov was arrested again. But they failed to fabricate a case against him. Then Moscow intervened - the judicial panel of the United Main Political Directorate of the USSR, which adopted the execution decree.

Rehabilitation took place only in August 1989. The Presidium of the Rostov Regional Court overturned the decision of the OGPU board and dismissed the case against Kharlampiy Ivanovich Ermakov “for lack of corpus delicti.”

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19:41 08.11.2015

A. Voznesensky. In 1967 this creature wrote about Sholokhov - " Superclassic and brother, shame on you, dear. I tore off someone else's novel - I couldn't rip off the second one".

I agree with you Ayez2015 . If all these, as you rightly noted, creatures could write novels on the level of M.A. Sholokhov, then we would now be enjoying a modern masterpiece - “The Holy Fool Gazprom”.

What texture is wasted!

During this conversation, Khamidov suggested that Validol eliminate two people for a reward. The first potential victim was the owner of Saratovstroystekla, Mikhail Lanin. He personally knew Khamidov and gave the latter and his accomplices more than 200 million rubles under promises to appoint Lanin and his son to various positions: at first it was about places in the Central Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (Mikhail is a former employee of the OBKhSS), then - in Olimpstroy.

The second potential victim named by Khamidov was Mikhail Ozirny. He was an old friend of another alleged leader of the “fixers” group, Mikhail Koryak, and at one time he was an intermediary in the transfer of 4.5 million euros to “officials” by a businessman from Bashkortostan, for which he was promised the position of vice president of Transneft OJSC.

When Validol learned from Khamidov that one of the victims needed to be dealt with in the Congo, he flatly refused to go there. “I won’t return from there myself, they will either bury me or make me a slave,” said the “authority.” Therefore, to begin with, they “conspired” to eliminate only Lanin.

In March 2011, Khamidov’s personal driver brought Lanina and his common-law wife Elena Pravoslavnova plane tickets to Nice. During the trip they were supposed to inspect the official's cottage. The man and woman were met at the airport in France by several people from Chechnya, who put them in a car and drove them to the town of Villepinte. On one of the dead-end streets, one of the attackers shot Lanin and Pravoslavnova in the heads with a small-caliber pistol. The businessman died on the spot. The woman was luckier - the bullet did not penetrate the skull, the victim just lost consciousness. And the criminal decided that the second victim had also died, so he calmly left with his accomplice.

Having regained consciousness, Pravoslavnova was able to describe the attackers. Based on these data, police detained natives of Chechnya, Yazid Arsaliev and Ruslan Bersanov, who moved to France with their parents at the age of 10. They are currently being investigated.

According to the Investigative Committee, then Validol and Khamildov developed an entire operation to lure Ozirny out of Africa. They played on the fact that before leaving the Russian Federation he tried to take some position in Gazprom and paid a lot of money for it. In 2011, an acquaintance contacted Ozirny and said that the issue of appointment to a major position in the state corporation had been practically resolved. However, either the head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, or one of his deputies would like to personally communicate with Ozirny. Moreover, they intend to do this in Turkey, where a number of large joint projects are being implemented and various contracts are being signed.

Ozirny fell for the trick. He arrived in Turkey in transit through the UAE. Validol's people met him there and promised to take him to a certain residence, where Gazprom representatives were waiting for him. The businessman was taken to a mountainous area, shot dead, and the head and hands of the corpse were doused with acid. He was identified by his expensive watch and cross, and then DNA testing confirmed that the discovered body belonged to Ozirny.

Dashing Cossack

A friend from the Bazki farm

After the publication of the novel in 1928, one of the highest police officials hissed at Sholokhov - “you’re Mishka, a counterintuitive.” It is believed that Stalin saved the young writer and his epic. The novel plausibly shows the mistakes of the “decossackization” policy, which was initiated by Stalin’s enemy Yakov Sverdlov.

Life after the war

Ermakov was released on bail, and in May 1925 the case was closed. Kharlampy got a job in the village council and often visited the parents of Mikhail Sholokhov. They recalled that Ermakov got into the yard by jumping over a fence on horseback. This episode well characterizes the character of the Cossack. In January 1927, a new one was arrested on the same charge, and on June 17, Cossack Ermakov was shot.

Monument from the people

This year marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of Kharlampy Vasilyevich Ermakov, the main prototype of Grigory Melekhov from the novel by M.A. Sholokhov "Quiet Don". Quite a lot is known about this Bazkov Cossack; much less is known about the members of his family. But still, at least briefly, it is necessary to say about the head of the family, whose life so deeply affected the fate of his descendants.

Kharlampy Vasilyevich Ermakov (02/07/1891 - 06/17/1927) was born in the Antipovo farmstead - or, as local old-timers claim, in the Ermakovo farmstead (which has now merged with the Antipovskiy farmstead) of the Vyoshenskaya village of the Donetsk district of the Don Army Region. From the age of two, he was raised in the family of a Cossack from the Bazka farm of Soldatov, Arkhip Gerasimovich, to whom Aunt Kharlampia was married. Graduated from primary school. Participant of the First World War and the Civil War. War and military service took 10 years and 1 month of his life, 5 years in the Russian Army, 1.5 years in the Don Army, 3.5 years in the Red Army. For more than eight years, Kharlampy Ermakov did not get off his horse, did not let go of his saber, pike and rifle. During this time he was wounded 8 times (according to other sources - 14). Having barely recovered, he again found himself in the thick of battle. And wherever fate threw him, he always and everywhere served heroically, courageously and bravely. For valor he was awarded four St. George crosses, four St. George medals, a personal award weapon (checker) and other awards. During the Vyoshensky Cossack uprising in March-June 1919, Kh.V. Ermakov commanded the first rebel division deployed on the right bank of the Don in the direction of the south-southeast. Mentioned under his own name as one of the heroes of the novel "Quiet Don".

Ermakov lived only 36 years, 4 months and 10 days. According to the political article (58-11, 58-18), he was convicted by the OGPU Collegium and executed on June 17, 1927 in the city of Millerovo (according to another version, in the village of Kamenskaya). On August 18, 1989 he was rehabilitated. One of the lanes in the village of Bazkovskaya is named after him. It is known that he had two children, a girl and a boy, who may be the prototypes of Porlyushka and Mishatka from Quiet Don, and also had an adopted daughter. Today I can tell you more about them, based on materials I collected earlier and published in our regional newspaper.

At the very end of the last chapter of the novel “Quiet Don” there is a short phrase that talks about the fate of Grigory Melekhov’s daughter: “...Polyushka died in the fall... From swallowing.” “Polyushka” - Pelageya Kharlampievna Ermakova (after Shevchenko’s marriage), - unlike the character in the book, survived the hardships of both the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars; only 3 years were not enough for her to meet the new 21st century. October 5, 2010 marked the 100th anniversary of her birth. I remember Pelageya Kharlampievna well: short, dignified, with a dark face and very kind, lively eyes. She never raised her voice and was full of some kind of inner dignity. When we came “for the first time to the first grade” of the Bazkovskaya secondary school in 1961, she was a teacher of grade 2 “a”. And then Elizaveta Andreevna Kochegarova worked with 2 “b”. And only decades later I accidentally learned that these two teachers were half-sisters, daughters (native and adopted) of Kharlampy Vasilyevich Ermakov. But more on that a little later.

Pelageya Kharlampievna Ermakova was born in the Bazki farm. According to her own recollections, she was raised mainly by the Soldatov grandfathers, since her mother died early. She studied at a local school, joined the pioneers in 1923, graduated from elementary school in 1924, and in 1929 from the Vyoshenskaya nine-year school. Having firmly decided to become a teacher, two years later she received a diploma from the Taganrog Industrial Pedagogical College. She began working during the period of collectivization in the Bazkovo model elementary school, in the pre-war years she worked in the secondary school of her own farm as a primary school teacher, then briefly moved to her husband’s new place of work in the city of Usman. Here, in the south of the Lipetsk region, they were caught up in the war and had to be evacuated. But as soon as the village of Bazkovskaya was liberated, she returned to her native school as head teacher... Her husband, a teacher of Russian language and literature (who also knew German brilliantly) Andrey Iovich Shevchenko, was then appointed director. Both had to be the “administration” of the school, teachers, and caretakers. After the occupation and the break in school work, the classes were mixed, of different ages, and there was a lack of school supplies, pens, and paper. The building was heated with whatever was needed, and students often came to class hungry. But these difficulties were gradually overcome. At the first opportunity, a year later, she returned to her main calling - teaching in the lower grades. Here she was in her element, not only laying the foundations of knowledge for children, but also sharing invaluable experience with colleagues.

Her daughter, Valentina Andreevna Dudareva, now a pensioner, recalls: “My mother was very kind by nature, both at home and in the teaching staff she got along with everyone. And there’s nothing to say about children. So that she doesn’t stay after class until the very last student leaves the class - this has never happened! Someone will tie a scarf, someone will find a hat, and someone will have to wipe their nose. Although she was stricter with her children. I didn’t have to, but my older brother Volodya ended up in her class...” Fellow teachers all noted that Pelageya Kharlampievna knew her work very well, that she had a natural gift as a teacher-educator, that she “comprehended the psychology of a growing person - the most difficult of sciences.” While working at school, she managed to engage in amateur artistic activities and was elected several times - starting in 1937 - as a deputy of the village and district councils. Perhaps this is also why she knew almost all the parents of her students, which also helped her in her main work. Such work was highly noted: in 1966, Pelageya Kharlampievna Shevchenko was awarded the Order of Lenin. I'm afraid I'll be wrong, but, in my opinion, this is the only such high award among the teaching community in our region. We visited P.H. Shevchenko and other awards - the title “Excellence in Public Education”, anniversary medals, but the main thing is the love and respect of others, fellow Bazkovites in the first place. Dozens of her students still remember their first teacher with gratitude.

Returning to the beginning of the article, there is a need to finish one more line in the story about Ermakov’s children. In the Case “on charges of Ermakov Kh. and others.” according to political articles, in his arrest profile, among other family members the following are recorded:

Daughter: Ermakova Pelageya Kharlampievna, 16 years old;

Son: Joseph Kharlampievich, 14 years old;

Daughter: Topilina Elizaveta Andreevna, 9 years old.

At first it was not clear who Elizaveta Topilina was? Then a guess came: Elizaveta Andreevna Topilina - isn’t this same Bazkov elementary school teacher, Elizaveta Andreevna, who became Kochegarova in her marriage? It turned out that it was definitely her!

H.V. After the death of his wife, Ermakov, in the early 1920s, became involved with a Bazkov Cossack widow, Anna Vasilievna Topilina, nee Boykova. Elizaveta Topilina, subsequently adopted by H.V. Ermakov, was her daughter from her first marriage. The half-sisters - Polyushka and Lisa - became friends, especially since Elizabeth was younger than both Pelageya and Joseph. Anna Vasilievna's first husband, Andrei Ivanovich Topilin, died in Grazhdanskaya. Kharlampy and Anna did not live together for long: over the years he was arrested twice, and in 1927, after the second arrest, he was shot as one of the leaders of the Vyoshensky uprising. Many years later, when Kharlampy was no longer alive, to the question: “How did you live with Ermakov?” Anna Vasilievna answered briefly: “I walked for a long time...”. After the execution of Kh.V. Ermakov she worked on the collective farm named after. Molotov (later the collective farm was renamed “Quiet Don”). Before the war, when she was already over forty, she married a neighbor, Mark Ivanovich Bokov, but this was not fate either: he died in the first year of the war.

There was a period when Ermakov’s children strongly felt that they were members of the family of someone repressed for political reasons. Elizabeth, for example, was expelled from the Komsomol and was not allowed to attend school, but she still managed to train as a primary school teacher. Apparently, her stepsister Pelageya was an example for her here. At the end of the 1930s, after graduating from the institute, Pyotr Kochegarov came to teach at the neighboring Kalinin school. He met Elizaveta Topilina, a young Bazkov teacher, and after some time they got married. In 1940, the military registration and enlistment office sent Peter to the school of political instructors in Grodno. There the war found him. At the very beginning, he, like thousands of his colleagues, went missing. Elizaveta Andreevna was left with her little son in her arms. She taught, worked, tried to learn the best from Pelageya Kharlampievna, and was later awarded the medal “For Valiant Labor. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of V.I. Lenin". Her son, Anatoly, studied and graduated from the automotive technical school in Millerovo, worked at the Bazkovsky ATC in the 1960s, then as a mechanic at an elevator, head of workshops at the Quiet Don state farm, and retired from Selkhozkhimiya.

This is how the fates of two elementary school teachers from the Bazkovskaya secondary school walked side by side. It should be noted that their father, Kharlampy Vasilyevich Ermakov, also studied at the same school, even before the revolution.

It so happened that much less is known about the son of Kharlampy Vasilyevich, Joseph. About a year ago, Ivan Nikolaevich Borshchev, a former employee of the Vyoshensky Department of Internal Affairs, a participant in the Sholokhov hunting and fishing expeditions, and a long-term soloist of our museum folk ensemble “Zarnitsa”, introduced us to his memories. In these memoirs I.N. Borshchev, who, unfortunately, recently passed away, there is a small fragment concerning Joseph Ermakov. I will quote it in full:

“Joseph inherited his father’s character and military leadership talent, his father’s irrepressible character. Sometimes, warmed by a glass of alcohol, he acted without always fitting into the legal framework, so he began the Great Patriotic War as an ordinary soldier in a penal company. But his father’s inherited fighting qualities again raised him to the rank of company commander with the corresponding officer rank. During the war he was wounded several times, was twice demoted to private, and at the end of the war he was demobilized from the post of company commander with the rank of senior lieutenant.A resident of Bazkov, Colonel Tikhon Matveevich Kalmykov, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, a fellow farmer of Joseph Ermakov, told how he met him in those terrible years.Somehow, an urgent telegram passed along the front saying that two servicemen had hijacked a plane, a “corn truck,” and measures must be taken to detain them. After some time, Kalmykov was informed that such a plane had landed on the territory where his unit was located. Arriving at the landing site, he met his fellow countryman, one of the “hijackers” - Ermakov. It turns out that he and some pilot were discharged from the hospital after being wounded, and the two of them went to catch up with their units. On the way, they “got some moonshine”, drank, came across an airfield and decided to speed up their progress to their native part by plane. Naturally, the NKVD “troika” quickly sent them to a penal battalion for this to continue their service.After the war, Joseph Ermakov worked for a time as a mechanic at the Kruzhilinsky state farm. He often visited Mikhail Alexandrovich, and he would have been the prototype of some hero-penalty in the book “They Fought for the Motherland,” but those in power did not want to give way to the truth about the Great War, and Sholokhov’s manuscript, instead of being published, ended up in the writer’s fireplace. Unfortunately, now the reader will not know how Mishatka-Joseph and the other sons of the heroes of “Quiet Don” fought for their homeland.

What else can be added to this revealing fragment?

Before the war, Joseph lived with his grandfather Arkhip Gerasimovich Soldatov in Bazki (this is confirmed by our regional personnel archive), studied at the Bazkov school, but “did not finish his studies.” At the age of 19, he married a neighbor who was older than him, and they had a son, Mikhail. He worked wherever he had to, loved horses, was a regular at cheerful companies with his guitar, and when the war began, he went to the front. He was not just wounded, but carried a bullet under his heart, was awarded several times, including a personalized pistol, but after a penal battalion he was deprived of all awards. Due to his “buried” explosive nature and addiction to alcohol, he did not stay in the same job for a long time (he worked as a loader in a general store, as a worker on a state farm, and at one time worked at a mine in Yenakievo, in the Donbass). For the same reasons, more or less stable relationships and family life did not work out with women. Although it should be noted that even when he was drunk, Joseph Kharlampievich did not lose his ability to work and did not shy away from any kind of work.

How did Ermakov’s explosive character manifest itself? Here are three episodes.

Once passing by the rows of the old Bazkov market (there is now an elevator), Ermakov heard an unflattering review about himself from the mouth of one of the trading women. He immediately turned around, walked up to her, and the mug cups not only from her, but from the entire nearby shopping row immediately flew to the ground... “Osya Ermakov did something weird again,” people said. Here's another episode. In October 1961, a photojournalist for a local newspaper, Vasily Ilyich Chumakov, was crossing the Don on a ferry to go on assignment from the editors to visit livestock breeders in the Frolovsky farm. For a trip through the autumn mud, he was given a horse under saddle. IN AND. Chumakov later said: “Suddenly on the ferry someone touches my leg: take a photo, he asks. He turned around, and this was Joseph Ermakov, the son of Kharlampy Ermakov. I don't want to, I say. After a while, he comes up again: come on, he suggests that as soon as we get off the ferry, we’ll try to race to the Bazkovo hospital... We got ready, which means he’s ahead, I’ll follow. He shook the horses so hard, his chaise rolled off the ferry, and - scraping against the gangway, one wheel - fell into the water. The chaise fell on its axle, and he could barely hold on to the horses. I helped him lift the chaise, and I took a picture of him with the wheel in his hands.”

Or such a case. One day, in the mid-1960s, Joseph Ermakov had to cross from Veshki to the right bank of the Don, home. It was just before winter, the pontoon bridge had already been removed, but the ferry had not yet sailed. “How come there is no crossing?!” - Ermakov was loudly indignant. Exciting the attention of everyone standing on the shore, he shouted at the road workers and the district leadership at the top of his voice, then took a large stick and, to the amazement of those gathered, striking it in front of him, he walked across the thin, still fragile ice. No one would even think of risking their life like that! People breathed a sigh of relief only when he stepped on the opposite bank, threw a stick, and his lonely figure moved towards the Belogorskaya Luka, towards the old forest road.There was always a whole tangle of rumors swirling around Joseph, of which perhaps the most persistent was “Sholokhov is helping him.” In fact, it was not a rumor at all. On occasion, Ermakov visited the writer, who often helped him out, rescuing him from the police lockup, or, reluctantly, once again getting him a job. Knowing Joseph’s love for horses, Sholokhov helped him get a job at one of the stud farms in the southeast of the region, in the Remontnensky district. He worked there for some time, trying to start a new family. But at the end of the 1960s, disaster struck. Joseph Kharlampievich fell during an accident from the back of a truck (according to other sources, from a tractor trolley) and died... The woman with whom he hoped to officially link his fate announced this in a letter to his family.

What else do we know about the relatives and descendants of Kharlampy Ermakov? The son of Pelageya Kharlampievna, Vladimir Andreevich, born in 1937, worked as a welder at the Quiet Don state farm, at the local ATP and died in 2006, his daughter Elena lives and works in the station. Veshenskaya. The daughter of Pelageya Kharlampievna, Valentina Andreevna Dudareva, born in 1941, worked for many years in a book retail chain, now lives in the village of Veshenskaya. The son of Joseph Kharlampievich, Mikhail Iosifovich, lived in the city of Shakhty, then in Ukraine, now nothing is known for certain about his fate. The son of Elizaveta Andreevna Kochegarova (Topilina), Anatoly Petrovich, died in 2010 and was buried at the Bazkovsky cemetery.

In conclusion, we can turn to the traditional question: do we know everything about the Ermakov family? Of course not. And a lot more work can be done in this direction, as evidenced by this fact. ...Some time ago, on the website of the city of Yeysk, Krasnodar Territory, in the “Search” section, a request appeared under No. 4161 Pivovarova (Ermakova) Lyudmila Pavlovna, born in 1943: “I’m looking for my relatives, my great-grandfather Ermakov Kharlampiy Vasilyevich, born in 1891, lived in Rostovskaya region, the village of Vyoshenskaya, the Bazki farm, he was shot in 1927. I know that he had other children. It seems that his daughter Polina (Pelageya) Kharlampievna Ermakova (Shevchenko) remained to live in the same house. Please help me find."

With the permission of Valentina Andreevna Dudareva, we immediately sent her coordinates and contact phone number to the Yeisk website, and, according to the latest information, she received a postcard from the Krasnodar Territory.

Well, as they say, hope does not die, it simply changes its qualitative state.

Literature

Voronov V.A. The youth of Sholokhov. Pages of the writer's biography. /Rostov-on-Don, Rostizdat, 1985; Priyma K.I. On par with the century. /Rostov-on-Don, Rostizdat, 1981; Sivovolov G.Ya. "Quiet Don": stories about prototypes. Notes from a literary local historian. / Rostov-on-Don, Rostizdat, 1991.
Kuznetsov F.F. Kharlampy Ermakov - prototype or “co-author”? http://sp.voskres.ru/critics/kuznezov2.htm
Galitsyn N. Cossack Alferov recalled... // Quiet Don. 2011, March 31, No. 38.
Kochetov A. A.G. Soldatov, father of the hero of "Quiet Don". // Quiet Don. 2007, May 24, No. 58; Kochetov A. Pelageya Kharlampievna, daughter of Ermakov. // Quiet Don. 2010, October 5, No. 135; Kochetov A. And they were sisters... // Quiet Don. 2010, October 21, No. 142.
Erokhin A. My first teacher... // Soviet Don. 1966, October 9, No. 120.
Questionnaire No. 6 for those arrested and detained with enrollment in the OGPU. Archive of Ermakov H.V. Photocopies of documents. DF GMZSH NV-7293/15.
Borshchev I.N. M.A. Sholokhov and our bitter history. Manuscript. 2009.
Ganzhin P. Photojournalist of “Quiet Don” Vasily Chumakov is 70 years old. // Quiet Don. 1997, January 16, No. 6.
Davlyatshin A. My Sholokhov.URL:http://www.litrossia.ru/archive/41/history/966.php.

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Kochetov Alexey Mikhailovich

Previously published: Veshensky Bulletin No. 11: Collection of materials of the International Scientific and Practical Conference “Study of the Creativity of M.A. Sholokhov at the present stage: approaches, concepts, problems” (“Sholokhov Readings-2011”) and scientific articles / State. Museum-Reserve M.A. Sholokhov. - Rostov n/d.: ZAO “Kniga”, 2011. - 336 p. pp. 167-177.