The composition of Anna Pogudko in the novel Quiet Don image and characteristics. Bunchuk - a hero broken by the revolution Bunchuk and Anna love in the war
In the novel by M. A. Sholokhov, Cossack women are perhaps the only ones who are not influenced by political passions. However, in the "Quiet Don" there is also the heiress of the "progressives" of F. Dostoevsky - the fiery revolutionary Anna Pogudko. M. Sholokhov the artist does not demonize the heroine, she is characterized by human weaknesses, love-pity for Bunchuk, but the spiritual nature, the spiritual essence of this type of personality - a destructive woman - remains unchanged. She voluntarily joins the team of Red Guard machine gunners to learn how to kill. M. Sholokhov gives an expressive description: “Anna Pogudko delved into everything with keen curiosity. She importunately molested Bunyk, grabbed him by the sleeves of the clumsy demi-season, relentlessly stuck out near the machine gun.
The author notes Anna's "unfaithful and warm gleam of eyes", her passion for speeches, fanned by sentimental romanticism. This pity for the distant is paradoxically combined with hatred for the near. The desire to kill for the sake of a utopian dream is enormous: “a wrong, stumbling trot” leads Pogudko people into the attack. Retribution follows immediately, her death is terrible, naturalism in the description of the agony is deliberately accentuated by the author. From a blooming woman, the heroine turns into a half-corpse, she seems to be burning alive in hell: “Blue-yellow, with streaks of frozen tears on her cheeks, with a pointed nose and a terribly painful fold of her lips”, the dying constantly requires water, which is not able to fill her inner, all-burning fire.
The passion for victory at any cost, including death, is higher than love, even on a date with Bunchuk, Anna did not forget about machine guns. She "enchants" Bunchuk until the final spiritual and physical death, his behavior after the death of his girlfriend is infernal - he is likened to a beast. It seems symbolic that his executioner-volunteer Mitka Korshunov kills him, giving him the following assessment: "Look at this devil - he bit his shoulder to blood and died like a wolf, silently."
Unrealized female ambitions, lack of humility result in a desire to destroy everything and everything. People with "new" ideas are very welcome here.
And yet in Anna there is a feminine, maternal principle, which is dissolved in different degrees in almost every true love of a woman for a man: in the love of Natalya and Aksinya for Grigory, and in the love of the “deep-eyed” Anna Pogudko for Bunchuk ... If for Bunchuk, three weeks of his typhoid unconsciousness were weeks of wandering "in another, intangible and fantastic world", then for the ideologically exalted girl they became a test of her first feeling, when "for the first time she had to look so close and so nakedly at the wrong side of communication with her beloved" , encounter in "dirty care" with lousy, ugly emaciated, foul-smelling flesh and its grassroots secretions. “Inwardly, everything reared up in her, resisted, but the dirt of the outer did not stain the deeply and securely stored feeling”, “love and pity that had not been experienced before”, love here is motherly self-sacrificing. Two months later, Anna herself came to bed with him for the first time, and Bunchuk, dried up, blackened from execution work in the Revolutionary Tribunal (although he left there that day), turned out to be powerless - all the erotic moisture of this, albeit ideologically playing himself, executioner on the service of the revolution burned out in horror and breakdown. Anna managed to overcome "disgust and disgust" and, after listening to his stuttering, feverish explanations, "silently hugged him and calmly, like a mother, kissed him on the forehead." And only a week later, Anna's caress, maternal care warmed up Bunchuk, pulled him out of male impotence, burnt out, a nightmare. But on the other hand, when Anna painfully dies in the arms of Bunchuk from a wound in battle, the loss of the woman she loves makes everything in him and around him meaningless, brings him into a state of complete apathy, dispassionate automatism. It does not help at all with what he was strong and fierce before: hatred, struggle, ideas, ideals, historical optimism ... everything flies into hell! Indifferently, half asleep, he adjoins the expedition of Podtelkov, simply "just to move, just to get away from the longing that followed him on the heels." And in the scene of the execution of the podtelkovites, Bunchuk alone keeps looking “into the gray distance swaddled with clouds”, “at the gray haze of the sky” - “it seemed that he was waiting for something unrealizable and gratifying”, perhaps from childhood superstitions long trampled about meetings after the coffin , insanely hoping for the only thing that could satisfy his immense longing, that longing that had dropped him as an inflexible Bolshevik and humanized him.
Dunyasha
After the death of Natalya and Ilyinichna, Dunyashka becomes the mistress of the Melekhov kuren, she will have to reconcile the antagonist heroes in the same house: Melikhov and Koshevoy. Dunyashka is a particularly attractive female character in the novel.
The author introduces us to the youngest of the Melekhovs - Dunyasha - when she was still a long-armed, big-eyed teenager with thin pigtails. Growing up, Dunyasha turns into a black-browed, slender and proud Cossack woman with an obstinate and persistent Melekhovsky character.
Having fallen in love with Mishka Koshevoy, she does not want to think about anyone else, despite the threats of her father, mother and brother. All the tragedies with the household are played out before her eyes. The death of his brother, Daria, Natalya, father, mother, niece takes Dunyasha very close to his heart. But, despite all the losses, she needs to move on. And Dunyasha becomes the main person in the ruined house of the Melekhovs.
Dunyasha is a new generation of Cossack women who will live in a different world than her mother and brothers, Aksinya and Natalya. She entered the novel as a sonorous, ubiquitous, hardworking teenage girl and went all the way to the beautiful Cossack woman, without tarnishing her dignity in anything. The image is imbued with lyricism and dynamism of youth, openness to the whole world, immediacy of manifestation and trembling of the first dawn of feelings, which Sholokhov associates with the dawn - the rising hope for life in new conditions. In the act of the daughter, with which Ilyinichna was forced to come to terms, there is a rejection of some outdated elements of the traditionally Cossack (and not only Cossack) family, but there is no destruction of its foundations here. Yes, the personal choice of the future spouse seems to be more “happy” for Dunyasha to create a family. But he also considers parental blessing obligatory, and, despite all the difficulties, he receives it. With difficulty, but still, he achieves from the atheist and "utterly evil at himself and everything around" Mikhail Koshevoy the church consecration of their marriage. She maintains an unshakable faith in the healing power of the Orthodox canons of family love.
Perhaps she managed to understand something in the new time that was not understood by many of her contemporaries: people are embittered and commit acts, sometimes vile and tragic in their consequences, not at all due to natural depravity, but becoming victims of circumstances. They should not only feel sorry for them, but to the best of their ability to help them become themselves.
Conclusion
So, as a result of our study, the hypothesis that was put forward as a working one was proved: the female images created by M. Sholokhov in the novel “Quiet Flows the Don” reflect the Russian concept of femininity and the tradition of creating the image of a woman in Russian culture.
Actually, the intention of the author of The Quiet Flows the Flows River can be considered as a confrontation of his heroes with the cruel circumstances of the time of troubles, in which both base and sublime impulses of the human soul are manifested. Here are people going to death in the name of an idea (Bunchuk, Yesaul Kalmykov, Shtokman), and ready to kill in its name (Podtelkov, Mikhail Koshevoy) and avengers for loved ones (Daria Melekhova). In all the confusion of what is happening, only love can save a person and keep him alive, while hatred destroys him - the main idea of the novel. And it is the female images of the novel that embody this idea most clearly.
The novel "Quiet Don" is also a work about the life of a whole people, a coethnos - the Don Cossacks. National traits determine both the features of the narrative, and the meaning of the title, and, of course, the means of creating images. Aksinya, Natalya, Ilyinichna, Dunyasha reflects all the best that the author saw in Cossack women, who not only kept the family hearth, but were real helpers and "shorelines" of the border Cossack host.
In the complex, sometimes merciless struggle of the moral and the immoral, the beautiful and the ugly, the creative and the destructive in love, Sholokhov's heroines, the spiritual and everyday culture of the unique co-ethnos of the Russian nation, the Don Cossacks, unfolds deeper and more vividly before the reader. But the author is not limited to the general in female characters. With extreme subjectivity, Sholokhov draws both the original appeal of Cossack women and their tragic fate in the era of breaking the traditional Orthodox way of life, the destruction of the patriarchal Cossack family.
Among the Cossacks, of course, there were also "playful natures", but they are not typical of the Don ethnos. Aksinya, for example, is not at all cheating on her husband because of vindictive cunning. She did not hide the feelings that horrified her with her "sinfulness". Having drunk to the bottom the bitter cup of ridicule of the farmers, the beatings of Stepan, Aksinya remained open and consistent in her desire to keep Grigory to her tragic end. All the more pure and immaculate Natalya, brought up on the Orthodox holiness of family love, it never even occurred to her to answer her "unlucky" husband for offended love with infidelity.
Cossack women were well aware of the personal responsibility "for the preservation of the family during the absence of her husband." The motivation of devotion to a spouse, the sanctity of family ties among Donetsk women was of a deeper nature than among representatives of other ethnic groups of the Russian nation. This “other” was felt by the older generation of farmers, when Aksinya, in response to warning remarks, only “laughed defiantly” and “she carried her criminal head high without conscience and without hiding.” Here new forms of morality were introduced, contradicting the traditional Orthodox ones.
The author of The Quiet Flows the Don does not deny his heroines female attractiveness either. But here, too, Sholokhov retreats from the temptation to leave them the so-called "folklore", where the Cossack woman is "white-white, and thin in the belt, her face is white, her eyebrows are black, pointed<...>even thin cord. It is noteworthy, however, that the reader, noticing the discrepancy between Sholokhov's heroines and "folk relatives", easily makes up for this "shortcoming", switching to comparing them with mythological characters of other cultures.
The school, or, as it is sometimes said, the incubator of the education of the senses, is first and foremost the family. Here, individual inclinations and traits are filled with moral and social content, mature and correct. In the parental home, Aksinya could not go through such a school. The ancestral roots of Christian Orthodox purity and holiness of family relations were cut down: at the age of sixteen, her father abused her. Stepan also failed to fill her life with all the richness and specific beauty of mutual feelings and relationships that characterize a happy family. From the very first wedding night, he began to beat Aksinya, often and terribly get drunk, but he did not “throw her out of the door” (according to established custom) and did not tell anyone about her girlish shame. As if in gratitude for her silence, she tried to captivate her husband with the intensity of sensual passions, learned to extinguish his vindictive annoyance in caresses, stopping in the development of family relations at their lowest, only sexual phase. For a year and a half, Stepan did not forgive the offense, until the birth of a child. But her daughter died before she was a year old ... It is clear that everything that happened at the very take-off of life is not Aksinya's fault, but Aksinya's misfortune. And yet, no matter what caused this stop in the development of a culture of feelings, for her husband she remained “corrupted”, and from a socio-ethnic point of view (already because of her behavior) - “not her own”. M.A. Sholokhov was not fond of speaking names, but in this case he also has some closeness, the consonance of the name Aksinya, Ksyusha with Xenia, that is, “alien”.
Gregory could not go through such an education of feelings to the necessary extent. Pantelei Prokofievich, due to the too thick mixture of oriental blood, turned out to be an insufficiently consistent assistant to Ilyinichna in raising his son. Could not help Gregory and the experience of early youthful love. At the very first disagreements with Aksinya, when her parents demanded to end the relationship with her "husband's wife", such traits of her character appeared that not only alerted the young Cossack, but also decisively influenced his choice.
Natalya, deeply offended by the actions and words of her husband, is having a hard time with "spitting on her happiness." The ingenuous and truthful look of her bold eyes, which Grigory meets during the wedding conspiracy, goes out, is replaced by often flooded with tears, mournful and longing. After a tough conversation with his father, Grigory and Aksinya leave for the Listnitsky estate. Being spiritually unprepared for such a humiliation, Natalia cannot cope with the blow of fate unexpected for her. In a desperate rush to non-existence, she violates one of the main commandments of Christianity - the inviolability, the holiness of the gift of life.
So, the female images of the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" are built on a deep penetration into the peculiarities of the national culture and traditions of the Don Cossacks, reflect not only the system of values, but also the author's perception of the fate of the Cossacks during the years of the revolution and civil war.
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The novel "Quiet Flows the Don" by Sholokhov is a monumental work of Russian literature of the twentieth century. The book depicts the life of the Don Cossacks during the First World War, the 1917 revolution and the civil war in Russia. The events of the novel cover the period from May 1912 to March 1922.
Sholokhov wrote The Quiet Flows the Don for 15 years: the first three volumes of the work were created and published in 1925-1932, the fourth in 1940. In the work, the author portrayed a huge number of characters - 699, a quarter of which are genuine historical characters.
"Quiet Don" refers to the literary direction of socialist realism. The work is one of the best examples of the embodiment in Russian literature of the genres of the epic novel and the battle novel.
You can read the online summary of The Quiet Flows the Don chapter by chapter and part on our website.
main characters
Grigory Melekhov- a quick-tempered, independent Cossack, the youngest son of Panteley Melekhov, the central character of the novel with a "bestial" look "in slightly slanting slits of blue tonsils of hot eyes." In the image of Gregory, the author embodied the power of the national spirit, this is a composite image of the Don Cossacks of the early 20th century.
Petr Melekhov- the eldest son of Panteley Melekhov (6 years older than Grigory). The man "resembled his mother: small, snub-nosed, with lush wheat-colored hair, brown-eyed."
Panteley Prokofievich Melekhov- senior officer, son of Prokofy Melekhov and a captured Turkish woman, father of Peter and Grigory.
Stepan Astakhov- Melekhovs' neighbor, Aksinya's husband.
Aksinya Astakhova- Stepan's wife, Gregory's beloved.
Natalya Korshunova (Melekhova)- daughter of Miron Grigorievich Korshunov, official wife of Grigory.
Mitka Korshunov- the son of Miron Grigorievich Korshunov, the elder brother of Natalia.
Other characters
Vasilisa Ilyinichna Melekhova- wife of Panteley Melekhov, mother of Peter, Grigory and Dunyashka.
Dunyashka Melekhova- the daughter of Vasilisa and Pantelei Melekhov, the younger sister of Peter and Gregory.
Daria Melekhova- the wife of Peter Melekhov.
Miron Grigorievich Korshunov- a rich Cossack, father of Natalia and Mitka.
Sergei Platonovich Mokhov- a wealthy merchant, owner of a mill and a shop in the Tatar farm, was married twice.
Elizabeth and Vladimir Mokhov- Mokhov's children from his first wife.
Nikolai Alekseevich Listnitsky- Cossack general, owner of the Yagodnoye estate, widower.
Evgeny Listnitsky- the son of Nikolai Listnitsky, caring for Aksinya.
Shtokman Iosif Davydovich- a locksmith, a member of the RSDLP, was exiled to the Tatar farm to work.
Jack- a resident of the Tatar farm, a worker at the Mokhov mill, and then a soldier.
Mikhail Koshevoy- a poor Cossack, the same age as Grigory, was at first his friend, and then became an enemy.
Khrisanf Tokin (Christonia)- Cossack Atamansky regiment.
Ilya Bunchuk- Bolshevik, Cossack from Novocherkassk, machine gunner.
Ivan Alekseevich Sinilin (Brekh)- an old Cossack, served in the Ataman regiment.
Book one
Part one
Chapter 1
The Cossack Melekhov Prokofy returned to the penultimate Turkish company in the Tatar farm with his Turkish wife, who gave birth to a boy, Pantelei. From them came the family of the Melekhovs, nicknamed the "Turks".
When Pantelei Melekhov grew up, he married the daughter of a neighbor, a Cossack woman, Vasilisa. Pantelei and Vasilisa had two sons, Petro and Grigory, and a daughter, Dunyashka.
Chapter 2
After fishing, on the way back, Pantelei spoke with his son Grigory about Aksinya Astakhova, the wife of their neighbor Stepan Astakhov. There were rumors in the farm that Grigory was courting a woman. The father threatened his son so that he "should cover all the games from now on."
Grigory and his friend Mitka Korshunov go to the merchant Mokhov to sell the caught carp. At the merchant's, Mitka meets Mokhov's daughter, Elizaveta.
Chapters 3-4
Despite the words of his father, Grigory continues to court Aksinya.
Stepan and Peter left for the May Cossack camps, for regular training camps for those who were on preferential reserve.
Chapters 5-6
Pyotr and Stepan are going to the place of the camp gathering - Setrakov's farm with other farmers. On the way, the men stopped to spend the night at the mound. By the fire, the Cossack Khristonya told a story about how they somehow dug up a mound with their father in search of a treasure.
Chapter 7
Aksinya was married to Stepan at the age of 17. A year before the wedding, the girl was raped by her father. Upon learning of what had happened, Aksinya's brothers and mother beat Aksinya's father to death.
After the wedding with Stepan, the entire household of the Astakhovs fell on the shoulders of the daughter-in-law. Stepan could not forgive the “insults” (the girl did not save her honor before marriage) and severely beat his wife, went to other women. A year and a half later, the mother-in-law died, and after, not having lived up to a year, Aksinya's first-born also died.
Soon Grigory began to flirt with Aksinya and “she saw with horror that she was drawn to a black affectionate guy.” The woman “was frightened by this new feeling that filled her whole.”
Chapter 8
The centurion Listnitsky boasted of his horse, and he and Mitka argued who would overtake whom. In front of everyone, Mitka overtook Listnitsky.
Chapters 9-10
The Melekhovs and Aksinya drove out to the meadow mowing. In the evening, when everyone was resting, Astakhova herself approached Grigory, and they stayed all night together. Soon the whole farm heard about the incident. Panteley Prokofich personally went to Aksinya and forbade her to appear in their house, to which Aksinya said that she didn’t care: “My Grishka! My! My! I own it and I will own it! .. ". Angry, Pantelei went home and, having beaten his son, said that he would marry him the next day.
Chapters 11-13
Stepan is brought news that Aksinya is cheating on him. The man thinks about revenge on his wife and Gregory, begins to shun Peter (Gregory's brother).
A week and a half remained before the arrival of the Cossacks from the camps, but Aksinya and Grigory saw each other more and more often. In the farm they were avoided and discussed.
Chapter 14
Stepan returned to the farm. The man did not speak to his wife at first, and then unexpectedly hit her on the head. The woman ran out of the house, but her husband caught up with her and started beating her in the middle of the street. Stepan was seen by Grigory and Petro. The Melekhovs attacked Astakhov and beat them until they were separated by Khristonya, who happened to be nearby.
Chapter 15
The Melekhovs went to woo the wealthy Korshunovs in order to marry Grigory to their daughter Natalya. The Korshunovs did not immediately answer, saying that they would think about it.
Chapter 16
Stepan realized that he loved Aksinya very much only after he found out about his wife's betrayal. A man beat a woman every night, he could not forgive her for what had happened.
Aksinya still loved Grigory and hoped that he would do something for the sake of their love. However, at the meeting, Gregory said that he wanted to end their relationship forever.
Chapter 17
Peter and Gregory went to mow. Peter in a conversation mentioned the relationship between Grigory and Aksinya. Grigory went berserk and hit his brother in the side with a pitchfork.
Chapter 18-19
The Korshunovs were one of the richest on the farm, so Pantelei Prokofievich was afraid that Miron Grigoryevich would refuse the matchmakers, wanting a wealthier husband for his daughter. However, Natalia fell in love with Gregory and they decided to arrange a wedding for the first time.
Chapter 20
Aksinya could never forget Grigory. The woman was thinking about how to "take Grishka away from the happy, neither grief nor joy of love who has not seen Natalia Korshunova."
Chapters 21-22
Wedding of Natalia and Gregory. Gregory draws attention to the shortcomings of the girl's appearance, he is angry with wedding ceremonies.
Part two
Chapter 1
The author tells in abbreviated form the history of the Mokhov family - their family came from Nikishka Mokhov, who came from Voronezh, who was the grandfather of Sergei Mokhov. Grandfather lost all his property, so the man “started business from a chipped ruble”, began trading in various agricultural goods, and rebuilt a mill. From his first wife he had two children - Liza, very similar to her mother, and Vladimir. "In the evenings, the farm intelligentsia gathered at Sergei Platonovich's".
Chapter 2
At the end of August, Mitka invited Lisa Mokhova to go fishing. While fishing, the guy and the girl, feeling mutual attraction, indulged in passion. Word quickly spread around the farm about what had happened. Mitka decided to marry Lisa. Sergei Platonovich, having learned about Mitka's intention, became very angry, refused the guy and set the dogs on him.
Chapter 3
Natalya was loved in the Melekhov family, but Grigory still could not forget Aksinya. The neighbors were also in a quarrel with Stepan and did not talk.
Chapters 4-5
Locksmith Joseph Shtokman settled in the farm. One day he manages to stop a fierce fight at the mill between the Cossacks and the Taurians, during which Mitka Korshunov beat Sergey Mokhov.
Grigory confessed to Natalya that he did not love her.
Chapter 6
A couple of weeks after the fight at the mill, an investigator and a bailiff arrived at the farm. Iosif Shtokman was summoned for interrogation. As it turned out, he had a previous conviction.
Chapter 7-8
Pantelei Prokofievich returned home after sharing the brushwood. Vasilisa Ilyinichna, complains of feeling unwell, and shares her suspicions with her husband that Natalya and Grigory have a discord in their relationship.
The men of the Melekhov family went to work, on the way they met Stepan, who was leading unharnessed bulls to the farm, leaving the broken sleigh guarded by Aksinya. Grigory waited until everyone had left in order to be alone with the woman. Aksinya admitted that there is “no urine” to live without him.
Chapter 9
In the evenings, Cossacks and workers gathered at Shtokman - Khristonya, Jack, Kotlyarov Ivan Alekseevich, Filka the Chebotar, Mishka Koshevoy. Shtokman read to them in the voice of Nekrasov and "A Brief History of the Don Cossacks", everyone discussed what they had read. Joseph "sharpened, like a worm, wood, simple concepts and skills, inspired disgust and hatred for the existing system"
Chapter 10
Grigory and Mitka took the oath, becoming real Cossacks.
Returning home, Grigory found out that Natalya was going to leave him. The man replied that he would not hold the woman by force. After drinking, Grigory went to spend the night with Mikhail Koshevoy, and in the morning met with Aksinya. The woman was ready to give up everything and start living with Gregory, but she could not tell him that she was pregnant.
Chapter 11
In the morning Grigory went to Mokhov, where he met Listnitsky. Listnitsky took Grigory to work as a coachman, promising to make Aksinya a "black cook".
Chapters 12-13
One evening, Mishka Koshevoy's sister ran up to Aksinya and told the woman to quickly pack her things and quickly go to them. Stepan returned when his wife was gone. Finding a forgotten blouse, he cut it into pieces in a rage.
Natalia returned to her parents.
Chapter 14
Yevgeny Listnitsky served in the Life Guards of the Ataman Regiment, but after an injury at the races, he came to Yagodnoye to his father. From the first days of Aksinya's appearance in Yagodnoye, Evgeny began to show an active interest in her.
Chapters 15-16
One evening at Shtokman's, on Holy Thursday, they started talking about the fact that a war "between Germany and France for the vineyards" would soon begin, "the struggle of the capitalist states for markets and colonies." Shtokman said that their farm would also be in the war zone.
“On Easter night,” when people gathered at the church, an excited Mitka drove up to the crowd, and finding his father, said that “Natalya is dying!”
Chapter 17-19
Natalya, missing her husband greatly, decided to write a letter to Grigory secretly from her parents to find out if the man was going to return. In response, the husband sent a few words: “Live alone. Melekhov Grigory.
On the eve of Easter, Natalya, trying to control herself and not burst into tears, got ready and went to the church. On the way, she heard the guys say that Gregory had left her, because she "got mixed up with her father-in-law, with the lame Pantelei." Unable to stand it, Natalya went to the barn and "cut [herself] with a sharp point in the throat."
On the hunt, Grigory and old Listnitsky, out of nowhere, Stepan, who has come from nowhere, helps to catch the seasoned wolf. Stepan promised Grigory that "sooner or later" he would kill him.
Chapter 20
Aksinya confessed to Grigory that she was pregnant, saying that this was his child. During the mowing, Aksinya began to have contractions. Grigory, putting her on a wagon, thought that he would have time to take her to the estate, but his wife gave birth on a wagon.
Chapter 21
Aksinya gave birth to a girl. In December, Grigory was given a notice in the village administration that after Christmas he would need to appear at the collection site. Unexpectedly, Pantelei Prokofievich arrived in Yagodnoe to see his son off to the Cossack service. The man did not even speak to Aksinya.
Gregory was assigned to an army regiment.
Part three
Chapter 1
After the suicide attempt, Natalya survived. Relatives began to treat the woman coldly, and Natalya began to live in her father-in-law's house. Wishing to reconcile Natalya and Grigory, Pantelei asked his son in letters where he was going to live after the service. Grigory replied that he would return to Aksinya.
Dunyasha Melekhova grew up and began to go to games. The girl tells Natalia about her relationship with Mishka Koshev.
Shtokman was arrested and taken away from the farm under escort - it turned out that Joseph was a member of the RSDLP (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party), they found books prohibited by law from him.
Chapter 2
Gregory's regiment is in the Radziwillovo estate. The warmasters mocked the Cossacks, but Grigory fought back as best he could. The Cossacks raped the maid Franya with the whole platoon. Grigory tried to stop them, but they tied him up and threatened to kill him if he told anyone about what had happened.
Chapters 3-5
Military mobilization began in the farm. “Four days later, the red trains took the Cossacks with regiments and batteries to the Russian-Austrian border.”
Gregory learns that there will be a war, his regiment comes to the border. During the battle at the Verba station, Grigory killed an Austrian, during the battle the man experienced mixed feelings - "I bend and bewilderment crumpled my soul."
Chapters 6-7
The Cossacks of the second draft on the way to the army (among them Petro and Stepan) spend the night on the Yeya farm, staying with their grandfather, a participant in the Russian-Turkish war. The old man advised them: in order to go through the war and survive, it is important not to take someone else's, not to offend women and read prayers.
Mitka ended up in the 3rd Don Cossack Regiment named after Ermak Timofeevich.
Chapters 8-9
Stepan Astakhov was appointed head of the post. Looking around the territory, the Cossack saw the Germans approaching on horseback. During the battle with the enemy, Stepan killed an officer and the Germans, left without a commander, fled.
The merits of Stepan and other Cossacks during the battle with the Germans went unnoticed - Kryuchkov, the favorite of the commander of the hundred, received the award and all the glory. “But it happened like this: people collided on the field of death, who had not yet had time to break their hands in the destruction of their own kind, in the animal horror that declared them, they stumbled, knocked together, delivered blind blows, disfigured themselves and horses and fled, frightened by a shot that killed a man, dispersed, morally crippled. They called it a feat."
Chapter 10
Gregory, after his first battle, “hardly broke the tedious inner pain in himself,” recalling the constantly killed Austrian.
At the end of August, reinforcements arrived from the Don to Gregory's regiment, which was near Leshniuv. Among the arrivals were many farmers and Petro. After talking with his brother, Grigory learned that Natalya lives in their house and yearns for her husband. On the way, the brothers met Stepan, who made it clear to Grigory that he had not forgiven his offense and would take revenge.
Chapter 11
Pages from the notebook - the diary of the Cossack Timothy, which Grigory found next to the murdered man. Timofey describes his romance with Elizaveta Mokhova. The girl insulted Timothy, demanded significant expenses from him. When Elizabeth left the man, he went to war.
Chapter 12
At the front, Grigory met the cruel, “blood-loving” Chubaty (Aleksey Uryupin), who began to teach Melekhov the Baklanov strike with a saber, instructed to be cruel to the enemy and people: “to kill the enemy in battle is a sacred thing.”
Chapter 13
In one of the battles, Gregory killed a Hungarian officer, but after that someone hit him in the head from behind, and the man lost consciousness.
Chapters 14-15
Evgeny Listnitsky, wanting to accomplish a feat in the name of the Russian monarchy, decided to transfer to a Cossack army regiment. He was assigned to the headquarters in Bereznyaga. Yevgeny became friends with the volunteer Ilya Bunchuk and helped him in his appointment to the machine gun brigade.
Chapters 16-17
Melekhov receives news of Grigory's death. The family greatly grieved for Gregory, they celebrated a wake, inviting priest Vissarion. However, a letter soon arrived from Peter with the message that Grigory was actually alive, awarded the St. George Cross and appointed junior officer.
Chapter 18
Natalya missed Gregory very much, hoping that upon returning from the war, he would return to her. The woman, realizing that she is doing a stupid act, decides to go to Aksinya and ask her rival to return her husband to her.
While Peter was at war, Daria changed a lot. She went to games, accepted the courtship of the young men who remained on the farm.
Chapter 19
Aksinya received infrequent letters from Grigory about how he was living in the war.
On Sunday, Natalya came to Aksinya. Aksinya felt like a winner and mockingly talked with Natalya, humiliated the woman. Natalya was especially struck by the fact that her rival's daughter looked like Gregory. "Sobbing and swaying," Natalya left.
Chapters 20-21
When Grigory woke up after being wounded, he slowly walked east, picking up a wounded officer along the way. Soon they were noticed by the Cossacks and taken to the dressing point. For saving the life of officer Georgy, he was awarded the St. George Cross of the 4th degree.
As soon as Melekhov returned to the regiment, machine-gun bombardment from an airplane began. During the shelling, Grigory was wounded in the eye, and the front-line doctor sent the man for treatment to Moscow - to the eye clinic of Dr. Snegirev.
Chapter 22
During the shelling by the Austrians, the centurion Listnitsky was wounded in the head and leg. Wounded Eugene was sent to a Warsaw hospital.
In Yagodnoye, Aksinya's daughter fell ill with scarlet fever and soon died. Eugene came to the estate after treatment on vacation. The man again began to court Aksinya, and the woman, "burdened with despair", could not refuse him.
Chapter 23
In the hospital of Snegirev, Gregory met the Ukrainian Andriy Garanzha, who quite harshly scolded power, war, and everything that he did not like. “With horror, Grigory realized that the smart and evil Ukrainian was gradually, steadily destroying all his previous ideas about the king, the homeland, about his Cossack military duty.”
At the end of October, Gregory was sent to a hospital in Tver to heal a wound on his head. When he, as a hero, was introduced to the “person of the imperial family” who arrived at the hospital, the man deliberately behaved disrespectfully, for which he was deprived of food for three days, and then sent home.
Chapter 24
Returning to Yagodnoye, Grigory learned from the groom Listnitsky, Sashka's grandfather, about Aksinya's betrayal with Yevgeny. Melekhov, pretending not to know anything, offered Yevgeny a ride in a cab and, moving away from home, whipped his opponent with a whip and beat him with his feet. Returning to the estate, Grigory struck Aksinya in the face with a whip and hurried away to his parents' house. The man stayed with Natalia.
book two
Part four
Chapter 1
1916, October. Listnitsky, Bunchuk and other officers are discussing the possibility of rebellions at the front. Bunchuk admits that he is a member of the RSDLP (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party) and speaks about the inevitability of the revolution,
which will lead to the establishment of a civil dictatorship. Yevgeny hurried to inform the military leadership about this conversation, but on the same night, Bunchuk deserted.
Chapter 2
In the morning, leaflets of the Bolsheviks appeared in the trenches with appeals: “Proletarians of all countries, unite! .. Down with the autocracy! Down with the imperialist war! Long live the indestructible unity of the working people of the whole world!” . The officers made a thorough search, trying to find a distributor among the Cossacks, but found nothing. At this time, Bunchuk goes to "his" people and they help him get fake documents.
Chapter 3
With the headquarters of the 80th division, a Cossack hundred, consisting of third-order fighters from the Tatar farm, also moved to the place of close fighting. During a search of dugouts in a village, Valet runs into an Austrian soldier and lets him go, having learned that the enemy, like him, is a Social Democrat.
Chapter 4
Being at home, Grigory, surrounded by the love of his family, still could not forget Aksinya. Returning to the front, Melekhov "caught the opportunity to show selfless courage, took risks, went crazy." “The heart has hardened, hardened, like a salt marsh in a drought, and just as the salt marsh does not absorb water, so Gregory’s heart did not absorb pity. With cold contempt he played with someone else's life and with his own. For his exploits, Gregory received four St. George's crosses and four medals.
During one of the attacks of the enemy, Gregory was again badly wounded.
Melekhov became friends with Chubaty, who promoted the denial of the war.
Chapters 5-6
Panteley's life was difficult without the help of his sons, but he managed the household as best he could. The joy of the old man was Natalya, who helped her father-in-law with all her might, and soon gave birth to a boy and a girl from Grigory.
Daria continued to cheat on Petra, rumors reached her husband that the woman was walking even with Stepan. Judging by the conversations, Astakhov died at the front, so Melekhov thought only about revenge on his wife - he wanted to knock out her eye. Unable to bear the rumors of the people, Pantelei flogged his daughter-in-law with a belt.
Chapter 7
Mokhov is told that the autocracy has been overthrown. Soon the farm will learn about it. The Cossacks, excited by the news, come to Sergei Platonovich for advice on how to live now, to which the man replied: “They will compare you with the peasants, deprive you of your privileges, and even remember old grievances. Hard times are coming." Mokhov thinks that he has been working in vain all his life, making capital. The man worries about the children, although he understands that they are like strangers to him - the daughter in the letter has little interest in his life, but only asks her father for money.
Mokhov goes to Yagodnoye, Evgeny tells him that "the soldiers have turned into gangs of criminals, unbridled and wild."
Chapters 8-9
The army announced the overthrow of Nicholas II. The Cossacks were forced to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government. People were tired of the war, everyone understood that if at least one rushes on the run, then many desert after him.
Daria came to the front to see Peter. The man was so happy with his wife that he even forgot about his intention to take revenge.
Chapter 10
Yevgeny Listnitsky was transferred to the 14th regiment, in which most of the Cossacks adhered to the ideas of restoring the dynasty.
Chapter 11
General Kornilov was appointed commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Front. Listnitsky is trying to convince the officers to support Kornilov - to start holding political conversations among the Cossacks in order to get them out of Bolshevik influence.
Chapters 12-14
Listnitsky's plans did not bear fruit - the Cossacks did not want to support the monarchy.
Eugene meets in Petrograd with familiar officers. Listnitsky learns from them that Kornilov is going to seize power by establishing his dictatorship in Russia, and also turn the Cossacks into the main force of the counter-revolution.
The Bolsheviks plan to arrest Kornilov.
Chapter 15
Officers send echelons of Cossacks to reinforce Kornilov's forces. Among the Cossacks, the ideas of Kerensky (Minister-Chairman of the Provisional Government) are spreading, but people do not like dual power, they believe that the authorities “hang a noose” on them.
Ivan Alekseevich Sinilin, an old Cossack, is firmly convinced that he will stand for the power that will come - for the Bolsheviks. The Cossack arranges a coup in his regiment and refuses to lead people to Petrograd to help Kornilov.
Chapters 16-17
Kornilov understands that the failure of his plans cannot be avoided, however, he asks for help from Kaledin (leader of the White movement). At one of the stations, Bunchuk sits next to the Cossacks who are going to help the commander-in-chief. The man talks about the situation in Petrograd, propagating people the idea of the need to resist the power of Kornilov.
The next day, a rally was held among the Cossacks. The officers tried to prevent Bunchuk, but could not resist the Cossacks. When officer Kalmykov began to persuade the Cossacks to leave for Petrograd to fight for Kornilov, Bunchuk shot him.
Chapter 18
Instead of Kornilov, the Provisional Government appointed General Alekseev to the post of commander-in-chief. Kornilov was soon arrested.
Chapter 19
Listnitsky is preparing Cossack troops to fight in support of Kornilov. After the order to prepare for the battle, most of the Cossacks went over to the side of the "Reds".
Chapter 20
While in prison in Bykhovo, Kornilov learns about the October Revolution. At this time, Kornilov's accomplice Kaledin was gathering forces on the Don, uniting the Terek, Kuban and Don troops. Since they guarded Kornilov only conditionally, at the right moment the prisoner freely left the place of detention.
Chapter 21
After the October Revolution, a large number of Cossacks deserted. Koshevoy, having caught three deserters, let them go, realizing: “what am I ... myself against the war, but I keep people - what rights do I have?” .
Part Five
Chapter 1
During the war, many Cossacks of the Tatar farm were killed, and Petro Melekhov returned among the survivors. He said that Gregory went over to the side of the Bolsheviks.
Chapter 2
Having become the commander of hundreds of Red Guards, Grigory meets the Cossack Izvarin, who preached the idea of autonomy for the Cossacks - an independent Don state led by the Cossack Circle. Izvarin believed that after the victory of the revolution, the Bolsheviks would also seize the Cossack possessions.
In November 1917 Grigory met Fyodor Podtelkov, commander of the revolutionary Cossacks, who promoted the idea that the Cossacks needed people's power.
Chapter 3
Russian generals and soldiers who fled from the Bolshevik revolution came to Novocherkassk. Control over the situation in the city fell on the shoulders of Kaledin.
Chapters 4-5
Bunchuk goes to Rostov, where the party leadership gives him the task of organizing a machine-gun team. 16 people were identified as students for the man, among whom was a young Jewish woman Anna Pogudko. Teaching people how to handle a machine gun, the man paid special attention to Anna, gradually falling in love with a woman.
Chapter 6
At the end of November, the offensive of the White Guards on Rostov began, the machine gunners were to be the first to meet them. Bunchuk's team managed to provide cover for a counterattack.
Chapter 7
With varying success, the fighting continued for 6 days. It was hard for Anna to kill people, and Bunchuk tried to support the woman whenever possible.
Bunchuk fell ill with typhus, he was getting worse.
Chapters 8-9
The Bolsheviks decided to hold a Cossack congress in the village of Kamenskaya in order to attract the Cossacks to their side. Ivan Alekseevich and Khristonya invited people from their farm, Pyotr Melekhov and Mitka Korshunov immediately refused.
After the congress, power in the village was transferred to the MRC (Military Revolutionary Committee), whose chairman was elected Podtelkov, secretary - Krivoshlykov. The VRC sent a delegation to Novocherkassk.
Chapters 10-11
In Novocherkassk, the delegation of the Military Revolutionary Committee was met with very hostility and was taken under escort to the hall of the regional government, where Kaledin himself arrived. After a long discussion of the transfer of power to the VRK, the Don white government refused to comply with the committee's demands.
At this time, the White Guard troops under the command of Chernetsov captured the village of Kamenskaya, displacing the Red Guards.
Chapter 12
Being in the Kamenskaya village, Grigory learns that Yevgeny Listnitsky is also staying here. Melekhov understands that his feelings for Aksinya have not disappeared, and therefore cannot forgive the opponent.
Grigory with the Red Guards departs from Kamenka to Glubokaya. In the morning the White Guards entered Glubokaya, the Cossacks began to scatter randomly. However, thanks to the active resistance of the "Reds", among whom were Grigory Melekhov and the machine gunner Anna, the Bolsheviks won. The battle ended with a bloody massacre of the Reds over the captured Whites on the orders of Podtelkov, this greatly impressed Grigory.
Chapter 13
During the battle near Glubokaya Gregory was wounded in the leg. He spent a week in the infirmary, and then his father took him home. Panteley was dissatisfied with his son, as he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. Grigory tried to defend his innocence, but in the depths of his soul he was tormented by doubts - the man could not forgive the Red Army soldiers for the massacre of prisoners.
At home, Gregory was welcomed by the whole family. The Cossack noticed that Natasha "bloomed and got prettier", for the first time he took the already grown children in his arms.
Chapters 14-15
The Red Guard strengthened its positions after the workers' uprising in Taganrog. Kaledin, having learned that the Volunteer Army had retreated to the Kuban, transferred power to the city duma, resigned and shot himself.
Chapters 16-17
Bunchuk, suffering from typhus, was unconscious for three weeks, he was transferred to Tsaritsyn. Anna was with the man all the time. When Bunchuk recovered a little, they moved to Voronezh, where they had to leave. Anna was sent to campaign in Lugansk, and Bunchuk was to serve on the Southern Front.
Chapter 18
In the south, power passed into the hands of General Nazarov. Mobilization was announced, which the Cossacks refused to obey. Thanks to active Bolshevik agitation, some Cossack regiments went over to the side of the enemy.
On February 9, Captain Chernov's detachment entered Rostov. Yevgeny Listnitsky was also in one of his regiments. He missed Yagodny very much, remembered his father and Aksinya.
Chapter 19
Bunchuk with the Red Guards is at the Krivlyanskaya station. The Bolsheviks arrest the head of the Cossack Circle of Nazarov.
Bunchuk is transferred to Sivers' headquarters in Rostov, where he meets Anna. The woman invites him to settle in her place, as her relatives live in the city.
Chapter 20
In March, Bunchuk was transferred to serve in the Revolutionary Tribunal. The man had to command the execution of "enemies of the revolution" every night. This greatly exhausted Bunchuk, and Anna tried to persuade him to leave the post, but the man assured her: “I am strong ... Don’t think that there are people made of iron. We are all cast from the same material ... There are no people in life who are not afraid of war, and those who, when killing people, would not wear ... would not be morally scratched. Soon, murders and robberies began in the city, and at his own request, Bunchuk was returned to the Revolutionary Committee.
Chapter 21
A detachment of Red Guards stopped at Setrakov Farm. Having drunk, the Bolsheviks began to commit excesses. Having hastily gathered an army, the Cossacks defeated the rowdy "Reds".
At the end of April, unrest began in the upper villages of the Donetsk district - the farms broke away, forming the Verkhnedonsky district, headed by General Alferov.
Chapters 22-23
Some of the Bolsheviks (including Koshevoy and Jack), having learned about the ongoing defeat of the "Reds", decided to leave the Tatar farm. Grigory, Khristonya and Ivan Alekseevich stayed - everyone had their own reasons for that.
In connection with the raids of the "Reds" on the Setrakovskaya village, a Cossack meeting was held on the Maidan. To protect the Cossack households in the farm, they decided to form a detachment of front-line soldiers, restoring Cossack self-government. The people chose Miron Korshunov as the ataman, and Pyotr Melekhov as the commander of the detachment. The Cossacks join the regiment, thinking that there will be no war.
Chapters 24-25
The Red Army retreated from Rostov. Bunchuk and Anna were waiting for the Cossacks on the outskirts of one of the villages. Seeing the approaching enemy, the woman led the soldiers behind her, despite the fact that Bunchuk tried to stop her. During the shelling of the Cossacks, Anna receives a fatal bullet and dies in the arms of Bunchuk.
Chapter 26
For Bunchuk, Anna's death became a tragedy - "he lived as if in a typhoid delirium", "his feelings temporarily atrophied: he did not want anything, he did not think about anything."
In the south, under the onslaught of the German invaders, the "Reds" have to retreat through the Don region.
Chapter 27
The closer the Red Guards moved to the Don stations, the more hostile and wary they were met by the local population. The soldiers noticed the Cossack patrol and began to prepare for the attack.
Chapters 28-29
The surrounded Red Guards under the command of Podtelkov had to surrender. The soldiers were disarmed and locked in a barn in the neighboring Ponomarev farm. The Cossacks decided to execute the prisoners.
Chapter 30
In the morning, a detachment of Peter Melekhov arrived at the farm. Peter is offered to allocate shooters for execution. Melekhov refuses, but Mitka Korshunov himself volunteers to participate in the execution.
During the execution, Grigory, squeezing through the crowd, finds himself near Podtelkov. The words of the commander of the “reds”: “Well, are you shooting brothers? Turned around? .. What are you like ... Do you serve both ours and yours? Who will give more? touched Melekhov to the quick. The man remembered Podtelkov how he himself ordered the execution of prisoners.
Podtelkov was the last to be executed. Before the hanging, the commander said that "Soviet power will be established throughout Russia." It was not possible to hang the man right away - he reached the ground with his feet, so he had to be hanged twice.
Chapter 31
Knave and Mishka Koshevoy left the village of Karginskaya, but near the Nizhne-Yablonovsky farm they were caught by the Cossacks. Knave was killed on the spot, and Koshevoy, since he was a Cossack, was flogged publicly with rods, but left alive. The next day, "Mishka was sent to the front." Two days later, Valet was buried. “Soon an old man came from a nearby farm, dug a hole in the head of the grave, and placed a chapel on a freshly planed oak abutment. Under its triangular canopy, the mournful face of the Mother of God glimmered in the darkness.
Book Three
Part six
Chapter 1
“In April 1918, the great division on the Don ended”: most of the Cossacks from the northern district went over to the side of the Red Army, the “Nizovtsy” “chased them and pushed them to the borders of the region” . At the end of April, the Don was completely liberated from the Red Army, the Cossacks decided to re-create the Circle. Panteley Melekhov and Bogatyrev became delegates from Tatarsky Khutor.
The Upper Don Cossacks were expecting a German attack. Soon the enemy appeared - first the Germans met Miron Korshunov (they tried to take away the horses from the Cossack, but he fought back), and then Pantelei Melekhov. The German gave instructions to Panteley on how to choose power: “Remember that you need reasonable power. Choose a president, a tsar, anyone, only on condition that this person is not deprived of state intelligence and will be able to conduct a policy loyal to our state.
General Krasnov was elected ataman.
Chapters 2-3
The Germans began to behave like masters on the Don - "red trains of wagons rolled from the Don through Ukraine, taking wheat flour, eggs, butter, bulls to Germany." "And on the border with Ukraine, young Cossacks fought with the Petliurites".
The Cossack hundred under the command of Peter Melekhov was included in the 22nd regiment and, by order of the authorities, the Cossacks advanced behind the retreating Reds. On the way, Peter spoke with Gregory about whether he would go over to the side of the communists if something happened. The younger brother replied that he was not sure for sure. Peter answered: “Look how the people were divided, bastards! As if they drove with a plow: one - in one direction, the other - in the other, as if under a plowshare. Damn life, and a terrible time! .
Koshevoy returned to Veshenskaya, became a "atarshchik" (groom).
Chapter 4
Opposition appeared on the Don under the leadership of General Denikin, who did not like the actions of Krasnov, who let the Germans into the Don.
In Russia, a “white” Eastern Front begins to form, aimed at forgiving the Bolsheviks and the Germans.
Chapter 5
During the retreat of the Kornilovites from Rostov to the Kuban, Yevgeny Listnitsky, who was among the White Guards, was wounded twice. To improve his health, the man stayed with a friend of Gorchakov in Novocherkassk and falls in love with Gorchakov's wife, Olga Nikolaevna.
Listnitsky and Gorchakov are going to the front. Yevgeny's friend receives a mortal wound and asks Listnitsky not to leave Olga alone, to marry her. In the next battle, Yevgeny's hand was crushed by a shell and after it had to be amputated. Listnitsky understands that the time has come to leave military service. Olga herself comes to Evgeny in the hospital. Soon they got married and went to live in Yagodnoye.
Chapter 6
Koshevoy was sent on a business trip to the capital for excellent service. On the way, Mishka met Stepan Astakhov, who had changed beyond recognition, who was considered dead in the farm. Stepan said that after being wounded he came to the Germans, recovered and settled in a foreign country, but after that he began to yearn for his homeland and decided to return.
Chapter 7
Returning to the Tatar farm, Stepan stayed with his wife Anikushka. Astakhov learns about Aksinya's life and persuades her to return home. The woman at first refuses, but having received a settlement from the Listnitskys, she herself comes to Stepan.
Chapters 8-9
Grigory leads his hundred for the Don. After the fighting, the Cossacks looted and looted. Gregory forbade robbing the vanquished. The authorities found out about this and, suspecting an accomplice of the Bolsheviks in Melekhov, deprived the man of a hundred, appointing him a platoon commander.
Panteley and Daria come to Grigory in the regiment. As it turned out, they had already visited Peter, where they received a decent share of the loot and expected the same “gifts” from their youngest son. Upon learning of this, Gregory became angry and quarreled with his father. Pantelei was very upset when he learned that his son had been demoted to a platoon.
Chapter 10
The Cossacks begin to retreat. Grigory arbitrarily leaves the regiment and goes home.
Chapters 11-12
The tension in the Cossack units grew: people began to be more and more hostile to each other. Pyotr Melekhov understands that if he does not “grind” into the confidence of ordinary Cossacks, he can be shot like other officers.
Red agitators freely penetrated the Cossack environment, but their propaganda remained incomprehensible to many Cossacks. Unable to bear the tension, Petro went home to the farm.
Chapter 13
Returning home, Peter told his family about the critical situation on the Northern Front, the inevitability of the retreat of the Cossacks. After discussing their situation, the Melekhovs decide to stay in Tatarsky.
Chapter 14
General Krasnov is losing his position, and then the respect of the Cossacks.
Chapters 15-16
Red Army soldiers entered the farm, five of them stopped at the Melekhovs for the night. One of the guests behaved unworthily - he shot the owner's dog, and then quarreled with Grigory. The Red Commissar took the soldier away, promising to try him for "behavior unworthy of a Red Army soldier." In the morning the commander apologized to the Melekhovs for the soldiers and paid for their stay.
Chapter 17
The regiments of the Red Army soldiers continued to march through the farm. To prevent the Bolsheviks from taking the horses away, Pantelei deliberately injured their legs. Somehow the Reds arranged a party at Anikushka's and invited the Cossacks. Recognizing a white officer in Gregory, the Reds decided to shoot him, but the man was warned in time, and he fled for the Don.
Chapter 18
The power of the Bolsheviks was established in the Tatar farm. Ivan Alekseevich was elected the Red Ataman, Koshevoy was his deputy. The Cossacks were forced to hand over their weapons.
Chapter 19
There were rumors that the Red Tribunals were traveling along the Don, carrying out a ferocious massacre of the Cossacks. The Melekhovs surrendered their weapons, but Pantelei nevertheless hid his rifles and a machine gun.
Pantelei falls ill with typhus.
Chapters 20-21
Returning to the farm, Grigory went to Ivan Alekseevich. The men begin to argue about the meaning of Bolshevik power. Grigory believes that this government is bad, because the communists have not yet given anything to the Cossacks, but many have lost their lives, he does not believe in possible equality. Melekhov could not be persuaded, and Ivan Alekseevich and Koshevoy became very angry with the Cossack.
Chapter 22
Chekists arrived in the Tatarsky farm and began to carry out reprisals against the "enemies of the revolution" - to shoot the Cossacks.
Chapter 23
The Reds shot Miron Korshunov. Peter, at the request of Lukinichna, at night with another Cossack found Miron's body and took it to the Korshunovs for farewell.
Chapter 24
The management of the Revolutionary Committee passed into the hands of Shtokman. On May 4, Ivan Alekseevich gathered Cossacks on the Maidan to talk about the Bolshevik government - the farmers believed that people were executed in vain, they were sure that the Communists wanted to destroy them. Shtokman read out a list with the names of "enemies of the revolution", among which were the Melekhovs.
Chapter 25
Upon learning of Grigory's return, Shtokman ordered the arrest of the man and a search of the Melekhovs' to find hidden weapons. Gregory was not at home. Shtokman and Koshev tried to find Melekhov in Singin, but to no avail.
Chapter 26
Having recovered from typhus, Pantelei was arrested by the communists. Peter told Grigory about what had happened, advising his brother to go to Rybny Khutor to his relatives, promising to tell everyone that Grigory was with his aunt in Singin.
Chapter 27
Cossack uprisings break out in the farms. Koshevoy, frightened by the riots, leaves Veshenskaya for the Tatar farm. However, on the way, Antip Brekhovich saw Mishka, severely wounded him with a pitchfork and left him to die. Waking up, Koshevoy hid at Astakhov's, and the next day, on the advice of his mother, he left the farm.
Chapter 28
Having learned about the Cossack uprising, Grigory returns to the farm to investigate the situation. The man firmly decided to fight for the Cossacks: “People have always fought for a piece of bread, for a plot of land, for the right to life and will fight as long as the sun shines on them, while warm blood oozes through their veins.”
Chapter 29
Koshevoy reached the Big Farm, which was still under the rule of the Bolsheviks. The bear was detained, but Shtokman, who was in the farm, explained to the Reds that he was his own.
Chapters 30-31
Two hundred Cossacks formed in Tatarsky. Peter was appointed commander of the cavalry hundred. Gregory led some of the Cossacks into reconnaissance, and during one of the skirmishes with the Bolsheviks, the rebels captured the commander of the Red Army, Likhachev. Likhachev did not want to agree to the conditions of the rebels and he was killed.
Chapter 32
The uprisings of the Cossacks spread throughout the Don, battles were already fought almost near Tatarsky itself.
Chapters 33-34
In one of the battles, the Reds made their way to the rear of the rebels. The Cossacks of Peter hid from the enemies in a ravine. Koshevoy promised to let the rebels go if they surrendered. However, when the rebels came out of hiding, Koshevoy shot Peter, and the rest of the Reds hacked to pieces.
Chapter 35
Gregory was appointed commander of the Veshensky regiment. In early March, Melekhov led people on the offensive and the Reds lost ground. The rebel regiment expanded. Grigory avenged his brother, brutally cracking down on captured Red Guards.
Chapters 36-37
From the headquarters, Grigory was instructed not to kill the prisoners, but to send them for interrogation. However, Melekhov ignored the recommendations, believing that he knew better how to act. Gregory led people into the attack himself, proving his military prowess many times in practice. Gradually, Melekhov began to get tired of the responsibility for the Cossacks, he suddenly woke up pity for the prisoners.
Chapter 38
By order of Kudinov, Grigory arrives in Veshenskaya. After a military council with Kudinov, Grigory realizes that the allegedly free rebels are led by the same white generals: “Scientists have confused us ... They have confused the Lord! They hobbled life and do their business with our hands. In a trifle - and then you can’t trust anyone ... ".
Chapters 39-40
The end of March. A balance of forces was established at the front, which suspended hostilities for a couple of months. “After escaping from Tatarsky, Shtokman, Koshevoy, Ivan Alekseevich landed on the 4th Zaamur Regiment,” and then, through Ust-Khoperskaya, they went with other Reds to the Krutovsky farm.
Chapters 41-42
Stanitsa Karginskaya - a stronghold of the rebels, defended under the leadership of Gregory. According to Melekhov's plan, the Cossacks managed to defeat the Reds.
The rebels had a lot of vodka in stocks, so the days of the Cossacks passed in constant revelry, relaxing the army. Gregory begins to be tormented by unkind thoughts, he felt the satiety of life, he wanted to die. He also starts drinking and going to women. Once, during a drinking bout, the Cossack Medvedev offered Grigory to take Kudinov's place, but Melekhov refused.
Chapter 43
The Cossacks were exhausted by the war, fearlessly went into battle, mocked the prisoners. Kudinov led propaganda among the rebels that they should forget about the upcoming spring work in the field and continue to fight.
Chapter 44
Melekhov almost lost the battle near Klimovka: he turned the Cossacks in time and attacked the red machine gunners. However, after the battle, Grigory lost his nerve and for the first time in his life he thrashed in a severe fit, the Cossacks had to tie him up.
Chapter 45
Grigory arrived in Veshenskaya, where the Cossacks told him that the new rebel government mocked people more than the communists. The Cossacks imprison even women and the elderly for being related to those who sided with the communists. Angry, Gregory released all the prisoners from prison.
Chapter 46
The Cossacks began to desert, leave the front, as the sowing season began. Gregory came to the farm to sow his land and the land of his mother-in-law. During Melekhov’s conversation with grandfather Grishaka, the old man reads the Bible to the man, arguing that the Cossacks themselves do not understand why they are fighting, because “all power is from God,” so she does not need to resist.
Natalya reproaches her husband about drunkenness and wild life at the front, especially the woman was angered by Daria's comic flirting with Grigory. Husband and wife quarrel.
Chapter 47
The former red commissar Voronovsky (now an officer in the tsarist army, commander of the Serdobsky regiment, which includes Shtokman, Koshevoy and Ivan Alekseevich) goes over to the side of the Cossacks. Kudinov receives the regiment, instructing the Serdobsky soldiers to extradite the communists, and then send the prisoners to Veshenskoye, where the locals will lynch them. In the event of disorder, the trusted soldiers were ordered to be killed.
Chapter 48
“On April 12, the 1st Moscow Regiment was brutally battered in battle with the rebels near the Antoyov farm of the Yelanskaya village. Poorly knowing the area, the Red Army chains went down to the farm with a fight. During the battle, Ivan Alekseevich was wounded in the leg.
Shtokman notices that the Serdobians do not want to fight the Cossacks and, suspecting that Voronovsky is agitating the fighters against the Communists, sends Koshevoy with a report to the political department.
Chapter 49
In the morning, the Serdobians gathered a rally. When Shtokman began to call on people to fight the whites, he was shot. Ivan Alekseevich and other communists were arrested.
Chapter 50
Grigory did not stay long at the farm - five days later he was informed about the uprising of the Serdobsky regiment. Melekhov was about to leave for his Cossacks in Karginskaya, but he met Aksinya near the river. The man decides to postpone his departure. Pantelei, who saw them, was very angry, but he could no longer reproach his son for anything, because now Grigory was a general.
In the evening, Aksinya, having bribed Daria with a ring, asked the woman to call Gregory to her. At night, Melekhov came to Astakhova.
Chapter 51
Returning home the next day, Grigory lied to Natalya that he had talked with Kudinov at night.
Melekhov left the farm. In Karginskaya, Grigory is given command of the 1st division. Melekhov receives a letter from Kudinov, with the message that the Serdobsky regiment went over to the side of the Cossacks, and the communists were also captured. Grigory decides to release Koshevoy and Ivan Alekseevich in order to find out who killed Peter.
Chapters 52-53
Bogatyrev arrives in an airplane at Singin Farm with the news that soon the Don army, having broken through the front, will join the Cossacks.
Chapter 54
The captive Reds, who were betrayed by the Serdobsky soldiers, were taken under escort for trial to Veshenskaya. Among them was Ivan Alekseevich. On the way, the captives were severely beaten by the furious inhabitants of the farms.
Chapter 55
The high command of the rebel forces decided to ask for help from the Don government. The authorities agreed to cooperate - they began to send people and weapons.
Chapter 56
The beaten captive Red Guards were brought to Tatarsky, where they were surrounded by farmers. Seeing Ivan Alekseevich among the communists, Daria, having avenged her husband, shot the man with a rifle. Gregory was late for the massacre. Having learned about the death of Ivan Alekseevich, and also that Koshevoy and Shtokman were not among the prisoners, Melekhov went to the front.
Chapters 57-58
In May, the Reds began an active offensive against the rebels. Gregory was summoned to Veshenskaya for a meeting. Kudinov ordered Melekhov to break through the front on his own. Grigory wrote Aksinya a letter so that she would go with him.
Chapter 59
“On May 22, the retreat of the rebel troops began along the entire right bank. Parts retreated with a fight, lingering at each line. The population of the farms of the steppe strip rushed to the Don in a panic.
Chapter 60
Farmer Prokhor Zykov gives Aksinya a note from Grigory. The Cossacks report that the Reds are occupying farms, burning down the huts of the rich.
Chapter 61
Upon learning that the military units and refugees had been transported, Melekhov ordered the army to retreat. Crossing with his Cossacks to the other side, Grigory gave the order to build fortifications and take up positions.
Chapter 62
After the crossing, Aksinya settled in Veshenskaya with her aunt. On behalf of Grigory, Prokhor Zykov found the woman and brought her to Melekhov. “They lived for two days as if in a dream, confusing days and nights, forgetting about their surroundings.”
Chapter 63
Grigory visits his relatives in Tatarsky. Panteley told his son that Natalya had contracted typhus, so he and Ilyinichnaya did not move with other farmers. The elder Melekhov was angry with his son: Grigory, instead of taking care of the children and his wife, was again with Aksinya.
Chapter 64
Kudinov informs Melekhov that the White Guards have sent ammunition and are already going to help the rebels.
Chapter 65
Koshevoy, in the ranks of the 33rd Kuban division, followed the retreating Cossacks of Melekhov. Once in Tatarsky, Mishka did not find anyone at home. Koshevoy goes to the Korshunovs, but meets only his grandfather Grishaka there. The old man began to scold Mishka for going over to the communists. Angry, Mishka shot the old man and burned him along with the hut.
Having met Ilyinichna, Koshevoy said that he would marry Dunyashka, and if the girl was given for someone else, he would take revenge. Mishka burned a few more huts and again went to the front.
Book Four
Part seven
Chapter 1
After the Upper Don uprising, the Reds liberated the Southern Front, which allowed the command of the Don Army to regroup their forces and create a "powerful strike group from regiments" near Kamenskaya and Ust-Belokalitvenskaya villages.
The Cossacks from the Tatar Hundred lived quietly. Only Stepan was worried - “whether he learned from the farm Cossacks or his heart told him that Aksinya was meeting Grigory in Veshenskaya”. At the request of Astakhov, Aksinya arrived at a hundred, but they were embarrassed together, so the woman left a day later.
Chapter 2
At night, near the farm of Maly Gromchonok, the Reds crossed the Don and attacked the heavily drunk Cossacks. The pressure of the Bolsheviks was restrained only by the fact that they did not know the area, and it was dark. Melekhov, seeing that the Cossacks were fleeing, with a handful of the remaining began to return people, he managed to restore the front and defeat the Reds.
Chapter 3
The captured Reds were first kept in the stable, and then they were taken under escort to the village for reprisal. Only one Bolshevik managed to escape - the man pretended to be crazy, and the Cossacks left him with the old woman. The woman noticed the soldier's deception and let her go to her own in the morning.
Chapter 4
Gradually, Natalya recovered from typhus. The Red Army soldiers, pursued by the Cossacks, quickly left the farm. Soon the rebels began to return to Tatarsky, and Pantelei Prokofievich also arrived.
Chapter 5
On June 10, the cavalry of the Don Army “broke through the front near the village of Ust-Belokalitvenskaya, moved towards the village of Kazanskaya”. At the Don, the Cossacks met with the 9th Don Regiment and at first were delighted with the allies. However, having fallen under the command of white officers, who sent them at their own discretion, the rebels were disappointed: “But the horseradish is not sweeter!” .
Chapter 6
Grigory arrives at the dilapidated, plundered Yagodnoye. From the cook Lukerya hiding in the estate, Melekhov learns about the death of the groom Sashka and buries the old man near the grave of his daughter.
Chapter 7
General Secretaries and white officers arrived in Veshenskaya. They were greeted with a magnificent banquet. Having drunk, the whites began to reproach the Cossacks for disobedience, Kudinov swore to serve the white army forever. Grigory, listening to this, understood that soon the whites would begin to "step on the throat" of the Cossacks, "[the Cossacks] have lost the habit of saluting and stretching before their nobility."
Leaving the banquet, Melekhov went to Aksinya, who was visiting Stepan. Astakhov invited Grigory to sit down, and the three of them silently drank moonshine: “there was dead silence in the upper room.”
Chapter 8
Prokhor comes to the Astakhovs for Grigory - Secrets urgently wants to see the Cossack. However, Melekhov first visits his relatives.
Grigory strictly forbade Dunyashka to communicate with the murderer of Pyotr Koshev. Melekhov, having said goodbye to his wife and children, "tormented by vague forebodings, oppressive anxiety and longing," left the farm.
Chapters 9-10
Melekhov is summoned to General Fitzhelaur. On the way to the headquarters, Grigory, in a conversation with Kopylov, says that the white officers are too arrogant, which causes hostility among the Cossacks. Kopylov, on the other hand, believes that the attitude of the whites towards the rebels is fair, while Grigory's views are very similar to those of the Bolsheviks. “Half-jokingly, half-seriously,” Melekhov replies that when he moves to the Reds, he will be more appreciated there.
Fitzhelaur informed the Cossacks that their army was joining the Don army. The general tried to impose his tactics on Melekhov, the men quarreled. Grigory, reserving the right to obey only Kudinov, left.
Chapter 11
Contrary to Fitzhelaur's orders, Melekhov refused to lead men against the Red Army men holding Ust-Medveditskaya. Gregory did not like the policy of the Whites, and the war itself with the Reds, in his opinion, had lost its meaning. However, he was not going to go over to the side of the Bolsheviks.
Chapter 12
Korshunov arrives in Tatarsky, serving in a punitive detachment. For cruelty and self-execution of Red Army soldiers and deserters, Mitka was appointed an officer. Seeing that his home had burned down, Korshunov drove to the matchmaker, but after a short stay, he went to the farm. “Mitka and his companions had not yet had time to return to the Melekhovs, and already a rumor swept around the farm: “Korshunov and the Kalmyks have arrived, the whole Koshevoy family was slaughtered!” ". Upon learning of what had happened, Pantelei no longer let Mitka in.
The command of the "whites" arrived in Tatarsky. Panteley was instructed to bring bread and salt to the officers. Sidorin rewarded farmers who distinguished themselves in the fight against the Bolsheviks: Daria was awarded a medal on a St. George ribbon for the murder of a Red Army soldier and money for the death of her husband.
Chapter 13
Life in the Melekhov family has changed. Pantelei ceased to be a sovereign master, and relations between relatives deteriorated. Melekhov understood that the main reason for what was happening was the war. Daria categorically refused to share the money received for her husband.
Somehow, after another nightly adventures, Daria admitted to Natalya that she fell ill with a “bad disease” - syphilis. A woman, afraid of people's rumors, decides to commit suicide.
Chapter 14
Angry at life, Daria decided that she should not suffer alone and told Natalya how she called Gregory to Aksinya. Natalya was upset, but she understood Daria's motives.
Chapter 15
The Don army confidently pursues the Reds. Thanks to the competent command of Melekhov, many Reds were captured, machine guns and cartridge carts were repulsed.
Gregory is appointed commander of a hundred, despite the fact that the man wanted to transfer to serve in the rear. Soon Melekhov receives news that a misfortune has occurred at home, and he leaves on vacation.
Chapter 16
After a conversation with Daria, Natalya "lived, experiencing the feeling that happens in a dream, when a bad dream weighs heavily and there is no strength to wake up." The woman goes to Prokhor's wife to find out about the relationship between Grigory and Aksinya, but without reconnoitering anything, she goes to Astakhova herself. Aksinya confirmed that she had again "taken possession of Gregory" and now she would definitely try "not to let him out of her hands."
The next day, Natalya told Ilyinichna that Grigory was again with Aksinya, and that she was pregnant by her husband, but she wanted to get rid of this child. On the same day, Natalya went to the farm midwife and returned late in the evening, bleeding. The paramedic brought by Pantelei said that the woman could not be saved, as her female organs were torn. By lunchtime, Natalia had died.
Chapter 17
Grigory was late for Natalya's funeral for three days. Ilyinichna told the man that Natalya went for an abortion after she found out about his relationship with Aksinya.
Chapter 18
Gregory took the death of his wife very hard. The man considered himself guilty of the death of Natalia, he realized that he loved their children, he loved her. Grigory began to spend more time with the children, especially with his son Mishatka.
It was time for Melekhov to return to the army.
Chapter 19
Heading to the front, Melekhov meets Semak, a corporal. Semak says that whites encourage looting, robbery and banditry among privates and officers. Many Cossacks, unable to stand it, desert.
Grigory stops to spend the night in a village near Balashova, where he meets a white officer and an Englishman. During the conversation, the drunken Englishman said that he respects the Reds, since they are the people, and "the people cannot be defeated."
Chapter 20
The Reds began to prepare for a large-scale offensive along the entire front. The Whites managed to break through the front and take Tambov. The Reds began to move towards Khopr and the Don, gradually wasting the power of the offensive breakthrough.
Chapter 21
“A week and a half after Gregory left for the front, Daria drowned herself in the Don”. Ilyinichna learns that Aksinya began to invite Mishatka to visit her, treating him and asking about Grigory. Melekhova got angry and forbade the boy to go to Astakhova. And then, having met Aksinya, she said that she would never become Grigory's wife.
At the end of August, Panteley with all the able-bodied men of the farm was mobilized. A few days later, Melekhov returned, having voluntarily fled from the front. A punitive detachment arrived for the man, the Kalmyks arrested the old man and sent him to Karginskaya for trial.
Chapter 22
Since Pantelei was the father of Grigory, he was punished only by deprivation of the rank of officer. The offensive of the Reds was expected, so the Melekhovs left Tatarsky.
Chapter 23
On September 18, the last Cossack hundred left Veshenskaya under fire from the Reds. The news began to come to the Cossacks that the Bolsheviks did not loot and did not burn kurens, but generously paid for the provisions taken from the locals.
Chapter 24
The Melekhovs lived for two and a half weeks in the Latyshev farm. Upon learning that "the Reds retreated from the Don", the family returned home.
Pantelei received a release from service through an acquaintance of a paramedic in the village and set about restoring the economy. The murdered Anikushka and Khristonya are brought to the farm, and soon Gregory, who fell ill with typhus.
Chapter 25
“A month later, Gregory recovered. For the first time he got out of bed on the twentieth of November. Melekhov suddenly became interested in the household, he was busy with the children more and more, but it was difficult for a man to talk with them about the war, about his mother.
Gregory was summoned "to the medical commission for re-examination" and the man began to prepare with the Cossacks to retreat. Before leaving, Melekhov went to Aksinya and invited her to leave with him. Astakhova agreed.
Chapter 26
"All the northern villages of the Don were moving south". At each stop, Gregory tried to find out where his relatives were now, who joined the retreat later. On the way, Aksinya fell ill with typhus, and Grigory had to leave the weakened woman in care in one of the villages.
Chapter 27
“The days dragged on gray and bleak. Leaving Aksinya, Grigory immediately lost interest in his surroundings.
“The war was coming to an end. The denouement came swiftly and inevitably. The Donets were broken." Grigory arrives at the Belaya Glina farm, where he learns that Pantelei had died of typhus the day before. After burying his father, Melekhov falls ill with relapsing fever and Prokhor takes the man to the Kuban.
Chapters 28-29
On the way, Grigory and Prokhor met Melekhov's Cossack friends, who helped take the patient to a doctor in Yekaterinodar. Soon Gregory began to recover.
In Novorossiysk, people were evacuated to Turkey on ships. The families of landowners, White Guard generals, and rich people were the first to leave. Desperate to get on the ship, people committed suicide right on the pier. Gregory understands that he will not be able to leave and calmly awaits the Bolshevik invasion.
In front of Melekhov, Novorossiysk was occupied by the Reds.
Part eight
Chapter 1
After recovering, Aksinya returned to Tatarsky. In the farm there were various rumors about the fate of Grigory, gradually "alarm for the life of Grigory, as it were, brought together and related" Astakhova and Ilyinichna. The Melekhovs began to communicate with Aksinya, inviting her to visit. News comes that Stepan has left for the Crimea. Soon Prokhor arrived at the farm, and he said that Melekhov had joined the Red Army.
Chapter 2
Koshevoy returns to Tatarsky. Ilyinichna received Mishka coldly, but Dunyashka stood up for her beloved. Koshevoy began to help the women little by little with the housework, and in Ilyinichna's heart a "wrenching maternal pity" woke up for him.
Chapter 3
Ilyinichna did not agree to the wedding of Dunyasha and Mishka for a long time, but when the girl threatened that she would leave with her beloved, the woman had to give in. They played a modest, quiet wedding. Koshevoy turned out to be a skilled host. It was hard for Ilyinichna to accept a stranger, she felt unnecessary, living only in anticipation of the arrival of Gregory. Soon the woman became very ill and, without seeing her son, died. Astakhova took Grigory's children to her.
Chapter 4
Koshevoy was quickly tired of housework, the man increasingly thought that he had settled on the farm too early. Mishka was not happy that the Whites, who had gone over to the side of the Reds, were not responsible for the crimes committed against the Bolsheviks - according to Koshevoy, they still need to be dealt with in the Cheka.
Mishka is appointed chairman of the local revolutionary committee.
Chapter 5
Among the villagers there is dissatisfaction with the Soviet government - people lived very poorly. Dunyashka tried to talk to her husband about the new government, but Koshevoy accused the woman of counter-revolutionary talk. When Dunyashka asked what would happen to Grigory for serving with the Whites, Mishka replied that he could be shot.
Chapter 6
Grigory returned to Tatarsky. Mishka greeted Melekhov coldly, but the Koshevoys gathered a table and invited Prokhor and Aksinya to celebrate the return of the Cossack.
After the guests left, Mishka told Grigory that he considered Melekhov an enemy, since he could again go over to the side of the Whites. Koshevoy decided to move into his hut and demanded that Grigory urgently register with the Revolutionary Committee.
Chapter 7
Prokhor tells Grigory that old Listnitsky died of typhus, and Eugene, having learned about his wife's betrayal, shot himself. In addition, the Cossack reports an uprising that has broken out nearby and worries about Melekhov - he can be accused of being the instigator. After hesitating, Gregory decides to go through all the stages of registration in the Revolutionary Committee.
Chapters 8-9
“After returning from Veshenskaya, Grigory went to the farm revolutionary committee, showed Koshevoy his military documents marked by the military registration and enlistment office and left without saying goodbye. He moved to Aksinya, took his children and some of his property with him. Melekhov was tormented by uncertainty, he could not live in peace with his family. One night, Dunyashka ran up to them with a warning about the impending arrest. Gregory quickly got up and left.
Chapter 10
In response to the actions of the Soviet authorities, unrest began among the Cossacks, and Cossack gangs appeared, dissatisfied with the surplus appraisal. Melekhov's former friend Yakov Fomin became the leader of the uprising near Veshenskaya.
Chapter 11
Melekhov lived for a couple of months with a Cossack friend and relative of Aksinya, and after that he was going to Yagodnoye. On the way, the man was met by Fomin's people, and he joined Yakov's gang.
Chapter 12
Fomin tried to attract the Cossacks, but tired of the war, hungry people did not agree to support his gang. Seeing the detachment of people, Fomin began to threaten the farmers.
Chapter 13
Melekhov did not like that Fomin's people were looting. Yakov's gang comes under fire from the Reds, after which Melekhov is completely convinced of Fomin's failure as a leader.
Chapter 14
Settled on a wooded island in the middle of the Don, Fomin's people sit back, waiting for action to begin. A close associate of Yakov Kaparin offers Melekhov to kill Fomin and the rest of the gang, and then surrender to the Reds. Grigory did not agree, but just in case he disarmed Kaparin. At night, the Fomins, having guessed everything, kill Kaparin in his sleep.
Chapters 15-16
At the end of April, the Fomins crossed the Don. They decide to link up with Maslak's famous gang, and more and more Cossacks join them. Despite the fact that Fomin argued that his people continue to fight for the happiness of the working people, in fact they were only engaged in robberies. Gregory decides to leave the gang and secretly leaves it one night.
Chapter 17
Grigory arrives at his native farm and, quietly making his way to Aksinya, offers to go with him to the Kuban. The woman agreed, the children were temporarily left to Dunyashka. On the way, near Chir, they came across an outpost. Melekhov ordered the woman to go back. Shots were heard, Aksinya was mortally wounded. The man took her to the forest, where the woman, without regaining consciousness, died in his arms.
Chapter 18
“Like a steppe scorched by fires, Gregory’s life became black. He lost everything that was dear to his heart. After wandering aimlessly across the steppe for several days, Melekhov joined the deserters. Grigory constantly dreamed of children, Aksinya, relatives.
In early spring, the man, unable to stand it, returns to the farm, where he learns that his daughter has died of scarlet fever. Gregory "stood at the gates of his native house, holding his son in his arms ... It was all that remained in his life, which still made him related to the earth and to all this huge world shining under the cold sun" .
Conclusion
In The Quiet Don, Sholokhov portrays to the reader a comprehensive picture of the world, covering the fate of people from various strata of the population. In the work, the author reveals the problem of the formation of a personality in a critical historical period, touches on the issues of love and betrayal, family happiness, friendship, relations between fathers and children, highlights the topic of war, morality and duty.
The brilliant novel was translated into many languages, and in 1965 Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for The Quiet Flows the Don.
A brief retelling of The Quiet Flows the Don will be of interest to schoolchildren and students, as well as to all connoisseurs of Russian literature who want to quickly recall the main plot lines of the work.
Quiet Don test
After reading the summary of the novel, you can test your knowledge by taking this quiz.
Retelling rating
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Mikhail Sholokhov's novel "Quiet Don" will return in its original form: with sympathy for the Cossacks and criticism of the Red Army, with proletarian erotica. Throughout Soviet history, censors mutilated the text of a great work by cutting and pasting words, phrases, and paragraphs. Now the original has been restored, it is a book without cuts and foreign elements, a little longer and more truthful than what we have ever read. It has already been given to the press by the International Sholokhov Committee and will be published in Kharkov.
Nadezhda Kuznetsova, an employee of the house-estate of Mikhail Sholokhov in the village of Veshenskaya, once recalled that when journalists asked the writer in her presence which edition of The Quiet Don he liked best, he replied: "The first." And smiled.
The publication of the novel in literary magazines began in 1928, when it had not yet been completed. Each editor considered it necessary to make his own corrections to the text. The same fate befell the first complete edition and all subsequent ones that appeared in the Soviet years. Some of the censorship changes, depending on the course of the party, were canceled, but most survived until the collapse of the USSR.
However, even after the collapse of the communist ideology, it was not possible to publish Sholokhov's epic in its original form for a long time. As noted by the author of a large study "Quiet Flows the Don" and political censorship. 1928-1991" Professor of Princeton University German Ermolaev, for this it was necessary to do a very painstaking work, comparing all the texts existing in printed form with each other. After all, the entire manuscript of the novel has not been preserved. The originals of the first and second books, miraculously found in 1999, are only half the whole work.
The International Sholokhov Committee, which is now headed by Andrei Chernomyrdin (son of Viktor Chernomyrdin), took up the difficult task. By his order, the first ever uncut edition of The Quiet Flows the Don was finally prepared. “In 2003, we set to work, restoring the novel literally letter by letter. It turned out that the censorship had deleted more than 1,800 words from the novel and made 15,000 edits,” said writer Alexander Struchkov.
The hardest thing was to catch small and at first glance insignificant edits: "dressed up women" instead of the author's "three dressed up", "well, let's start" instead of "bend over". "In the infirmary" the text restorers replaced with Sholokhov's "in the camp" - a Cossack concept that arose during the war with Napoleon. So the Cossacks called the place of rest, because in Paris on the Champs Elysees, celebrating the victory, they drank wine "Chateau Lagoret".
“A completely harmless chapter has also disappeared from the novel, in which the heroine Anna Pogudko dreams of how she will live when she gets married, what kind of curtains and geraniums she will have on the windows. The Bolsheviks considered this philistinism,” said Struchkov.
So, Anna Pogudko, beloved of Ilya Bunchuk, after one of the edits, ceased to be distinguished by her "exciting harmony", and the hero, instead of admiring her, switched to flirting. At Sholokhov's, he spoke "in a broken, hoarse voice," and at the censor's - "with pretentious jocularity." Ermolaev highlights in italics everything that was further blacked out by the Bolshevik editors:
"Lay down next to me. Her hot legs trembled at the knees. Leaning on her elbow, she stood up, with a scorching rustle in his ear:
- I came to you, only quieter ... quieter ... mom is sleeping ...(removed in 1933).
She impatiently brushed a strand of hair as heavy as a bunch of grapes from her forehead, flashed a smoking bluish light in her eyes, rudely, forcedly whispered:
- It's stupid to keep some kind of virginity when(removed in 1929) not today - tomorrow I may lose you ... I want to love you with all my strength, and creepy(crossed out in 1956) shuddered with her own determination: - Well, hurry!
Bunchuk kissed her drooping uncomfortably tight cool breasts, stroked supple body(deleted in 1933) and with horror, with great shame that overwhelmed his entire consciousness, he felt that he was powerless.
Bunchuk himself in Sholokhov's description looked "gray, everyday", had the appearance of an "unsightly" person, but these epithets were thrown out.
Remarkably, the gulen Darya Melekhova, as the wife of the "enemy", was left more relaxed by the censors and even allowed to seduce her father-in-law.
The editors also "combed" the image of Mishka Koshevoy. In the author's text, he was everywhere made Mikhail, in order to get rid of the pejorative suffix for the Bolshevik, to give the hero solidity. Because of this, the author's line of development of the image through appeals to the hero completely disappeared - from his own Mishka, as he is called at the beginning of the book, to the alienated Mikhail and the completely outsider Koshevoy.
In addition, the caring hand of the moralists crossed out such unsightly characteristics as “he is with Erofeeva’s daughter-in-law ... She is shy, she walks” and “would have wings both flying and reeling, if only she was beautiful ... Otherwise they adjusted life with great mind: they will give you one to death - and procrastinate it ... you don’t have to get tired of it. Isho decided to fight, and so ... ".
Descriptions of the senseless brutality of the Bolsheviks were also blotted out. Bunchuk was not allowed to talk about the "war of extermination" without any pity, and Pyotr Melekhov was not allowed to talk about the horrors of the Red Army massacres: "At the front, they are fierce, it happened when an officer gets caught by them, they are washed off. I saw near Vorontsovka that they worked from captured officers" . Censorship "forbade" the Red Army men to rape the Cossacks. The phrase of the fighter who believed that Natalya Melekhova had typhus disappeared: "Well, her luck! If she were healthy, we would have dispersed her."
In accordance with the decree of the head of Glavlit in 1934 "to enter into a decisive struggle against the rude, abusive and thieves' vocabulary," Sholokhov's novel was cleared of obscene language. After checking for political correctness, the Jews and crests also disappeared from there, and the Cossacks ceased to be a nationality.
At one time, Trotsky was stubbornly removed from the text, then this surname was returned. From 1953 to 1956, the "Quiet Don" was missing three cursory references to General Alexei Brusilov because of his anti-Leninist memoirs found in Germany. Khrushchev declared them to be fakes created by the commander's wife, and the "rehabilitated" Brusilov returned to the pages of the novel.
According to the historian Roy Medvedev, who doubted Sholokhov's authorship for a long time, the proletarian writer's novel turned out to be so contradictory and fresh because at the time of its writing, Mikhail Alexandrovich still "did not have any ideology." “Stalin himself painfully resolved the issue. He did not understand The Quiet Flows the Don. He met Sholokhov 12 times. The Host has never met so many writers,” Medvedev noted a year ago, when the country celebrated the 105th anniversary of Sholokhov’s birth.
Now, without embellishments and cuts, "Quiet Don" will become even more valuable evidence of the events that took place in the South of Russia at the beginning of the last century. The first thousand copies of the book will appear in early April, on the occasion of Viktor Chernomyrdin's birthday. Within two years, the Kharkov publishing house "Globus" promises to publish 100,000 books and send them to Ukrainian and Russian libraries.
One of the convinced ideological fighters against the old regime is Ilya Bunchuk. He is devoted to his work until his last breath, and this is reflected even in his appearance, which seemed to concentrate the signs of many of his predecessors - the "iron commissars": "curved jaws ... eyes that break the oncoming gaze" Sholokhov M. A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - T. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 483 .. The author conveys the dullness, everyday life of the hero: “... everything was usually in him” Sholokhov M. A. Collected works: In 8- mi t. - T. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 483., distinguishes him from others only by stubbornness and some kind of anger. And further, as the plot unfolds, some touches are given that complement his portrait: a cruel look, a gloomy look, an earthy blush on his face, whiskey with swollen veins, “in civilian clothes he felt insecure and uncomfortable” Sholokhov M. A. Collected works: V 8 - mi t. - T. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 533 .. So with small strokes the artist creates a bright type of revolutionary worker, unaccustomed to peaceful life, for whom everything is focused on the class struggle. Knowing Bunchuk's ideological steadfastness, the most dangerous and difficult tasks are thrown at him: agitation among the seething masses of soldiers, combat training of the militias at the front, and finally, they are appointed commandant of the Revolutionary Tribunal, carrying out executions of "class enemies". In the name of the triumph of the revolutionary idea, he was ready for any business. Bunchuk's hatred of the old regime is not groundless. So Ilya recalls a meeting in Petrograd with the thirteen-year-old daughter of his friend, who was killed in the war: “In the evening I walk along the boulevard. She - this angular, frail teenager - was sitting on the last bench, her thin legs spread out smartly, smoking. On her withered face - tired eyes, bitterness in the corners of her painted lips, elongated by premature maturity. "Don't you recognize uncle?" she asked hoarsely, smiling with professional learning, and she stood up, quite childishly helpless and wept bitterly, hunched over, pressing her head against Bunchuk's elbow.
He almost suffocated from the poisonous hatred that gushed into him, turning pale, gritted his teeth, groaned. P. 500 .. Bunchuk believes that the Soviet government will bring the future to his land, on which "... maybe my son will walk, which does not exist" Sholokhov M. A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - V. 2 - M.: Pravda, 1975. - S. 635., so he defends it with such fanaticism.
Patiently, the hero endures all the insults that the arrested officer, the Kornilovite Kalmykov, showers on him:
“Scoundrel!…
Bunchuk, evading the spit, raised his eyebrows with a wave, and for a long time squeezed with his left hand the brush of his right, which was trying to slip into his pocket.
- “Go…” he said forcefully…
- - You're a traitor! Traitor! You will pay for this! he shouted, stopping often as he advanced on Bunchuk.
- - Go! Please ... - every time he persuaded.
But as soon as Kalmykov begins to denigrate the name of Lenin, the hero cannot stand it and, "stuttering for a long time," shouts: "Stand against the wall!" With ruthless fury, blackened face, he shoots at the officer. “The bullet went into his mouth. A hoarse echo went up from behind the water tower, climbing the stepped height. Stumbling on his second step, Kalmykov grabbed his head with his left hand and fell. He arched his back, spat blood-blackened teeth on his chest, smacked his tongue sweetly. As soon as his back straightened, touched the damp rubble, Bunchuk fired again. Kalmykov twitched, turning on his side like a sleeping bird, tucked his head under his shoulder, sobbed briefly. .. How terrible this picture is! Death is always unattractive in Sholokhov, no matter who dies. And if this is a violent death, then the naturalism of its description always contains a mute reproach to the murderer.
Then explaining his unreasonable cruelty, the ardent revolutionary says: “They are us or we are them! ... There is no middle ground. On blood - blood. Who is who... Got it? People like Kalmyks must be destroyed, crushed like vipers! Be evil! Sholokhov M. A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - Vol. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 506. And then, watching how two Red Army soldiers shoot a captured officer, the hero says “... a little defiantly : - That's wise! They must be killed, exterminated without mercy! ... Rake this evil spirits from the ground! And in general - without sentiment, since it's about the fate of the revolution "Sholokhov M.A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - Vol. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 553 .. to be throwing, there is no middle, there are no separate people, the main thing for him is the end result. After these malicious words come the author's words: "... On the third day he fell ill" Sholokhov M. A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - Vol. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 553 .. As if the hero fell ill not from typhus, but from the rage and hatred accumulated in him, and as if as a punishment.
Anna Pogedko, whom Ilya met in the machine gun team, takes care of him during his illness. Love arises between them, it is based not only on mutual sympathy, but also on their common desire for the victory of Soviet power. Involvement in the cause of the revolution imposes on them a certain responsibility, they restrain their feelings. So, for example, after talking with Anna for the first time, Ilya thinks of her only as a “smart girl, a good friend” Sholokhov M.A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - Vol. 2. - M .: Pravda , 1975. - S. 545., having met after a long separation, they begin to talk not about how they missed each other, but about business: “Oh, we rocked the business there! They put together a whole detachment of two hundred and eleven bayonets. Conducted organizational and political work ... "Sholokhov M. A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - T. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 603. In Soviet criticism, the opinion was established that the feeling that arose between heroes, “there is not enough of that full image with which ... the relationship of Grigory and Aksinya, Grigory and Natalia is written out ...” Yakimenko L. G. “Quiet Flows the Don” by M. Sholokhov. - M.: Soviet writer, 1958. - S. 297. Indeed, there is little between lovers of sensuality, impulsiveness.
Having recovered, Bunchuk again returns "to the ranks", and the party, showing full confidence in him, appoints him to a new position - commandant at the tribunal of the Don Revolutionary Committee. The chairman warns him: “The work is dirty, but it is necessary to preserve a whole consciousness in it ... humanity ...” Sholokhov M.A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - T. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 632 .. It is difficult for a “whole” person to maintain consciousness at this work, and “in a week, Bunchuk dried up and turned black, as if covered with earth. Eyes were gaping in gaps, unevenly blinking eyelids did not cover their yearning brilliance. Sholokhov M. A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - T. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 633.
Anna asks Ilya: “Get out of there! You will perish in this work "Sholokhov M.A. Collected Works: In 8 volumes - Vol. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 635 .. In the subsequent conversation, all Bunchuk's fanaticism is manifested:" To exterminate human dirty tricks is a dirty business. Shooting, you see, is harmful to health and soul... Either fools and beasts, or fanatics go to dirty work. So what? Everyone wants to walk in a blooming garden, but damn it! - before planting flowers and trees, you need to clean the dirt! Get your hands dirty!" Sholokhov M.A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - Vol. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 635. In this monologue, said, in fact, for himself, he tries to justify his actions. But, exterminating “human dirty tricks”, destroying “ticks, reptiles”, the hero feels remorse: “... yesterday I had to shoot three Cossacks among nine ... workers ... One began to untie ... I touched his hand, and it ... sprouted with solid calluses ... " Sholokhov M. A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - Vol. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 635. Bunchuk realizes that his work is not completely right, and what he does - terrible sin. With "great satisfaction" he leaves the revolutionary tribunal, as he feels that a little more and he will break. But the revolution had already devastated and crushed him. The death of Anna Pogudko becomes the last straw, after this misfortune the hero cannot find the strength to live on. Death becomes a happy occasion for him to get rid of suffering: “The thoughts of death frightened him least of all. He did not feel, as he used to, the indistinct trembling of the spinal column, the sucking melancholy at the thought that his life would be taken away from him ... the fatigue is so great, the body is so aching that nothing is able to excite. Sholokhov M. A. Collected works: In 8 volumes - T. 2. - M .: Pravda, 1975. - S. 645.
The episode reveals the destructive effect of war on a person. Bunchuk was sent to work in the revolutionary tribunal under the Don Revolutionary Committee. The chairman said to him: "This is dirty work, but it is also necessary to keep intact the consciousness of one's responsibility to the party in it, and you just understand me how it is necessary ... to preserve humanity." Every night, Bunchuk commanded the execution ("he dropped iron-voiced words"). Bunchuk was exhausted by this work ("In a week he dried up and turned black. Eyes gaped gaping, nervously blinking eyelids did not cover their hungry and yearning brilliance"). Anna noticed these changes in him, felt sorry for him, persuaded him to leave this position. But Bunchuk refused. He understood that this work was breaking him down (“harmful to health and soul”), but nevertheless decided to stay, considering it his duty.
He will be the person who cleans up the "dirt" so that in the future there will be a "flowering garden". He saw the benefit in his work. And he believed that he was obliged to do this for the sake of a happy life for people in the future. Then he assures the troubled Anna: “No, I am strong ... Don’t think that there are people made of iron. We are all cast from the same material ... There are no people in life who are not afraid of war, and those who would, killing people, did not wear ... was not morally scratched. Then he recalls how yesterday he ordered the Cossacks, the workers, to be shot. He touched one by the hand, untying it, and felt a stale, callused palm. An ordinary person, a worker. And he shoots him. It hurt him to think about it, his throat tightened with a hard spasm. Perhaps at that moment he doubted the correctness of his principles: is it really dirt? Is this really the enemy that interferes with the happiness of mankind?
In the spring, murders and robberies began in the city, and Bunchuk returned to the Revolutionary Committee. He said "with a trembling joyous smile" that he no longer worked for the tribunal. He left with satisfaction, because he felt that he could not stand it a little more, he would break. Anna came to him at night, she wanted to "love him with all her might," because she understood that she could soon lose him. And I realized that he was powerless. Disgust and disgust seized her. And Bunchuk, stuttering, shaking his head paralytically, said: “What for? "For a long time, as if beaten, he stooped at the window." Anna understood him, hugged him and calmly, like a mother, kissed him on the forehead. After this incident, for a long time Bunchuk still felt "warm, flush with the edges of maternal care."
This episode has a lot of descriptions that allow you to see the characters and understand their feelings. It gives the impression of heaviness, brokenness and burning pain. Such work exhausted people, something inside "turned black". And no one could ever be the same. The execution process is described, how both suicide bombers and part of the Red Guards participated in the work (digging holes). One feels the idea that people were equal, but by coincidence, they were on opposite sides.
The episode is divided into two parts (reception of antithesis): in the first, Bunchuk's pain and torment occur, his work "burning"; in the second - Bunchuk's decision to leave work and a description of the disastrous consequences of this time, and Anna's reaction to this. "Warm", as if the cold in Bunchuk's soul began to warm up. The soul began to thaw after the destructive influence of work.
Bunchuk is an ordinary person who was forced to perform inhuman tasks. For this work, it was necessary to "lose" the heart, so as not to feel all the pain and pity, not to have doubts and fears about the injustice of the decisions. It was a dirty job, which was either fools and beasts, or fanatics. But Bunchuk was different, and that is why he so keenly felt all the bitterness of this "mission" - the destruction of dirt, as he called it.
Sholokhov showed with this episode how the revolution affects a person when he has to go against his own. To kill the Cossacks, whose life is work and family life, these are traditions and fortitude. But because of the revolution, they had to abandon the measured way of life, and it is not known for what. Which turns out to be a tragedy for all people. War corrupts the soul, kills everything human in people.
Updated: 2018-03-06
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