The second volume of the peer-reviewed edition completes the project of publishing readers’ letters to Mikhail Sholokhov. The texts prepared by the compilers represent one of the largest collections of readers’ correspondence to the writer (1,162 letters). Most of the letters are in the personal archive of Sholokhov’s family. The phenomenon of fan mail developed in Russia in the early 1870s. It became particularly widespread in the Soviet period due to a number of cultural initiatives in the early years of Soviet power. Letters to Sholokhov appear not so much as signs of his reputation, but as material for the study of the Soviet reader and his era. This is especially evident in the letters included in the second volume: they were written from 1956 until the end of the writer’s life. At this time, people wrote to Sholokhov not only the writer, but also the deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Materials from different years clarify the general cultural, political and literary context of these letters. The compilers distinguished groups of letters to Sholokhov by subject matter: letters from readers of the USSR, foreign readers, and representatives of emigration; letters from novice writers; letters to Sholokhov as a public figure; letters from participants in World War II; letters from prisoners; and requests for material assistance. The main topics include requests to send books, autographs, photographs, to tell about the fate of heroes (primarily Grigory Melekhov); appeals for help in solving private and public problems; complaints about the lack of books in libraries, bookstores and at private sellers. Chronologically and compositionally, the letters caused by Sholokhov’s speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU on the problems of literary creativity and the work of the Writers’ Union are singled out. The awarding of the Nobel Prize to Sholokhov in 1965 caused a reaction of readers. Letters with negative reviews either did not survive in the archives or were not included in the edition. In general, the letters to Sholokhov appear as a subject of general interest of the humanities in collecting, preserving, and publishing documents that reflect the perception of contemporaries of an event or phenomenon. They could become the material for history of reading in Russia. For this purpose, at the first stage, it is necessary to create digital copies of the letters, do their markup and statistical processing according to the main parameters: the letter’s author, date, address, and topic. The next stage could be the correlation of the results obtained with data on letters to other writers. A thematic index could be the first step in this direction and, at the same time, a help in using the existing edition. The author declares no conflicts of interests.
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