In the epic novel Quiet Don"a whole gallery of images is depicted. We get acquainted with the images of not only the Cossacks, but also with the “men,” as the Cossacks call them in the novel. And among the Cossacks, the images stand out completely different even in Peaceful time, and during the war this difference is felt more clearly.
Thus, the war split the world of the Cossacks in two. And this war broke the friendship of Mikhail Koshevoy and Grigory Melekhov.
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It turned out that Grigory could not immediately decide whose side the truth was on, but Mikhail was convinced that the truth was on his side. And he renounced all the Cossacks who did not agree with him. The most striking scene where Koshevoy showed himself is the scene where he arrived in his native village and began to settle scores with everyone. He burned the houses of rich Cossacks, and he wanted to burn the Korshunovs’ house, but not all the inhabitants left it - Grishak’s grandfather remained, and he did not run away from the Reds with the others. Koshevoy shot him.
It is known that Koshevoy was in love with Dunyashka Melekhova, and was going to marry her, but the whole family was against this connection. And when Dunyashka and Ilyinichna and Grigory’s children remained, Koshevoy began to achieve his goal. And he achieved it. And then Ilyinichna was no longer the mistress of her house; Mikhail treated her without respect. And he promised to punish Gregory when he returned. Although the war was almost over, he could not forget the enmity, and old friendship did not interfere with Koshevoy. He was superfluous in the village, because he not only fully supported the ideology of the Reds, but also changed beyond recognition. Maybe this is good, but this hero has not made anyone happy in his life.
Updated: 2017-05-06
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Mishka Koshevoy is a Cossack from the village of Tatarskaya, who went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. He has an impetuous character and is characterized by great emotionality and maximalism. The hero takes the position of the “reds” and completely devotes himself to the fight against the whites, whom he considers enemies of the people. Koshevoy now does not see the people he lived next to all his life as fellow countrymen, neighbors, or friends. He now divides people into “his” and “enemies”.
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Koshevoy is fanatical about his work. He mercilessly kills people, and drowns out the pangs of conscience with the phrase “We are all murderers.” Koshevoy’s revenge and anger extends to the families of the warring parties, and does not spare the elderly and children. He brutally kills grandfather Grishaka, burns many houses of his enemies: he set fire to about one and a half hundred households of the village of Karginskaya along with three of his comrades.
Koshevoy takes care of Dunyashka, the sister of Grigory Melekhov. She agrees to marry him, even though he killed Peter, her older brother.
Updated: 2012-12-16
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The writer traces the gradual growth of class consciousness of Mikhail Koshevoy. Being on the front of the imperialist war, he realized that he was on the side of the people. For the first time, his hatred of the old system awakens. It deploys in Cossack units propaganda work, opposes the war imposed on the people. It took a long time for Mikhail to understand the stormy turn of the struggle; revolutionary energy and endurance were born in battles with the old world. The desire to achieve the truth, “equality for all” never left Koshevoy.
During the first uprising of the Cossacks, Koshevoy decisively invites his old friends to leave the farm and make their way to the Red Army. He did so, despite the ardent objections of Grigory Melekhov, but was caught and found himself out of the fight. Being in the flocks, he is burdened by loneliness, afraid that the pacifying steppe silence will suck him in. Koshevoy is depressed even by temporary detachment from the harsh struggle that is going on in the country. Unlike Grigory Melekhov, Koshevoy does not experience doubts or hesitations, he has no desire to quit the fight. On the contrary, having consciously chosen the right path of struggle for a revolutionary change in life, he overcomes the feeling of pity for Gregory, severely condemns his restless schoolmate (“Apparently, our paths are diverging,” “he and I are roots, we studied together at school, we ran after girls , he’s like a brother to me... but he started to bully me, and I was so angry, my heart was swollen... He’s taking something away from me, the most pitiful thing is that he’s robbing me!”). With the establishment of Soviet power in the Tatarsky farm, Koshevoy was elected comrade chairman of the Council, and even then, not trusting Grigory, he insisted on his arrest.
Political integrity and consistency, a sense of revolutionary duty, an irreconcilable attitude towards the enemies of Soviet power - these are the main character traits of Koshevoy. Revealing his burning hatred for the rebel Cossacks, Sholokhov writes: “He waged an irreconcilable, merciless war with Cossack satiety, with Cossack treachery, with all that indestructible and inert way of life that for centuries rested under the roofs of dignified kurens.”
Koshevoy mercilessly burns down merchants' and priests' houses, smoking houses of wealthy Cossacks, kills grandfather Grishaka, seeing in him the embodiment of the most ossified Cossack traditions. “I have a firm hand against enemies who live in vain in this world,” Koshevoy declares with conviction and remains true to his word.
Sholokhov emphasizes the changes taking place in Koshevoy with the help of portrait characteristics: when meeting enemies Blue eyes he was cold as ice, stubbornness was expressed in “Mishka’s stooped figure, in the tilt of his head, in his firmly compressed lips”; and with the help of humorous situations (careful preparation for entering his native farm, consent to a wedding in a church and a conversation with the gundog priest Vissarion).
The writer deeply reveals the rich spiritual world of Koshevoy, his spontaneity and dreaminess, touching love To native land and a craving for peaceful work, heartfelt concern for children and a bright feeling for Dunyashka, which he will carry through all the years of the war. With great tact, Sholokhov shows how the “murderer” Koshevoy wins the trust of Ilyinichna, who loses her sense of resentment and anger towards him.
Having married Dunyashka, Koshevoy, despite a serious illness, “worked tirelessly” and turned out to be a “zealous owner.” Soon he condemns himself for prematurely going into farming and devotes himself entirely to the struggle for the complete triumph of new life on the Don, making every effort to divert the discontent of the Cossacks “from their native Soviet power.” The belief that “peaceful Soviet power will be established throughout the world” never leaves him.
By bringing Koshevoy to the forefront, Sholokhov pits him against Grigory Melekhov, contrasting their views and behavior. The writer emphasizes, on the one hand, the instability of those social forces that the “unreliable man” Grigory embodies, on the other hand, the vigilance of integrity, the political growth of the communist Koshevoy. The meeting of old friends takes place at an alarming time: gangs appear on the Don and in neighboring regions, and an uprising against Soviet power breaks out. Under these conditions, Koshevoy’s wariness and his distrustful attitude towards Grigory Melekhov, who just recently was “spinning up the whole uprising,” are especially understandable.
With sincere sincerity, Kosheva expresses her attitude towards Grigory and, not without reason, insists on his arrest. In the clash of previously close people, Sholokhov revealed the complexity of the situation of those years, the historical inevitability of Koshevoy’s revolutionary mercilessness in the struggle for a new life.
Introduction
Mikhail Koshevoy in the novel “Quiet Don” is initially a minor character. But gradually his image comes to the fore. It is this, at first insignificant character, who plays decisive role in the fate of a number of the central characters of the work.
Description of Mikhail Koshevoy
In the first part of “Quiet Don” Mishka Koshevoy appears before us as an ordinary farm boy with a naive, even somewhat childish, expression and laughing eyes. It is the hero’s eyes that Sholokhov draws the reader’s attention to. Dark in the first book, they suddenly become “unsmiling”, “blue and cold as ice” in the third.
During the war years, “Mikhail’s face matured and seemed to fade.” The hero becomes bitter, frowns and often clenches his teeth. Koshevoy “jerked up his eyes, and they looked straight into the enemy’s pupils, pierced into them.” His dull eyes briefly perk up only when he looks at Mishatka and Dunyashka. “The lights of admiration and affection flashed in them for a moment and went out.”
Characteristics of Mikhail Koshevoy
In peacetime, Koshevoy behaves like his peers. He lives by caring for the household and takes part in the entertainment of the farm youth. Participation in Shtokman's circle changes his outlook on life. Mishka is imbued with the ideas of the visiting member of the RSDLP and unconditionally sides with the Soviet government. Unlike Grigory Melekhov, Koshevoy does not doubt for a minute whose side he is on. His devotion to the ideas of the party gradually reaches the point of fanaticism, and the hero becomes completely embittered. The feeling of class hatred displaces everything universal from his soul. The final rebirth of Koshevoy occurs after he learns of the death of his comrades. “After the murder of Shtokman, after Mishka heard rumors about the death of Ivan Alekseevich and the Elan communists, Mishka’s heart was clothed with burning hatred for the Cossacks. He no longer hesitated, did not listen to the hated voice of pity when a captured Cossack rebel fell into his hands.” He kills, burns houses. Particularly indicative are the scenes of Koshevoy’s participation in the punitive expedition to the village of Karginskaya, where he personally allowed the “red kochet” into 150 houses.
Mikhail was not cruel by nature. He says that, unlike other Cossacks, he cannot even slaughter a pig. But for him, opponents of the new government are no longer people. In his opinion, they live in vain in the world; Koshevoy has a “steady hand” on them. It is characteristic that the word “enemy” constantly appears in the hero’s speech. He sees enemies everywhere. He is even ready to throw Dunyasha, the person closest to him, out of his life just because she spoke unflatteringly about the communists. “If you say that again – you and I can’t live together, you know that!
Your words are the enemy’s…” says Koshevoy.
Koshevoy and Melekhov
Koshevoy’s relationship in “Quiet Don” with the Melekhov family is complicated. He personally shoots the captive Peter, kills the Melekhovs' matchmaker, Grishak Korshunov's grandfather, and sets fire to his house, insists on the arrest of his former comrade Grigory. Despite all this, he does not feel guilty for what he did. For him, they are all not fellow villagers with whom he lived side by side for so many years, but class enemies. Mishka says to Ilyinichna, who reproaches him for killing his grandfather: “I can’t kill an animal... but I can kill a dirty trick like this matchmaker of yours or some other enemy as much as I like!” To the accusations of murdering Peter, he replies that Peter would have done the same to him if they had switched places.
It is interesting that it is Koshevoy, who brought so much grief to the Melekhovs, who undertakes to improve her life. He, having come to Ilyinichna’s house as Dunya’s fiancé, puts up a fence, repairs the longboat, and helps with the mowing. But, despite these seemingly positive aspects, in his soul he is not able to understand and accept someone else’s position. He considers Dunyasha’s mother, who calls him a “murderer,” to be “an enraged old woman.” Mishka also hates Gregory, who, even after everything that happened, opens his arms to him, considering Koshevoy his own.
If in the first three books Mishka still shows uncertainty, sometimes even confusion, then they completely disappear in the fourth book, when Koshevoy becomes chairman of the farm revolutionary committee. The only feeling The feeling he feels towards his fellow villagers is anger because they do not want to unconditionally accept the new government, as he himself did.
Conclusion
Positive or negative character Koshevoy? From a political point of view, of course, yes. After all, it’s hard to imagine a more dedicated fighter for a brighter future. But, if you look at the hero from a universal human perspective, it becomes scary. What bright future can a fanatic build who has neither understanding nor compassion in his soul?
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