Grigory Panteleevich Melekhov is the main character of the epic novel by M. A. Sholokhov “ Quiet Don"(1928-1940), Don Cossack, officer who rose from the ranks. This is a young resident of the village of Tatarskaya, an ordinary farm boy, full of strength and thirst for life. At the beginning of the novel it is difficult to classify Gregory as a positive or negative heroes. He is rather a freedom-loving truth-seeker. He lives thoughtlessly, but according to traditional principles. Despite strong love to Aksinya, allows his father to marry him to Natalya. Grigory spends his whole life tossing between two women. In the service, he also finds himself between the Reds and the Whites. Harsh life nevertheless put a saber in the hands of this man, not cruel by nature and not fond of bloodshed, and forced him to fight.
The tragic turning point in his personal life coincided with a sharp turning point in history Don Cossacks. Thanks to his natural abilities, Gregory managed to rise first from an ordinary Cossack to an officer, and then to the commander of the rebel army. However, later it becomes clear that Melekhov’s military career was not destined to work out. The Civil War threw him either into the white formations or into the Budennovsky detachment. He did this not out of thoughtless submission to the way of life, but out of a search for the truth. Being an honest man, he fully believed in the promised equality, but the conclusions were disappointing. From his marriage to Natalya, Grigory had a son and a daughter, from Aksinya, the daughter died in childhood. At the end of the novel, having lost
Image of Ilyinichna
The stronghold of the Melikhov family is the mother of Grigory, Peter and Dunyashka - Ilyinichna. This is an elderly Cossack woman whose sons are grown up, and her youngest daughter Dunyashka is a teenager.
The old woman, restless and busy, always busy with endless household chores, seems at first unnoticed, and takes little part in the events taking place. Even her portrait characteristics not in the first chapters of the book, but only some details by which one can judge that this woman has experienced a lot: “a portly woman completely entangled in a web of wrinkles,” “knobby and heavy hands,” “shuffles with senile, flabby bare feet.” And only in the last parts of “Quiet Don” the rich inner world Ilyinichny.
One of the main character traits of this woman is calm wisdom. Otherwise, she simply would not have been able to get along with her emotional and hot-tempered husband. Without any fuss, Ilyinichna runs the household, takes care of children and grandchildren, not forgetting about their emotional experiences.
Ilyinichna is an economical and prudent housewife. She maintains not only external order in the house, but also monitors the moral atmosphere in the family. She condemns Grigory’s relationship with Aksinya, and, realizing how difficult it is for Grigory’s legal wife Natalya to live with her husband, she treats her as if my own daughter, trying in every possible way to make her work easier, takes pity on her, sometimes even gives extra hour sleep. The fact that Natalya lives in the Melekhovs’ house after a suicide attempt says a lot: in this house there is the warmth that the young woman so needed.
At any life situation Ilyinichna is deeply decent and sincere. She understands Natalya, who is tormented by her husband’s infidelities, lets her cry, and then tries to dissuade her from rash actions: “You young people have great tempers, a true god! Just a little bit - you get mad. If you lived the way I lived from a young age, what would you do then? Grishka has never laid a finger on you in your entire life, and yet you are dissatisfied, what a miracle you have done: you were about to leave him, and you felt faint, and you didn’t do anything, you confused God in your filthy deeds... Well tell me, tell me, sick, and is this good? And my good idol killed me to death from a young age, but for no reason at all, I was not at all guilty before him. He himself was naughty, but out of spite he took it out. Sometimes he would come at dawn, I would scream with bitter tears, reproach him, and he would give free rein to his fists... For a month, she walked all blue, like iron, and lo and behold, she survived, and fed the children, she never thought of leaving the house.”
She carefully looks after the sick Natalya and her grandchildren. Condemning Daria for being too free, she nevertheless hides her illness from her husband so that he does not kick her out of the house. There is some kind of greatness in her, the ability not to pay attention to the little things, but to see the main thing in the life of the family.
The strong, wise Ilyinichna is constantly fussing, worrying and caring about all the household members, trying in every possible way to protect them from troubles, adversity, and rash actions; stands between her husband, who is uncontrollable in anger, and his proud, temperamental sons, for which he receives blows from the husband, who, feeling his wife’s advantage in everything, thus asserts himself.
Ilyinichna did not understand the events of the revolution and civil war, but she turned out to be much more humane, smarter, and more perspicacious than Grigory and Pantelei Prokofievich. So, for example, she reproaches youngest son, who chopped up the sailors in battle, is supported by Panteley Prokofievich, who kicks Mitka Korshunov out of his convoy. “So you and I and Mishatka and Polyushka could have been chopped up for Grisha, but if they didn’t, they had mercy,” says the indignant Ilyinichna to Natalya. When Daria shot the captive Kotlyarov, Ilyinichna, according to Dunyasha, “was afraid to spend the night with her in the same hut and went to the neighbors.”
All her life she worked, not sparing her health, acquiring goodness bit by bit. And when the situation forces her to give up everything and leave the farm, she declares: “It’s better if they kill you at the doorstep - everything is easier than dying under someone else’s fence!” This is not greed, but the fear of losing one’s nest, roots, without which a person loses the meaning of existence. She understands this with a feminine, maternal instinct, and it is impossible to convince her.
Ilyinichna values honesty, decency, and purity in people. She is afraid that the cruelty surrounding them will affect the soul and consciousness of Mishatka’s grandson. She came to terms with the idea that the killer of her son Peter became a member of their family by marrying Dunyasha. The old mother does not want to go against her daughter’s feelings, and male power needed on the farm. Ilyinichna is reconciled, seeing how Dunyasha is drawn to this man, how Koshevoy’s nervous, hard gaze warms at the sight of her grandson, Mishatka. She blesses them, knowing that life as she knew it until now cannot be returned, and she cannot fix it. This shows Ilyinichna’s wisdom.
The heart of a Russian woman-mother is so tender that Ilyinichna, hating the murderer of her eldest son Mishka Koshevoy, sometimes feels maternal pity for him, either sending him a sackcloth so that he does not freeze, or darning his clothes. However, with the arrival of Koshevoy in the Melekhovo house, she experiences mental torment; she is left alone in her house, unnecessary to anyone. Ilyinichna, overcoming the melancholy and pain of her losses, took a decisive step towards that new thing that will happen after her, which will be witnessed by others, and with them her grandson Mishatka. And how little Koshevoy needed to show tenderness, not to her at all, but to her grandson Mishatka, so that she would make this breakthrough, reuniting Ilyinichna in our minds into a single majestic image - both young and old, and Ilyinichna of the last days of her life... Here , in fact, the culmination of Ilyinichna’s spiritual movement towards the new that will come after her. She now knew for sure that the “murderer” could not smile so tenderly at Mishatka - Grisha’s son, her grandson... And Ilyinichna, humbled before the will of her daughter, before the force of circumstances, steps over the natural repulsion from the murderer of her eldest son, accepts into the house someone so hated by her , charged with the alien “truth” of a person and even begins to feel “unsolicited pity” for him when he is exhausted, oppressed and tormented by malaria. Here it is - the great, redemptive pity of a mother’s heart for the lost children of this cruel world! And before her death, she gives Dunyasha the most precious thing for Mishka - Grigory’s shirt, let him wear it, otherwise he’s already sweating! This is the highest gesture of forgiveness and reconciliation on her part!
IN last chapters Sholokhov reveals the tragedy of a mother who lost her husband, son, and many relatives and friends: “She lived, broken by suffering, aged, pitiful. She had to experience a lot of grief, perhaps even too much...” The “steadfast old woman” Ilyinichna “didn’t shed a tear” when she learned about her husband’s death, but only withdrew into herself. Having buried her eldest son, husband, and daughters-in-law within a year, Ilyinichna was most afraid of the death of Grigory. Only Ilyinichna thinks about him. She lived only for him last days: “I have become old... And my heart hurts for Grisha... It hurts so much that nothing is nice to me and it hurts my eyes to look.” In longing for her son, who has not returned, Ilyinichna takes out his old coat and cap and hangs them in the kitchen. “You enter the base, look, and somehow it becomes easier... As if he is already with us...”, she says to Dunyasha, smiling guiltily and pitifully.
A short letter from Grigory with a promise to come on leave in the fall brings great joy to Ilyinichna. She proudly says: “The little one remembered his mother. How he writes! By his patronymic, Ilyinichnaya, he called it... I bow low, he writes to his dear mother and even dear children...”
War, death, anxiety for a loved one reconciled Ilyinichna with Aksinya, and through Aksinya’s eyes we see the grief of the inconsolable mother, who understands that she will never see her son again: “Ilyinichna stood, holding the fence with her hands, looked into the steppe, to where, as if an inaccessible, distant star, the fire made by the mowers flickered. Aksinya clearly saw the blue-illuminated moonlight Ilyinichna’s swollen face, a gray strand of hair escaping from under the old woman’s black shawl. Ilyinichna looked for a long time into the twilight blue steppe, and then, not loudly, as if he was standing right there, next to her, she called: “Grishenka! My dear! “She paused and said in a different, low and dull voice: “My little blood...”
If earlier Ilyinichna was restrained in her feelings, then at the end of the novel everything changes, it’s as if she consists entirely of maternal love: “It’s amazing how short and poor life turned out to be and how much hard and sorrowful there was in it, in her thoughts she turned to Gregory... And on her deathbed she lived with Gregory, thinking only about him...”
The image of Ilyinichna in the novel is a pure image of motherhood, the image of the “Don Madonna.” AND mother's love, thanks to this image, turns out to be especially naturally deeply connected with metaphysical limits human life: birth and death. Only a mother, with every cell of her being, with every drop of blood, cannot accept the death of her son, his disappearance from this world, where she gave birth to life and joy. How many maternal tears, melancholy, and lamentations are spilled throughout the “Quiet Don”! And mothers bury themselves in the shirts left over from their dead sons, looking in their “folds for the smell of their son’s sweat,” at least some material trace and remnant of the person they most deeply loved.
Mikhail Sholokhov wrote a truly brilliant work about such a class in Russia as the Cossacks. This is the novel "Quiet Don". The heroes of the book are simple people with their own difficulties and problems. The female images in this work are revealed on the basis of traditional ideas about what the purpose of a Cossack woman is, who should be a good mother and keeper of the hearth. The female image in the novel “Quiet Don” helps to reveal the personality of the main character, Grigory Melekhov. Before moving on to the analysis of female images of this famous novel, let's say a few words about how it was created.
History of creation: “Quiet Don”
The idea of writing a novel about revolution and ordinary people appeared with Sholokhov in the mid-20s of the last century.
Sholokhov was puzzled by the need to write a novel in such a way as to explain historical conditions that led to the revolution. The author writes about people's lives, their way of life, their difficulties, trying to show the growth of revolutionary sentiments. The change in concept led to the novel receiving a new name - “Quiet Don”.
Life characters The work personifies, according to the author's plan, the life of different segments of the population during the war and revolution.
In addition, Sholokhov sets himself the task of telling about the tragic fate of people who fell into the maelstrom of events from 1914 to 1921.
The idea for the novel Quiet Don, which, as is now clear, differed from the author’s original idea, matured in the last days of 1926. The collection of material for the work began.
For this purpose, the writer moved to Veshenskaya Stanitsa, traveling to nearby farmsteads and talking with participants in the war and revolution. To study the folklore of the Cossacks well, the author visits the archives of Rostov and Moscow.
As he wrote, Sholokhov published parts of his novel. Reviews of this work did not leave the pages of the press. Work on the fourth book did not proceed very quickly, which prompted readers who were worried about the fate of the heroes to write numerous letters to Sholokhov.
It is known that a rumor spread among writers that the novel was not written by Sholokhov, but by a certain murdered officer, from whose bag the manuscript was taken. The author was forced to go to Rostov and assemble a commission to refute the slander.
However, the novel written by Sholokhov has stood the test of time. Many generations of people continue to read it, admiring original characters main characters and experiencing the difficulties of life with them.
So, now we know the history of the creation of “Quiet Don”. Let's move on to consider the main female characters of the novel.
Love triangle
The main characters of the novel “Quiet Don” are also doomed to this. In this work, two women, Natalya and Aksinya, love one Cossack - Grigory Melekhov. Natalia - him legal wife, Aksinya is the wife of the Melekhovs’ neighbor, Stepan Astakhov. In the novel Quiet Don, Aksinya passionately loves Gregory with forbidden sensual love. It is not surprising that her sincere attitude deeply touched the Cossack’s heart.
Aksinya
The image of this woman is central to the novel. She is independent, strong, beautiful. Aksinya is capable of deep feelings. She personifies the Cossack woman’s ability to be independent and love passionately, sacrificing herself.
The character and fate of the heroine
Aksinya's life was not easy. The connection with Gregory, about which the whole village was chattering, became known to her husband, Stepan Astakhov. When he asked whether this was true, Aksinya confessed to him without hesitation. Her willingness to take responsibility for her actions reveals in her. What happened between her and Melekhov is not a simple affair for Aksinya, but a deep feeling.
She, like Grigory, did not lie, did not pretend. Both were firmly convinced that the connection between them was not a casual affair. The village residents perceived such behavior as immoral.
Living according to your heart
In the novel "Quiet Don" Aksinya personifies a sensual nature who wants to live according to her own will, obeying only the dictates of her heart. She is even braver than her lover, Grigory Melekhov. It is Aksinya who invites Gregory to leave his native farm, breaking with conventions.
This woman always followed her beloved, without asking where they were going, her feeling was so selfless.
Weaknesses and vices
The heroes of the novel "Quiet Don", like any people, have their own shortcomings. Aksinya is a woman who is capable of strong feelings; her life is ruled by passions, which brings a lot of grief to those around her and to herself. Her love for Melekhov largely became the reason for his discord with his wife Natalya. Aksinya does not back down even when Grigory and Natalya have children. The woman also became the reason for her betrayal of Melekhov and Listnitsky. Nevertheless, it is worth recognizing that Aksinya’s infidelity further shows her strong feelings for Gregory.
The hopelessness of love between Aksinya and Gregory
Aksinya loves Grigory fiercely, her feeling sweeps away everything in its path. She follows him everywhere. People who are capable of feeling so strongly are, as a rule, rarely happy; they want to be close to their loved ones everywhere, to occupy their lives completely. The author emphasizes the doom of this relationship by the fact that the children of Aksinya and Gregory could not survive. Their union is not harmonious, because such passion upsets the natural balance.
Natalia
Unlike Aksinya, Natalya has a completely different character. "Quiet Don" in the images of these two women shows different types Cossack If Aksinya is freedom-loving, sensual, strong, then Natalya is completely different. She is a faithful wife good hostess, mother, This woman is beautiful, kind, hardworking, but at the same time deeply unhappy. She is the dream of any Cossack, but something in her character is missing from her husband, who, in his own way, of course, loves her.
Natalia's love for Gregory
Before the wedding, Natalya was deeply in love with Gregory. Having learned that the Melekhovs should woo her, the girl declares that she does not want to marry anyone else.
After the wedding, for her, as for an exemplary wife, her husband and children become her only happiness. Her love for Gregory is submissive and highly moral.
This is the image of Natalia. “Quiet Don” personifies in this heroine the ideal of the highest female virtue.
Rivals
So, the epic novel “Quiet Don” tells us about the love of two women who competed with each other.
The difference in their personalities is very clear during their meetings with each other.
At the first meeting, Natalya begs Aksinya to leave Gregory. Gregory's beloved shows contempt for his legal wife. Natalya is defeated.
The second meeting between the women occurs five years later. Natalia becomes stronger, she protects her son and daughter. Both rivals have matured: they have more self-esteem, they do not stoop to abuse and swearing, giving Gregory the opportunity to choose.
Death of Natalia and Aksinya
The novel "Quiet Don", the characters of which formed such a typical for works of this type love triangle, describes the death of many heroes. Countless numbers of people actually died during the Civil War.
The fate of Grigory Melekhov turned out to be very difficult, as he lost his beloved women: Aksinya, whom he loved passionately, and Natalya. He also loved her in his own way, although he did not admit it.
As for Natalya, this female character in the novel Quiet Don helps our imagination imagine a beautiful, God-fearing, but nervous Cossack woman. Her husband's infidelity led her to attempt suicide, which left her with a permanent scar on her neck.
Long before her death, Natalya thought about leaving the Melekhovs for her parents' house to give her husband the opportunity to live with Aksinya, but Grigory's mother dissuaded her from this.
Later, Natalya killed the child Gregory, whom she was carrying. This caused the woman's death. After Natalya's death, Aksinya takes care of her children, they even call her mom.
Grigory is having a hard time with the death of his wife. When he sees the telegram informing him of this, he feels pain in his heart. It became even more painful for him when he learned that Natalya was pushed to take such a terrible step by a conversation with Aksinya, whose female character in the novel “Quiet Don” personifies selfless, ardent love. However, her feeling is subordinated to reason; Aksinya has enough strength to fight for Gregory. His wife, Natalya, loved him only with her heart, she was too pure, her ideas about human relationships were too exalted. Aksinya told Gregory’s wife about her relationship with him, after which Natalya decides to take a fatal step. It is not known whether Melekhova’s beloved imagined how this would turn out for her rival.
Having learned the truth, Grigory for some time experiences hostility towards Aksinya. He remembers Natalya, strokes and caresses the children for a long time, imagining how she kissed and baptized them before her death. It becomes even more painful for him when he learns from Ilyinichna that Natalya forgave him for everything, loving him until the last minute of her unhappy life.
Aksinya's death also causes deep suffering in Gregory's soul. The beloved dies right in Melekhov’s arms. Blood flows from her mouth, bubbling in her throat. This strong Cossack understands that the worst thing has happened in his life.
Loneliness of Grigory Melekhov
The death of Aksinya led to the fact that Gregory’s life practically lost its meaning. He buries her himself, thinking that their separation will be short-lived.
Death took away those closest and dearest to his heart. By the end of the work, he remains only with his son Mishatka.
The death of women dear to his heart, according to the author, deepens the loneliness of the main character.
The female image in the novel "Quiet Don", be it Natalya, Aksinya or other heroines of the novel, is something that gives strength. Deprived of such support, the main character ceases to understand the meaning of his existence.
Other female characters in the novel "Quiet Don"
Central female images in the novel, these are, of course, Aksinya and Natalya. However, in this article we cannot ignore other female images.
Gregory's mother, Ilyinichna, deserves special attention. This is an elderly Cossack woman who dedicated her life to the well-being of children and family. The author depicts her as a real keeper of the hearth. In her youth, Ilyinichna was distinguished by her beauty and stature, but she quickly grew old from hard work. She suffered a lot of grief from her husband, Pantelei Prokofievich, who was distinguished by a very tough temperament, reaching the point of unconsciousness in anger.
The whole life of this wise woman is filled with troubles and worries about her family; she tries to isolate them from adversity and troubles. This is her characteristic. “Quiet Don” portrays Ilyinichna as a good housewife, prudent and economical.
She has a negative attitude towards Gregory’s relationship with Aksinya. However, during the war, Ilyinichna becomes close to her amid worries about her son.
This elderly woman loves her daughter-in-law Natalya, worries about her, and tries to shift some of the work to Daria. She feels pain from the fact that Gregory is cheating on her. Natalya's death shocked Ilyinichna.
No less interesting is the wife of Grigory’s older brother, Daria. “Quiet Don” in her image presents to our attention a dissolute, lazy, cunning heroine. She is beautiful and lives for sensual pleasures. Daria loves to attract the attention of men and knows how to do it. She enjoys gatherings and holidays. After the death of her husband, Daria tried to make up for lost years and had affairs, which led to her illness and death.
The reader gets to know Dunyasha Melekhova back when she was a long-armed teenager with big eyes. Later she becomes a slender Cossack woman with an obstinate character. The matured Dunyasha is presented in the novel as an intelligent, self-sufficient girl who achieves her goal by marrying a man. She fell in love with him despite the fact that her chosen one committed many bloody crimes.
We looked at the main female characters in the novel "Quiet Don". They are the ones who help the author comprehend this new milestone in the life of the Don Cossacks. The woman in Sholokhov's work occupies a central place. The author connects with it questions about the meaning of life, the concepts of happiness and love.
M. A. Sholokhov in his novel “Quiet Don” poetizes the life of the people, deeply analyzes its way of life, as well as the origins of its crisis, which largely affected the fate of the main characters of the work. The author emphasizes that the people play a key role in history. It is he, according to Sholokhov, who is her driving force. Of course, the main character of Sholokhov’s work is one of the representatives of the people - Grigory Melekhov. Its prototype is believed to be Kharlampy Ermakov, a Don Cossack (pictured below). He fought in the Civil War and the First World War.
Grigory Melekhov, whose characteristics interest us, is an illiterate, simple Cossack, but his personality is multifaceted and complex. The best features that are inherent in the people were endowed by the author.
at the beginning of the work
At the very beginning of his work, Sholokhov tells the story of the Melekhov family. Cossack Prokofy, Gregory's ancestor, returns home from the Turkish campaign. He brings with him a Turkish woman who becomes his wife. This event begins new story Melekhov family. Gregory’s character is already ingrained in her. It is no coincidence that this character is similar in appearance to other men of his kind. The author notes that he is “like his father”: he is half a head taller than Peter, although he is 6 years younger than him. He has the same “dangling kite nose” as Pantelei Prokofievich. Grigory Melekhov stoops just like his father. Both of them even had something in common, “animalistic,” even in their smile. It is he who continues the Melekhov family, and not Peter, his older brother.
Connection with nature
From the very first pages, Gregory is depicted in everyday activities typical of the life of peasants. Like all of them, he takes horses to watering, goes fishing, goes to games, falls in love, and participates in common peasant labor. The character of this hero is clearly revealed in the meadow mowing scene. In it, Grigory Melekhov discovers sympathy for the pain of others, love for all living things. He feels sorry for the duckling that was accidentally cut with a scythe. Gregory looks at him, as the author notes, with “a feeling of acute pity.” This hero has a good sense of nature, with which he is vitally connected.
How is the character of the hero revealed in his personal life?
Gregory can be called a man of decisive actions and actions, strong passions. Numerous episodes with Aksinya speak eloquently about this. Despite his father's slander, at midnight, during haymaking, he still goes to this girl. Panteley Prokofievich cruelly punishes his son. However, not afraid of his father’s threats, Gregory still goes to his beloved again at night and returns only at dawn. Already here the desire to reach the end in everything is manifested in his character. Marriage to a woman whom he does not love could not force this hero to abandon himself, from sincere, natural feelings. He only calmed Pantelei Prokofievich a little, who called out to him: “Don’t be afraid of your father!” But nothing more. This hero has the ability to love passionately, and also does not tolerate any ridicule of himself. He does not forgive jokes about his feelings even to Peter and grabs a pitchfork. Gregory is always sincere and honest. He directly tells Natalya, his wife, that he does not love her.
How did life with the Listnitskys influence Grigory?
At first he does not agree to escape from the farm with Aksinya. However, the impossibility of submission and innate stubbornness ultimately force him to leave his native farm and go to the Listnitsky estate with his beloved. Grigory becomes a groom. However, he does not at all like life apart from his parents’ home. The author notes that he was spoiled by an easy, well-fed life. Main character He became fat, lazy, and began to look older than his years.
In the novel "Quiet Don" has a huge inner strength. The scene of this hero beating Listnitsky Jr. is clear evidence of this. Grigory, despite the position that Listnitsky occupies, does not want to forgive the offense he inflicted. He hits him on the hands and face with a whip, not allowing him to come to his senses. Melekhov is not afraid of the punishment that will follow for this act. And he treats Aksinya harshly: when he leaves, he never even looks back.
The self-esteem that is inherent in a hero
Complementing the image of Grigory Melekhov, we note that in his character there is a clearly expressed strength. It is in him that his strength lies, which is capable of influencing other people, regardless of position and rank. Of course, in the duel at the watering hole with the sergeant, Grigory wins, who did not allow himself to be hit by his senior in rank.
This hero is able to stand up not only for his own dignity, but also for that of others. It is he who turns out to be the only one who defended Franya, the girl whom the Cossacks violated. Finding himself in this situation powerless against the evil being committed, Gregory for the first time in a long time almost cried.
Gregory's courage in battle
The events of the First World War affected the destinies of many people, including this hero. Whirlwind historical events Grigory Melekhov was captured. His fate is a reflection of the fates of many people, representatives of the ordinary Russian people. Like a true Cossack, Grigory completely devotes himself to battle. He is brave and decisive. Grigory easily defeats three Germans and takes them prisoner, deftly repels the enemy battery, and also saves the officer. Medals and what he received officer rank- here is evidence of the courage of this hero.
Killing a person, contrary to the nature of Gregory
Gregory is generous. He even helps Stepan Astakhov, his rival, who dreams of killing him, in battle. Melekhov is shown as a skilled, courageous warrior. However, the murder still fundamentally contradicts the humane nature of Gregory, his life values. He admits to Peter that he killed a man and because of him “his soul is sick.”
Changing worldview under the influence of other people
Quite quickly, Grigory Melekhov begins to experience disappointment and incredible fatigue. At first, he fights fearlessly, without thinking about the fact that he is shedding both his own and other people’s blood in battles. However, life and war pit Gregory against many people who have completely different views on the world and the events taking place in it. After communicating with them, Melekhov begins to think about the war, as well as about the life he lives. The truth that Chubatiy conveys is that a person must be cut down boldly. This hero easily talks about death, about the right and opportunity to take the life of others. Grigory listens to him attentively and understands that such an inhumane position is alien and unacceptable to him. Garanja is the hero who sowed the seeds of doubt in Gregory's soul. He suddenly doubted the values that had previously been considered unshakable, such as Cossack military duty and the Tsar, who is “on our necks.” Garanja makes the main character think about a lot. The spiritual quest of Grigory Melekhov begins. It is these doubts that become the beginning of Melekhov’s tragic path to the truth. He is desperately trying to find the meaning and truth of life. The tragedy of Grigory Melekhov unfolds at a difficult time in the history of our country.
Of course, Gregory’s character is truly folk. Tragic fate Grigory Melekhov, described by the author, still evokes the sympathy of many readers of "Quiet Don". Sholokhov (his portrait is presented above) managed to create a bright, strong, complex and truthful character of the Russian Cossack Grigory Melekhov.