Grigory Melikhov - characterization and tragedy of the hero. The image of Gregory Melikhov in the novel "Quiet Flows the Don"

Mikhail Sholokhov knew and loved his small homeland and could describe it perfectly. With this he entered the Russian literature. First there were "Don stories". The then masters paid attention to him (none of them today knows the reader) and said: "Beautiful! Well done! "Then they forgot ... And suddenly the first volume of the work appeared, which almost put the author on a par with Homer, Goethe and Leo Tolstoy. In the novel-epic "Quiet Flows the Don," Mikhail Aleksandrovich faithfully reflected the fate of the great people, the endless search for truth in the chaotic years of the civil war and the bloody revolution.

Quiet Don in the fate of the writer

The image of Grigory Melikhov captivated the entire reading public. Young talent would develop and develop. But the circumstances did not help the writer to become the conscience of the nation and the people. Sholokhov's cossack nature did not allow him to break into the favorites of the rulers, but they also did not allow him to become in Russian literature what he was to become.

Many years after the Great Patriotic War and the publication of The Destiny of Man, Mikhail Sholokhov in his diary makes a strange, at first glance, entry: "They all liked my Man. So I lied? I do not know. But I know what I did not say. "

Favorite hero

From the first pages of the "Quiet Don" the writer draws a diverse and wide river of life of the Don Cossack village. And Grigory Melikhov is just one of many interesting characters in this book and besides not the most important, as it seems at first. His mental horizon is primitive, like a grandfather's saber. He does not have anything to become the center of a large art canvas, except for his self-willed, explosive nature. But the reader from the first pages feels the writer's love for this character and begins to follow exactly his destiny. What attracts us and Gregory from the youngest years? Probably his biology, his blood.

Even male readers are not indifferent to him, like those women from real life, who loved Gregory more than life. And he lives like the Don. His inner male power involves everyone in his orbit. In our time, these people are called charismatic personalities.

But there are other forces in the world that require reflection and analysis. However, they continue to live in the village, not suspecting anything, thinking that they are protected from the world by their courageous moral virtues: they eat their own bread! They serve the Fatherland in the way grandfathers and great-grandfathers punished them. All the campers, including Grigory Melikhov, seem that there is no more just and sustainable life. They sometimes fight among themselves, because of women in general, not knowing that women choose, preferring powerful biology. And this is correct - so mother-nature ordered herself so that the human race, including Cossacks, would not dry out on Earth.

War

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

The village of Veshenskaya and the Tatarsky farmsteads were not founded by St. Petersburg, nor was it fed. But the idea that life itself is almost given to every Cossack personally not by God, but father and mother, and by some center, broke into the tough but just life of the Cossacks by the word "war". Something similar was created on the other side of Europe. Two large groups of people went organized and civilized against each other by war to flood the earth with blood. And they were inspired by their false ideas, clothed in words about love for the Fatherland.

War without embellishment

Sholokhov draws the war as it is, showing how it maims the souls of men. At home were sad mothers and young wives, and the Cossacks with peaks went to war. Gregory's saber first tasted human meat, and in a flash he became a completely different person. The dying German listened to him, not understanding a word of Russian, but realizing that the universal evil is being accomplished, the essence of the image and likeness of God is crippled.

Revolution

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

Grigory Melikhov is involved in a struggle that is alien to him by definition. Who started this swara, in which the Russians hated Russians? The main character is not asked this question. His fate bears on life, like a blade of grass. Grigory Melikhov with astonishment listens to the friend of his youth, who began to speak incomprehensible words and look at him with suspicion.

And Don flows calmly and majestically. The fate of Grigory Melihov for him is only an episode. New people will come to its shores, a new life will come. About the revolution, the writer says almost nothing, although everyone talks about it and a lot. But nothing is remembered from what they said. The image of Don dwarfs everything. And the revolution is also only an episode on its banks.

The tragedy of Grigory Melikhov

Simply and clearly began his life the main character of Sholokhov's novel. He loved and was loved. Vaguely believed in God, without going into details. And in the future he lived as simply and clearly as he did in his childhood. Grigory Melikhov did not retreat from his essence, nor from the truth that he absorbed into himself, along with the water he drew from the Don. And even his sword did not bite into the human bodies with pleasure, although he had inherent abilities to kills. The tragedy was precisely that Grigory remained an atom of society, which can be alien to him or split into component parts, or can be combined with other atoms. He did not understand this and sought to remain free, like a majestic Don. In the last pages of the novel, we see him reassured, the hope for happiness flickers in his soul. Doubtful point of the novel. Will the main character get what he dreams about?

The End of the Cossack Way of Life

The artist may not understand anything of what is happening around him, but he must feel life. And Mikhail Sholokhov felt it. Tectonic shifts in world history destroyed the Cossacks' cute way of life, distorted the souls of the Cossacks, turning them into meaningless "atoms", which became suitable for the construction of anything and anyone, but not for the Cossacks themselves.

Didactic politics in 2, 3, and 4 volumes of the novel are many, but, describing the way of Grigory Melikhov, the artist involuntarily returned to the truth of life. And the false ideas receded into the background and dissolved in the haze of centenary prospects. The triumphant notes of the final part of the novel drown out the reader's longing for a bygone life that, with such incredible artistic power, was painted by the writer in volume 1 of the "Quiet Don".

The first as a basis

Sholokhov begins his novel by describing the appearance of a child who founded the genus Melikhov, and ends with a description of the child who must extend this genus. "Quiet Don" can be called a great work of Russian literature. This work not only opposes everything that was later written by Sholokhov, but is a reflection of the core of the Cossack people, which gives the writer his hope that the life of the Cossacks on Earth did not end. Two wars and a revolution are only episodes in the life of a people who are aware of Don Cossacks. He will still wake up and show his beautiful Melikhov soul to the world.

The life of the Cossack family is immortal

The protagonist of the Sholokhov novel entered the very heart of the Russian people's worldview. Grigory Melikhov (his image) ceased to be a nominal character in the 30s of the twentieth century. It can not be said that the writer endowed the hero with typical features of the Cossack. Just typical of Grigory Melikhov is not enough. And there is no special beauty in it. He is handsome with his power, a vital force that can overcome all the superficial things that come to the shores of the free, quiet Don.

It is an image of hope and faith in the highest meaning of human existence, which is always the basis of everything. Strangely enough, the ideas that tore the village of Veshenskaya were destroyed, the Tatarsky hamlets were wiped off the ground, and the novel "Quiet Flows the Don" and the fate of Grigory Melikhov remained in our minds. This proves the immortality of the Cossack blood and bloodline.