Universal and eternal in the heroes of M. Sholokhov. (Composition - response)

The writer also tells that the poor Cossacks with their whole families went over to the side of the Russian authorities, they were it: a support in the Cossack farm, “Through the farm,” writes Sholokhov in the story “The Mortal Enemy,” as if someone furrowed the side. The hero of the story "The Mortal Enemy", the Cossack Efim Ozerov, fought for the red Tsaritsyn. He is also waging an uncompromising struggle with the kulaks, representing the Soviet government on the farm. Fists brutally kill Ozerov, but his cause is invincible. “Remember, Yefim,” he recalls before his death, the words of his friend, “they will kill you - there will be twenty new Yefimovs.” In the story "The Shepherd" Sholokhov already draws representatives of the younger generation, the children of the poor - Grigory and Dunyatka. They go to replace Yefim, just like him, they expose the kulaks.

It was difficult to develop a new life, the best people died in the struggle against the inert forces of the village, who did not want to give up their property. Sholokhov shows how difficult and difficult it was for the Cossacks to join a new life, how slowly a turning point occurred in the minds of people who were in captivity of class and regional isolation. The formation of a new consciousness, new relationships between people is shown in the story "Alien Blood" on the example of grandfather Gavrila. The difficulty of the formation of a new consciousness in the Cossack environment during the years of breaking the old world is revealed in the story "Crooked Stitch".

The sharpness of the class struggle on the Don, complicated by class prejudices, the intensity of the clash between the new and the old are conveyed in stories simultaneously with the affirmation of the high humanism of the revolutionary struggle. Sholokhov reveals the deep humanity, truly high and noble qualities of his heroes fighting for Soviet power (“Food Commissar”, “Shibalkovo seed”).

The humanistic essence of the revolutionary struggle, the charm, kindness, sensitivity of the Cossacks who fought for Soviet power, Sholokhov contrasts with the furious, bestial malice of the enemies. The reactionary part of the Cossacks - the White Guards, Cossack officers, kulaks, belbbandits - defending proprietary interests, estate privileges, show predatory cruelty, bestial savagery and ignorance. The images of Colonel Chernoyarov and Yesaul Kramskov (“Kolovert”), Pan Tomilin (“Azure Steppe”), bandit Fomin (“Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic”), kulak Ignat (“Mortal Enemy”), commandant Anisim (“Bakhchevnik”) embody those class forces against which the heroes of Sholokhov's stories rise up and fight, the people of the new world - communists and Komsomol members.

The fierce class struggle on the Don during the years of the Civil War, the growth of consciousness of the working Cossacks on the way to a new life, the birth of new human relations in the revolutionary struggle - all these questions were posed by Sholokhov in his stories and were fully resolved by a mature artist in "Quiet Don" and "Virgin Soil Upturned".

Don stories played a big role in the creative development of Sholokhov. They were approaches to his epic works, a school where the artistic skills of the author of The Quiet Flows the Don and Virgin Soil Upturned were honed. The writer himself too severely assessed his early work, for many years he did not reprint the stories, believing that "there is too much naive and childishly helpless in them."

The young Sholokhov really abused naturalistic, deliberately refined descriptions, simply schematically revealed individual characters, obscured them with dramatic situations. However, already in the early stories, the ability to select an essential detail, to penetrate into the complex inner world of the characters, to reveal the characters in action and deeds is revealed. Major revolutionary events intrude into life, affect the minds and behavior of people, and the aspiring writer seeks to psychologically motivate these processes.

The young Dunyatka from the story “The Shepherd”, not yet realizing the full complexity of breaking life, joyfully perceives the world around her, she is happy that her brother Gregory has become a shepherd after all, that he is next to her: “Her tanned, freckled cheeks are laughing, eyes, lips, all laughing, because it was only the seventeenth spring that went to Krasnaya Gorka, and at seventeen everything seems so pompous: both the frowning face of her brother, and the lop-eared calves, chewing weeds on the go, and it’s even funny that the second day they don't have a piece of bread." But the orphaned Dunyatka had to learn grief early: her brother, the closest person to her, died in the fight against the fists. Dunyatka is completely alone in the deserted steppe. “When her heart swells with bitterness, when tears burn out her eyes, then somewhere, far from other people’s eyes, she takes out an unwashed linen shirt from her bag ... She lies down with her face and smells her native sweat. And lies still for a long time...

The miles go back. From the steppe gullies, a wolf howl, indignant at life, and Dunyatka walks along the road, goes to the city, where Soviet power is, where the proletarians study in order to be able to manage the republic in the future.

Sholokhov's stories are always based on a very specific, usually real case from the civil war and the first years of Russian power. The author most often relies on facts he has seen and experienced. The sharpness of the contradictions, the dramatic nature of the class struggle on the Don determines the vitality and sharpness of the plot situations themselves. The growth of social contradictions leads to an inevitable clash, demarcates even people who are close to each other. This conflict also determines the composition of most of the stories - the opposition of the fighting camps, the clash of people who are different in their social aspirations and human principles, often ending tragically. But the writer always permeates the narrative with affirming optimism, heartfelt lyrics. Landscape descriptions are already associated with the disclosure of the psychology of the characters, they take an active part in the events depicted. Having drawn the tense atmosphere of the battle in the story “Kolovert”, Sholokhov concludes: “And above the earth, languishing from the spring rains, from the sun, from the steppe winds, smelling of fenugreek and wormwood, a haze of smoky, streaming floated the sweet smell of earthen rust, the ticklish scent of last year’s herbs, at the root of the rooted.

The chipped blue edge of the forest trembled above the horizon, and from above, through the golden dust blanket spread over the steppe, the lark echoed the machine guns with beaded shot.

But sometimes such landscapes slipped through that did not actively participate in the narrative, did not help the development of the action, the characterization of characters and events. They were painted with deliberate sophistication: “The fog, crouching low, curled over the mowed grass, pawed the thorny stems with plump gray tentacles, wrapped the steam-smoking mop like a woman. Behind the three poplars, where the sun had set for the night, the sky was blooming with wild roses, and the steep, rearing clouds looked like withered petals, etc.

The narration in the stories is often conducted in the first person - on behalf of the grandfather Zakhar ("Azure Steppe"), the ferryman Mikishara ("Family Man"), the machine gunner Shibalyuk ("Shibalkovo Seed"). The hero of the story "Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic" Bogatyrev tells in detail about how he organized a republic in the countryside; Fedot ("About Kolchak, nettles and other things") tells the story of his dog nickname - "Kolchak" and "nettle insult". In the form of a fairy tale, the young writer was not interested in self-sufficient stylization - he sought to master the features of a living folk, colloquial language, to convey its richness and colorfulness.

"Figurative, colorful" stories, noted by Serafimovich, Sholokhov's inherent "manner of writing" distinguished his books from the books of other writers. The individual characteristic of Sholokhov's speech can be easily found in the peculiar vocabulary, and in well-aimed word combinations, and in epithets, and in the construction of the speech of the author and characters. Sholokhov compares the Cossack's beard with a "new millet broom", the handle of the Big Dipper bucket with an oblique "protruding drawbar" of a cart. Many images are built on the principle of comparison with objects or phenomena of peasant everyday life (“joy bloomed like a wild thistle”; a bullet “furrowed the darkness”; “lightning slid like a lizard”; Mishka’s hair “were like the petals of a blooming sunflower”, etc.).

One day in the library I came across an article on a literary topic purely by chance. She is about Sholokhov, more precisely, against Sholokhov, and more specifically, against The Quiet Flows the Don in school studies.
The main argument "against" is the presence in the novel of many violent scenes with special naturalistic details. And although the statute of limitations has already passed since the publication of the article, it touched my “living soul”, I decided to write a response in defense of the writer and his heroes.

There are books that are firmly engraved in memory and make a strong impression. For me, these are the books of M. Sholokhov.

What conquers me, as a reader, Sholokhov is a writer? First of all, the powerful force of representation. The artistic word of the writer has some kind of special magic that immediately captures the imagination, touches the “living soul”, awakens the thought.

When does an art book both enlighten and purify the soul and make a person better? When it touches the emotional state of the reader's soul. For me, the main thing in the writer's books is this aesthetic feeling that cannot be expressed in words, which both enlightens and purifies and makes things better.
Before Sholokhov, I had a vague idea of ​​the Cossacks. And he made it possible to look into this soul, appreciate the “quiet light” that burns in it, understand its sorrows and love it. Sholokhov, as a person and a writer, conquers by the fact that he chose the simple working peasantry as the protagonist, whose historical experience is very significant, interesting, complex and instructive for us, living in a different era, as a reminder that today the peasantry is one of the main working classes. On it, as on foundations, the whole of Russia stands.
"The history of the human soul ... is almost more interesting and not more useful than the history of an entire nation ..." Lermontov's statement.

For me, Sholokhov, a writer, is dear to me because he first of all sees the soul, and through it already events.
I live in a village, and although I may not know the deep moral roots of traditional village culture, but after reading The Quiet Flows the Don, I will say unequivocally: some folk “roots”, which so outraged the author of the article, turned out to be tenacious for centuries. Such, perhaps, is the warehouse of the national character. He is still a lover of "strong words", and today there are family "triangles" and they are far from being resolved "diplomatically", but in such a way that "feathers fly". And "on the chest" an amateur to accept. But, as folk wisdom says: "In the family - not without a black sheep." The main thing, after all, is something else - the village worker still remains faithful to the earth, he is a hard worker from dawn to dusk. And the peasant woman - and "a galloping horse ...", and into the "burning ... will enter."

Now about cruelty ... And here I want to make a reservation. Without straining the imagination, we see how much of it, cruelty, we see from the screens, we read from the pages of newspapers today. And with such details...

Sholokhov's books really have a lot of violence, bloody scenes. The world of the Cossacks, shown by the author, sometimes strikes us with its cruelty and savagery, sometimes with primitiveness and rudeness. One can be indignant at the “uncouthness” of Grigory Melekhov, his “father”, “kubyt”, “antileria”, “dislocation”.
But that was the harsh truth of life. Sholokhov does not paint "pink" pictures, he does not deceive the reader, he always remains true to the truth. Like no other writer, having the ability to invade the sphere of our feelings, he convinces of the truth of the words written by him: "My book does not belong to the category of books that are read after dinner and whose only task is to promote peaceful digestion."

I do not consider myself to be among the majority of those who read "above the text" and learn about books not only from the teacher, but also try to have their own opinion. There is a war going on. What a war! Brother against brother. The son is against the father. Five years a Cossack in the saddle, five years in the trenches ... He would “walk along the soft arable furrow as a plowman, whistle at the bulls, listen to the crane's blue trumpet cry ... and inseparably drink the wine smell of the earth raised by the plow.

And in return for this - bread cut by the blades of roads ... only black death stood up to its full height, frightened and forced it to be protected like an animal.

How not to harden the soul of a Cossack, how not to expose base feelings. And the intellect of a Cossack sometimes reaches the level of primitiveness, because he graduated from his “universities” not within the walls of an educational institution, but in military campaigns, in the household, in the field, in eternal labor.

And about naturalism, I have my own opinion. Of course, the scene of the collective rape of Frani by the Cossacks, wild in its cruelty, immediately comes to mind (here, of course, everything is envious of where the reader's imagination will take; my teeth gnash with indignation).

But I think that even here the writer cannot deserve a reproach for the reason that he did not cross the border between truthful realism and vulgar, cruel naturalism.

The writer simply portrayed the passion of the "wild" Cossacks in its consistent development, but this is by no means a vice of the Cossacks as a whole ...

I agree, there is a lot of negativity in the Cossack, but the core is healthy, and how much rational, eternal is concentrated in it. Even in this scene, because the semantic load of the episode is nevertheless transferred by the writer to the “story of the soul.” Remember? Alone against a gang of Cossacks, Grigory rushed to the defense of the girl - a completely alien person to him.

That is why Sholokhov's heroes are so firmly embedded in the memory that they are carriers of healthy principles - reason, experience, hard work, truth-seeking, moral purity.
And most importantly, the writer saw the humanity of a simple person. I remember my first acquaintance with Sholokhov, the writer. It began long before the "graduation" - with the story "Foal". She cried, childishly sobbing from tears.

And now I'm on the verge of "maturity", rereading it again. The emotional state of the soul is the same.
Two elements collided - war and peace. A living being was born, a foal was born. But the first feeling he experienced on earth was a feeling of horror from a shrapnel explosion, a howling roar. The joy of birth, the all-conquering power of life - and its violent destruction. Here it is, a contradiction that you involuntarily think about.

The writer's story sounds simple, figurative, bright, concise, but there is so much life in this conciseness, so much tension and truth. You feel what is being told - it stands before your eyes. It seems that you hear above the water this invocative cry of a foal, "to cold horror similar to the cry of a child, sonorous and honed, like a checker sting."
It seems that you see how Trofim is pulling the foal, taking it "under the cold belly." Near the coast. Junction close. And now the reader's pulse beats faster. Spasms take your breath away, tears well up in your eyes.
Here is the last monstrous effort - and Trofim's feet are already scratching the ground. And suddenly... A single shot rang out - from the right bank. The ending of the story is deeply symbolic.

The indifferent, trained movements of the officer - the killer - are on the same shore. And a man struck by a bullet a stone's throw from the rescued foal of a wonderful soul. "Hard, bluish lips, five years without kissing children, and in death they smiled."

You read this today and you see not only our past. The thought involuntarily arises in the memory of the cold, soulless indifference of those who today blow up the subway, schools, kill innocent children, and those who, sacrificing themselves, enter the struggle for life.

The great writer is a humanist... He put humanity at the head. The heroes of M. Sholokhov also advise us about the reasonable, the eternal.
Here is Grishak’s grandfather, who visited the Turkish campaign, recalls how he took a Turkish officer alive in battle: “I wanted to cut down, but then changed my mind. Man itch…”
Here Grigory flies at full speed to save Koshevoy from death: “To help out ... Blood fell between us, but we are not strangers ?!”

Here is Grandfather Gavrila (“Alien Blood”), having overcome hatred for the enemy, the wounded Red Army soldier, pities him, and then loves him like his own son: “Khuch and someone else’s blood in you, but you hurt with your soul, like for your own.”
Here Jack releases the prisoner: “Run, German! I have no malice towards you. I won't shoot. Why am I going to kill you?" (as the commander-in-chief of the Russian army Kutuzov once called for forgiveness and pity after the victory over the French).

To recognize a person in another means to become one yourself. To have pity on the enemy...But this has a deep meaning. Love for the enemy, refusal of revenge is the highest degree of humility before God, "for he commands his sun to rise over the evil and the good and send rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
After all, why is the soul of man “dehumanized”, why is man destroyed? From indistinguishability between good and evil, from hatred. And only love, kindness, humanity are creative. Therefore, the heroes of M. Sholokhov convince us, there is nothing more important in life than learning to overcome the spirit of evil in oneself and live in love and harmony.
Heroes of Sholokhov... They are so many-sided, many-voiced, sometimes restrained, sometimes spontaneous, with advantages and disadvantages. But it is with them, simple people of labor, that the writer connects the most complex, great, eternal truths.

One of them is the connection of generations, continuity, respect for the life experience and wisdom of the “fathers”, a sense of “sonship” and “paternity”. Absolute, eternal truth, on the solution of which the course of social development depends, and deviation from it threatens with moral savagery.
“Melekhovsky yard - on the very edge of the farm ...” - this is how the novel “Quiet Flows the Don” begins. Not from historical events, from the history of the Melekhov family, from the story of how, dying, an unfortunate Turkish woman leaves her son.
And here is his finale: “Well, that little thing that Grigory dreamed about during sleepless nights has come true. He stands at the gates of his native house, holding his son in his arms ... "A kind of frame. And this is symbolic. Gregory will return to the walls of his native kuren, to the native land he left behind. And he holds his son in his arms - the future successor of the family and the successor of Melekh's qualities.

Of course, Mishatka, having become an adult, will already live in a different era. Much in his way of life will be different. But I want to believe that he will not forget his folk roots.
There is also such a holy truth - the father's house. "Parental home - the beginning of the beginning and in my life a reliable pier ... " Strong rear. Father's house is like a small church where the foundations of life are laid.
Despite everything, the Melekhovsky house survived. He lost a lot and many, but survived, because he was erected not on sand, but on the “stone of faith” in the traditions of the Orthodox way of life, because he respected the life experience and wisdom of the “fathers”, kept the traditions of folk morality.

Dunyasha remains the only custodian of family and everyday traditions from the Melekhov family. And although she creates her future family not at the will of her parents (as was traditionally accepted), but on the basis of personal choice, she considers parental blessing obligatory. With difficulty, but still achieves from her husband, an atheist, the church consecration of their marriage.
It is she, Dunyasha, who loves her husband, nevertheless warns her brother about the danger that threatens him, and then, in the absence of Gregory, brings up his children. It is in family, blood ties that the power of the Melekhovsky house is. Only a strong family could survive in that formidable hard times.

And here is another episode that leads to deep thoughts about the eternal “... So the Don nightingales sang to my dear Davydov and Nagulnov, the ripening wheat whispered to them, the nameless river rang over the stones, flowing from somewhere in the upper reaches of the Gremyachiy gully ... That's all!”

Touching, soul-stirring words of the writer about the heroes dear to his heart. Loved by the reader. However, I want to stop, look around, think and be horrified by this short writer’s: “That’s all! ...” For some reason, Gorky’s one comes to mind: “Was there a boy?” or Lermontov's "Why did I live? ... for what purpose was I born?"
“... That's all! ..” As a result of life. But folk wisdom says that a person in his life must build a house, plant a tree and raise a son. when they need to be seeded…”
The basis of foundations for a person is the family. To what do we pin our hopes for our immortality? - With family and future children.

What is the main meaning of human life? - In that, having mastered the business that people need,
to pass on the secrets to his descendants, as the blacksmith Shaly does. Having no children of his own, Shaly teaches his craft to "orphans".

How much wisdom in his words: “I am proud of that, that I will die, and there will be more than a dozen heirs to my skill in the world.”
To leave your mark on the Earth is the wisdom of life. This is what is universal and eternal in the heroes of Sholokhov.
A bitter but valuable lesson is also taught to us by the Gremyachny communists, who make us think about the question: why?

Why were the heroes of "Virgin Soil Upturned" unable to create their own home, their own family, raise children? Why does the writer, having endowed his heroes with the happiness of love,
did not let them experience the happiness of fatherhood?

Probably, the reason for everything is the call of their hearts, which, unfortunately, belong only to the party.
Obsessed with the idea of ​​the party, they turned out to be wordless performers due to tragic events, they rejected the great and eternal laws that their ancestors followed. They "for a long time no longer believe in God, but in the Communist Party, leading the working people of the whole world to a blue, bright future." The ideals of family happiness are too shallow for them, inspired by the dream of universal happiness.
Or maybe this is the creative will of the writer. What spiritual heritage could the organizers of the new life pass on to their children?

And yet, humanly, it's a pity. Two people died, honest, devoted to the idea. It is a pity that "that's all ..." Who will remember? Who will come to the grave? Who will remember?
Bitter, but a lesson, and philosophical - why? Why, I ask myself, does each new generation destroy the worldview of the previous generation? Why is it that what seemed irrefutable yesterday is falling apart today? Why respect for the life experience and wisdom of the "fathers" is questionable. Why destroy, then revive the lost?

Isn't it better not to forget about the power of traditions, about the dependence of a person on the historical past?
There are hundreds of thousands of words in our Russian language. And for the heroes of Sholokhov, the most important, holy are three words: land, bread, people. These are the three roots on which our state rests. This is the very essence of the Cossacks.
The heroes of Sholokhov are great workers. The most precious quality of a person in the eyes of the Cossacks was called the epithet "hard-working". Yakov Lukich Ostrovnov is working on the ground by the sweat of his brow. One, with a family of three, almost without hiring workers, sowed 28 hectares, “he worked near the land and fed others”, handed over to the state “both bread, and meat, and butter, and skin, and wool, and poultry ...”

An excellent farmer, economic, hardworking in our time.
Ilyinichna does not straighten up, having become "humpbacked from work." The most industrious Cossack is always in business - the peasant Pantelei Prokofievich. We see Natalya's big hands, crushed by work. We rejoice for Davydov - plowed - still one tithe a day ...

And together with him we see how “... furrow after furrow - the soil, cut with loft and stalk, compressed for centuries, falls, overturned, deadly twisted rhizomes of grasses stretch to the sky, the crushed, soddy top is hidden in black shafts ... the insipid smell of black soil is life-giving and sweet ... »
The smell of black soil... The smell of the earth... Probably, it cannot be translated into the language of concepts. This smell can only be comprehended by feeling. Only those who are ready to work on the earth, whose life from childhood is connected with its cultivation, know this smell.

He is known to the Cossack, because in work is his vocation, joy, meaning and beauty of life. That is why the main thing in a Cossack is his thoughts about the land. That is why during the campaign the Cossack took with him a bundle with a pinch of his native land. Longing for home, “they walked past the plowing, and each one bent down, took a dry lump of earth smelling of the spring sun, rubbed it in his palms, and pressed a sigh.”

“The steppe is mother”, “Don is father”, - so the Cossacks said.
“Bread is the head of everything”, “There will be bread - there will be a song ...” The truth inspired by us from childhood. But how often do we remember those and pay tribute to those who get bread in the sweat of their faces, who have calloused hands and sleepless nights?
And in Sholokhov's way I want to exclaim: "Dear steppe under the low Don sky! Vilyuzhiny beams, dry valleys, red-clay ravines, a feather-grass expanse with a haunted nesting trace of a horse's hoof, mounds in wise silence ... I bow low and, sons, kiss your fresh land, the Don, Cossack, watered steppe that does not rust with blood!

This is how Sholokhov, a writer and a person, perceives his native land. He lives with his heroes with one feeling - a feeling of holy love for the earth, bequeathing it to us as the highest value.
“The history of the human soul…” It is curious what it will be like, the history of the soul of the 21st century? What will we leave for posterity?

Sholokhov's heroes are simple, but outstanding people, and Grigory is not only brave to the point of despair, honest and conscientious, but also truly talented, and not only the hero’s “career” proves this (a cornet from ordinary Cossacks at the head of a division is evidence of considerable abilities, although the Reds during the Civil War, such cases were not uncommon). This is also confirmed by his life collapse, since Gregory is too deep and complicated for the unambiguous choice required by time.

Sholokhov, like his main character, does not favor intellectuals. Among the main plot characters, there is only one intellectual (in the broad sense) - Yevgeny Listnitsky, and he is thought of as negative, although he is true to his convictions, fights honestly and bravely, marries the widow of a deceased comrade. The seduction of Aksinya by Grigory is poeticized by the author, and when an officer-landowner does the same, this is regarded as a low act, and Sholokhov, not without pleasure, describes how Grigory beats a young master with a whip. After his wife’s betrayal, Evgeny shot himself “out of displeasure,” according to the joker Prokhor Zykov, and Grigory indifferently speaks of him and his father, who died of typhus (from whom he did not see anything bad), that “there is no one to grieve about these” (book 4, part 4). 8, Chapter VII). Eugene's suicide is incomprehensible to ordinary people. During the war, they themselves forgive unfaithful wives: Petro - the prodigal Daria, as soon as she came to him at the front, Stepan Astakhov, upon returning from captivity - Aksinya (and then, when her connection with Grigory was renewed, she behaves magnanimously towards her) . Natalya agrees to live with her husband, even if he is unfaithful to her, but she no longer wants children from him, which causes her death. After that, a sense of guilt torments Daria, who let slip about the resumption of communication between Grigory and Aksinya.

The characters change significantly during the events shown. Grigory from a healthy young guy turns into an older, prematurely gray-haired man with a sick heart. Pantelei Prokofich and Ilyinichna are aging before our eyes and dying. The completely aged grandfather Grishaka, in whom one cannot seriously see the enemy, is killed by the irreconcilable Mikhail Koshevoy. Dunyashka from a girl becomes a stubborn girl who continues to love Mikhail, who killed her brother, contrary to her mother's prohibition, and then a married woman with the cares of a mistress, who is pretty cool towards Mikhail, especially when he stopped doing housework. All the changes that happen to the characters (the biggest - with the same Michael) are artistically motivated. There is only one exception - Prokhor Zykov, at first just a guy with “affectionate calf eyes” (book 1, part 3, ch. II), who is blown in the face by the sergeant (Gregory threatens to kill the sergeant if he dares to behave like that and with him), then a faithful friend and orderly of Gregory, acquiring some features of a comic figure, and finally, a merry fellow and joker, prone to verbosity, but also retaining the serious role of a true friend.

No matter how cruel the Cossacks are in specific circumstances, their humanity is emphasized, sometimes hidden behind external severity and rudeness. In the scene of the wedding of Grigory and Natalya, the Baklanov grandfather tells how he captured an enemy officer during the Russian-Turkish war: “I wanted to cut down, but then changed my mind. A man to eat ... ”(book 1, part 1, chapter XXIII). After the announcement of the war in 1914, a certain Cossack voice speaks of possible “pacifications”: “Awake! Push free hired. Let the police go, and we, kubyt, and ashamed” (book 1, part 3, ch. IV). Petro Melekhov declares that there are “no and never will be” hunters to shoot Podtelkovites, and Khristonya, after Grigory’s squabble with Podtelkov, who is going to the gallows, takes his “enraged” friend away from the place of mass execution with the words: “God, what is happening with people! ..” (book 2, part 5, ch. XXX). During the uprising, the farmers do not allow Antipas, the son of Avdeich Brekh, to kill Mikhail Koshevoy, who, as he believes, “betrayed his father to death”: “You cannot breathe life into a father, but you will destroy a man ...” (book 3, part 1). 6, Ch. XXVII). Grigory hates Peter's widow Daria because she shot at Ivan Alekseevich (who was finished off by the same Antip). Against the backdrop of mass cruelty, these and other examples of manifestations of humanity in rude and harsh people testify to the good that is inherent in them by nature and that opposes the enmity fomented by people who consider themselves involved in history.

Sholokhov's characters are people of their environment with their inherent psychology and vision of the environment. For a Cossack, a horse has the same external individuality as a man, so Zykov in the “retreat” recognizes a horse tied to a fence: “And this is Andryushka’s godfather a horse! So our farmsteads are here...” (book 4, part 7, ch. XXVII). But Pantelei Prokofich, when he drowned the mare, “listing in his mind the missing purchases, the cost of the mare, sleigh and collars, cursed furiously” (book 2, part 5, ch. XIV), falling into despair only from losses. And for his son, the heifer, whom Dunyashka brought into the room, is nothing more than walking meat: “We will go to butter pancakes with kaimak!” - Petro shouted merrily, shoving the heifer with his foot ”(book 2, part 5, ch. XIII). Koshevoy, who is already waging a “merciless war ... with Cossack satiety, with Cossack treachery, with all that indestructible and inert way of life that has rested for centuries under the roofs of imposing kurens,” is still a man of his environment. “From time immemorial, it has been done in such a way that a serviceman entering a farm should be smart. And Mishka, who had not yet freed himself from Cossack traditions, even while in the Red Army, was going to sacredly observe the old custom” (book 3, part 6, ch. LXV). In adherence to ancient customs and traditions, it is difficult to change even the most determined supporter of socio-political transformations. Showing this, Sholokhov emphasizes the tragic nature of the ongoing breakdown for those who do not need it at all.

The intellectual underdevelopment of the characters is compensated in the novel by their ability to feel passionately and feel deeply. The oppressed state of Gregory is described in detail after he, a recruit, having got into the war, killed a man. The writer conveys his feelings, instant impressions, when he was first wounded: “He felt a hot brine of blood in his mouth and realized that he was falling, - from somewhere on the side, circling, the earth dressed in stubble was rapidly rushing at him” (book 1, part 1). 3, chapter XIII). Expanded internal monologues of such characters would be out of place, but sudden impulses are sometimes more eloquent than a stream of consciousness. Grigory says goodbye very severely to Aksinya before leaving for the service, suspecting that her daughter is not from him. Ho one day, when Aksinya was in the kitchen, “he took his daughter out of the cradle and, changing the wet diaper, felt a sharp stinging excitement. He furtively bent down, shook his red protruding toe with his teeth. About Natalya, abandoned by him, who tried to commit suicide, he asks, “with special attention picking out a burdock from a horse’s mane” (book 1, part 2, chapter XXI). It expresses both embarrassment, and a sense of guilt, and fear for the life of a stranger, and the desire to look more or less indifferent.

The deep inner feelings of the characters in The Quiet Flows the Flows River can also have a distinct external expression. Arriving from the front to Aksinya, who had cheated on him with Listnitsky, Grigory, who was looking forward to her joy when he “unfolded the patterned fabric in front of her,” “repressed the dry sob that had come up ... tore the scarf into small pieces, put it under the porch.” A sense of social humiliation is mixed with ordinary human resentment. “A pitiful gift! Can Grigory compete in gifts with the son of the richest landowner in the upper reaches of the Don? Allowing Aksinya to cry, he quickly falls asleep. In the novel, it is noted that she pulls off his boots with “white hands, weaned from work” (duties of a maid, kitchen, household chores - this is not work from the point of view of the farmers). She does not know what Grigory will say and what he will do in the morning. “Aksinya, undressed, went out onto the porch and, under a cold piercing wind, under the funeral howl of a sea siver, she stood on the porch, hugging a wet pillar, not changing her position until dawn” (book 1, part 3, ch. XXIV). A woman deeply unhappy from a young age, who has betrayed the one whom she continues to love passionately, is literally insensitive to everything when she does not know if he will stay with her.

Even psychologically much less complex than Grigory, his older brother is shown as a man capable of unexpected strong feelings. Fulfilling the request of Natalya’s mother, the widow of the executed Miron Grigorievich, to secretly dig up and bring her husband’s body for a normal burial, Petro Melekhov “listened to every sound and cursed in his soul his trip, Lukinichna and even the late matchmaker.” He calls the unearthed heavy dead man “boar”. But during the parting of the grandfather Grishaki, who was at first strong, with his son, “a spasm took Peter by the throat with a wolf grip. He slowly went out to the base, to the horse moored at the porch” (book 3, part 6, chapter XXIII).

Sholokhov also conveys the subconscious of the characters, more than once telling what one or another of them dreamed about.

		Memorial plaque in Moscow
		Tombstone (view 1)
		Monument in Rostov-on-Don
		Monument in Moscow (on Gogol Boulevard)
		Bronze bust at home (view 1)
		Monument in Moscow (on Volzhsky Boulevard)
		Monument in Boguchar
		Memorial sign in Boguchar
		Memorial plaque in Boguchar (on the building of the gymnasium)
		Memorial plaque in Boguchar (on the house where the writer lived)
		Bronze bust at home (view 2)
		Memorial estate in Vyoshenskaya
		Tombstone (view 2)

W Olokhov Mikhail Alexandrovich - a great Russian writer, the largest Russian prose writer, a classic of Russian Soviet literature, an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a reserve colonel.

Born on May 11 (24), 1905 on the farm Kruzhilin of the village of the Vyoshenskaya region of the Don Cossacks (now the Sholokhov district of the Rostov region). The illegitimate son of a Ukrainian woman, the wife of the Don Cossack A.D. Kuznetsova (1871-1942) and a wealthy clerk (the son of a merchant, a native of the Ryazan region) A.M. Sholokhov (1865-1925). In early childhood, he bore the surname Kuznetsov, received an allotment of land as a "son of a Cossack." In 1913, after being adopted by his own father, he lost his Cossack privileges, becoming the "son of a tradesman." He grew up in an atmosphere of obvious ambiguity, which, obviously, gave rise to a craving for truth and justice in Sholokhov's character, but at the same time the habit of hiding everything about himself as much as possible.

From 1915 to March 1918 he studied at the Bogucharsky men's classical gymnasium. He lived on 2nd Meshchanskaya Street (now Prokopenko Street) in the house of the priest D.I.Tishansky. He graduated from incomplete three classes of the gymnasium, the Civil War prevented (in official sources - he completed four classes). During the Civil War, the Sholokhov family could be under attack from two sides: for the White Cossacks, they were "non-residents", for the Reds - "exploiters". Young Sholokhov did not have a passion for hoarding (like his hero, the son of a wealthy Cossack Makar Nagulnov) and took the side of the victorious force that established at least relative peace, served in the food detachment, but arbitrarily reduced the taxation of people of his circle; was sentenced (probation for 1 year).

His elder friend and mentor, a member of the RSDLP (b) since 1903, E.G. Levitskaya (Sholokhov himself joined the party in 1932), to whom the story “The Fate of a Man” was subsequently dedicated, believed that in Grigory Melekhov’s “reelings” in "Quiet Don" is a lot of autobiographical. Sholokhov changed many professions, especially in Moscow, where he lived for a long time from the end of 1922 to 1926. Then, after gaining a foothold in literature, he settled in his homeland in the village of Veshenskaya.

In 1923, Sholokhov published feuilletons, from the end of 1923 - stories in which he immediately switched from feuilleton comedy to sharp drama, reaching tragedy. At the same time, the stories were not devoid of elements of melodrama. Most of these works were collected in the collections Don Stories (1925) and Azure Steppe (1926, supplemented by the previous collection). With the exception of the story “Alien Blood” (1926), where the old man Gavrila and his wife, who have lost their son, a white Cossack, nurse a communist food orderer and begin to love him like a son, and he leaves them, in Sholokhov’s early works, the heroes are mostly sharply They are divided into positive (Red fighters, Soviet activists) and negative, sometimes pure villains (whites, "bandits", kulaks and kulaks). Many characters have real prototypes, but Sholokhov sharpens almost everything, exaggerates: death, blood, torture, hunger pangs are deliberately naturalistic. The favorite plot of the young writer, starting with "The Mole" (1923), is a deadly clash between the closest relatives: father and son, siblings.

Sholokhov still unskillfully confirms his loyalty to the communist idea, emphasizing the priority of social choice in relation to any other human relationships, including family ones. In 1931, he republished Don Stories, adding new ones, which emphasized the comic in the behavior of the characters (later, in Virgin Soil Upturned, he combined comedy with drama, sometimes quite effectively). Then, for almost a quarter of a century, the stories were not reprinted, the author put them very low and returned them to the reader when, for lack of a new one, they had to remember the forgotten old.

In 1925, Sholokhov began a work about the Cossacks in 1917, during the Kornilov revolt, called Quiet Don (and not Donshchina, according to legend). However, this plan was abandoned, but a year later the writer again takes up the "Quiet Flows the Don", widely unfolding the picture of the pre-war life of the Cossacks and the events of the First World War. The first two books of the epic novel were published in 1928 in the October magazine. Almost immediately there are doubts about their authorship, too much knowledge and experience required a work of this magnitude. Sholokhov brought the manuscripts to Moscow for examination (in the 1990s, the Moscow journalist L.E. Kolodny gave their description, though not strictly scientific, and comments on them). The young writer was full of energy, had a phenomenal memory, read a lot (in the 1920s even the memoirs of white generals were available), asked the Cossacks in the Don farms about the "German" and civil wars, and he knew the life and customs of his native Don like no one else.

The events of collectivization (and those preceding it) delayed work on the epic novel. In letters, including to I.V. Stalin, Sholokhov tried to open his eyes to the true state of things: the complete collapse of the economy, lawlessness, torture applied to collective farmers. However, he accepted the very idea of ​​collectivization and, in a softened form, with undeniable sympathy for the main communist characters, showed on the example of the Gremyachiy Log farm in the first book of the novel Virgin Soil Upturned (1932). Even a very flattened depiction of dispossession (“right-wing deviator” Razmetny) was very suspicious for the authorities and semi-official writers, in particular, the Novy Mir magazine rejected the author’s title of the novel “With Blood and Sweat”. But in many ways, the work suited I.V. Stalin. The high artistic level of the book, as it were, proved the fruitfulness of communist ideas for art, and courage within the limits of what was permitted created the illusion of freedom of creativity in the USSR. "Virgin Soil Upturned" was declared a perfect example of the literature of socialist realism and soon entered into all school programs, becoming a mandatory work for study.

This directly or indirectly helped Sholokhov to continue work on The Quiet Don, the release of the third book (sixth part) of which was delayed due to a rather sympathetic portrayal of the participants in the anti-Bolshevik Upper Don uprising of 1919. Sholokhov turned to M. Gorky and with his help he obtained permission from I.V. Stalin to publish this book without cuts (1932), and in 1934 he basically completed the fourth, last, but began to rewrite it again, probably not without toughening ideological pressure. In the last two books of The Quiet Flows the Don (the seventh part of the fourth book was published in 1937-1938, the eighth in 1940), a lot of journalistic, often didactic, unambiguously pro-Bolshevik declarations appeared, quite often contradicting the plot and figurative structure of the epic novel . But this does not add arguments to the theory of "two authors" or "author" and "co-author", developed by skeptics who irrevocably do not believe in the authorship of Sholokhov (A.I. Solzhenitsyn, I.B. Tomashevskaya among them). Apparently, Sholokhov himself was his "co-author", retaining mainly the artistic world that he created in the early 1930s, and fastening an ideological orientation in a purely external way.

In 1935, E.G. Levitskaya admired Sholokhov, finding that he had turned "from a 'doubter', staggering into a solid communist, who knew where he was going, clearly seeing both the goal and the means to achieve it." Undoubtedly, the writer convinced himself of this and, although in 1938 he almost fell victim to a false political accusation, he found the courage to end The Quiet Flows the Don with the complete collapse of his beloved hero Grigory Melekhov, crushed by the wheel of cruel history.

There are more than 600 characters in the epic novel, and most of them perish or die from grief, deprivation, absurdities and the disorder of life. The civil war, although at first it seems “toy” to “German” veterans, takes the lives of almost all the heroes who are remembered and loved by the reader, and the bright life, for which it was supposedly worth making such sacrifices, never comes.

Both fighting parties are to blame for what is happening, inciting bitterness in each other. Among the Reds, Sholokhov does not have such born executioners as Mitka Korshunov, the Bolshevik Bunchuk is engaged in executions out of a sense of duty and falls ill at such a “work”, but it was Bunchuk who first killed his comrade-in-arms, Yesaul Kalmykov, it was Bunchuk, the Reds were the first to chop up the prisoners, shot the arrested farmers, and Mikhail Koshevoy pursues his former friend Grigory, although he even forgave him for the murder of his brother Peter. Not only the agitation of Shtokman and other Bolsheviks is to blame, misfortunes cover people like an avalanche sweeping everything in its path as a result of their own bitterness, because of mutual misunderstanding, injustice and insults.

The epic content in The Quiet Flows the Don has not supplanted the novel, the personal. Sholokhov, like no one else, managed to show the complexity of a simple person (intellectuals do not arouse sympathy for him, in The Quiet Don they are mostly in the background and invariably speak bookish language even with Cossacks who do not understand them). The passionate love of Grigory and Aksinya, the true love of Natalya, the debauchery of Daria, the absurd mistakes of the aging Pantelei Prokofich, the mortal longing of the mother for her son who does not return from the war (Ilyinichna according to Grigory) and other tragic life interweaving make up the richest gamut of characters and situations. The life and nature of the Don are meticulously and, of course, lovingly depicted. The author conveys the sensations experienced by all human senses. The intellectual limitations of many heroes are compensated by the depth and sharpness of their experiences.

In 1939, Sholokhov was elected a full member (academician) of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In The Quiet Flows the Don, the writer's talent spilled over into full force - and almost exhausted. Probably, this was facilitated not only by the social situation, but also by the writer's ever-increasing addiction to alcohol. The story "The Science of Hate" (1942), which agitated for hatred of the Nazis, turned out to be below the average of the "Don Stories" in terms of artistic quality. Somewhat higher was the level of the chapters published in 1943-1944 from the novel “They Fought for the Motherland”, conceived as a trilogy, but never finished (in the 1960s, Sholokhov attributed the “pre-war” chapters with talk about I.V. Stalin and repressions 1937, in the spirit of the already ended "thaw", they were printed with cuts, which completely deprived the writer of creative inspiration). The work consists mainly of soldiers' conversations and tales, oversaturated with jokes. In general, Sholokhov's failure in comparison not only with the first, but also with the second novel is obvious.

By a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of March 15, 1941, Sholokhov was awarded the Stalin (State) Prize of the 1st degree for the novel "Quiet Don".

After the war, Sholokhov, a publicist, paid a generous tribute to the official state ideology, but he noted the “thaw” with a work of rather high dignity - the story “The Fate of a Man” (1956). An ordinary person, a typical Sholokhov hero, appeared in a genuine moral greatness that he himself did not realize. Such a plot could not have appeared in the “first post-war spring”, which coincided with the meeting between the author and Andrei Sokolov: the hero was in captivity, he drank vodka without a snack so as not to humiliate himself in front of German officers - this, like the humanistic spirit of the story itself, was by no means not in line with the official literature nurtured by Stalinism. "The Fate of Man" turned out to be at the origins of a new concept of personality, more broadly - a new major stage in the development of literature.

The second book of "Virgin Soil Upturned", completed by publication in 1960, remained basically only a sign of the transitional period, when humanism stuck out in every possible way, but thereby the desired was presented as real. “Warming” of the images of Davydov (sudden love for “Varyukha-goryukha”), Nagulnov (listening to cock singing, secret love for Lushka), Razmetnov (shooting cats in the name of saving pigeons - popular at the turn of the 1950s-1960s "birds of the world" ) was emphasized "modern" and did not fit with the harsh realities of 1930, which formally remained the basis of the plot. In April 1960, Sholokhov was awarded the Lenin Prize for his novel Virgin Soil Upturned.

In October 1965, Mikhail Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the artistic power and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia."

On December 10, 1965, in Stockholm, the King of Sweden presented Sholokhov with a diploma and a gold medal of the Nobel Prize winner, as well as a check for a sum of money. In his speech during the awards ceremony, the writer said that his goal was "to exalt a nation of workers, builders and heroes." Sholokhov is the only Soviet writer who received the Nobel Prize with the consent of the USSR authorities.

In 1966, he spoke at the XXIII Congress of the CPSU and spoke about the case of A.D. Sinyavsky and Yu. when they judged, not relying on strictly delimited articles of the Criminal Code, but “guided by revolutionary legal consciousness”, oh, these werewolves would have received the wrong measure of punishment! This statement made the figure of Sholokhov odious for a significant part of the intelligentsia in the USSR and in the West.

The writer L.K. Chukovskaya, in her letter to Sholokhov, predicted creative sterility after his speech at the XXIII Congress of the CPSU (1966) with defamation of A.D. Sinyavsky and Yu.M. Daniel. The prediction came true completely.

At by order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of February 23, 1967 for outstanding services in the development of Soviet culture, the creation of works of art of socialist realism, which have received nationwide recognition and actively contribute to the communist education of workers, for fruitful social activities Sholokhov Mikhail Alexandrovich He was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.

Written by Sholokhov in his best time is a high classic of the literature of the 20th century, with all the shortcomings that mark even his most outstanding works. One of the most essential features of Sholokhov's talent is his ability to see in life and reproduce in art all the richness of human emotions - from tragic hopelessness to cheerful laughter.

The contribution of Sholokhov, one of the leading masters of the literature of socialist realism, to world art is determined primarily by the fact that in his novels, for the first time in the history of world literature, the working people appear in all the richness of types and characters, in such a fullness of social, moral, emotional life that puts them into a series of undying images of world literature. In his novels, the poetic heritage of the Russian people was combined with the achievements of the realistic novel of the 19th and 20th centuries; he discovered new, previously unknown connections between the spiritual and the material, between man and the outside world. In Sholokhov's epic, man, society, nature act as manifestations of the ever-creating stream of life; their unity and interdependence determine the originality of Sholokhov's poetic world. The writer's works have been translated into almost all languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR, as well as foreign languages.

At By order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 23, 1980, for outstanding services in the development of Soviet literature and in connection with his seventy-fifth birthday, he was awarded the Order of Lenin and the second gold medal "Hammer and Sickle".

Member of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks / CPSU since 1932, member of the Central Committee of the CPSU since 1961, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st-9th convocations.

Until the end of his life he lived in his house in the village of Veshenskaya, Rostov Region. He died on February 21, 1984 from throat cancer caused by smoking. He was buried in the courtyard of the house where he lived.

Colonel (1943). He was awarded 6 Orders of Lenin (01/31/1939, 05/23/1955, 05/22/1965, 02/23/1967, 05/22/1975, 05/23/1980), Orders of the October Revolution (07/02/1971), Patriotic War of the 1st degree (09/23/1945) , medals, as well as orders and medals of foreign states, including the Order of the GDR "Great Gold Star of Friendship of Peoples" (1964), the Bulgarian orders of Georgy Dimitrov (1975) and Cyril and Methodius 1st degree (1973).

Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1960), the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree (1941), the Nobel Prize in Literature (1965), the Sofia International Literary Prize (1975), the International Peace Prize in the field of culture of the World Peace Council (1975), the International Prize "Lotus" of the Asian and African Writers' Association (1978).

Honorary citizen of the city of Boguchar, Voronezh region (1979).

A bronze bust of M.A. Sholokhov was installed in the village of Vyoshenskaya, Rostov Region; monuments - in Moscow on Volzhsky and Gogolevsky boulevards, Rostov-on-Don, Millerovo, Rostov region, Boguchar, Voronezh region; a symbolic memorial on the territory of a boarding school (former male gymnasium) in the city of Boguchar, Voronezh region; memorial plaques - in the city of Boguchar, Voronezh region, on the building in which he studied and on the house in which he lived during his studies, as well as in Moscow, on the house in which he lived during his visits to the capital. Streets in many cities are named after him.

Sholokhov Mikhail Alexandrovich Born May 24, 1905 in x. Kruzhilin, Art. Vyoshenskaya, Rostov region

Father - a tradesman before the revolution, after, that is, under the Soviet regime, a food worker. He died in 1925. Mother was killed in 1942 during the bombing of Art. Vyoshenskaya by German aircraft. Studied at the beginning school, then in the men's gymnasium. He graduated from the 4th grade in 1918. Since 1923 he has been a writer. He joined the party in 1930, party card number 0981052. He was accepted as a member of the CPSU (b) by the Vyoshenskaya party organization. He was not subjected to party penalties, was not a member of the Trotskyist or other counter-revolutionary organizations, and had no deviations from the party line. He was drafted into the army in July 1941 with the rank of regimental commissar. Served as a specialist military correspondent. Demobilized in December 1945. Awarded the Order of the Father. war of the 1st class, medals. Was not in captivity.

Vedomosti of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Heroes of Socialist Labor: biobibliogr. words. T.1. - Moscow, 2007.

9-11 grade

Methodological and bibliographic material

Emelyanova Irina Nikolaevna

lead librarian

GBUK RO "Rostov Regional Children's Library named after V.M. Velichkina"

Books by M.A. Sholokhov is always a discovery. The discovery of the truth in life and in a person, the truth that we often encounter, is nearby, as if side by side. But great talent and wisdom are needed to reveal this truth in the way that Sholokhov does, so that we shudder inwardly, asking ourselves in surprise: “How did he know all this? How to understand what we ourselves did not understand in ourselves.

Sholokhov the writer was characterized by the sharpest sense of modernity. As soon as the civil war broke out, the tears in the eyes of the Cossack women who had lost their husbands and sons had not yet dried up, the Don land, which had drunk plenty of human blood, was still smoking with fires, young Sholokhov was already writing stories and starting to create the great epic "Quiet Don". Grigory Melekhov had not yet completed his tragic path, as native and dear to his heart villages and farms were covered by a new event - collectivization began, when "life reared up like a restive horse." Sholokhov puts aside his unfinished gigantic work and writes the first part of "Virgin Soil Upturned" - the book was published almost in the midst of the events described.

Our cinema brought to the screen the peculiar world of Sholokhov's heroes

In early 1956, intensive preparations for filming began. Quiet Don.

Film director Sergey Gerasimov recalled: “Sholokhov’s novel “The Quiet Flows the Don” attracted me, first of all, because in it I saw a book, completely new. Unique in its originality, in the power of language, in the completeness of knowledge of the subject in question, in the depth and strength of the characters' images, in the severity of social and psychological conflicts. It was natural for me to want to see this book come to life on the screen ... "

The script was written by Gerasimov himself. The director outlined his creative credo in one interview: “What tasks did we set ourselves when creating the film? One that seems simple and clear... so that the viewer recognizes the characters, follows their fate, perceives everything that happens on the screen not only with consciousness, but with the heart, as he perceives the novel.

Based on the task - to most fully recreate Sholokhov's novel on the screen, the director conceived a three-episode color film, and all three episodes were to be filmed simultaneously.

The central role of Grigory Melekhov was played by Pyotr Glebov. Before choosing him, the filmmaker reviewed many actors and non-actors. An accident helped with the actor for the role of Melekhov. Glebov, Gerasimov did not even intend to try for this role. In the film, he was offered a small role of officer Merkulov - just a few lines.

Glebov showed up for a trial. The director's assistant led him into the dressing room and abruptly shouted: "Dress as an officer!" The rehearsal has begun. Director V. Dorman encouraged Glebov: “Don't worry, Gerasimov won't pay attention to you. He is interested today in the artist Igor Dmitriev - the younger Listnitsky. A frame is being shot for him…”

Meanwhile, Gerasimov, both at the rehearsal and at the test shooting, vigilantly followed Glebov. With the instinct of a great artist, the director saw in an unfamiliar actor a new contender for the role of Grigory Melekhov and asked the assistant to make him up, which caused everyone complete bewilderment. The resemblance of the make-up Glebov to Melekhov was simply amazing, if only one can speak of the resemblance of an actor to a literary character, whom each reader is free to accept and imagine in his own way. However, by that time the novel “Quiet Flows the Don” had already been illustrated so many times, and the illustrations repeated the same appearance of Grigory, that everyone already had a certain visual idea of ​​​​Sholokhov's hero.

The decision was taken. It remains to obtain the consent of Sholokhov. Mikhail Alexandrovich was in Moscow, and when he looked at Glebov, he simply said: "So this is him."

If for Glebov the opportunity to play Grigory arose unexpectedly, then for Bystritskaya the image of Aksinya was a cherished dream.

Even in her first year at the Kyiv Theater Institute, Bystritskaya performed at the training ground in the role of Aksinya. The work of the student did not satisfy the teachers. She moved with a ballet gait, abused external techniques.

The failure upset, but did not discourage Bystritskaya. She realized that the role of Aksinya was not yet her strength. But the future actress promised herself to return someday to this role.

The actress learned about the production of the film “Quiet Flows the Don” during a trip to France. This news was told to her by the artist A. Larionova. She also said that for each role there is a huge competition.

Returning to Moscow, Bystritskaya called Gerasimov on the phone and resolutely said that she would like to try for the role of Aksinya. A very laconic invitation to enter the studio followed.

Gerasimov took a risk by inviting Aksinya Bystritskaya to the role, because in the appearance and manners of Bystritskaya there was nothing “village”, something that would allow you to immediately believe in Aksinya the Cossack. But the actress has done a truly titanic work in order to completely rebuild, to achieve perfection in the performance of this complex role.

The actress paid special attention to her hands. Aksinya's hands are peasant, accustomed to physical labor. And at Bystritskaya they are graceful, thin. They resorted to special make-up, later, before shooting some episodes, Bystritskaya washed clothes for a long time so that her fingers would become coarse and lose their “intelligent” form.

Filming took place in the Dichensky farm. The actors settled in Cossack families - this was supposed to help the performers quickly get used to the new, unusual environment for them. Often the actors, together with the inhabitants of the farm, sang Cossack songs, which are known to many. And so - from day to day, from evening to evening. It was also a kind of work, a very important part of the preparation of the film, and not just pleasant entertainment. The actresses learned to carry water on a yoke, sweep the yard, fumbled with firewood to the base, the group almost in full strength worked on the construction of adobe houses. Gradually, shyness, uncertainty, a sense of inaccuracy and deliberate movements disappeared, which is characteristic of actors when they do not believe themselves. In the end, the main performers and participants in the episodes became so accustomed to the reality of Cossack life, the farm way, that it began to seem familiar to them, like their own. The whole film crew had to get to the essence of Sholokhov's prose, comprehending not only the meaning, but also the style of the novel, because one in it is inseparable from the other, to convey the wise and cruel truth that the writer endured and gave to people.

Much was given at the cost of extraordinary efforts. Particularly complex were the scenes corresponding to those places in the novel where the events of the civil war on the Don are directly depicted.

staging "Virgin Soil Upturned" conceived to do in 1960, director Alexander Gavrilovich Ivanov.

When a well-known literary work is filmed, everyone at the studio is interested in who the director will invite to the main roles. Future viewers are also worried. They write letters to the group, ask, advise.

And in the film crew, everyone looked inquisitively at Ivanov, tried to guess which of the actors he was more supportive of. But the director's face remained impenetrable.

“In the pavilion there was a scenery of the upper room, where test shootings took place,” the director was talking with the cameraman, when a man in military boots, in a green tunic, appeared at the end of the long pavilion.

The man approached, and we saw that it was a new actor - a Muscovite. It's like we've never met. And yet we were struck by some features and gestures in him.

The actor excitedly began to tell Ivanov about how he got lost in the studio and searched for the pavilion for a long time.

M-yes-yes ... M-yes! - the director said vaguely, making it clear that time is precious. The actor glanced at the lens, at the scenery, and quickly went to the table in the upper room. Extinguishing his cigarette on his heel as he walked, he ran his palm over the tabletop. He sat down and suddenly pulled the box towards himself. Seeing in it a pouch with shag, a newspaper, the actor tore off a strip from it, nervously twisted a cigarette and hastily, choking, smoked. His eyes widened with rage and stared at the invisible interlocutor. Suddenly the actor jumped up, leaned over the table and, turning purple, gasping for breath, yelled: “You are ... whose speech? What are you doing, I’m here for a counter?.. Laugh at socialism, you bastard?” At this point, even a blind man would have guessed that the pavilion was Nagulnov.

So the artist E. Matveev won the role of Nagulnov with one blow.

After the test, they returned to the question of Davydov: they were impatient to find out with whom Matveev would have to work, who would restrain the selfless Nagulnov, quick-tempered like gunpowder.

During the trial period, the following tests were carried out in front of the movie camera, and then the following were approved: V. Dorofeev - Shchukar, F. Shmakov - Razmetnov, L. Khityaeva - Lushka, P. Glebov - Polovtsev, V. Chekmarev - Ostrovnov, E. Lebedev - Beskhlebnov. One or even two candidates competed with each of the named actors. And a number of actors were called for the role of Davydov. Director Ivanov looked at them not very carefully. He was clearly waiting for someone. With the arrival of the artist Pyotr Chernov, the question of the performer of the role of Davydov was closed: Chernov was given the responsible role.

For the winter nature, the film crew of "Virgin Soil Upturned" chose the village of Karginskaya, because. most of the group knew the life and way of life of the Cossacks from the works of Sholokhov. For success in working on a picture, filmmakers needed to see the living participants in the events told.

The results of these meetings and conversations were sometimes immediately apparent, sometimes their beneficial effect was felt after a while. Here is what the artist L. Gurova, who played the role of Nastenka Donetskova, the most furious Cossack, said. “The image of Nastenka seemed to me completely clear, indisputable. What is there to clarify with the locals? But once they are ordered, it must be done. I met with one, with another Cossack. They are not remembered. But the old woman Evdokia, nicknamed Valushikha, I still remember. And what she said was not forgotten. “I was born in the steppe! the old woman said proudly. - I grew up on a horse. There was fire! She herself, in a woman's rebellion, dragged sacks around the farm! .. "

Valushikha described in detail to the actress the whole picture of the looting of collective farm barns. The story was so figurative and juicy that Gurova many times thanked the lucky chance that brought her to the old woman.

The scene of the "woman's rebellion" was filmed very interestingly. In the Alder Horn, filmmakers found an old barn. They clung to him, because. the operator and the artist traveled around the villages and farms, and they were upset by the signs of the new in village life. The barn became the main point around which the dramatic events of the "Women's Revolt" were recreated.

In this scene, the operator Fastovich and his camera required great mobility and maneuverability. The same qualities were needed in the filming of the episode of the beating of Davydov.

Neither persuasion, nor reminders of responsibility, nor shouting, nor cunning helps Davydov. There comes a moment when he is no longer able to restrain the onslaught. With pain and anger, he shouts: “They are damned for you ... We are doing it for you ... And you are killing me!”

The crowd commits lynching. Cossack women beat Davydov with anything, tear, scratch. He falls to the ground, exhausted but not defeated.

Chernov's make-up was changed three times. Three times the actor withstood a hail of sometimes sensitive blows. The best of the takes gave a believable picture of the beating.

The third series of the film was released when moviegoers were still freshly impressed by the final chapters of the novel that had just been read, published simultaneously with the release of the first two series of the film.

How rich is Sholokhov's prose! Sholokhov's short stories are distinguished by special capacity and completeness. Filmmakers often turn to "Don stories" Mikhail Alexandrovich. They were attracted by the dynamic development of the plot, short dialogues, well-aimed remarks, a deep comprehensive disclosure of characters, and finally, a sharp, intense conflict, i.e. everything that is so necessary for the script.

The first of Sholokhov's early stories was filmed "Shepherd".

Following the "Shepherd" in 1959, the film by V. Fetin was released "Foal”, where the People's Artist of the USSR Yevgeny Matveev starred in the role of Trofim.

In 1964, V. Fetin again turned to the work of M.A. Sholokhov, making a film "Don story" starring Yakov Shibalka - Yevgeny Leonov. (stills from the film)

In 1965, a film directed by V. Monakhov was released "Unsolicited Love" (picture)

In 1971 - "In the azure steppe" directed by V. Koltsov (picture)

In 1972 - "Mortal Enemy"- director E. Matveeva. Having put this picture, E. Matveev for the third time touched the work of M.A. Sholokhov. (picture)

The directors who filmed these stories of Sholokhov created interesting productions. Undoubtedly, their success was facilitated by the literary source, which made it possible to widely show the director's talent.

But special success fell to the lot of the film by Evgeny Karelov "Sneaky".

Day after day, in one of the rooms at Mosfilm, the conversation about the main character of the future picture was resumed. Old views were defended or new views were put forward, other assumptions were made, but the essence of the conversation was always the same: how to quickly find a boy for the role of Nakhalyonok for the film of the same name.

Kids were brought to the studio every day. They sang "A Christmas tree was born in the forest", "We have a red flag", read poetry, played. Karelov - the director of the picture and his assistants watched the children from the side, and then "tried" one or two boys in simple improvisations. All this ended with a disappointing conclusion: “We don’t have Nakhalenok yet!” Markelov - the second director - agreed and again went in search.

One day, approaching the kindergarten, he saw a funeral procession in the street. And then the director drew attention to the boy standing at the gates of the kindergarten. The kid didn't show much of anything. He just watched what was happening. But his face expressed acute bewildered grief. "Is it really Nakhalyonok?" (photo)“It's hard for me to explain why this particular boy excited me,” says Markelorv. “After all, there were other children there. But I saw in him something very related to that Nakhalyonok, who stood by the cart with his murdered father - “father”, as Mishka called him.

The boy said that he was Vova Semyonov, that he was about six years old, that his mother was a carriage driver, and his father was a driver. When Vova appeared at the studio a day later, he did not delight the director. He was a thin boy with short bangs. He did not at all resemble the shooter whom I wanted to see in the picture. And yet there was something special in Volodya. Other boys were capricious, asking to go home. But Volodya was in no hurry and did not want to leave the studio at all. "I want to shoot!" he stated categorically. Then Karelov took him in his arms and said how Mishka, breaking out of his father’s arms, shouted: “Let him go, father!” "Can you scream like that?" asked Karelov. Volodya tried. And this short “Let go, father!” decided the choice.

But the first test in front of a movie camera upset the director. Vova played himself. There was no Nakhalyonok character. But the boy tried to understand the task, asked the director: “How, Uncle Zhenya, should I do it?” And it was reassuring. At the next rehearsal, Vova managed to convey individual traits of Mishka’s character, and Karelov breathed a sigh of relief: “There is a cheeky one!” The rest was in the hands of the director.

The creative core of the production group was young people. The director Yevgeny Efimovich Karelov, the cameraman German Shatrov, the artist Boris Tsarev and the second director Anatoly Markelov had short creative biographies and "Nakhalyonok" became their first big work.

Among the actors there were also several young performers. D. Netrebin, playing the role of Mishka's father - Foma Korshunov, for the first time in "Nakhalyonka" received a leading role. Prior to that, he had performed only in episodes. Netrebin has a scar on his forehead. It seemed to him that this interfered with acting work. But for the image of a fighter of the revolution, the scar came in handy. The actor had little to make up - they glued on a mustache and swept out his eyebrows.

For V. Burlakova, the role of Mishka's mother was also the first significant work in the cinema. But the most experienced actors who recreated Sholokhov's images in other films were invited to play the roles of grandfather and priest. The performer of the role of grandfather, D. Ilchenko, played in the "Quiet Don" Pantelei Melekhov. Three decades after working on Aksinya, Emma Tsesarskaya took up the role of the priest with great desire. (frame)

It was difficult for artists, both beginners and experienced ones, to play in Nakhalyonka. In general, actors are at a disadvantage when their partner is a child. It distracts the lion's share of the audience's attention. Sympathy is directed towards him even when the little artist appears only in an episode. And in "Nakhalyonka" Mishka is the main character. Through his boyish perception, through his eyes, the viewer should see the village of the period of formation and strengthening of Soviet power on the Don. Each artist understood that the success of the boy is the success of the whole team. But there was another reason for the actor's "self-sacrifice". Vova Semyonov was liked by everyone. He was heartily loved and spoiled.

In Sholokhov's story there are such lines about Mishka: “For his father, he is Minka. For mother - Minyushka. For grandfather - in a tender moment - a baby, at other times, when grandfather's eyebrows hang in gray tatters over his eyes, - "Hey, Mikhailo Fomich, go, I'll wrap your ears around!" And for everyone else: for gossip neighbors, for children, for the whole village - Mishka and Nakhalyonok.

The relationship between the actors and the boy developed in such a way that he really was Minka for Netrebin, for Ilchenko a baby, for the boys Nakhalyonok. Affectionate words - "father", "mother", "grandfather" came from Volodya from the soul.

The most difficult scene for a little actor is the death of his father, and Karelov wanted to shoot a crying Mishka at the wagon. Tears could be imitated with glycerin, they could be called with a bow or a shout. From all this, the director refused. It was important for him to achieve a natural great feeling from the boy.

Come on, Vova, work for real! - with the approach began the director. - When you come to the wagon, you will have to cry ... But the boy did not understand how it was to cry on assignment.

Uncle Jenya. HOW is it to cry?

Imagine if your dad died...

How should you imagine?

You will take the father by the hand ... you will cry ...

Uncle Jenya! You pay yourself, and I'll see.

Karelov had to cry. Volodya looked intently into the face of the director. The little actor already understood what they wanted from him, and tried, but did not know how to do it.

Uncle Jenya! Let grandpa cry now.

Ilchenko also had to shed a tear. The boy inquisitively looked at the director of the actor, then sadly turned away.

The director led him to the cart. Volodya has completely changed. Shuddering, he took the lying actor by the hand and looked at the sailor's shirt of the "father" with moist, frightened eyes wide open. Tears flowed down Volodya's face, hot, living tears. (excerpt from the film)

Excitement seized everyone who was in the pavilion. The operator's face twitched, and he barely completed the shooting. With difficulty, the director followed the boy. The play of the little "actor" was so direct, so touching that no one could remain calm.

On the episode of Misha's farewell to his father, the shooting of Volodya Semyonov ended. But the image of Nakhalyonok created by him will not leave the screen for a long time, and the audience will thank the little “actor” more than once for the exciting direct performance of the role.

In the first post-war years, going fishing, Mikhail Alexandrovich every time tried to take with him more bread.

"Why so many?" - sometimes surprised his companions.

“To the bait, to the bait,” he explained, as if casually.

And it’s true, wherever, in whatever corner of the Don or Khopra Sholokhov set up his fishing camp, entire shoals instantly went to that place. Only not fish, but farm boys. As starlings, flying off, they cluster nearby and look. Mikhail Alexandrovich does not torment them with expectation: he will untie the backpack, pull out a loaf: “Take it, one-sacks, share it!”

Once, among such a flock, Mikhail Aleksandrovich noticed a fair-haired, big-eyed boy of eight years old in a tattered, pre-wounded clothes. He beckoned to himself:

Where are you from, gypsy?

I'm an uncle, not a gypsy... I'm Russian... My name is Vanyushka.

And where do you live, Vanyushka?

And when where, - the boy answered carelessly - I am a stray ...

Sholokhov looked at the boy for a long time, without asking anything. I understood everything myself. He swallowed a suffocating lump, and said cheerfully:

Only sheep or chickens are stray, but you are a man ... do you want something to eat?

The boy shook his head in agreement.

Then we went to our hut.

... Maybe he, this Vanyushka, appeared to the world a few years later in the story "The Fate of a Man."

From the story of Sholokhov "Destiny of Man" a new stage in the development of our military literature began. And again, Sholokhov's fearlessness and Sholokhov's ability to show the era in all its complexity and in all its drama through the fate of one person played a role here.

After The Fate of a Man, omissions about the tragic events of the war, about the bitterness of captivity experienced by many Soviet people, became impossible. Sholokhov's story, as it were, pulled the curtain from much that was hidden by the fear of "offending the winners, spoiling the heroic portrait of Victory."

"The Fate of a Man" was the first directorial work of S. Bondarchuk. He read Sholokhov's story in Pravda - it was like a blow to the heart. And he really wanted to make a movie. The idea did not suit the yard: for the actor to shoot, and even on the basis of a short story ... But he did it.

“When it became known,” B. Polevoy wrote in a review of the film “The Fate of a Man”, that the artist Sergei Bondarchuk, conquered by the power of this Sholokhov’s work, decided to make a film based on it and play the main character in it, the thought somehow involuntarily arose: is it possible to do this without adding anything or excluding anything, is it even possible to transfer it to the screen without violating or distorting the captivating cordiality of the narrative?

And Sholokhov at first had a mistrust of Bondarchuk - a city man: "Will he be able to fit into the skin" of Andrei Sokolov, a character seen in the very core of people's life? He looked at his hands for a long time and said: “Sokolov’s hands are different ...” And then he told how one Cossack fell ill and the doctor ordered him to do a blood test. The needle went down many times, and each time it broke - it could not pierce the skin on his arm, which worked all his life.

Later, while already with the film crew in the village of Vyoshenskaya, Bondarchuk, dressed in a Sokolov costume, knocked on the gate of the Sholokhov house. Mikhail Alexandrovich did not immediately recognize him. And when he found out, he gasped in amazement and did not talk about his hands anymore. Soon, just like Sholokhov, Bondarchuk was recognized by the Vyoshensky Cossacks and Cossacks. “Andrey went to work,” they said, seeing him go to the shooting. With the same conviction as Bondarchuk and unshakable faith in success, the cameraman V. Monakhov began work on the film. And when Andrey Sokolov walked across the screens of the country in his padded jacket, leading the boy adopted by him by the hand, it became clear: a real hero had come to the cinema. Andrey Sokolov is something much more than Andrey Sokolov himself: this is the image of the Russian people, his soul ...

The film would be incomplete, impoverished, if it were not for the image of Irina, Sokolov's wife, created by Zinaida Kiriyenko.

Here they are both on the screen - Andrei and Irina Sokolov ... They lived well before the war. They lived as they could only dream of. Free, independent, beautiful, they loved their work, their children.

The war hit the life of the people like a huge hammer on a living body. She struck, immediately breaking and destroying everything, breaking the strongest human ties, orphaning mothers, wives, sisters.

Zinaida Kiriyenko in the scene where Irina, as if blinded by grief near a soldier's car, escorts Andrei to the front, will never be forgotten. Modest and simple, unpretentious Zinaida Kiriyenko in her cheap half-shawl, casually, somehow hastily tied, in a short simple jacket. Almost unconsciously, she looks after the departed echelon and, it seems, sees nothing. The actress lives with the tragic feeling of the enormous unbearable grief of her Irina, and this makes her beautiful.

Z. Kiriyenko allows us to feel Irina's terrible guess - her heroine knows that this parting is forever; from now on it's all over. (frame from the film)

When the test of war falls on the hero, Bondarchuk raises Sokolov to a new, higher level of morality.

All episodes about the hero’s stay at the front, and then in captivity, are played by Bondarchuk with such force, restraint and at the same time sensitively, that here and again it seems to us that it was as if we saw the war on the screen for the first time, as if for the first time we felt all its horror and everything. found the strength to overcome. (photo)

A number of episodes of Nazi captivity were filmed in the villages of Ternovka and Gubarevo. For filming the overnight stay of prisoners of war, the group used the skeleton of the church, destroyed by the Nazis during the occupation.

On the screen is not a faceless mass. There are weak and persistent, strong-willed and cowardly. The first night of terrible trials - she tests everyone in her own way. The episode of the shooting of prisoners was filmed at dawn. But even at this early hour, a lot of spectators gathered at the set. There was a volley. And at the same time, the artists heard a heartbreaking cry. A woman standing in the audience screamed. It turned out that in this very place the Nazis shot her son. Thus the truth of life coincided with the truth of art.

Bondarchuk does not single out Sokolov in these scenes. It is important for the director to show the courage of others. The scene emphasizes that there are many people like Sokolov.

Let us recall another scene where Andrei Sokolov, summoned by the commandant of the concentration camp for interrogation, torture and, probably, to death, wins a moral victory. Andrey's duel with the commandant is amazing. When he, half-dead, drinks vodka - three glasses one after another, with Russian heroic dashing, without snacking. Snack - bread and bacon - he gives to his comrades in captivity, unfortunately.

Sokolov - Bondarchuk remains himself in a fascist concentration camp; but after all, he is going through his most painful days here, rooting for dying friends, tormented by uncertainty and anxiety about children, about Irina. And we are infected with these feelings, we are proud that captivity and torture do not change the moral being of the hero, do not break his spiritual integrity. He may no longer hope for freedom and life, but he continues to fight for them as soon as circumstances permit. And if the hero himself, with his innocence inherent in him, does not think at all, does not guess that he is a hero, then the actor helps us very clearly see this unparalleled heroism as a property of Russian, truly human nature. Even in these difficult circumstances, the artist allows us to rejoice in the strength of the hero, to be proud of the hero.

Sergei Fedorovich invited Sholokhov and Gerasimov to view the work that had just been mounted. The film ended, the lights were turned on, and there was a long, painful pause, after which Sholokhov suddenly took it and abruptly left the hall. Gerasimov said some kind words, and the downcast Bondarchuk and his wife Irina Skobtseva drove home. They were silent as if stunned. Two hours later, Sholokhov called: “Give me Sergei” (with his characteristic Cossack “g”) And he said: “Forgive me. I was afraid to get pissed off. Just came to my senses."

There were ceremonial films about the war, or serious, but chilly ones. There were films imbued with longing and bitterness of heavy irreversible losses ... But there was no film before “The Fate of a Man” that would have absorbed the great ability of the Russian people to resist ...

Roman by M.A. Sholokhov "They fought for their country"- a work of amazing harmony of composition. This is only four days of the week, from dawn to sunrise, the last day is Sunday. And this is a symbolic meaning, a generalization unexpected in breadth of thought - an anticipation of future victories.

This talented novel powerfully attracted Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk. “Probably, sooner or later, but I would still come to a picture about the Great Patriotic War,” Bandarchuk recalled. - “If only because I myself belong to a generation that took part in it and paid with their lives for the joy of a peaceful life. The war still lives as an unhealed wound in the soul. Perhaps that is why I myself put on a soldier's overcoat and played the role of Zvyagintsev in the film.

One of the many meetings between S. Bondarchuk and M.A. Sholokhov in his house in the village of Vyoshenskaya, on the Don. She left a deep imprint in the soul of everyone who worked on the film "They Fought for the Motherland." Mikhail Alexandrovich said then: “The whole world has long known about the Russian soldier, his valor, his Suvorov qualities. But this war showed our soldier in a completely different light. I want to reveal in the novel the new qualities of the Soviet soldier, which so exalted him in this war. I have to write about this out of a sense of duty to those who died the death of the brave in battles with the Nazis, and for those who went through this great school of war.

The "non-healing wound" war entered the lives of many actors who starred in the film. Stalingrader, former soldier, actor of the older generation Ivan Lapikov, who played the role of foreman Poprishchenko, who became the head of the soldiers after the death of Lieutenant Goloshchekov. What amazing depth of feelings and thoughts Sholokhov gave in his farewell speech at a fresh steppe grave, when he addressed the living like a father: “Comrade soldiers, my sons, soldiers! We are burying our lieutenant, the last officer that remained in our regiment ... (stills from the film)

Military memory also burned Yuri Nikulin, who plays the role of a soldier Nekrasov, a calm man, with good humor, dignity, from which confidence in victory emanates. After all, this actor did not have to invent anything superfluous, he himself went a long way along the roads of war, defended Leningrad, liberated Estonia and Latvia. Even during breaks in filming, he did not part with a soldier's uniform!

"We always remember!" - Vyacheslav Tikhonov (who played the difficult role of Nikolai Streltsov), and Georgy Burkov (soldier Kopytovsky), and Nikolai Gubenko (lieutenant Goloshchekov), and Vasily Shukshin (soldier Lopakhin), and all other participants in the picture who did not pass the fiery school of battles, but to one degree or another experienced, and shared with the people the bitterness of the loss of military hard times.

The role of Lopakhin in the film "They Fought for the Motherland" was played by Vasily Shukshin, a man of rare, versatile talent - writer, actor, film director. This was his last role.

Yes, the film "They Fought for the Motherland" is just a story about four days, bitter, tragic, scorched by the war. But in him there is a high faith in victory, the indestructibility of life, which breaks through with mighty sprouts, despite the land red-hot from military conflagrations, deformed by shells, bombs, cut by fragments and bullets.

“Now, after the production of the film “They Fought for the Motherland,” said S.F. Bondarchuk, - “When every line of the work is comprehended, thought out, I can say with confidence that this novel is one of the best creations of Sholokhov. I say this not from being in love with the work (although such a feeling was natural for everyone who created the picture).

It is estimated that it took a total of over 10 years to work on all the works of Sholokhov's works. Thousands of people participated in the making of these films. Not all films expected the same success. But each of the participants - whether it be a props or costume designer, a pyrotechnician or a gunsmith, a sound engineer or a composer, a screenwriter or director, an artist or cameraman, an extra or an actor - everyone did everything in his power to make Sholokhov's images live on the screen a full-blooded life.

Films based on Sholokhov's works were shot at different times, at different studios, but those who created these films were united by their love for the writer's work, they were worried about the depth of the works that were to be visibly embodied on the screen.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Agisheva G. The fate of man. Sergey Bondarchuk: a minion of fate - and a slandered, humiliated, deceived master ... / / Our time (Business Tuesday) .-2001.- May 25 .- (History of a masterpiece)

2. Bondarchuk S.F. Desire for a miracle. - M.: Mol. Guard, 1981. - 222C. - (Masters of Arts - Youth).

3. Vlasov A., Mlodik A. Heroes of Sholokhov on the screen: a report from the film studio. - M.: Art, 1963. - 304 p., ill.

4. Gerasimov S. Collection. Op. in three volumes. T. 2 cinema. Cinema pedagogy. - M.: Art, 1983. - 415 p., 7 sheets of illustrations.

5. Gromov E. Ascension to the hero: Screen and youth: A book for teachers, 1982. - 191s., ill.

6. Parfenov L. Sergey Gerasimov. - M.: Art, 1975. - 280s., 24 sheets. Il. - (Masters of Soviet cinema).

7. Tolchenova N. World of Beauty: Cinema by Sergei Bondarchuk. - M.: Sov. Russia, 1974. - 288S., ill.

ILLUSTRATIONS:

1. Heroes of Sholokhov on the screen: (Postcards) Ed. M. Neumann. Those. Ed. V. Yantsevich. - M.: Polygraphist, 1980. - 10 postcards in the cover.

2. Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov [Album] / Comp. S.N. Gromtseva, T.R. Kurdyumova.-M.: Enlightenment, 1982.-73l.

3. Life and work of M.A. Sholokhov: Materials for an exhibition at school and children's library / / Comp. And enter. Art. V.V. Gura; Designed by T. Ordynsky.- M.: Det. lit.-1985.-18 p. photoill.- (Exhibition at school).

MOVIES:

• Quiet Don (Mosfilm, 1958) - based on the novel of the same name. Director and scriptwriter - Sergey Gerasimov.
• The fate of man (Mosfilm, 1959) - based on the story of the same name. Screenwriter - Lukin, Yuri Borisovich.
• Virgin Soil Upturned (1959-1961) - based on the novel of the same name.
• Nakhalenok (1961) - based on the story of the same name. Director - Evgeny Karelov.
• When the Cossacks Cry (1963) - based on stories from the Don Stories cycle. Director - Evgeny Morgunov.
• Donskaya tale (1964) - based on the stories "Shibalkovo seed" and "Birthmark". Directed by Vladimir Fetin.
• In the azure steppe (film almanac in 3 parts) - according to early stories.
• Kolovert (1970) (ch. 1)
• Wormhole (1970) (ch. 2)
• Food Commissioner (Mosfilm, 1970) (part 3)
• "The Foal" (1959) - a short film based on the story of M. A. Sholokhov, dir. Vladimir Fetin.
• "They fought for their homeland" (1975) - based on the novel of the same name - dir. Sergey Bondarchuk.

Heroes of Sholokhov on the screen