The monstrous absurdity of war portrayed by Mikhail Sholokhov in the epic novel "The Quiet Don". Mikhail solomintsev New power and the attitude of the Cossacks to it

The monstrous absurdity of war in the image of Sholokhov. Give an example of the influence of war on a hero and got the best answer

Answer from Stanislawa [guru]
Consider how the First World War is depicted in the novel "Quiet Flows the Don".
The war with Germany invaded the life of the Cossacks of the Tatarsky farm with great national grief.
In the spirit of old beliefs, the writer paints a gloomy landscape foreshadowing trouble: “At night the clouds thickened behind the Don, thunderous blows burst dry and rolling, but did not fall to the ground, full of feverish heat, rain, lightning flashed in vain ... At night an owl roared in the bell tower. Shaky and terrible screams hung over the farm, and the owl flew from the bell tower to the cemetery ...
- To be thin, - the old men prophesied ... - The war will keep him down.
And now the settled peaceful life has been sharply disrupted, events are developing more and more alarmingly and rapidly. In their formidable whirlpool, people are circling like chips in a flood, and the peaceful, quiet Don is enveloped in gunpowder smoke and burning conflagrations (Part 3, Chapter IV).
As a tragedy, Gregory experienced the first human blood he shed.
episode of the novel - the emotional experiences of the hero (part 3, ch. X). The killing of a person, even an enemy in battle, deeply contradicts the humane nature of Gregory. It torments him, does not allow him to live in peace, breaks, cripples the soul.
The war brought complete disappointment, I wanted to return to a peaceful life. It was on this fertile ground that the seeds of “Bolshevik truth,” the promise of peace, fell.
Here Gregory's attempts to understand the complex structure of life begin. Here begins his tragic path to the truth, to the people's truth.
Unjustified inhumanity pushed Melekhov away from the Bolsheviks, as it contradicted his ideas about conscience and honor. Grigory Melekhov many times had to observe the cruelty of both white and red, so the slogans of class hatred began to seem fruitless to him: “I wanted to turn away from the whole hostile and incomprehensible world seething with hatred. He was drawn to the Bolsheviks - he walked, he led others, and then he took thought, became cold at heart ”. Kotlyarov, enthusiastically proving that the new government gave the poor Cossacks rights and equality, Grigory objects: “To the Cossacks, this power, besides ruin, does not give anything! "
Gregory after a while begins serving in the White Cossack units.
Most of the Cossacks who rebelled against Soviet power in April and did not leave with the Don army to the lower Don, fled from the kurens at the first news of the arrests, hid in distant farmsteads and winter quarters, those whom Krasnov mobilized against their will remained. They voluntarily withdrew from the front in January, allowed the Reds to enter the Upper Don, believing the promises of the Soviet government and its new protégés Mironov and Fomin that they would all receive amnesty for this. These people had already fought to the point of nausea - both for the German one and for the 18th year, and now they only wanted a peaceful life in their kurens. They had already forgotten to think about defending their rights before nonresident people, as in December 17th, when they supported the Kamensk Revolutionary Committee with this condition. It became clear to everyone that they would have to share, against the red peasant Russia, which is piling up from the north with all its might. The agreement with the Red Army was simple - you do not touch us, we do not touch you, and whoever remembers the old will be out of sight. Don's neutrality was beneficial to Moscow: if successful, the example of the Don people could have been followed by the war-worn Kuban people, and this promised a quick victory for the Red Army in the south, since Denikin's army consisted mainly of Kuban and Don people. But people called “commissioners of arrests and searches” arrived in the villages, and punitive teams went to the kurens ... They took not only the soldiers who laid down their arms, but also the “grandfathers” - the cavaliers of St. George, the living glory of the Don, who refused to take off crosses, Cossack caps, rip off stripes from pants. Machine guns clattered outside the villages, to which, until recently, on Christmastide, lively dark-haired young people in excellent fur coats came from Trotsky's headquarters, with diamond rings on short thick fingers ...

Sholokhov "Quiet Don"

written by the greatest writer of the 20th century, who gained worldwide fame. It was for this novel that Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize. "Quiet Don".

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

In the center of Sholokhov's narrative are several families: the Melekhovs, Korshunovs, Mokhovs, Koshevs, Listnitskys. This is not accidental: the patterns of the era are revealed not only in historical events, but also in family relationships, where the power of traditions is especially strong and any breaking of them gives rise to acute, dramatic conflicts.

The story about the fate of the Melekhov family begins with the story of Prokofy Melekhov, who amazed the farmers with his "outlandish act." From the Turkish war he brought a Turkish wife. He loved her, in the evenings, when "the dawns wither," carried her in his arms on the top of the mound, "sat down next to her, and so they gazed into the steppe for a long time." And when the angry crowd approached their house, Prokofy with a saber defended his beloved wife.

From the first pages there are proud, independent-minded people capable of great feeling. Thus, from the story of grandfather Gregory, the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" enters the beautiful and at the same time tragic. And for Gregory, love for Aksinya will be a serious test of life. “I wanted to tell about the charm of the man in Grigory Melekhov,” Sholokhov admitted. The writer was also under the influence of the charm of Natalia, Ilyinichna, Aksinya, Dunyashka. The main values \u200b\u200bof the Melekhovs are moral, human: benevolence, responsiveness, generosity and, most importantly, diligence.

In the Cossack environment, a person was valued in relation to work. “He is a fiancé wherever,” Natalya’s mother says about Grigory, “and their family is very hardworking ... A hard-working family and with enough money.” “The Melekhovs are glorious Cossacks,” Grishak's grandfather echoes her. “Miron Grigorievich liked Grishka in his heart for his Cossack prowess, for his love of household and work. The old man singled him out from the crowd of village guys even when Grishka took the first prize for horse riding at the races.

The chronological framework of the novel is clearly indicated: May 1912 - March 1922. The writer captured "the people's life in Russia at a historical turning point."

"The monstrous absurdity of war" in the image of Sholokhov. The antithesis of a peaceful life in "Quiet Don" will be a war, first World War I, then civil war. These wars will take place in the farms and villages, each family will have victims. Sholokhov's family will become a mirror, in a peculiar way reflecting the events of world history.

In the third part of the novel, the date appears for the first time: "In March 1914 ..." This is a significant detail in the work: the historical date will separate the world from the war. Rumors about her went around the farms: "The war will push ...", "There will be no war, to see the harvest", "Well, how is the war?", "War, uncle!" The news about her found the Cossacks at their usual work - they were mowing the rye (part three, ch. 3). The Melekhovs saw: the horse was walking with a "catchy outline"; the horseman, jumping up, shouted: "A flash!" Disturbing news gathered a crowd in the square (ch. 4). "One word in a diverse crowd: mobilization."

Sholokhov solves the “man in war” conflict in his own way. In "Quiet Don" we will not find descriptions of exploits, admiration for heroism, military courage, rapture in battle, which would be natural in a story about the Cossacks. Sholokhov is interested in something else - what does war do to a person.

Getting acquainted with the heroes of the novel, we will notice that everyone has their own ability to experience and comprehend war, but everyone will feel the “monstrous absurdity of war”. Through the eyes of the Cossacks, we will see how “the ripe grain was trampled by the cavalry”, how a hundred “crumpled bread with iron horseshoes”, how “a black marching column unfolded in a chain between the brown, uncleared rolls of mown bread”, how “the first shrapnel covered the rows of unharvested wheat”. And each, looking at "unharvested trees of wheat, at the bread that had fallen under their hooves," recalled their tithes and "hardened at heart."

The novel strongly expresses a moral protest against the senselessness of war, its inhumanity. Drawing episodes of baptism of fire, Sholokhov reveals the state of mind of a person who shed someone else's blood. In a chain of such episodes, the scene “Gregory kills an Austrian. An Austrian ran along the trellis of the garden. Melekhov caught up with him. “Inflamed by the madness that was going on around him, he raised his sword,” lowered it to the temple of an unarmed soldier. "Elongated by fear" his face "blackened cast iron", "the skin hung like a red rag", "blood was falling in a crooked stream" - as if this "frame" was taken in slow motion. Gregory met the Austrian's gaze. Eyes filled with mortal horror gazed at him with death ... Blinking, Grigory waved his sword. A blow with a long pull split the skull in two. The Austrian fell, bumpy hands, as if slipping; the halves of the skull were thumped on the stone of the pavement. "

The details of this scene are terrible! They won't let go of Gregory. It, “Not knowing why,” he approached the Austrian soldier he had hacked to death. “He was lying there, by the playful braid of the lattice fence, stretching out his dirty brown palm, as if for alms. Grigory looked into his face. It seemed to him small, almost childish, in spite of the drooping mustache and the twisted, stern mouth, exhausted - whether by suffering or by the old joyless life ...

Gregory ... stumbling, went to the horse. His step was confused and heavy, as if he were carrying an overwhelming load over his shoulders; I bend and bewilderment crumpled my soul.

A terrible picture in all its details will long stand before Gregory's eyes, painful memories will trouble him for a long time. When meeting with his brother, he confesses: “I, Petro, got tired of my soul. I’m half-finished at a time ... As if I had been under the millstones, they were crushed and spat out ... My conscience is killing me. I stabbed one with a lance near Leshnyuv. In the heat of the moment. Otherwise it was impossible ... Why did I cut down the entogo? .. I cut down a man in vain and I get sick through him, you bastard, with my soul. Dreams at night ... ".

Gregory watched with interest the changes taking place with his comrades of a hundred ... Changes were made on each person, each in his own way nurtured and grew the seeds sown by the war. "

The changes in Grigory himself were striking: he was "bent ... by the war, sucked the blush from his face, painted him with bile." And internally he became completely different : “Grigory's Cossack honor was firmly banked, he caught an opportunity to show selfless courage, took risks, was extravagant, went disguised to the rear of the Austrians, removed the outposts without blood, jigged the Cossack and felt that the pain for a man that crushed him in the first days of the war was gone. ... His heart was hardened, it was 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 someone else's and his own life; that is why he was known for being brave - he served four St. George's crosses and four medals. At rare parades, he stood at the regimental banner, fanned by the gunpowder smoke of many wars; but he knew that he would no longer laugh at him as before, he knew that his eyes had sunken in and his cheekbones protruded sharply; he knew that it was difficult for him, kissing a child, to look openly into clear eyes; Gregory knew at what price he paid for a full bow of crosses and production "(part four, ch. 4).

Sholokhov diversifies the visual means, showing the Cossacks in the war. Here they copy "Prayer from the gun", "Prayer from the battle", "Prayer during the raid." The Cossacks kept them under their undershirts, fastened them to knots with a pinch of their native land. "But death also stained those who carried prayers with them."

The author's voice breaks into the epic narration: "The darling smokers imperiously pulled to themselves, and there was no such force that could keep the Cossacks from spontaneous attraction home." Everyone wanted to be at home, "huch to look with one eye." And, as if fulfilling this desire, Sholokhov draws a farm “bleeding like a widow”, where “life went on for sale - like hollow water in the Don”.

So through the battle scenes, through the acute experiences of the heroes, through landscape sketches, lyrical digressions, Sholokhov leads us to comprehend the "monstrous absurdity of war."

How does Sholokhov draw the world stirred up by the revolution? One of the author's favorite tricks is a pre-story. So, at the end of the first chapter of the fifth part of the novel, we read: “Until January, people lived quietly on the Tatarsky farm. Returning from the front, the Cossacks were resting near their wives, ate, did not sense that at the thresholds of the kurens their bitter troubles and hardships were being watched than those that had to be endured during the war.

"The burning troubles" are the revolution and the civil war, which broke the usual way of life. The essence of the events depicted in the novel is truly tragic; they affect the fate of huge segments of the population. In "Quiet Don" there are more than seven hundred characters, main and episodic, named by name and unnamed; and the writer is worried about their fate.

What happened on the Don during the years of the civil war has a name - "decossackization of the Cossacks", accompanied by mass terror, which provoked a return cruelty. "Black rumors" about extraordinary commissions and revolutionary tribunals spread through the farmsteads, whose trial was "simple: an accusation, a couple of questions, a verdict - and under a machine-gun fire." The author writes about the atrocities of the Red Army in the farms (part six, ch. 16). The military courts of the Don Army were just as tough. We see the Reds hacked with special cruelty. Informing the facts with great persuasiveness, Sholokhov cites the documents: a list of those executed from the Podtelkov detachment (part five, chapter 11) and a list of the executed hostages of the Tatarsky farm (part six, chapter 24).

How do the Cossacks themselves perceive this time?

Petro Melekhov: “- Look how the people were divided, you bastards! As if they had driven with a plow: one in one direction, the other in the other, as if under a plow. Bloody life, and a terrible time! One no longer guesses the other ...
- Here you are, - he abruptly translated the conversation, - here you are - my brother, and I don't understand you, by God! I feel that you are leaving me somehow ... I'm telling the truth? - and answered himself: - The truth. You are freaking out ... I'm afraid you will go over to the red ... You, Grishatka, haven't found yourself before.
- Did you find it? - asked Grigory.
- Found. I got on my furrow ... You can't pull me to the red lasso. The Cossacks are against them, and I am against ”.
“Miron Grigorievich spoke in a new way, with ripened anger:
- And through what life collapsed? Who is the reason? This damn power! .. I worked all my life, wheezed, then washed, and in order for me to live equally with the entity, what finger didn’t pull a finger to get out of need? No, let's wait a bit! .. "

"The people were played off", - Gregory will think about what is happening. “The people have become overwhelmed, they have become mad,” the author will add. He does not forgive cruelty to anyone: neither Polovtsev, who hacked to death Chernetsov and ordered to kill forty more prisoner 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 Korshunov's kuren, and then lit seven more houses; does not forgive Mitka Korshunov, who "cut out the entire family of Koshevoy."

"The people were played off", - we recall when we read about the execution of the commander of the detachment Likhachev, captured by the rebels: “He was not shot ... Seven miles from Veshenskaya, in the sandy, severely frowning breakers, he was brutally hacked to death by the guards. They gouged out his eyes alive, cut off his hands, ears, nose, and crossed his face with swords. They unbuttoned their pants and outraged, defiled a large, courageous, beautiful body. They outraged the bleeding stump, and then one of the guards stepped on a flimsy trembling chest, on the body which had been thrown backwards and cut off the head with one blow obliquely ”(part six, chapter 31).

"The people were played off" - these words about how twenty-five communists, headed by Ivan Alekseevich Kotlyarov, were killed? “The guards beat them, driving them into a heap like sheep, beat them long and severely ... Then everything was like in the heaviest fog. Thirty miles walked through continuous farmsteads, which were met on each farm by crowds of torturers. Old men, women, teenagers beat, spat on the swollen, covered with blood ... the faces of the captured communists. "

And one more execution - Podtelkov and his squad.

All of them were faced with a harsh time to choose.
- Which side are you holding?
- You seem to have accepted the red faith?
- You were in white? White! Officer, eh?

These questions were asked to one and the same person - Grigory Melekhov, but he himself could not answer them. "Who should I lean against?" - a question that excites the consciousness of the hero Sholokhov, about this his anxiety and thought, conveyed through an internal monologue:

“I also broke his fatigue acquired during the war. I wanted to turn my back on the whole, seething with hatred, hostile and incomprehensible world. There, behind, everything was confused, contradictory. It was difficult to grope for the right path, and there was no certainty whether he was going along the right path. He was drawn to the Bolsheviks - he walked, led others, and then he took thought, became cold at heart. “Is Izvarin really right? Whom 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 by the spring, weaving from a reddened manger, and when the earth was undressed and dry, it would leave for the steppe; holding on to the chipigi with his bored hands for work, he will follow the plow, feeling its lively movement and jolts; imagining how the sweet spirit of young grass and chernozem lifted by plowshares will breathe in, it felt warm in my soul. I wanted to clean the cattle, throw hay, breathe the wilted smell of sweet clover, wheatgrass, the spicy smell of manure. Peace and silence wanted - that's why shy joy and shore in the harsh eyes of Gregory, looking around ... Sweet and thick, like hops, seemed at this time life here, in the wilderness. " (part five, ch. 13).

One fate shows the whole break in society. Even if he is a Cossack, he is still primarily a peasant, a farmer. He is the breadwinner. And the breaking of this breadwinner is the whole civil war.

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: “I wish Grigory had a rest, sleep off! And then walk along the soft plow furrow with a plow, whistle at the bulls, listen to the blue crane-call of the trumpet, lovingly remove the silver spider webs from the cheeks and constantly drink the wine smell of the ground raised by the plow.

And instead of this - bread cut by the blades of roads. On the roads, crowds of undressed, corpse-black prisoners with dust ... In the farmsteads, amateurs search the families of the Cossacks who left with the Reds, whip the wives and mothers of apostates ... Discontent, fatigue, anger accumulated. (part six, ch. 10).

"The Fate of Grigory Melekhov", "The Tragedy of Grigory Melekhov.Why was Grigory Melekhov chosen for the role of the central character? Indeed, why did the author's choice fall not on Mikhail Koshevoy, Pyotr Melekhov or Evgeny Listnitsky, Podtelkov or Bunchuk? There are explanations for this: they are in the moral values \u200b\u200bthat the heroes profess, in the peculiarities of their emotional and psychological makeup.

Grigory Melekhov, unlike other heroes of The Quiet Don, is a bright personality, unique individuality, wholehearted nature, extraordinary. He is sincere and honest in his thoughts and actions (this is especially pronounced in his relationship to Natalya and Aksinya: the last meeting of Grigory with Natalya (part seven, chapter 7), Natalia's death and related experiences (part seven, chapter 16 -18), the death of Aksinya (part eighth, ch. 17). Gregory is distinguished by an acute emotional reaction to everything that happens, he has a heart responsive to the impressions of life. He has a developed feeling of pity, compassion, this can be judged by such, for example, scenes like In the Hayfield, when Grigory accidentally cut a wild duckling (part one, ch. 9), a scene with a murdered Austrian (part three, chapter 10), reaction to the news of the execution of Ivan Alekseevich Kotlyarov (part six).

Remaining always honest, morally independent and direct in character, Gregory showed himself as a man capable of action. An example is the following episodes: a fight with Stepan Astakhov over Aksinya (part one, ch. 12), leaving with Aksinya to Yagodnoye (part two, chap. 11-12), a clash with the sergeant (part three, chap. 11) , a break with Podtyolkov (part three, ch. 12), a clash with General Fitzkhalaurov (part seven, ch. 10), a decision to return to the farm without waiting for an amnesty (part eight, ch. 18). The sincerity of his motives is captivating - he never lied to himself, in his doubts and throwings. We are convinced of this by his inner monologues (part six, chap. 21, 28). Note that he is the only character who has been given the right to monologues - “thoughts” that reveal his spiritual origin.

"Hero and Time", "Hero and Circumstances", the search for oneself as a person - the eternal theme of art became the main theme 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 always faces the need for a choice that was not easy and simple. The very situations in which the hero found himself prompted him to action. So, the entry of Gregory into the rebel detachment is to some extent a forced step. It was preceded by the atrocities of the Red Army men who came to the farm, their intention to kill Melekhov.

His relations with his friends sharply worsened: Koshev, Kotlyarov. The scene of a night dispute in the executive committee, where Grigory "out of old friendship, came to play a game, to say what was boiling in his breasts," is indicative. The dispute turned out to be sharp, the positions were irreconcilable. Kotlyarov threw in Grigory's face: “… you've become a stranger. You are an enemy of the Soviet regime! .. The Cossacks have nothing to stagger, they stagger anyway. And you do not stand across the road to us. Stop! .. Goodbye! " Shtokman, who became aware of this clash, said: “Melekhov, although temporarily, escaped. It is him 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 theirs! There is no third". This is how those who asserted Soviet power on the Don defined their line.

This meeting essentially marked a turning point in the fate of Grigory Melekhov. Sholokhov defines its significance as follows: "Grigory walked, feeling as if he had stepped over the threshold, and what seemed unclear, suddenly stood up with the utmost brightness ... And because he was on the verge of a struggle between two principles, denying both of them, a dull incessant irritation was born."

He "painfully tried to sort out the confusion of thoughts." His "soul rushed about" like "a wolf who has been rounded up on a raid in search of a way out, in resolving contradictions." Behind him were days of doubt, "hard internal struggle", "search for the truth." In it, "his own, the Cossack, sucked in with mother's milk throughout life, prevailed 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 am blooming, like in a blizzard in the steppe ..." But Grigory Melekhov "blunders", "looking for the truth," not from emptiness and thoughtlessness. He yearns for such a truth, "under the wing of which everyone could warm up." And such a truth, from his point of view, is not among the Whites, nor among the Reds: “There is no truth in life. It is evident that whoever overcomes whom will devour that ... And I was looking for the bad truth. He ached with his soul, swayed back and forth ... "These searches, according to his confession, turned out to be" wasted and empty. " And this also determined the tragedy of his fate.

Let's single out the episodes that became catharsis for the hero: "Gregory chopped the sailors", "The last meeting with Natalia", "Natalia's death", "Aksinya's death". Any episode of The Quiet Don reveals the multidimensionality and high humanity inherent in Sholokhov's text. Grigory Melekhov evokes deep sympathy, compassion as a hero of a tragic fate.

"The Monstrous Nonsense of War" in the novel "Quiet Flows the Don"

september

Let us recall the scene when Napoleon awarded a randomly selected Russian soldier ("War and Peace"). “It was an explosion of bestial enthusiasm,” as it was written in the diary of the murdered Cossack (entry from September 2, ch.z, ch. 11), over whose life the staff clerks laughed. This diary just mentions "War and Peace", where Tolstoy speaks about the line between two enemy troops - the line of uncertainty, as if separating the living from the dead.

, the inhumanity of war.

The battle scenes themselves are not interesting to Sholokhov. He is worried about something else - what does war do with a person. A moral protest against the senselessness and inhumanity of war is clearly expressed.

acute sensation of someone else's pain

Killing a person, even an enemy in battle, contradicts Gregory's humane nature. Love for everything, a keen sense of someone else's pain, the ability to compassion - this is the essence of the character of Sholokhov's hero.
The madness of a war in which innocent people die (meaningless sacrifices laid on the altar of someone's ambition) - that's what the hero thinks about.

What visual means does the author use?

he shows how the Cossacks cheat leads pages diary one of the Cossacks, letters from the front; lyrically colored campfire scenes the voice of the author of a hard life bursts in

Sholokhov's visual means are diverse: he shows how the Cossacks write off "Prayer from the gun", "Prayer from the battle", "Prayer during the raid"; leads pages diary one of the Cossacks, letters from the front; lyrically colored campfire scenes - the Cossacks sing “The Cossack went to a foreign land ...”; the voice of the author bursts into the epic narration, addressing the widows: “Tear the collar of the last shirt on yourself, darling! Rip your hair, thin from a joyless, hard life, bite your bitten lips into blood, break your hands, disfigured by work, and beat on the ground at the threshold of an empty smokehouse! "

Gregory's qualities

Gregory's qualities
Pride, independence, anger for everything the war has done

Following the traditions of Russian literature, through battle scenes, through the acute experiences of the heroes, through landscape sketches, lyrical digressions (a scene by the fire - a soldier's song), Sholokhov leads to an understanding of the alienation, unnaturalness, inhumanity of war.

Houses

Houses: (2 books) 1) How did the events of the world war affect the peaceful life of the Cossacks?
2) The new government and the attitude of the Cossacks towards it.
3) Civil war as a tragedy of the people (pick up episodes).
4) Reread vol. 2, part 5, ch. 1, 12, 13, 24, 30
5) Make a plan “The fate of Grigory Melekhov”.

I'm going to class

Mikhail SOLOMINTSEV

Mikhail Mikhailovich SOLOMINTSEV (1967) - teacher of literature and Russian language at Novokhopyorsk Secondary School No. 2, Voronezh Region.

The monstrous absurdity of war in the image of M.A. Sholokhov

Based on the novel "Quiet Don"

The purpose of the lesson. Show the development of the humanistic traditions of Russian literature in depicting the war and the significance of The Quiet Don as a novel that conveyed the truth about the Civil War, about the tragedy of the people.

Roman M.A. Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" among the books about the pre-revolutionary events, the Civil War stands out for its originality. How did this book conquer contemporaries? It seems that, first of all, the significance and scale of the events described in it, the depth and truth of the characters. The first book of the novel is devoted to the life and everyday life of the Don Cossacks before and at the very beginning of the imperialist war.

(A recording of a Cossack song sounds, which is taken as an epigraph to the novel.)

- Tell me, what is the role of the epigraph in this work?

The old Cossack songs, taken by the author as an epigraph to the novel, are preceded by a story about an unnatural, fratricidal war, about the death of the Cossack clans, about the tragedy of the people, when the steppe is plowed with the wrong thing (“horse hooves”), with the wrong thing sown (“Cossack heads”), the wrong thing is watered and the wrong crop will be harvested The songs composed by the Cossacks indicate the inconsistency of their entire unfortunate tribe - a tribe of warriors and farmers at the same time, truthfully explaining and revealing the essence of the tragedy that happened to the descendants of unknown authors already in the 20th century. In addition, the elegiac structure of the Cossack song itself is complex according to the formula of negative parallelism at the beginning (“Our glorious land is not plowed up by plows ... our land is plowed with horse hooves ...”) and is continued by a single-member parallel, the silent part of which is too terrible heads "). These are not ordinary peasant everyday life, not sowing, but something terrible, disgusting that explodes the peaceful way of life and fills the waves "in the quiet Don with paternal, maternal tears." Here, not only the atmosphere of the Cossack way of life is written out, here the main idea of \u200b\u200bthe whole work is anticipated.

- How are the epigraphs related to the title of the novel?

(In this case, the quiet Don is not a majestically calm river, but the land of the Don region, which has long been sown by Cossacks, which knows no rest. And then “quiet Don” is an oxymoron, a mutually contradictory combination of words: this is exactly what the ancient Cossack songs, taken by Sholokhov's epigraph to the novel .)

Consider how the First World War is depicted in the novel "Quiet Flows the Don".

Let's listen to the message of the student-historian "From the history of the Don Cossacks."

The war with Germany invaded the life of the Cossacks of the Tatarsky farm with great national grief.(Report of a history teacher about World War I.)

In the spirit of old beliefs, the writer paints a gloomy landscape foreshadowing trouble: “At night the clouds thickened behind the Don, thunderous blows burst dry and rolling, but did not fall to the ground, full of feverish heat, rain, lightning flashed in vain ... At night an owl roared in the bell tower. Shaky and terrible screams hung over the farm, and the owl flew from the bell tower to the cemetery ...

- To be thin, - the old men prophesied ... - The war will hold him down.

And now the settled peaceful life has been sharply disrupted, events are developing more and more alarmingly and rapidly. In their formidable maelstrom, people are circling like chips in a flood, and the peaceful quiet Don is enveloped in gunpowder smoke and burning conflagrations (we can see this in the mobilization scene - part 3, chapter IV).

As a tragedy, Gregory experienced the first human blood he shed. Let's see a fragment of the movie "Quiet Don". And now let's read an episode of the novel - the emotional experiences of the hero (part 3, ch. X).

Killing a person, even an enemy in battle, deeply contradicts Gregory's humane nature. It torments him, does not allow him to live in peace, breaks, cripples the soul.

The scene of the clash of the Cossacks with the Germans resembles the pages of the works of L.N. Tolstoy.

- Give examples of a truthful depiction of war in the novel by L.N. Tolstoy's War and Peace.

The war in the image of Sholokhov is completely devoid of a touch of romance, a heroic halo. People did not perform the feat. This clash of people distraught with fear was called a feat.(Retelling Chapter IX, Part 3.)

Sholokhov in his novel portrays not only the Cossacks, but also their officers. Many of them are honest, brave, but there are also cruel ones.

- Which officer can be classified as cruel?(Chubatogo.) Describe it.

(Such an inhuman position of Chubaty, even in wartime, turns out to be unacceptable for Grigory. Therefore, he shoots at Chubaty when he had no way cut down the captive Magyar.)

The war in the novel is presented in blood, suffering.

- Give examples of the suffering of the heroes of the novel in the war.

- How did the war affect Grigory Melekhov?

(“... Gregory firmly took care of the Cossack honor, caught an opportunity to show selfless courage, took risks, was extravagant, went disguised to the rear to the Austrians, filmed outposts without blood<...> The Cossack was jigging and felt that the pain for the man, which crushed him in the first days of the war, had gone irrevocably. Heart hardened, hardened, and just as the salt marsh does not absorb water, so the heart of Gregory did not absorb pity ... ”- Part 4, Ch. IV.)

Sholokhov portrays Grigory Melekhov as a courageous warrior who deservedly received a high award - the St. George Cross.(Retelling of the episode - part 3, chapter XX.)

But the war confronts Gregory with different people, communication with whom makes him think about the war and about the world in which he lives.

Fate brings him to Garanzha, who turned Gregory's life upside down.

- What about Garanja?(Read his monologue from Part 3, Ch. XXIX.)

- Why did Gregory's instructions sink into Gregory's soul?

The war brought complete disappointment, I wanted to return to a peaceful life. It was on this fertile ground that the seeds of “Bolshevik truth,” the promise of peace, fell.

Here Gregory's attempts to understand the complex structure of life begin. Here begins his tragic path to the truth, to the people's truth.

- How is the change in the mood of the warring Cossacks between the two revolutions shown?

(The student makes a generalizing message on the topic: "Sholokhov's image of the events of the First World War in the novel" And Quiet Flows the Don "."

Consider how the Civil War is depicted in the novel.

The history teacher tells about the events on the Don after the October Revolution.

The October Revolution, which split the whole world, and the Cossacks in particular, into friends and foes, asks Gregory painful questions. Sholokhov again puts his hero before a choice, and again different people inspire different truths in him.

- How does communication with Izvarin and Podtyolkov affect Grigory?

(The centurion Efim Izvarin, a well-educated man, was “an inveterate Cossack-autonomist.” Not believing in universal equality, Izvarin is convinced of the special fate of the Cossacks and advocates the independence of the Don region. Melekhov tries to argue with him, but the semi-literate Grigory was unarmed compared to his opponent, and Izvarin easily defeated him in verbal battles (part 5, chapter II). It is no coincidence that the hero falls under the influence of separatist ideas.

Fyodor Podtyolkov, who believes that the Cossacks have common interests with all Russian peasants and workers, and who upholds the idea of \u200b\u200ban elected people's power, inspires Grigory completely differently. And not so much education and logic, as in the case of Izvarin, as the power of inner conviction makes Grigory believe Podtyolkov. This power is clearly expressed in the portrait details: Grigory felt the “leaden weight” of Podtelkov's eyes when he “rested his gloomy gaze on his interlocutor” (Part 5, Chapter II). After a conversation with Podtyolkov, Grigory painfully tried to sort out the confusion of thoughts, think over something, decide.)

The search for the truth for Gregory is not an abstract task, but a problem of life choice, for they occur at the moment of the most acute confrontation between various political forces that decide the fate of the Cossacks and the entire country. The intensity of this confrontation is evidenced by the scene of the arrival in Novocherkassk for negotiations with the Kaledin government of a delegation of the Military Revolutionary Committee headed by the same Podtyolkov (part 5, chapter X).

After the revolution, Gregory fights on the side of the Reds, but this choice is far from final, and Gregory will refuse him more than once on his painful life path.

- What will affect the fate of the main character of the novel?

(Let's see a fragment of the film "Execution of Officers".)

- What is Gregory going through after these tragic events?

(“His fatigue, acquired during the war, also broke. I wanted to turn away from everything seething with hatred, hostile and incomprehensible world. There, behind, everything was confused, contradictory. It was difficult to grope the right path; as in a muddy gath, the soil was shaking under our feet, the path was crushing , and there was no certainty - whether he was following the right one. He was drawn to the Bolsheviks - he walked, he led others, and then he took thought, became cold at heart. "Is Izvarin really right? Whom should he lean against?" But when he imagined how he would prepare harrows, carts, weaving from a red-faced nursery in the spring, and when the earth dries up, he will leave for the steppe; holding on to the chapigi with his bored hands, he will follow the plow, feeling its lively beating and tremors; imagining how the sweet spirit of young grass and chernozem raised by plowshares, which had not yet lost the fresh aroma of snowy dampness, would breathe in, felt warmer in my soul. I wanted to clean up the cattle, throw hay, breathe the wilted smell of donna ika, wheatgrass, spicy smell of manure. I wanted peace and silence " - Part 5, Ch. XIII.)

Unjustified inhumanity pushed Melekhov away from the Bolsheviks, as it contradicted his ideas about conscience and honor. Grigory Melekhov many times had to observe the cruelty of both whites and reds, so the slogans of class hatred began to seem fruitless to him: “I wanted to turn away from the whole hostile and incomprehensible world that was seething with hatred. He was drawn to the Bolsheviks - he walked, led others, and then he took thought, became cold at heart ”. Kotlyarov, enthusiastically proving that the new government gave the poor Cossacks rights and equality, Grigory objects: “This power, besides the ruin, gives nothing to the Cossacks!”

Gregory some time later begins serving in the White Cossack units.

Watching a fragment of the film "The Execution of the Podtelkovites" or reading a fragment from the novel (part 5, chapter XXX), from the biography of the writer himself.

Before viewing, let's ask a question:

- How does Gregory perceive the execution?

(He perceives it as retribution, as evidenced by his passionate monologue addressed to Podtyolkov.)

From 1918 to early 1920, the Sholokhov family was alternately in the villages of Elanskaya and Karginskaya Verkhnedonsky okrug. It was a difficult time: white and red waves overwhelmed the Don region - the Civil War was raging. The teenager Misha “absorbed” the events that were taking place (and his head is good - a brave and daring mind, a wonderful memory): battles, executions, poverty. White against red, red against white, Cossacks against Cossacks. The stories are one more terrible than the other ... One, Migulinsky, handsome, light-blond guy did not want to get hit by a bullet, he begged: “Don't kill! Have a pity! .. Three kids ... a girl ... ”What a pity there! With a shod heel in the ear - already from the other tarsus blood shot out. They lifted it up and put it to the pit ... And this guy, they say, deserved four crosses on the German one, a full George Knight ... Here Kharlampy Ermakov entered the hut. Usually cheerful, today was gloomy and angry. He began to talk about the execution of the Podtelkovites in the Ponomarev farm. And Podtyolkov was also good, he says. Under Glubokaya, on his order, officers were also fired without any pity ... He was not the only one to tan other people's skins. It burped.

Read an excerpt from Andrei Vorontsov's novel "Sholokhov" and answer the question: who is to blame for the outbreak of the war on the Don?

“The February days of 1919 on the Upper Don were weary, cold, gray. The inhabitants of the hushed farms and villages with a kind of nasty, sucking feeling in the stomach were waiting for the onset of dusk, listening to the footsteps, the screeching of sled runners behind the wall. The hour of the arrests came, when the Red Army teams cordoned off the streets, broke into the smoking rooms and took the Cossacks into the jail. No one came back alive from the jail. At the same time, when a new batch of arrested persons was brought to the cold one, the old ones were taken out of it, and a place was made free. There were no spacious prison houses on the Don; there was no need for them in the old days. Those sentenced to be shot were taken out of the basement with their hands tied behind their backs, beaten in the back with rifle butts, which caused them to fall on the sled like sacks of flour, stacked alive, in stacks, and driven outside the outskirts.

After midnight for the inhabitants of the kurens, which had already been visited by the Chekists, a terrible torture began. Behind the outskirts, a machine gun started its tatakan - now in short, but frequent bursts, now in long, choking, hysterical ones. Then there was silence, but not for long, it was interrupted by rifle and revolver shots, dry clicking like wood in a stove - they finished off the wounded. Often after that, a dog began to howl at someone's base - apparently, he sensed the death of the breadwinner. And in the huts, the women, whose son or husband could accept a cruel death that night, howled at him, holding their heads. Until his death, Mikhail remembered this howl, from which the blood froze in his veins.

Most of the Cossacks, who rebelled against Soviet power in April and did not leave with the Don army to the lower reaches of the Don, fled from the kurens at the first news of the arrests, hid in distant farmsteads and winter quarters, and those whom Krasnov mobilized against their will remained. They voluntarily withdrew from the front in January, allowed the Reds to enter the Upper Don, believing the promises of the Soviet government and its new protégés Mironov and Fomin that they would all receive an amnesty for this. These people had already fought to the point of nausea - both for the German, and for the 18th year, and now they only wanted a peaceful life in their kurens. They had already forgotten to think about defending their rights before nonresident people, as in December 17th, when they supported the Kamensk Revolutionary Committee with this condition. It became clear to everyone that they would have to share, against the red peasant Russia, which is piling up from the north with all its might. The agreement with the Red Army was simple - you do not touch us, we do not touch you, and whoever remembers the old will be out of sight. Don's neutrality was beneficial to Moscow: if successful, the example of the Don people could have been followed by the war-worn Kuban people, and this promised a quick victory for the Red Army in the south, since Denikin's army consisted mainly of Kuban and Don people. But people called “commissioners of arrests and searches” arrived in the villages, and punitive teams went to the kurens ... They took away not only the soldiers who laid down their arms, but also the “grandfathers” - the cavaliers of St. George, the living glory of the Don, who refused to take off crosses, Cossack caps, rip off stripes from pants. Machine guns clattered outside the villages, to which, until recently, on Christmastide, brisk dark-haired young people in excellent fur coats, with diamond rings on short thick fingers came from Trotsky's headquarters, congratulated on the bright holiday, generously treated them to the wine brought by the troika, gave packs of royal money, convinced: “You live in peace in your villages, and we will live in peace. We have fought, and that's enough. " In the village of Migulinskaya, 62 Cossacks were shot without any trial, and in the villages of Kazanskaya and Shumilinskaya more than 400 people were killed in just one week, and in total about eight thousand people died on the Upper Don at that time. But there were few executions to Sverdlov's envoys Syrtsov and Beloborodov-Weisbart, the regicide ... In Vyoshenskaya, dark-haired young people ordered to ring the bells, drunken Red Army men drove Cossacks, women and children into the cathedral. Here their blasphemous act awaited: the 80-year-old priest, who served in Vyoshenskaya even during the abolition of serfdom, was married to a mare ...

A secret directive on "decossackization" was carried out, signed on January 24, 1919 by Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov. With a cadaverous smell, I was drawn to the Quiet Don, which in its entire history did not know any enemy occupation or mass executions ...

In the morning sorrowful caravans were equipped for the outskirts. The relatives of the executed dug them out, somehow sprinkled with earth, convulsively, with difficulty overcoming the nausea and holding back sobs, turned the bodies over, pulled the dead by the arms, legs, looking for their own, peering into the white faces with their hair caught in frost. If they found it, they dragged the dead man to the sleigh under the mikitki, and his head, with pupils that had stopped forever, shook like that of a drunk. The horses whinnied restlessly, squinting with a big eye at the terrible load. But in those days of utter grief, it was considered a blessing to get the deceased, too - the Bukan commissar Malkin, for example, left the executed to lie naked in the hole, and forbade burying ...

The Chekists at that time sang a ditty:

Here is your honor at dead midnight -
A quick march to rest!
Let the bastard rot under the snow
With us is a sickle hammer with a star.

The Sholokhovs, like everyone else, with chilling fear awaited the onset of twilight, burned a lamp under the icons, prayed not to take Alexander Mikhailovich away. At that time they lived on the Pleshakov farm, rented half of the smoking house from the Drozdov brothers, Alexei and Pavel. Paul came with a German officer. The brothers, as soon as the arrests began, disappeared no one knows where. Chekists from the Elanskaya stanitsa already came for them, for a long time, with suspicion they asked Alexander Mikhailovich who he was, then they left, leaving before leaving: "Maybe we will see you again ..." And my father now had reason to be afraid of such meetings, for nothing Cossack. At the very beginning of 1917, he received an inheritance from his mother, merchant Maria Vasilievna, nee Mokhova, but not a small one - 70 thousand rubles. At that time, Aleksandr Mikhailovich served as the manager of a steam mill in Pleshakov, and he decided to buy it out, along with a poor man and a smithy, from the owner, the Elan merchant Ivan Simonov. Meanwhile, the February Revolution broke out. ”

- Let's read and analyze the last episode of the second book.

(“... And a little later, right there near the chapel, under a hummock, under a shaggy cover of old wormwood, a female bustard laid nine smoky-blue speckled eggs and sat on them, warming them with the warmth of her body, protecting them with a glossy feathered wing.”)

The ending of the second book of the novel has a symbolic meaning. What do you think? Sholokhov contrasts fratricidal war, mutual cruelty of people with the life-giving force of nature. Reading these lines, we involuntarily recall the finale of I.S. Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons": “No matter how passionate, sinful, rebellious heart may hide in the grave, the flowers growing on it, serenely look at us with their innocent eyes; They tell us not only about eternal calmness, about that great calmness of "indifferent nature"; they speak of eternal reconciliation and endless life ... "

I would like to end today's lesson with the poem "Civil War" by Maximilian Voloshin. Although the political views and aesthetic attitudes of Voloshin and the author of The Quiet Don are very far from each other, the great humanistic idea of \u200b\u200bRussian literature connects these artists.

Some rose up from the underground
From exiles, factories, mines,
Poisoned by the dark will
And the bitter smoke of cities.
Others from the ranks of the military
Ruined noble nests
Where were they taken to the churchyard
Fathers and brothers of the slain.
Some have not gone out until now
Hops of immemorial fires
And the steppe, wild spirit is alive
Both Razin and Kudeyarov.
In others - devoid of all roots -
The pernicious spirit of the capital Nevskaya:
Tolstoy and Chekhov, Dostoevsky -
Tear and confusion of our days.
Some are exalted on posters
Your delirium about bourgeois evil,
About light proletarians,
Bourgeois paradise on earth ...
In others, all the color, all the rot of empires,
All gold, all the decay of ideas
The shine of all the great fetishes
And all scientific superstitions.
Some go to liberate
Moscow and shackle Russia again,
Others, having unbridled the elements,
They want to recreate the whole world.
In those and others, the war breathed
Anger, greed, dark drunkenness.
And after the heroes and leaders
The predator creeps in a greedy flock,
So that the power of Russia is boundless
Open and give to enemies;
Rotting away her piles of wheat,
She will dishonor the heavens
Devour wealth, burn forests
And suck the seas and ores.
And the roar of battles does not cease
Throughout the vastness of the southern steppe
Amid the golden splendor
The horses of the trampled crops.
And here and there between the rows
The same voice sounds:
“He who is not for us is against us.
There are no indifferent: the truth is with us ”.
And I stand alone between them
In roaring flames and smoke
And with all my might
I pray for both.
(1919)

"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 gained worldwide fame. It was for this novel that Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize. Quiet Don is a national contribution to world culture. This circumstance should determine the place of the work in the monographic theme “M. A. Sholokhov ". The initial theses that guide the methodological solution of this topic can be formulated as follows:

- “Quiet Don” should be viewed 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 theme 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 make it possible to establish not only problem-thematic, but also aesthetic connections of the writer's works, which will give the reader the opportunity to better understand the artistic world of 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 person 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 heroes in a new way, the origins of their tragedy. The teacher's task is to help students understand the complex content of a large-scale work, to bring them closer to understanding the author's version of the events “that shook the world”. The system of review lessons based on the novel "Quiet Don" can be presented in the following way:

First lesson. A word about Sholokhov. The idea and history of the creation of the novel "Quiet Don". (Introductory lecture by the teacher.)
Second lesson. Pictures of the life of the Don Cossacks on the pages of the novel. "Family Thought" in the novel "Quiet Flows the Don". (Work on individual episodes of the first part of the novel, determining its place in the overall concept of the novel, in its compositional plan.)
Third lesson. "The monstrous absurdity of war" in the image of Sholokhov. (Conversation about what was read, commentary on certain scenes of the third - fifth parts of the novel, generalization of the teacher.)
Fourth lesson. "In a world split in two." The civil war on the Don as depicted by Sholokhov. (The teacher's word, a comparative analysis of individual 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 vividly shows the life of a Cossack farm in all its picturesqueness and diversity, 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 the answers to the questions: who are the Cossacks? What did they do? How did you live? Why does Sholokhov write about them with love? About whom does he speak with special sympathy? 2. Highlight the brightest scenes of the first part. How do they convey the beauty of the peasant life of the Cossacks, the poetry of their labor? In what situations does the writer show his heroes? 3. Highlight the description of the Don nature, the Cossack farm. What is their role? It is advisable that the students did not pass by such episodes of the first part: "The Story of Prokofy Melekhov" (Ch. 1), "Morning in the Melekhovs' family", "Fishing" (Ch. 2), "At the haymaking" (Ch. 9), scenes of matchmaking and wedding of Gregory and Natalia (chap. 15-22), conscription, Gregory on a medical examination (part two, chap. 21).

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

The story about the fate of the Melekhov family begins with a sharp, dramatic plot, with the story of Prokofy Melekhov, who amazed the farmers with his "outlandish act." From the Turkish war he brought a Turkish wife. He loved her, in the evenings, when "the dawns wither," carried her in his arms on the top of the mound, "sat down next to her, and so they gazed into the steppe for a long time." And when the angry crowd approached their house, Prokofy with a saber defended his beloved wife.

From the first pages there are proud, independent-minded people capable of great feeling. Thus, from the story of grandfather Gregory, the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" enters the beautiful and at the same time tragic. And for Gregory, love for Aksinya will be a serious test of life. “I wanted to tell about the charm of the man in Grigory Melekhov,” Sholokhov admitted. The general structure of the narrative convinces that the writer was also under the influence of the charm of Natalia, Ilyinichna, Aksinya, Dunyashka. The main values \u200b\u200bof the Melekhovs are moral, human: benevolence, responsiveness, generosity and, most importantly, diligence.

The original concept of the novel was associated with the events of 1917, "with the participation of the Cossacks in the campaign of Kornilov against Petrograd." In the process of work, Sholokhov significantly expanded the scope of the narrative, returned to the pre-war period, in 1912. In the life of the Cossack village, in the course of everyday life, in the psychology of the Cossacks, he was looking for an explanation for the behavior of the heroes during the days of terrible trials. Therefore, the first part of the novel can be viewed as a wide-ranging exposition of The Quiet Don, the chronological framework of which is very clearly indicated: May 1912 - March 1922. Expansion of the book's concept allowed the writer to capture “the people's life of Russia at its grandiose historical turning point”. This conclusion can be used to complete the second lesson on the novel by Sholokhov.

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

The antithesis of peaceful life in "Quiet Don" will be a war, first World War I, then civil. These wars will take place in the farms and villages, each family will have victims. Sholokhov's family will become a mirror, in a peculiar way reflecting the events of world history. Starting with the third part of the novel, the tragic will determine the tone of the narrative. For the first time, the tragic motive will sound in the epigraph:

What pages of the novel echo the melody of this old Cossack song? Let's turn to the beginning of the third part of the novel, here the date first appears: "In March 1914 ..." This is a significant detail in the work: the historical date will separate the world from the war. Rumors about her went around the farms: "The war will push ...", "There will be no war, to see the harvest", "Well, how is the war?", "War, uncle!" As you can see, the story of the war originates in the farm, in the very thick of the people's life. The news of her found the Cossacks at their usual work - they were mowing the rye (part three, ch. 3). The Melekhovs saw: the horse was walking with a "catchy outline"; the horseman, jumping up, shouted: "A flash!" Disturbing news gathered a crowd in the square (ch. 4). "One word in a diverse crowd: mobilization." The fourth chapter ends with the episode "At the Station", from where the echelons with Cossack regiments left for the Russian-Austrian border. "War…"

The concatenation of short episodes, the alarming tone conveyed by the words: "flash", "mobilization", "war ..." - all this is connected with the date - 1914th. The writer puts the word "War ..." "War!" On a separate line twice. Pronounced with different intonation, it makes the reader think about the terrible meaning of what is happening. This word echoes the remark of an old railwayman who looked into the carriage, where “Petro Melekhov was soaring with the other thirty Cossacks”:

“- My dear beef! - And for a long time he shook his head reproachfully.

The emotion expressed in these words also contains generalization. It is expressed more openly at the end of the seventh chapter: “Echelons ... Echelons ... Echelons are innumerable! Along the arteries of the country, along the railways to the western border, agitated Russia is driving gray-cinched blood. "

Let us single out other enlarged images that will appear on the pages of the novel: "the land crucified with many hooves", "the field of death", where people collided, "who had not yet managed to break their hands on the destruction of their own kind", "the monstrous absurdity of war." Each of them is associated with separate sketches, episodes, reflections. There are battle scenes in the "war" chapters, but they are not interesting to the author in and of themselves. Sholokhov solves the “man in war” conflict in his own way. In "Quiet Don" we will not find descriptions of exploits, admiration for heroism, military courage, rapture in battle, which would be natural in a story about the Cossacks. Sholokhov is interested in something else - what does war do to a person. Isolation of this aspect of the topic will allow one to feel the features of Sholokhov's psychologism.

Getting acquainted with the heroes of the novel, we will notice that everyone has their own ability to experience and comprehend war, but everyone will feel the "monstrous absurdity of war". Through the eyes of the Cossacks, we will see how “the ripe grain was trampled by the cavalry,” how a hundred “crumpled the bread with iron horseshoes,” how “a black marching column unfolded in a chain between the brown, uncleared rolls of mown bread”, how “the first shrapnel covered the rows of unharvested wheat”. And everyone, looking at the "unharvested trees of wheat, at the bread that had fallen under their hooves," recalled their tithes and "hardened at heart." These memories-influxes illuminate, as it were, from the inside, the dramatic situation in which the Cossacks found themselves in the war.

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

It is advisable to convey the most important moments of the episode in reading. An Austrian ran along the trellis of the garden. Melekhov caught up with him. “Inflamed by the madness that was going on around him, he raised his sword,” lowered it to the temple of an unarmed soldier. "Elongated by fear" his face "blackened cast iron", "the skin hung like a red rag", "blood was falling in a crooked stream" - as if this "frame" was taken in slow motion. Gregory met the Austrian's gaze. Eyes filled with mortal horror gazed at him with death ... Blinking, Grigory waved his sword. A blow with a long pull split the skull in two. The Austrian fell, bumping his hands, as if slipping; the halves of the skull were thumped on the stone of the pavement. "

The details of this scene are terrible! They won't let go of Gregory. He, "not knowing why," approached the Austrian soldier he had hacked to death. “He was lying there, by the playful braid of the lattice fence, stretching out his dirty brown palm, as if for alms. Grigory looked into his face. It seemed to him small, almost childish, in spite of the drooping mustache and the twisted, stern mouth, exhausted - whether by suffering or by the old joyless life ...

Gregory ... stumbling, went to the horse. His step was confused and heavy, as if he were carrying an overwhelming load over his shoulders; I bend and bewilderment crumpled my soul. "

A terrible picture in all its details will long stand before Gregory's eyes, painful memories will trouble him for a long time. When meeting with his brother, he confesses: “I, Petro, got tired of my soul. I’m not finished at a time ... As if I have been under the millstones, they crumpled and spit it out ... My conscience is killing me. I stabbed one under Leshnyuv with a lance. In the heat of the moment. Otherwise it was impossible ... Why did I cut down the entogo? .. I cut down a man in vain and I get sick through him, you bastard, with my soul. Dreams at night ... ”(part three, ch. 10).

Several weeks of the war have passed, but the impressionable Gregory can already see its traces everywhere: “August was approaching the end. In the gardens, the leaf turned boldly yellow, from the cutting it was filled with dying crimson, and from a distance it looked like the trees were in lacerated wounds and were bleeding with ore with woody blood.

Gregory watched with interest the changes taking place with his comrades of a hundred ... Changes were made on each person, each in his own way nurtured and grew the seeds sown by the war. "

The changes in Grigory himself were striking: he was "bent ... by the war, sucked the blush from his face, painted him with bile." And internally, he became completely different: “Gregory took the Cossack honor firmly, caught an opportunity to show selfless courage, took risks, went crazy, walked in disguise to the rear of the Austrians, removed the outposts without blood, jigged the Cossack and felt that the pain for a person that crushed him in the first days of the war. His heart was hardened, it was 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 someone else's and his own life; that is why he was known for being brave - he served four St. George's crosses and four medals. At rare parades, he stood at the regimental banner, fanned by the gunpowder smoke of many wars; but he knew that he would no longer laugh at him as before, he knew that his eyes had sunken in and his cheekbones protruded sharply; he knew that it was difficult for him, kissing a child, to look openly into clear eyes; Gregory knew at what price he paid for a full bow of crosses and production ”(part four, ch. 4).

Sholokhov diversifies the visual means, showing the Cossacks in the war. Here they copy "Prayer from the gun", "Prayer from the battle", "Prayer during the raid." The Cossacks kept them under their undershirts, fastened them to knots with a pinch of their native land. "But death also stained those who carried prayers with them." The scene depicting the Cossacks in the field by the fire is lyrically painted: "in the opal crown of June" the song "The Cossack went to a distant foreign land", performed "thick sorrow", sounds. Near another fire - another Cossack song: "Ah, from the violent sea, but from the Azov."

The voice of the author bursts into the epic narration: "The darlings were imperiously drawn to themselves, and there was no such force that could keep the Cossacks from spontaneous attraction home." Everyone wanted to be at home, "huch to look with one eye." And, as if fulfilling this desire, Sholokhov draws a farm “bleeding like a widow”, where “life went on for sale - like hollow water in the Don”. The author's text sounds in unison with the words of an old Cossack song, which became the epigraph of the novel.

So, through battle scenes, through the acute experiences of the heroes, through landscape sketches, description-generalization, lyrical digressions, Sholokhov leads us to comprehending the "monstrous absurdity of war."

"All 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 topic fourth lessondedicated to the pictures of the civil war. The introductory part of this lesson might include the following points:

- M. Gorky attributed "Quiet Don" to those "striking works" that "gave a broad, truthful and talented picture of the civil war." And for more than half a century, the novel has brought the light of this truth to the reader.
- Determining the essence of the Sholokhov concept of the civil war, let us turn to the reflections of modern writers and historians, who discovered a new vision of the events of those years. Thus, the writer Boris Vasiliev states: “In the civil war there are no right and wrong, no just and unjust, no angels and no demons, just like there are no victors. There are only the vanquished in it - all of us, all the people, all of Russia ... A tragic catastrophe gives rise only to losses ... "Quiet Flows the Don convinces that what was said. Sholokhov was one of those who were the first to speak of the civil war as the greatest tragedy with grave consequences.
- The level of truth that marks the novel "Quiet Don", the researchers of Sholokhov's work explain the serious work of the young writer on archival materials, memoirs of the participants in the events. One cannot but take into account the opinion of MN Semanov, who wrote in the book “Quiet Don” - Literature and History ”:“ The painstaking work of the author of “Quiet Don” on collecting historical material is unconditional and obvious, but the explanation of the unparalleled depth of historicism of the Sholokhov epic follows look in the biography of the writer. M. Sholokhov himself was not only an eyewitness to the events described (like Leo Tolstoy in Hadji Murad), but he was also - and this should be emphasized especially - a fellow countryman of his heroes, he lived their lives, he was flesh of their flesh and bone of their bones. Thousands of rumors of the world stirred up by the revolution brought to him such "facts" and such "information", with which the archives and libraries of the whole world could not compete. "

How does Sholokhov portray this world stirred up by the revolution? This is the central theme of Lesson 4.

One of the author's favorite tricks is a pre-story. So, at the end of the first chapter of the fifth part of the novel, we read: “Until January, people lived quietly on the Tatarsky farm. Returning from the front, the Cossacks were resting near their wives, ate, did not sense that at the thresholds of the kurens their bitter troubles and hardships were being watched than those that had to be endured during the war.

"The burning troubles" are the revolution and the civil war, which broke the usual way of life. In a letter to Gorky, Sholokhov noted: "Without exaggerating 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 segments of the population. In "Quiet Don" there are more than seven hundred characters, main and episodic, named by name and unnamed; and the writer is worried about their fate.

What happened on the Don during the years of the civil war has a name - "decossackization of the Cossacks", accompanied by mass terror, which provoked a return cruelty. "Black rumors" about extraordinary commissions and revolutionary tribunals spread through the farmsteads, whose trial was "simple: an accusation, a couple of questions, a sentence - and a machine gun fire." The author writes about the atrocities of the Red Army soldiers in the farms (part six, ch. 16). The military courts of the Don Army were just as tough. We see the Reds hacked with special cruelty. Informing the facts to be more convincing, Sholokhov cites documents: a list of those executed from the Podtelkov detachment (part five, chapter 11) and a list of the executed hostages of Tatarsky farm (part six, chapter 24).

Many pages of the sixth part of the novel are colored with anxiety, heavy forebodings: "All Obdonye lived in a hidden, suppressed life ... Mga hung over the future." “Life turned abruptly at the bend”: the richest houses were imposed with indemnity, arrests and executions began. How do the Cossacks themselves perceive this time?

Petro Melekhov: “- Look how the people were divided, you bastards! As if they had driven with a plow: one in one direction, the other in the other, as if under a plow. Bloody life, and a terrible time! One no longer guesses the other ...
- Here you are, - he abruptly translated the conversation, - here you are - my brother, and I do not understand you, by God! I feel that you are leaving me somehow ... I'm telling the truth? - and answered himself: - The truth. You are freaking out ... I'm afraid you will go over to the red ... You, Grishatka, haven't found yourself before.
- Did you find it? - asked Grigory.
- Found. I got into my furrow ... You can't pull me to the red lasso. The Cossacks are against them, and I am against ”.
“Miron Grigorievich spoke in a new way, with ripened anger:
- And through what life collapsed? Who is the reason? This damn power! .. I worked all my life, wheezed, then washed, and in order for me to live equally with the entity, what finger didn’t pull a finger to get out of need? No, let's wait a bit! .. "

"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 have become overwhelmed, they have become mad,” the author will add. He does not forgive cruelty to anyone: neither Polovtsev, who hacked to death Chernetsov and ordered to kill forty more prisoner 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 Korshunov's kuren, and then lit seven more houses; does not forgive Mitka Korshunov, who "cut out the entire family of Koshevoy."

"The people were played off", - we recall when we read about the execution of the commander of the detachment Likhachev, captured by the rebels: “He was not shot ... Seven miles from Veshenskaya, in the sandy, severely frowning breakers, he was brutally hacked to death by the guards. They gouged out his eyes alive, cut off his hands, ears, nose, and crossed his face with swords. They unbuttoned their pants and abused, defiled a large, courageous, beautiful body. They outraged the bleeding stump, and then one of the guards stepped on a flimsy trembling chest, on the body which had been thrown backwards and cut off the head with one blow 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 escorts beat them, driving them into a heap like sheep, beat them long and severely ...

Then everything was like in the heaviest fog. Thirty versts walked through continuous farms, which were met on each farm by crowds of torturers. Old men, women, teenagers beat, spat on the swollen, blood-stained ... faces of the captured communists. "

And one more execution - Podtelkov and his squad. This episode is given in the following frame: “Cossacks and women were piling up densely on the edge of the farm. The population of Ponomarev, notified of the execution scheduled for six hours, went willingly, as if it were a rare and cheerful show. The Cossacks dressed up as if for a holiday; many took their children with them ... Cossacks, converging, animatedly discussed the upcoming execution. "

"And in Ponomarevo, shots were still puffing with haze: Veshenskie, Karginskie, Lokoskiye, Krasnokutskie, Milyutin Cossacks shot Kazan, Migulin, Razor, Kumshat, Balkan Cossacks."

Rejecting a violent death, Sholokhov will say more than once about the unnaturalness of such situations; and in all cases of extreme cruelty, he will oppose the harmony of an eternal, boundless world. In one episode, a birch tree will become a symbol of this world, on which "brown buds have already swollen with sweet March juice." Likhachev died with black buds on his lips. In another - the steppe, over which "high, under the cumulus ridge, swam an eagle." In his last hour, Ivan Alekseevich Kotlyarov will see, raising his head, "with a blue vision, the spurs of the chalk mountains have risen in the distance, and above them, above the flowing stirrup of the ridged Don, in the imposing majestic blue of the sky, in the most inaccessible height - a cloud." And here a landscape sketch, striking with the purity of its colors, will receive a high philosophical content.

The finale of the second volume is expressive. A civil war is raging on the Don, people are dying, and the Red Army soldier Valet is also killed. He was buried by the Yablonov Cossacks, and after half a month some old man put a wooden chapel on the grave mound. “Under its triangular canopy, the mournful face of the Mother of God glimmered in the darkness; below, on the cornice of the canopy, the black ligature of Slavic writing was furry:

In a time of turmoil and debauchery
Do not condemn, brothers, brother.

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

In one episode, life and death collide, the lofty, eternal and tragic realities that have become "in a time of turmoil and debauchery" habitual, commonplace. The increased contrast of the image determined the emotional expressiveness of the author's speech, in which the civic spirit of the writer and his compassion for the heroes of the novel are expressed. All of them were faced with a harsh time to make a choice.
- Which side are you holding?
- You seem to have accepted the red faith?
- You were in white? White! Officer, eh?

These questions were asked to one and 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", "tedious feeling of something unresolved." Here he goes home after breaking up with Podtyolkov; "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, about this his anxiety and thought, conveyed through an internal monologue:

“I also broke his fatigue acquired during the war. I wanted to turn my back on the whole, seething with hatred, hostile and incomprehensible world. There, behind, everything was confused, contradictory. It was difficult to grope for the right path, and there was no certainty whether he was going along the right path. He was drawn to the Bolsheviks - he walked, led others, and then he took thought, became cold at heart. “Is Izvarin really right? Whom 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 by the spring, weaving from a reddened manger, and when the earth was undressed and dry, it would leave for the steppe; holding on to the chipigi with his bored hands, he will follow the plow, feeling its lively movement and jolts; imagining how the sweet spirit of young grass and chernozem lifted by plowshares will breathe in, it felt warm in my soul. I wanted to clean the cattle, throw hay, breathe the wilted smell of sweet clover, wheatgrass, the spicy smell of manure. I wanted peace and silence - that's why shy joy and shore in stern eyes Gregory, looking around ... Sweet and thick, like hops, seemed at this time life here, in the wilderness ”(part five, ch. 13).

The words cited here can be the best commentary on the characterization that the writer B. Vasiliev gives to Sholokhov's novel, 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 hesitation, throwing of the normal, calm family man. And this is done, from my point of view, great. One fate shows the whole break in society. Even if he is a Cossack, he is still primarily a peasant, a farmer. He is the breadwinner. And the breaking of this breadwinner is the whole civil war in my understanding. "

And instead of this - bread cut by the blades of the roads. On the roads crowds of undressed, corpse-black with dust prisoners ... In the farmsteads amateurs search the families of the Cossacks who left with the Red, whip the wives and mothers of apostates ... Discontent, fatigue, anger accumulated ”(part six, ch. 10). From episode to episode, the tragic discrepancy between the inner aspirations of Grigory Melekhov and the life around him grows.

This observation can complete the fourth lesson on "Quiet Don".

"The Fate of Grigory Melekhov", "The Tragedy of Grigory Melekhov" - these two themes are the main ones in the conversation about Sholokhov's novel at the final fifth lesson. The final lesson can be conducted in the form of a workshop lesson. Its task is to synthesize the knowledge of students about the novel "Quiet Flows the Don", to look at it from a new angle. For this, it is necessary to avoid repeating the course of analysis that took place in the previous lessons. Not detailing the text, but looking at the work as a whole - this is the direction of work in the lesson-seminar. Pupils can come to more generalized conclusions by considering not a separate episode, but their cohesion, the through lines of the novel, which will be reflected in the lesson plan: 1. "Good Cossack". What meaning does Sholokhov put into these words, speaking so about Grigory Melekhov? 2. In what episodes is the bright, outstanding personality of Grigory Melekhov best revealed? What role does his inner monologue play in characterizing the hero? 3. Complex vicissitudes of the hero's fate - from the circumstances. Compare the situations “Gregory at home”, “Gregory at war”. What gives the cohesion of these episodes to understand the fate of the hero? 4. The choice that the hero makes, his path of seeking the truth. The origins of the tragedy of Grigory Melekhov. Finale of the novel.

The first half of the questions, suggested for students to think at home, may be related to the motivation behind the choice of Grigory Melekhov as the central character. Indeed, why did the author's choice fall not on Mikhail Koshevoy, Pyotr Melekhov or Evgeny Listnitsky, Podtelkov or Bunchuk? There are explanations for this: they are in the moral values \u200b\u200bthat the heroes profess, in the peculiarities of their emotional and psychological makeup.

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

Remaining always honest, morally independent and direct in character, Gregory showed himself as a man capable of action. An example is the following episodes: a fight with Stepan Astakhov over Aksinya (part one, ch. 12), a departure with Aksinya to Yagodnoye (part two, chap. 11-12), a clash with the sergeant-major (part three, chap. 11) , a break with Podtyolkov (part three, ch. 12), a clash with General Fitzkhalaurov (part seven, ch. 10), a decision to return to the farm without waiting for an amnesty (part eight, ch. 18). The sincerity of his motives is captivating - he never lied to himself, in his doubts and throwings. We are convinced of this by his internal monologues (part six, chap. 21, 28). Note that he is the only character who has been given the right to monologues - “thoughts” that reveal his spiritual origin.

Gregory's deep affection for home, for the land remains his strongest spiritual movement throughout the novel. “I will not move anywhere from the ground. There is a steppe here, there is something to breathe ... "This confession of Aksinye echoes another:" My hands need to work, not fight. All my soul ached during these months. " Behind these words is the mood of not only Grigory Melekhov. Emphasizing the dramatic nature of this situation, the author adds on his own behalf: “It was time to plow, harrow, sow; the earth called to itself, calling tirelessly day and night, but here it was necessary to fight, perish in other people's farms ... "

Sholokhov found his main character in a Cossack farm - this in itself is a 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 do not try to personify the average Cossacks."

"Hero and Time", "Hero and Circumstances", the search for oneself as a person - the eternal theme of art became the main theme 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 always faces the need for a choice that was not easy and simple. The very situations in which the hero found himself prompted him to take action. So, the entry of Gregory into the rebel detachment is to some extent a forced step. It was preceded by the atrocities of the Red Army men who came to the farm, their intention to kill Melekhov. Later, in the last conversation with Koshev, he will say: "If then the Red Army were not going to kill me at the party, I might not have taken part in the uprising."

This meeting essentially marked a turning point in the fate of Grigory Melekhov. Sholokhov defines its significance as follows: “Grigory walked, feeling as if he had stepped over the threshold, and what seemed unclear suddenly stood up with extreme brightness ... And because he was on the verge of a struggle between two principles, denying both of them, it was born dull, incessant irritation. "

"Life turned abruptly at the turn." The farm looked like a "disturbed bee-eater". "Mishka's heart was dressed with a burning hatred for the Cossacks." The actions of the authorities bred the Cossacks in different directions.

“- What are you standing, sons of the quiet Don ?! - shouted the old man, shifting his eyes from Gregory to the others. “They shoot your fathers and grandfathers, they take your property, the Jewish commissars laugh at your faith, and you hound the seeds? ..” This appeal was heard.

In Gregory “captive, hidden feelings were released. Clear, it seemed, was his path from now on, like a highway illuminated by the month. " Sholokhov conveys the innermost thoughts of the hero in his inner monologue: “The paths of the Cossacks crossed with the paths of landless peasant Russia, with the paths of factory people. Fight them to the death! To tear the Don soil, watered with Cossack blood, from under their feet. Drive them, like Tatars, from the borders of the region! Shake Moscow, impose a shameful peace on it! .. And now - for a saber! "

These thoughts contain the uncompromising attitude of a man who never knew the middle. It had nothing to do with political vacillation. The tragedy of Gregory is, as it were, transferred into the depths of his consciousness. He "painfully tried to sort out the confusion of thoughts." His "soul rushed about" like "a wolf who has been rounded up on a raid in search of a way out, in resolving contradictions." Behind him were days of doubt, "hard internal struggle", "search for the truth." In it, "his own, the Cossack, sucked in with mother's milk throughout life, prevailed 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 am blooming, like in a blizzard in the steppe ..." But Grigory Melekhov "blunders", "looking for the truth," not from emptiness and thoughtlessness. He yearns for such a truth, "under the wing of which everyone could warm up." And such a truth, from his point of view, is not among the Whites, nor among the Reds: “There is no truth in life. It is evident that whoever overcomes whom will devour that ... And I was looking for the bad truth. He ached with his soul, swayed back and forth ... "These searches, according to his confession, turned out to be" wasted and empty. " And this also determined the tragedy of his fate.

It is impossible to accept the point of view of those critics of The Quiet Don, who believed that Melekhov survived the tragedy of a renegade, he went against his people and lost all human features. Let us trace the movement of the hero's thought in such episodes as “Melekhov interrogates and then orders the release of the captive khopertsa”, “The division he commands is passing in front of Melekhov”; this and the other episode is colored by the struggle of conflicting feelings. Let's single out the episodes that became catharsis for the hero: "Gregory chopped the sailors", "The last meeting with Natalia", "Natalia's death", "Aksinya's death". Any episode of The Quiet Don reveals the multidimensionality and high humanity inherent in Sholokhov's text. Grigory Melekhov evokes deep sympathy, compassion as a hero of a tragic fate.

Recommended reading

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

"The Monstrous Nonsense of War" in the novel "Quiet Flows the Don"

, the inhumanity of war.

The battle scenes themselves are not interesting to Sholokhov. He is worried about something else - what does war do with a person. A moral protest against the senselessness and inhumanity of war is clearly expressed.

acute sensation of someone else's pain

Killing a person, even an enemy in battle, contradicts Gregory's humane nature. Love for everything, a keen sense of someone else's pain, the ability to compassion - this is the essence of the character of Sholokhov's hero.

The madness of a war in which innocent people die (meaningless sacrifices laid on the altar of someone's ambition) - that's what the hero thinks about.

What visual means does the author use?

Gregory's qualities

Gregory's qualities

Pride, independence, anger for everything the war has done

Following the traditions of Russian literature, through battle scenes, through the acute experiences of the heroes, through landscape sketches, lyrical digressions (a scene by the fire - a soldier's song), Sholokhov leads to an understanding of the alienation, unnaturalness, inhumanity of war.

Houses

Houses: (2 books) 1) How did the events of the world war affect the peaceful life of the Cossacks?

2) The new government and the attitude of the Cossacks towards it.

3) Civil war as a tragedy of the people (pick up episodes).

4) Reread vol. 2, part 5, ch. 1, 12, 13, 24, 30

5) Make a plan “The fate of Grigory Melekhov”.