Russian Emigrants of the First and Second Waves on Mikhail Sholokhov: pro et contra

The article presents the views on Mikhail Sholokhov’s creative work of the representatives of the fi rst two emigration waves: I. Bunin, N. Otsyp, G. Adamovich, B. Shiryaev, M. Koryakov and others. The author examines the emigrant critics’ interpretation peculiarities of the writer’s texts, emphasizing the diversity and inconsistency of assessments and reviews: the artist of great talent and author, writing under the dictation of the party, a man undoubtedly gifted, in whose books one can sense the hand of the writer and a victim of the communist regime.
The special attention is given to the reviews about Sholokhov and his works of the Cossack representatives abroad: D. Vorotynsky, Krasnov and others, who highly appreciated the writer’s novels and spoke out in defense of Sholokhov as the author of “And Quiet Flows the Don”.