Depiction of the civil war as a national tragedy in the novel by M. A

The second volume of Mikhail Sholokhov's epic novel tells about the civil war. It included chapters about the Kornilov rebellion from the book “Donshchina”, which the writer began to create a year before “Quiet Don”. This part of the work is precisely dated: late 1916 - April 1918.

The slogans of the Bolsheviks attracted the poor who wanted to be free masters of their land. But the civil war raises new questions for the main character Grigory Melekhov. Each side, white and red, seeks its truth by killing each other. Once among the Reds, Gregory sees the cruelty, intransigence, and thirst for blood of his enemies. War destroys everything: the smooth life of families, peaceful work, takes away the last things, kills love. Sholokhov's heroes Grigory and Pyotr Melekhov, Stepan Astakhov, Koshevoy, almost the entire male population are drawn into battles, the meaning of which is unclear to them. For whose sake and what should they die in the prime of life? Life on the farm gives them a lot of joy, beauty, hope, and opportunity. War is only deprivation and death.

The Bolsheviks Shtokman and Bunchuk see the country solely as an arena of class battles, where people are like tin soldiers in someone else’s game, where pity for a person is a crime. The burdens of war fall primarily on the shoulders of the civilian population, ordinary people; it is up to them to starve and die, not to the commissars. Bunchuk arranges lynching of Kalmykov, and in his defense he says: “They are us or we are them!.. There is no middle ground.” Hatred blinds, no one wants to stop and think, impunity gives a free hand. Grigory witnesses how Commissioner Malkin sadistically mocks the population in the captured village. Sees scary pictures robbery by fighters of the Tiraspol detachment of the 2nd Socialist Army, who rob farmsteads and rape women. As the old song says, you have become cloudy, Father Quiet Don. Grigory understands that in fact it is not the truth that people mad with blood are looking for, but real turmoil is happening on the Don.

It is no coincidence that Melekhov rushes between the two warring sides. Everywhere he encounters violence and cruelty that he cannot accept. Podtelkov orders the execution of prisoners, and the Cossacks, forgetting about military honor, chop down unarmed people. They carried out the order, but when Gregory realized that he was chopping up prisoners, he fell into a frenzy: “Who did he chop down!.. Brothers, I have no forgiveness! Hack to death, for God’s sake... for God’s sake... To death... deliver!” Christonya, dragging the “enraged” Melekhov away from Podtelkov, says bitterly: “Lord God, what is happening to people?” And the captain, Shein, who had already understood the essence of what was happening, prophetically promises Podtelkov that “the Cossacks will wake up and they will hang you.” The mother reproaches Gregory for participating in the execution of captured sailors, but he himself admits how cruel he became in the war: “I don’t feel sorry for the children either.” Having left the Reds, Grigory joins the Whites, where he sees Podtelkov executed. Melekhov tells him: “Do you remember the battle near Glubokaya? Do you remember how the officers were shot?.. They shot on your orders! A? Now you're burping! Well, don't worry! You're not the only one to tan other people's skins! You have left, Chairman of the Don Council of People’s Commissars!”

War embitters and divides people. Grigory notices that the concepts of “brother,” “honor,” and “fatherland” disappear from consciousness. The strong community of Cossacks has been disintegrating for centuries. Now everyone is for himself and for his family. Koshevoy, using his power, decided to execute the local rich man Miron Korshunov. Miron's son, Mitka, avenges his father and kills Koshevoy's mother. Koshevoy kills Pyotr Melekhov, his wife Daria shot Ivan Alekseevich. Koshevoy takes revenge on the entire Tatarsky farm for the death of his mother: when leaving, he sets fire to “seven houses in a row.” Blood seeks blood.

Looking into the past, Sholokhov recreates the events of the Upper Don Uprising. When the uprising began, Melekhov perked up and decided that now everything would change for the better: “We must fight those who want to take away life, the right to it...” Having almost driven his horse, he rushes off to fight the Reds. The Cossacks protested against the destruction of their way of life, but, striving for justice, they tried to solve the problem with aggression and conflict, which led to the opposite result. And here Gregory was disappointed. Having been assigned to Budyonny's cavalry, Grigory does not find an answer to bitter questions. He says: “I’m tired of everything: both the revolution and the counter-revolution... I want to live near my children.”

The writer shows that there can be no truth where there is death. There is only one truth, it is not “red” or “white”. War kills the best. Realizing this, Grigory throws down his weapon and returns to his native farm to work on his native land and raise children. The hero is not yet 30 years old, but the war turned him into an old man, took him away, burned out the best part of his soul. Sholokhov in his immortal work raises the question of the responsibility of history to the individual. The writer sympathizes with his hero, whose life is broken: “Like a steppe scorched by fires, Gregory’s life became black...”

In his epic novel, Sholokhov created a grandiose historical canvas, describing the events in detail civil war on the Don. The writer became a national hero for the Cossacks, creating an artistic epic about the life of the Cossacks in tragic time historical changes.

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  • The second volume of Mikhail Sholokhov's epic novel tells about the civil war. It included chapters about the Kornilov rebellion from the book “Donshchina”, which the writer began to create a year before “Quiet Don”. This part of the work is precisely dated: late 1916 - April 1918.

    The slogans of the Bolsheviks attracted the poor who wanted to be free masters of their land. But the civil war raises new questions for the main character Grigory Melekhov. Each side, white and red, seeks its truth by killing each other. Once among the Reds, Gregory sees the cruelty, intransigence, and thirst for blood of his enemies. War destroys everything: the smooth life of families, peaceful work, takes away the last things, kills love. Sholokhov's heroes Grigory and Pyotr Melekhov, Stepan Astakhov, Koshevoy, almost the entire male population are drawn into battles, the meaning of which is unclear to them. For whose sake and what should they die in the prime of life? Life on the farm gives them a lot of joy, beauty, hope, and opportunity. War is only deprivation and death.

    The Bolsheviks Shtokman and Bunchuk see the country solely as an arena of class battles,

    where people are like tin soldiers in someone else’s game, where pity for a person is a crime. The burdens of war fall primarily on the shoulders of the civilian population, ordinary people; it is up to them to starve and die, not to the commissars. Bunchuk arranges lynching of Kalmykov, and in his defense he says: “They are us or we are them!.. There is no middle ground.” Hatred blinds, no one wants to stop and think, impunity gives a free hand. Grigory witnesses how Commissioner Malkin sadistically mocks the population in the captured village. He sees terrible pictures of robbery by fighters of the Tiraspol detachment of the 2nd Socialist Army, who rob farmsteads and rape women. As the old song says, you have become cloudy, Father Quiet Don. Grigory understands that in fact it is not the truth that people mad with blood are looking for, but real turmoil is happening on the Don.

    It is no coincidence that Melekhov rushes between the two warring sides. Everywhere he encounters violence and cruelty that he cannot accept. Podtelkov orders the execution of prisoners, and the Cossacks, forgetting about military honor, chop down unarmed people. They carried out the order, but when Gregory realized that he was chopping up prisoners, he fell into a frenzy: “Who did he chop down!.. Brothers, I have no forgiveness! Hack, for God’s sake... for God’s sake... To death... deliver!” Christonya, dragging the “enraged” Melekhov away from Podtelkov, says bitterly: “Lord God, what is happening to people?” And the captain, Shein, who had already understood the essence of what was happening, prophetically promises Podtelkov that “the Cossacks will wake up and they will hang you.” The mother reproaches Gregory for participating in the execution of captured sailors, but he himself admits how cruel he became in the war: “I don’t feel sorry for the children either.” Having left the Reds, Grigory joins the Whites, where he sees Podtelkov executed. Melekhov tells him: “Do you remember the battle near Glubokaya? Do you remember how the officers were shot?.. They shot on your orders! A? Now you're burping! Well, don't worry! You're not the only one to tan other people's skins! You have left, Chairman of the Don Council of People’s Commissars!”

    War embitters and divides people. Grigory notices that the concepts of “brother”, “honor”, ​​“fatherland” disappear from consciousness. The strong community of Cossacks has been disintegrating for centuries. Now everyone is for himself and for his family. Koshevoy, using his power, decided to execute the local rich man Miron Korshunov. Miron's son, Mitka, avenges his father and kills Koshevoy's mother. Koshevoy kills Pyotr Melekhov, his wife Daria shot Ivan Alekseevich. Koshevoy now takes revenge on the entire Tatarsky farm for the death of his mother: when leaving, he sets fire to “seven houses in a row.” Blood seeks blood.

    Looking into the past, Sholokhov recreates the events of the Upper Don Uprising. When the uprising began, Melekhov perked up and decided that now everything would change for the better: “We must fight those who want to take away life, the right to it...” Having almost driven his horse, he rushes off to fight the Reds. The Cossacks protested against the destruction of their way of life, but, striving for justice, they tried to solve the problem with aggression and conflict, which led to the opposite result. And here Gregory was disappointed. Having been assigned to Budyonny's cavalry, Grigory does not find an answer to bitter questions. He says: “I’m tired of everything: both the revolution and the counter-revolution... I want to live near my children.”

    The writer shows that there can be no truth where there is death. There is only one truth, it is not “red” or “white”. War kills the best. Realizing this, Grigory throws down his weapon and returns to his native farm to work on his native land and raise children. The hero is not yet 30 years old, but the war turned him into an old man, took him away, burned out the best part of his soul. Sholokhov in his immortal work raises the question of the responsibility of history to the individual. The writer sympathizes with his hero, whose life is broken: “Like a steppe scorched by fires, Gregory’s life became black...”

    In the epic novel, Sholokhov created a grandiose historical canvas, describing in detail the events of the civil war on the Don. The writer became a national hero for the Cossacks, creating an artistic epic about the life of the Cossacks in a tragic time of historical change.


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    1. The civil war, in my opinion, is the most cruel and bloody war, because sometimes close people who once lived in one whole, united country fight in it...
    2. The epic novel by M. A. Sholokhov “Quiet Don” is a book about the unhappy life of the Cossacks during the years of the terrible bloody events that took place in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century....

    The second volume of Mikhail Sholokhov's epic novel tells about the civil war. It included chapters about the Kornilov rebellion from the book “Donshchina”, which the writer began to create a year before “Quiet Don”. This part of the work is precisely dated: late 1916 - April 1918.
    The slogans of the Bolsheviks attracted the poor who wanted to be free masters of their land. But the civil war raises new questions for the main character Grigory Melekhov. Each side, white and red, seeks its truth by killing each other. Once among the Reds, Gregory sees the cruelty, intransigence, and thirst for blood of his enemies. War destroys everything: the smooth life of families, peaceful work, takes away the last things, kills love. Sholokhov's heroes Grigory and Pyotr Melekhov, Stepan Astakhov, Koshevoy, almost the entire male population are drawn into battles, the meaning of which is unclear to them. For whose sake and what should they die in the prime of life? Life on the farm gives them a lot of joy, beauty, hope, and opportunity. War is only deprivation and death.
    The Bolsheviks Shtokman and Bunchuk see the country solely as an arena of class battles, where people are like tin soldiers in someone else’s game, where pity for a person is a crime. The burdens of war fall primarily on the shoulders of the civilian population, ordinary people; it is up to them to starve and die, not to the commissars. Bunchuk arranges lynching of Kalmykov, and in his defense he says: “They are us or we are them!.. There is no middle ground.” Hatred blinds, no one wants to stop and think, impunity gives a free hand. Grigory witnesses how Commissioner Malkin sadistically mocks the population in the captured village. He sees terrible pictures of robbery by fighters of the Tiraspol detachment of the 2nd Socialist Army, who rob farmsteads and rape women. As the old song says, you have become cloudy, Father Quiet Don. Grigory understands that in fact it is not the truth that people mad with blood are looking for, but real turmoil is happening on the Don.
    It is no coincidence that Melekhov rushes between the two warring sides. Everywhere he encounters violence and cruelty that he cannot accept. Podtelkov orders the execution of prisoners, and the Cossacks, forgetting about military honor, chop down unarmed people. They carried out the order, but when Gregory realized that he was chopping up prisoners, he fell into a frenzy: “Who did he chop down!.. Brothers, I have no forgiveness! Hack to death, for God’s sake... for God’s sake... To death... deliver!” Christonya, dragging the “enraged” Melekhov away from Podtelkov, says bitterly: “Lord God, what is happening to people?” And the captain, Shein, who had already understood the essence of what was happening, prophetically promises Podtelkov that “the Cossacks will wake up and they will hang you.” The mother reproaches Gregory for participating in the execution of captured sailors, but he himself admits how cruel he became in the war: “I don’t feel sorry for the children either.” Having left the Reds, Grigory joins the Whites, where he sees Podtelkov executed. Melekhov tells him: “Do you remember the battle near Glubokaya? Do you remember how the officers were shot?.. They shot on your orders! A? Now you're burping! Well, don't worry! You're not the only one to tan other people's skins! You have left, Chairman of the Don Council of People’s Commissars!”
    War embitters and divides people. Grigory notices that the concepts of “brother,” “honor,” and “fatherland” disappear from consciousness. The strong community of Cossacks has been disintegrating for centuries. Now everyone is for himself and for his family. Koshevoy, using his power, decided to execute the local rich man Miron Korshunov. Miron's son, Mitka, avenges his father and kills Koshevoy's mother. Koshevoy kills Pyotr Melekhov, his wife Daria shot Ivan Alekseevich. Koshevoy takes revenge on the entire Tatarsky farm for the death of his mother: when leaving, he sets fire to “seven houses in a row.” Blood seeks blood.
    Peering into the past, he recreates the events of the Upper Don Uprising. When the uprising began, Melekhov perked up and decided that now everything would change for the better: “We must fight those who want to take away life, the right to it...” Having almost driven his horse, he rushes off to fight the Reds. The Cossacks protested against the destruction of their way of life, but, striving for justice, they tried to solve the problem with aggression and conflict, which led to the opposite result. And here Gregory was disappointed. Having been assigned to Budyonny's cavalry, Grigory does not find an answer to bitter questions. He says: “I’m tired of everything: both the revolution and the counter-revolution... I want to live near my children.”
    The writer shows that there can be no truth where there is death. There is only one truth, it is not “red” or “white”. War kills the best. Realizing this, Grigory throws down his weapon and returns to his native farm to work on his native land and raise children. The hero is not yet 30 years old, but the war turned him into an old man, took him away, burned out the best part of his soul. Sholokhov in his immortal work raises the question of the responsibility of history to the individual. The writer sympathizes with his hero, whose life is broken: “Like a steppe scorched by fires, Gregory’s life became black...”
    In the epic novel, Sholokhov created a grandiose historical canvas, describing in detail the events of the civil war on the Don. The writer became a national hero for the Cossacks, creating an artistic epic about the life of the Cossacks in a tragic time of historical change.

    The second volume of Mikhail Sholokhov's epic novel tells about the civil war. It included chapters about the Kornilov rebellion from the book “Donshchina”, which the writer began to create a year before “Quiet Don”. This part of the work is precisely dated: late 1916 - April 1918. The slogans of the Bolsheviks attracted the poor who wanted to be free masters of their land. But the civil war raises new questions for the main character Grigory Melekhov. Each side, white and red, seeks its truth by killing each other. Once among the Reds, Gregory sees the cruelty, intransigence, and thirst for blood of his enemies. War destroys everything: the smooth life of families, peaceful work, takes away the last things, kills love. Sholokhov's heroes Grigory and Pyotr Melekhov, Stepan Astakhov, Koshevoy, almost the entire male population are drawn into battles, the meaning of which is unclear to them. For whose sake and what should they die in the prime of life? Life on the farm gives them a lot of joy, beauty, hope, and opportunity. War is only deprivation and death. The Bolsheviks Shtokman and Bunchuk see the country solely as an arena of class battles, where people are like tin soldiers in someone else’s game, where pity for a person is a crime. The burdens of war fall primarily on the shoulders of the civilian population, ordinary people; it is up to them to starve and die, not to the commissars. Bunchuk arranges lynching of Kalmykov, and in his defense he says: “They are us or we are them!.. There is no middle ground.” Hatred blinds, no one wants to stop and think, impunity gives a free hand. Grigory witnesses how Commissioner Malkin sadistically mocks the population in the captured village. He sees terrible pictures of robbery by fighters of the Tiraspol detachment of the 2nd Socialist Army, who rob farmsteads and rape women. As the old song says, you have become cloudy, Father Quiet Don. Grigory understands that in fact it is not the truth that people mad with blood are looking for, but real turmoil is happening on the Don. It is no coincidence that Melekhov rushes between the two warring sides. Everywhere he encounters violence and cruelty that he cannot accept. Podtelkov orders the execution of prisoners, and the Cossacks, forgetting about military honor, chop down unarmed people. They carried out the order, but when Gregory realized that he was chopping up prisoners, he fell into a frenzy: “Who did he chop down!.. Brothers, I have no forgiveness! Hack to death, for God’s sake... for God’s sake... To death... deliver!” Christonya, dragging the “enraged” Melekhov away from Podtelkov, says bitterly: “Lord God, what is happening to people?” And the captain, Shein, who had already understood the essence of what was happening, prophetically promises Podtelkov that “the Cossacks will wake up and they will hang you.” The mother reproaches Gregory for participating in the execution of captured sailors, but he himself admits how cruel he became in the war: “I don’t feel sorry for the children either.” Having left the Reds, Grigory joins the Whites, where he sees Podtelkov executed. Melekhov tells him: “Do you remember the battle near Glubokaya? Do you remember how the officers were shot?.. They shot on your orders! A? Now you're burping! Well, don't worry! You're not the only one to tan other people's skins! You have left, Chairman of the Don Council of People’s Commissars!” War embitters and divides people. Grigory notices that the concepts of “brother,” “honor,” and “fatherland” disappear from consciousness. The strong community of Cossacks has been disintegrating for centuries. Now everyone is for himself and for his family. Koshevoy, using his power, decided to execute the local rich man Miron Korshunov. Miron's son, Mitka, avenges his father and kills Koshevoy's mother. Koshevoy kills Pyotr Melekhov, his wife Daria shot Ivan Alekseevich. Koshevoy takes revenge on the entire Tatarsky farm for the death of his mother: when leaving, he sets fire to “seven houses in a row.” Blood seeks blood. Looking into the past, Sholokhov recreates the events of the Upper Don Uprising. When the uprising began, Melekhov perked up and decided that now everything would change for the better: “We must fight those who want to take away life, the right to it...” Having almost driven his horse, he rushes off to fight the Reds. The Cossacks protested against the destruction of their way of life, but, striving for justice, they tried to solve the problem with aggression and conflict, which led to the opposite result. And here Gregory was disappointed. Having been assigned to Budyonny's cavalry, Grigory does not find an answer to bitter questions. He says: “I’m tired of everything: both the revolution and the counter-revolution... I want to live near my children.” The writer shows that there can be no truth where there is death. There is only one truth, it is not “red” or “white”. War kills the best. Realizing this, Grigory throws down his weapon and returns to his native farm to work on his native land and raise children. The hero is not yet 30 years old, but the war turned him into an old man, took him away, burned out the best part of his soul. Sholokhov in his immortal work raises the question of the responsibility of history to the individual. The writer sympathizes with his hero, whose life is broken: “Like a steppe scorched by burning fires, Gregory’s life became black...” In his epic novel, Sholokhov created a grandiose historical canvas, describing in detail the events of the civil war on the Don. The writer became a national hero for the Cossacks, creating an artistic epic about the life of the Cossacks in a tragic time of historical change.

    Speaking about the work of M. Sholokhov, first of all, it should be said about the era in which the writer lived and worked, since social and public upheavals are almost the main factor influencing creativity. Without a doubt, a revolution, civil and even Great Patriotic War had a huge influence on Sholokhov. For example, the novel “Quiet Don” is one of best works who recreated pictures of historical reality. It should be noted that in his depiction of war, Sholokhov continues the traditions of Russian writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although, of course, the writer contributed a lot of new things to the reproduction of such social cataclysms.

    "Quiet Don" tells the story of two most significant wars the beginning of the twentieth century, which shocked the whole country, and the whole world. The first one didn't finish yet World War, as another began, more cruel and bloody. It is important to note that Sholokhov is characterized by truthfulness and objectivity in the depiction of those events.

    The First World War is shown in the darkest colors. Thus, the author conveys the attitude of ordinary people towards her: “At night, an owl roared in the bell tower. Unsteady and terrible screams hung over the farmstead, and the owl flew to the cemetery, moaning over the brown, grassy graves.

    “It will be bad,” the old men prophesied. “The war will come.”

    In my opinion, the scale of the war pictures drawn by Sholokhov is comparable only to the battles created by Leo Tolstoy in the novel “War and Peace.”

    What strikes the reader in “Quiet Don” is, first of all, its accuracy and objectivity. One gets the feeling that the author is in the very center of the events he describes: “From the Baltic, the dandy stretched out like a deadly tourniquet. Plans for a wide offensive were being developed at headquarters, generals were poring over maps, orderlies were rushing to deliver ammunition, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were going to their deaths.”

    It is worth saying that in order to cover the whole picture of the hostilities, Sholokhov resorts to a very justified technique. He “distributes” his characters to different sectors of the front. It is the war, shown through the eyes of the heroes, that allows the reader to better understand those terrible years and people's suffering. Reading through the episodes, we begin to experience anxiety and a terrible expectation of death: “The dear ones lay down with their heads on all four sides, poured Cossack blood and, dead-eyed, restless, decayed under an artillery funeral service in Austria, Poland, in Prussia... The Cossack color left the kurens and died there in death, in lice, in horror.”

    Sholokhov cannot ignore what people call a feat: “And it was like this: people collided on the field of death..., they stumbled, were knocked down, delivered blind blows, mutilated themselves and their horses and scattered, frightened by a shot that killed a man, they drove away morally crippled . They called it a feat."

    The civil war turned out to be a little different, more tragic, senseless. Its horrors had a strong influence on the heroes, changing them internally. The most unacceptable and monstrous thing was that brother went against brother, son against father, father against son. Many people found it difficult to decide which side they should take. It is enough to recall the throwings of Grigory Melekhov, who was alternately in the Red Army and then in the White Guard.
    In 1951, Sholokhov wrote: “People like Grigory Melekhov walked to Soviet power along a very tortuous path. Some of them came to a final break with Soviet power. The majority became close to the Soviet government and took part in the construction and strengthening of our state.”

    Although during the civil war both whites and reds were equally alien to the Cossacks. No matter which side they fought on, they want only one thing: to return to their native lands, to their relatives and friends. Painfully hesitating between two camps, Grigory Melekhov is trying to find a third, non-existent path in the revolution. I think this is the tragedy not only of the hero Sholokhov, but also of the majority of those people who fought for some illusory ideal.

    Thus, the writer creates pictures of two wars that are very different from each other. But at the same time, there is one thing in common that unites them and makes them similar - meaninglessness and cruelty.


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