At the very beginning of the novel, it becomes clear that Grigory loves Aksinya Astakhova, the married neighbor of the Melekhovs. The hero rebels against his family, who condemn him, a married man, for his relationship with Aksinya. He does not obey his father’s will and leaves his native farm together with Aksinya, not wanting to live a double life with his disliked wife Natalya, who then attempts suicide - she cuts her neck with a scythe. Grigory and Aksinya become hired workers for the landowner Listnitsky.

In 1914, Gregory’s first battle and the first person he killed. Gregory is having a hard time. In war he receives not only St. George's Cross, but also experience. The events of this period make him think about the life structure of the world.

It would seem that revolutions are made for people like Grigory Melekhov. He joined the Red Army, but there was no greater disappointment in his life than the reality of the red camp, where violence, cruelty and lawlessness reign.

Gregory leaves the Red Army and becomes a participant in the Cossack rebellion as a Cossack officer. But here too there is cruelty and injustice.

He again finds himself with the Reds - in Budyonny's cavalry - and again experiences disappointment. In his vacillations from one political camp to another, Gregory strives to find the truth that is closer to his soul and his people.

Ironically, he ends up in Fomin's gang. Grigory thinks that these are the bandits free people. But even here he feels like a stranger. Melekhov leaves the gang to pick up Aksinya and flee with her to Kuban. But Aksinya’s death from a random bullet in the steppe deprives Gregory last hope for a peaceful life. It is at this moment that he sees in front of him a black sky and a “dazzlingly shining black disk of the sun.” The writer depicts the sun - the symbol of life - as black, emphasizing the troubles of the world. Having joined the deserters, Melekhov lived with them for almost a year, but longing again drove him to his home.

At the end of the novel, Natalya and her parents die, Aksinya dies. Only a son and a younger sister remained, who married a red man. Gregory stands at the gates of his home and holds his son in his arms. The ending is left open: will his simple dream of living as his ancestors lived ever come true: “to plow the land, take care of it”?

Women's images in the novel.

Women, into whose lives war breaks into, takes away their husbands, sons, destroys their home and hopes for personal happiness, take on their shoulders an unbearable load of work in the field and at home, but do not bend, but courageously carry this load. The novel presents two main types of Russian women: the mother, the keeper of the hearth (Ilyinichna and Natalya) and the beautiful sinner frantically seeking her happiness (Aksinya and Daria). Two women - Aksinya and Natalya - accompany the main character, they selflessly love him, but are opposite in everything.

Love is a necessary need for Aksinya’s existence. Aksinya’s frenzy in love is emphasized by the description of her “shamelessly greedy, plump lips” and “vicious eyes.” The heroine's backstory is scary: at the age of 16, she was raped by her drunken father and married to Stepan Astakhov, a neighbor of the Melekhovs. Aksinya endured humiliation and beatings from her husband. She had neither children nor relatives. It is understandable that she would like “to fall out of bitter love throughout her entire life,” so she fiercely defends her love for Grishka, which has become the meaning of her existence. For her sake, Aksinya is ready for any test. Gradually, almost maternal tenderness appears in her love for Gregory: with the birth of her daughter, her image becomes purer. In separation from Grigory, she becomes attached to his son, and after Ilyinichna’s death she takes care of all Grigory’s children as if they were her own. Her life was cut short by a random steppe bullet when she was happy. She died in Gregory's arms.

Natalya is the embodiment of the idea of ​​home, family, and the natural morality of a Russian woman. She is a selfless and affectionate mother, a pure, faithful and devoted woman. She suffers a lot from her love for her husband. She does not want to put up with her husband’s betrayal, she does not want to be unloved - this forces her to commit suicide. The hardest thing for Gregory to experience is that before her death she “forgave him everything,” that she “loved him and remembered him before last minute" Upon learning of Natalya's death, Gregory for the first time felt a stabbing pain in his heart and a ringing in his ears. He is tormented by remorse.

M.A. Bulgakov. "Master and Margarita".

M. Bulgakov's novel is multidimensional. This multidimensionality affects:

1. in the composition - the interweaving of various plot layers of the narrative: the fate of the master and the history of his romance, the plot of the love of the master and Margarita, the fate of Ivan Bezdomny, the actions of Woland and his team in Moscow, a biblical plot, satirical sketches of Moscow in the 20s - 30s years;

2. in multi-themes - intertwining the themes of creator and power, love and loyalty, powerlessness of cruelty and the power of forgiveness, conscience and duty, light and peace, struggle and humility, true and false, crime and punishment, good and evil, etc.;

M. Bulgakov's heroes are paradoxical: they are rebels striving to find peace. Yeshua is obsessed with the idea of ​​moral salvation, the triumph of truth and goodness, the happiness of people and rebels against unfreedom and brute power; Woland, obliged as Satan to commit evil, consistently creates justice, mixing the concepts of good and evil, light and darkness, which emphasizes the depravity of society and the earthly life of people; Margarita rebels against everyday reality, destroying and overcoming shame, conventions, prejudices, fear, distances and times with her loyalty and love.

It seems that the master is furthest from rebellion, because he humbles himself and does not fight for either the novel or Margarita. But precisely because he does not fight, he is a master; his job is to create, and he created his honest novel without any self-interest, career gain or common sense. His novel is his rebellion against the “common” idea of ​​the creator. The master creates for centuries, eternity, “accepts praise and slander indifferently,” exactly according to A.S. Pushkin; The fact of creativity itself is important to him, and not someone’s reaction to the novel. And yet the master deserved peace, but not light. Why? Probably not because he gave up the fight for the novel. Perhaps for giving up the fight for love (?). The parallel hero of the Yershalaim chapters, Yeshua, fought for love for people to the end, to death. The Master is not God, but only a man, and like any man, he is weak and sinful in some ways... Only God is worthy of light. Or maybe peace is exactly what the creator needs most?..

Another novel by M. Bulgakov is about escaping from everyday reality or overcoming it. Everyday reality is the regime of Caesar, cruel in its unrighteousness, trampling on the conscience of Pilate, reproducing informers and executioners; this is the false world of the Berliozs and near-literary circles in Moscow in the 30s; this is also the vulgar world of Moscow inhabitants, living on profit, self-interest and sensations.

Yeshua's flight is an appeal to the souls of people. The master is looking for answers to everyday questions in the distant past, which, as it turns out, is closely connected with the present. Margarita rises above everyday life and conventions with the help of Woland's love and miracles. Woland deals with reality with the help of his devilish power. And Natasha doesn’t want to return to reality from the other world at all.

This novel is also about freedom. It is no coincidence that the heroes, freed from all sorts of conventions and dependencies, receive peace, while Pilate, who is not free in his actions, suffers constant torture from anxiety and insomnia.

The novel is based on M. Bulgakov’s idea that the world in all its diversity is one, integral and eternal, and the private fate of any person of any time is inseparable from the fate of eternity and humanity. This explains the multidimensionality of the novel’s artistic fabric, which united all layers of the narrative with one idea into a monolithic, integral work.

At the end of the novel, all the characters and themes converge on the lunar road leading to eternal light, and the debate about life, continuing, goes on to infinity.

Analysis of the episode of the interrogation of Yeshua by Pontius Pilate in the novel “The Master and Margarita” (Chapter 2).

In Chapter 1 of the novel there is practically no exposition or introduction. From the very beginning, Woland's dispute with Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny about the existence of Jesus unfolds. To prove Woland’s correctness, Chapter 2 of “Pontius Pilate” is immediately placed, which tells about the interrogation of Yeshua by the procurator of Judea. As the reader will later understand, this is one of the fragments of the master’s book, which Massolit curses, but Woland, who retold this episode, knows well. Berlioz would later say that this story “does not coincide with the gospel stories,” and he would be right. In the Gospels there is only a slight hint of Pilate’s torment and hesitation when approving the death sentence of Jesus, and in the master’s book, the interrogation of Yeshua is a complex psychological duel not only of moral goodness and power, but also of two people, two individuals.

Several leitmotif details skillfully used by the author in the episode help reveal the meaning of the fight. At the very beginning, Pilate has a premonition of a bad day due to the smell of rose oil, which he hated. Hence the headache that torments the procurator, because of which he does not move his head and looks like stone. Then - the news that the death sentence for the defendant must be approved by him. This is another torment for Pilate.

And yet, at the beginning of the episode, Pilate is calm, confident, and speaks quietly, although the author calls his voice “dull, sick.”

The next leitmotif is the secretary recording the interrogation. Pilate is burned by Yeshua’s words that writing down words distorts their meaning. Later, when Yeshua relieves Pilate of his headache and he feels affection for the deliverer from pain against his will, the procurator will either speak in a language unknown to the secretary, or even kick out the secretary and the convoy in order to be left with Yeshua alone, without witnesses.

Another symbolic image is the sun, which Ratboy obscured with his rough and gloomy figure. The sun is an irritating symbol of heat and light, and the tormented Pilate is constantly trying to hide from this heat and light.

Pilate's eyes are cloudy at first, but after Yeshua's revelations they shine more and more with the same sparks. At some point, it begins to seem that, on the contrary, Yeshua is judging Pilate. He relieves the procurator of his headache, advises him to take a break from business and take a walk (like a doctor), chides him for the loss of faith in people and the meagerness of his life, then claims that only God gives and takes away life, and not the rulers, convinces Pilate that “ evil people not in the world."

The role of the swallow flying into and out of the colonnade is interesting. The swallow is a symbol of life, independent of the power of Caesar, not asking the procurator where to build and where not to build a nest. The swallow, like the sun, is an ally of Yeshua. She has a softening effect on Pilate. From this moment on, Yeshua is calm and confident, and Pilate is anxious, irritated from the painful split. He is constantly looking for a reason to leave Yeshua, whom he likes, alive: he either thinks to imprison him in a fortress, or put him in a madhouse, although he himself says that he is not crazy, then with glances, gestures, hints, and reticence, he prompts the prisoner with the words necessary for salvation; “For some reason he looked at the secretary and the convoy with hatred.” Finally, after a fit of rage, when Pilate realized that Yeshua is absolutely uncompromising, he powerlessly asks the prisoner: “No wife?” - as if hoping that she could help straighten the brains of this naive and pure person.

“Quiet Don” is a work that shows life Don Cossacks one of the most difficult historical periods Russia. The realities of the first third of the twentieth century, which upended the entire habitual way of life, seemed to travel like caterpillars through the destinies of the common people. Through life path Grigory Melekhov in the novel “Quiet Flows the Don” Sholokhov reveals the main idea of ​​the work, which is to depict the clash of personality and those not dependent on it historical events, his wounded fate.

The struggle between duty and feelings

At the beginning of the work, the main character is shown as a hardworking guy, distinguished by his ardent disposition, which he inherited from his ancestors. Cossack and even Turkish blood flowed in him. Grishka's eastern roots endowed him with a striking appearance that could turn the heads of more than one Don beauty, and his Cossack tenacity, sometimes bordering on stubbornness, ensured the stamina and steadfastness of his character.

On the one hand, he shows respect and love for his parents, on the other hand, he does not listen to their opinion. The first conflict between Grigory and his parents occurs because of his love affair with his married neighbor Aksinya. To end the sinful relationship between Aksinya and Gregory, his parents decide to marry him. But their choice in the role of the sweet and meek Natalya Korshunova did not solve the problem, but only aggravated it. Despite the official marriage, love for his wife did not appear, but for Aksinya, who, tormented by jealousy, increasingly sought meetings with him, only flared up.

Blackmail from his father with his house and property forced the hot-tempered and impulsive Grigory to leave the farm, his wife, and relatives in his heart and leave with Aksinya. Because of his action, the proud and unyielding Cossack, whose family had cultivated its own land and grown its own grain from time immemorial, had to become a mercenary, which made Gregory feel ashamed and disgusted. But now he had to answer both for Aksinya, who left her husband because of him, and for the child she was carrying.

War and Aksinya's betrayal

A new misfortune was not long in coming: the war began, and Gregory, who swore allegiance to the sovereign, was forced to leave both the old and new family and go to the front. In his absence, Aksinya remained in the manor's house. The death of her daughter and news from the front about the death of Gregory weakened the woman’s strength, and she was forced to succumb to the pressure of the centurion Listnitsky.

Having returned from the front and learning about Aksinya’s betrayal, Grigory returns to his family again. For some period of time, his wife, relatives and soon-to-be twins make him happy. But Time of Troubles on the Don, associated with the Revolution, did not allow one to enjoy family happiness.

Ideological and personal doubts

In the novel “Quiet Don”, Grigory Melekhov’s path is full of quests, doubts and contradictions, both politically and in love. He constantly rushed about, not knowing where the truth was: “Everyone has their own truth, their own furrow. People have always fought for a piece of bread, for a plot of land, for the right to life. We must fight those who want to take away life and the right to it...” He decided to lead the Cossack division and repair the supports of the advancing Reds. However, the further the Civil War continued, the more Gregory doubted the correctness of his choice, the more clearly he understood that the Cossacks were waging war with windmills. The interests of the Cossacks and their native land no one was interested.

The same pattern of behavior is typical in personal life the main character of the work. Over time, he forgives Aksinya, realizing that he cannot live without her love and takes her with him to the front. Afterwards he sends her home, where she is forced to once again return to her husband. Arriving on leave, he looks at Natalya with different eyes, appreciating her devotion and fidelity. He was drawn to his wife, and this intimacy culminated in the conception of his third child.

But again his passion for Aksinya got the better of him. His last betrayal led to the death of his wife. Grigory drowns his remorse and the impossibility of resisting his feelings in the war, becoming cruel and merciless: “I was so smeared with other people’s blood that I no longer had any regrets left for anyone. I almost don’t regret my childhood, but I don’t even think about myself. The war took everything out of me. I myself became scary. Look into my soul, and there’s blackness there, like in an empty well...”

A stranger among his own

The loss of loved ones and the retreat sobered Gregory, he understands: he must be able to preserve what he has left. He takes Aksinya with him on retreat, but because of typhus he is forced to leave her.

He again begins to search for the truth and finds himself in the Red Army, taking command of a cavalry squadron. However, even participation in hostilities on the side of the Soviets will not wash away Grigory’s past, tainted by the white movement. He faces execution, which his sister Dunya warned him about. Taking Aksinya, he attempts to escape, during which the woman he loves is killed. Having fought for his land both on the side of the Cossacks and the Reds, he remained a stranger among his own.

The path of Grigory Melekhov’s quest in the novel is fate common man, who loved his land, but lost everything he had and valued, defending it for the life of the next generation, which in the finale is personified by his son Mishatka.

Work test

Roman M.A. Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" is a novel about the Cossacks during the era of the civil war. Main character works - Grigory Melekhov - continues the tradition of Russian classical literature, in which one of the main images is a truth-seeking hero (works by Nekrasov, Leskov, Tolstoy, Gorky).
Grigory Melekhov also strives to find the meaning of life, to understand the whirlwind of historical events, and to find happiness. This simple Cossack was born into a simple and friendly family, where they sacredly honor centuries-old traditions- work hard, have fun. The basis of the hero’s character is the love of work, native land, respect for elders, justice, decency, kindness - is laid down here, in the family.
Handsome, hard-working, cheerful, Grigory immediately wins the hearts of those around him: he is not afraid of people’s gossip (he almost openly loves the beautiful Aksinya, the wife of the Cossack Stepan), and does not consider it shameful to become a farm laborer in order to maintain a relationship with the woman he loves.
And at the same time, Gregory is a person who tends to hesitate. So, despite its great love to Aksinya, Grigory does not oppose his parents, and according to their will, marries Natalya Korshunova.
Without fully realizing it, Melekhov strives to exist “in truth.” He is trying to understand, to answer for himself the question “how should one live?” The hero's search is complicated by the era in which he happened to be born - a time of revolutions and wars.
Gregory will experience strong moral hesitations when he finds himself on the fronts of the First World War. The hero went to war, thinking that he knew whose side was right: he needed to defend the fatherland and destroy the enemy. What could be simpler? Melekhov does just that. He fights valiantly, he is brave and selfless, he does not disgrace the Cossack honor. But gradually doubts come to the hero. He begins to see in his opponents the same people with their hopes, weaknesses, fears, and joys. Why all this carnage, what will it bring to people?
The hero begins to realize this especially clearly when Melekhov’s fellow countryman Chubaty kills a captured Austrian, a very young boy. The prisoner is trying to establish contact with the Russians, openly smiling at them, trying to please. The Cossacks were pleased with the decision to take him to headquarters for interrogation, but Chubati simply out of love for violence, out of hatred, kills the boy.
For Melekhov, this event becomes a real moral blow. And although he firmly cherishes the Cossack honor and deserves a reward, he understands that he is not created for war. He painfully wants to know the truth in order to find the meaning of his actions. Having fallen under the influence of the Bolshevik Garanji, the hero, like a sponge, absorbs new thoughts, new ideas. He begins to fight for the Reds. But the murder of unarmed prisoners by the Reds pushes him away from them too.
Childish a pure soul Gregory alienates him from both the Reds and the Whites. The truth is revealed to Melekhov: the truth cannot be on either side. Red and white are politics, class struggle. And where there is a class struggle, blood always flows, people die, children remain orphans. Truth is peaceful work in our native land, family, love.
Gregory is a hesitant, doubting nature. This allows him to search for the truth, not to stop there, and not to be limited by other people’s explanations. Gregory’s position in life is a position “between”: between the traditions of the fathers and by one's own will, between two loving women- Aksinya and Natalya, between the whites and the reds. Finally, between the need to fight and the realization of the meaninglessness and uselessness of the massacre (“my hands need to plow, not fight”).
The author himself sympathizes with his hero. In the novel, Sholokhov objectively describes events, talks about the “truth” of both whites and reds. But his sympathies and experiences are on Melekhov’s side. This man happened to live at a time when everything moral guidelines were displaced. It was this, as well as the desire to search for the truth, that led the hero to such a tragic ending - the loss of everything he loved: “Why did you, life, cripple me like that?”
The writer emphasizes that the civil war is a tragedy of the entire Russian people. There is no right or wrong in it, because people die, brother goes against brother, father against son.
Thus, Sholokhov in the novel “Quiet Don” made a truth-seeker a person from the people and from the people. The image of Grigory Melekhov becomes a concentration of historical and ideological conflict works, an expression of the tragic searches of the entire Russian people.

Mikhail Sholokhov... He knows the most...

secret movements human souls and with

knows how to show with great skill

This. Even his most random heroes,

whose life began and ended on

remain on the same page for a long time -

in your memory.

V.Ya. Shishkov

We can rightfully call M. Sholokhov a chronicler Soviet era, its explorer, its singer. He created a whole gallery of images that, in terms of their expressiveness and artistic value, stood on a par with the most remarkable images of advanced literature.

“Quiet Don” is a novel about the fate of the people at a turning point. This is the author’s fundamental point of view on the revolution and the Civil War. Dramatic fates of the main characters, the cruel lessons of the fate of Grigory Melikhov, the main character of the novel, are formed by Sholokhov into the unity of the historical truth of the people on the path of building a new life. By following the thorny path of Gregory’s life quest, one can understand how Sholokhov himself managed to solve the problem moral quest its main character.

At the beginning of the story, young Gregory - a real Cossack, a brilliant rider, hunter, fisherman and diligent rural worker - is quite happy and carefree. The traditional Cossack commitment to military glory helps him out in his first trials on the bloody battlefields in 1914. Distinguished by exceptional courage, Gregory quickly gets used to bloody battles. However, what distinguishes him from his brothers in arms is his sensitivity to any manifestation of cruelty. To any violence against the weak and defenseless, and as events develop - also a protest against the horrors and absurdities of war. In fact, he spends his entire life in an environment of hatred and fear that is alien to him, becoming embittered and discovering with disgust how all his talent, his entire being goes into the dangerous skill of creating death. He has no time to be at home, with his family, among people who love him.

All this cruelty, filth, and violence forced Gregory to take a fresh look at life: in the hospital where he was after being wounded, under the influence of revolutionary propaganda, doubts appeared about his devotion to the tsar, the fatherland and military duty.

In the seventeenth year we see Gregory in chaotic and painful attempts to somehow make up his mind in this “time of troubles.” He seeks political truth in a world of rapidly changing values, guided more often external signs events than their essence.

At first he fights for the Reds, but their murder of unarmed prisoners repulses him, and when the Bolsheviks come to his beloved Don, committing robbery and violence, he fights them with cold fury. And again Gregory’s search for truth does not find an answer. They turn into the greatest drama of a person completely lost in the cycle of events.

The deep forces of Gregory’s soul push him away from both the Reds and the Whites. “They are all the same! - he says to his childhood friends who are leaning towards the Bolsheviks. “They are all a yoke on the neck of the Cossacks!” And when he learns about the rebellion of the Cossacks in the upper reaches of the Don against the Red Army, he takes the side of the rebels. Now he can fight for what is dear to him, for what he loved and cherished all his life: “It’s as if the days of searching for the truth, trials, transitions and difficult internal struggles were not behind him. What was there to think about? Why was the soul rushing about - in search of a way out, in resolving contradictions? Life seemed mocking, wisely simple. Now it seemed to him that from eternity there had not been such a truth in it, under the wing of which anyone could warm up, and embittered to the brim, he thought: everyone has their own truth, their own furrow. People have always fought for a piece of bread, for a plot of land, for the right to life and will continue to fight as long as the sun shines on them, as long as warm blood oozes through their veins. We must fight with those who want to take away life, the right to it; you have to fight hard, without swaying, like in a wall, but the intensity of hatred, the hardness will be given by the struggle!”

Both a return to the dominance of officers in the event of a White victory, and the power of the Reds on the Don are unacceptable for Gregory. In the last volume of the novel, demotion as a consequence of disobedience to the White Guard general, the death of his wife and the final defeat of the White Army bring Gregory to the last degree of despair. In the end, he joins Budyonny’s cavalry and heroically fights the Poles, wanting to clear himself of his guilt before the Bolsheviks. But for Gregory there is no salvation in Soviet reality, where even neutrality is considered a crime. With bitter mockery, he tells the former messenger that he envies Koshevoy and the White Guard Listnitsky: “It was clear to them from the very beginning, but to me everything was still unclear. They both have their own straight roads, their own ends, but since I was seventeen, I’ve been walking along the vilyuzhkas like I’m swaying like a drunk...”

One night, under the threat of arrest, and therefore inevitable execution, Grigory flees his native farm. After long wanderings, longing for his children and Aksinya, he secretly returns. Aksinya hugs him, presses her face to his wet overcoat and sobs: “It’s better to kill him, but don’t leave him again!” Having asked his sister to take the children, he and Aksinya run at night in the hope of getting to Kuban and starting new life. Enthusiastic joy fills the soul of this woman at the thought that she is again next to Gregory. But her happiness is short-lived: on the road they are caught by a horse outpost, and they rush into the night, pursued by bullets flying after them. When they find shelter in a ditch, Gregory buries his Aksinya: “He carefully crushed the wet yellow clay on the grave mound with his palms and knelt for a long time near the grave, bowing his head, quietly swaying.

There was no need for him to rush now. It was all over..."

Hiding for weeks in the thicket of the forest, Grigory experiences more and more desire“If only I could go... to my native places, show off like the kids, then I could die...” He returns to his native village.

Having touchingly described Grigory’s meeting with his son, Sholokhov ends his novel with the words: “Well, the little that Grigory dreamed about during sleepless nights has come true. He stood at the gates of his home, holding his son in his arms... This was all that was left in his life, what still connected him with the earth and with this whole huge world shining under the cold sun.”

Gregory did not have long to enjoy this joy. It is obvious that he returned to die. To die from communist necessity in the person of Mikhail Koshevoy. In a novel full of cruelty, executions and murders, Sholokhov wisely brings down the curtain on this final episode. Meanwhile, a whole human life. Sholokhov's biography of Gregory is quite voluminous. Gregory lived, in the full sense of the word, when his idyll of life was not disturbed by anything.

He loved and was loved, he lived an extraordinary worldly life on his native farm and was content. He always tried to do the right thing, and if not, well, every person has the right to make a mistake. Many moments of Gregory’s life in the novel are peculiar “escapes” from events that are beyond his mind. The passion of Gregory’s quest is most often replaced by a return to himself, to natural life, to one's home. But at the same time it cannot be said that life's quest Gregory is at a dead end, no. He had real love, and fate did not deprive him of the opportunity to be a happy father. But Gregory was forced to constantly look for a way out of the difficult situations that had arisen. Talking about moral choice Gregory in life, it is impossible to say for sure whether his choice was always really the only true and correct one. But he was almost always guided by his own principles and beliefs, trying to find a better lot in life, and this desire of his was not a simple desire to “live better than everyone else.” It was sincere and affected the interests not only of himself, but also of many people close to him, in particular the woman he loved. Despite his fruitless aspirations in life, Gregory was happy, although only for a very short time. But even these short minutes of much-needed happiness were enough. They were not lost in vain, just as Grigory Melekhov did not live his life in vain.

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Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov - Russian Soviet writer, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1965 - “for artistic power and the integrity of the epic about Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia"). Sholokhov is the only Soviet writer to receive Nobel Prize with the consent of the leadership of the USSR. In 1923, his first feuilletons were published in the Yunosheskaya Pravda newspaper, and in 1924, his first story, “The Birthmark,” was published in the same newspaper. In 1923, Sholokhov's feuilletons were published in newspapers. Beginning in 1924, Sholokhov’s stories appeared in magazines, later combined into the collections “Don Stories” and “Azure Steppe” (1926). Sholokhov's novel “Quiet Flows the Don” (1928 - 1-2 volumes, 1932 - 3 volumes, 4 volumes published in 1940) brought Sholokhov Russian and world fame. The novel is very popular in the West and has been translated into many languages ​​of the world.

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History of the creation of the novel Sholokhov conceived a great novel about the people and revolution in the mid-20s. While working on “Don Stories,” the writer had the idea to create a novel about the Don, to show the Cossacks during the First World War, the 1917 revolution and the subsequent civil war. In October 1925, he began work on a novel called “Donshchina.” In a conversation with a correspondent of the Izvestia newspaper, Sholokhov recalled how work on the novel began: “I started writing the novel in 1925. Moreover, initially I did not think of expanding it so widely. I was attracted by the task of showing the Cossacks in the revolution. I started with the participation of the Cossacks in Kornilov’s campaign against Petrograd... I wrote 5-6 printed sheets. When I wrote it, I felt: something was wrong... It remains unclear to the reader - why did the Cossacks take part in the suppression of the revolution? What kind of Cossacks are these? What is the Region of the Don Army? So I quit the job I started. I started thinking about a broader novel.”

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About the novel Initially, Sholokhov conceived a novel about the Cossacks who took part in Kornilov’s campaign. But he understood that without revealing the historical conditions of life and life of the people, without explaining the reasons that prompted a significant part of them to take the side of the White Guards, the novel would not be understood by the reader. First, it was necessary to reveal the world of life in the Don Army Region with all its complexities and contradictions. By moving the narrative back in time, the writer sought to show the growth of revolutionary sentiment among his heroes, the scope of the people's struggle for a new life. In general, starting the story of the novel with a family story is a brilliant idea of ​​the young author. None of the main characters of the novel are considered separately: they all act as part of one or another family, and their characters are revealed in their relationships with relatives. Following the traditions of L.N. Tolstoy, Sholokhov traces two thoughts in his novel: historical thought and folk thought. At the end of the first book, depicting the position of Russian troops on the fronts of the imperialist war, Sholokhov introduces historical and chronicle descriptions and characteristics of military operations into the narrative. The writer resorted to them especially often in the second book “ Quiet Don", the most saturated with factual material. It is in it that the February coup, the Kornilov rebellion, the collapse of the fronts of the imperialist war, October Revolution in Petrograd and the Don and the dramatic events of the civil war in southern Russia.

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The main character of the epic is Grigory Melekhov. Acquaintance with the character Along with the description of historical events, Sholokhov set himself another task: to follow the tragic fate of individual people who found themselves in the maelstrom of events of 1914–1921. Tragic fate main character - Grigory Melekhov - is inextricably linked with epic theme people's destinies in the revolution. One of the lines of the novel is the path that the hero takes to realize his own truth. Here Sholokhov again follows in the footsteps of Tolstoy: Grigory, like the “heroes of the path” in the novel “War and Peace,” is characterized by the dialectic of the soul; he also goes through his own path of quest, speaking in Sholokhov’s language, “blundering.” The novel begins with a description of the Melekhov courtyard, in the very image of which one can find much in common with the fate of the protagonist (figurative parallelism): the courtyard is extreme, on the outskirts of the farm it stands alone, unlike the others - the fate of Gregory is just as bright and special; the gates of the courtyard face north: towards Russia, from where great changes are coming. In many ways, the fates of Grigory and the eldest of the Melekhovs, Prokofy Melekhov, are similar. Grigory Melekhov is a young eighteen-year-old guy, a daring Cossack; he is handsome, brave, desperate, hardworking.

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Gregory in search of historical truth and moral beginning throwing influence of Garanzha, Izvarin, Podtyolkov. In the center of the novel's narrative is the life path of Grigory Melekhov, his personal tragedy, the evolution of his spiritual world. Main hero-personality searching, he lives in search of moral and historical truth. This is his tragedy, because he had to live in a difficult, turning-point time for the country. Although Grigory is a simple “uncouth” Cossack, “the simplest of the simple” and far from being among the first in the social hierarchy, his soul and consciousness are constantly and intensely working. Let him express himself in simple words, as best he can, but they contain hidden deep meaning and purpose - the search for truth. Grigory’s painful tossing begins with a meeting in an eye clinic with the bearer of the “red” idea, Garanzha. It was he who sowed the seeds of doubt and mistrust in Gregory. He opened to the hero new truth about the Cossacks, Cossack duty, war and its goals. After conversations with Garanzha, a feeling of protest arises in Gregory, which results in the case of a certain “royal person” (episode in the hospital) But the seeds thrown by Garanzha were not destined to fall into fertile soil, Izvarin did not allow them to sprout - a meeting with whom was the next a step on the path of Grigory Melekhov’s “blunderings”. Izvarin is an educated, intelligent Cossack who argued that the Cossacks and the Bolsheviks were not on the same path. Because the party is a “peasant” one, made up of workers and collective farmers, which means that even under its power the “peasants” will live well, and the Cossacks are used as a military force. Izvarin preached the idea of ​​​​autonomy for the Don Army Region. Big influence The commander of the Red Army, Podtyolkov, influenced the consciousness of the hero. He said that it was necessary for power to be transferred to the people. This thought is close to Gregory and revives the ideas of Garanzhi in his soul.

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Departure from the “red” camp Gregory himself said about himself: “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I wander like a blizzard in the steppe.” These tossing and turning are the stages of soul development. Although many literary critics denied Gregory the ability to think broadly historically and deeply philosophically, Sholokhov, following L. Tolstoy, uses the “dialectic of the soul” technique in relation to his hero. The next step on the path of his quest will be a departure from the red camp, disappointment in Bolshevism. The first crack in Grigory’s faith in the revolution was the incident near the village of Golubaya, when Podtyolkov organized lynching of Chernetsov’s gang, contrary to the instructions of the authorities, who took the leader on bail. Melekhov leaves the Red Army and goes home.

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Departure from the “red” camp “It was difficult to find the right path.” At home, when talking with his father and brother, Grigory says: “I am for Soviet power.” To which his father answers him with annoyance: “Fool.” Two months after the hero’s return to the farm, the Cossacks hold a meeting, the purpose of which was to create a rebel army. Gregory fights in the Cossack army without any particular convictions, he is tired of war, victories do not please him, he has not yet found his truth. His brother Peter also fights in the rebel army alongside Gregory. As the eldest, it is difficult for him to watch his brother’s throwing, and he decides to have a frank conversation. “You, Grishka, haven’t found yourself yet,” he tells him, which really hurts Gregory, because Peter is right. The next step on the path of the hero’s departure from the Reds was the episode when the Red Army soldiers stopped at the Melekhovs’ house. Grigory thinks with horror what would have happened to his wife if he had not been at home. He is not pleased to listen to disparaging reviews from guests. All this puts the hero in a negative mood. Turning point became a conversation in the Revolutionary Committee. Grigory says that no power is in his conscience: neither white, nor red, and there is no special difference between them for the Cossacks. In the Red Army there is a clear hierarchy, while they glorify equality and brotherhood. “This power gives the Cossacks nothing other than discord. It’s peasant power, and men like it.”

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Gregory in the rebel army When Gregory finds out that his father has been arrested, he becomes increasingly embittered towards the Reds. Hatred for what they unleashed civil war, they took the Cossacks away from their wives and children - from the family, from the house - from the farm and the land, does not give the hero peace, and he decides to “fight the men to the death.” A typical episode is in which Grigory Melekhov, being the commander of the rebel army, gives the order to shoot captured sailors. But then, having come to his senses, he repents, beats himself in the chest and shouts: “Kill me!” Grigory Panteleevich is painfully trying to understand himself: what power does he have, as he himself put it, according to his conscience? To finally find his truth, to decide who to be with the whites or the reds, the hero is tired of tossing around, but he doesn’t find a way out, so out of melancholy and hopelessness he begins to drink. Gregory understands that the white movement will soon choke. He has the idea of ​​returning to the Red Army again. He shares these thoughts with his close friend, his wife Natalya: “We need to reconcile with the Reds. But as?"

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Gregory's return to the Tatarsky farm For eight years, Gregory did not get off his horse, during which time he was tired of fighting, “his soul was exhausted.” He wants to inhale the smell of his native kuren, walk with a harrow along the arable strip, simply be at home, on his native land. But when the hero returns to the farm, he sees that not a trace remains of his large, strong, friendly family. Of the Melekhovs, only Grigory’s children meet him: Misha and Polyushka and his sister. A new family member also appeared in the house - Mikhail Koshevoy, the man who once killed Pyotr Melekhov, and now Dunya’s husband, the owner of the Melekhov courtyard. Grigory finds the strength to forgive Koshevoy and not remember evil to him. However, Mikhail has a different attitude and perceives Melekhov with hostility, even organizing his arrest, but warned in time by his sister, Grigory flees.