Real characters from M.A. Sholokhov's book "Quiet Don". Not everything is so simple with Kharlampy Ermakov. Life after the war.

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 they were talking 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 immigrants 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.

The film adaptation of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don” directed by Sergei Ursulyak brought new readers to our blog, and we also wanted to talk a little about the new version of the film adaptation of the book. For example, to draw the attention of those who believe that “Grishka is not the same in the new film, but Glebov is!” Let's talk about the prototype of Grigory Melekhov - Kharlampiy Vasilyevich Ermakov. Compare photos of Ermakov and Evgeny Tkachuk in makeup. Doesn't it look like it worked?

Sholokhov, starting from the 1920s, was constantly asked about his heroes (Gregory, Aksinya and other characters from “Quiet Don”) - whether they were copied from real people or fictitious. Many found prototypes in life and tried to get confirmation of their guesses from the author. For many years the writer answered something like this:« Don’t look around for exactly the same people, with the same first and last names, as you meet in my books. My heroes are typical people; they are several traits combined into one image.”

“Quiet Don” was received ambiguously by both critics and readers. Sholokhov was accused of counter-revolutionary propaganda. The time was difficult and alarming. I had to hide a lot so as not to harm myself or others.

However, after Mikhail Alexandrovich was awarded the Nobel Prize (which became a kind of defense against some attacks), at meetings with readers and when communicating with literary scholars, the author of “Quiet Don” began to mention the name of Kharlampy Ermakov, admitting that it was he who gave him a lot to create the image Grigory Melekhov.

About the relationship between Mikhail Sholokhov and Kharlampy Ermakov we find in Felix Kuznetsov in his book "Quiet Don": The fate and truth of the great novel» :

1. “Obviously, the main time of communication between M.A. Sholokhov and Ermakov was at the time when he [Ermakov - M.U.] came out of prison - from July 1924 to the end of 1926, since January 20, 1927 Ermakov was arrested again.

There is also documentary evidence of this - a letter from Sholokhov to Kharlampy Ermakov, the same letter on a photocopy of which Sholokhov wrote lines about Budyonny’s attitude towards Kharlampy Ermakov. And its original is kept in that “Case”.

M.A. Sholokhov’s letter to Kharlampy Ermakov, seized during the last arrest and search of his house, is stored in the “Case” as material evidence in a special, separate package, along with documents that are especially important for the investigation: “Service List” of Kharlampy Ermakov and “ Protocol" of the administrative session of the North Caucasus Regional Court of May 29, 1925, ending the previous "Case" of Ermakov "due to inexpediency."

We do not know whether Sholokhov knew that his letter to Ermakov fell into the hands of the OGPU and appears in the “Case” as material evidence of Ermakov’s participation in the Upper Don uprising. But he could not help but know about the arrest and execution of the prototype of his hero. It was precisely this circumstance that forced him for many years to take such a cautious position on the issue of the prototype of Grigory Melekhov.”

2. Despite all the bias, the investigation was unable to find anything serious enough for trial in addition to what was discovered in 1923-1924. Apparently, this is why the Rostov OGPU abandoned the trial of Kharlampy Ermakov and turned to Moscow for permission to decide his fate by issuing an “extrajudicial verdict,” which could only be one thing: shooting.

It took many decades for the good name of Kharlampy Ermakov, an amazing person whose phenomenal energy and tragic biography predetermined the immortal character of Grigory Melekhov, to be finally restored.

On August 18, 1989, “By the Resolution of the Presidium of the Rostov Regional Court,” the case was discontinued “due to the lack of corpus delicti in the act of Ermakov Kh.V. Ermakov Kharlampiy Vasilievich was rehabilitated posthumously.”

Despite all the difficulties and tragic circumstances of Ermakov’s life, Sholokhov was not afraid to meet with him, talk for hours, and although for a long time he kept silent about him as the prototype of Grigory Melekhov, he brought him out under his own name in his novel.

What was he like - Kharlampy Ermakov? The book by Felix Kuznetsov contains the memoirs of contemporaries, but the most valuable memory was left by the daughter of Kharlampy Vasilyevich (the prototype of Porlyushka in “Quiet Don”) - Pelageya Kharlampyevna Ermakova (Shevchenko):

Back in 1939, in a conversation with I. Lezhnev, Bazkov’s teacher Pelageya Ermakova, married to Shevchenko, recalled her father this way:

“- My father was a very violent citizen. I don’t even want to think about him!

But then, gradually perking up, she began to tell:

- He was a very good person. The Cossacks loved him. For a comrade I was ready to take off my last shirt. He was cheerful and cheerful. He was promoted not by education (he only completed three grades), but

by courage. In battle he was like a whirlwind, cutting left and right. He was tall, fit, slightly stooped< ... >

In 1912 he was called up for military service; the imperialist war found him in the army in 1914< ... > Father returned here from the active army only in 1917, with a full bow of St. George's crosses and medals. This was even before the October Revolution. Then he worked in Vyoshki with the Reds. But in 1918 the whites came. We have had no Soviet power since the spring. In 1919, my father was not the organizer of the Vyoshensky uprising. He was pulled in and ended up on the white side. They made him an officer< ... >

When the whites rolled towards the Black Sea, my father was with them. In Novorossiysk, before his eyes, the barons boarded a ship and sailed abroad. He became convinced that they were using his darkness. Then he went to serve in the Budennovsky cavalry. He obeyed, repented, he was accepted into the First Cavalry, he was a commander, received awards ... He was demobilized from Budyonny’s army only in 1924, and worked here in the Mutual Assistance Committee until 1927.

“Pelageya Kharlampyevna pulled out a chest of drawers and took out a worn-out photograph of those years, yellowed with time.

“This is all that remains of father,” she said and handed over the photograph.

Looking from her was a still young, hook-nosed, long-haired Cossack with tired squinting eyes, a man who had experienced a lot in life, who had looked death in the face more than once. Apparently, it was not easy for Ermakov to have three St. George’s crosses pinned to a soldier’s overcoat: he was wounded fourteen times and shell-shocked. On the left, at the very hilt of the checker, a stout woman covered with a woolen checkered shawl with tassels was holding him by the elbow. This is Praskovya Ilyinichna, Ermakov’s wife.”

“From the German front,” said P.Kh. Ermakova, “my father returned as a hero - with a full bow of St. George’s crosses, in the rank of cornet, to his misfortune later ... Served himself out. The Cossack was a risky man. He was left-handed, but he also worked with his right hand. In battle, I heard from people, he was terrible. He joined the Reds in 1918, and then the Whites lured him to their side, and was their commander. Our mother died in 1918. He arrived from the position when she had already been buried. Thin ... extremely gloomy. And not a tear in my eyes. Only melancholy ... But when I lost my horse, I cried ... I remember it was on the road, during our retreat to Veshki, his horse, Orel, was seriously wounded by a shell fragment. The horse is white-fronted, fell to the ground, raises its head and neighs terribly - screams! The father rushed to the horse and buried his head in the mane: “My eagle, little winged one!” I didn’t save you, I’m sorry, I didn’t save you!” And his tears rolled down ... My father retreated to Novorossiysk with the whites, and there he surrendered to the Red Army and served under Budyonny, as a commander. ...

< ... > After demobilization, my father lived here, in Bazki, with us. In 1926, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov - then young, long-haired, blue-eyed - often came to Bazki to visit his father. It used to be that Kharlamov’s daughter, Verochka, and I were playing or learning lessons, and Mikhail Alexandrovich would come and say to me: “Come on, dark-haired one, run after your father on one leg!” Father came to Sholokhov, and they played for a long time at the open window in front of Don - and until dawn, it happened ... And about what - you ask Mikhail Alexandrovich on occasion ... »

“Coming home, my father usually did not drive through the gate,” she recalls, “but jumped over it. As usual, when he sat down at the table, my father sat me and my brother on his lap, caressed me, and gave me gifts.”

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 ends up 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 “red” 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 Kharlampiy 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.

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, it is necessary to say at least briefly about the head of the family, whose life had such a profound impact on the destinies 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 elementary 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, and 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.

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 acquainted with a Bazkov Cossack widow, Anna Vasilievna Topilina, nee Boykova. Elizaveta Topilina, subsequently adopted by Kh.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. In the late 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.

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 gangplank, 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

1. Voronov V.A. 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.
2. Kuznetsov F.F. Kharlampy Ermakov - prototype or “co-author”? http://sp.voskres.ru/critics/kuznezov2.htm
3. Galitsyn N. Cossack Alferov recalled... // Quiet Don. 2011, March 31, No. 38.
4. 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.
5. Erokhin A. My first teacher... // Soviet Don. 1966, October 9, No. 120.
6. 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.
7. Borshchev I.N. M.A. Sholokhov and our bitter history. Manuscript. 2009.
8. Ganzhin P. Photojournalist of “Quiet Don” Vasily Chumakov is 70 years old. // Quiet Don. 1997, January 16, No. 6.
9. Davlyatshin A. My Sholokhov.URL:http://www.litrossia.ru/archive/41/history/966.php.

_______________________________

Kochetov Alexey Mikhailovich

Previously published: Veshensky Bulletin No. 11: Collection of materials from 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.

<:>After demobilization, my father lived here, in Bazki, with us. In 1926, Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov - then young, long-haired, blue-eyed - often came to Bazki to visit his father. It used to be that Kharlamov’s daughter, Verochka, and I were playing or learning lessons, and Mikhail Alexandrovich would come and tell me: Father came to Sholokhov, and they would hum for a long time at the open window in front of the Don - and until dawn, it happened... And about what - You can ask Mikhail Aleksandrovich on occasion...> 48.

Local historian G.Ya. Sivovolov cites his recording of a conversation with Pelageya Kharlampievna Ermakova, a teacher awarded the Order of Lenin for many years of work; she lived in Bazki for a long time, then moved to Veshenskaya. In a conversation with him, Pelageya Kharlampievna recalled some interesting episodes from the life of her father, which found a place on the pages of the novel and directly resonate with Sholokhov’s story about him: - she remembers, - and he jumped over her. As usual, when he sat down at the table, my father sat me and my brother on his knees, caressed me, and gave gifts> 49 .

In 1955, K. Priyma found alive the Cossack of the Bazki farm, Yakov Fotievich Losev, who, being a participant in the civil war on the Don on the part of the Reds, personally knew Kharlampy Ermakov. Yakov Losev told K. Priima:

You see, this is where Ermakov Kharlampy Vasilievich lived, who, according to Sholokhov himself, served as the forerunner of Grishka Melekhov<:>Here is his kuren... Kharlampie’s grandfather brought himself a wife from the Turkish region, who bore him a son, Vasily, a Turk:<:>Vasily the Turk had a bunch of children. And Kharlash, three years old, was given by his father to be raised by his relatives, to us, in Bazki, to the childless Cossack Soldatov. Here are his bases and kuren above the Don. Our Kharlampy, black, hook-nosed, handsome and eccentric, left the Bazki for the royal service. On the German front he earned four St. George's Crosses and became a cornet. In the revolution he joined Podtelkov in Kamenskaya. We elected him to the revolutionary committee in Bazki. He, Ermakov, was next to Podtelkov when he hacked to death the executioner Esaul Chernetsov. And later Kharlampy joined the whites. And he witnessed the execution of Podtelkov’s detachment in Ponomarev, but out of his hundred he did not give a single Cossack as executioners, he took everyone back to Bazki. And later, already in the Veshensky uprising of 1919, he commanded a regiment, and then a cavalry division. Soon his wife died here in Bazki. He kissed his sister of mercy and retreated with her to the Kuban. In Novorossiysk he surrendered to the Reds, probably hiding his sins in the uprising. On the Polish front in the First Cavalry he commanded a squadron, then a regiment. After the defeat of Wrangel, Budyonny appointed Ermakov head of the cavalry school in Maykop. Here is the plan he came up with:<:>On the Polish front, he distinguished himself greatly under Budyonny, and was the head of a cavalry school in the city of Maykop. After demobilization, Ermakov returned to Bazki, and for a short time was the chairman of the mutual assistance committee. Then the widows and partisans demanded from Kharlampy an answer for his dirty deeds during the days of the Veshensky uprising. In 1927, Ermakov was seized by the GPU and, it seems, exiled to Solovki or even shot. This is Ermakov’s biography, these are the actual facts of his life:

Yes, his fate is tragic,” I said. “But I think that there was something worthwhile in Ermakov, which attracted Sholokhov’s attention to him...

Worthwhile? - asked Losev. - It probably was... After all, he knew everything about the Veshensky uprising, he knew Kudinov well, the commander of the rebellion, and he knew everything about it thoroughly! After all, there was division commander-1. It was worthwhile, apparently... I’m saying everything to reveal the most important thing: it could have been written and was written only in Veshki! Look closely and think about how deeply he has grown into the land of Veshenskaya - into our Bazki and into the Pleshakov farm, where Mikhail Alexandrovich’s father lived and worked, where the communist, mill driver Ivan Serdinov put Soviet power on its feet - Sholokhov called him Kotlyarov in his novel. .. And to Ust-Khoperskaya, from which the battery, non-party Bolshevik Fyodor Podtelkov and Ataman General Kaledin came out; and to Bokovskaya, who gave us the romance of Mikhail Krivoshlykov; and to Karginskaya, which is just as vividly depicted in the novel and where, by the way, the youth Sholokhov - according to the assurance of old-timers - from the lips of Kharlampy Ermakov himself heard the news of the tragic death of the Podtelkovites. It grew into Veshki itself, as a district village, and as the center of the Cossack rebellion in early January 1919 against General Krasnov, and as the center of the rebellion of these same Cossacks against the de-Cossackization of the Don by Trotskyists in March 1919, a rebellion that then turned into a counter-revolutionary... To write, you had to know all this from life, study it from documents, thoroughly verify it, sift through mountains of materials in archives, listen to hundreds - and maybe thousands! - human confessions, breathe them into human images, each of which has become original, unique and unforgettable. To do all this,” concluded old Losev, “you also had to be born on Veshensk land and, moreover, be born Sholokhov!” 50.

We present such detailed and irrefutable evidence about the relationship between Sholokhov and Kharlampy Ermakov because they even question the very fact of the writer’s acquaintance with Kharlampy Ermakov, and, as stated earlier, the authenticity of Sholokhov’s letter to Ermakov. Meanwhile, Priyma met in Bazki the Cossack Yakov Fedorovich Pyatikov, who called himself Ermakov’s orderly, who told him:

And they talked for a long time. Everything, of course, is about the German and civil war. Well, my commander had something to remember and tell. Ermakov had a book of his stories and a letter from Sholokhov. Suddenly he showed me...