Moss family. History of the Melekhov family

(454 words) The epic novel, as a literary genre, is characterized by a large number of diverse heroes. In "Quiet Flows the Flow" the main characters are presented inseparably from their families. Four such central families can be distinguished - Melekhovs, Korshunovs, Astakhovs and Koshevoys.

The main attention is focused on the Melekhovs. This family lives on the outskirts of a farm and received the popular nickname “Turks”: Pantelei Prokofievich’s father brought a captive Turkish wife from the Turkish campaign, and from then on “Turkish blood began to interbreed with Cossack blood.” At the beginning of the novel, the family consists of Pantelei Prokofievich, his wife Vasilisa Ilyinichna, sons Petro and Grigory, daughter-in-law Daria and daughter Dunyashka. By the end of the work, this family practically ceases to exist: the only survivors are Grigory and his son Mishutka, as well as Dunyashka, living with her husband Mikhail Koshev. Using the example of this family, the author wanted to show how large-scale the consequences of the Civil War were - it destroyed destinies, broke up families, and thus changed the traditional way of life of the Don Cossacks.

The Astakhov family lives next door to the Melekhovs. This is a young married couple, but there is no happiness in their marriage. Aksinya is tormented by the fact that she lives with the unloved Stepan, and he only shows rudeness towards her, often drinks and rarely spends the night at home. The feeling of Aksinya and Gregory is the main love line of the novel, filled with joy and sadness, moments of rapprochement and separation, constant attempts to fight for their happiness.

The Korshunov family are wealthy, economic Cossacks. When the Melekhovs came to marry Natalya to Grigory, Miron Grigorievich and Marya Lukinichna did not immediately decide to give their daughter in marriage. But Natalya insisted on the wedding, convincing her parents that she did not want to marry anyone else. After the wedding, Grigory could not fall in love with Natalya and went to Aksinya. Despite the fact that the Korshunovs accepted Natalya back into the house, Miron Grigorievich was always worried that the neighbors would discuss him. Gossip and lack of support from family pushed Natalya to suicide. The girl remained alive, but she could no longer live in her parents’ house and willingly agreed to the Melekhovs’ invitation to live in their house, albeit without Grigory. This moment once again draws attention to how close-knit and friendly the Melekhov family is, because they are able to help each other in any trouble and do not abandon their own under any circumstances.

Little is known about the Koshev family. They lived poorly - Mishka, his mother, sister and two brothers. The bear was their eldest, the breadwinner. That is why the guy grew up persistent and hardworking. You can call him stubborn. If he loves, then to the end - he managed to marry Dunyasha Melekhova, despite numerous obstacles; if he defends the side of the Reds, then he no longer leaves this path, and is ready to pursue a great goal, destroying all opponents of the Bolsheviks.

One thing unites all these fundamentally different families - they all suffered from the war. Many died, their houses were destroyed and their entire household was plundered. The only future is to restore everything, without forgetting the indigenous traditions of the Don Cossacks. This is the message laid by M.A. Sholokhov in the family theme of “Quiet Don”.

Answer from Hades[guru]
the mill of the merchant Simonov on the Pleshakovo farm, where Sholokhov’s father was the manager, and the people who worked at it played a significant role in the fate of the writer and his novel. And the merchant Mokhov is not only a character in “Quiet Don”, but also a real person.
The Mokhovs were a famous merchant family on the Upper Don, who were in close relations and even related to the Sholokhov merchant family.
The son of a “co-worker,” as Sholokhov appears in the questionnaires he filled out, actually came from the old merchant family of the Sholokhovs, which was not inferior in breed to the Don merchants Mokhovs. Moreover, the fates of these two clans, who moved to the Don from central Russia at approximately the same time, are inseparable from one another.
The history of the family of the merchant Mokhov in “Quiet Don” is presented as follows:
“Sergei Platonovich Mokhov traces his ancestry from afar.
During the reign of Peter I, one day the sovereign's barge with breadcrumbs and fire potion was traveling to Azov along the Don. The Cossacks of the “thieves’” town of Chigonaki, nestled in the upper reaches of the Don, not far from the mouth of the Khopr, attacked this barge at night, cut off the sleepy guards, plundered the crackers and potion, and sank the barge.
By order of the Tsar, troops came from Voronezh, the “thieves’” town of Chigonaki was burned, the Cossacks involved in the robbery on the barge were mercilessly defeated in battle,” but ten years later, “the village grew again and was surrounded by battle ramparts. From that time on, the Tsar’s inspector and eye, the man Mokhov Nikishka, came to her from the Voronezh decree. He traded from his hands various junk necessary in Cossack life...” (2, 13).
It is from this Mokhov Nikishka, as reported in the novel, that the merchant family of the Mokhovs originated.
As Sivovolov established, the Zaraysk merchant Miron Mokhov and his son Nikolai moved to the Don in the middle of the 19th century. Sholokhov's grandfather, a merchant of the 3rd guild from the same city of Zaraysk, Mikhail Mikhailovich Sholokhov, came to Vyoshenskaya in the late forties of the 19th century, following, and possibly with the help of, Miron Mokhov and his son. Zaraisk local historians launched a search for Sholokhov's roots in the city of Zaraisk, Ryazan, and now Moscow region. This is what Zaraisk local historian V.I. Polyanchev writes in his letter to IMLI: “The first Sholokhovs appeared in Zaraisk a long time ago, in the second half of the 17th century. Then, judging by the Census (Landrat) book of 1715, the outlying Pushkarskaya settlement was inhabited by the gunner Firs Sholokhov and his four sons: Vasily Firsovich, Osip Firsovich, Ivan Firsovich and Sergei Firsovich. From the younger Sergei Firsovich - the writer's great-great-great-grandfather - came a branch that, four generations later, brought the Sholokhovs to the Don: great-great-grandfather Ivan Sergeevich, great-grandfather Mikhail Ivanovich, grandfather Mikhail Mikhailovich, and finally - the writer's father - Alexander Mikhailovich. The ancestors of the great relative until the end of the 19th century. lived in Zaraysk, and by that time had settled almost throughout the city. Zaraisk is still full of the Sholokhov surname
The merchant families of the Mokhovs and Sholokhovs, connected by family ties, went bankrupt and were reborn again, competing with each other, for many decades they traded in Vyoshenskaya and the farmsteads adjacent to the village. Thus, according to data from 1852, in the village of Veshenskaya and on its farms, trade was carried out by five Mokhov merchants - Miron Avtomonovich, Nikolai Mironovich, Mikhail Egorovich, Vasily Timofeevich and Kapiton Vasilyevich, and two Sholokhov merchants - Mikhail Mikhailovich and Ivan Kuzmich. In 1887, seven shops belonged to the Mokhov merchants and eight to the Sholokhov merchants.
As already mentioned, these merchant families were closely related - that’s why Sholokhov chose this surname for the merchant in Tatarskoye: Mokhov.
In the image of Sergei Platonovich Mokhov, a family story was reflected, which was told to G. Ya. Sivovolov by Nikolai Petrovich Sholokhov (son of Pyotr Mikhailovich Sholokhov): “Mikhail Sholokhov, describing the merchant Mokhov in “Quiet Flows the Flow”, took as a basis the story of his grandfather, Mikhail Mikhailovich : they say he had ups and downs, he was devastated by fires, but he got back on his feet. Nikolai Petrovich cited the words of Mikhail Alexandrovich: “I seem to have found where our family comes from on the Don. Grandfather was there

In the novel “Quiet Don” M. Sholokhov with great skill showed the tragic moments in the revolution and civil war and in a completely new way, relying on historical materials, his own experience, reproduced the true picture of Don life, its evolution. "Quiet Don" is called an epic tragedy. And not only because the tragic character is placed in the center - Grigory Melekhov, but also because the novel is permeated from beginning to end by tragic motives. This is a tragedy both for those who did not realize the meaning of the revolution and opposed it, and for those who succumbed to deception. This is the tragedy of many Cossacks drawn into the Veshensky uprising in 1919, the tragedy of the defenders of the revolution dying for the people's cause.

The tragedies of the heroes unfold against the backdrop of turning-point events for our country - the old world was completely destroyed by the revolution, it is being replaced by a new social system. All this led to a qualitatively new solution to such “eternal” issues as man and history, war and peace, personality and the masses. For Sholokhov, a person is the most valuable thing on our planet, and the most important thing that helps shape a person’s soul is, first of all, his family, the house in which he was born, grew up, where he will always be waited and loved and where he will definitely return.

“Melekhovsky yard is on the very edge of the farm,” - this is how the novel begins, and throughout the entire narrative Sholokhov talks about the representatives of this family. The life of the inhabitants of the house appears from the pages of the epic in an interweaving of contradictions and struggle. The entire Melekhov family found itself at the crossroads of major historical events and bloody clashes. The revolution and civil war bring drastic changes to the established family and everyday life of the Melekhovs: the usual family ties are destroyed, new morals and ethics are born. Sholokhov with great skill managed to reveal the inner world of a man from the people, to recreate the Russian national character of the revolutionary era. A line of defense passes through the Melekhovs’ yard; it is occupied either by Reds or Whites, but the father’s house forever remains the place where the closest people live, always ready to receive and warm.

At the beginning of the story, the author introduces the reader to the head of the family, Pantelei Prokofievich: “Pantelei Prokofievich began to stoop down the slope of the sliding years: he spread out in width, slightly stooped, but still looked like a well-built old man. He was bone-dry, lame (in his youth he broke his leg at an imperial horse racing show), wore a silver crescent-shaped earring in his left ear, his raven beard and hair did not fade into old age, and in anger he reached the point of unconsciousness...” Panteley Prokofievich - a true Cossack, brought up in the traditions of valor and honor. He raised his children using the same traditions, sometimes showing traits of a tough character. The head of the Melekhov family does not tolerate disobedience, but at heart he is kind and sensitive. He is a skillful and hardworking owner, he knows how to manage the household efficiently, and he works from dawn to dusk. He, and even more so his son Gregory, bears the reflection of the noble and proud nature of his grandfather Prokofy, who once challenged the patriarchal mores of the Tatarsky farm.

Despite the intra-family split, Panteley Prokofievich tries to unite the pieces of the old way of life into one whole, if only for the sake of his grandchildren and children. More than once he voluntarily leaves the front and returns home to his native land, which was the basis of his life. With inexplicable force she beckoned him to her, just as she beckoned all the Cossacks, tired of the intense and senseless war. Panteley Prokofievich dies in a foreign land, far from his home, to which he gave all his strength and endless love, and this is the tragedy of a man from whom time has taken away the most precious things - family and shelter.

The father passed on the same all-consuming love for his home to his sons. His eldest, already married son Petro resembled his mother: big, snub-nosed, with wild, wheat-colored hair, brown eyes, and the youngest, Gregory, took after his father - “Gregory was just as stooped as his father, even in his smile they both had something in common, bestial." Grigory, like his father, loves his house, where Panteley Prokofievich forced him to nurse his horse, loves his wedge of land behind the farm, which he plowed with his own hands.

With great skill, M. Sholokhov portrayed the complex character of Grigory Melekhov - an integral, strong and honest personality. He never sought his own benefit and did not succumb to the temptation of profit and career. Mistaken, Gregory shed a lot of blood from those who affirmed new life on earth. But he realized his guilt and sought to atone for it by honest and faithful service to the new government.

The hero's path to the truth is thorny and complicated. At the beginning of the epic, he is an eighteen-year-old guy - cheerful, strong, handsome. The author comprehensively reveals the image of the main character - here is the code of Cossack honor, and intense peasant labor, and daring in folk games and festivities, and familiarization with the rich Cossack folklore, and the feeling of first love. From generation to generation, cultivated courage and bravery, nobility and generosity towards enemies, contempt for cowardice and cowardice determined Gregory’s behavior in all life circumstances. During the troubled days of revolutionary events, he makes many mistakes. But on the path of searching for truth, the Cossack is sometimes unable to comprehend the iron logic of the revolution, its internal laws.

Grigory Melekhov is a proud, freedom-loving person and at the same time a truth-seeking philosopher. For him, the greatness and inevitability of the revolution must be revealed and proven by the entire subsequent course of life. Melekhov dreams of a system of life in which a person would be rewarded according to the measure of his intelligence, work and talent.

The women of the Melekhov family - Ilyinichna, Dunyashka, Natalya and Daria - are completely different, but they are united by sublime moral beauty. The image of old Ilyinichna personifies the difficult lot of a Cossack woman, her high moral qualities. Pantelei Melekhov’s wife, Vasilisa Ilyinichna, is a native Cossack of the Verkhnedonsky region. Life was not sweet to her lot. It was she who suffered most from her husband’s hot temper, but patience and endurance helped her save her family. She grew old early and suffered from illnesses, but despite this she remained a caring, energetic housewife.

The image of Natalia is filled with high lyricism - a woman of high moral purity and feeling. Strong in character, Natalya put up with the position of an unloved wife for a long time and still hoped for a better life. She curses and loves Gregory endlessly. Even if not for long, she still found her feminine happiness. Thanks to patience and faith, Natalya managed to restore the family, restore harmony and love. She gave birth to twins: a son and a daughter, and turned out to be as loving, devoted and caring a mother as she was a wife. This beautiful woman is the embodiment of the dramatic fate of a strong, beautiful, selflessly loving nature, ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of a high feeling, even her own life. Natalya's strength of spirit and captivating moral purity are revealed with unprecedented depth in the last days of her life. Despite all the evil that Gregory caused her, she finds the strength to forgive him.

The brightest representative of the family is Dunyashka. Nature endowed her with the same hot and strong character as Gregory. And this was especially clearly manifested in her desire to defend her happiness at any cost. Despite the discontent and threats of loved ones, she, with her characteristic tenacity, defends her right to love. Even Ilyinichna, for whom Koshevoy forever remained a “murderer,” the killer of her son, understands that nothing will change her daughter’s relationship with Mikhail. And if she fell in love with him, then nothing could tear this feeling out of her heart, just as nothing could change Gregory’s feelings for Aksinya.

The last pages of the novel return readers to where the work began - to “family thought.” The friendly Melekhov family suddenly broke up. The death of Peter, the death of Daria, the loss of Pantelei Prokofievich's dominant position in the family, the death of Natalya, Dunyashka's departure from the family, the destruction of the farm during the offensive of the Red Guards, the death of the head of the family in retreat and the departure of Ilyinichna to another world, the arrival of Mishka Koshevoy in the house, the death of Porlyushka - all these are stages of the collapse of what at the beginning of the novel seemed unshakable. The words once said by Pantelei Prokofievich to Grigory are noteworthy: “Everything collapsed equally for everyone.” And although we are talking only about fallen fences, these words take on a broader meaning. The destruction of the family, and therefore the home, affected not only the Melekhovs - this is a common tragedy, the fate of the Cossacks. The families of the Korshunovs, Koshevoys, and Mokhovs die in the novel. The centuries-old foundations of human life are crumbling.

The narrative in "Quiet Don", as in Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace", is based on the image of family nests. But if Tolstoy’s heroes, having gone through severe trials, come to create a family, then Sholokhov’s heroes painfully experience its collapse, which especially strongly emphasizes the tragedy of the era depicted in the novel. Talking about the collapse of the Melekhov family, Sholokhov poses for us, descendants, the task of reviving the family and confidently convinces us that there is always something to start with. In Gregory’s tormented soul, many life values ​​lost their meaning, and only the feeling of family and homeland remained ineradicable. It is no coincidence that Sholokhov ends the story with a touching meeting between father and son. The Melekhov family has broken up, but Grigory will be able to create a hearth where the flame of love, warmth and mutual understanding will always glimmer, which will never go out. And despite the tragedy of the novel, which reflected the events of one of the most cruel periods in the history of our country, the reader remains to live with hope in this huge world shining under the cold sun.

In the novel “Quiet Don”, as in “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy, the “family thought” found its embodiment. What families are depicted in the novel by M.A. Sholokhov?

These are the middle peasant Cossacks Melekhovs, the rich Cossack family of the Korshunovs, the poor Koshevoys, the Melekhovs' neighbors the Astakhovs (Stepan and Aksinya), the merchants Mokhovs - all of them are residents of the Tatarsky farm, as well as the father and son Listnitsky nobles, whose Yagodnoye estate is located nearby.

Some families have backstories, for example the Melekhovs. The author explains where “the hook-nosed, wildly handsome Melekhov Cossacks came from in the farmstead, and in street terms – Turks.”

At first, family ties are determined by traditional social and living conditions: the marriage of Grigory and Natalya made the Melekhov and Korshunov families related. Young Cossacks are friends with each other, even young Listnitsky takes part in horse races with the “farm boys”. But quite rare for farm morals was Gregory’s departure from his family with his beloved woman to become hired workers for the Listnitskys.

The older generation is connected by a common “service” past; Thus, retired General Listnitsky is a colleague of Prokofy Melekhov. Only the Mokhovs and Listnitskys are noticeably separated from the rest by social barriers. When Mitka Korshunov “walked around” with Liza Mokhova, his guilty matchmaking was rejected with contempt by her father.

The First World War, it seems, only brought together representatives of different families. Most of the young Cossacks are fighting, all on the same side. And when Gregory was the first in the farmstead to earn the St. George Cross, it was joy for all Tatars. But the psychology of people forced to kill is changing. Evgeny Listnitsky allows himself to seduce Aksinya, since he “risked his life” at the front: “I can do anything!”

Relationships between people changed tragically when the civil war began. Mikhail Koshevoy (red) kills Pyotr Melekhov, burns the houses of rich farmers, including the Korshunovs, and kills grandfather Grishaka. Mitka Korshunov, serving in the punitive detachment, in retaliation strangled Koshevoy’s old mother and burned his house along with the children of Mikhail’s sister, Marya. The farm ataman Miron Korshunov, who had recently helped Koshevoy, as the only breadwinner, be freed from military service, was shot.

But in war, people manifest themselves in different ways. Mitka Korshunov admits: “I love war!” Grigory (if we exclude revenge for his brother) did not shoot prisoners, he was against looting, for which he was demoted in rank. Stepan Astakhov, whom Grigory saved during the battle, admitted that he shot him in the back three times, avenging Aksinya. Koshevoy is guided only by a straightforward political dogma: “What an evil politics it is, damn it!.. He (Gregory) is like a brother to me.” But “you can kill someone while talking.” Gregory thinks differently: “If you remember everything, you have to live like wolves.” For Dunyashka, Ilyinichna, and Natalya, blood kinship is an enduring value.

By the end of the story, out of six families (the Mokhovs left for the Donets, Stepan for the Crimea), the main character’s sister and son and three middle-generation Cossacks survived: the chairman of the revolutionary committee, Mikhail Koshevoy, Mitka Korshunov, who had not yet returned from the war, and Grigory Melekhov. The open ending leaves no clear perspective on their possible future.

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HISTORY OF THE MELEKHOV FAMILY AS A REFLECTION OF SOCIAL CATACLYSMS OF THE ERA

One of the main themes of the epic novel “Quiet Don” is family, a simple, “private” person in the whirlpool of history. For the first time in Russian literature, the center of a large work was not representatives of the upper classes and intelligentsia, but ordinary people from the people. Soldiers and farmers. For the Russian reader it has become almost an axiom (literature taught this) that the depth of experience and the strength of passions is the privilege of selected, intelligent natures, possessing a subtle organization of the psyche, and high culture. Sholokhov demonstrated that people also have powerful passions from the earth, that they too reverently perceive earthly joys and truly suffer. Sholokhov describes in detail the life and customs of the Cossacks, their well-established patriarchal morality, of course, not without vestiges.

In this patriarchal system of values, the main ones are camaraderie, friendship, mutual assistance, respect for elders, care for children, honesty and ingenuity, decorum in everyday life, integrity, aversion to lies, duplicity, hypocrisy, arrogance and violence.

Grishak’s grandfather Korshunov and grandfather Maxim Bogatyrev can serve as true role models. The first one visited a Turkish company, the second one was still in a Caucasian one. Sitting at the wedding table, they remember the years of their youth. However, Grandfather Maxim is gnawed by remorse: once upon a time, he and a fellow soldier took away a carpet: “Before this, I never took someone else’s... it used to be that we would occupy a Circassian aul, an estate in the saklya, but I don’t envy... It’s someone else’s, that is, from the unclean... And then, go ahead... The carpet got into my eyes... with terry... Now, I think, it will be a horse blanket..."

And Grishak’s grandfather recalls how he captured a Turkish officer in battle: “He shot and missed. Here I pinned down my horse and caught up with him. I wanted to cut it down, but then changed my mind. Man it..."
Or an even more telling example. An experienced warrior, a participant in the Turkish campaign, in whose kuren the Cossacks are spending the night on their way to the front, tells them: “Remember one thing: if you want to be alive, to come out of a mortal battle unscathed, you must uphold the human truth.
-Which one? – asked Stepan Astakhov, lying on the edge...
- Here's what: don't take someone else's in war - once. God forbid touching women...
The Cossacks began to stir, they all started talking at once... Grandfather fixed his eyes sternly and answered everyone at once:
– Women should not be touched in any way. Not at all! If you can’t resist, you’ll lose your head or get wounded, then you’ll realize it’s too late.”

The most important value, the stronghold of patriarchal morality, which brought up the best qualities in people, was the family. A striking example of such a family is the Melekhov family. It is headed by Panteley Prokofievich, a tough and capricious man, but behind him there is also great rightness, since he protects the peace and well-being of his loved ones. It is not out of tyranny that Panteley Prokofievich is trying to persuade Grigory when he began dating Aksinya, but because in his own way he is worried about the future of his son and the family of the Astakhov neighbors. After the son’s marriage, Natalya and the children should have been protected from suffering. These same feelings are experienced by the wise, strong-willed Ilyinichna, who is also the keeper of the hearth.

Pantelei Prokofievich was absolutely right when he rushed at a gallop to separate his sons who had seriously quarreled. The point is not in the arapnik, which he holds in his hand with the aim of supposedly punishing the guilty (this just did not happen), but in the fact that there is a head of the family, a father, who keeps order and does not allow the family to disband.

It is difficult to object to Ilyinichna and Pantelei Prokofievich when they make sure that Natalya and Daria - their sons' wives - do equal work around the house.

Speaking about the Melekhov family, Sholokhov talks about folk morality, about the reasonable and human in it. The writer is for a strong family in which there is peace, harmony, and order.

Grigory is the first to break this peace, leaving his legal wife and leaving with Aksinya to Yagodnoye, to the estate of Pan Listnitsky. Gregory's act serves as a harbinger of future tragic events.

And they were not long in coming. The First World War, the February Revolution, the October Revolution, and the Civil War broke out. With the onset of cataclysms and upheavals, gradual burning began, which led to the death of most of the Melekhovs. Only Dunyashka, Gregory and his son survived. And Grigory returns to his native farm before the amnesty, to certain death.

How a tragic, turning point time affected the family, causing the collapse of centuries-old foundations, is especially clearly seen in the example of the image of Pantelei Prokofievich.
At the beginning of the work we see Pantelei Prokofievich as the sovereign master in his house. Even with his mother's milk, he absorbed patriarchal foundations and stands guard over them. He does not hesitate to raise his hand against his family in order to cool their ardor.

However, in the context of that time, this was part of his duties and was considered a duty to his children. The Bible says: “Whoever spares his rod hates his son, and whoever loves him punishes him from childhood,” “discipline your son, and he will give you peace and bring joy to your soul.”

At the same time, he is a very hardworking, economical person, in whose kuren prosperity reigns.

The whole meaning of Pantelei Prokofievich’s life lies in the family. He is immensely proud of his sons who have risen to officer ranks. Loves to brag about their successes. For example, he takes Grigory, who is on vacation, from the station through the entire village, bypassing his alley. “I saw my sons off to war as ordinary Cossacks, but they rose to the rank of officer. Well, shouldn’t I be proud to take my son for a ride around the farm? Let them look and envy. And my brother, my heart is filled with oil!” - Pantelei Prokofievich confesses.

Some researchers, in particular Yakimenko, condemn Pantelei Prakofievich for this trait, but, I think, in vain. Is it bad when a father is proud of his children and rejoices at their successes as if they were his own?

But then the civil war begins. First one side, then the other, wins. The authorities are changing. More than once Pantelei Prokofievich had to leave his home and flee. And, returning, he sees more and more destruction and devastation.

At first, Panteley Prokofievich tries to repair and restore something. But not everything could be restored. And the stingy Panteley Prokofievich, who had previously taught his family to take care of every match and to do without a lamp in the evening (since “kerosene is expensive”), now, as if protecting himself from heavy losses and devastation, gave up on everything. He is trying, at least in his own eyes, to devalue what he has acquired with such difficulty. More and more often in his speeches there is a funny and pitiful consolation: “He was just like a pig, it’s a shame...”, “he was a barn...” Sholokhov writes: “Everything that the old man was deprived of, according to him, was worthless.” fit. This is his habit of consoling himself.”

But property losses were only part of the problem. Before the eyes of Pantelei Prokofievich, a strong, friendly family was destroyed. No matter how hard he tried, Panteley Prokofievich could not maintain the old order in the house.

Dunyashka was the first to break away from the family. In her love for Mikhail Koshevoy - her brother's killer - Dunyashka went against the whole family. Natalya, who was acutely worried about the new rapprochement between Gregory and Aksinya, is also alienated from the old people. After Peter's death, Daria strove to leave home under any pretext in order to walk in freedom. Panteley Prokofievich, seeing all this discord and turmoil in the family, could not do anything. Everything familiar and established was collapsing all around, and his power as a master, an elder, a father dissipated like smoke.

The character of Pantelei Prokofievich changes dramatically. He still shouts at his family, but he knows well that he no longer has the same strength or power. Daria constantly argues with him, Dunyashka does not listen, Ilyinichna, and she increasingly contradicts her old man. His severe temper, which once plunged the whole house into fear and confusion, now does not pose a serious danger to others and therefore often causes laughter.
Over time, something pitiful and fussy appears in the guise of Pantelei Prokofievich. With feigned cheerfulness and boastfulness, he seems to be trying to protect himself from the merciless blows of fate.

But life did not spare either him or the other Melekhovs. In a short period of time, Peter and Natalya die, who could not bear Gregory’s betrayal, did not want to give birth to him, and after an abortion died from blood loss. Buried from his loved ones, Panteley Prokofievich bitterly mourned this death, because he loved Natalya like his own daughter. Less than a month had passed before the Melekhovs’ house smelled of “incense” again. Daria drowned herself, not wanting to live with the “bad disease.”

Panteley Prokofievich thinks with horror about the danger to which Grigory’s life is exposed at the front. The old man suffered so much grief and loss that he could no longer bear them.
Sholokhov expresses this new state of Pantelei Prokofievich in that feeling of being trapped, of fear of misfortune, which did not leave the old man. He became afraid of everything. He flees from the farm when the killed Cossacks are brought there. “In one year, death struck so many relatives and friends that at the mere thought of them, his soul became heavy and the whole world grew dim and seemed to be covered with some kind of black veil.”

In the thoughts and experiences of Pantelei Prokofievich, a feeling of approaching death begins to sound. In the autumn forest, everything reminds Pantelei Prokofievich of death: “a falling leaf, and geese flying screaming in the blue sky, and deathly fallen grass...” When they dug Daria’s grave, Pantelei Prokofievich chose a place for himself. But he happened to die far from his native place. After the next offensive of the Red Army, Panteley Prokofievich went on the run. Having fallen ill with typhus, he died in Kuban. Grigory Melekhov and Prokhor Zykov, Melekhov’s orderly, buried him in a foreign land.