Classics of Russian Literature | Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, 1905–1984 (Lecture 29)

Lecture 29: Sholokhov’s best work goes along lines very different from what we have seen in Gorky and Maiakovsky. If to them, the revolution represented something highly desired and necessary, Sholokhov saw it as a tragic force that wiped out a whole community—the Cossacks— who were very dear and close to him. It was entirely natural that these people, with their vigorous and colorful (albeit crude) culture, who had occupied a privileged position for three centuries under the tsars, formed the most active and militarily effective resistance to the establishment of a new revolutionary regime. In the first part of And Quiet Flows the Don, Sholokhov gives a vivid picture of pre-World War I Cossack life, with its rich farms, love of horses, lust for women, and a military tradition that habitually struck terror in the hearts of all enemies, foreign and domestic, of the tsar. Seen largely through the eyes of a decent man, Gregor Melekhov, Cossack life and lands appear in all their glory and all their defects.

Suggested Reading:
C. G. Bearne, Sholokhov.
Mikhail Sholokhov, And Quiet Flows the Don, translated by Stephen Garry.