This edition includes early stories from the 1920s by the outstanding Russian writer and Nobel Prize winner Mikhail Sholokhov. The author subsequently compiled them into collections entitled 'Don Stories' (1926), 'The Azure Steppe' (1926), and 'About Kolchak, Nettles, and Other Things' (1927). These works outlined one of the main themes of Sholokhov's work, further developed in his epic novel 'Quiet Flows the Don'—the fate of the Don Cossacks during the turning point of the Civil War, which divided families into two irreconcilable camps and destroyed centuries-old foundations of life, depicted by the author as a fratricidal slaughter contrary to human nature.

'The protagonist of his works,' wrote the Finnish writer Martti Larni about Sholokhov, 'is truth itself... He sees and perceives life as a realistic drama in which the leading role is given to humanity. This is one of the explanations for his worldwide fame.'