Why the theme of the civil war was close to Sholokhov. The theme of the civil war in the works of Sholokhov

PLAN

Introduction…………………………………………………………………….3

1. Realism of the “Quiet Flows the Don”……………...……………………………………4

2. Reflection of the civil war in the novel……………..................................8

Conclusion………………………………………………………………..15

Literature………………………………………………………………...16

INTRODUCTION

Epic novel by M.A. Sholokhov "Quiet Don" is an epic work about the fate of the Russian Cossacks during the First World War and the Civil War, recognized as one of the pinnacles of Russian and world literature of the twentieth century. The novel tells about the most difficult time in the life of Russia, which brought huge social and moral upheavals. The unity - as it was in reality - of the tragic and heroic principles, expressed through the dramatic fate of the Cossacks, is the main historical originality and strength of the novel.

Showing the tragic events of the civil war on the Don, the writer created vivid, truthful, lively images of people who clashed in a fiercely irreconcilable struggle. People of relatives, relatives, fathers and sons who raised their hands against each other. He showed their cruelty and mercy, spiritual suffering and hopes, their souls, their characters, joys and misfortunes, defeats and victories. The tragic grandeur of their lives. And could the life of the Russian people be different in a critical, revolutionary era?

The purpose of this work is to study the theme of the civil war in the novel by M.A. Sholokhov "Quiet Don". In accordance with the goal, the research tasks are defined:

- to show the realism of "The Quiet Flows the Don";

- to show the reflection of the civil war in the novel.

The totality of the goal and the tasks set determined the following structure of the study, which consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and a list of references.

1. Realism of the "Quiet Flows the Don"

M.A. Sholokhov began writing The Quiet Flows the Don at the age of twenty in 1925 and completed in 1940. The book was conceived as a story, quite traditional for Soviet literature, about the fierce struggle for the victory of Soviet power on the Don in the autumn of 1917 - in the spring of 1918. Something similar was already in the "Don stories", which made up the first book of the writer. However, soon Sholokhov abandoned the original plan. And the whole first volume of his novel is about something else: about the life and way of life of the Don Cossacks.

A brief but energetic plot tells about the history of the Melekhov family from the middle of the 19th century, when, after the Russian-Turkish war, Prokofy Melekhov brought his Turkish wife to the farm; he loved her, carried her in his arms to the top of the mound, where they both "looked at the steppe for a long time"; and when a threat loomed over her, he defended with a saber in his hands. So, from the first pages, proud, capable of great feelings, freedom-loving people, workers and warriors appear in the novel.

In the terrible scene of the murder of the offender of his wife by Prokofy, another important idea for the writer is revealed: the protection of the clan, family, and offspring. Contrary to the tradition of Soviet writers of the 1920s to depict pre-revolutionary reality as a chain of horrors, Sholokhov frankly admires the life of the Cossacks. A living reality, the truthfulness of the depicted events of a large epic plan is given by very specific, juicy, full-blooded sketches of the life and way of life of the Cossacks of various historical periods. Sholokhov recreates the indestructible, inert way of life, the closed life of the "important kurens" of the pre-revolutionary years. “In every yard, surrounded by wattle fences, under every roof of every kuren, its own, isolated from the rest, full-blooded, bittersweet life was spinning like a bell.”

With all the smallest everyday details, the writer tells about this life of the inhabitants of kurens with its sorrows and joys, anxieties and worries. With colorful strokes, he paints pictures of mowing, folk festivals, youth games, their free Cossack songs about the glorious blue Don.

But Sholokhov the realist also shows the other side of pre-revolutionary Cossack life. And then the savagery, inertness, bestial cruelty of this possessive, closed little world is exposed. For a heap of hay, trampled by bulls, a Cossack, the sovereign master of the kuren, “ruined his wife” almost half to death. For treason, Stepan Astakhov “deliberately and terribly” beats his young beautiful wife Aksinya in front of indifferent neighbors watching this “spectacle”: “it’s very clear why Stepan favors his lawful one.”

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2. Reflection of the civil war in the novel

One of the favorite tricks of M.A. Sholokhov - a story-preliminary. So, at the end of the first chapter of the fifth part of the novel, we read: “Until January, they lived quietly on the Tatar farm. The Cossacks who returned from the front rested near their wives, ate, did not feel that at the thresholds of the kurens they were guarded by bitter misfortunes and hardships than those that they had to endure in the war they had gone through.

“The worst troubles” are a revolution and a civil war that broke the usual way of life. In a letter to Gorky, Sholokhov noted: "Without exaggerating my colors, I painted the harsh reality that preceded the uprising." The essence of the events depicted in the novel is truly tragic, they affect the fate of vast sections of the population. More than seven hundred characters, main and episodic, named by name and nameless, act in The Quiet Don; and the writer is concerned about their fate.

In 1917, the war turned into a bloody turmoil. This is no longer a national war requiring sacrificial duties from everyone, but a fratricidal war. With the onset of the revolutionary era, relations between classes and estates change dramatically, moral foundations and traditional culture are rapidly destroyed, and with them the state. The disintegration that was generated by the morality of war embraces all social and spiritual ties, brings society into a state of struggle of all against all, to the loss of the Fatherland and faith by people.

If we compare the face of the war depicted by the writer before this milestone and after it, then an increase in tragedy becomes noticeable, starting from the moment the world war turned into a civil one. The Cossacks, tired of the bloodshed, hope for its quick end, because the authorities "must end the war, because the people, and we do not want war." But there is still a long search for an answer to the question posed by Grigory Garanzhe: “How can you shorten the war? How to destroy it, since they have been fighting forever?

CONCLUSION

The novel by Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov "Quiet Flows the Don" is a masterpiece of world literature. In "Quiet Don"

LITERATURE

1. Vasilenko E.V. Towards death // Literature at school, 2004. - No. 5.

2. Ermolaev G.S. Mikhail Sholokhov and his work. - St. Petersburg: 2000.

3. Kiseleva L.F. On the importance of the key and dominant foundations of the artistic world of Sholokhov for the past and present // Philological Bulletin of the Rostov State University, 2005. - No. 2.

4. Kovalev V.A. etc. Essay on the history of Russian Soviet literature. Part two. – M.: 1955.

5. Ognev A. Don sun // Soviet Russia, 2005. - No. 70-71.

6. Semenova S. Philosophical and metaphysical facets of the "Quiet Don" // "Questions of Literature", 2002. - No. 1.

7. Tolstoy A.N. A quarter of a century of Soviet literature. – M.: 1943.

8. Sholokhov M.A. Sobr. cit.: In 8 vols. - M.: 1985-1986.

9. Yakimenko L.G. Creativity M.A. Sholokhov. – M.: 1977.

Civil war in the image of M. A. Sholokhov

In 1917, the war turned into a bloody turmoil. This is no longer a national war requiring sacrificial duties from everyone, but a fratricidal war. With the onset of the revolutionary era, relations between classes and estates change dramatically, moral foundations and traditional culture are rapidly destroyed, and with them the state. The disintegration that was generated by the morality of war embraces all social and spiritual ties, brings society into a state of struggle of all against all, to the loss of the Fatherland and faith by people.

If we compare the face of the war depicted by the writer before this milestone and after it, then an increase in tragedy becomes noticeable, starting from the moment the world war turned into a civil one. The Cossacks, tired of the bloodshed, hope for its quick end, because the authorities "must end the war, because the people, and we do not want war."

The First World War is portrayed by Sholokhov as a national disaster,

Sholokhov with great skill describes the horrors of war, crippling people both physically and morally. Death, suffering awaken sympathy and unite soldiers: people cannot get used to war. Sholokhov writes in the second book that the news of the overthrow of the autocracy did not evoke joyful feelings among the Cossacks, they reacted to it with restrained anxiety and expectation. The Cossacks are tired of the war. They dream of finishing it. How many of them have already died: not one Cossack widow voted for the dead. The Cossacks did not immediately understand the historical events. Having returned from the fronts of the world war, the Cossacks did not yet know what tragedy of the fratricidal war they would have to endure in the near future. The Upper Don uprising appears in the image of Sholokhov as one of the central events of the civil war on the Don.

There were many reasons. The Red Terror, the unjustified cruelty of the representatives of the Soviet authorities on the Don in the novel are shown with great artistic power. Sholokhov showed in the novel that the Upper Don uprising reflected a popular protest against the destruction of the foundations of peasant life and the centuries-old traditions of the Cossacks, traditions that became the basis of peasant morality and morality, which developed over the centuries, and passed down from generation to generation. The writer also showed the doom of the uprising. Already in the course of events, the people understood and felt their fratricidal character. One of the leaders of the uprising, Grigory Melekhov, declares: “But I think that we got lost when we went to the uprising.”

The epic covers a period of great upheavals in Russia. These upheavals had a strong impact on the fate of the Don Cossacks described in the novel. Eternal values ​​determine the life of the Cossacks as clearly as possible in that difficult historical period that Sholokhov reflected in the novel. Love for the native land, respect for the older generation, love for a woman, the need for freedom - these are the basic values ​​without which a free Cossack cannot imagine himself.

Depiction of the civil war as a tragedy of the people

Not only civil, any war for Sholokhov is a disaster. The writer convincingly shows that the cruelties of the civil war were prepared by the four years of the First World War.

Dark symbolism contributes to the perception of the war as a nationwide tragedy. On the eve of the declaration of war in Tatarsky, “at night, an owl roared in the bell tower. Unsteady and terrible cries hung over the farm, and the owl flew from the bell tower to the cemetery, soiled by calves, groaned over the brown, haunted graves.

“To be thin,” the old people prophesied, hearing owl voices from the cemetery.

“The war will come.”

The war broke into the Cossack kurens like a fiery tornado just at the time of harvesting, when the people cherished every minute. The orderly rushed in, raising a cloud of dust behind him. The fateful...

Sholokhov demonstrates how just one month of war changes people beyond recognition, cripples their souls, devastates them to the very bottom, makes them look at the world around them in a new way.

Here the writer describes the situation after one of the battles. In the middle of the forest, corpses are completely scattered. “They lay flat. Shoulder to shoulder, in various poses, often obscene and scary.

A plane flies by, drops a bomb. Next, Yegorka Zharkov crawls out from under the rubble: “The released intestines smoked, shimmering with pale pink and blue.”

This is the merciless truth of war. And what blasphemy over morality, reason, betrayal of humanism became under these conditions the glorification of the feat. The generals needed a "hero". And he was quickly “invented”: Kuzma Kryuchkov, who allegedly killed more than a dozen Germans. They even began to produce cigarettes with a portrait of the "hero". The press wrote about him excitedly.

Sholokhov tells about the feat in a different way: “But it was like this: people who collided on the field of death, who had not yet had time to break their hands in the destruction of their own kind, stumbled, knocked down in animal horror that declared them, delivered blind blows, mutilated themselves and horses and fled, frightened by a shot, killed a man, departed morally crippled.

They called it a feat."

People at the front are cutting each other in a primitive way. Russian soldiers hang like corpses on wire fences. German artillery destroys entire regiments to the last soldier. The ground is thickly stained with human blood. Everywhere settled hills of graves. Sholokhov created a mournful cry for the dead, cursed the war with irresistible words.

But even more terrible in the image of Sholokhov is the civil war. Because she is fratricidal. People of the same culture, one faith, one blood engaged in an unheard-of extermination of each other. This "conveyor belt" of senseless, terrible in terms of cruelty, murders, shown by Sholokhov, shocks to the core.

... Punisher Mitka Korshunov spares neither the old nor the young. Mikhail Koshevoy, satisfying his need for class hatred, kills his centenary grandfather Grishaka. Daria shoots the prisoner. Even Gregory, succumbing to the psychosis of the senseless destruction of people in the war, becomes a murderer and a monster.

There are many amazing scenes in the novel. One of them is the massacre of the podtelkovites over forty captured officers. “The shots were fired feverishly. The officers, colliding, rushed in all directions. A lieutenant with beautiful female eyes, in a red officer's hood, ran, clutching his head with his hands. The bullet made him jump high, as if through a barrier. He fell and didn't get up. The tall, brave Yesaul was cut down by two. He clutched at the blades of the checkers, blood poured from his cut palms onto his sleeves; he screamed like a child, fell on his knees, on his back, rolled his head in the snow; his face showed only bloodshot eyes and a black mouth drilled with a continuous scream. His flying checkers slashed across his face, along his black mouth, and he was still screaming in a voice thin with horror and pain. Having squatted over him, the Cossack, in an overcoat with a torn off strap, finished him off with a shot. The curly-haired cadet almost broke through the chain - he was overtaken and killed by some ataman with a blow to the back of the head. The same chieftain drove a bullet between the shoulder blades of the centurion, who was running in his overcoat, which had opened from the wind. The centurion sat down and scratched his chest with his fingers until he died. The gray-haired podsaul was killed on the spot; parting with his life, he kicked a deep hole in the snow and would have beaten like a good horse on a leash, if the pitying Cossacks had not finished it. These mournful lines are extremely expressive, filled with horror before what is being done. They are read with unbearable pain, with spiritual trepidation and carry the most desperate curse of a fratricidal war.

No less scary are the pages devoted to the execution of the "podtelkovtsy". People who at first “willingly” went to the execution “as if to a rare merry spectacle” and dressed up “as if for a holiday”, faced with the realities of a cruel and inhuman execution, are in a hurry to disperse, so that by the time the massacre of the leaders - Podtelkov and Krivoshlykov - there were completely few people.

However, Podtelkov is mistaken, presumptuously believing that people dispersed because of the recognition of his innocence. They could not endure the inhuman, unnatural spectacle of their violent death. Only God created man, and only God can take his life.

Two “truths” collide on the pages of the novel: the “truth” of the Whites, Chernetsov and other killed officers, thrown in the face of Podtelkov: “Traitor to the Cossacks! Traitor!" and the “truth” opposing it, Podtelkov, who thinks that he is defending the interests of the “working people.”

Blinded by their "truths", both sides mercilessly and senselessly, in some kind of demonic frenzy, exterminate each other, not noticing that there are fewer and fewer of those for whom they are trying to approve their ideas. Talking about the war, about the military life of the most combative tribe among the entire Russian people, Sholokhov, however, nowhere, not in a single line, praised the war. No wonder his book, as the well-known Sholokhov expert V. Litvinov notes, was banned by the Maoists, who considered war the best way to socially improve life on Earth. Quiet Don is a passionate denial of any such cannibalism. Love for people is incompatible with love for war. War is always a people's misfortune.

Death in the perception of Sholokhov is what opposes life, its unconditional principles, especially violent death. In this sense, the creator of The Quiet Flows the Don is a faithful successor to the best humanistic traditions of both Russian and world literature.

Despising the extermination of man by man in war, knowing what tests the moral sense is subjected to in front-line conditions, Sholokhov, at the same time, on the pages of his novel, painted the classic pictures of mental stamina, endurance and humanism that took place in the war. A humane attitude towards one's neighbor, humanity cannot be completely destroyed. This is evidenced, in particular, by many of the actions of Grigory Melekhov: his contempt for looting, the protection of the Pole Frani, the salvation of Stepan Astakhov.

The concepts of “war” and “humanity” are irreconcilably hostile to each other, and at the same time, against the backdrop of bloody civil strife, the moral possibilities of a person, how beautiful he can be, are especially clearly drawn. War severely examines the moral fortress, unknown to peaceful days.

(1905 - 1984)

1. The personality of the writer.

2. "Don stories".

3. The epic novel "Quiet Don". The image of G. Melekhov in the assessment of criticism. The problem of the authorship of The Quiet Flows the Don. The poetics of the novel.

4. "Virgin Soil Upturned".

5. "The fate of man."

The name of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov turned out to be a hot spot in the literature of the second half of the 20th century. The most controversial opinions were expressed about the works he created, the question of authorship was raised, and from time to time it escalated. The nature of the controversy around his work can be judged from numerous articles and monographs. Summing up the controversy, it should be said that there are many misunderstandings and contradictions. Sholokhov is the greatest writer of the 20th century, the most authoritative artist of the word.

M. A. Sholokhov was born in 1905, according to some reports in 1900. Father, a native of the Ryazan province, raznochinets, mother from peasants. He began to study at the Karginsky parochial school, continued his studies at the gymnasium, and left it during the civil war. From the age of 14 he fought on the side of the Reds, was a member of the food detachment. All the bloody events on the “quiet” Don were experienced by Sholokhov until the age of eighteen - he not only saw everything, but participated in many ways, was several times on the verge of death (no age gives experience of such emotional strength).

In October 1922, Mikhail Sholokhov left for Moscow. The path to literature was not easy. He worked as a loader, a bricklayer, served as an accountant. It was then, according to him, that "a real craving for literary work" appeared. Since 1923, Sholokhov began attending meetings of the Young Guard literary group, got acquainted with young writers - Artyom Vesely, Mikhail Svetlov, Yuri Libedinsky and others, tried himself in the genres of feuilleton, story. He stubbornly engaged in literature. The stay in Moscow was fruitful for Sholokhov. However, he was firmly connected with his small homeland. At the end of 1923, Mikhail Sholokhov left for the Don, where he married Maria Petrovna Gromoslavskaya, and the following year they arrived in Moscow, where he continues his creative work.

2. Creativity M.A. Sholokhov begins "Don stories"(1926) -8 stories ("Birthmark", "Kolovert", "Bakhchevnik", etc.). At the same time, a collection of short stories "Azure Steppe" was published, which included 12 stories ("Azure Steppe", "Nakhalenok", etc.). The main thing in these collections is the depiction of acute class and social conflicts. It happens that in these early stories "The Mole", "Alien Blood", "Shibalkov's Seed", etc.), the brother opposes the brother, the son opposes the father, the husband executes his wife. The civil war, especially on the Don and Kuban, proceeded very tragically, claimed many lives - we also find this drama in The Quiet Don. In the early works of Sholokhov, the strength of these conflicts is felt, and the social conflict grew into a family one. The author of the Don Stories was accused of "hate psychosis", moral "deafness", "romantic execution", erection in a cult of violence. But is it?

The best works by M.A. Sholokhov is characterized not only by historical, but also by psychological truth: the truth of characters and actions. There are few such stories, but they exist, for example, “Alien Blood”. It not only depicts an acute conflict of time, but also reveals the psychology of the individual, and at the same time the author traces the change of one mood to another (we are talking about the mood of old man Gavrila). Sholokhov portrayed the civil war on the Don as a bloody, fratricidal war, in which even the closest family ties collapsed. In the story "The Foal" one can feel the writer's philosophical thoughts about how unnatural war, blood, death of people are compared to the beauty and harmony of nature. And the foal is perceived as a piece of nature, an integral part of a peaceful life.

"Don stories" in terms of factual material, understanding the main conflict of the time, artistic skill was the approach to the theme of "Quiet Flows the Don". The originality of the style of the young Sholokhov manifested itself in the combination of drama and lyricism, in the depiction of the landscape. The nature of Sholokhov the artist is humanized, it is filled with sadness and anxiety. In the story "The Mole", the poetic image of the dark sun appears for the first time, which in "The Quiet Don" will become a symbol of the tragedy of Grigory Melekhov. The image of Don in the stories becomes a symbol of the Motherland, and in the epic it will be the main ideological core. The stories of M. Sholokhov were a significant stage in his work.

In 1924, Sholokhov returned to his homeland and settled forever in the village of Vyoshenskaya in order to constantly see the Don, listen to the sound of its waves, inhale the smells of the steppe, and live among the people.

3. Epic novel "Quiet Flows the Don" created from 1926 to 1940 . The first book appeared in 1928, the last in 1940. The first book of The Quiet Flows the Don (originally titled Donshchina) was completed in the spring of 1927, and the second in the fall. After their publication in the magazine "October" (1928, No. 1 - 10), it became clear that a writer of world significance entered the literature. M. Gorky noted that “Sholokhov, judging by the first volume, is talented ...”, and A.V. Lunacharsky called the still unfinished novel "a work of exceptional power in terms of the breadth of pictures, knowledge of life and people, in the bitterness of its plot."

The third book of The Quiet Don began to be published in 1929 (work on it went on from 1929 to 1931), but the publication was suspended several times - RAPP critics accused the writer of justifying the counter-revolutionary Upper Don Cossack uprising, which was discussed in this part of the epic . He was offered an ideological correction of events, which the author did not go for. Sholokhov sought to show the tragedy of each of the opposing sides in the Civil War. M. Sholokhov also had to make excuses for the ideological “reelings” of the protagonist: “I take Grigory as he is, as he really was ... I don’t want to deviate from historical truth.”

In terms of genre, The Quiet Flows the Don belonged to a new type of historical romance. Central problem - searching for a place in a changing world. The plot is full of drama. The novel intertwines many storylines, through the development of which the main socio-historical conflict of the work is refracted. Extra-plot elements are author's digressions, lyrical landscapes. A large-scale recreation of the epochal life of the people, the subordination of numerous storylines to them, the disclosure of the fate of the characters (more than 700) determine the genre originality - the polyphony of voices that carry their own truth of understanding the world. Exposition: the beginning of a love affair and the beginning of a social conflict - the relationship and interdependence of the storyline.

The structure of the epic is four books. The action in the first book (parts one, two and three) begins from 1912 to 1914, it describes the life of the Cossacks and the Melekhov family is brought to the fore, the formation of the character of the protagonist is presented; the action of the second book (parts four and five) begins in 1916 and ends in May 1918, its content is: The First Imperialist War and Revolution. In the third book (part six) in the center of the Upper Don rebellion, civil war, the fate of Grigory, Natalia, Aksinya; book four (parts seven and eight) is a picture of the destruction of a life established over the centuries. The action ends in 1922, when the civil war died down on the Don.

One of the characteristic features of the epic novel is the writer's appeal to the life of people, the depiction of the family, traditions, etc. In The Quiet Don, Sholokhov talks about family relationships, about how three families coexisted peacefully under one roof. Pictures of mowing and catching fish turn into independent scenes. Sholokhov tells about folk customs. The matchmaking scene, the marriage of Grigory Melekhov, is written out in all details. The author from a close distance tells about the relations of neighbors (Melekhovs and Astakhovs), relations in the farm. In the 1st and 2nd parts of the novel, where interest in everyday life is especially noticeable, features of the national character are revealed.

The image of everyday life allows M. Sholokhov to touch upon the deepest problems - the problems of the stratification of society, to discover serious conflicts. Talking about the Tatar farm, Sholokhov seems to catch a glimpse of the fact that the neighbors have been fighting each other for seven years. The author also draws attention to the fact that the farm was ambivalent about the arrival of Shtokman. Some rebelled, treated him with hostility, but among the farmers there are those who are ready to listen to these evening conversations.

The relationship between the Melekhov and Korshunov families is perceived in a special way. Pantelei Prokofievich Melekhov knows his worth and tries to save his face in any situation. But one cannot help but pay attention to the timidity that he experiences in the Korshunov house when he acts as a matchmaker (Melekhov guesses that he is no match for the rich owner Korshunov). It should also be noted that there is a peculiar beginning, an inserted short story about the father of Panteley Prokofievich, about his tragic fate. This story is a kind of prologue to the fate of Gregory.

Turning to everyday life, Sholokhov leads the reader to the conclusion that the Don society was not so united in its moods, that the Don began to be torn apart by contradictions. Here Sholokhov disagrees with bourgeois historiography, which proves that there was no ground for contradictions on the Don, and the Don Cossacks were free and prosperous, did not know serfdom, and later it was concluded that the revolution on the Don was not an organic phenomenon, that the Don did not come to the revolution, and the revolution - to the Don. Therefore, the uprising of 1919 is explained by the fact that the revolution was imposed from the outside, and in 1919 the Don defended his freedom. So Sholokhov's main idea was to create a true image of the people in a critical era.

The national character reveals itself in the special diligence of Natalya, Grigory, Pantelei Prokofievich. Grigory, in the saddest moment, will say that the only thing his thought is connected with is peasant worries, and everything else is tired. Drawing a portrait of Natalya, Sholokhov draws the reader's attention to "large hands crushed by work." The image of the people and its features are found in the fury of Panteley Prokofievich, in the pride of Aksinya, in the motherly wisdom of Ilyinichna. Sholokhov was paramount not only to create an image from individual strokes, sketches, but the attitude of the people themselves to the ongoing events was important to him: the imperialist and civil wars, the revolution, and socio-political changes in the Don. We are talking about imperialist war even when the farm says goodbye to the young Cossacks who are going to the army. Here one hears the dreary sorrowful "today feeds, the bread is ripe - it is necessary to clean it up." Officers argue about the war, but it is important for Sholokhov to show the perception of the rank and file, those who are on the front line. The people's environment also gives birth to Mikhail Koshevoy, who, unlike Grigory, accepted the truth of the Bolsheviks, and therefore is ready to take revenge and kill former friends for the idea.

So, at the end of 1926, Mikhail Sholokhov began his main book - Quiet Flows the Don. Trips around the Don farms, conversations with old-timers, work in the archives of Rostov - "material and nature", as the writer said, were at hand.

Image Grigory Melekhov connects the private world of family, home and the vast earthly world. Grigory Melekhov attracts the reader with a deep nationality and originality. Since childhood, he was brought up love for the earth, nature, wildlife. Somehow, by chance, while mowing, he cut a wild duck with a scythe and suffers from this. The author endows him with such character traits: he is wild, he has an indefatigable temperament, at the same time he is sensitive, observant. Grigory is a strong-willed nature (he took the first prize at horse races), he was handsome and stately. He was respected for his love for the household, work. At the beginning of the story, he is a nineteen-year-old boy. For the sake of his goal, he goes ahead: he fell in love with his neighbor's wife Aksinya, with her "vicious beauty", "he looked after her with bully perseverance ...", broke all the barriers on the way to her. They married not of their own free will, and Gregory did not want to come to terms with this. He cannot go against himself. Natalya is not sweet to him: “I don’t love you, Natasha.” Unable to overcome the passion for Aksinya, Grigory leaves home with her. An unprecedented thing - a free Cossack goes as a farm laborer to Pan Lesnitsky.

As a young father, wayward, obedient not to customs, but to his heart, he leaves for the service, goes to war. With all his being, Gregory resisted lies, violence, injustice. He is having a hard time with his first fight, he imagines the "Austrian" whom he cut down. "I'm tired of my soul." He not only acts, but thinks about the causes of what is happening. Grigory Melekhov witnesses how Silantyev dies, "saw how he fell, hugging the blue distance ...". The senselessness of the war gives rise to certain moods among the Cossacks, a negative attitude towards the war. At the same time, Grigory managed to preserve the dignity of a person in the war - he helps Aksinya's husband, the wounded Stepan Astakhov, get out of the battlefield, tries to protect the servant Franya from the brutalized Cossacks, denounces Chubatov for the senseless execution of a captured Austrian, but he also becomes hardened, ceases to understand the boundaries of goodness and evil, loses the ability to feel happiness.

Gregory meets on his life path both with fictional characters, and with those who have real historical prototypes - Poznyakov, Budyonny, the imperial family. His endless throwing leads to his beloved woman, to his home, to children. Gregory's personality traits are spiritual quest and depth of experience.

Gregory did not have even and smooth roads. In 1917, Grigory Melekhov decides what to do: return home to the Don or go with the Reds. He, focusing on the mood of the Cossacks, at the beginning of 1918 fought on the side of the Reds and received the rank of colonel. Returning to the farm, he feels spiritual discord. Again the question arose: “To whom to lean?”. Gregory finds himself involuntarily in another camp again. Cruelty is becoming a terrible norm. Unable to stand it, he returns home again, "half gray". And again joins the Red Army, where he commands a squadron. Then the choice fell in favor of "peaceful life", but in the village he was persecuted as a "white, Cossack officer." Grigory falls into Fomin's gang, but cannot stand the senseless cruelty, leaves the gang of deserters, runs away to start a new life.

Love for Aksinya Astakhova, difficult and sinful, Grigory will carry through his whole life. Their love has withstood many trials: passion, betrayal and endless separation. When Grigory and Aksinya seemed to have united after long torments (they were running away from the farm together), a tragedy occurred - a stray bullet took from him the creature dearest to him: “Grigory, dying of horror, realized that everything was over, that the worst thing that could only to happen in his life - it has already happened ... ". Grigory loses his Aksinya forever, and with her attachment to life, hope. After burying his beloved woman, he "raised his head and saw above him a black sky and a dazzlingly shining black disk of the sun." "The black disk of the sun" - a poetic image of monumental power, emphasizes the terrible loss.

There was no need for him to rush now. Everything was over. Grigory returns to the stirrup of the Quiet Don at the moment of the coming spring, throws weapons and cartridges into the "spiny ice" and even from a distance notices his son Mishatka. “Kneeling down, kissing his son’s pink cold hands, he repeated only one word in a choked voice:

“Son… son… That was all he had left in his life.”

The end of the novel has a philosophical sound. The final symbolizes not only parting with the past, but also the idea of ​​continuing life. Mikhail Sholokhov left his hero on the threshold of new life trials. What are his paths? How will his life turn out? The writer does not answer these questions, but makes the reader think.

One of the features of The Quiet Flows the Don is Sholokhov's attitude to the people's fate and personality. Therefore, the author singled out a bright representative of the people - Grigory Melekhov. G. Melekhov represents the people, the people's attitude to truth and cruelty, to war, to life. There is no doubt that the image of Melekhov is a great artistic discovery of M. Sholokhov. This is the most complex image in literature.

The image of G. Melekhov in the assessment of criticism. Since 1940, since the release of the novel, there have been rather sharp disputes in literary criticism about the image of Grigory Melekhov. There were, as it were, two directions in the assessment of the hero. In the first case, researchers (L. Yakimenko and others) emphasized that Grigory was gradually at odds with his people and turned into a “renegade”, that Melekhov, on this path of divergence, was gradually losing those attractive qualities of nature that he had at the beginning. In the works of the 1940s-1950s, this image was interpreted with a minus sign.

The second concept, formed in the 1960s, "removed" the blame from Melekhov. V. Kovalev spoke out against critics who believed that Sholokhov was mainly busy exposing the weaknesses of the people's character, he was against the theory of apostasy. F. Biryukov argued with those who saw in the novel a violation of historical truth (Yakimenko, Gura and others) - this concerned the episode of Podtelkov's lynching of Cherentsov. According to Biryukov, Sholokhov followed the truth of history and destroyed only the straightforward schemes of the enemies of the revolution. The Quiet Don reflects all the complexity of life, when subjective honesty could turn into a betrayal of the people (Kaledin) and when the unscrupulousness of the leader cast a shadow on the communists (Podtelkov). A. Britikov urged not to simplify the organic social duality of the protagonist of The Quiet Flows the Don.

The tragedy of Melekhov was fully explained as a historical error, and a conclusion was made about the tragic fate of man. The authors who share this concept, Khvatov, Biryukov, Petelin, with a certain difference between them, emphasized the circumstance that pushed the hero onto this path, onto the path of Grigory entering the Fomin gang and proving that Grigory is not a loner, not a renegade, and not guilty if the peasant-worker could not figure out what was happening. Grigory Melekhov, in search of the truth, stood on the verge of two principles, denying both of them, without realizing that the third was not given.

Shcherbina spoke about the inconsistency of the character of Sholokhov's hero, and Metchenko called G. Melekhov "an artistic type of the era." Ultimately, literary critics conclude that the hero is tragic.

At present, it would be naive to analyze the arguments of L. Yakimenko and those who tried to prove that Grigory broke up with the people - they are unconvincing. Those who spoke of renegade paid attention to the tragic ending of the protagonist. This, of course, makes sense, but also a tragedy. Grigory Melekhov testifies that the writer places high demands on his hero, and at the same time speaks of responsibility for the crime committed, and yet the finale leads to the conclusion that the author trusts his hero. In order to understand the essence of Melekhov's tragedy, it is necessary to understand the author's attitude to this image, and which cannot be replaced (as Yakimenko did) with an attitude towards any of the heroes. Sholokhov's attitude to G. Melekhov arises at the intersection of views on Grigory of other actors: mother, Natalia, Aksinya, Koshevoy, Shtokman, etc.

Of course, we take into account the Bolshevik Koshevoy's idea of ​​Grigory, but we also take into account the attitude of his mother towards Grigory. It is no coincidence that Ilyinichna singled out the youngest among other children. There is a magnificent scene in the novel, which is perceived through the eyes of Aksinya: the mother wants to meet Grigory before her death.

The truth is manifested both in sympathy for Gregory and in his condemnation, the measure of exactingness and the measure of trust. The tragedy of the image is seen in the fact that he is a person of a certain life experience and it is difficult for him to understand in the name of what sacrifices, sufferings. He does not accept these sufferings and therefore seeks his truth from the Reds, then from the Whites, but strives to go his own way. In such a situation, it is impossible to explain the contradictions of the hero by social position.

Throwing Grigory Melekhov explained by the complexity of his situation, the inconsistency of time and the fact that a man who knew only the peasant business, was not able to understand these events, could not decide "where to go." His throwing is “not his fault, but his misfortune” (S.I. Sheshukov). And at the same time, Grigory Melekhov is a modern person, and the choice of a life path imposes responsibility for his actions. The fate of Melekhov shows that the people fought on the side of the Reds and the Whites ”(P. Palievsky). Gregory's throwing is not only personal contradictions, but also contradictions of being.

It should be emphasized that continuity in fiction was manifested in the fact that in national literatures characters were created (like Grigory Melekhov), where different shades of the struggle between good and evil, tragic throwings, were dialectically complex. For example, the image of Kazgirey Matkhanov by Alim Keshokov. It brings together heroes and unity with the people.

The author does not reduce the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" to the image of Grigory Melekhov. Women's images carry a special meaning in the novel - they continue the traditions of Russian classical literature. Each of them has its own unique world, its own suffering and joy, its own pain of the soul. Sholokhov at a new historical stage shows a collective image of a Russian woman. It would be unfair to bring out the characteristics of individual heroines or oppose one another. The images of Sholokhov, both female and male, are of world-historical significance.

One of the manifestations of the heroic are the principles of Sholokhov's portrayal of the people, a man from the people. The author reveals the people in typical terms and does not show the feat of the people either in the unjust imperialist war, or in the White Cossack uprising, "the inglorious war against the Russian people." This is the writer's concept of achievement, heroism.

The problem of the authorship of The Quiet Flows the Don. Why was the authorship of Mikhail Sholokhov's novel questioned? For the first time, rumors and hints that the author had used someone else's manuscript arose in 1928, when the October magazine published the first two books of The Quiet Flows the Don - they immediately brought All-Russian and international fame to Mikhail Sholokhov.

Amazement, followed by suspicion, caused the age of the author - Mikhail Sholokhov was only twenty-two years old at the time of the publication of the first book of The Quiet Flows the Don, and he finished the second at twenty-three. It seemed, where did such a maturity of judgment and such a brilliant mastery of literary form come from as a very young man? They could not accept this phenomenon. A version arose about a certain white officer who allegedly wrote on the roads of the Civil War and then lost the manuscript of the book, and Sholokhov found it and “appropriated it”. A special commission was created, where Mikhail Sholokhov was supposed to submit drafts of The Quiet Flows the Don. When he introduced them, the suspicions immediately dissipated.

In 1965, after Mikhail Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize, old rumors surfaced. However, the main argument for Sholokhov's "plagiarism" was the absence of the manuscript of The Quiet Flows the Don, which was lost during the Great Patriotic War.

Interest in the problem was later fueled by the book by I. Tomashevskaya, The Stirrup of the Quiet Don, who appeared under the pseudonym D * (Paris, 1974), with a preface and afterword by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a book by Roy Medvedev (1975), journal articles. A wave of relevant publications swept through the pages of Russian periodicals during the times of perestroika "sensations".

The book "Who wrote" Quiet Flows the Don "? (The problem of the authorship of The Quiet Don). - M., 1989) - translation of the 1982 edition of the work of the Swedish-Norwegian research group: G. Khiesto, S. Gustavsson and others, who conducted a computer analysis of the study of a literary text in a foreign computer center (since Sholokhov is a Nobel Prize winner). The author's speech of Sholokhov ("Quiet Don", "Virgin Soil Upturned", "Don Stories") and the Cossack writer Fyodor Kryukov were analyzed. Scientists in this work presented the results of their analysis: tables, diagrams, etc. and came to the following conclusion that Sholokhov and Kryukov have a different vocabulary structure, frequency of word usage, sentence length, that is, the style of F. Kryukov is completely different from M. Sholokhov , and Sholokhov writes strikingly similar to the author of The Quiet Flows the Don. Thus, the authorship of The Quiet Flows the Don is concretely proved. At this stage, this issue was suspended and no longer caused the previous discussions.

In 1999, a manuscript of The Quiet Flows the Don was found in one of the editions in Moscow. On December 4, 1999, Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by the director of the A.M. Gorky (IMLI) Felix Kuznetsov "Who held Mikhail Sholokhov hostage?". It reported that IMLI managed to find and acquire the manuscripts of the first and second books of The Quiet Flows the Don, which were considered lost: “The manuscript has 885 pages. Of these, 605 were written by M.A. Sholokhov, 280 pages copied in white by the hand of the writer's wife Maria Petrovna Sholokhova and, apparently, her sisters; many of these pages contain edits by M. A. Sholokhov. The pages written by M. A. Sholokhov include drafts, versions and white pages, as well as sketches and inserts for certain parts of the text.

To rise above the everyday and to see the historical distance means to become the ruler of the thoughts of your time, to embody the main conflicts and images of a vast historical period, touching the so-called "eternal themes". M. A. Sholokhov declared himself not only in Russian, but also in world literature, reflecting the era in his work more strongly and more dramatically than many other writers were able to do.

In 1928, Mikhail Sholokhov published the first book of The Quiet Flows the Don, the second in 1929, the third in 1933, and the fourth in early 1940. In Sholokhov's epic novel, Tolstoy's epic principle dominates: "to seize everything." On the pages of Sholokhov's narrative, various layers of Russian society are represented: poor and rich Cossacks, merchants and intelligentsia, nobility and professional military. Sholokhov wrote: "I would be happy if, behind the description ... of the life of the Don Cossacks, the reader ... considered something else: the colossal shifts in everyday life, life and human psychology that occurred as a result of the war and revolution." The Sholokhov epic reflects a decade of Russian history (1912-1922) at one of its steepest breaks. Soviet power brought with it a terrible, incomparable tragedy - a civil war. A war that does not leave anyone aside, cripples human destinies and souls. A war that forces a father to kill his son, a husband to raise his hand against his wife, against his mother. The blood of the guilty and the innocent flows like a river.

In M. Sholokhov's epic novel "The Quiet Don", one of the episodes of this war is shown - the war on the Don land. It was on this land that the history of the civil war reached that drama and clarity that makes it possible to judge the history of the entire war.

According to M. Sholokhov, the natural world, the world of people living freely, loving and working on earth, is beautiful, and everything that destroys this world is terrible, ugly. No violence, the author believes, can be justified by anything, even by the most seemingly just idea in the name of which it is committed. Everything that is connected with violence, death, blood and pain cannot be beautiful. He has no future. Only life, love, mercy have a future. They are eternal and significant at all times. Therefore, the scenes describing the horrors of the civil war, scenes of violence and murders are so tragic in the novel. The struggle of the Whites and Reds on the Don, captured by Sholokhov in the epic novel, is full of even more tragedy and senselessness than the events of the First World War. Yes, it could not be otherwise, because now those who grew up together, were friends, whose families had lived side by side for centuries, whose roots had long been intertwined, were killing each other.

The civil war, like any other, tests the essence of man. A decrepit grandfather, a participant in the Turkish war, instructing the young, advised: "Remember one thing: if you want to be alive, get out of a mortal battle whole - you must observe human truth." "Human truth" is an order that has been verified by the Cossacks for centuries: "Do not take someone else's in the war - once. God forbid touching women, and you need to know such a prayer." But in a civil war, all these commandments are violated, once again emphasizing its anti-human nature. Why were these horrific murders committed? Why did brother go against brother, and son against father? Some killed in order to live on their land as they were used to, others - in order to establish a new system that seemed to them more correct and fair, still others - performed their military duty, forgetting about the main human duty to life itself - just to live; there were also those who killed for the sake of military glory and career. Was the truth on either side? Sholokhov in his work shows that both Reds and Whites are equally cruel and inhuman. The scenes depicting the atrocities of both seem to mirror and balance each other.

Moreover, this applies not only to the description of the military operations themselves, but also to pictures of the destruction of prisoners, looting and violence against the civilian population. There is no truth on either side - Sholokhov emphasizes again and again. And that is why the fate of young people involved in bloody events is so tragic. That is why the fate of Grigory Melekhov, a typical representative of the young generation of the Don Cossacks, is so tragic, painfully deciding "with whom to be" ...

The family of Grigory Melekhov appeared in the novel as that microcosm in which, as in a mirror, both the tragedy of the entire Cossacks and the tragedy of the whole country were reflected. The Melekhovs were a typical Cossack family, they possessed all the typical qualities inherent in the Cossacks, unless these qualities manifested themselves more clearly in them. In the Melekhov family, everyone is wayward, stubborn, independent and courageous. They all love work, their land and their quiet Don. The civil war breaks into this family when both sons, Peter and Grigory, are taken to the front. Both of them are real Cossacks, in which diligence, military courage and valor are harmoniously combined. Peter has a simpler view of the world. He wants to become an officer, he does not disdain to deprive the vanquished of anything that can be useful in the economy. Gregory, on the other hand, is endowed with a heightened sense of justice, he will never allow the weak and defenseless to be abused, to appropriate "trophies" for himself, senseless murder is disgusting to his being. Grigory is, of course, the central figure in the Melekhov family, and the tragedy of his personal fate is intertwined with the tragedy of his family and friends.

During the civil war, the Melekhov brothers tried to step aside, but were forced into this bloody action. The whole horror lies in the fact that there was no timely force that could explain the current situation to the Cossacks: divided into two warring camps, the Cossacks, in essence, fought for the same thing - for the right to work on their land in order to feed their children, and not shed blood on the holy Don land. The tragedy of the situation is also in the fact that the civil war and general devastation destroyed the Cossack world not only from the outside, but also from the inside, introducing disagreements into family relations. These disagreements also affected the Melekhov family. The Melekhovs, like many others, do not see a way out of this war, because no power - neither white nor red, can give them land and freedom, which they need like air.

The tragedy of the Melekhov family is not limited to the tragedy of Peter and Grigory. The fate of the mother, Ilyinichna, who lost her son, husband, and both daughters-in-law, is also sad. Her only hope is her son Gregory, but deep down she feels that he has no future either. The moment is filled with tragedy when Ilyinichna sits at the same table with the murderer of her son, and how unexpectedly she forgives and accepts Koshevoy, whom she hates so much!

But the most tragic in the Melekhov family, of course, is the fate of Grigory. He, who has a heightened sense of justice, who experiences the contradictions of the world more than others, had a chance to experience all the fluctuations of the average Cossacks in the civil war. Fighting on the side of the whites, he feels his inner alienation from those who lead them, the reds are also alien to him by nature. The only thing he strives for with all his soul is peaceful labor, peaceful happiness in his land. But military honor and duty oblige him to take part in the war. Gregory's life is a continuous chain of bitter losses and disappointments. At the end of the novel, we see him devastated, exhausted by the pain of loss, without hope for the future.

For many years, criticism convinced readers that in depicting the events of those years, Sholokhov was on the side of the revolution, and the writer himself fought, as you know, on the side of the Reds. But the laws of artistic creativity forced him to be objective and to say in the work what he denied in his public speeches: the civil war unleashed by the Bolsheviks, which broke strong and hardworking families, broke the Cossacks, was only a prologue to that great tragedy into which the country would plunge on many years.

K. Fedin highly appreciated the work of M. Sholokhov in general and the novel "Quiet Don" in particular. “The merit of Mikhail Sholokhov is enormous,” he wrote, “in the courage that is inherent in his works. He never avoided the contradictions inherent in life ... His books show the struggle in the fullness of the past and present. And I involuntarily recall the testament of Leo Tolstoy given to himself even in his youth, a covenant not only not to lie directly, but not to lie negatively - silently. Sholokhov does not remain silent, he writes the whole truth.

The Quiet Don is an epic novel in which M. Sholokhov, relying on strictly verified historical material, reproduces the true picture of Don life in turbulent times from 1912 to 1922. The reality of Russia put at the disposal of the author conflicts that mankind did not yet know. The old world is completely destroyed by the revolution, it is being replaced by a new social system. All this led to a qualitatively new solution to such "eternal" issues as man and history, war and peace, personality and the masses. "Quiet Flows the Don" is called an epic tragedy. And not only because the tragic character - Grigory Melekhov, is placed in the center, but also because tragic motives permeate the novel from beginning to end. This is a tragedy both for those who did not understand the meaning of the revolution and opposed it, and for those who succumbed to deception. This is the tragedy of many Cossacks who were drawn into the Veshensky uprising in 1919, the tragedy of the defenders of the revolution, who are dying for the cause of the people. This is the tragedy of the revolution and the Civil War, revealed through the fate of the heroes of the novel.

The people, their past, present and future, their happiness - this is the main theme of the writer's thoughts. How the revolution changes not only the social system, but also the consciousness of people, how it affects their fate - these are the questions that the heroes of the novel and the author answer.

“Melekhovsky yard is on the very edge of the farm,” this is how the epic novel begins, and throughout the story Sholokhov will tell us about the inhabitants of this yard. A line of defense passes through the Melekhovs' courtyard, it is occupied either by the Reds or the Whites, but the father's house will forever remain the place where the closest people live, always ready to receive and warm. The life of the inhabitants of the house appears in the interweaving of contradictions, attraction and struggle. It can be said that the whole Melekhov family found itself at the crossroads of great historical events, bloody clashes. The revolution and the Civil War bring drastic changes to the established family and everyday life of the Melekhovs: the usual family ties are collapsing, new morality and morality are born. The author of "The Quiet Flows the Don" reveals the inner world of a man from the people, recreates the Russian national character of the era of revolutionary rift.

The beginning of the novel depicts the life and customs of the Cossack village on the eve of the First World War. It would seem that nothing portends future upheavals. The life of the Cossack farm Tatarsky flows peacefully and calmly. The writer shows us that the traditions of the Cossacks include universal moral values. The world in which the Cossacks live is filled with colors, saturated with the beauty of their native nature.

The main characters of the novel are people with bright individual characters, strong passions, and difficult destinies. Grigory Melekhov, whose moral character and thorny life path are shown most deeply in the novel, is not accidental at the center of the novel. His life searches reflected the fate of the entire Don Cossacks in this difficult time.

From childhood, Gregory absorbs the craving for free peasant labor, concern for strengthening the economy, for the family. With great skill, M. Sholokhov portrayed the complex character of Grigory Melekhov. He is a gifted person, even in his delusions he is sincere and honest. He never sought his own benefit, did not succumb to the temptation of profit and career. Being mistaken, Gregory shed a lot of blood of those who claimed a new life for. earth. His guilt is undeniable. He himself is aware of it. However, Gregory cannot be approached unambiguously. With a special penetration, Sholokhov showed the difficult path of the protagonist. At the beginning of the epic, this is an eighteen-year-old guy - cheerful, strong, handsome. Gregory is an exceptionally whole, pure nature. It is illuminated by light, as if coming from different sources - here is the code of Cossack honor, and intense peasant labor, and daring in folk games and festivities, and familiarization with the rich Cossack folklore, and a feeling of first love. Courage and courage, nobility and generosity towards the defeated, contempt for cowardice and cowardice, brought up from generation to generation, determined Grigory's behavior in all life circumstances. In the troubled days of revolutionary events, he makes many mistakes. But on the path of searching for the truth, the Cossack is sometimes unable to comprehend the iron logic of the revolution, its internal laws. Grigory Melekhov is a proud, freedom-loving personality and at the same time a philosopher-truth seeker. For him, the greatness and inevitability of the revolution must be revealed and proved by the entire subsequent code of life. Melekhov dreams of such a system of life in which a person would be rewarded by the measure of his mind, labor and talent.

On the pages of the novel, Sholokhov shows examples of class confrontation. We see how the life paths of former friends Grigory Melekhov and Mikhail Koshevoy, who is imbued with the political views of the Bolsheviks, diverge. Unlike Gregory, he does not experience doubts and hesitation. The idea of ​​justice, equality and fraternity takes over Koshev so much that he no longer considers friendship, love, family. Despite the fact that Gregory is his old friend and brother of his wife, he insists on his arrest. And, wooing Grigory's sister Dunyashka, he completely pays no attention to Ilyinichna's anger. But he shot her son Peter. Nothing is sacred to this man. He does not even allow himself to relax and enjoy the beauty of his native land. “There, people decide their own and other people's fate, and I feed the fillies. How so? You have to leave, otherwise it will suck you in, ”Mishka thinks when he works as a farmer. Such a fanatical service to the idea, an unshakable confidence in the correctness of their thoughts and actions is also characteristic of other heroes portrayed by Sholokhov in the novel. Another Grigory Melekhov. This is an outstanding personality, a thinking, searching person. During the First World War, he fought bravely at the front, even received the St. George Cross. He faithfully fulfilled his duty. The October Revolution and the Civil War that followed led Sholokhov's hero into disarray. Now he no longer knows who is right, on whose side to fight. He is trying to make his choice. And what? At first, he fights for the Reds, but their killing of unarmed prisoners repels him. And when the Bolsheviks come to his homeland, he fiercely fights them. But the search for truth by this Sholokhov hero never leads to anything, turning his life into a drama. We see a man lost in the cycle of events.

The whole essence of Gregory resists violence against a person, which repels him from both the Reds and the Whites. “They are all the same! he says to his childhood friends leaning towards the Bolsheviks. “They are all a yoke around the neck of the Cossacks!” And when Grigory 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 thinks: “As if there were no days of searching for the truth, trials, transitions and heavy internal struggle. What was there to think about? Why was the soul tossed about - in search of a way out, in resolving contradictions? Life seemed mocking, wisely simple. Gregory comes to understand that “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 continue to fight ... We must fight with those who want to take life, the right to it. But even this truth of life is still not to his liking. He cannot look with indifference at unharvested wheat, uncut bread, empty threshing floors, thinking about how women are torn from overwork at a time when men are waging a senseless war. Why can't you live in peace on your own land and work for yourself, for your family? This question is asked by Grigory Melekhov, and in his person - all the Cossacks, who dream of free labor in their native land. Gregory hardens, falls into despair. He is forcibly torn away from everything that is dear to him: from home, family, loving people. He is forced to kill people for ideas that he cannot understand... The hero comes to the realization that "life is going wrong", but he cannot change anything. Although he wants with all his heart that there should be harmony in the Cossack world.

Human life is priceless, and no one has the right to dispose of it even in the name of the most noble and lofty ideas. The hero came to this conclusion as a result of life ordeals. Sholokhov leads the reader to the same thought, who returns us with his novel to the tragic pages of Russian history. In the novel "Quiet Flows the Don", the author affirms a simple truth, telling us that the meaning of human life lies in work, in love, in caring for children. It is these values ​​that underlie the morality of the Cossacks, whose tragic fate at the beginning of the 20th century is so fully and widely shown by Sholokhov in his wonderful novel. The tragedy of the revolution, apparently, lies in the fact that, setting itself the goal of making everyone happy, it destroys the happiness of the family, at home. The civil war exacerbates the tragedy of the situation by bringing people who used to be close and dear to face to face, forcing them to fight against each other. Grigory Melekhov and other heroes of the novel had to go through all this tragedy in full measure.