Speaking about his famous novel, M. Sholokhov himself noted: “I describe the struggle of whites with reds, and not the struggle of reds with whites.” This made the writer's task more difficult. It is no coincidence that literary critics are still arguing about the fate of the main character. Who is he, Grigory Melekhov? A “renegade” who went against his own people, or a victim of history, a person who failed to find his place in the common struggle?
The action of Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don” takes place during the most tragic period of revolution and civil war for the Don Cossacks. At such moments in history, all conflicts of relationships are especially acutely revealed, and society is faced with a complex philosophical question of the relationship between the personal and the social. In particular, the attitude towards the revolution is not only a question asked by the main character of the novel; if you look more broadly, it is a question of the entire era.
The action of the first parts of the novel unfolds slowly, which describes the life of the pre-war Cossacks. Life, traditions, customs that have developed over many generations seem unshakable. Against the background of this calm, even Aksinya’s love for Gregory, ardent and reckless, is perceived by the villagers as a rebellion, as a protest against generally accepted moral norms.
But already from the second book, social motives are heard more and more strongly in the novel; the work already goes beyond the framework of a family-everyday narrative. Shtokman and his underground circle appear; A brutal fight breaks out at the mill, demonstrating the arrogant arrogance of the Cossacks towards the peasants, who, in essence, are the same workers as the Cossacks themselves. Thus, systematically and gradually, Sholokhov debunks the myth of the homogeneity and unity of the Cossacks.
With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Grigory Melekhov comes to the fore in the novel; It is through his fate that Mikhail Sholokhov traces the fate of the front-line Cossacks. It must be said that, describing the war, emphasizing its unjust nature, the writer speaks from an anti-militarist position. This is clearly evidenced by the scene of the murder of an Austrian soldier and the student’s diary.
At the front, and especially in the hospital, Grigory Melekhov comes to the understanding that the truth in which he still believed is illusory. A painful search for another truth begins. In this search, Melekhov comes to the Bolsheviks, but their rightness turns out to be alien to him, he cannot fully accept it, and there are several reasons for this. First of all, he is repulsed by the senseless cruelty and inexplicable bloodthirstiness that he encounters among them. In addition, he, a combat officer, feels their mistrust at every step; and he himself cannot get rid of the initial Cossack disdain for “nadity.”
Melekhov does not linger with the whites either, since it is not difficult for him to discern that behind their loud words about saving the Motherland, self-interest and petty calculations are often hidden.
What remains for him? In a world split into two irreconcilable camps, recognizing only two colors and not distinguishing shades, there is no third way, just as there is no special “Cossack” truth, which Melekhov naively believes to find.
After the defeat of the Veshen uprising, Gregory decides to leave the army and take up arable farming. But this is not destined to come true. Saving his life and the life of Aksinya, Melekhov is forced to flee from his home, because after meeting and talking with Koshev he understands that this fanatic lives by one thought - the thirst for revenge, and will stop at nothing.
He falls into Fomin's gang as if into a trap, because no matter what loud words Fomin says, his squad is an ordinary criminal gang. And the tragedy plays out: as if as punishment, fate takes away from Grigory Melekhov the most precious thing - Aksinya. The “dazzling black disk of the sun” that Gregory sees in front of him is a symbol of the tragic ending.
He cannot count on forgiveness or leniency from his fellow villagers, but Grigory returns to his native village - he has nowhere else to go. But the situation is not so hopeless that a faint ray of hope does not flicker in it: the first person Melekhov sees is his son Misha. Life has not ended, it continues in the son, and, perhaps, at least his fate will turn out better.
No, Grigory Melekhov is not a renegade or a victim of history. Rather, he belongs to the type of people who were so well and fully described in the literature of the 19th century - the type of truth-seekers for whom the process of searching for their own truth sometimes turns out to be the meaning of life. Thus, Sholokhov continues and develops the humanistic traditions of classical Russian literature.
Grigory Melekhov most fully reflected the drama of the fate of the Don Cossacks. He suffered such cruel trials that a person, it would seem, is not able to endure. First the First World War, then the revolution and fratricidal civil war, the attempt to destroy the Cossacks, the uprising and its suppression.
In the difficult fate of Grigory Melekhov, Cossack freedom and the fate of the people merged together. The strong character, integrity and rebellion inherited from his father have haunted him since his youth. Having fallen in love with Aksinya, a married woman, he leaves with her, disdaining public morality and his father’s prohibitions. By nature, the hero is a kind, brave and courageous person who stands up for justice. The author shows his hard work in scenes of hunting, fishing, and haymaking. Throughout the entire novel, in harsh battles on one side or the other, he searches for the truth.
The First World War destroys his illusions. Proud of their Cossack army, its glorious victories, in Voronezh the Cossacks hear from a local old man the phrase thrown after them with pity: “My dear... beef!” The elderly man knew that there is nothing worse than war, this is not an adventure in which you can become a hero, it is dirt, blood, stench and horror. Valiant arrogance flies off Gregory when he sees his Cossack friends dying: “The first to fall from his horse was the cornet Lyakhovsky. Prokhor galloped at him... With a cutter, like a diamond on glass, he cut out Gregory’s memory and held for a long time the pink gums of Prokhor’s horse with barbed slabs of teeth, Prokhor, who fell flat, trampled by the hooves of a Cossack galloping behind him... They fell again. The Cossacks and horses fell.”
In parallel, the author shows events in the homeland of the Cossacks, where their families remained. “And no matter how much simple-haired Cossack women run out into the alleys and look from under their palms, we won’t be able to wait for those dear to our hearts! No matter how many tears stream from swollen and faded eyes, it will not wash away the melancholy! No matter how much you cry on the days of anniversaries and commemorations, the eastern wind will not carry their cries to Galicia and East Prussia, to the settled mounds of mass graves!”
The war appears to the writer and his characters as a series of hardships and deaths that change all the foundations. War cripples from the inside and destroys all the most precious things that people have. It forces the heroes to take a fresh look at the problems of duty and justice, to look for the truth and not find it in any of the warring camps. Once among the Reds, Gregory sees the same cruelty, intransigence, and thirst for the blood of his enemies as the Whites. War destroys the smooth life of families, peaceful work, takes away the last, kills love. Grigory and Pyotr Melekhov, Stepan Astakhov, Koshevoy and other heroes of Sholokhov do not understand why the fratricidal war is being waged. For whose sake and what should they die in the prime of life? After all, life on the farm gives them a lot of joy, beauty, hope, and opportunity. War is only deprivation and death. But they see that the hardships of war fall primarily on the shoulders of the civilian population, ordinary people; it is they, not the commanders, who will starve and die.
There are also characters in the work who think completely differently. The heroes Shtokman and Bunchuk see the country solely as an arena of class battles. For them, people are tin soldiers in someone else’s game, and pity for a person is a crime.
The fate of Grigory Melekhov is a life incinerated by war. The personal relationships of the characters take place against the backdrop of the most tragic history of the country. Gregory cannot forget his first enemy, an Austrian soldier, whom he hacked to death with a saber. The moment of murder changed him beyond recognition. The hero has lost his point of support, his kind, fair soul protests, cannot survive such violence against common sense. The Austrian's skull, cut in two, becomes an obsession for Gregory. But the war goes on, and Melekhov continues to kill. He is not the only one who thinks about the terrible downside of military duty. He hears the words of his own Cossack: “It’s easier to kill someone else who has broken their hand in this matter than to crush a louse. The man has fallen in price for the revolution.” A stray bullet that kills the very soul of Grigory - Aksinya, is perceived as a death sentence for all participants in the massacre. The war is actually being waged against all living people; it is not for nothing that Gregory, having buried Aksinya in a ravine, sees above him a black sky and a dazzling black disk of the sun.
Melekhov rushes between the two warring sides. Everywhere he encounters violence and cruelty, which he cannot accept, and therefore cannot take one side. When his mother reproaches him for participating in the execution of captured sailors, he himself admits that he became cruel in the war: “I don’t feel sorry for the children either.”
Realizing that the war is killing the best people of his time and that the truth cannot be found among thousands of deaths, Grigory throws down his weapon and returns to his native farm to work on his native land and raise his children. At almost 30 years old, the hero is almost an old man. in his immortal work, he raises the question of the responsibility of history to the individual. The writer sympathizes with his hero, whose life is broken: “Like a steppe scorched by burning fires, Grigory’s life became black...” The image of Grigory Melekhov became a great creative success for Sholokhov.
For the first time in literature, Mikhail Sholokhov showed the life of the Don Cossacks and the revolution with such breadth and scope. The best features of the Don Cossack are expressed in the image of Grigory Melekhov. “Grigory took firm care of the Cossack honor.” He is a patriot of his land, a man completely devoid of the desire to acquire or rule, who has never stooped to robbery. The prototype of Gregory is a Cossack from the village of Bazki, village of Veshenskaya, Kharlampiy Vasilyevich Ermakov.
For the first time in literature, Mikhail Sholokhov showed the life of the Don Cossacks and the revolution with such breadth and scope.
The best features of the Don Cossack are expressed in the image of Grigory Melekhov. “Grigory took firm care of the Cossack honor.” He is a patriot of his land, a man completely devoid of the desire to acquire or rule, who has never stooped to robbery. The prototype of Gregory is a Cossack from the village of Bazki, village of Veshenskaya, Kharlampiy Vasilyevich Ermakov.
Gregory comes from a middle-class family that is accustomed to working on its own land. Before the war, we see Gregory thinking little about social issues. The Melekhov family lives in abundance. Grigory loves his farm, his farm, his work. Work was his need. More than once during the war, Gregory recalled with deep melancholy his close people, his native farm, and work in the fields: “It would be nice to take the chapigi with your hands and follow the plow along the wet furrow, greedily taking in with your nostrils the damp and insipid smell of loosened earth, the bitter aroma of grass cut by a ploughshare. "
In a difficult family drama, in the trials of war, the deep humanity of Grigory Melekhov is revealed. His character is characterized by a heightened sense of justice. During haymaking, Grigory hit a nest with a scythe and cut a wild duckling. With a feeling of acute pity, Gregory looks at the dead lump lying in his palm. This feeling of pain revealed that love for all living things, for people, for nature, which distinguished Gregory.
Therefore, it is natural that Gregory, thrown into the heat of war, experiences his first battle hard and painfully, and cannot forget the Austrian he killed. “I cut down a man in vain and because of him, the bastard, my soul is sick,” he complains to his brother Peter.
During World War I, Grigory fought bravely, was the first from the farm to receive the St. George Cross, without thinking about why he shed blood.
In the hospital, Gregory met an intelligent and sarcastic Bolshevik soldier, Garanzha. Under the fiery power of his words, the foundations on which Gregory’s consciousness rested began to smoke.
His search for the truth begins, which from the very beginning takes on a clear socio-political overtones, he has to choose between two different forms of government. Grigory was tired of the war, of this hostile world, he was overcome by the desire to return to peaceful farm life, plow the land and care for the livestock. The obvious senselessness of the war awakens in him restless thoughts, melancholy, and acute discontent.
The war did not bring anything good to Gregory. Sholokhov, focusing on the internal transformations of the hero, writes the following: “With cold contempt he played with someone else’s life and his own... he knew that he would no longer laugh as before; he knew that his eyes were sunken and his cheekbones were sticking out sharply; he knew that it was difficult for him, when kissing a child, to look openly into clear eyes; Gregory knew what price he paid for a full bow of crosses and production.”
During the revolution, Gregory's search for the truth continues. After an argument with Kotlyarov and Koshev, where the hero declares that the propaganda of equality is just bait to catch ignorant people, Grigory comes to the conclusion that it is stupid to look for a single universal truth. Different people have their own different truths depending on their aspirations. The war appears to him as a conflict between the truth of the Russian peasants and the truth of the Cossacks. The peasants need Cossack land, the Cossacks protect it.
Mishka Koshevoy, now his son-in-law (since Dunyashka’s husband) and chairman of the revolutionary committee, receives Grigory with blind distrust and says that he should be punished without leniency for fighting against the Reds.
The prospect of being shot seems to Grigory an unfair punishment due to his service in Budyonny’s 1st Cavalry Army (he fought on the side of the Cossacks during the Veshensky uprising of 1919, then the Cossacks united with the whites, and after the surrender in Novorossiysk Grigory was no longer needed), and he decides to evade arrest . This flight means Gregory's final break with the Bolshevik regime. The Bolsheviks did not justify his trust by not taking into account his service in the 1st Cavalry, and they made an enemy out of him with their intention to take his life. The Bolsheviks failed him in a more reprehensible way than the Whites, who did not have enough steamships to evacuate all the troops from Novorossiysk. These two betrayals are the climaxes of Gregory's political odyssey in Book 4. They justify his moral rejection of each of the warring parties and highlight his tragic situation.
The treacherous attitude towards Gregory on the part of the whites and reds is in sharp contradiction with the constant loyalty of the people close to him. This personal loyalty is not dictated by any political considerations. The epithet “faithful” is often used (Aksinya’s love is “faithful”, Prokhor is a “faithful orderly”, Gregory’s sword served him “faithfully”).
The last months of Gregory's life in the novel are distinguished by a complete disconnection of consciousness from everything earthly. The worst thing in life - the death of his beloved - has already happened. All he wants in life is to see his native farm and his children again. “Then I might as well die,” he thinks (at the age of 30), that he has no illusions about what awaits him in Tatarskoye. When the desire to see the children becomes irresistible, he goes to his native farm. The last sentence of the novel says that his son and his home are “all that is left in his life, what still connects him with his family and with the whole ... world.”
Gregory's love for Aksinya illustrates the author's view of the predominance of natural impulses in man. Sholokhov's attitude towards nature clearly indicates that he, like Grigory, does not consider war the most reasonable way to solve socio-political problems.
Sholokhov's judgments about Gregory, known from the press, vary greatly from each other, since their content depends on the political climate of the time. In 1929, before workers from Moscow factories: “Gregory, in my opinion, is a kind of symbol of the middle Don Cossacks.”
And in 1935: “Melekhov has a very individual fate, and in him I am in no way trying to personify the middle peasant Cossacks.”
And in 1947 he argued that Grigory personifies the typical features of not only “a well-known layer of Don, Kuban and all other Cossacks, but also the Russian peasantry as a whole.” At the same time, he emphasized the uniqueness of Gregory’s fate, calling it “largely individual.” Sholokhov, thus, killed two birds with one stone. He could not be reproached for hinting that most Cossacks had the same anti-Soviet views as Grigory, and he showed that, first of all, Grigory is a fictitious person, and not an exact copy of a certain socio-political type.
In the post-Stalin period, Sholokhov was as stingy in his comments about Gregory as before, but he expressed his understanding of Gregory’s tragedy. For him, this is the tragedy of a truth-seeker who is misled by the events of his time and allows the truth to elude him. The truth, naturally, is on the side of the Bolsheviks. At the same time, Sholokhov clearly expressed an opinion about the purely personal aspects of Gregory’s tragedy and spoke out against the gross politicization of the scene from the film by S. Gerasimov (he rides up the mountain - his son on his shoulder - to the heights of communism). Instead of a picture of a tragedy, you can get a kind of light-hearted poster.
Sholokhov's statement about Grigory's tragedy shows that, at least in print, he speaks about it in the language of politics. The tragic situation of the hero is the result of Gregory’s failure to get closer to the Bolsheviks, the bearers of the true truth. In Soviet sources this is the only interpretation of the truth. Some place all the blame on Gregory, others emphasize the role of the mistakes of the local Bolsheviks. The central government, of course, cannot be blamed.
Soviet critic L. Yakimenko notes that “Gregory’s struggle against the people, against the great truth of life, will lead to devastation and an inglorious end. On the ruins of the old world, a tragically broken man will stand before us - he will have no place in the new life that is beginning.”
Gregory's tragic fault was not his political orientation, but his true love for Aksinya. This is exactly how the tragedy is presented in “Quiet Don” according to the later researcher Ermolaev.
Gregory managed to maintain his humane qualities. The impact of historical forces on it is frighteningly enormous. They destroy his hopes for a peaceful life, drag him into wars that he considers senseless, make him lose both his faith in God and his feeling of pity for man, but they are still powerless to destroy the main thing in his soul - his innate decency, his ability to true love.
Grigory remained Grigory Melekhov, a confused man whose life was burned to the ground by the civil war.
Image system
There are a large number of characters in the novel, many of whom do not even have their own names, but they act and influence the development of the plot and the relationships of the characters.
The action is centered around Grigory and his immediate circle: Aksinya, Pantelei Prokofievich and the rest of his family. A number of genuine historical characters also appear in the novel: Cossack revolutionaries F. Podtelkov, White Guard generals Kaledin, Kornilov.
The critic L. Yakimenko, expressing the Soviet view of the novel, identified 3 main themes in the novel and, accordingly, 3 large groups of characters: the fate of Grigory Melekhov and the Melekhov family; Don Cossacks and revolution; party and revolutionary people.
Images of Cossack women
Women, wives and mothers, sisters and loved ones of the Cossacks steadfastly bore their share of the hardships of the civil war. The difficult, turning point in the life of the Don Cossacks is shown by the author through the prism of the lives of family members, residents of the Tatarsky farm.
The stronghold of this family is the mother of Grigory, Peter and Dunyashka Melekhov - Ilyinichna. Before us is an elderly Cossack woman, whose sons are grown up, and her youngest daughter, Dunyashka, is already a teenager. One of the main character traits of this woman can be called calm wisdom. Otherwise, she simply would not have been able to get along with her emotional and hot-tempered husband. Without any fuss, she runs the household, takes care of her children and grandchildren, not forgetting about their emotional experiences. Ilyinichna is an economical and prudent housewife. She maintains not only external order in the house, but also monitors the moral atmosphere in the family. She condemns Grigory’s relationship with Aksinya, and, realizing how difficult it is for Grigory’s legal wife Natalya to live with her husband, treats her like her own daughter, trying in every possible way to make her work easier, takes pity on her, sometimes even gives her an extra hour of sleep. The fact that Natalya lives in the Melekhovs’ house after a suicide attempt says a lot about Ilyinichna’s character. This means that in this house there was the warmth that the young woman so needed.
In any life situation, Ilyinichna is deeply decent and sincere. She understands Natalya, who is tormented by her husband’s infidelities, lets her cry, and then tries to dissuade her from rash actions. Tenderly cares for the sick Natalya and her grandchildren. Condemning Daria for being too free, she nevertheless hides her illness from her husband so that he does not kick her out of the house. There is some kind of greatness in her, the ability not to pay attention to the little things, but to see the main thing in the life of the family. She is characterized by wisdom and calmness.
Natalya: Her suicide attempt speaks volumes about the strength of her love for Gregory. She has experienced too much, her heart is worn out by constant struggle. Only after the death of his wife does Gregory realize how much she meant to him, what a strong and beautiful person she was. He fell in love with his wife through his children.
In the novel, Natalya is opposed by Aksinya, also a deeply unhappy heroine. Her husband often beat her. With all the ardor of her unspent heart, she loves Gregory, she is ready to selflessly go with him wherever he calls her. Aksinya dies in the arms of her beloved, which becomes another terrible blow for Gregory, now the “black sun” is shining for Gregory, he is left without warm, gentle, sunshine - Aksinya’s love.
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The main character of the novel is M.A. Sholokhov is the Don Cossack Grigory Melekhov. We see how dramatically the fate of Gregory develops on one of the most controversial and bloody pages of our history.
But the novel begins long before these events. First, we are introduced to the life and customs of the Cossacks. In this time of peace, Gregory lives a calm life, not caring about anything. However, at the same time, the hero’s first mental turning point occurs, when, after a stormy romance with Aksinya, Grishka realizes the importance of family and returns to his wife Natalya. A little later, the First World War begins, in which Gregory takes an active part, receiving many awards. But Melekhov himself is disappointed in the war, in which he saw only dirt, blood and death, and with this comes disappointment in the imperial power, which sends thousands of people to their deaths. In this regard, the main character falls under the influence of the ideas of communism, and already in the seventeenth year he takes the side of the Bolsheviks, believing that they will be able to build a new, just society.
However, almost immediately, when the Red commander Podtelkov carries out a bloody massacre of the captured White Guards, disappointment sets in. For Gregory, this becomes a terrible blow; in his opinion, it is impossible to fight for a better future while committing cruelty and injustice. Melekhov’s innate sense of justice repels him from the Bolsheviks. Returning home, he wants to take care of his family and housekeeping. But life does not give him this chance. His native village supports the white movement, and Melekhov follows them. The death of his brother at the hands of the Reds only fuels the hero’s hatred. But when Podtelkov’s surrendered detachment is mercilessly exterminated, Grigory cannot accept such cold-blooded destruction of his neighbor.
Soon, the Cossacks, dissatisfied with the White Guards, including Grigory, deserted and let the Red Army soldiers pass through their positions. Tired of war and murder, the hero hopes that they will leave him alone. However, the Red Army soldiers begin to commit robbery and murder, and the hero, in order to protect his home and family, joins the separatist uprising. It was during this period that Melekhov fought most zealously and did not torment himself with doubts. He is supported by the knowledge that he is protecting his loved ones. When the Don separatists unite with the white movement, Grigory again experiences disappointment.
In the final, Melekhov finally goes over to the Red side. Hoping to earn forgiveness and a chance to return home, he fights without sparing himself. During the war he lost his brother, wife, father and mother. All he has left are his children, and he just wants to return to them so he can forget about the fight and never take up arms. Unfortunately this is not possible. For those around him, Melekhov is a traitor. Suspicion turns into outright hostility, and soon the Soviet government begins a real hunt for Gregory. During the flight, his still beloved Aksinya dies. After wandering around the steppe, the main character, aged and gray, finally loses heart and returns to his native farm. He has resigned himself, but wishes to see his son perhaps one last time before accepting his sad fate.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!Of course, such love could hardly be happy, since there were too many obstacles in its way. More than once the lovers tried to be together, but in the end they separated. First, the separation occurred by the will of Gregory, and then by the will of fate: the heroes were separated for a long time by the First World War, and then by the Civil War.
During the “German War”, Grigory goes to the front, where he fights bravely and valiantly, defending his homeland, and is even awarded the St. George Cross for saving the life of an officer. At first, it is difficult for the young man to get used to the cruelty of war, and he has a hard time dealing with the murder of an Austrian he committed. But, as Grigory gains experience in battles, and especially when he once again breaks up with Aksinya, the man begins to “play with someone else’s and his own life with cold contempt,” as well as “show selfless courage” and unjustifiably risk himself and “to go wild.”
One of the most difficult trials for Gregory is the Civil War. For a long time, the hero cannot choose the side on which he wants to fight, for which Chairman Podtelkov accuses the man of serving “both ours and yours... whoever gives more.” But Gregory’s doubts have a different basis. The hero sees all the wrongness of this war, since both the Red Army soldiers and the Cossacks supporting the White Guards behave equally cruelly: they commit outrages, brutally deal with prisoners and their relatives, and also engage in looting.
The war forces Gregory to be away from home for a long time, away from Aksinya. When, finally, the Bolsheviks win, and the hero, tired of constant and meaningless battles, decides to flee with his beloved to Kuban, “the worst thing that could ever happen in his life” happens - Aksinya dies.
The death of his beloved woman completely devastates Gregory, his life becomes black, “like a steppe scorched by fires.” Only over time does the hero begin to be overcome by longing for his children, and he finally returns home. But here the man faces another heavy blow: he learns that his daughter Porlyushka died of scarlet fever.
And so, the only thing that remains with Gregory now, the only thing that still unites the hero with the earth is his little son Mishatka. And it is unclear what the Cossack should do now with his crippled life, where he should go and who he should become in this new unfamiliar country, in this “huge world shining under the cold sun.”
