What Grigory Melekhov says about power. Composition on the topic: The fate of Grigory Melekhov in the novel Quiet Don, Sholokhov. Gregory didn't have to fire his rifle
Mikhail Sholokhov for the first time in literature with such breadth and scope showed the life of the Don Cossacks and the revolution. The best features of the Don Cossack are expressed in the image of Grigory Melekhov. "Grigory firmly protected the Cossack honor." He is a patriot of his land, a man who is 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 Bazka, the village of Veshenskaya Kharlampy Vasilyevich Ermakov.
Mikhail Sholokhov for the first time in literature with such breadth and scope showed the life of the Don Cossacks and the revolution.
The best features of the Don Cossack are expressed in the image of Grigory Melekhov. "Grigory firmly protected the Cossack honor." He is a patriot of his land, a man who is 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 Bazka, the village of Veshenskaya Kharlampy Vasilyevich Ermakov.
Gregory comes from a middle-class family, which is used 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. Labor was his need. More than once during the war, with dull anguish, Grigory recalled close people, his native farm, work in the fields: “It would be nice to take hold of the chapigi with your hands and go along the wet furrow behind the plow, greedily absorbing with your nostrils the damp and insipid smell of loosened earth, the bitter aroma of grass cut by a plowshare ".
Grigory Melekhov's deep humanity is revealed in a difficult family drama, in the trials of war. His character is characterized by a heightened sense of justice. During haymaking, Grigory hit the nest with a scythe, cut a wild duckling. With a feeling of acute pity, Grigory looks at the dead lump lying on his palm. In this feeling of pain, that love for all living things, for people, for nature, which distinguished Gregory, was manifested.
Therefore, it is natural that Gregory, thrown into the heat of the war, experiences his first battle hard and painfully, cannot forget the Austrian he killed. “I cut down a man in vain and I’m sick through him, a reptile, with my soul,” he complains to his brother Peter.
During World War I, Gregory fought bravely, he was the first to receive the St. George Cross from the farm, without thinking about why he shed blood.
In the hospital, Gregory met the smart and caustic Bolshevik soldier Garanzha. Under the fiery power of his words, the foundations on which Gregory's consciousness rested began to smoke.
His search for truth begins, which from the very beginning takes on a clear socio-political connotation, he has to choose between two different forms of government. Gregory was tired of the war, of this hostile world, he was seized by a desire to return to a peaceful farm life, to plow the land and take care of the cattle. The obvious nonsense of the war awakens in him restless thoughts, melancholy, acute discontent.
The war did not bring Gregory anything good. Sholokhov, focusing on the internal transformations of the hero, writes the following: “With cold contempt, he played with someone else's life and with his own life ... he knew that he would no longer laugh at him, as before; he knew that his eyes were hollow and his cheekbones were sharp; he knew that it was difficult for him, kissing a child, to openly look into clear eyes; Gregory knew what price he had paid for the full bow of crosses and production.
During the revolution, Gregory's search for truth continues. After an argument with Kotlyarov and Koshev, where the hero declares that the propaganda of equality is just a 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 truth 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 the 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 the Reds.
The prospect of being shot seems to Grigory an unfair punishment due to his service in the 1st cavalry army of Budyonny (Fought on the side of the Cossacks during the Vyoshensky uprising of 1919, then the Cossacks united with the whites, and after surrendering in Novorossiysk, Grigory was no longer needed), and he decides to get away from arrest . This flight signifies Gregory's final break with the Bolshevik regime. The Bolsheviks did not justify his trust, 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 let him down in a more reprehensible way than the Whites, who did not have enough steamers to evacuate all the troops from Novorossiysk. These two betrayals are the climax of Gregory's political odyssey in book 4. They justify his moral rejection of each of the warring parties and set off his tragic position.
The treacherous attitude towards Gregory on the part of the Whites and Reds is in sharp contrast to the constant loyalty of 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”, Grigory’s checker served him “correctly”).
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 once again his native farm and his children. “Then it would be possible to die,” he thinks (at the age of 30) that he has no illusions about what awaits him in Tatarsky. When the desire to see the children becomes irresistible, he goes to his native farm. The last sentence of the novel says that the son and home are "all that is left in his life, which still made him related to his family and to the whole ... world."
Grigory's love for Aksinya illustrates the author's view of the predominance of natural impulses in man. Sholokhov's attitude to nature clearly shows that he, like Grigory, does not consider war to be the most reasonable way to solve socio-political problems.
Sholokhov's judgments about Grigory, known from the press, differ greatly from each other, since their content depends on the political climate of the time. In 1929, in front of workers from Moscow factories: "Grigory, in my opinion, is a kind of symbol of the middle peasants of the Don Cossacks."
And in 1935: “Melekhov has a very individual destiny, and in him I do not try 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 the 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 the majority of the Cossacks had the same anti-Soviet views as Grigory, and he showed that, first of all, Grigory is a fictional person, and not an exact copy of a certain socio-political type.
In the post-Stalin period, Sholokhov was as sparing in his comments about Grigory as before, but he expressed his understanding of Grigory's tragedy. For him, this is the tragedy of a truth-seeker who is misled by the events of his time and lets the truth elude him. The truth, of course, is on the side of the Bolsheviks. At the same time, Sholokhov clearly expressed his opinion about the purely personal aspects of Grigory's tragedy and spoke out against the crude politicization of the scene from the film by S. Gerasimov (going uphill - son on his shoulder - to the heights of communism). Instead of a picture of a tragedy, you can get a kind of frivolous poster.
Sholokhov's statement about Grigory's tragedy shows that, at least in the press, he speaks of it in the language of politics. The hero's tragic situation 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. Someone puts all the blame on Gregory, others emphasize the role of the mistakes of the local Bolsheviks. The central government, of course, is beyond reproach.
The Soviet critic L. Yakimenko notes that “Grigory'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 beginning of a new life.
The tragic fault of Gregory was not his political orientation, but his true love for Aksinya. This is how the tragedy is presented in The Quiet Don, according to the later researcher Ermolaev.
Gregory managed to maintain humane qualities. The influence of historical forces on him is frighteningly enormous. They destroy his hopes for a peaceful life, drag him into wars that he considers senseless, make him lose both faith in God and a sense 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, and many do not have their own names at all, but they act, influence the development of the plot and the relationship of the characters.
The action is centered around Grigory and his inner circle: Aksinya, Pantelei Prokofievich and the rest of his family. Acts in the novel and a number of genuine historical characters: Cossack revolutionaries F. Podtelkov, White Guard generals Kaledin, Kornilov.
Critic L. Yakimenko, expressing the Soviet view of the novel, singled out 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, who has adult sons, and the youngest daughter, Dunyashka, is already a teenager. One of the main character traits of this woman can be called calm wisdom. Otherwise, she simply could not get along with her emotional and quick-tempered husband. Without any fuss, she runs the household, takes care of children and grandchildren, not forgetting their emotional experiences. Ilyinichna is an economical and prudent hostess. 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 hard it is for Grigory’s legal wife Natalya to live with her husband, treat her like her own daughter, trying in every possible way to facilitate her work, pity her, sometimes even give her an extra hour to sleep. The fact that Natalya lives in the Melekhovs' house after a suicide attempt says a lot about Ilyinichna's character. So, in this house there was warmth, which the young woman so needed.
In any life situation, Ilyinichna is deeply decent and sincere. She understands Natalya, who was exhausted by her husband's betrayals, lets her cry, and then tries to dissuade her from rash acts. Gently cares for the sick Natalia, for 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 greatness in her, the ability not to pay attention to trifles, but to see the main thing in family life. She has wisdom and calmness.
Natalya: The strength of her love for Gregory is evidenced by her suicide attempt. She had to endure too much, her heart is worn out by constant struggle. Only after the death of his wife, Gregory realizes how much she meant to him, what a strong and beautiful person she was. He loved 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, is ready to go selflessly with him, wherever he calls her. Aksinya dies in the arms of her beloved, which becomes another terrible blow for Grigory, now the "black sun" shines on Grigory, he was left without the warm, gentle, sunlight - Aksinya's love.
Unaeva Gulzida Kuspangaleevna,
teacher of Russian language and literature,
MBOU "Novouspenovskaya secondary school
Akbulak region
Orenburg region"
Item nameLiterature
Class11
WMCRussian literature of the 20th century. Textbook for 11 cells. in 2 hours / ed. V.P. Zhuravleva. - M .: Education, 2012
Level of studybase
Lesson topic: The tragedy of the people and the fate of Grigory Melekhov in the novel Quiet Flows the Don.
The total number of hours devoted to the study of the topic2 hours
The place of the lesson in the system of lessons on the topic3-4 lesson
The purpose of the lesson: to show the inevitability of the tragic fate of Grigory Melekhov, the connection of this tragedy with the fate of society.
Tasks:
to show the relationship between the fate of Grigory Melekhov and the fate of Russian society, to prove the inevitability of the tragedy of the life of the protagonist;
to synthesize students' knowledge about the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" in the anthropological aspect (the character of the protagonist, universal ideals and values);
evaluate the results of mastering this topic (knowledge of the text, ability to analyze, etc.).
Lesson type:combined.
Type of lesson:conversation lesson.
Methods:
By source of knowledge:
verbal (conversation, story);
visual (illustrative).
Theoretical and conceptual apparatus:
Consolidation: epic novel, image of the hero, character.
Introduction of the term: catharsis.
Advanced homework in groups:
Define:
Group 1 - CHARACTER
Group 2 - TEMPERAMENT
Group 3 - VOLUNTEER QUALITIES (LEADER and LEADER)
During the classes.
1. Organizational moment.
Today in the lesson we will continue the conversation about the artistic originality of Sholokhov's novel "Quiet Flows the Don". We will talk about how the novel reveals the features of that era, that time, not only in historical events, but also in the facts of private life, using the example of the writer's portrayal of individuals, in particular the main character Grigory Melekhov.
Let's write the topic of the lesson:The tragedy of the people and the fate of Grigory Melekhov in the novel "Quiet Flows the Don"
Try to formulate the purpose of the lesson:the formation of an idea about the characteristics of the character and the vicissitudes of the fate of the protagonist.
Well done! Now let’s take a look at the fundamentals of literature:
What is a novel?Novel - a large narrative work of art with a complex plot, in the center of which is the fate of the individual.
What is an epic?epic - a major work of fiction that tells about significant historical events.
In the literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, such a genre appears as epic novel - This is a work in which the formation of the characters of the main characters occurs in the course of their participation in historical events. Well done!
In previous lessons, we got acquainted with how Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov worked on his works, found out that his work “Quiet Flows the Don” is an epic novel.
- Name another major work you studied in 10th grade that belongs to the same genre.("War and Peace".)
- Does Sholokhov's epic novel "Quiet Don" differ from the novel "War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy?
(- The absence of philosophical generalizations, reasoning about the force that “drives peoples”;
- There is no theoretical substantiation of their own historical concept;
- Monocentric epic (one main character - Grigory Melekhov ).
2. Conversation.
In the last lesson, we tried to answer the following question:
- How does Grigory Melekhov appear before the readers of the novel?
(“Young, dark-haired, a Turk, like all Melekhovs”, proud, independent, capable of great feeling. The main features of Grigory (as well as members of the Melekhov family) are goodwill, responsiveness, generosity, hard work.).
How do other characters feel about him?
("In the showerGrishka was liked for his Cossack prowess, for his love for housekeeping and work."(Miron Grigorievich Korshunov).
"Theyfianceno matter where, and their family is helluva lothardworking… A working family with plenty” (Natalia’s mother).
"Melekhovglorious Cossacks"(grandfather Grishak)).
Right. Sholokhov calls Grigory "The Good Cossack". What meaning does he put into these words and in what episodes is the personality of Grigory Melekhov most fully revealed?
(Grigory Melekhov is the brightest personality among the heroes of The Quiet Flows the Don, a unique individuality, a whole, extraordinary nature. He is sincere and honest in his thoughts and actions (see episodes: the last meeting with Natalya -part 7, chapter 7 ; Natalia's deathpart 7, chapters 16-18 ; death of Aksinya). The most striking feature of Gregory is sincerity. He never lied to himself, he was always true to himself.
Gregory reacts very emotionally to everything that happens, he has a sympathetic heart. A sense of pity and compassion is developed in him, this can be judged by such scenes as, for example, “On the hayfield”, when Grigory accidentally cut a wild duckling(part one, ch. 9 ), an episode with Franya(part two, ch. 11).
Or you can remember the scene with the murdered Austrian, who appears to Melekhov in a dream, causing mental anguish(part three, ch. 10).
deepGregory's attachment to the house, to the ground remains one ofstrongest feelingsthroughout the book: “I won’t touch the ground anywhere. There is a steppe here, there is something to breathe ... ". This confession of Aksinye echoes another: “My hands need to work, not fight. The whole soul was sick during these months. Behind these words is the mood not only of Grigory Melekhov, but also of other Cossacks. Emphasizing the drama of this situation, the author adds on his own behalf: “The time has come to plow, harrow, sow; the earth called to itself, called tirelessly day and night, and here it was necessary to fight, to die on other people's farms ... ".
The main character of Sholokhov -simple cossackwhich in itself is a remarkable new phenomenon in the literature. The mentality of Gregory, his character is, first of all, the character of a Cossack, although the author claimed: “Melekhov has a very individual fate, in him I do not try to personify the average Cossacks.”
- Let's look at the cluster compiled according to your statements, reflecting the character of Grigory Melekhov.
c
- Our lesson today will be somewhat unusual. We will try not only to consider the artistic image of Grigory Melekhov, but also to draw up his psychological portrait.It is important for each of us to be able to reveal our inner psychological reserves. But for this you need to learn to know yourself and other people, to identify the temperament, character, orientation of the personality for the most comfortable interaction with the people around you at home, at school, in your future professional activity.So, based on the assessment of personality traits, it is possible to draw up her psychological portrait, which includes the following components:
1. temperament;
2. character;
3. ability;
5. intelligence;
6. emotionality;
7. strong-willed qualities;
8. ability to communicate;
9. self-esteem;
10. level of self-control;
11. Interoperability
Of course, we simply won’t have time to consider all the components of a psychological portrait, so I suggest you work with a few of them:
Temperament -1 group - 2 min.
Character -Group 2 - 2 min.
Volitional qualities -Group 3 - 2 min.
At home, you should have found material on these issues. Please, representatives of the first group…. Second…. Third…
Thank you. I think that knowledge of the theoretical material will help you in practice. Please determine the features of the psychological portrait of Grigory Melekhov by groups:
Temperament -Group 2 - 3 min.
Character -Group 3 - 3 min.
Volitional qualities - 1group - 3 min.
Well done! This psychological portrait is laid down by nature itself, life, family traditions, etc.(The conditions that shaped the character of the protagonist of the novel:Land and work on it, military duty, family, farm, kuren are the most important components of the Cossack's spiritual world.)
- Now let's work with the text.
Emphasize the manifested traits of Gregory's character in certain circumstances.:
Group - “Fight with Stepan Astakhov because of Aksinya” (part one, ch. 12),
Group - Gregory in the hospital.
Group - "The moment of the massacre of Yevgeny Listnitsky."
It seems to me that now we can add some more traits of the hero to our cluster compiled earlier:
embittered
restless
internal monologues
violent to the point
natural nature.
So, guys, you correctly and quite fully analyzed the character of Grigory Melekhov. Let's look at the main character traits of the hero recorded by us. It is these traits of the hero, the moral values that he professes, the peculiarities of his emotional and psychological make-up that explain why it is Grigory Sholokhov who makes the main character. Have you noticed that he is the only character who is given the right to monologues - "thoughts" that reveal his spiritual beginning. Let's think about what role his internal monologues play in the characterization of the hero?
( Sholokhov conveys the innermost thoughts of the hero in his internal monologues. Especially a lot of them in the third volume. The monologues of the hero are diverse. Most often, the author introduces these inner reflections into the text of the novel just at the turning point, key moments in the life of Gregory).
Right, but who can give an example?
(1. During the battles with the Red Army, Grigory thinks: “What kind of people? And what are they?” He is curious, wants to know these people, in fact the same as him, and he also does not want to fight with them, does not understand why shed blood.
2. The same thoughts visit him when he takes command of a hundred: “And most importantly, against whom am I leading? Against the people… Who is right?” This shows us Melekhov both as a brave warrior and as a very humane, quick-thinking, reasonable person.
3. Another reflection of Melekhov about the war, the revolution: “The paths of the Cossacks crossed with the paths of landless peasant Russia, with the paths of the factory people. Fight them to the death! To tear from under their feet the Don soil, soaked with Cossack blood. Drive them like Tatars out of the region! Shake Moscow, impose a shameful world on it! .. And now - for a saber! In these thoughts, one can see the uncompromising nature of a person who never knew the middle. It had nothing to do with political pursuits.
4. Melekhov yearns for such a truth, "under the wing of which everyone could warm up." And, from his point of view, neither the Whites nor the Reds have such a truth: “There is no one truth in life. It can be seen whoever defeats whom will devour him ... And I was looking for the bad truth. My soul ached, it swayed back and forth ... ”These searches, according to him, turned out to be“ in vain and empty. And this also determined the tragedy of his fate).
Note for yourself, guys, that similar thoughts, similar searches were characteristic of many people during the civil war. A bloody, destructive, fratricidal, long war... It devastated the souls of people, forced them to bear death, and not to create life - to start families, to plow the land, to run a household. Sholokhov tells us that man was created for life, not for war. What conclusion does the writer lead us to?
(That the tragedy of Grigory Melekhov is the tragedy of an entire people, of an entire era.)
Well done! Now let's move on to the end of the novel. A.K. Tolstoy called the finale of Sholokhov's novel a "mistake". What happens to the hero at the end of the book?
(At the end of the novel, Grigory returns to the Tatarsky farm. He lost everything, everything was taken from him by war and death. Approaching the house, he throws away his weapons, cartridges - the hero no longer wants to fight).
- Does the hero despair or does he have hope for something?
( The hero has hope - his children. He doesn't know about Polyushka's death yet. But Gregory already feels that he will finally find peace, happiness, that he will no longer live like a hunted animal. Even from a distance, Grigory saw Mishatka - and, finally, what he had dreamed of for so long came true: “He stood at the gates of his native house, holding his son in his arms ... This was all that remained in his life, which still made him related to earth and with all this huge world shining under the cold sun”).
What does this ending of the book tell us? Is the "path of searching" of the protagonist finished?
(I think yes, it’s finished. Because Grigory Melekhov throughout the whole novel is constantly forced to make a choice between passions and peace. The most terrible, turning point - the death of Aksinya - again confronts him with the need to make a choice, this time decisive. Difficult, intense This choice determines the path of his fate through tragic events: constantly experiencing mental upheavals, the hero gradually approaches the decision to live with his children, to live in peace.)
- That's right, guys, well done!Always remaining honest, independent in character, Gregory is a person capable of action. Make a conclusion whether the psychological portrait of the main character has changed in connection with the events that happened to him.Based on psychological analysis, we can think about where Grigory feels harmony. (see Cluster 1).
In the second psychological portrait (see Cluster 2), the versatility of Gregory's character is obvious. Here we see the moments of the most powerful emotional experience. In science, there is a special term for designating such experiences and related changes in life, destiny, and the inner world of a person. Let's write it down and remember it.
Catharsis(Greek - exaltation, purification) - a category of philosophy and aesthetics, denoting the essence and effect of emotional experience associated with the purification of the soul ("purification through suffering").
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov himself defined the main idea of his book as follows: “The main thing for a writer is what he himself needs -movement of the human soul. .. I wanted to talk about itthe charm of man in Grigory Melekhov ... "
Now let's conclude - what is Sholokhov's novel about? What is the main idea of the novel?
(1. The main idea of Sholokhov, in my opinion, was to show a person in a specific period of history. The novel is based on real, documentary events: World War I, revolutions, civil war.
2. Sholokhov wanted to show the tragedy of one Russian character. The tragedy of Grigory Melekhov is the tragedy of a man whom time and circumstances put before the need for a sharp turn in his fate.
3. Sholokhov, using the example of the fate of Grigory Melekhov, tells us that a person was created for life, for a family, and not for war.
5. I think Sholokhov, with his novel and his main character, showed us what a person should be - sincere, honest, decisive, capable of action and strong, not breaking under the yoke of circumstances.)
That's right, guys, well done! Now let's define the most important qualities of Melekhov's character, noted by us in the cluster, which should determine the qualities of any of us.
(1. And I think that it was the integrity and harmony of his nature that helped Grigory Melekhov to maintain his human appearance, which, despite the onslaught of such serious and destructive events, did not break the very character of the protagonist.
2. It is impossible not to note the ability for compassion, which is inherent in the hero. Only by imbued with a sense of empathy and compassion for the fate of another person, you can understand and feel the significance of yourself in this world, understand that you have the right to be called a man!).
Indeed, the image of Gregory is a kind of discovery by Sholokhov. This is a holistic, lively and vivid character, inseparable from its era. "Hero and time", "hero and circumstances", the search for oneself as a person - the eternal theme of art has become the main one in "Quiet Don". In this search - the meaning of the existence of Grigory Melekhov in the novel. “I am looking for a way out,” he says of himself. At the same time, he always faces the need for a choice that was not easy and simple.
3. Conclusion:
Grigory Melekhov - natural nature; a person acting under the influence of momentary desires or under the pressure of external circumstances. He is not able to assess the consequences of his actions, but, committing reprehensible ones, he remains honest and sincere.It is these traits of the hero, the moral values that he professes, the peculiarities of his emotional and psychological make-up that explain why it is Grigory Sholokhov who makes the main character.
4. Lesson summary :
Today at the lesson we not only examined the literary image of Grigory Melekhov, but also made up his psychological portrait. Based on the knowledge gained in the lesson, you can now evaluate your actions, the actions of your friends. But besides, now you understand that everything that happens in our life should reflect the MOVEMENT of our SOUL.
5. Homework: Prepare messages
Portrait, character of Daria.
The origin and development of Aksinya and Grigory's love.
Dunyasha Melekhova
Maternal love of Ilyinichna
The image and tragedy of Natalia
6. Evaluation.
THE FATE OF GRIGORY MELEKHOV
In The Quiet Don, as already noted, there are many characters. But among them there is one whose controversial life, tragic fate attracts the most attention. This is Grigory Melekhov, whose image, without a doubt, is the main one in the epic. One can argue about who is the central character of "Eugene Onegin" - Onegin or Tatyana, "War and Peace" - Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov or the people, but when we talk about "The Quiet Don", the answer is unequivocal: the main character of the work is Grigory Melekhov.
Grigory Melekhov is the most complex Sholokhov character. This is a seeker of truth. Melekhov's life path is difficult and tortuous. In search of truth, the hero rushes between two warring camps: he is either in the camp of the Reds, then in the camp of the Whites. However, what he seeks - truth - never finds, she constantly eludes him. And this complexity of the character of Grigory Melekhov and the sinuousness of his life path gave rise to various interpretations of this image in criticism.
In the discussion about Grigory Melekhov, two wings of critics can be distinguished. The first wing is represented by those who adhere to the so-called concept of "departure". These are such researchers as Lezhnev, Gura, Yakimenko. The works of these Sholokhov scholars are permeated with the idea that Grigory Melekhov, being in a camp hostile to Soviet power, is losing his positive qualities, gradually turning into a miserable and terrible likeness of a person, into a renegade.
A vivid example of the critical statement of representatives of this camp is I. Lezhnev's commentary on one of the episodes of the novel.
Near the very end of the piece. After a long separation, Grigory and Aksinya are together again. Aksinya looks at Grigory, who has fallen asleep: “He slept with his lips slightly parted, breathing evenly. His black eyelashes, with tips burned by the sun, quivered a little, his upper lip moved, revealing tightly closed white teeth. Aksinya peered at him attentively and only now noticed how he had changed during these few months of separation. There was something severe, almost cruel, in the deep transverse wrinkles between her lover's eyebrows, in the folds of his mouth, in his sharply defined cheekbones ... And for the first time she thought how terrible he must be in battle, on a horse, with a naked saber. Lowering her eyes, she glanced briefly at his large knobby hands and for some reason sighed.
Here is how I. Lezhnev comments on this episode: “The eyes of the beloved are the mirror of the soul. Sholokhov's description of Grigory's cruel face and terrible gnarled hands, as Aksinya saw them, says with restrained force and endearing persuasiveness: this is the face of a murderer.
The second wing of the discussion about the image of Grigory Melekhov is represented by those researchers who tend to see the hero's story in an unconditionally rosy light. These are V. Petelin, F. Biryukov, Y. Lukin, V. Grishaev and others. Their point of view boils down to the following: a great artist could write his book only about a crystal clear hero, only about a noble soul, and Grigory Melekhov is exactly like that. And if there were some hitches on his way, then it was by no means he himself who was to blame, but various kinds of “tragic circumstances” and accidents - Mikhail Koshevoy is to blame, Commissioner Malkin is to blame, Poddelkov is to blame, Fomin is to blame ...
It seems to critics belonging to this wing of the discussion that only by defending Grigory Melekhov can they express their admiration and love for the novel. However, with their naive defense, they only compromised him and compromise him.
Sholokhov himself was not satisfied with any of the named interpretations of the image of the protagonist. In an interview with the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya given in August 1957, he said that he wanted to tell the world about the "charm of a person" in Grigory Melekhov, therefore, the writer did not agree with those who considered the protagonist of the novel a "renegade". But, on the other hand, Sholokhov also criticized those who tried to see in Grigory Melekhov the future builder of socialism. In particular, he criticized the film based on The Quiet Don, to which the director and screenwriter stuck an optimistic end. In an interview with the Izvestiya newspaper (published on July 1, 1956), Sholokhov said: “From the tragic end of Grigory Melekhov, this rushing seeker of truth, who is entangled in events ... the screenwriter makes a happy ending ... In the script, Grigory Melekhov puts Mishatka on his shoulder and walks with him somewhere uphill, so to speak, a symbolic end, Grishka Melekhov rises to the shining heights of communism. Instead of a picture of the tragedy of a person, a kind of frivolous poster can turn out.
Both interpretations of the image of the protagonist of The Quiet Flows the Don suffer from the same shortcoming: they overly schematize the image, reducing it only to social aspects. As G. Nefagina correctly noted, “Grigory's character is much richer. It includes the typical features of the Cossack mentality that have developed over two centuries and the new that the 20th century brought with it with its wars and revolutions. The image of Gregory is a reflection of not only a typical socio-psychological, but also a sharply individual one. Hence the tragedy of the hero is a tragedy not so much of a type as of a personality.
On the one hand, in Grigory Melekhov, Sholokhov seeks to show the best features of the Cossacks: diligence, humanity, prowess, skill, military prowess, self-esteem, nobility, on the other hand, we cannot but notice that the protagonist of the novel from the very beginning of the work something sharply different from the rest of the inhabitants of the farm. He is seriously upset because of the duckling cut with a scythe. And in another episode, the raging father, who raised his hand to him, declares: “I won’t let you fight!” Seeing through the fence how Stepan is beating Aksinya, Grigory immediately rushes to defend her, although he is much weaker than Stepan Astakhov in his youth. The fact that he is an outstanding nature, that he is not like everyone else, becomes extremely clear after his escape with Aksinya to Yagodnoye. For the sake of love for a woman, Gregory sacrifices everything - family, wealth, reputation - an act unheard of at that time.
It is Grigory who, with his brutal, hateful gaze, frightens the officer at the review (“How do you look! How do you look, Cossack?”). It is Gregory who, at first, is more difficult than others to adapt to military service: for the freedom-loving Gregory, the army, with its suffocating lack of freedom, is the most difficult test.
In the army, the hero meets Chubaty, who teaches Melekhov the first lessons of cruelty: “Cut a man boldly. You do not think how and what. You are a Cossack, your job is to chop without asking ... An animal cannot be destroyed without need - a heifer, say, or something like that - but destroy a person. He is a rotten man…” However, Gregory is extremely reluctant to learn these lessons. Humanity, even in war, remains one of the defining features of his personality. This is evidenced by at least the episode with the Polish Franya, when Melekhov, alone against a whole platoon, rushes to defend her. Being seriously wounded, Gregory takes out an officer from the battle. In battle, he finally saves his mortal enemy, Aksinya's husband Stepan Astakhov, from death. Sholokhov emphasizes: "He saved, obeying the heart."
Gregory is sensitive to the changes taking place around him. Personal qualities do not allow him to remain outside the struggle that has engulfed the entire country since the beginning of 1917. He sticks to the reds, then to the whites. But, seeing that the words of one and the other disagree with the deeds, he quickly loses faith in the justice of the actions of both warring camps. He is alien to both, and whites and reds treat the hero with distrust. And all because Melekhov, despite his inherent straightforwardness and gullibility, does not take anything on faith. Whatever colors fanaticism may be painted in, for Gregory it remains absolutely unacceptable. In a disintegrating, chaotic world that has forgotten elementary human values and freedoms, the hero is looking for integrity and harmony, looking for truth, for the sake of the triumph of which it would not be necessary to suppress entire groups of people. But the events, each of which is more catastrophic and bloodier than anything that human history has known so far, witnessed by Melekhov, lead the hero to disappointment in life, the loss of its meaning. We begin to notice strange changes in Gregory's behavior.
As if forgetting with what disgust he recently treated robberies, like the last marauder, Grigory undresses the red commander: “Take off your sheepskin coat, commissar! .. You are smooth. You ate on Cossack bread, you probably won’t freeze!”
So painfully experiencing the bloody massacre of Podtelkov over the captured officers, Grigory, becoming the head of the insurgent division, was so carried away by executions and executions that the insurgent leadership was forced to turn to Melekhov with a special message: “Dear Grigory Panteleevich! Insidious rumors come to our attention that you allegedly perpetrate cruel reprisals against captured Red Army soldiers ... You go with your hundreds, like Taras Bulba from the historical novel of the writer Pushkin, and betray everything to fire and sword and excite the Cossacks. Settle down, please, do not betray the prisoners to death ... "
Having cut down the sailor machine-gun crew, Grigory in an epileptic fit beats on the hands of the Cossacks, all in white foam, wheezing: “Let go, you bastards! .. Matrosnya! .. Everyone! .. Rrrrub-lu! ..”
The moral and physical fall of the hero also finds expression in endless drinking and partying. The novel says that “even the sweatshirt on the saddle” of Melekhov was saturated with the smell of moonshine. “Women and girls who lost their girlish color went through the hands of Gregory, sharing a short love with him.”
The very appearance of Gregory is changing: “he is noticeably flabby, hunched over; baggy folds turned blue under the eyes, and a light of senseless cruelty began to appear more and more often in the look. Gregory lives now, "dejectedly bowing his head, without a smile, without joy." Everything is more clearly seen in it animalistic, wolfish.
Realizing the extent of his fall, Gregory explains it with the following reasons (in a conversation with Natalya): “Ha! Conscience! .. I forgot to think about it. What kind of conscience is there when all life has been stolen... You kill people... I got so smeared on someone else's blood that I didn't have any stings left for anyone. Childhood - and I almost do not regret this one, but I don’t even think about myself. The war took everything out of me. I have become terrible to myself ... Look into my soul, and there is blackness, like in an empty well ... "
Gregory's state of mind will change little in the future. He will end his difficult life in Fomin's gang and among deserters hiding in the forest. After the death of Aksinya, with whom the hero pinned his last hopes, life will lose all interest for him, and he will wait for the denouement. It is this desire to commit suicide, to bring the final closer, that explains the return of the hero to the farm at the end of the novel. Gregory returns before the amnesty. An inevitable death awaits him. The correctness of this assumption is also confirmed by the fate of Melekhov's prototypes: Philip Mironov and Kharlampy Ermakov. Both were shot without trial, one in 1921, the other in 1927. In the novel, it was impossible to show the execution of a hero who fell in love with readers, given the situation in the country in the thirties.
What did Sholokhov want to convey to the reader, depicting the complex, contradictory path of Grigory Melekhov? This question is answered in different ways. Some researchers believe that, using the image of the protagonist as an example, Sholokhov defends the concept of a historically responsible personality, while others speak of the responsibility of the era to the personality. Both of these points of view are legitimate, but, it seems, they greatly diminish the significance of Sholokhov's character.
Grigory Melekhov is on a par with the numerous heroes of Russian literature, whom we call truth-seekers, and rightfully occupies one of the first places among them. No wonder he is called the "Russian Hamlet". Hamlet is a tragic hero. Melekhov - too. He is looking for the highest meaning of life, but these searches lead the hero to disappointment and moral devastation. Sholokhov shows the inevitable tragedy of idealistic people in a world that has entered a protracted period of social experiments and historical cataclysms, testing the strength of the humanistic traditions of human culture.
Speaking about his famous novel, M. Sholokhov himself noted: “I am describing the struggle of the whites against the reds, and not the struggle of the reds against the whites.” This made the task of the writer more difficult. It is no coincidence that literary critics are still arguing about the fate of the protagonist. Who is he, Grigory Melekhov? A "renegade" who went against his own people, or a victim of history, a person who could not find his place in the common struggle?
The action of Sholokhov's novel "Quiet Don" takes place in the most tragic period of the revolution and civil war for the Don Cossacks. At such moments in history, all conflicts of relationships are especially sharply revealed, and society faces 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 that the protagonist of the novel asks, if you look at it more broadly, it is a question of the whole era.
The action of the first parts of the novel unfolds slowly, which describes the life of the pre-war Cossacks. Life, traditions, mores that have developed over many generations, seem unshakable. Against the background of this calmness, even Aksinya's love for Grigory, ardent and reckless, is perceived by the villagers as a rebellion, as a protest against generally accepted norms of morality.
But already from the second book, social motives sound more and more strongly in the novel, the work already goes beyond the framework of a family and everyday story. Shtokman and his underground circle appear; a fierce fight breaks out at the mill, demonstrating the arrogant arrogance of the Cossacks towards the peasants, the same, in essence, workers as the Cossacks themselves. So, 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 unfair nature, the writer speaks from anti-militarist positions. This is clearly evidenced by the scene of the murder of an Austrian soldier, the diary of a student.
At the front, and especially in the hospital, Grigory Melekhov comes to understand that the truth, in which he still believed, is illusory. A painful search for another truth begins. In these searches, 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 repelled by the senseless cruelty and inexplicable bloodthirstiness that he encounters among them. In addition, he, a military officer, at every step feels their distrust; and he himself cannot get rid of the original Cossack disdain for the “bad”.
Melekhov does not stay with the Whites either, since it is not difficult for him to see that behind their loud words about saving the Motherland, self-interest and petty calculation often hide.
What is left 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 that Melekhov naively believes to find.
After the defeat of the Veshensk uprising, Gregory decides to leave the army and engage in 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 realizes that this fanatic lives with one thought - a thirst for revenge, and will stop at nothing.
He falls into Fomin's gang, as if into a trap, because no matter how loud words Fomin says, his squad is an ordinary criminal gang. And the tragedy is played out: as if in punishment, fate takes away the most precious thing from Grigory Melekhov - Aksinya. “The dazzling black disk of the sun”, which Gregory sees in front of him, is a symbol of the tragic finale.
He does not have to count on either forgiveness or the indulgence of his fellow villagers, but Grigory returns to his native village - he has nowhere else to go. But the situation is not so hopeless, so that a faint ray of hope does not flash 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 be more successful.
No, Grigory Melekhov is not a renegade and not a victim of history. Rather, he belongs to the type of people that was 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.
The “Quiet Don” reflects the era of great upheavals of the early 20th century, which had its impact on the fate of many people, which also influenced the fate of the Don Cossacks. Harassment by officials, landowners, the more prosperous part of the population, as well as the inability of the authorities to resolve conflict situations and fairly equip the life of the people, led to popular indignation, riots, and a revolution that turned into a civil war. In addition, the Don Cossacks rebelled against the new government, fought with the Red Army. Gangs of Cossacks dealt with the same poor peasants, with peasants who, like the Cossacks, wanted to work on their land. It was a difficult, troubled time when a brother went against his brother, and the father could turn out to be the murderer of his son.
The novel by M.A. Sholokhov “Quiet Flows the Don” reflects the turning point of wars and revolutions, shows the events that influenced the course of history. The writer depicted the age-old traditions of the Don Cossacks and the peculiarities of their life, the system of their moral principles and labor skills that formed the national character, which is most fully embodied by the author in the image of Grigory Melekhov.
The path of Grigory Melekhov is completely special, different from the search for the heroes of previous eras, since Sholokhov showed, firstly, the story of a simple Cossack, a farm boy with little education, not wiser with experience, not understanding politics. Secondly, the author reflected the most difficult time of upheavals and storms for the entire European continent and for Russia in particular.
In the image of Grigory Melekhov, a deeply tragic personality is presented, whose fate is entirely connected with the dramatic events taking place in the country. The character of the hero can be understood only by analyzing his life path, starting from the origins. It must be remembered that the hot blood of a Turkish grandmother was mixed in the Cossack's genes. The Melekhov family, in this regard, was distinguished by its genetic qualities: along with diligence, perseverance, love for the land, Gregory was noticeable, for example, a proud disposition, courage, self-will. Already in his youth, he confidently and firmly objected to Aksinya, who called him to foreign lands: “I won’t touch the earth anywhere. There is a steppe here, there is something to breathe, but there? Grigory thought that his life was forever connected with the peaceful labor of a farmer in his own household. The main values for him are the land, the steppe, the Cossack service and the family. But he could not even imagine how loyalty to the Cossack cause would turn out for him, when the best years would have to be given to the war, the murder of people, ordeal on the fronts, and a lot would have to go through, having experienced various shocks.
Gregory was brought up in the spirit of devotion to Cossack traditions, he did not shy away from service, intending to fulfill his military duty with honor and return to the farm. He, as befits a Cossack, showed courage in battles during the First World War, “risked, went crazy,” but very soon realized that it was not easy to get rid of the pain that he sometimes felt. Gregory suffered especially hard the senseless murder of an Austrian who was running away from him. He even, "without knowing why, went up to the Austrian soldier he had hacked." And then, when he was moving away from the corpse, “his step was confusingly heavy, as if he was carrying an unbearable load behind his shoulders; I bend and bewilderment crumpled my soul.
After the first wound, while in the hospital, Grigory learned new truths, listening to how the wounded soldier of Garange "exposed the true causes of the outbreak of war, caustically ridiculed the autocratic power." It was difficult for the Cossack to accept these new concepts about the tsar, the motherland, about military duty: "all those foundations on which the consciousness rested smoked with ashes." But after a visit to his native farm, he again went to the front, remaining a good Cossack: "Grigory firmly cherished the Cossack honor, he caught the opportunity to show selfless courage ...". This was the time when his heart hardened and hardened. However, while remaining courageous and even desperate in battle, Grigory changed internally: he could not laugh carelessly and cheerfully, his eyes sunken in, his cheekbones sharpened, and it became difficult to look into the clear eyes of the child. “With cold contempt he played with his own and someone else's life, ... he served four St. George's crosses, four medals,” but he could not avoid the mercilessly devastating impact of the war. However, the personality of Gregory was still not destroyed by the war: his soul did not harden to the end, he could not fully come to terms with the need to kill people (even enemies).
In 1917, after being wounded and in the hospital, while at home on vacation, Grigory felt tired, "acquired by the war." “I wanted to turn away from everything seething with hatred, hostile and incomprehensible world. There, behind, everything was confused, contradictory. There was no solid ground under my feet, and there was no certainty which path to follow: “I was drawn to the Bolsheviks - I walked, led others, and then took thought, my heart went cold.” On the farm, the Cossack wanted to return to household chores and stay with his family. But he will not be allowed to calm down, because there will be no peace in the country for a long time. And Melekhov rushes between the "red" and "white". It is difficult for him to find political truth when human values are rapidly changing in the world, and it is difficult for an inexperienced person to understand the essence of events: “Who can I lean against?” Gregory's throwing was not connected with his political moods, but with a lack of understanding of the situation in the country, when numerous participants in the warring forces seized power in turn. Melekhov was ready to fight in the ranks of the Red Army, but war is war, it could not do without cruelty, and wealthy Cossacks did not want to voluntarily give “food” to the Red Army. Melekhov felt the distrust of the Bolsheviks, their hostility towards him, as a former soldier of the tsarist army. And Gregory himself could not understand the uncompromising and ruthless activities of the food detachments that took away the grain. The fanaticism and bitterness of Mikhail Koshevoy were especially repulsed from the communist idea, and there was a desire to get away from the unbearable confusion. I wanted to understand and comprehend everything, to find my own, “real truth”, but, apparently, there is no one truth for everyone: “People have always fought for a piece of bread, for a plot of land, for the right to life ...”. And Gregory decided that "one must fight with those who want to take life, the right to it ...".
Cruelty and violence were manifested by all the warring parties: the White Guards, the rebel Cossacks, various gangs. Melekhov did not want to join them, but Grigory had to fight against the Bolsheviks. Not by conviction, but by forced circumstances, when the Cossacks from the farms were gathered into detachments by opponents of the new government. He had a hard time experiencing the atrocities of the Cossacks, their indomitable vindictiveness. While in the detachment of Fomin, Grigory witnessed the execution of a young non-party Red Army soldier who devotedly served the people's power. The guy refused to go over to the side of the bandits (as he called the Cossack detachment), and they immediately decided to “put him to waste”. "We have a short trial?" - says Fomin, referring to Grigory, who avoided looking into the eyes of the leader, because he himself was against such "courts".
And Grigory's parents are in solidarity with their son in matters of rejection of cruelty, enmity between people. Pantelei Prokofievich kicks out Mitka Korshunov, because he does not want to see the executioner in his house, who killed a woman with children in order to take revenge on the communist Koshevoy. Ilyinichna, Grigory’s mother, says to Natalya: “So the Reds could chop you and Mishatka and Polyushka for Grisha, but they didn’t chop it, they had mercy.” Wise words are also spoken by the old farmer Chumakov when he asks Melekhov: “Will you soon make peace with the Soviet regime? They fought with the Circassians, they fought with the Turks, and that pacification came out, and you are all your own people and you don’t collide with each other in any way.
Gregory's life was also complicated by his unstable position everywhere and in everything: he was constantly in a state of search, deciding the question "where to lean." Even before serving in the Cossack army, Melekhov failed to choose a life partner for love, since Aksinya was married, and his father married Natalya. And all his short life he was in the “between” position, when he was drawn to his family, to his wife and children, but his heart called to his beloved. The desire to manage the land was no less tore at the soul, although no one exempted him from military duty. The position of an honest, decent man between the new and the old, between peace and war, between Bolshevism and the populism of Izvarin, and, finally, between Natalya and Aksinya, only aggravated, increased the intensity of his throwing.
The need to choose was very exhausting, and perhaps the decisions of the Cossack were not always correct, but then who could judge people, pass a fair verdict? G. Melekhov fought earnestly in Budyonny's cavalry and thought that by faithful service he had earned forgiveness from the Bolsheviks for his previous deeds, but during the years of the civil war there were cases of quick reprisals against those who either did not show loyalty to the Soviet government, or rushed from side to side. And in the Fomin gang, already fighting against the Bolsheviks, Grigory saw no way out, how to solve his problem, how to return to civilian life and not be an enemy to anyone. Grigory left the Cossack detachment of Fomin, and, fearing punishment from the Soviet authorities, or even lynching from any side, since he seemed to become an enemy to everyone, he tries to hide with Aksinya, to escape somewhere far away from his native farm. However, this attempt did not bring him salvation: a chance meeting with Red Army soldiers from the food detachment, flight, chase, shots after him - and the tragic death of Aksinya stopped Grigory's throwing forever. There was nowhere to rush, no one to rush to.
The author is far from being indifferent to the fate of his main character. He bitterly writes that, because of homesickness, Grigory can no longer wander and, without waiting for an amnesty, he risks again, returns to the Tatarsky farm: “He stood at the gates of his home, holding his son in his arms ...”. Sholokhov does not end the novel with a message about the future fate of G. Melekhov, probably because he sympathizes with him and would like to finally give a man tired of battles a little peace of mind so that he can live and work on his land, but it is difficult to say whether it is possible it.
The writer's merit also lies in the fact that the author's attitude to the characters, his ability to understand people, to appreciate the honesty and decency of those who sincerely sought to understand the confusion of rebellious events and find the truth, is the author's desire to convey the movement of a person's soul against the backdrop of dramatic changes in the country. appreciated by both critics and readers. One of the former leaders of the rebellious Cossacks, an emigrant P. Kudinov, wrote to the scholar K. Priyma: "The Quiet Don" shook our souls and made us rethink everything, and our longing for Russia became even sharper, and brightened in our head. And those who, while in exile, read the novel by M.A. Sholokhov “The Quiet Don”, “who sobbed over its pages and tore their gray hair, these people in 1941 could not fight against Soviet Russia and did not go ". It should be added: not all, of course, but many of them.
Sholokhov's skill as an artist is also difficult to overestimate: we have a rare example, an almost historical document that depicts the culture of the Cossacks, life, traditions and speech features. It would be impossible to create vivid images (and to present them to the reader) if Grigory, Aksinya and other characters spoke neutrally, in a stylized language close to literary. It would no longer be the Don Cossacks, if we remove their centuries-old peculiarities of speech, their own dialect: “vilyuzhinki”, “crosswise”, “you are my good”. At the same time, representatives of the command staff of the Cossack troops, who have an education and experience in communicating with people from other territories of Russia, speak the language familiar to Russians. And Sholokhov objectively shows this difference, so the picture is reliable.
It should be noted the author's ability to combine the epic depiction of historical events with the lyricism of the narrative, especially those moments in which the personal experiences of the characters are reported. The writer uses the technique of psychologism, revealing the inner state of a person, showing the spiritual movements of a person. One of the features of this technique is the ability to give an individual characterization of the hero, combining it with external data, with a portrait. So, for example, the changes that happened to Grigory as a result of his service, participation in battles look very memorable: “... he knew that he would no longer laugh at him, as before; I knew that his eyes were hollow and his cheekbones were sharply sticking out ... ”.
The author's empathy for the heroes of the work is felt in everything, and the reader's opinion coincides with the words of Y. Ivashkevich that the novel by M.A. Sholokhov "Quiet Flows the Don" has "deep inner content - and its content is love for a person."
Reviews
It's amazing how this novel (certainly not socialist realism) was not banned in Soviet times. For Melekhov did not find the truth either among the Reds or the Whites.
There were many pseudo-innovative fabrications about this, such as "Cossack Hamlet". But Chekhov said it rightly: no one knows the real truth.
The best thing I read on the topic of the Civil War is Veresaev's "At a Dead End". There, too, "not for the Reds and not for the Whites." An honest and objective understanding of that time (the novel was written in 1923).
I do not accept extreme points of view in assessing such a global event as the Civil War. Dovlatov was right: after the communists, most of all I hate anti-communists.
Thanks for posting, Zoya. Makes you think about real literature. Do not forget to write about the work of worthy authors. And then many on the site are all about themselves, but about themselves. Yes, about their incorruptibles.
My respect.
Sergey Solomonov 03.03.2018 11:35 .
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