Roman M.A. Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" is a novel about the Cossacks in the era of the Civil War. The protagonist of the work - Grigory Melekhov - continues the tradition of Russian classical literature, in which one of the main images is the hero-truth seeker (the works of Nekrasov, Leskov, Tolstoy, Gorky).
Grigory Melekhov also strives to find the meaning of life, to understand the whirlwind of historical events, to find happiness. This simple Cossack was born in a simple and friendly family, where centuries-old traditions are sacred - they work hard, have fun. The basis of the hero's character - love for work, for his native land, respect for the elders, justice, decency, kindness - is laid right here, in the family.
Handsome, hardworking, cheerful, Grigory immediately wins the hearts of those around him: he is not afraid of human rumors (almost openly loves the beautiful Aksinya, the wife of the Cossack Stepan), he does not consider it shameful to become a farm laborer in order to maintain relations with his beloved woman.
And at the same time, Gregory is a man who tends to hesitate. So, despite his great love for Aksinya, Grigory does not resist his parents, marries Natalya Korshunova at their will.
Without fully realizing it himself, Melekhov strives to exist "in truth." He is trying to understand, to answer for himself the question “how should one live?”. The search for a hero is complicated by the era in which he was born - the time of revolutions and wars.
Gregory will experience strong moral hesitation when he gets to the fronts of the First World War. The hero went to war, thinking that he knew which side the truth was on: you need to defend the fatherland and destroy the enemy. What could be easier? Melekhov does just that. He fights valiantly, he is brave and selfless, he does not shame the honor of the Cossacks. But gradually doubts come to the hero. He begins to see in opponents the same people with their hopes, weaknesses, fears, joys. What is all this slaughter for, what will it bring to people?
The hero begins to realize this especially clearly when fellow countryman Melekhov Chubaty kills a captive Austrian, still a very young boy. The prisoner tries to establish contact with the Russians, openly smiles at them, tries to please. The Cossacks were pleased with the decision to bring him to the headquarters for interrogation, but Chubaty, simply out of love for violence, out of hatred, kills the boy.
For Melekhov, this event becomes a real moral blow. And although he firmly protects the Cossack honor, deserves a reward, he understands that he was not created for war. He desperately wants to know the truth in order to find the meaning of his actions. Having fallen under the influence of the Bolshevik Garandzhi, the hero, like a sponge, absorbs new thoughts, new ideas. He starts fighting for the Reds. But the killing of unarmed prisoners by the Reds pushes him away from them too.
The childishly pure soul of Gregory alienates him from both the Reds and the Whites. Melekhov reveals the truth: the truth cannot be on either side. Reds and whites are politics, class struggle. And where there is a class struggle, blood is always shed, people die, children remain orphans. The truth is peaceful work in the native land, family, love.
Gregory is a wavering, doubting nature. This allows him to seek the truth, not to stop there, not to be limited by other people's explanations. Gregory's position in life is a position "between": between the traditions of the fathers and his own will, between two loving women - Aksinya and Natalya, between whites and reds. Finally, between the need to fight and the realization of the senselessness and uselessness of the massacre (“my hands need to plow, not fight”).
The author himself sympathizes with his hero. In the novel, Sholokhov objectively describes the events, talks about the "truth" of both the Whites and the Reds. But his sympathy, feelings are on the side of Melekhov. It fell to this man to live at a time when all moral guidelines were shifted. It was this, as well as the desire to search for the truth, that led the hero to such a tragic ending - the loss of everything that he loved: “Why did you, life, cripple me like that?”
The writer emphasizes that the civil war is a tragedy for the entire Russian people. There are no right or wrong in it, because people die, brother goes against brother, father against son.
Thus, Sholokhov in the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" made a man from the people and from the people as a truth seeker. The image of Grigory Melekhov becomes the concentration of the historical and ideological conflict of the work, an expression of the tragic searches of the entire Russian people.
>Compositions based on the work Quiet Flows the Don
The path of searching Grigory Melikhov
The epic novel by M. A. Sholokhov “Quiet Don” (1928-1940) is a work about the life of the Don Cossacks during the civil war. The protagonist of the novel, Grigory Melekhov, is a worthy son of his father, a loving and just person, a seeker of truth. Gregory's personal development against the backdrop of changing, often hostile events in the world is the main problem of the novel. The author skillfully depicts the stages of formation and development of the character of the hero, his exploits and disappointments, and most importantly, the search for a life path.
The image of Grigory Melekhov is complex and contradictory. He combined family, social, historical and love lines. It cannot be considered separately from other characters. He is in close unity with his parents, his family and other Cossacks. The "millstones" of the war did not spare Gregory. They went through his soul, crippling it and leaving bloody footprints. On the battlefields, he matured, received many awards, supported the Cossack honor, but at what cost. The kind and humane Gregory became hardened, his character was tempered, and he became different. If after the first murder he could not sleep at night, tormented by his conscience, then over time he learned to ruthlessly kill the enemy and even developed the technique of a fatal blow. However, until the last chapter, he remained a loving, open and fair person.
In search of the truth, Gregory rushed from one camp to another, from the “reds” to the “whites”. As a result, he became a renegade. He even envied those who firmly believed in one truth and fought for only one idea. The hero experienced moral hesitation not only at the front, but also at home. On the one hand, a devoted and loving Natalya was waiting for him, and on the other hand, he loved Aksinya all his life - the wife of Stepan Astakhov. This ambiguous position in various social spheres indicates that Gregory is a doubting nature. He always lived "between two fires." The author himself sympathizes with his hero - a man who lived in troubled times, when all moral guidelines were shifted.
Having never understood what the “truth” was and why this senseless war was needed, having lost almost all relatives and friends, at the end of the novel, Gregory returned to his native land. The only person who made him related to the earth and this vast world was his son Mishatka. According to the author, this could be the life of a Cossack: the son returned to his mother, that is, the Cossack land. Perhaps this was the "truth" that Gregory had been looking for so long.
"Quiet Flows the Don" by M. Sholokhov is a novel about the fate of the people in a critical era. The genius given to Sholokhov by nature, sharpened by the cruel reality in which he developed, managed to grasp the very essence of world anxiety hovering in the air, put it on the ground, as soon as possible in art, comprehend it with artistic reason and clothe it in artistic flesh - in such infinitely green the story of a simple Don Cossack Grigory Melekhov.
This courageous and open-hearted person (this is truly a personality!) fell to the lot, one might say, everything that determined the century - the world war and the civil war, revolution and counter-revolution, genocide against the Cossacks, over the peasantry ... It seems that there are no such tests for human dignity and freedom, through which, as through a system, time would not drive him away. And he is a Cossack, in his very genes carrying the memory of the former Cossack liberty, of what was done with it, turning the once freest into state serfs and guardsmen.
It is not surprising that in the human nature of Grigory Melekhov, the peculiarity of the family and the fate of the people are intertwined, a long history and being created before our eyes. After all, what we learned about the young guy Grishka from the first chapters is already a rebellion, a challenge to violence and lack of freedom. If the farm morality forbids him to love his beloved, if the strict "house-builder" of the family wants to decide his fate in his own way, then he answers them in his own way - he sends everyone to hell, slams the door of his native kuren and leaves with Aksinya to Yagodnoye, free and young who decided to live as the soul commands.
An even more cruel transpersonal power will throw him into the bloody mess of war, will try to turn him into a gray-grey slaughter animal, but even here, in a completely hopeless situation, he will show all the same indestructible pride, will boldly play with death, he is free to dispose of his own life as wants!
The revolution seemed to be a salvation for people like Melekhov, because the words of freedom were inscribed on its banners! .. And it seems that there was no greater disappointment in Melekhov's life than the reality of the red camp, where the same lack of rights reigned, and violence against the human person turned out to be the main weapon in the struggle for future happiness. Striking out all ideas about male, knightly honor in the war, on the orders of Podtelkov, the defenders of freedom, like cabbage, flog the unarmed captured with sabers. And ahead will be Commissar Malkin, subtly mocking the Cossacks in the captured village, and the outrages of the fighters of the Tiraspol detachment of the 2nd Socialist Army, robbing farms and raping Cossack women. Yes, and Grigory Melekhov himself, as soon as he returns to his native Tatarsky to heal the wound and somehow sort out the confusion of thoughts, yesterday's comrades will poison him like a wild animal raised from his bed, they will pursue, sunbathe in a stinking dung sack.
Therefore, when the Cossack rebellion takes place, it will seem to Melekhov that everything has finally been decided - both for himself and for his native land: “We must fight with those who want to take life, the right to it” ... - he rushes into battle with “ krasnopusshi”, setting fire to the horse, even squealing with impatience; and the future appears to him as a straight path, clearly illuminated by the night moon...
Meanwhile, ahead are only new wrecks and the ever-tighter tightening of the vise of this very “historical necessity” about which scientists love to talk so much - no matter what Gregory undertakes and no matter what desperate deeds he dares to try to break out of the ring! A bitter epiphany awaits him in the rebellion, when he has to admit: “Life is going wrong, and maybe I’m to blame for this,” and already completely doomed, overtaken in the port of Novorossiysk: “Let them be bitchy, we don’t care at the moment ... ". The hope that was revived that it was possible to somehow "replay life" again, in Budyonny's cavalry would turn into another dispelled illusion, and again, for the umpteenth time, he would say with such tired humility and cordial sincerity in front of his friend from childhood, Mishka Koshev : “I'm tired of everything: both the revolution and the counter-revolution. Let all this ... let it all go to waste! I want to live near my kids…”.
No matter how! What will seem to Grigory as the final end of his entire martyr's journey and search is in fact only a short respite given to him, because it is Koshevoy and his comrades who will drive him further and further - through the Fomin gang, through new deaths, the death of the dearest creature on earth , dear Aksinya, with whom he intended to make a last attempt to escape from the next circle. Above her grave, Gregory will understand the last thing: that "they part not for long."
Here is a mockery of his truth-seeking! Is it possible that in Rus' only the robber camp is the only embodiment of free will? And yet, by the will of a man who was born free, who was not considered either before the white generals or before the red terror, he will perform his last daring act, albeit completely reckless: at least for an hour he will return to his native kuren, to the familiar Don steep, which is in this case, and indeed gives rise to the idea of the edge of the abyss. Never grown into a “Cossack-Bolshevik”, not debunked, Grigory Melekhov stood over his cliff, holding a warmly clinging boy in his arms ... “That's all ...”.
At the beginning of the story, young Gregory - a real Cossack, a brilliant horseman, hunter, fisherman and hardworking rural worker - is quite happy and carefree. The traditional Cossack commitment to military glory helps him out in the first trials on the bloody battlefields in 1914. Distinguished by exceptional courage, Gregory quickly gets used to bloody battles. However, he is distinguished from his brothers in arms by his sensitivity to any manifestation of cruelty. To any violence against the weak and defenseless, and as events unfold - also a protest against the horrors and absurdities of war. In fact, he spends his whole life in an environment of hatred and fear that is alien to him, hardening and discovering with disgust how all his talent, his entire being goes into the dangerous skill of creating death. He has no time to be at home, in the family, among people who love him.
All this cruelty, dirt, violence made Gregory take a fresh look at life: in the hospital where he was after being wounded, under the influence of revolutionary propaganda, doubts about loyalty to the tsar, fatherland and military duty appear.
In the seventeenth year, we see Gregory in chaotic and painful attempts to somehow decide in this "troubled time." He searches for political truth in a world of rapidly changing values, guided more often by the external signs of events than by their essence.
At first he fights for the Reds, but the killing of unarmed prisoners by them repels him, and when the Bolsheviks come to his beloved Don, doing robberies and violence, he fights them with cold fury. And again, Gregory's search for truth does not find an answer. They turn into the greatest drama of a man completely lost in the cycle of events.
The deep forces of Gregory's soul repel him from both the Reds and the Whites. “They are all the same!? he says to his childhood friends leaning towards the Bolsheviks.? All of them are a yoke around the neck of the Cossacks! And when he learns about the rebellion of the Cossacks in the upper reaches of the Don against the Red Army, he takes the side of the rebels. Now he can fight for what is dear to him, for what he loved and cherished all his life: “As if there were no days of searching for the truth, searches, transitions and heavy internal struggle behind him. What was there to think about? Why did the soul rush about? in search of a way out, in resolving contradictions? Life seemed mocking, wisely simple. Now it already seemed to him that from eternity there was no such truth in it, under the wing of which anyone could warm up, and embittered to the extreme, he thought: everyone has his own truth, his own furrow. For a piece of bread, for a plot of land, for the right to life - people have always fought and will fight as long as the sun shines on them, while warm blood oozes through their veins. We must fight those who want to take life, right for it; you have to fight hard, without swinging,? like in the wall but the intensity of hatred, firmness will give the struggle!
Both a return to the dominance of officers in the event of a victory for the Whites, and the power of the Reds on the Don are unacceptable for Grigory. In the last volume of the novel, the demotion as a result of disobedience to a White Guard officer, the death of his wife and the final defeat of the White Army bring Gregory to the last degree of despair. In the end, he joins Budyonny's cavalry and heroically fights with the Poles, wanting to clear himself of his guilt before the Bolsheviks. But for Gregory there is no salvation in Soviet reality, where even neutrality is considered a crime. With bitter mockery, he tells the former orderly that he envies Koshevoy and the White Guard Litsvitsky: “It was clear to them from the very beginning, but everything is still unclear to me. They both have their own, straight roads, their own ends, and since the seventeenth year I have been walking along the forks, swinging like a drunk ... "
The tragedy of Grigory Melekhov is the tragedy of the Russian Cossacks as a whole. The Cossacks never broke their hats to anyone, they lived apart, isolated from the rest of the world, I feel some of my exclusivity, peculiarity and strive to preserve it. Both whites and reds for the majority of ordinary Cossacks are “non-residents” who brought discord and war to the Don land. Whichever side the Cossacks fought on, they want one thing: to return to their native farm, to their wife and children, to plow the land, to run their own household.
One night, under the threat of arrest, and therefore the inevitable execution, Grigory flees from his native farm. After long wanderings, yearning for children and Aksinya, he secretly returns. Aksinya hugs him, presses her face against his wet overcoat, sobs: “Better kill, but don’t leave!”. Having begged his sister to take the children, he and Aksinya flee at night in the hope of getting to the Kuban and starting a new life. Enthusiastic joy fills the soul of this woman at the thought that she is again next to Gregory. But her happiness is short-lived: on the way they are caught by a horse outpost, and they rush into the night, pursued by bullets flying after them. When they find shelter in the pit, Grigory buries his Aksinya: “With his palms, he diligently pressed wet, yellow clay on the grave mound and knelt near the grave for a long time, bowing his head, gently swaying. Now there was no need for him to rush. It was all over…”
Hiding for weeks in the thicket of the forest, Grigory is experiencing an increasingly strong desire “to be like ... in his native places, to show off at the kids, then he could die ...” He returns to his native farm.
Having touchingly described Grigory's meeting with his son, Sholokhov ends his novel with the words: “Well, that little thing that Grigory dreamed about during sleepless nights has come true. He stood at the gate of his native house, holding his son in his arms. It was all that remained in his life, which still made him related to the earth and to all this huge world shining under the cold sun.
Gregory did not have long to enjoy this joy. Obviously, he came back to die. To perish from communist necessity in the person of Mikhail Koshevoy. In a novel full of cruelty, executions and murders, Sholokhov wisely lowers the curtain on this last episode. In the meantime, a whole human life flashed before us, flashing brightly and slowly fading away. The biography of Grigory by Sholokhov is quite voluminous. Gregory lived, in the full sense of the word, when his life idyll was not disturbed in any way.
He loved and was loved, he lived an extraordinary worldly life on his native farm and was satisfied. He always tried to do the right thing, and if not - well, every person has the right to make a mistake. Many moments of Gregory's life in the novel are a kind of "escape" from events that are beyond the power of his mind. The passion of Gregory's searches is most often replaced by a return to himself, to natural life, to his home. But at the same time, it cannot be said that Gregory's life quests have come to a standstill, no. He had true love, and fate did not deprive him of the opportunity to be a happy father. But Gregory was forced to constantly look for a way out of the difficult situations that had arisen. Speaking about the moral choice of Gregory in life, it is impossible to say unequivocally whether his choice was always really the only true and correct one. But he was almost always guided by his own principles and beliefs, trying to find a better share in life, and this desire was not a simple desire to "live the best." It was sincere and affected the interests not only of himself, but also of many people close to him, in particular the woman he loved. Despite the fruitless aspirations in life, Gregory was happy, although for a very short time. But even these short minutes of much-needed happiness were enough. They did not disappear in vain, just as Grigory Melekhov did not live his life in vain. There is no particular fault of Gregory in the way his fate turned out: he did not choose the burden in which to live. But one thing can be said: Melekhov is broken, but not broken, crippled, but not disfigured by the war, like Mitka Korshunov or Fomin. He did not prevaricate, and if he went against his conscience somewhere, then he paid the price for it to the end. And Mishatka, sitting in his father's arms, is the best reward for everything from an unkind fate. M. Sholokhov, like Tolstoy, emphasizes the decisive role of the people in history.
Describing his idea for the image of the protagonist of The Quiet Flows the Don, M. Sholokhov wrote: “I wanted to talk about the charm of a person in Grigory Melekhov, but I didn’t succeed completely.” It did not succeed, as it seems to us, not because of a lack of skill (the writer perfectly understood the scale of the figure he created), but because in him the human spirit rose to the heights of perfection and descended to the depths of despair. The path of Grigory Melekhov to the ideal of true life is a tragic path of gains, mistakes and losses, which was passed by the entire Russian people in the 20th century.
1892 - 1914
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1892 - late autumn
Grigory Panteleevich was born on the Tatarsky farm in the Vyoshenskaya village of the Don Cossack Region in a Cossack family. At the time of his birth, he was the second son and child in the family of a retired senior officer of the Life Guards Ataman Regiment. The elder brother Peter was born in 1886
1899 - approximate date
Birth of Evdokia, younger sister of Gregory and Peter
1911 - end of February
Maslenitsa
Grigory takes part in a wall-to-wall fight between the married couple and the unmarried on the side of the latter. Neighbor Astakhov felt sorry for Grigory when he ran away and did not beat him to death
1912 - May
Grigory begins attempts to get closer to Astakhov's wife, who is called up for military training.
1912 - June
Grigory and Aksinya Astakhova become lovers
1912 - July
Stepan Astakhov returns home. The fight between the Melekhov brothers and Stepan because of Aksinya
1912 - August 1 (old style)
Gregory is brought together with Natalya Korshunova, who is betrothed to him, the day of their wedding is appointed
1912 - early August
Grigory breaks off relations with Aksinya
1912 - September 28 (old style)
Grigory explains with Natalya and tells her that he does not love her and will not live with her family
1912 - early October
Grigory accidentally meets Aksinya and they realize that they cannot live without each other.
1912 - mid-December
Grigory takes the military oath in the village of Vyoshenskaya. The next day, after a stormy explanation with his father, Grigory leaves his wife and leaves his parental home. Soon he is hired as an assistant groom to the landowner Listnitsky in the Yagodny estate. Natalia goes to live with her parents
1912 - end of December
Grigory, through the sister of a friend, tells Aksinya where he is and offers to leave him from her husband. Aksinya runs away from home
1913 - April 12 (old style)
Palm Sunday
Grigory fell through the ice while crossing the Don, because of a cold, abscesses appear on his back
1913 - April 19 (old style)
Holy Sunday of Christ
Grigory refuses Natalya's request to return to her, sent through a note. Natalya tries to commit suicide, gets severe wounds and mutilation, but remains alive
1913 - May
Grigory, at the request of the son of the landowner Listnitsky, receives exemption from military training before being called up for service
1913 - July
Grigory and Aksinya have a daughter, Tanya
1913 - end of November
Natalia is recovering from her wounds
1913 - November 26 (old style)
Gregory is called up for military service. Due to boils on his back and "wildness" of facial features, Gregory is assigned to the 12th Don Cossack Regiment, and not to the Life Guards Ataman Regiment. The commission rejected Grigory's horse and he had to take on the service of his brother's horse.
1914 - early January
Grigory arrived in the regiment stationed in the town of Radzivilov, Volyn province, on the border with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. From the first days of service, he makes it clear to the sergeant that he will not allow himself to be beaten
1914 - February
The child of Peter and Daria Melekhov dies of an illness
1914 - March
Natalya Korshunova went to live with Grigory's parents
1914 - end of June
Grigory's regiment was redeployed for maneuvers in the Rivne region
1914 - July 21 (old style)
After the transfer by rail, the regiment of Gregory makes a march and at noon crosses the border of Austria-Hungary. In the area of the town of Leshniuv, the regiment enters the battle, in which Grigory kills two soldiers of the Austrian army
1914 - end of July, August, beginning of September
Gregory, as part of his regiment, participates in battles and skirmishes with the Austrian army. At the end of August, the regiment was withdrawn from the line of battle for rest and replenishment for three days.
1914 - August 29 (old style)
In the battle near Shevel, the son of the landowner Listnitsky was seriously wounded
1914 - early September
Gregory's daughter dies of scarlet fever in Yagodnoe
1914 - September 15 (old style)
In a battle with the Hungarian cavalry near the town of Kamenka-Strumilov, Grigory is wounded in the head and contused. He loses consciousness and remains surrounded on the battlefield. In part, he is considered dead and a notice is sent to his relatives. Waking up at night, Grigory finds the seriously wounded commander of the 9th Dragoon Regiment, and carries him on himself to the location of the Russian units
1914 - September 18 (old style)
Grigory arbitrarily leaves the dressing station for his unit. For saving the life of a wounded officer, he is awarded the St. George Cross of the IV degree and promoted to order *
* - rank in the Cossack troops, corresponds to the rank of corporal
1914 - September 21 (old style)
During a raid by an Austrian airplane, Grigory's eye was damaged and he was sent to Moscow for treatment.
1914 - end of September
In Yagodnoye, the son of the landowner Listnitsky comes on vacation after being wounded. Evgeny Listnitsky and Aksinya become lovers
1914 - end of September, October
Grigory is being treated at the eye clinic of Dr. Kiselyov (Moscow, Kolpachny lane, 1), then a wound on his head opens and he is transferred to a combined arms hospital
1914 - end of October
Under the influence of conversations with one of the wounded, Grigory thinks about the reasons for the ongoing war and about who benefits from it. He dares the delegation visiting the hospital with members of the imperial family and, after being discharged, receives a leave to his homeland
1914 - November 4/5 (old style)
At night, Grigory arrives in Yagodnoye and learns about Aksinya's betrayal. In the morning he beats Eugene and returns to his wife in the parental home
1914 - end of November
Grigory returns to the regiment after a vacation
