Grigory Melekhov. Interesting facts The role of portrait sketches in revealing the spiritual world of Grigory Melikhov

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

Quiet Don in the fate of a writer

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

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

Favorite hero

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

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

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

War

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

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

War without embellishment

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

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

Revolution

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

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

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

The tragedy of Grigory Melikhov

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

The end of the Cossack way of life

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

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

The first one as a basis

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

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

The life of the Cossack family is immortal

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

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

M. Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don” is a work of extraordinary power. The heroes of the novel reflect the historical and social upheavals of the twentieth century. Sholokhov created a gallery of images that, by the power of their expressiveness, artistic value stood on a par with the most wonderful images of the world classics. Sholokhov introduced people from the people into great literature, and they occupied central places in the novel. K. Simonov, discussing the novel, wrote: “And there were no such psychological problems problems that he would not have undertaken to solve by analyzing the soul of this so-called simple man, the whole complexity of which he proved with such determination and strength on the pages of his books.”
Among the characters in the novel, the most attractive and controversial, reflecting the complexity of the quest of the Cossacks during the Civil War, is Grigory Melekhov. The image of Grigory Melekhov is not static; he is in the closest connection with the Cossacks of the entire Don, who, like him, suddenly lost their usual guidelines in life. Grigory Melekhov is a thinking, searching person. He fought bravely during World War I and received the St. George Cross. And everything was clear and understandable in the hero’s life. He is a Cossack - the support of the state - while there is no war, he sows and plows, but when called up for service, he goes to defend the fatherland. But October Revolution, and the civil war that followed it, threw Sholokhov’s hero into confusion. Grigory is trying to make his choice. After meeting with Podtelkov, Grigory begins to fight on the side of the Reds, but in his soul he cannot completely join them. Here is what the author writes about his doubts: “Back there, everything was confused and contradictory. It was difficult to find the right path; as if in a muddy path, the soil swayed under your feet, the path became fragmented, and there was no certainty whether he was following the right one.” The Reds' shooting of unarmed officers repulses him. And now he, with other fellow villagers, opposes Podtelkov’s detachment. The writer tragically describes the captivity of the Red detachment. Compatriots meet, people who believe in one God, connected by the same memories, and in the morning the captured Cossacks are put against the wall. A bloody river is spilling across the Don land. In mortal combat, brother goes against brother, traditions and laws that have developed over centuries are destroyed. And now Gregory, who had previously internally opposed bloodshed, easily decides the fate of others himself. And the time began when power changed, and yesterday’s victors, not having time to execute their opponents, became defeated and persecuted.
Soviet power seems alien to the majority of the Cossacks, and a widespread insurgency against it begins on the Don. Gregory becomes one of the major rebel military leaders, showing himself to be a skillful and experienced commander. But something is already breaking in his soul, he becomes more and more indifferent to himself, finding oblivion in drunkenness and carousing. The uprising is crushed. And again fate makes a revolution with Melekhov. He is forcibly mobilized into the Red Army, where he fights with Wrangel. Charter of seven years war, Melekhov returns to the farm, where he tries to live again through peaceful peasant labor. A terrible picture life in his native village appeared. Not a single family was spared by the fratricidal war. The words of one of the heroes turned out to be true: “There is no more life for the Cossacks and no more Cossacks!” But Melekhov is not allowed to live as a peasant in peace. The Soviet government, which won the Don, threatens with prison, or even execution, for fighting against it. The surplus appropriation committee has arrived in time and again unites the dissatisfied into Fomin’s detachment. But Fomin is hopeless and hopeless, and Grigory, realizing this, decides to return. In the bloody whirlwind of the civil war, the hero lost everything: parents, wife, daughter, brother, beloved woman. The writer at the end of the novel, through the mouth of Aksinya, explaining to Mishutka who his father is, says: “He’s not a bandit, your father. He’s such a… unhappy man.” How true these words are! Grigory Melekhov is an unhappy man, caught in the millstones of a merciless history that grinds destinies, forcibly torn away from everything that is dear to him, forced to kill people for ideas that he can neither understand nor accept...

With the death of Aksinya, the hero loses his last hope and goes to his home, where he is no longer the master. And yet the last scene of the novel is life-affirming. Grigory Melikhov has a son in his arms, which means he has something to live for, something to go through new trials for.
Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don” is a huge epic canvas woven from thousands of destinies. In the image of Grigory Melekhov we see the image of millions of peasants, Cossacks, lost in the cycle of events and standing on the threshold of new trials that befell our people.

The main character of "Quiet Don" is, without a doubt, the people. The novel shows the patterns of the era through the prism of the many heroic destinies of ordinary people. If among other heroes Grigory Melekhov comes to the fore, it is only because he is the most...

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, creating the epic novel “Quiet Don” in the turning years of the revolution and civil war, devotes a lot of space to the Cossack woman: her hard work in the field and at home, her grief, her generous heart. Unforgettable is the image of Grigory’s mother, Ilyinichna....

Mikhail Sholokhov's novel "Quiet Don" was created over many years, the first chapters of the novel were written in 1925, and its last pages were published in the magazine " New world"in 1940. Sholokhov defined his plan for the novel as follows: “I wanted...

M.A. Sholokhov is rightly called the chronicler of the Soviet era. "Quiet Don" - a novel about the Cossacks. The central character of the novel is Grigory Melekhov, an ordinary Cossack guy. True, maybe too hot. In Gregory's family, large and friendly, the Cossacks are sacredly revered...

This rich image embodied the dashing, thoughtless Cossack youth and the wisdom of a life lived, filled with suffering and troubles of a terrible time of change.

Image of Grigory Melekhov

Sholokhov's Grigory Melekhov can safely be called the last free man. Free by any human standard.

Sholokhov deliberately did not make Melekhov a Bolshevik, despite the fact that the novel was written in an era when the very idea of ​​the immorality of Bolshevism was blasphemous.

And, nevertheless, the reader sympathizes with Gregory even at the moment when he flees on a cart with the mortally wounded Aksinya from the Red Army. The reader wishes Gregory salvation, not victory for the Bolsheviks.

Gregory is an honest, hardworking, fearless, trusting and selfless person, a rebel. His rebellion manifests itself in early youth, when, with gloomy determination, for the sake of love for Aksinya - married woman- breaks up with his family.

He is determined enough not to be afraid of either public opinion or the condemnation of farmers. He does not tolerate ridicule and condescension from the Cossacks. He will contradict his mother and father. He is confident in his feelings, his actions are guided only by love, which seems to Gregory, in spite of everything, the only value in life, and therefore justifies his decisions.

You need to have great courage to live contrary to the opinion of the majority, to live with your head and heart, and not be afraid of being rejected by your family and society. Only a real man, only a real human fighter is capable of this. The father's anger, the contempt of the farmers - Gregory doesn't care about anything. With the same courage, he jumps over the fence to protect his beloved Aksinya from his husband’s cast-iron fists.

Melekhov and Aksinya

In his relationship with Aksinya, Grigory Melekhov becomes a man. From a dashing young guy with hot Cossack blood, he turns into a loyal and loving male protector.

At the very beginning of the novel, when Grigory is just wooing Aksinya, one gets the impression that future fate He doesn’t care at all about this woman, whose reputation he ruined with his youthful passion. He even talks about this to his beloved. “The bitch won’t want it, the dog won’t jump up,” Grigory says to Aksinya and immediately turns purple at the thought that scalded him like boiling water when he saw tears in the woman’s eyes: “I hit a lying man.”

What Gregory himself initially perceived as ordinary lust turned out to be love that he would carry throughout his life, and this woman would not turn out to be his mistress, but would become his unofficial wife. For the sake of Aksinya, Grigory will leave his father, his mother, and his young wife Natalya. For the sake of Aksinya, he will go to work instead of getting rich on his own farm. Will give preference to someone else's house instead of his own.

Undoubtedly, this madness deserves respect, as it speaks of the incredible honesty of this man. Grigory is not capable of living a lie. He cannot pretend and live as others tell him. He doesn't lie to his wife either. He does not lie when he seeks the truth from the “whites” and the “reds”. He lives. Grigory lives his own life, he himself weaves the thread of his destiny and he doesn’t know how to do it any other way.

Melekhov and Natalya

Gregory's relationship with his wife Natalya is saturated with tragedy, like his whole life. He married someone he did not love and did not hope to love. The tragedy of their relationship is that Gregory could not lie to his wife. With Natalya he is cold, he is indifferent. Sholokhov writes that Grigory, out of duty, caressed his young wife, tried to excite her with young love zeal, but on her part he met only submission.

And then Gregory remembered Aksinya’s frantic pupils, darkened with love, and he understood that he could not live with the icy Natalya. He can't. I don’t love you, Natalya! - Grigory will somehow say something in his heart and he will immediately understand - no, he really doesn’t love you. Subsequently, Gregory will learn to feel sorry for his wife. Especially after her suicide attempt, but she will not be able to love for the rest of her life.

Melekhov and the Civil War

Grigory Melekhov is a truth-seeker. That is why in the novel Sholokhov portrayed him as a rushing man. He is honest, and therefore has the right to demand honesty from others. The Bolsheviks promised equality, that there would be no more rich or poor. However, nothing has changed in life. The platoon commander is still wearing chrome boots, but the “vanek” is still wearing windings.

Gregory first falls to the whites, then to the reds. But it seems that individualism is alien to both Sholokhov and his hero. The novel was written in an era when being a “renegade” and being on the side of a Cossack businessman was mortally dangerous. Therefore, Sholokhov describes Melekhov’s throwing during Civil War like the tossing and turning of a lost person.

Gregory evokes not condemnation, but compassion and sympathy. In the novel, Gregory gains a semblance of mental balance and moral stability only after a short stay with the “Reds”. Sholokhov could not have written it any other way.

The fate of Grigory Melekhov

Over the course of 10 years, during which the action of the novel develops, the fate of Grigory Melekhov is filled with tragedies. Living during wars and political changes is a challenge in itself. And remaining human in these times is sometimes an impossible task. We can say that Grigory, having lost Aksinya, having lost his wife, brother, relatives and friends, managed to retain his humanity, remained himself, and did not change his inherent honesty.

Actors who played Melekhov in the films "Quiet Don"

In the film adaptation of the novel by Sergei Gerasimov (1957), Pyotr Glebov was cast in the role of Grigory. In the film by Sergei Bondarchuk (1990-91), the role of Gregory went to the British actor Rupert Everett. In the new series, based on the book by Sergei Ursulyak, Grigory Melekhov was played by Evgeniy Tkachuk.

The immortal work of M.A. Sholokhov’s “Quiet Don” reveals the essence of the Cossack soul and the Russian people without embellishment or reticence. Love for the land and loyalty to one’s traditions, along with betrayal, courage in struggle and cowardice, love and betrayal, hope and loss of faith - all these contradictions are organically intertwined in the images of the novel. With this, the author achieved such sincerity, truthfulness and vitality in the depiction of the people in the abyss of the terrible reality of the first third of the twentieth century, thanks to which the work still causes discussions and different opinions, but does not lose its popularity and relevance. Contradictions are the main feature that characterizes the image of Grigory Melekhov in the novel “Quiet Don” by Sholokhov.

The inconsistency of the character of the hero

The author depicts the life path of the main character using the method of parallel plotting. One line is Gregory’s love story, the second is a family story, the third is a civil-historical story. In each of them social roles: son, husband, father, brother, lover, he retained his ardor, inconsistency, sincerity of feelings and the steadfastness of his steely character.

The duality of nature may be explained by the peculiarities of the origin of Grigory Melekhov. "Quiet Don" begins with a story about his ancestors. His grandfather Prokofy Melekhov was a true Don Cossack, and his grandmother was a captured Turkish woman, whom he brought back from his last military campaign. Grishka's Cossack roots endowed him with perseverance, strength and perseverance. life principles, and his eastern blood endowed him with a special wild beauty, made him a passionate nature, prone to desperate and often rash actions. Throughout my entire life path he rushes about, doubts and changes his decisions many times. However, the rebelliousness of the protagonist's image is explained by his desire to find the truth.

Youth and desperation

At the beginning of the work, the main character of the novel appears before the reader in the image of a hot young nature, a beautiful and free Don lad. He falls in love with his neighbor Aksinya and begins to actively and boldly conquer her, despite her Family status. He does not hide the stormy romance that began between them, thanks to which he gained the reputation of a local womanizer.

To avoid a scandal with a neighbor and distract Grigory from a dangerous relationship, his parents decide to marry him, to which he easily agrees and leaves Aksinya. Future wife Natalya falls in love at the first meeting. Although her father doubted this hot, free Cossack, the wedding still took place. But could the bonds of marriage change Gregory’s ardent character?

On the contrary, the desire for forbidden love only flared up in his soul. “So extraordinary and obvious was their crazy connection, so frantically they burned with one shameless flame, people without conscience and without hiding, losing weight and blackening their faces in front of their neighbors.”

Young Grishka Melekhov is distinguished by such a trait as carelessness. He lives lightly and playfully, as if by inertia. He does his homework automatically, flirts with Aksinya without thinking about the consequences, obediently marries at his father’s orders, gets ready for work, in general, calmly floats with the flow of his carefree young life.

Civic duty and responsibility

Grishka accepts the sudden news of war and the call to the front with honor and tries not to disgrace his old Cossack family. This is how the author conveys his prowess and courage in the battles of the First World War: “Grigory firmly guarded the Cossack honor, seized the opportunity to show selfless courage, took risks, acted extravagantly, went disguised to the rear of the Austrians, removed outposts without bloodshed, the Cossack was a horseman...” However, being at the front cannot pass without leaving a trace. Many human lives on his own conscience, albeit enemies, but still people, the blood, groans and death that surrounded him, made Gregory’s soul callous, despite his high services to the sovereign. He himself understood at what cost he got four St. George Crosses for courage: “The war drained everything from me. I myself became scary. Look into my soul, and there’s blackness there, like in an empty well...”

The main feature that characterizes the image of Gregory in “Quiet Flows the Flow” is the perseverance that he will carry through years of anxiety, loss and defeat. His ability not to give up and fight, even when his soul was black from anger and numerous deaths, which he had to not only see, but also bear with sin on his soul, allowed him to withstand all adversity.

Ideological quest

With the onset of the Revolution, the hero is trying to figure out which side to take, where is the truth. On the one hand, he swore allegiance to the sovereign who was overthrown. On the other hand, the Bolsheviks promise equality. He, at first, began to share the ideas of equality and people's freedom, but when he saw neither one nor the other in the actions of the red activists, he headed the Cossack division, which fought on the side of the whites. The search for truth and doubt is the basis of the characterization of Grigory Melekhov. The only truth that he accepted was the struggle for the possibility of a peaceful and quiet life on his land, growing bread, raising children. He believed that it was necessary to fight with those who take away this opportunity.

But in the whirlpool of events of the Civil War, he became increasingly disillusioned with the ideas of certain representatives of military-political movements. He saw that everyone has their own truth, and everyone uses it as it suits them, and no one cared about the fate of Don and the people living there. When the Cossack troops disbanded, and the white movement more and more resembled gangs, the retreat began. Then Gregory decided to take the side of the Reds and even led a cavalry squadron. However, returning home at the end of the Civil War, he became an outcast, a stranger among his own, since local Soviet activists, in particular in the person of his son-in-law Mikhail Koshevoy, did not forget about his white past and threatened to shoot him.

Awareness of core values

In the work of Mikhail Sholokhov, central attention is paid to the problem of a person’s search for his place in a world where everything familiar and familiar instantly changed its appearance, turning into the most severe living conditions. In the novel, the author states a simple truth: even in inhumane conditions we need to remain human. However, not everyone was able to implement this covenant at that difficult time.

The difficult trials that befell Gregory, such as the loss of loved ones and close people, the struggle for his land and freedom, changed him and formed a new person. The once carefree and daring boy realized the true price of life, peace and happiness. He returned to his roots, to his home, holding in his arms the most valuable thing he had left - his son. He realized what price had been paid for standing on the threshold of his home with his son in his arms under a peaceful sky, and he understood that there was nothing more expensive and more important than this opportunity.

Work test

A restless nature, a complex fate, a strong character, a man on the border of two eras - the main epithets of the main character of Sholokhov’s novel. The image and characterization of Grigory Melekhov in the novel “Quiet Don” is artistic description the fate of one Cossack. But behind him stands a whole generation of Don men, born in a troubled and incomprehensible time, when family ties were collapsing and the fate of the entire diverse country was changing.

Appearance and family of Gregory

It’s not difficult to imagine Grigory Panteleevich Melekhov. The young Cossack is the youngest son of Pantelei Prokofievich. The family has three children: Peter, Gregory and Dunyasha. The roots of the surname came from crossing Turkish blood (grandmother) with Cossack blood (grandfather). This origin left its mark on the character of the hero. How many now scientific works dedicated to Turkish roots that changed the Russian character. The Melekhovs' yard is located on the outskirts of the farm. The family is not rich, but not poor either. The average income for some is enviable, which means that there are poorer families in the village. For Natalya's father, Grigory's fiancée, the Cossack is not rich. At the beginning of the novel, Grishka is approximately 19-20 years old. Age should be calculated based on the start of service. The conscription age in those years was 21 years old. Grigory is waiting for the call.

Character's appearance features:

• nose: hook-nosed, kite-like;
• look: wild;
• cheekbones: sharp;
• skin: dark, brown blushing;
• black, like a gypsy;
• teeth: wolf, dazzling white:
• height: not particularly tall, half a head taller than his brother, 6 years older than him;
• eyes: blue tonsils, hot, black, non-Russian;
• smile: brutal.

They talk about a guy's beauty in different ways: handsome, handsome. The epithet beautiful accompanies Gregory throughout the novel; even after aging, he retains his attractiveness and attractiveness. But there is a lot of masculinity in his attractiveness: coarse hair, unyielding male hands, curly growth on his chest, legs covered with thick hair. Even for those whom he scares, Grigory stands out from the crowd: a degenerate, wild, bandit-like face. One feels that by the look of a Cossack one can determine his mood. Some people think that there are only eyes on the face, burning, clear and piercing.

Cossack clothing

Melekhov dresses in the usual Cossack uniform. Traditional Cossack set:

• everyday bloomers;
• festive ones with bright stripes;
• white woolen stockings;
• tweets;
• satin shirts;
• short fur coat;
• hat

For smart clothes, the Cossack has a frock coat, in which he goes to woo Natalya. But it is not convenient for the guy. Grisha tugs at the hem of his coat, trying to take it off as quickly as possible.

Attitude towards children

Grigory loves children, but awareness full of love comes to him very late. Son Mishatka is the last thread that connects him with life after the loss of his beloved. He accepts Tanya, Aksinya’s daughter, but is tormented by thoughts that she may not be his. In the letter, the man admits that he dreams of a girl in a red dress. There are few lines about the Cossack and children; they are stingy and not bright. That's probably right. It is difficult to imagine a strong Cossack playing with a child. He is passionate about communicating with Natalya’s children when he returns on leave from the war. He wants to forget everything he has experienced, immersing himself in household chores. For Gregory, children are not just procreation, they are a shrine, part of the homeland.

Male character traits

Grigory Melekhov - male image. He is a bright representative of the Cossacks. Character traits help us understand complex problems happening around us.

Waywardness. The guy is not afraid of his opinion, he cannot retreat from it. He does not listen to advice, does not tolerate ridicule, and is not afraid of fights and brawls.

Physical strength. I like the guy for his dashing prowess, strength and endurance. He receives his first St. George Cross for patience and endurance. Overcoming fatigue and pain, he carries the wounded from the battlefield.

Hard work. A hard-working Cossack is not afraid of any work. He is ready to do anything to support his family and help his parents.

Honesty. Gregory's conscience is constantly with him, he suffers, committing actions not of his own free will, but due to circumstances. The Cossack is not ready for looting. He even refuses his father when he comes to him to collect the loot.

Pride. The son does not allow his father to beat him. He doesn't ask for help when he needs it.

Education. Gregory is a competent Cossack. He knows how to write, and conveys thoughts on paper clearly and understandably. Melekhov writes rarely, as befits secretive natures. Everything is in their souls, on paper there are only meager, precise phrases.

Grigory loves his farm, village life. He likes nature and the Don. He can admire the water and the horses splashing in it.

Gregory, war and homeland

The most difficult story line- this is a Cossack and power. The war appears before the reader's eyes from different sides as the hero of the novel saw it. There are practically no differences between whites and reds, bandits and ordinary soldiers. Both kill, loot, rape, humiliate. Melekhov is tormented; he does not understand the meaning of killing people. He is amazed by the Cossacks who live in war, enjoying the deaths around them. But time changes. Grigory becomes callous and cold-blooded, although he still does not agree with unnecessary killings. Humanity is the basis of his soul. Melekhov also lacks the categorical attitude of Mishka Korshunov, the prototype of revolutionary activists who see only enemies around them. Melekhov does not allow his superiors to speak rudely to him. He fights back and immediately puts in place those who want to command him.