Mikhail Sholokhov "Don stories": a summary of the story "Birthmark"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In the spring of 1905, the future great writer Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov was born. "Don Stories", a summary of which will be presented below, is an unsurpassed masterpiece left to us as a legacy from the author.

Storyline

The plot of the story "Birthmark" is as follows: Nikolka Koshevoy - an eighteen-year-old guy, is a regiment commander and fights no worse than any experienced warrior. He is a real Cossack and the son of a Cossack. The author cites the guy's memories of his childhood, when his father put him on a horse at the age of five. Early Nikolka became an orphan. Mother died, father went missing during the German war. Left completely alone at the age of 15, Nikolka went to the Reds.

A strong and brave young man early in the morning receives an order to go to the neighboring state farm to capture the gang. Orders are not discussed, so Nikolka is going on the road.

For the third day now, the gang has been escaping from the pursuit of Koshevoy's detachment. The gang consists of drunk experienced soldiers. Their ataman had not been in his native land for seven years. And he survived the captivity, and the “Turetchi”, became evil, callous. Only tried to fill the pain of the soulmoonshine.

Nikolka Koshevoy, having learned from the miller where the gang has settled, immediately goes there. But the ataman saw the young commander from afar and took aim. He fired once, and the horse fell under Nikolka. The fleeing commander fired, and the ataman, baring his teeth, waited until he had spent the entire clip. And then the ataman attacked the commander and killed him with a saber. After that, the killer removed binoculars and boots from the corpse. But when he took off, he pulled off his socks. Here the ataman's heart froze. He saw on Nikolka's leg a mole the size of a pigeon's egg, the same mole that his son had. The chieftain killed himself with a shot in the mouth. And a vulture kite sat on his head.

Special treatment

This is the summary. Sholokhov wrote Don Stories not so much to show the horrors of the civil war as to show people a way out of it. In general, Mikhail Sholokhov, of all the writers who revealed in his work the themes of collectivization, civil war, dispossession, was distinguished by his special approach to assessing the events and actions of people. Sholokhov ("Don Stories") does not make heroes only positive or negative. The summary of some of the works confirms this. Each with his own truth, with his own life view. First of all, the writer was interested in the inner world of the hero, and not in whether he gravitates towards the White or Red movement. It is for this reason that we will not see the justification by the author himself of "red" or "white" ideas, cruelty and inhumanity. This is the whole Sholokhov (“Donstories"). The summary, of course, does not allow you to see the whole deep meaning of the book. It only reveals the plot.

Idea

The 20s are a terrible time in the life of the people, because the struggle was not against a foreign invader, but there was a war between brother and brother, father and son. What could be worse? In the book we see terrible pictures filled with blood and hatred. But even through them something good shines through, faith in a better future for the country. The writer unobtrusively explains to the reader that nothing can justify the inhuman torture, the execution of thousands of people.

On the example of specific heroes, we see the tragedies of an entire nation according to the book "Don Stories". Sholokhov ("The Mole" - the work we are considering) is very penetrating, so that the heart shrinks, conveys the story of the ataman who killed his own son and did not survive this tragedy. The scene of the ataman's understanding of what he has accomplished is terrible. He groans like a wounded animal, he shakes the dead man, calling him his dear son.

Relationships between people

Pictures of the Don landscape, witnessing the bloody murders, begins each of the six parts of Sholokhov's story. "Don stories", a brief summary of which has already been given, goes even deeper. Why was this murder of the ataman so shocking? Hasn't he done this before? Did! But killing a son is different. From this Sholokhov comes to the conclusion: so that there is no war, so that people again live in peace and harmony, theyshould treat each other like a father, love like sons, like brothers.