Prototype by Grigory Melekhov from Quiet. Real characters from M.A. Sholokhov's book "Quiet Don". A friend from the Bazki farm
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 presenting Nobel Prize admitted that the real Grishka existed, but never named 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. era Civil War difficult, ambiguous time, 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 “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 we see, the fate of the Don Cossack Kharlampy fully corresponds life stages 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 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.
In No. 1818 of the newspaper “Russkaya Mysl” there was a note that, according to Sholokhov’s message to a group of visitors, the Cossack Kharlampy Ermakov, from whom he copied one of the main characters of his novel “ Quiet Don“, was shot by Stalin in 1925, during the period of denunciations, purges and “Stalinist perversions.”
Kharlampiy Ermakov in the Rostov NKVD department in the 30s.
I met Kharlampy Ermakov and had long guessed, reading and re-reading the chapters related to the uprising, that it was he who was featured in the novel as the main actor. Although he is also mentioned in the novel, the role he played during the uprising was assigned to Grigory Melekhov, whose appearance was similar to that of Kharlampy Ermakov, and it was emphasized that Grigory loved “this insanely brave commander.”
In mid-July 1919, I was sent from Novocherkassk to the post of battery commander in the newly formed 4th Don. con. a brigade of rebels from the Upper Don, which included, having received numbers: 19th Elansky, 20th Veshensky and 24th Kalinovsky regiments and the 1st (which I accepted) and 2nd Veshensky batteries, which soon also received numbers 14 1st and 18th Don. con. batteries, forming the 4th Don Con. Artillery. division. In this brigade there were many truly existing heroes of Sholokhov’s “Quiet Don,” including Kharlampy Ermakov.
I remember in early August, after the breakthrough of the gene. Mamantov, when the 20th regiment with the 14th battery, taking the next position. Makarovo, then moved to Wed. Karachan, where the battle broke out, someone pointed out to me one of the officers who was in the group of commanders, saying:
- “Do you know who? This is Ermakov, assistant commander of the 20th regiment. During the uprising he commanded a division."
I began to watch him with curiosity. Good horse, good landing. Average or above-average height. Black-haired. Correct facial features. A sharp, slightly predatory nose. Listening to the brigade chief of staff explaining the situation, he watched the enemy with his keen, slightly squinted eyes. The habit of command was manifested in short remarks - it was clear that he had already assessed the situation and had his own opinion about it.
Having received the task, he, at the head of two hundred, quickly moved towards the enemy and disappeared into the folds of the terrain. Some time passed and on the opposite slope of a wide ravine we saw red infantry running in disarray, hurrying to hide from our cavalry in the nearest forest.
A few days later, parts of our brigade operated behind Red lines. Waiting for the return of the demolition men sent to blow up the railway. the road to Balashev, the brigade stopped, sending two hundred with one gun of my battery towards Tantsyrey, under the command of Ermakov, to secure our right flank. By evening, this barrier was attacked by two regiments of red cavalry, followed by infantry, and retreated to the brigade. Soon, red lava rushing into the attack appeared, on which our batteries opened rapid fire, and the 19th and 20th regiments, standing secretly behind the forest, attacked in horse formation on the flank, overthrew the enemy and began the pursuit. The red cavalry crushed its infantry and Ermakov returned after the battle, bringing 600 prisoners and 10 machine guns.
Soon after this, under pressure from Shorin’s strike group, part of the 2nd Don. dept. The corps retreated beyond Khoper and regrouped, and a cavalry group of two brigades was formed: the 4th and 5th. Having defeated the enemy at x. N.-Rechinsky and Art. Lukovskaya, the cavalry group turned south and on August 30 (Sept. 12) launched an attack on x. Popov (Fedoseevsky).
The 4th Con is under attack. brigade, the red infantry began to retreat, lingering in convenient positions, but until the evening we failed to eliminate it and the battle began to subside. Taking one gun with me just in case, I climbed to the plateau where the regiment commander of the group was located. Salnikov, commander of the 5th Con. brigade, with its headquarters, as well as the headquarters of the 4th Con. brigade and commander of the 20th regiment. From here the location of the Reds was clearly visible, stopping not far from the farm at a respectful distance from our cavalry.
The proximity of the settlement and the approaching twilight made us think that the Reds would be able to escape. And suddenly everyone gasped...
A horseman separated from the ranks of the 20th Regiment and rushed towards the enemy. Behind him are two more, then a whole hundred, followed by the rest...
- “What are they doing!... What are they doing!...” exclaimed the regiment commander of the group. Salnikov.
The commander of the 20th regiment whipped his horse and galloped towards the regiment. I opened fire to support the attack, which was developing brilliantly. Everyone watched with bated breath as, despite the indiscriminate fire of the Reds, the valiant Veshenians quickly approached the enemy and finally reached them.
In a short time it was all over. More than 1,000 prisoners, machine guns, the entire convoy and a large transport of artillery shells fell into our hands.
Since the regiment commander was at the brigade headquarters at the time of the attack, it was initiated by his assistant. The temperament of a descendant of one of Ermak’s associates had an effect.
Slightly wounded twice in the August battles, Ermakov soon arrived, was seriously wounded, evacuated, and I never saw him again. It must be assumed that by the time the Don Army retreated in the fall of 1919, he had not yet recovered from his wounds and remained in his village, where he met Sholokhov, who used him for his novel.
Ermakov had a brother, also an officer, promoted, like him, for military distinction, to the rank of cornet or centurion. He commanded a hundred in the 20th regiment, but did not die as described in the novel.
In mid-October 1919, the cavalry of General. Konovalov under his personal command, defeating and destroying the enemy in the area of Art. Mikhailovskaya, moved the next day to x. Uvarovsky and s. Kalmyk. The left-flank 4th brigade, having passed the village near the Kalmyk station, received a report from its quarterers sent to the village. Kalmyk, that they caught the red lodgers there, from whom they learned that from the city of Novocherkassk, by large on the road a red infantry brigade with two batteries arrived in this village. Valiant Chief of Staff of the 4th Con. brigade V.-St. N.A. Khokhlachev decided to intercept and destroy it. We turned off the road and moved straight at a trot to the crossing east of x. Bogdanovsky. I was ordered to drive the horses, but to arrive with the battery in time to suppress the Red artillery fire at the moment of the attack.
Everything was played out like clockwork. The Reds, walking without any security measures, were suddenly attacked on horseback. In a few minutes I silenced both of their batteries, which were trying to defend themselves with grapeshot, and 5 guns were captured in full service at the position, from which I opened fire on the enemy. The rest were abandoned nearby or captured by our cavalry. The Red brigade was completely destroyed. We captured hundreds of prisoners, all the "wheels", machine guns and artillery. But in this battle, the brother of Kharlampy Ermakov, who commanded a hundred, was killed.
E. KOVALEV,
"Native Land", Paris.
Bazkovsky Cossack Kharlampiy Vasilievich Ermakov
At the end of the war, Kharlampy worked as the head of the Maikop cavalry school, and in 1924 he returned to the Don, to Bazki. He worked as a loader at the grain dump, at the Bazkovsky elevator, and was the chairman of the farm committee of the poor. Here, in the house of the Cossack Fedot Abramovich Kharlamov, he met with Sholokhov and talked about his long ordeals in his own and foreign lands. Many details from the military biography interested Sholokhov. At the same time, Kharlampiy strictly ordered the writer not to mention his name for fear of publicizing his service with the White Guards. In Izvestia dated December 31, 1937, M. A. Sholokhov, answering numerous questions about the prototypes of his heroes, clarified: “... for Grigory Melekhov, the prototype really was real face. There was such a Cossack on the Don... but, I emphasize, I took his military biography, his “service” period, the German war, the civil war.”
Ermakov’s daughter, Pelageya Kharlampievna, now lives in Veshenskaya. She remembers her father’s meetings with the writer and claims that Kharlampy Ermakov “passed over” to Melekhov in many ways.
- Mikhail Alexandrovich kept his word, hid his father’s name, but still one insignificant person in “Quiet Don” was named Kharlampy Ermakov. Remember the drinking scene in the Likhovidovsky farm, where Medvedev and Ermakov were with Grigory?
Photocopy of the letter from M. A, Sholokhov Kh.V. Ermakov from Moscow to the Bazki farm
Pelageya Kharlampievna, a gray-haired, dark woman with a straight, slightly hooked nose - the Turkish blood showed in her too! - sociable and lively, readily remembers her father:
- He, like Melekhov, was left-handed, loved horses and racing to the point of unconsciousness. This gate of ours (we were on her father’s farmstead, in Bazki. - V.V.) - two meters high - has never been opened, she will jump into the saddle and - as if on wings, she flies.
A letter from M. A. Sholokhov to X. V. Ermakov dated April 6, 1926 is known:
"Dear comrade Ermakov!
I need to get some from you additional information relative to the 1919 era.
I hope that you will not refuse me the courtesy of providing this information upon my arrival from Moscow. I expect to be with you in May - June. g. This information concerns the details of the V.-Donskoy uprising. Please inform us in writing to the address - Karginskaya, what time would be most convenient for us to come to you? Are you planning to be away for a long time these months?
With greetings M. Sholokhov"*
*(Prima K.I. On a par with the century, p. 166.)
Since we are talking about the prototype of Grigory Melekhov, it is necessary to cite one of the rare memories of M. A. Sholokhov about his life on the Pleshakov farm.
"...Gregory is fiction. It didn’t come to me right away. But I can admit now that at the very beginning I wrote the images of Grigory, Peter and Daria Melekhov from the Cossack Drozdov family. My parents, living in the Pleshakovo farm, rented half of the kuren from the Drozdovs. We lived under the same roof, and for the portrait of Gregory I took something from Alexei Drozdov, for Peter - the appearance and his death - from Pavel Drozdov, and for Daria I borrowed a lot from Maria, Pavel’s wife, including the fact of her reprisal against her godfather Ivan Alekseevich Serdinov, whom I called Kotlyarov in the novel...
The Drozdov brothers were simple workers who became officers at the front... And then the revolution and civil war broke out, and Pavel was killed. They were squeezed in a deep ditch and demanded: “Surrender peacefully! Otherwise, we will kill you!” They surrendered, and Pavel, as an officer, contrary to his promise, was immediately killed. This is what I remember vividly. And then his body was brought home. On a frosty day. I was skating, I ran into the house - silence. I opened the door to the kitchen and saw Pavel lying on the straw near the blazing stove. Resting your shoulders against the wall, bending your leg at the knee. And his brother, Alexey, is sitting opposite him, drooping... I still remember this... So in “Quiet Flows the Don” I portrayed Gregory in front of the murdered Peter... The episode of Daria’s murder of her godfather Kotlyarov and the receipt were also taken from life with her five hundred rubles as a reward from the hands of the general for this massacre... Then, in the farmstead, I wanted to run to the square to see the general, but my father did not let me in: “There is no need to stare at the executioners!..”
During the development of the plot, it became clear that the character of Alexei Drozdov was not suitable as the basis for the image of Grigory. And then I saw that Ermakov was more suitable to my idea of what Grigory should be. His ancestors - a Turkish grandmother - four St. George Crosses for bravery, service in the Red Guard, participation in the uprising, then surrendering to the Reds and going to the Polish front - all this really fascinated me about the fate of Ermakov. His choice of path in life was difficult, very difficult. Ermakov revealed to me a lot about the battles with the Germans, which I didn’t know from literature... So, Grigory’s experiences after he killed the first Austrian came from Ermakov’s stories. And Cormorant’s blow also came from him...
*(Prima K.I. On a par with the century, pp. 169-171.)
For the first time, the exposition of the museum of the FSB administration in the Rostov region displays materials from the execution case of the Cossack Kharlampy Ermakov - a man who, not without reason, is considered the prototype of the main character of the novel "Quiet Don" by Grigory Melekhov.
The mystery of the open ending
Sholokhov left in his book open ending. How it turned out further fate Gregory, the reader can only guess. And there were good reasons for this. In parallel with the plot twists and turns of the novel, the OGPU was promoting the case of Kharlampy Ermakov.
Handing over the text of “The Quiet Don” to the printing house, the writer could not help but know that the end had already been set in the difficult life of the Don Cossack. The then KGB leader Genrikh Yagoda signed Ermakov’s death sentence without trial. And when at the beginning of 1928 the publication of the first two books of the famous novel began in the magazine "October", this sentence had already been carried out for six months.
Sholokhov communicated most actively with Ermakov between his two stints in prison. While the writer was talking with Kharlampy in order to find out as accurately as possible the details of the civil war on the Don, the authorities were also painstakingly collecting materials. Informants swirled around Ermakov, and his every step received its own interpretation in the OGPU.
Sholokhov himself came to the attention of the security officers. His letter, in which he scheduled a meeting with Ermakov in order to obtain “some additional information regarding the era of 1919... concerning the details of the V. Donskoy uprising,” did not reach the addressee. But on for many years settled in a special OGPU folder.
Now it is no longer possible to find out whether Sholokhov was aware that his letter appears in the case as material evidence, says Alexei Kochetov, an employee of the Sholokhov Museum-Reserve. - But, of course, he knew about the arrest and execution of Ermakov. Perhaps this is precisely what forced Sholokhov to speak very carefully about the prototype of Grigory Melekhov for many years. And only after he became famous person and Nobel laureate, the writer began to mention Kharlampy Ermakov as a real prototype of his hero.
Saber march
Kharlampy Ermakov was from the Ermakovsky farm in the Veshenskaya village of the Don Army Region. Now this is the Antipovsky farm. His grandfather brought a Polonian wife from the Turkish campaign, who gave birth to a son, Vasily. And, as Sholokhov writes, “from that time on, Turkish blood began to interbreed with Cossack blood. That’s where the hook-nosed, wildly beautiful Cossacks began to live in the farmstead...”
Kharlampy lived in Ermakovskoye for the first two years, then his parents sent him “as children” - to be raised in the Bazki farm in the family of a childless Cossack Arkhip Soldatov.
Alexey Kochetov tried to find a photograph of Soldatov and those who still remember this man. It was not possible to find a photo, but an elderly village resident said that she remembers Arkhip Gerasimovich. “He had a windmill on a hillock away from the Don, where there are chalk mountains. There is always wind there. They were not rich. Soldiers wore karpetkas (crocheted socks) and chiriks, which served as shoes on ordinary days. He loved his adopted son like his own."
From Bazki, Kharlampy went into the tsarist service and participated in both the First World War and the Civil War. He spent about ten years traveling. According to some sources, he was wounded eight times, according to others - 14. Having barely recovered, he again found himself at the front. For his desperate courage, he was awarded four St. George crosses, four St. George medals and a personal award weapon. It would seem that the memory of the heroic countryman should have been kept in the history of the Don, but the name of Ermakov was kept silent for a very long time. Kharlampy, like many Cossacks, rushed between whites and reds in search of justice. Both of them tried more than once to deal with Ermakov...
One who didn't shoot
After the revolution, Ermakov was among the front-line soldiers who joined the units of the chairman of the Don Military Revolutionary Committee, Fyodor Podtyolkov. However, he was outraged by the senseless and cruel reprisals against the Cossacks. When Podtelkov executed the captured villagers, Kharlampiy left the Red troops and took his hundred beyond the Don. So Ermakov found himself on the other side of the barricades, and after some time he witnessed the execution of Podtelkov himself. But this time, too, he did not give a single Cossack as an executioner.
The White military court sentenced Kharlampiy to death, but the Cossacks did not give up on their commander, threatened to rebel, and the command left Ermakov alone. During the famous Veshensky riot of 1919, Ermakov commanded a regiment and then a cavalry division of the rebels. Then he retreated to Kuban with the Don Army. In Novorossiysk, watching how the defeated White units were loaded onto ships under the cover of darkness, Ermakov decides to once again turn his fate around. He remained on the pier and surrendered to Budyonny's troops.
What saved him was that the Reds had heard a lot about his courage and reluctance to participate in executions. He was entrusted with commanding a squadron, then a regiment. After the defeat of Wrangel, Budyonny appointed him head of the cavalry school in Maykop. Soon Kharlampy was demobilized and returned to his native farm.
It didn't matter
Ermakov was not allowed to rest from the war. Almost immediately he was accused under the famous 58th article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - counter-revolutionary actions aimed at overthrowing, undermining or weakening the government. He served more than two years in the Rostov correctional home. In the summer of 1924, Kharlampy was released, and a year later his case was dismissed, with the wording being “inexpedient.” Ermakov built his defense himself, and did it competently, which helped him to be released. Although in the "education" column he wrote - inferior.
And in 1927, Ermakov’s second arrest took place. Finding himself under investigation again, Kharlampy continues to fight for his life and freedom. At the same time, he did not name the names of people who might have suffered; he only mentioned comrades who had already died or those who ended up in exile. Here is an excerpt from his written explanation. “At first, when I was arrested, I was calm, not attaching serious importance to it, since I could not even think then that I, who had given all my strength and blood for several years to defend the revolution, could be accused of performing passive service in the troops that were contrary to my heart.
But when the DOGPU brought a serious and vile charge against me under Article 58, as having actively opposed the Soviets. authorities, I began to protest..." Kharlampiy was charged seriously. The conclusion drawn up by the senior investigator of the Donoble Court, Stackler, said: "... It was established: in 1919, at the time the Red Army went on the offensive, when the advantage in the struggle was leaning towards troops Soviet Russia, near the station. Veshenskaya, an uprising broke out in the rear of the Red Army, headed by Captain Ermakov Kharlampiy Vasilyevich..."; "Mr. Ermakov is... the commander of all White Guard rebel forces Art. Veshenskaya and its environs."
Talking Pages
The file contains documents showing how residents of the Bazki village tried to protect their fellow countryman. Here, for example, is an excerpt from the protocol general meeting: “Ermakov Kharlampy was not the organizer of the uprising and did not carry out any preparatory work.” There are 90 signatures under this protocol, among which there are crosses of illiterate people. People were not afraid to speak out in defense of their fellow countryman. And there are several such documents in Ermakov’s case. In one of them, the villagers clearly express their will: “We wish his release as a man needlessly imprisoned.”
It was not possible to collect evidence for prosecution, much less extract evidence from Ermakov against anyone. And yet Harlampius was sentenced. It was then that the USSR Central Executive Committee approved the Resolution of the Presidium of May 26, 1927 on the extrajudicial procedure for considering cases. It was this that allowed the investigators to decide his fate. The records of the investigation end with the words “Ermakov - shoot. The case should be archived.”
Until now it was believed that Ermakov was shot in Millerovo, but recently museum workers received other information. Nikolai Galitsyn, a former agronomist at the Kalininsky state farm, said that he knew the old Cossack Alferov, who during the Upper Don Uprising of 1919 was a clerk in the detachment of Kharlampy Ermakov. They were both arrested in 1927 and taken to Millerovo, where they were sentenced to death. But the execution of the sentence was delayed and sent to prison in Kamensk. Alferov suggested that Ermakov kill the guard and escape, but he did not agree. He was waiting for a response to the petition that Sholokhov seemed to have sent to Budyonny with a request to release both of them.
One night Ermakov was summoned and never returned to his cell. Alferov was released.
In the section
The TV series “Quiet Don” has ended on the Rossiya channel. It became the fourth version of the film adaptation of the great novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, who managed to show the disaster using the example of his hero human destiny during the Civil War era. Did Grigory Melekhov really exist? After the publication of the work, Sholokhov was asked this question thousands of times.
For half a century, the writer stated unequivocally: his hero is a completely fictitious character. And only in his later years did the writer Sholokhov admit: Melekhov really had real prototype. But it was impossible to talk about this, because by the time the first volume of Quiet Don was published, Gregory’s prototype was lying in a mass grave, shot as an “enemy of the people.”
It is worth noting that Sholokhov still made attempts to reveal the secret. So, back in 1951, at a meeting with Bulgarian writers, he mentioned that Gregory had a prototype. However, he responded with silence to further attempts to extort details from him. Only in 1972 Nobel laureate told the literary critic Konstantin Priyma the name of the one from whose biography he almost completely copied the image of his hero: a full Knight of St. George, an Upper Don Cossack Kharlampiy Vasilyevich Ermakov.
From red to white and back
“Almost completely” is not a figure of speech in this case. Now that researchers have studied “Quiet Don” from the first to the last line, comparing the plot with the life of Ermakov, we can admit: Sholokhov’s novel was almost biographical, right down to the smallest details. Do you remember where “Quiet Don” begins? “Melekhovsky yard is on the very edge of the farm…”. So the house in which Kharlampy grew up also stood on the very outskirts. And even Grigory’s appearance is based on him - Ermakov’s grandfather actually brought his Turkish wife from the war, which is why he had dark-haired children. Except that Kharlampy went to war not as an ordinary Cossack, but as a platoon sergeant, having managed to graduate from the training team. And, apparently, he fought desperately - in two and a half years he earned four soldiers' St. George Crosses and four St. George medals, becoming one of the few full holders. However, at the end of 1917 he caught a bullet and returned to his native farm.
On the Don, as well as throughout the country, confusion and vacillation reigned at that time. The Whites and Ataman Kaledin called to continue to fight for “one indivisible”, the Reds promised peace, land and justice. Coming out of the Cossack poverty, Ermakov, naturally, joined the Reds. Soon, the Cossack commander Podtyolkov appoints an experienced warrior as his deputy. It is Ermakov who destroys the detachment of Colonel Chernetsov - the last counter-revolutionary force on the Don. However, immediately after the fight, a fatal twist occurs. Podtyolkov ordered the execution of all prisoners, for example, personally hacking to death a dozen of them.
“It’s not a matter of killing without a trial,” Ermakov objected. – Many were taken because of mobilization, and many were drugged due to their darkness. The revolution was not made to disperse dozens of people.” After this, Ermakov, citing injury, left the detachment and returned home. Apparently, that bloody execution was firmly ingrained in his memory, since with the beginning of the Cossack uprising on the Upper Don, he immediately sided with the whites. And again fate threw a surprise: now the former commander and comrade Podtyolkov with his staff was himself captured. The “traitors to the Cossacks” were sentenced to hanging. Ermakov was assigned to carry out the sentence.
And again he refused. A military court sentenced the apostate to death, but hundreds of Cossacks threatened to start a riot and the case was put on hold.
Ermakov fought in the Volunteer Army for another year, rising to the rank of colonel.
shoulder straps However, by that time victory had gone to the Reds. Having retreated with his detachment to Novorossiysk, where the defeated units of the White movement boarded ships, Ermakov decided that Turkish emigration was not for him. After which he went to meet the advancing squadron of the First Cavalry. As it turned out, yesterday’s opponents had heard a lot about his glory as a soldier, not an executioner. Ermakov was received personally by Budyonny, giving him command of a separate cavalry regiment. For two years, the former White Captain, who replaced his cockade with a star, alternately fights on the Polish front, crushes Wrangel’s cavalry in the Crimea, and chases Makhno’s troops, for which Trotsky himself gives him a personalized watch. In 1923, Ermakov was appointed head of the Maikop cavalry school. He retires from this position, settling in his native farm. Why did they decide to forget the owner of such a glorious biography?
Sentence without trial
The archives of the FSB directorate for the Rostov region still contain volumes of investigative case No. 45529. Their contents answer the question posed above. Apparently, the new government simply could not leave Ermakov alive.
From his military biography it is not difficult to understand: the brave Cossack ran from one side to the other not at all because he was looking for a warmer place for himself. “He always stood for justice,” Ermakov’s daughter said years later. So back to peaceful life, the retired Red commander soon began to notice that he actually fought for something else. “Everyone thinks that the war is over, but now it is going against its own people, it’s worse than the German war...” he once remarked.
In the Bazki farm Ermakov was met by young Sholokhov. The story of Kharlampy, who rushed in search of the truth from the Reds to the Whites, greatly interested the writer. In conversations with the writer, he openly talked about his service, without hiding what both the whites and the reds did during the Civil War. In Kharlampy’s file there is a letter sent to him by Sholokhov in the spring of 1926, when he was just planning “Quiet Don”: “Dear comrade Ermakov! I need to get some information from you regarding the 1919 era. This information concerns the details of the Upper Don Uprising. Tell me what time would be most convenient for me to come to you?”
Naturally, such conversations could not go unnoticed - a GPU detective came to Bazki.
It is unlikely that the security officers were pointed at Ermakov himself - as follows from the investigative file, the former white officer was already under surveillance.
At the beginning of 1927, Ermakov was arrested. Based on the testimony of eight witnesses, he was found guilty of counter-revolutionary agitation and participation in a counter-revolutionary uprising. Fellow villagers tried to intercede for their fellow countryman. “Very, very many can testify that they remained alive only thanks to Ermakov. Always and everywhere, when catching spies and taking prisoners, dozens of hands reached out to tear those captured to pieces, but Ermakov said that if you allow the prisoners to be shot, then I will shoot you too, like dogs,” they wrote in their appeal. However, it remained unnoticed. On June 6, 1927, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee, chaired by Kalinin, allowed Kharlampy Ermakov to be given an “extrajudicial verdict.” After 11 days it was carried out. By that time, Grigory Melekhov’s prototype was 33 years old.
On August 18, 1989, by a decision of the Presidium of the Rostov Regional Court H.V. Ermakov was rehabilitated “for lack of evidence of a crime.” For obvious reasons, Ermakov’s burial place remains unknown. According to some reports, his body was thrown into a mass grave in the vicinity of Rostov.
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