Born on May 24, 1905, in the Cossack village of Kruzhilino near Veshenskaya, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov was himself not a true Cossack. His father, Aleksandr Mikhailovich, did not marry his mother, Anastasiya Danilovna Chernikova, until 1912, when Sholokhov’s birth was legitimated and the Cossack status he had held from his mother’s first husband was abrogated. Nevertheless, he grew up in the customs and traditions of the Cossack world that he was later to convey with such realism to his readers. His early education in his native village was minimal when he left for a year in Moscow in 1914. Financial reasons precluded his continuing, but he was subsequently enrolled in an eight-year Gymnasium (college-preparatory secondary school) in Boguchar. The German invasion of 1918 marked the end of his formal education but did not interrupt his love of reading and writing.

In the years between 1918 and 1922, Sholokhov worked for the new Soviet regime in many capacities, especially grain-requisitioning, and wrote plays for young people. His home was in an area controlled by the Whites. He saw much violence, participated in it himself, and was twice at the point of being killed. This experience is reflected especially in the violence and objectivity of The Silent Don, where Grigorii broods confusedly on the injustices committed by both sides.

In 1922, Sholokhov married Maria Petrovna Gromoslavskaya, the daughter of a well-to-do and long-established Cossack family. She was to prove an ideal “comrade” for him. The couple, who would have four children, moved to Moscow, where Sholokhov began his first serious commitment to literature. He published a number of short stories, uneven in literary value but extremely popular. In their vividness of language, diversity of speech, and lively dialogue, they anticipate the achievements of his mature fiction. Never at home in the capital, or in any city, Sholokhov returned to Kruzhilino in 1924.

Sholokhov began working on his masterpiece, The Silent Don, in 1925, amid innumerable difficulties with the censors. It was only the intercession of Aleksandr Serafimovich, editor of the monthly Oktyabr’, that permitted publication of the initial segment of the novel. Serafimovich’s support, however, did not prevent the many attacks on the novel and on Sholokhov himself, who was first accused of plagiarism in 1929-1930. Later, Gorky’s intervention, and ultimately Stalin’s, permitted him to complete publication of the novel. Sholokhov worked on The Silent Don almost constantly from 1925 to 1930, the most productive years of his career. He interrupted The Silent Don in 1930 to begin Virgin Soil Upturned. In 1932, he gained admission into the Communist Party, and in 1934 he was elected to the presidium of the Union of Soviet Writers. He visited Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, and France as a representative of the Writers’ Union. His success did not prevent him from speaking out fearlessly against the bureaucracy, which ultimately placed him in a dangerous position, especially in 1938, when he narrowly escaped liquidation. His personal friendship with Stalin saved him, and he always remained loyal to his friend, even after Stalin’s death.

During World War II, in which he experienced much personal suffering, including the loss of his manuscripts, Sholokhov became a war correspondent. His writings as a reporter are not his best; nevertheless, after the war he devoted himself mainly to journalism, with the exception of volume 2 of Virgin Soil Upturned; They Fought for Their Country, an unfinished novel in a war setting; and a very successful novella, The Fate of a Man. In the postwar era, he enjoyed unparalleled success in the Soviet Union, receiving many prizes, the most notable of which was the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965. He became a staunch defender of party policies, attacking such dissidents as Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Yuli Daniel, and Andrei Sinyavsky, all of whom are superior to him as writers. Typical of his attacks on the West was an invective against Harry S. Truman, then-president of the United States.

Until his death in 1984, Sholokhov lived in the village where he was born. He hunted and fished, traveled widely in Europe, the United States, and Japan, and enjoyed his substantial wealth and international reputation.