The theme of human destiny in one of the works of Russian literature

State educational institution Moscow cities

Education Center No. 1493

Literature lesson notes
in 11th grade
« Analysis of an episode from the novel by M.A. Sholokhov " Quiet Don»
(book 1, part 3, chapter 12)»

prepared

teacher of Russian language and literature

Rudnenko Valentina Nikiforovna

Moscow

2011

Lesson type

Systematize and deepen historical, literary, theoretical information, practice and consolidate knowledge in the lesson:

“The monstrous absurdity of war and the bitterness of man in war” in the image of M.A. Sholokhov in the novel "Quiet Don".

Develop reading skills:

Expressive and commented reading;

Analysis literary text;

Logical thinking;

Oral coherent speech.

Achieve unity of figurative and logical perception of the entire novel when analyzing individual fragments and episodes.

To evoke aesthetic empathy and emotional response in children when discussing the novel.

During the classes

I. introduction teachers

In the novel “Quiet Don” M. A. Sholokhov poetizes people’s life, gives a deep analysis of its way of life, the origins of its crisis, which largely affected the fate of the heroes of the novel. The author emphasizes the decisive role of the people in history. According to Sholokhov, it is the people - driving force stories. One of his representatives in the novel is Grigory Melekhov. Undoubtedly he main character novel.

Gregory is a simple and illiterate Cossack, but his character is complex and multifaceted. The author gives him best features, inherent in the people.

At the very beginning of the novel, Sholokhov describes the history of the Melekhov family. Cossack Prokofy Melekhov returns from the Turkish campaign, bringing with him his wife, a Turkish woman. This is where the “new” history of the Melekhov family begins. The character of Gregory is already laid out in it. It is no coincidence that Grigory is outwardly similar to the men of his kind: “... he looks like his father: half a head taller than Peter, at least six years younger, the same drooping kite nose as his father’s, with slightly slanting cuts in the bluish tonsils of hot eyes, sharp slabs of cheekbones are covered with brown, ruddy skin. Grigory slouched in the same way as his father, even in their smile they both had something in common, a little beastly.” It is he, and not his older brother Peter, who continues the Melekhov family.

From the very first pages, Gregory is depicted in everyday peasant life. He, like everyone else on the farm, goes fishing, takes horses to water, falls in love, goes to games, and takes part in scenes of peasant labor. The character of the hero is clearly revealed in the episode of meadow mowing. Gregory discovers a love for all living things, an acute sense of other people's pain, and the ability to compassion. He feels painfully sorry for the duckling accidentally cut with a scythe; he looks at it “with a sudden feeling of acute pity.”

Grigory has a great sense of nature, he is closely connected with it. “Okay, ah, okay!..” - he thinks, deftly handling the scythe.

Gregory is a man of strong passions, decisive actions and actions. Numerous scenes with Aksinya speak eloquently about this. Despite his father's slander, during haymaking, at midnight he still goes in the direction where Aksinya is. Severely punished by Pantelei Prokofievich and not afraid of his threats, he still goes to Aksinya at night and returns only at dawn. Gregory already shows a desire to reach the end in everything, not to stop halfway. Marrying an unloved woman could not force him to abandon himself, his natural, sincere feelings. He only slightly calmed his father, who sternly announced to him: “Don’t be nasty to your neighbor! Don't be afraid of your father! Don’t wander around, dog!”, but nothing more. Grigory loves passionately and does not tolerate ridicule of himself. He doesn’t even forgive Peter for making fun of his feelings and grabs a pitchfork. "You are an idiot! Damn mad! This is the tortured Circassian who has degenerated into the batin breed!” - exclaims the scared to death Peter.

Gregory is always honest and sincere. “I don’t love you, Natasha, don’t be angry,” he frankly says to his wife.

At first, Grigory protests against running away from the farm with Aksinya, but his innate stubbornness and the impossibility of subordination nevertheless forced him to leave the farm and go with his beloved to the Listnitsky estate. Grigory is hired as a groom. But such a life away from his native nest is not for him. “An easy, well-fed life spoiled him. He became lazy, put on weight, and looked older than his years,” says the author.

Gregory contains a huge inner strength. A clear indication of this is the episode of his beating of Listnitsky Jr. Despite Listnitsky’s position, Grigory does not intend to forgive him for his insults: “Having intercepted the whip, he beat him in the face and hands with the whip, not allowing the centurion to come to his senses.” Melekhov is not afraid of punishment for his actions. He also treats Aksinya harshly: when he left, he never looked back. Gregory is characterized by a deep sense of self-worth. His strength lies in him, and it is capable of influencing other people, regardless of their rank and position. In the duel with the sergeant at the watering hole, Grigory undoubtedly wins, not allowing the senior in rank to hit himself.

The hero is ready to stand up not only for his own, but also for the dignity of others. He turned out to be the only one who stood up for Franya, who was abused by the Cossacks. Finding himself powerless against evil, he “for the first time in a long period of time almost cried.”

First World War picked up the fate of Gregory and spun it in a whirlwind of turbulent historical events. Grigory, like a true Cossack, devotes himself entirely to battle. He is decisive and brave. He easily captures three Germans, deftly recaptures a battery from the enemy, and saves an officer. Evidence of his courage are St. George's crosses and medals, officer rank.

Melekhov is generous. In battle, he extends a helping hand to his rival Stepan Astakhov, who dreams of killing him. Gregory is shown as a courageous, skilled warrior. But still, killing a person deeply contradicts his humane nature, his life values“Well, well, I cut down a man in vain and because of him, the bastard, I’m sick in my soul,” he says to brother Peter, “... I’m exhausted in my soul... It’s like I’ve been under a millstone, they crushed me and spat me out.”

Grigory quickly begins to experience incredible fatigue and disappointment. At first, he fights fearlessly and without thinking that he is shedding his own and others’ blood. But war and life confront Melekhov with many people who have fundamentally different views on the world and what is happening in it. Communication with them makes the hero think about both the war and the life he lives.

Chubatiy carries the truth “Cut a man boldly.” He easily talks about human death, about the possibility and right to take a person’s life. Grigory listens to him attentively and understands: such an inhumane position is unacceptable and alien to him.

Garanzha sowed seeds of doubt in Melekhov’s soul. He suddenly doubted previously unshakable values, such as the tsar and Cossack military duty. “The Tsar is a drunkard, the Tsarina is a whore, the master’s pennies are increased from the war, but it’s on our necks...” Garanzha cynically declares. He makes Gregory think about a lot. These doubts marked the beginning of Gregory’s tragic path to the truth. The hero makes desperate attempts to find the truth and meaning of life.

The character of Grigory Melekhov is truly amazing, truly folk.

The XII 11th Cavalry Division, after occupying Leshnyuv, fought through Stanislavchik, Radziwillov, Brody and on August 15 deployed near the town of Kamenka-Strumilovo. The army walked behind, infantry units concentrated in important strategic areas, and headquarters and convoys accumulated at the junctions. The front stretched from the Baltic like a deadly rope. Plans for a broad offensive were being developed at headquarters, generals were poring over maps, orderlies were rushing around delivering combat orders, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were going to their deaths. Intelligence reports reported that large enemy cavalry forces were converging on the city. Skirmishes broke out in the copses near the roads, and Cossack patrols came into contact with enemy reconnaissance forces. Melekhov Grigory, all the days of the campaign, after he parted with his brother, tried and could not find a fulcrum in his soul to stop in painful thoughts and regain his former even mood. With the last marching hundred, third-rankers were added to the regiment. One of them, a Cossack from the village of Kazanskaya, Alexei Uryupin, ended up in the same platoon with Grigory. Uryupin was tall, stooped, with a prominent lower jaw and Kalmyk braids of a mustache; his cheerful, fearless eyes always laughed; despite his age, he was bald, only on the sides of his bare, convex skull were sparse bushes Brown hair . From the very first day the Cossacks gave him the nickname Chubatiy. Near Brody after the battle the regiment rested for a day. Grigory stood with Chubaty in the same hut. They started talking. - You, Melekhov, are kind of faded. - How faded? - Grigory frowned. “He’s good, he seems to be sick,” Chubaty explained. They fed the horses at the hitching post and smoked, leaning against a mossy, dilapidated fence. Hussars walked four in a row along the street, uncleaned corpses lay under the fences (displacing the Austrians, they fought in the streets of the suburbs), smoke oozing from under the ruins of a burnt synagogue. Great destruction and disgusting emptiness showed the city in this late afternoon, lavishly embroidered with colors. - I'm healthy. - Grigory, without looking at Chubaty, spat. - You're lying! I see. -What do you see? -Are you timid, little fellow? Are you afraid of death? “You’re stupid,” Grigory said contemptuously and, squinting, examined his nails. - Tell me: did you kill a man? - Chubaty minted, peering inquisitively into Grigory’s face. - Killed. Well? - Wailing soul? - Ste-thread? - Grigory grinned. Chubaty pulled the saber out of its sheath. - Do you want me to cut off your head? - After? - I’ll kill and not breathe - I have no pity! - Chubaty’s eyes laughed, but Grigory understood from his voice, from the predatory flutter of his nostrils that he was speaking seriously. “You are wild and eccentric,” said Grigory, carefully examining Chubaty’s face. -Your heart is liquid. Do you know the cormorant blow? Look! Chubaty chose an elderly birch tree growing in the front garden and walked straight towards it, stooping, aiming with his eyes. His long, sinewy, excessively wide arms hung motionless. - Look! He slowly raised his saber and, crouching, suddenly threw an oblique swing with terrible force. A birch tree, cut two arshins from the root, fell, catching the bare window frames with its branches, scratching the wall of the house. - Did you see it? Learn. Baklanov the ataman was there, did you hear? He had a sword - it was filled with mercury, it was hard to lift it, but he would chop the horse in half. Here! For a long time, Grigory could not master the complex technique of striking. - You are strong, but you are a fool to chop. This is how it should be,” Chubaty taught, and his saber, in oblique flight, struck the target with monstrous force. - Chop the man boldly. “He’s a soft man, like dough,” Chubaty taught, laughing with his eyes. - Don’t think about how or what. You are a Cossack, your job is to chop without asking. In battle, killing an enemy is a sacred thing. For every person you kill, God forgives you one sin, just like for a snake. You cannot destroy an animal without need - a heifer, say, or something like that - but destroy a person. He is a filthy man... Evil spirits, he stinks on the earth, he lives like a toadstool mushroom. At Grigory’s objections, he winced and stubbornly fell silent. Grigory noticed with surprise that all the horses were unreasonably afraid of Chubaty. When he approached the hitching post, the horses straightened their ears and huddled together, as if an animal was coming towards them, and not a man. Near Stanislavchik, a hundred, advancing through wooded and swampy terrain, were forced to dismount. The horse breeders took the horses and rode off into the hollow, under cover. Chubaty got the job of driving the horse, but he flatly refused. - Uryupin, why are you, bitch udder, kicking out? Why don't you take the horses? - the platoon commander flew at him. - They are afraid of me. By God! - he assured, hiding a constant chuckle in his eyes. He was never a horse breeder. He treated his horse kindly, cherished it with care, but Grigory always noticed: as soon as the owner approached the horse, out of habit, without moving his hands pressed to his hips, a wave of trembling ran down the horse’s back: the horse was worried. - Tell me, saint, why are you making the horses go crazy? - Grigory asked once. - Who knows. - Chubaty shrugged his shoulders. - I feel sorry for them. - They guess drunk people by their spirit, they are afraid, but you are solid. “My heart is strong, they sense it.” - You have a wolf’s heart, or maybe you don’t have any, a pebble has been laid in its place. “Perhaps,” Chubaty readily agreed. Near the city of Kamenka-Strumilovo, the entire third platoon with its platoon officer went on reconnaissance: the day before, the Czech defector informed the command about the deployment of Austrian units and the proposed counter-offensive along the Goroshi-Stavintsky line; constant monitoring of the road along which enemy units were expected to move was required; For this purpose, the platoon officer left four Cossacks with a platoon officer at the edge of the forest, and with the rest he went to the tiled roofs of some settlement visible behind the hill. At the edge of the forest, near the old pointed chapel with a rusty crucifix, Grigory Melekhov, the constable, and the young Cossacks - Silantiev, Chubaty and Mishka Koshevoy - remained. “Dismount, guys,” the constable ordered. - Koshevoy, take the horses over there behind these pine trees, well, yes, over there behind these pine trees, which ones are thicker. The Cossacks lay under a broken, withered pine tree, smoking: the policeman did not take his eyes off his binoculars. About ten paces away from them, an unharvested crop of wheat, which had lost its grain, was agitated. The ears, emasculated by the wind, hunched over and rustled mournfully. The Cossacks lay there for half an hour, exchanging lazy phrases. Somewhere to the right of the city, the roar of guns swayed incessantly. Gregory crawled to the grain and, choosing full ears of grain, crushing them, chewed the stale, stale grain. - No way, Austrians! - the constable exclaimed in a low voice. - Where? - Silantiev perked up. - Get out of the forest. Look right! A group of horsemen rode out from behind a distant copse. Having stopped, they looked at the field with the far protruding headlands of the forest, then they set off towards the Cossacks. - Melekhov! - the constable called. Gregory crawled to the pine tree. - Let's bring him closer and hit him with one gulp. Ready your rifles, guys! - the constable whispered feverishly. The riders, taking to the right, moved at a walk. The four lay under the pine tree in silence, losing their breath. - ...aukht, corporal! - a young sonorous voice carried by the wind. Gregory raised his head: six Hungarian hussars, in beautiful jackets embroidered with cords, were riding in a group. The one in front, on a large black horse, held a carbine in his hand and laughed quietly in a deep voice. - Croy! - the constable whispered. "Gu-gu-gak!" - the volley boomed. "Aka-ka-ka - ka-ak!" - the echo barked behind. - What are you talking about? - Koshevoy shouted in fear from behind the pines - and at the horses: - Trrrr, damned! Enraged! Damn it! - His voice sounded soberingly loud. The hussars galloped across the grain, broken and tenacious. One of them, the one who rode in front on a well-fed black horse, shot upward. The last one lagging behind, falling to the horse’s neck, looked around, holding his cap with his left hand. Chubaty jumped up first and ran, his legs tangling in his chest, holding his rifle at the ready. A hundred yards away, a fallen horse was kicking and kicking, and a Hungarian hussar stood next to it without a cap, rubbing his knee, which had been bruised in the fall. He shouted something from afar and raised his hands, looking around at his comrades galloping in the distance. All this happened so quickly that Grigory came to his senses only when Chubaty led the prisoner to a pine tree. - Shoot, warrior! - he shouted, roughly jerking the broadsword towards him. The prisoner smiled in confusion and began to fuss. He readily began to take off his belt, but his hands were noticeably trembling, and he could not unfasten the buckle. Grigory carefully helped him, and the hussar - a young, tall, plump-cheeked guy, with a tiny wart stuck to the corner of his shaved upper lip - smiled at him gratefully and nodded his head. He seemed glad that he had been freed from weapons, rummaged in his pockets, looking around at the Cossacks, took out a leather pouch and muttered something, gesturing for a smoke. “He’s treating me,” the constable smiled, while he himself felt the piece of paper in his pocket. “Light up for a stranger,” Silantiev laughed. The Cossacks rolled their cigarettes and lit a cigarette. Black pipe tobacco hit my head hard. - Where is his rifle? - the constable asked, puffing greedily. - Here she is. - Chubaty showed a stitched yellow belt from behind his back. - We need a hundred of it. At headquarters they probably need “language.” Who's going to drive, guys? - asked the constable, panting and looking around the Cossacks with salty eyes. “I’ll show you,” Chubaty volunteered. - Well, go ahead. The prisoner apparently understood and smiled a crooked, pitiful smile; Overpowering himself, he fussed, turned out his pockets and thrust the crumpled wet chocolate to the Cossacks. - Their Rusins... Rusins... niht Austrians! “He distorted his words, gesticulated funny and kept thrusting fragrant crumpled chocolate at the Cossacks. - Are there any weapons besides? - the constable asked him. - Don’t talk, we won’t understand everything. Is there a Livorvert? Is there a bang-bang? - The constable pressed the imaginary trigger. The prisoner shook his head furiously. - Do not eat! Do not eat! He willingly allowed himself to be searched, his plump cheeks trembling. Blood flowed from the torn leggings on the knee, and an abrasion was visible on the pink body. He put a handkerchief to it, winced, smacked his lips, spoke madly... His cap was left near the dead horse, he asked permission to go get a blanket, cap and notebook , it contains a photograph of his relatives. The sergeant tried in vain to understand him and hopelessly waved his hand: - Drive away. Chubaty took his horse from Koshevoy, sat down, straightening his rifle belt, and pointed with his hand: “Go, serviceman, also a warrior, edrena-matryona!” Encouraged by his smile, the prisoner smiled and, walking next to the horse, even with ingratiating familiarity clapped his palm on Chubaty’s dry shin. He sternly threw back his hand and pulled the reins, letting him go forward. - Go, damn it! Are you kidding? The prisoner hurried guiltily and walked away, already serious, often looking back at the remaining Cossacks. His whitish curls stuck out provocatively on the top of his head. This is how he remained in Gregory’s memory - an embroidered hussar jacket thrown undone, whitish, raised curls and a confident, gallant gait. “Melekhov, go and unsaddle his horse,” the constable ordered and regretfully spat on the remainder of the cigarette, which was already burning his fingers. Grigory removed the saddle from the dead horse and for some reason picked up the cap that was lying nearby. He sniffed the lining, smelling the spicy smell of cheap soap and sweat. He carried a saddle and carefully held a hussar's cap in his left hand. The Cossacks, squatting near a pine tree, rummaged through their bags, examining the unprecedented shape of the saddle. “His tobacco is good, I should ask him for a cigarette,” Silantiev regretted. - Yes, that’s true, that’s true, tobacco is good. “It’s as if the azhnik is sweet, so it goes down the throat with oil...” The officer sighed at the memory and swallowed his saliva. A few minutes later, a horse’s head appeared from behind a pine tree. Chubatiy was driving back. - Well?.. - the constable jumped up in fear. - Missed it? Swinging the whip. Chubaty rode up, dismounted, stretched, stretching his shoulders. - Where is the Austrian? - the constable inquired as he approached. - Why are you bothering? - Chubatiy snapped. - He escaped... I thought of running away... - Missed it? - We drove out into the clearing, and he gasped... I cut him down. - You're lying! - Gregory shouted. - You killed him in vain! - Why are you making noise? Do you care? - Chubaty raised his icy eyes to Grigory. - How-a-ok? - Grigory slowly stood up, groping around with his bouncing hands. - Don’t go where you don’t belong! Understood? Don't go! - Chubaty repeated sternly. Tugging the rifle by the belt, Grigory quickly threw it to his shoulder. His finger jumped, missing the trigger, and his brown face looked strangely askew. - But-but! - the constable shouted threateningly, running up to Grigory. The shock preceded the shot, and the bullet, knocking down the needles from the pine trees, sang viscously and thinly. - What is this! - Koshevoy gasped. Silantiev sat there with his mouth open and remained there. The sergeant, shoving Grigory in the chest, snatched the rifle from him, only Chubaty did not change his position: he still stood with his leg outstretched, holding his belt with his left hand. - Shoot isho. “I’ll kill you!” Grigory rushed towards him. - What are you talking about?.. How is that? Do you want to go to trial, to be shot? Put down your weapons!.. - the constable yelled and, pushing Grigory away, stood between them, swinging his arms like a crucifix. “If you lie, you won’t kill!..” Chubaty laughed restrainedly, bouncing his outstretched leg. On the way back, already at dusk, Grigory was the first to notice the corpse of a hacked man in the clearing. He galloped up, ahead of the others, holding the snoring horse, and peered: on the curly moss, with his outstretched arm thrown out far, lying flat, his face buried in the moss, a hacked man lay. The grass was dim, and the palm of the hand was yellowing like an autumn leaf. A terrifying blow, inflicted, in all likelihood, from behind, split the prisoner in two, from the shoulder obliquely to the waist. “He hit him...” the constable said dully as he drove by, glancing in fear at the white curls of the dead man, sticking out obliquely on his crooked head. The Cossacks rode in silence to the parking lot of hundreds. It was getting dark. A black cirrus cloud was driven by a breeze from the west. From somewhere in the swamp a fresh smell of moss, rusty dampness, rottenness was creeping up; the bittern hooted. The drowsy silence was interrupted by the clanking of horse harnesses, the occasional knock of a sword on a stirrup, and the crunch of pine needles under the horses' hooves. Above the clearing, the dark ore traces of the departed sun faded on the trunks of the pine trees. Chubati smoked often. The smoldering fire illuminated his thick fingers with convex black nails, tightly clutching a cigarette. A cloud floated over the forest, emphasizing and thickening the faded, indescribably sad colors of the evening thrown onto the ground.

“Quiet Don” by M. A. Sholokhov

(Lesson system)

The significance of the novel “Quiet Don” is due to the fact that it was written by the greatest writer of the 20th century, who received world fame. It was for this novel that Sholokhov was awarded Nobel Prize. "Quiet Don" - a national contribution to world culture. This circumstance should determine the place of the work in the monographic topic “M. A. Sholokhov." The initial theses that guide the methodological solution to this topic can be formulated as follows:

— “Quiet Don” must be considered in the context of the entire work of the writer, who came to literature with the theme of the birth of a new society in the throes and tragedies of social struggle. This topic was determined by the scope and significance of the events that took place, in which Sholokhov himself was a contemporary and participant. The contextual principle of the review will allow us to establish not only the problematic and thematic, but also the aesthetic connections of the writer’s works, which will give the reader the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding art world Sholokhov, to feel the peculiarities of his talent.

— The epic novel “Quiet Don,” on which the writer worked from 1925 to 1940, reflects the fate of a man who went through the First World War and the Civil War.

— Each generation reads this novel in a new way, interprets the characters of the characters and the origins of their tragedy in a new way. The teacher’s task is to help students understand the complex content of a large work, to bring them closer to understanding the author’s version of events “that shook the world.” The system of review lessons on the novel “Quiet Don” can be presented in the following form:

First lesson. A word about Sholokhov. The concept and history of the creation of the novel "Quiet Don".(Teacher's introductory lecture.)
Second lesson. Pictures of life Don Cossacks on the pages of the novel. “Family Thought” in the novel “Quiet Don”.(Work on individual episodes of the first part of the novel, determining its place in general plan novel, in its compositional plan.)
Third lesson. “The monstrous absurdity of war” as depicted by Sholokhov.(Conversation about what has been read, commentary on individual scenes of the third to fifth parts of the novel, generalization by the teacher.)
Fourth lesson. "In a world split in two." The civil war on the Don as depicted by Sholokhov.(Teacher's word, benchmarking separate episodes of the sixth and seventh parts of the novel.)
Fifth lesson. The fate of Grigory Melekhov.(Lesson-seminar.)

The novel “Quiet Don” will attract students with the novelty of life material. It very clearly shows the life of a Cossack farm in all its picturesqueness and color, everyday life and in all the fullness of human manifestation.

To the second lesson students will complete the following tasks: 1. Find in the first part of the novel answers to the questions: who are the Cossacks? What were they doing? How did you live? Why does Sholokhov write about them with love? Whom does he speak about with particular affection? 2. Highlight the most striking episodes of the first part. How do they convey the beauty of the peasant life of the Cossacks, the poetry of their work? In what situations does the writer show his characters? 3. Highlight the description of the Don nature, the Cossack farm. What is their role? It is advisable that students do not pass by such episodes of the first part: “The Story of Prokofy Melekhov” (chapter 1), “Morning in the Melekhov family”, “On a fishing trip” (chapter 2), “In the haymaking” (chapter 9), scenes of matchmaking and wedding of Gregory and Natalya (chap. 15-22), call for military service, Gregory undergoing a medical examination (part two, chapter 21).

Let us draw the students' attention to the fact that at the center of Sholokhov's narrative there are several families: the Melekhovs, the Korshunovs, the Mokhovs, the Koshevs, the Listnitskys. This is not accidental: the patterns of the era are revealed not only in historical events, but also in facts privacy, family relationships, where the power of traditions is especially strong and any break in them gives rise to acute, dramatic conflicts.

The story about the fate of the Melekhov family begins with a sharp, dramatic beginning, with the story of Prokofy Melekhov, who amazed the farmers with his “outlandish act.” WITH Turkish war he brought his Turkish wife. He loved her in the evenings, when “the dawns were fading,” he carried her in his arms to the top of the mound, “he sat down next to her, and they looked at the steppe for a long time.” And when an angry crowd approached their house, Prokofy with a saber stood up to defend his beloved wife.

From the first pages, proud people with an independent character and capable of great feelings appear. Thus, from the story of Grandfather Gregory, the novel “Quiet Don” enters into something beautiful and at the same time tragic. And for Gregory, love for Aksinya will become a serious test of life. “I wanted to talk about the charm of a person in Grigory Melekhov,” admitted Sholokhov. The general structure of the narrative convinces that the writer was also influenced by the charm of Natalya, Ilyinichna, Aksinya, Dunyashka. The main values ​​of the Melekhovs are moral, human: goodwill, responsiveness, generosity and, most importantly, hard work.

In the Cossack environment, a person was valued in relation to work. “He’s a great groom,” Natalya’s mother says about Gregory, “and their family is very hard-working... A hard-working family with plenty of money.” “The Melekhovs are glorious Cossacks,” Grishak’s grandfather echoes her. “In his heart, Miron Grigorievich liked Grishka for his Cossack prowess, for his love of farming and work. The old man singled him out from the crowd of guys from the village back when at the races Grishka took away the first prize for horseback riding.” Many episodes convince us of the validity of this characterization of the Melekhovs.

The original concept of the novel was related to the events of 1917, “with the participation of the Cossacks in Kornilov’s campaign against Petrograd.” In the process of work, Sholokhov significantly expanded the scope of the narrative and returned to the pre-war era, to 1912. In the life of the Cossack village, during everyday life, in the psychology of the Cossacks, he looked for an explanation for the behavior of the heroes in the days of terrible trials. Therefore, the first part of the novel can be considered as an expanded exposition of the novel “Quiet Flows the Don”, chronological framework which are indicated very clearly: May 1912 - March 1922. Expanding the concept of the book allowed the writer to capture “the people’s life of Russia at its grandiose historical turning point.” With this conclusion we can complete the second lesson on Sholokhov’s novel.

“The monstrous absurdity of war” in the image of Sholokhov - this is the theme third lesson. Let us hold the students' attention on this formulation: it indicates the author's view of the event, the Cossacks' attitude to the war, and the nature of the narrative. How is this image, which has become key in the novel, revealed? This question will guide the analysis of episodes from the third to fifth parts of the novel.

Antithesis peaceful life in “Quiet Don” there will be war, first the First World War, then civil war. These wars will take place in villages and villages, each family will have casualties. Sholokhov’s family will become a mirror, uniquely reflecting the events of world history. Starting from the third part of the novel, the tragic will determine the tone of the narrative. For the first time, the tragic motive will be heard in the epigraph:

Which pages of the novel echo the tune of this ancient Cossack song? Let us turn to the beginning of the third part of the novel, here the date appears for the first time: “In March 1914...” This is a significant detail in the work: a historical date will separate peace from war. Rumors about her spread through the villages: “War will come…”, “There won’t be a war, you can tell by the harvest”, “How’s the war?”, “War, uncle!” As we see, the story of the war originates in the farmstead, in the very thick of people’s life. The news about her found the Cossacks at their usual work - mowing wheat (part three, chapter 3). The Melekhovs saw: a horse was walking with a “catchy advance”; the horseman jumped up and shouted: “Flash!” The alarming news gathered a crowd in the square (chapter 4). “One word in a diverse crowd: mobilization.” The fourth chapter ends with the episode “At the Station,” from where the trains with Cossack regiments departed for the Russian-Austrian border. "War…"

The chain of short episodes, the alarming tone conveyed by the words: “flare”, “mobilization”, “war ...” - all this is connected with the date - 1914. The writer puts the word “War…” twice in a separate line. “War!” Pronounced with different intonations, it makes the reader think about the terrible meaning of what is happening. This word echoes the remark of an old railway worker who looked into the carriage where “Petro Melekhov was steaming with the other thirty Cossacks”:

“—You are my dear beef! “And he shook his head reproachfully for a long time.”

The emotion expressed in these words also contains a generalization. It is expressed more openly at the end of the seventh chapter: “Echelons... Echelons... Countless echelons! Through the arteries of the country, along the railways to the western border, agitated Russia is driving grey-overcoat blood.”

Let us highlight other enlarged images that will appear on the pages of the novel: “a land crucified by many hooves”, a “field of death” on which people who “have not yet had time to break their hands in exterminating their own kind” collided, “the monstrous absurdity of war.” Each of them is associated with separate sketches, episodes, and reflections. There are also battle scenes in the “military” chapters, but they are not interesting to the author in themselves. Sholokhov solves the “man at war” conflict in his own way. In “Quiet Don” we will not find descriptions of exploits, admiration of heroism, military courage, or delight in battle, which would be natural in a story about the Cossacks. Sholokhov is interested in something else - what war does to a person. Isolating precisely this aspect of the topic will allow you to feel the peculiarities of Sholokhov’s psychologism.

Getting to know the heroes of the novel, we will notice each of them has their own ability to experience and comprehend the war, but everyone will feel the “monstrous absurdity of war”. Through the eyes of the Cossacks we will see how “the ripened grain was trampled by the cavalry,” how a hundred “crushed the bread with iron horseshoes,” how “between the brown, unharvested rolls of mown grain, a black marching column unfolded into a chain,” how “the first shrapnel covered the rows of unharvested wheat.” And everyone, looking at the “unharvested shafts of wheat, at the bread lying under the hooves,” remembered his tithes and “hardened his heart.” These flood memories illuminate, as if from the inside, the dramatic situation in which the Cossacks found themselves during the war.

Let us note in the conversation: the novel strongly expresses a moral protest against the meaninglessness of war, its inhumanity. Drawing episodes of a baptism of fire, Sholokhov reveals state of mind a person who shed someone else's blood. In the chain of similar episodes, the scene “Gregory kills the Austrian” (part three, chapter 5), which caused a strong shock in the hero, stands out for its psychological expressiveness. The commentary on this episode in the lesson is guided by the following questions: what psychological shades can be identified in the description of the Austrian’s appearance? How does Sholokhov convey Grigory’s condition? What words express the author’s assessment of what is happening? What does this scene reveal in the hero of the novel?

It is advisable to convey in reading the most important points episode. An Austrian was running along the garden railing. Melekhov caught up with him. “Inflamed by the madness that was happening all around, he raised his saber,” and lowered it onto the temple of an unarmed soldier. “Lengthened by fear” his face “turned cast iron black”, “the skin hung like a red flap”, “blood fell in a crooked stream” - it’s as if this “frame” was shot in slow motion. Gregory met the Austrian's gaze. “Eyes filled with mortal horror looked at him deadly... Squinting his eyes, Grigory waved his saber. The blow with a long pull split the skull in two. The Austrian fell, sticking out his hands as if he had slipped; half of the skull thumped dully on the stone of the pavement.”

The details of this scene are scary! They don't let Gregory go. He, “without knowing why,” approached the Austrian soldier he had hacked to death. “He was lying there, near the playful braid of the lattice fence, stretching out his dirty brown palm, as if asking for alms. Grigory looked into his face. It seemed small to him, almost childish, despite the drooping mustache and the twisted, stern mouth, exhausted—either by suffering or by the previous joyless life…

Grigory... stumbled and went to the horse. His step was confused and heavy, as if he was carrying an unbearable baggage on his shoulders; disgust and bewilderment crumpled the soul.”

A terrible picture in all its details will remain before Gregory’s eyes for a long time, painful memories will bother him for a long time. When meeting his brother, he admits: “I, Petro, have lost my soul. I’m so unfinished... It’s as if I’ve been under a millstone, they crushed it and spat it out... My conscience is killing me. I stabbed one with a pike near Leszniow. In the heat of the moment. It was impossible otherwise... Why did I cut this guy down?.. I cut down a man in vain and because of him, the bastard, my soul is sick. At night I dream…” (part three, chapter 10).

Several weeks of the war have passed, but the impressionable Gregory can already see traces of it everywhere: “August was drawing to a close. In the gardens, the leaves turned richly yellow, filled with a dying crimson from the cuttings, and from a distance it looked like the trees had lacerations and were bleeding with ore-like tree blood.

Gregory watched with interest the changes taking place among his comrades in the hundred... Changes took place on every face, each in his own way nurtured and nurtured the seeds sown by the war.”

The changes in Gregory himself were striking: he was “bent ... by the war, sucked the color from his face, painted him with bile.” And internally he became completely different: “Grigory firmly guarded the Cossack honor, seized the opportunity to show selfless courage, took risks, acted extravagantly, went disguised to the rear of the Austrians, took down outposts without bloodshed, the Cossack horse-rided and felt that the pain for the person that crushed him in the first days of the war. The heart became coarse, hardened, like a salt marsh in a drought, and just as a salt marsh does not absorb water, so Gregory’s heart did not absorb pity. With cold contempt he played with other people's and his own life; That’s why he was known as brave - he won four St. George’s crosses and four medals. At rare parades he stood at the regimental banner, covered in the gunpowder smoke of many wars; but he knew that he would no longer laugh as before, he knew that his eyes were sunken and his cheekbones were sticking out sharply; he knew that it was difficult for him, when kissing a child, to look openly into clear eyes; Gregory knew what price he paid for the full bow of crosses and production” (part four, chapter 4).

Sholokhov diversifies visual arts, showing Cossacks at war. So they write off “Prayer from a gun”, “Prayer from battle”, “Prayer during a raid”. The Cossacks kept them under their shirts and attached them to bundles with a pinch of their native land. “But death also stained those who carried prayers with them.” The scene depicting the Cossacks in a field near a fire is lyrically colored: “in the opal crown of June” the song “A Cossack went to a distant foreign land” sounds, filled with “dense sadness.” At another fire there is a different Cossack song: “Ah, from the wild sea, and from the Azov Sea.”

The author’s voice bursts into the epic narrative: “The native kurens were imperiously drawn to themselves, and there was no such force that could keep the Cossacks from their spontaneous desire to go home.” Everyone wanted to visit home, “just have a look.” And, as if fulfilling this desire, Sholokhov draws a farmstead, “bloodless like a widow,” where “life was sold for sale - like hollow water in the Don.” The author's text sounds in unison with the words of an ancient Cossack song, which became the epigraph of the novel.

So, through battle scenes, through the acute experiences of the heroes, through landscape sketches, descriptions and generalizations, and lyrical digressions, Sholokhov leads us to comprehend the “monstrous absurdity of war.”

“All of Russia is in the throes of a great redistribution.” "In a world split in two." In Sholokhov's novel you can find many words to define the theme fourth lesson , dedicated to paintings from the Civil War. The introductory part of this lesson might include the following:

- M. Gorky attributed “Quiet Don” to those “ bright works", which "gave a broad, truthful and the most talented picture civil war." And for more than half a century, the novel has been bringing the light of this truth to the reader.
— Determining the essence of Sholokhov’s concept of the civil war, let us turn to the reflections modern writers, historians who discovered a new vision of the events of those years. Thus, the writer Boris Vasiliev states: “In a civil war there are no right and wrong, no just and unjust, no angels and no demons, just as there are no victors. There are only the vanquished in it - all of us, all the people, all of Russia... A tragic catastrophe gives birth only to losses...” “Quiet Don” convinces of the justice of what has been said. Sholokhov was one of those who first spoke about the civil war as a greatest tragedy which had dire consequences.
— Researchers of Sholokhov’s work attribute the level of truth that marks the novel “Quiet Don” to serious work young writer over archival materials, memoirs of participants in the events. It is impossible not to take into account the opinion of M. N. Semanov, who in the book “Quiet Don” - Literature and History” wrote: “The painstaking work of the author of “Quiet Don” on collecting historical material is unconditional and obvious, however, the explanation of the unprecedented depth of historicism of Sholokhov’s epic follows look in the writer's biography. M. Sholokhov himself was not only an eyewitness to the events described (like Leo Tolstoy in “Hadji Murat”), but was also - and this should be especially emphasized - a fellow countryman of his heroes, he lived their life, he was flesh of their flesh and bone of their bones. The thousand-mouthed rumor of a world torn apart by the revolution brought to him such “facts” and such “information” that the archives and libraries of the whole world could not compete with.”

How does Sholokhov paint this world torn apart by revolution? This central theme fourth lesson.

One of the author’s favorite techniques is a foreshadowing story. So, at the end of the first chapter of the fifth part of the novel we read: “Until January, they lived quietly on the Tatar farm. The Cossacks who returned from the front rested near their wives, ate their food, did not sense that at the thresholds of the kurens they were watching for greater troubles and hardships than those they had to endure in the war they had experienced.”

“Big troubles” are revolution and civil war, which disrupted the usual way of life. In a letter to Gorky, Sholokhov noted: “Without exaggerating the colors, I painted the harsh reality that preceded the uprising.” The essence of the events depicted in the novel is truly tragic; they affect the fate of huge sections of the population. In "Quiet Don" there are more than seven hundred characters, main and episodic, named and unnamed; and the writer is concerned about their fates.

There is a name for what happened on the Don during the civil war - “the decossackization of the Cossacks,” accompanied by mass terror, which provoked retaliatory cruelty. “Dark rumors” spread through the villages about emergency commissions and revolutionary tribunals, the trial of which was “simple: accusation, a couple of questions, a verdict - and then a machine-gun fire.” The author writes about the atrocities of the Red Army in the farmsteads (part six, chapter 16). The military courts of the Don Army were just as tough. We see the Reds chopped down with particular cruelty. Making the facts more convincing, Sholokhov cites documents: a list of those executed from Podtelkov’s detachment (part five, chapter 11) and a list of executed hostages of the Tatarsky farm (part six, chapter 24).

Many pages of the sixth part of the novel are colored with anxiety and heavy forebodings: “The whole Obdon region lived a hidden, suppressed life... Mga hung over the future.” “Life took a sharp turn”: they imposed indemnities on the richest houses, arrests and executions began. How do the Cossacks themselves perceive this time?

Petro Melekhov: “Look how the people were divided, you bastards! It was as if we were driving with a plow: one in one direction, the other in the other, as if under a ploughshare. Damn life, and terrible times! One can no longer guess the other...
“Here you are,” he abruptly turned the conversation, “you’re my dear brother, but I don’t understand you, by God!” I feel that you are somehow leaving me... am I telling the truth? - and answered himself: - The truth. You’re confused... I’m afraid you’ll go over to the Reds... You, Grishatka, haven’t found yourself yet.
- Did you find it? - asked Grigory.
- Found. I fell into my furrow... You can’t pull me to the red lasso. The Cossacks are against them, and I am against them."
“Miron Grigorievich spoke in a new way, with matured anger:
- Why did life collapse? Who is the reason? This damn power!.. I worked all my life, I wheezed, then I washed myself, and in order for me to live equally with this, what finger did I not raise to get out of poverty? No, we’ll just wait a little!..”

“The people were played off”, - Gregory will think about what is happening. Many episodes of the fifth - seventh parts, built on the principle of antithesis, will confirm the correctness of this assessment. “The people got excited and went crazy,” the author will add. He does not forgive anyone for cruelty: neither Polovtsev, who hacked to death Chernetsov and ordered the death of forty more captured officers, nor Grigory Melekhov, who hacked to death the captured sailors. He does not forgive Mikhail Koshevoy, who killed Pyotr Melekhov, shot Grandfather Grishaka in Tatarskoye, burned down Korshunov’s kuren, and then set fire to seven more houses; does not forgive Mitka Korshunov, who “cut out Koshevoy’s entire family.”

“The people were played off”, we remember when we read about the execution of the detachment commander Likhachev, captured by the rebels: “He was not shot... Seven miles from Veshenskaya, in the sandy, stern breakers, he was brutally hacked to death by the guards. They gouged out his eyes while he was alive, cut off his hands, ears, nose, and mangled his face with sabers. They unbuttoned their pants and violated and desecrated a large, courageous, beautiful body. They violated the bleeding stump, and then one of the guards stepped on the flimsily trembling chest, on the prone body, and with one blow cut off the head obliquely” (part six, chapter 31).

“The people were played off”— aren’t these words about how twenty-five communists led by Ivan Alekseevich Kotlyarov were killed? “The guards beat them, herding them into a heap like sheep, they beat them long and cruelly...

What happened next was like a heavy fog. We walked for thirty miles through continuous farmsteads, met at each farmstead by crowds of torturers. Old men, women, teenagers beat and spat on the swollen, blood-stained faces of the captured communists.”

And another execution - Podtelkov and his squad. This episode is given in the following frame: “Cossacks and women were pouring thickly onto the edge of the farm. The population of Ponomarev, notified of the execution scheduled for six o'clock, went willingly, as if to a rare, cheerful spectacle. The Cossack women dressed up as if for a holiday; many brought children with them... The Cossacks, converging, animatedly discussed the upcoming execution.”

“And in Ponomarev shots were still puffing with smoke: Veshensky, Karginsky, Bokovsky, Krasnokutsky, Milyutinsky Cossacks shot Kazan, Migulinsky, Razdorsky, Kumshatsky, Balkanovsky Cossacks.”

Rejecting violent death, Sholokhov will speak more than once about the unnaturalness of such situations; and in all cases of extreme cruelty he will oppose the harmony of the eternal, boundless world. In one episode, the symbol of this world will be a birch tree, on which “brown buds are already swollen with the sweet March juice.” Likhachev died with black petals of buds on his lips. In the other there is a steppe, over which “high, under a cumulus crest, an eagle swam.” In your last hour Ivan Alekseevich Kotlyarov will see, raising his head, “the spurs of chalk mountains rising in the distance like a blue vision, and above them, above the flowing stirrup of the crested Don, in the vast majestic blue of the sky, in the most inaccessible heights, a cloud.” And here the landscape sketch, striking with the purity of its colors, will receive a high philosophical content.

The ending of the second volume is expressive. A civil war is raging on the Don, people are dying, and the Red Army soldier Valet also died. The Yablonovsky Cossacks buried him, and half a month later some old man erected a wooden chapel on the grave mound. “Under her triangular canopy, a mournful face glowed in the darkness mother of god, below on the eaves of the canopy fluttered the black script of a Slavic script:

In a time of turmoil and debauchery Don't judge your brother, brothers.

The old man left, but the chapel remained in the steppe to grieve the eyes of passers-by with an eternally sad look, to awaken inarticulate melancholy in the hearts.” And in May little bustards fought near the chapel, “fought for the female, for the right to life, to love, to reproduce.” And right there, near the chapel, the female laid nine smoky blue eggs and sat on them.

In one episode, life and death, the lofty, the eternal and tragic realities collide, which became familiar and ordinary “in a time of unrest and depravity.” The increased contrast of the image determined the emotional expressiveness of the author's speech, in which the writer's civic spirit and his compassion for the heroes of the novel are expressed. Harsh times forced them all to make a choice.
-Which side are you on?
- You seem to have accepted the red faith?
- Were you wearing white? Little white! Officer, huh?

These questions were asked to the same person - Grigory Melekhov, but he himself could not answer them. Revealing his condition, Sholokhov uses the following words: “tired”, “overwhelmed by contradictions”, “thick melancholy”, “a boring feeling of something unresolved”. Here he is on his way home after breaking up with Podtelkov; “Grigory could neither forgive nor forget the death of Chernetsov and the extrajudicial execution of captured officers.”

“Who should I lean against?” - a question that excites the consciousness of the hero Sholokhov, this is his anxiety and thought, conveyed through an internal monologue:

“The fatigue acquired during the war also broke him. I wanted to turn away from everything seething with hatred, hostile and incomprehensible world. There, behind, everything was confused and contradictory. It was difficult to find the right path, and there was no certainty whether he was following the right one. He was drawn to the Bolsheviks - he walked, led others along with him, and then he began to think, his heart grew cold. “Is Izvarin right? Who should I lean against?” Grigory thought about this indistinctly, leaning against the back of his wallet. But, when he imagined how he would prepare the harrows for spring, weave a manger out of redwood, and when the earth stripped and dried out, he would go out into the steppe; holding onto the chipigs with his hands that are bored with work, he will follow the plow, feeling its lively movement and jolts; imagining how it would be to inhale the sweet spirit of young grass and black soil raised by ploughshares—it warmed my soul. I wanted to clean up the cattle, throw the hay, breathe in the withered smell of sweet clover, wheatgrass, and the spicy aroma of manure. I wanted peace and silence - that’s why there was shy joy and shore in Gregory’s stern eyes, looking around... Sweet and thick, like hops, life seemed at that time here, in the wilderness” (part five, chapter 13).

The words given here may be the best commentary on the description given to Sholokhov’s novel by the writer B. Vasiliev, interpreting the essence of the civil war in his own way: “This is an epic in the full sense of the word, reflecting the most important thing in our civil war - monstrous fluctuations, throwing of the normal, calm family man. And this was done, from my point of view, superbly. One fate shows the entire breakdown of society. Even if he is a Cossack, he is still first and foremost a peasant, a farmer. He is the breadwinner. And the breakdown of this breadwinner is the whole civil war in my understanding.”

Gregory's dream of living as a peaceful worker and family man was constantly destroyed by the cruelty of the civil war. Emotional contrast is used by Sholokhov as a means of expressing the hero’s moods: “Grigory should rest, get some sleep! And then walk along the soft arable furrow with a plow, whistle at the bulls, listen to the crane’s blue trumpet call, tenderly remove the alluvial silver of cobwebs from your cheeks and continuously drink the wine smell of the earth raised by the plow.

And in return - bread cut by the blades of the roads. Along the roads there are crowds of undressed prisoners, corpse-black with dust... In the farmsteads, amateurs search the families of the Cossacks who left with the Reds, flogging the wives and mothers of the apostates... Discontent, fatigue, and embitterment have accumulated" (part six, chapter 10). From episode to episode, the tragic discrepancy between the internal aspirations of Grigory Melekhov and the life around him grows.

With this observation we can complete the fourth lesson on “Quiet Don”.

“The Fate of Grigory Melekhov”, “The Tragedy of Grigory Melekhov” - these two topics are the main ones in the conversation about Sholokhov’s novel in the final, fifth lesson. The final lesson can be conducted in the form of a seminar lesson. Its task is to synthesize students’ knowledge about the novel “Quiet Don” and look at it from a new angle. To do this, it is necessary to avoid repeating the course of analysis that took place in previous lessons. Not detailing the text, but looking at the work as a whole - this is the direction of work in the seminar lesson. Students can come to more generalized conclusions by considering not a single episode, but their connection, the through lines of the novel, which will be reflected in the lesson plan: 1. “The Good Cossack.” What meaning does Sholokhov put into these words when he says this about Grigory Melekhov? 2. In which episodes is the brightest, extraordinary personality Grigory Melekhov? What role do his internal monologues play in characterizing the hero? 3. The complex twists and turns of the hero’s fate depend on the circumstances. Compare the situations “Gregory at home”, “Gregory at war”. What does the connection of these episodes provide for understanding the fate of the hero? 4. The choice the hero makes, his path to seeking the truth. The origins of the tragedy of Grigory Melekhov. The ending of the novel.

The first half of the questions, proposed for students to think about at home, may be related to the motivation for choosing Grigory Melekhov for the role central character. In fact, why did the author's choice not fall on Mikhail Koshevoy, Pyotr Melekhov or Evgeny Listnitsky, Podtelkov or Bunchuk? There are explanations for this: they are in those moral values which the heroes profess, in the particularities of their emotional and psychological make-up.

Grigory Melekhov, unlike other heroes of "Quiet Don" - bright personality, unique individuality, whole, extraordinary nature. He is sincere and honest in his thoughts and actions (this is especially evident in his relationships with Natalya and Aksinya: Gregory’s last meeting with Natalya (part seven, chapter 7), Natalya’s death and related experiences (part seven, chapter 16 -18), Aksinya’s death (part eight, chapter 17). Gregory is distinguished by an acute emotional reaction to everything that happens, he has a heart that is responsive to the impressions of life. He has a developed sense of pity and compassion, this can be judged by such scenes, for example , like “In the haymaking”, when Grigory accidentally trimmed a wild duckling (part one, chapter 9), the episode with Franya (part two, chapter 11), the scene with the murdered Austrian (part three, chapter 10), reaction to the news about the execution of Ivan Alekseevich Kotlyarov (part six).

Always remaining honest, morally independent and straightforward in character, Gregory showed himself to be a person capable of action. An example is the following episodes: a fight with Stepan Astakhov over Aksinya (part one, chapter 12), leaving with Aksinya for Yagodnoye (part two, chapters 11-12), a clash with the sergeant (part three, chapter 11) , break with Podtelkov (part three, chapter 12), clash with General Fitzkhalaurov (part seven, chapter 10), decision, without waiting for an amnesty, to return to the farm (part eight, chapter 18). The sincerity of his motives is captivating - he never lied to himself, in his doubts and tossing. His internal monologues convince us of this (part six, chapters 21, 28). Note that he is the only character who is given the right to monologues—“thoughts”—that reveal his spiritual nature.

Gregory's deep attachment to home, to the land remains his strongest spiritual movement throughout the novel. “I won’t move anywhere from the ground. Here is the steppe, there is something to breathe...” This confession of Aksinye echoes another: “My hands need to work, not fight. My whole soul has been sick over these months.” Behind these words is the mood of not only Grigory Melekhov. Emphasizing the drama of this situation, the author adds on his own: “The time has come to plow, harrow, sow; the earth called to itself, called tirelessly day and night, and then it was necessary to fight, to die on other people’s farms ... "

Sholokhov found his main character in a Cossack farm - this in itself is remarkable literary phenomenon. As a person, Grigory took a lot from the historical, social and moral experience of the Cossacks, although the author argued: “Melekhov has a very individual fate, in him I am in no way trying to personify the average Cossacks.”

“Hero and time”, “hero and circumstances”, the search for oneself as an individual - eternal theme art became the main one in “Quiet Don”. This search is the meaning of Grigory Melekhov’s existence in the novel. “I’m looking for a way out myself,” he says about himself. At the same time, he constantly faces the need to make a choice, which was not easy and simple. The very situations in which the hero found himself prompted him to action. So, Gregory’s entry into the rebel detachment is to some extent a forced step. It was preceded by the atrocities of the Red Army soldiers who came to the farm and their intention to kill Melekhov. Later, in last conversation with Koshev, he will say: “If the Red Army soldiers weren’t going to kill me at the party then, I might not have participated in the uprising.”

His relations with his friends sharply worsened: Koshev, Kotlyarov. The scene of the night dispute in the executive committee is indicative, where Grigory “out of old friendship came to chat, to say that there was a boil in his chest.” The dispute turned out to be sharp, the positions were irreconcilable. Kotlyarov threw it in Grigory’s face: “...you have become a stranger. You are an enemy of the Soviet regime!.. There is no need to shake the Cossacks, they are already wavering. And don’t get in our way. Stop!.. Goodbye!” Shtokman, who became aware of this collision, said: “Melekhov, although temporarily, escaped. It is he who should be taken into account!.. The conversation that he had with you in the executive committee is the conversation of tomorrow's enemy... Either they are us, or we are them! There is no third". This is how those who argued Soviet power on the Don.

This meeting essentially marked a turning point in the fate of Grigory Melekhov. Sholokhov defines its significance this way: “Gregory walked, experiencing a feeling as if he had crossed a threshold, and what seemed unclear suddenly arose with utmost brightness... And because he stood on the brink in the struggle of two principles, denying both of them, it was born dull, incessant irritation."

“Life has taken a sharp turn.” The farm resembled a “disturbed bee colony.” “Mishka’s heart was clothed with burning hatred for the Cossacks.” The actions of the authorities drove the Cossacks in different directions.

“Why are you standing there, sons of the quiet Don?! - the old man shouted, looking from Grigory to the others. “Your fathers and grandfathers are being shot, your property is being taken away, the Jewish commissars are laughing at your faith, and you are husking your seeds?..” This call was heard.

In Gregory, “captive, hidden feelings were freed. From now on, it seemed, his path was clear, like a path illuminated by the month.” Sholokhov conveys the innermost thoughts of the hero in his internal monologue: “The paths of the Cossacks crossed with the paths of landless peasant Rus', with the paths of the factory people. Fight them to the death! To tear the Don land, watered with Cossack blood, from under their feet. Drive them out of the region like Tatars! Shake Moscow, impose a shameful peace on it!.. And now - for the saber!”

These thoughts contain the uncompromising spirit of a man who has never known the middle. It had nothing to do with political vacillations. Gregory's tragedy seems to be transferred into the depths of his consciousness. He “tried painfully to sort out the confusion of thoughts.” His “soul was rushing about” like “a wolf caught in a raid, looking for a way out, in resolving contradictions.” Behind him were days of doubt, “difficult internal struggle,” and “search for the truth.” In him, “his own, Cossack, absorbed with mother’s milk throughout his life, took precedence over the great human truth.” He knew the “truth of Garanzhi” and anxiously asked himself: “Is Izvarin really right?” He himself says about himself: “I wander, like in a blizzard in the steppe...” But Grigory Melekhov “strays”, “looking for the truth,” not from emptiness and thoughtlessness. He yearns for such truth, “under the wing of which everyone could warm themselves.” And from his point of view, neither the whites nor the reds have such truth: “There is no truth in life. It can be seen whoever defeats whom will devour him... But I was looking for the bad truth. He was sick at heart, he was swinging back and forth...” These searches, according to his admission, turned out to be “in vain and empty.” And this also determined the tragedy of his fate.

It is impossible to accept the point of view of those critics of “Quiet Don” who believed that Melekhov experienced the tragedy of a renegade, he went against his people and lost all his human traits. Let us follow the movement of the hero’s thoughts in such episodes as “Melekhov interrogates, and then orders the release of the captive Khoper”, “The division he commands passes in front of Melekhov”; both episodes are colored by the struggle of contradictory feelings. Let us highlight the episodes that became catharsis for the hero: “Gregory chopped up the sailors,” “ Last meeting with Natalya”, “The Death of Natalya”, “The Death of Aksinya”. Any episode of “Quiet Don” reveals the multidimensionality and high humanity inherent in Sholokhov’s text. Grigory Melekhov evokes deep sympathy and compassion as a hero of tragic fate.

Recommended reading

Kolodny L. Who wrote “Quiet Don”: Chronicle of one search. - M., 1995.
Palievsky P. “Quiet Don” by Mikhail Sholokhov // Literature and theory. - M., 1978.

MIKHAIL ALEXANDROVICH SHOLOKHOV (1905-1984)
QUIET FON (4)

Gregory and his regiment go to the front. The first fight is coming soon. With surprise, Grigory suddenly realized that deep down in his soul he was not experiencing the feelings he should have for his enemies. People are dying all around. They die from enemy bullets, they die trampled by the horses of their own Cossacks. During the battle, Gregory kills the Austrian who shot at him. Then, in the heat of battle, Melekhov hacked to death an unarmed enemy. And this senseless death was firmly etched in his memory.

The war has scattered the villagers along different fronts: Mitka Korshunov, Mishka Koshevoy, Stepan Astakhov, and Pyotr Melekhov are fighting. A lot of blood was shed, a lot of incomprehensible things happened. “And it was like this: people collided on the field of death, who had not yet had time to break their hands in the destruction of their own kind, in the animal horror that overwhelmed them, they stumbled, knocked down, delivered blind blows, mutilated themselves and their horses and fled, frightened by the shot that killed a person, they drove away morally crippled .

They called it a feat."

The Melekhov brothers meet at the front. Grigory told his brother how he killed the enemy, although he could have saved his life, and is sick because of this. Peter warns younger brother, that Aksinya’s husband promised to shoot Gregory in the first battle. The younger Melekhov does not accept blood that is shed in vain. He is ready to kill the Cossack Chubaty because he just hacked to death a captured Hungarian.

In the summer, news of Gregory's death came to the farm. After him, the old father somehow immediately began to give up. But the next letter from Peter restored hope to the old men: their youngest son was seriously wounded, accomplished a feat and received the Cross of St. George.

Aksinya, left alone, transferred all her love to her daughter, who every day more and more resembled her father. Natalya, Gregory's wife, comes to her with a request to return her husband. She kicks out her rival.

After some time, Tanyusha, the daughter of Gregory and Aksinya, fell ill with scarlet fever and died. At this time, after being wounded, Evgeny Listnitsky arrives in Yagodnoye. He feels sorry for Aksinya. “A woman’s heart is susceptible to pity and affection. Burdened with despair, Aksinya, not remembering herself, gave herself up to him...”

After being wounded, Melekhov ended up in the Snegirev eye hospital, where he met the blacksmith Andrei Garanzha, who opened his eyes to war, life and much more. Returning home, Grigory learned from the groom Sashka about Aksinya’s betrayal. Having whipped Evgeny Listnitsky and Aksinya, he returned to the farm, to Natalya.

1916 October. At the front, a conversation arises between Bunchuk, Listnitsky and other officers that the war with the Germans could develop into a civil war, and that the overthrow of the monarchy could follow. What kind of government should there be in this case? What kind of power? After the conversation, when everyone fell asleep, Yevgeny Listnitsky writes a denunciation against Bunchuk, but he cannot be detained, since he is deserting. A few days later, leaflets appeared in the trenches. A search begins, which yields nothing. Grigory Melekhov, who came on vacation after being wounded, always caught the admiring glances of his relatives and fellow villagers. “And all this complex, subtle poison of flattery, respect, admiration gradually destroyed, erased from the consciousness the seeds of the truth that Garanzha had sown in him. Grigory came from the front one person, and left another. His own, Cossack, sucked in with his mother's milk, shaken throughout his life, took precedence over the great human truth... Grigory went to the front as a good Cossack; not putting up with the senselessness of war in his soul, he honestly cherished his Cossack glory.” At the front, the mood changes from day to day. Even Chubaty began to look at the war differently. He supports Melekhov and the rebellious Cossacks when they “arrest” cabbage soup with worms.