The Nobel Prize in literature 1965 was awarded Mikhail Sholokhov (1905-1984), for the epic novel Tikhij Don about Cossack life and the birth of a new Soviet society (And Quiet Flows the Don, or The Quiet Don, in different translations). Sholokhov has been compared to Tolstoy and was at least one and two generations ago called `the greatest of our writers' in the Soviet Union. In Russia alone his books have been published in more than a thousand editions, selling in total more than sixty million copies. He was an elected member of the USSR Supreme Soviet, the USSR Academy of Sciences, and of the CPSU Central Committee. But in the autumn of 1974 an article was published in Paris, Stremya `Tihogo Dona' (Zagadki romana (`The Rapids of Quiet Don: the Enigmas of the Novel'), by the author and critic D$^*$. He claimed that Tikhij Don was not at all Sholokhov's work, but that it rather was written by Fiodor Kriukov, a more obscure author who fought against bolshevism and died in 1920. The article was given credibility and prestige by none other than Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (a Nobel prize winner five years after Sholokhov), who wrote a preface giving full support to D$^*$'s conclusion. Scandals followed, also touching the upper echelons of Soviet society, and Sholokhov's reputation was faltering abroad (see e.g. Doris Lessing's (1997) comments; `vibrations of dislike instantly flowed between us'). Are we in fact faced with one of the most flagrant cases of plagiarism in the history of literature?

翻译：1965年诺贝尔文学奖授予米哈伊尔·肖洛霍夫（1905-1984），以表彰其史诗小说《静静的顿河》（不同译本译作《静静的顿河》或《顿河静静流》），该作描绘了哥萨克的生活和新型苏维埃社会的诞生。肖洛霍夫曾被比作托尔斯泰，至少在一两代人之前，他在苏联被称作"我们最伟大的作家"。仅在俄罗斯，他的著作已出版超过一千版次，总销量逾六千万册。他曾当选为苏联最高苏维埃代表、苏联科学院院士以及苏共中央委员。但在1974年秋，巴黎发表了一篇题为《〈静静的顿河〉的激流》（又称《小说之谜》）的文章，作者和评论家D$^*$声称，《静静的顿河》根本不是肖洛霍夫的作品，而是由一位较为不知名、曾反对布尔什维克并于1920年去世的作家费奥多尔·克留科夫所作。该文章的可靠性和权威性得到了一位非同寻常的人物——亚历山大·索尔仁尼琴（比肖洛霍夫晚五年获得诺贝尔奖）的背书，他为该文作序，全力支持D$^*$的结论。随之而来的丑闻甚至波及苏联社会高层，肖洛霍夫的声誉在国外摇摇欲坠（参见多丽丝·莱辛1997年的评论；"一股厌恶的震颤瞬间在我们之间流淌"）。我们是否真的面临文学史上最明目张胆的抄袭案之一？