Image of Grigory Melekhov. Tragic fate

Mikhail Sholokhov knew and loved his small homeland and could describe it perfectly. With this he entered Russian literature. First appeared "Don Stories". The masters of that time drew attention to him (today’s reader does not know any of them) and said: “Beautiful! Well done!" Then they forgot... And suddenly the first volume of the work was published, which almost put the author on a par with Homer, Goethe and Leo Tolstoy. In the epic novel “Quiet Don,” Mikhail Alexandrovich reliably reflected the fate of a great people, the endless search for truth in the chaotic years and bloody revolution.

Quiet Don in the fate of a writer

The image of Grigory Melikhov captivated the entire reading public. Young talent needs to develop and develop. But circumstances were not conducive to the writer becoming the conscience of the nation and people. Sholokhov's Cossack nature did not allow him to strive to become the favorites of the rulers, but they did not allow him to become in Russian literature what he was supposed to become.

Many years after the Great Patriotic War and the publication of “The Fate of Man,” Mikhail Sholokhov made a strange, at first glance, entry in his diary: “They all liked my Man. So I lied? Don't know. But I know what I didn’t say.”

Favorite hero

From the first pages of "Quiet Don" the writer draws a diverse and wide river of life in the Don Cossack village. And Grigory Melikhov is only one of many interesting characters in this book and, moreover, not the most important, as it seems at first. His mental outlook is primitive, like his grandfather's saber. He has nothing to become the center of a large artistic canvas, except for his willful, explosive character. But from the first pages the reader feels the writer’s love for this character and begins to follow his fate. What attracts us and Gregory from our youth? Probably due to your biology, your blood.

Even male readers are not indifferent to him, like those women from real life who loved Gregory more than life itself. And he lives like Don. His inner masculine force draws everyone into his orbit. Nowadays, such people are called charismatic personalities.

But there are other forces at work in the world that require comprehension and analysis. However, they continue to live in the village, not suspecting anything, thinking that they are protected from the world by their courageous moral virtues: they eat their own (!) bread, serve the Fatherland as their grandfathers and great-grandfathers taught them. It seems to all village residents, including Grigory Melikhov, that a more just and sustainable life does not exist. They sometimes fight among themselves, mainly over women, not suspecting that it is women who choose, giving preference to powerful biology. And this is correct - Mother Nature herself ordered this so that the human race, including the Cossacks, would not dry out on Earth.

War

But civilization has given rise to many injustices, and one of them is a false idea, clothed in truthful words. The quiet Don flows truthfully. And the fate of Grigory Melikhov, who was born on its banks, did not foretell anything that would make the blood run cold.

The village of Veshenskaya and the village of Tatarsky were not founded by St. Petersburg and they were not fed by him either. But the idea that life itself was almost granted to each Cossack personally, not by God, but by his father and mother, but by some center, broke into the tough but fair life of the Cossacks with the word “war.” Something similar happened on the other side of Europe. Two large groups of people went to war against each other in an organized and civilized manner in order to flood the earth with blood. And they were inspired by false ideas, clothed in words about love for the Fatherland.

War without embellishment

Sholokhov paints the war as it is, showing how it cripples human souls. Sad mothers and young wives remained at home, and the Cossacks with pikes went to fight. Gregory's sword tasted human meat for the first time, and in an instant he became a completely different person.

A dying German listened to him, not understanding a word of Russian, but understanding that universal evil was being committed - the essence of the image and likeness of God was being mutilated.

Revolution

Again, not in the village, not on the Tatarsky farm, but far, far from the banks of the Don, tectonic shifts begin in the depths of society, the waves from which will reach the hardworking Cossacks. The main character of the novel returned home. He has a lot of personal problems. He has had his fill of blood and no longer wants to shed it. But the life of Grigory Melikhov, his personality is of interest to those who have not obtained a piece of bread for their own food for decades with their own hands. And some people bring false ideas to the Cossack community, clothed in truthful words about equality, brotherhood and justice.

Grigory Melikhov is drawn into a struggle that is alien to him by definition. Who started this quarrel in which the Russians hated the Russians? The main character does not ask this question. His fate carries through life like a blade of grass. Grigory Melikhov listens in surprise to the friend of his youth, who began to say incomprehensible words and look at him with suspicion.

And the Don flows calmly and majestically. The fate of Grigory Melikhov is just an episode for him. New people will come to its shores, new life will come. The writer says almost nothing about the revolution, although everyone talks about it a lot. But nothing they say is remembered. Don's image steals the show. And the revolution is also just an episode on its shores.

The tragedy of Grigory Melikhov

The main character of Sholokhov's novel began his life simply and clearly. Loved and was loved. He vaguely believed in God, without going into details. And in the future he lived as simply and clearly as in childhood. Grigory Melikhov did not retreat even one small step from his essence, nor from the truth that he absorbed into himself along with the water that he drew from the Don. And even his saber did not dig into human bodies with pleasure, although he had an innate ability to kill. The tragedy was precisely that Gregory remained an atom of society, which could either be split into component parts by a will alien to him, or combined with other atoms. He did not understand this and strived to remain free, like the majestic Don. On the last pages of the novel we see him calmed down, hope for happiness glimmers in his soul. A questionable point in the novel. Will the main character find what he dreams of?

The end of the Cossack way of life

An artist may not understand anything that happens around him, but he must feel life. And Mikhail Sholokhov felt it. Tectonic shifts in world history destroyed the beloved Cossack way of life, distorted the souls of the Cossacks, turning them into meaningless “atoms” that became suitable for the construction of anything and anyone, but not the Cossacks themselves.

There are a lot of didactic policies in volumes 2, 3, and 4 of the novel, but, describing the path of Grigory Melikhov, the artist involuntarily returned to the truth of life. And false ideas receded into the background and dissolved in the haze of centuries-old prospects. The triumphant notes of the final part of the novel are drowned out by the reader’s longing for the bygone life that the writer depicted with such incredible artistic power in volume 1 of “The Quiet Don.”

The first one as a basis

Sholokhov begins his novel with a description of the appearance of a child who founded the Melikhov family, and ends with a description of a child who should extend this family. "Quiet Don" can be called a great work of Russian literature. This work not only opposes everything that was later written by Sholokhov, but is a reflection of the core of the Cossack people, which gives hope to the writer himself that the existence of the Cossacks on Earth has not ended.

Two wars and a revolution are just episodes in the life of a people who recognize themselves as Don Cossacks. He will still wake up and show the world his beautiful Melikhovo soul.

The life of the Cossack family is immortal

The main character of Sholokhov's novel entered the very core of the worldview of the Russian people. Grigory Melikhov (his image) ceased to be a household name back in the 30s of the twentieth century. It cannot be said that the writer endowed the hero with the typical features of a Cossack. There is just not enough typical in Grigory Melikhov. And there is no special beauty in it. It is beautiful with its power, vitality, which is capable of overcoming all the sediment that comes to the banks of the free, quiet Don.

This is an image of hope and faith in the highest meaning of human existence, which is always the basis of everything. In a strange way, those ideas that tore apart the village of Veshenskaya and erased the Tatarsky farm from the earth have sunk into oblivion, but the novel “Quiet Don” and the fate of Grigory Melikhov remained in our consciousness. This proves the immortality of Cossack blood and clan.

Essay on the topic “The Image of Grigory Melekhov” briefly: characteristics, life story and description of the hero in search of the truth

In Sholokhov's epic novel "Quiet Don" Grigory Melekhov occupies a central place. He is the most complex Sholokhov hero. This is a truth seeker. He suffered such cruel trials that a person, it would seem, is not able to endure. The life path of Grigory Melekhov is difficult and tortuous: first there was the First World War, then the civil war, and, finally, an attempt to destroy the Cossacks, an uprising and its suppression.

The tragedy of Grigory Melekhov is the tragedy of a man who broke away from the people and became a renegade. His detachment becomes tragic, because he is a confused person. He went against himself, against millions of workers just like himself.

From his grandfather Prokofy Gregory, he inherited a hot-tempered and independent character, as well as the ability for tender love. The blood of the “Turkish” grandmother manifested itself in his appearance, in love, on the battlefield and in the ranks. And from his father he inherited a tough disposition, and it was because of this that integrity and rebellion haunted Gregory from his youth. He fell in love with a married woman Aksinya (this is a turning point in his life) and soon decides to leave with her, despite all the prohibitions of his father and the condemnation of society. The origins of Melekhov's tragedy lie in his rebellious character. This is the predetermination of a tragic fate.

Gregory is a kind, brave and courageous hero who always tries to fight for truth and justice. But war comes, and it destroys all his ideas about the truth and justice of life. The war appears to the writer and his characters as a series of losses and terrible deaths: it cripples people from the inside and destroys everything dear and dear to them. It forces all the heroes to take a fresh look at the problems of duty and justice, to look for the truth and not find it in any of their warring camps. Once among the Reds, Gregory sees the same cruelty and thirst for blood as the Whites. He can't understand why all this? After all, war destroys the smooth life of families, peaceful work, it takes away the last things from people and kills love. Grigory and Pyotr Melekhov, Stepan Astakhov, Koshevoy and other heroes of Sholokhov are unable to understand why this fratricidal massacre is happening? For whose sake and what should people die when they still have a long life ahead of them?

The fate of Grigory Melekhov is a life incinerated by war. The characters' personal relationships unfold against the backdrop of the country's tragic history. Gregory will never again be able to forget how he killed his first enemy, an Austrian soldier. He cut him down with a saber, it was terrible for him. The moment of murder changed him beyond recognition. The hero has lost his point of support, his kind and fair soul protests, cannot survive such violence against common sense. But the war is on, Melekhov understands that he needs to continue killing. Soon his decision changes: he realizes that the war is killing the best people of his time, that among thousands of deaths the truth cannot be found, Grigory throws down his weapon and returns to his native farm to work on his native land and raise his children. At almost 30 years old, the hero is almost an old man. The path of Melekhov’s search turned out to be an impassable thicket. Sholokhov in his work raises the question of the responsibility of history to the individual. The author sympathizes with his hero Grigory Melekhov, whose life is already broken in such young years.

As a result of his search, Melekhov is left alone: ​​Aksinya is killed by his recklessness, he is hopelessly distant from his children, if only because he will bring disaster on them with his closeness. Trying to remain true to himself, he betrays everyone: the warring parties, women, and ideas. This means that he was initially looking in the wrong place. Thinking only about himself, about his “truth,” he did not love and did not serve. At the hour when a strong man’s word was required from him, Gregory could only provide doubts and soul-searching. But the war did not need philosophers, and women did not need a love of wisdom. Thus, Melekhov is the result of the transformation of the “superfluous man” type in the conditions of a severe historical conflict.

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Image of Grigory Melekhov

At the beginning of the novel, he is an eighteen-year-old guy, cheerful, stately, strong, and, in his own way, brutally handsome. Gregory is an exceptionally integral personality, a pure nature. It is illuminated by light, as if emanating from different sources - here is the code of Cossack honor and glory, and intense peasant labor, daring in folk games and parties, and scenes of fishing, familiarization with the rich Cossack folklore, the feeling of first love. Don life with its unique landscapes, freedom-loving traditions, sonorous and soulful folk songs - in a word, in all its poetic freshness - opens wide before the eyes of young Gregory. Sholokhov soulfully and lovingly depicts the leisurely, measured way of life of the Cossacks of the Tatar farm with their economic worries, hard work, reverence for centuries-old customs and rituals, the pride of the Cossacks for their class and respect for military valor. Gregory is deeply imbued with hard work, a subtle perception of the beauty of his native Don steppe, a love of folk songs, humanism, great humanity (a chick accidentally cut with a scythe in the grass does not give him peace for a long time). From generation to generation, cultivated courage and bravery, nobility and generosity towards the vanquished, contempt for cowardice and cowardice determined Gregory's behavior in all life circumstances.

The evolution of Melekhov’s image is connected with the events of the First World War and revolution. The war undoubtedly hardened Gregory's heart, but it could not stifle his humanity. The hero's rebellion against only family and household ties (leaving home) is complemented by a protest on a broader social level. It was during the war years that the hero’s character became increasingly stronger in his sense of independence, pride, and high human dignity.

Grigory Melekhov, as the main character of the epic work, during the course of the plot meets people from all social classes, layers and groups depicted in the novel. The greatest influence on him is the Bolshevik Garanzha and the Don autonomist officer Izvarin. “Where should I lean?” - one of those far from rhetorical questions that the main character of “Quiet Don” often asks himself. Should I tie my fate with the Reds or the Whites?

In life there was a struggle for the future social system, the new was barely making its way, and mainly the destruction of the old was taking place. All the difficulties of restructuring the peasant way of life were still ahead. And perhaps that is why Gregory did not have the courage to finally break with the past, although he did not accept the main thing in it and therefore did not stay with the whites.

Gregory’s tragedy partly lies in the fact that he could not understand all the complexity and difficulty of establishing new standards of life: he generalizes all the bad manifestations at once and discards much else along with them. This is his misfortune, and not his fault, for it is natural for a person who is not able to immediately and completely comprehend the difficult path of the revolution.

The main character of "Quiet Don" dreams of a system of life in which a person would be rewarded with the measure of his intelligence, work and spiritual talent. This is where his hatred for human backbones comes from: “I have no pity stored up for these white-faced and white-armed ones,” says Grigory about the White Guard officers. Hence his sympathy for Kotlyarov (Communist) and Koshevoy, although “blood lay between us.” Indeed, in the eyes of Gregory, it is they who personify, in contrast to the “white faces and white hands,” the first sign of true democracy - the fight against economic enslavement, against class and estate inequality.

Gregory understands that he is “a stranger from head to toe” to the former tsarist officers. As the leader of the Cossack masses, brought forward from the midst of the popular movement for intelligence, talent and military art, Gregory has the right to judge the leaders of the White Guard movement in his own way. He is not with them, although at sharp turns in history, certain moments of his life coincide with their goals. This contradiction is noticed by the chief of staff of his division, Kopylov: “On the one hand, you are a fighter for the old, and on the other, some kind of, excuse me for being harsh, some semblance of a Bolshevik.” These words express the antinomy that underlies the image of Grigory Melekhov.

Grigory Melekhov not only embodies the historical processes that affected the Cossack-peasant masses of Russia. It acts as a barometer of the author's thought in the complex structure of the novel. This circumstance creates additional difficulties when analyzing the conditions that gave rise to tragic collisions in the epic. After all, we cannot reduce the reasons for the tragedy of the main character of the novel only to his mediocrity. The solution to the problem is somewhere at the intersection of sociological, national-historical, and psychological factors. Gregory is a drama of a proud and tirelessly searching mind, this is the image of a truth-seeker, so characteristic of Russian literature.

Gregory makes mistakes, but by and large he is ostensibly guilty. And yet he is guilty, because he demands from life what she cannot yet give him. Here, like any tragic hero, punishment and retribution awaits him.

However, even in the finale, Sholokhov does not give a clear answer. The inconsistency of Melekhov’s image is also emphasized by the use of contrasting tropes. On the one hand, Gregory’s soul is like a steppe scorched by black fires, and on the other, he does not completely lose his “human charm.” His fate in Fomin’s gang is pitiful, unenviable, but, in spite of everything, his nature remains just as unbroken, for going out onto a farm and throwing a weapon into an ice hole two months before the amnesty is something only an established personality can do.

The reader says goodbye to the hero of “Quiet Flows the Don,” carrying in his mind the black disk of the sun and Gregory with a child in his arms, who alone, after many losses, the death of loved ones, still connected him with the world.

In “Quiet Don” the artist translates into a new quality the discoveries that he made earlier in “Don Stories”. Now the problem is posed more broadly: the national character and the basic laws of life, the social turning point and the fate of the people, the relationship between class and nationality in the course of social evolution. Consequently, from now on Sholokhov operates not only with categories such as “people”, “society”, “class”, but also, deepening the usual sociological ideas, introduces concepts such as “national life”, “national history”, “national experience” .

Sholokhov objectively studies the Russian national character in the light of the concrete historical social experience of the people over the course of decades. The writer is not at all carried away by the idealization of national specifics; he is interested in the peculiarities of national existence, which is ultimately determined by the class position and class interests of people.

National mental makeup plays a special role in the socio-historical process, in the relationship between history and personality. The completeness of the disclosure of national life is ensured, first of all, by such a capacious form as the novel, and especially the epic novel.

“Quiet Don” shows the greatest social crisis in the fate of the people. The greatness of Sholokhov lies in the fact that he depicts the life of the entire nation and traces the fate of the whole people. Two worlds of ideas and beliefs collided, sharp historical fault lines occurred, and hence the inevitability of tragic collisions. The epic corresponds to a hero who synthesized in himself the fundamental contradictions of the era. This is within the capabilities of a character who embodies national positive qualities.

(According to L.F. Ershov)