The birth of a new type of man in the fire of civil war based on Babel’s work “Cavalry”

cavalry babel civil war

Before our eyes in “Cavalry,” the unrequited, bespectacled man turns into a soldier. But his soul still does not accept the cruel world of war, no matter for the sake of whatever bright ideals it was waged. In the short story “Squadron Trunov” the hero does not allow captured Poles to be killed, but he cannot kill in battle (“After the Battle”). Akinfiev, a former wagon driver of the Revolutionary Tribunal, says: “...I want to blame someone who gets confused in a fight and doesn’t put cartridges in his revolver... the attack was coming,” Akinfiev suddenly shouted to me, and a spasm flew over his face, “you were walking and didn’t put cartridges in.” ... where is the reason for this? What Akinfiev cannot understand is clear to the reader: Lyutov, more than anything else in the world, is afraid of killing a person and avoids everything that could lead to this. Although he himself could die at any moment. No one will blame him for cowardice, but this also irritates the fighters: it is the lack of understanding why he does this that irritates him.

Strictly speaking, such a misunderstanding is not surprising to me: seventy percent of the Russian population at that time did not have any education, they were in spiritual savagery, so they did not want to understand such psychological subtleties.

Babel's hero is experiencing moral discord. The birth of a new person is painful and slow. Lyutov, sharing the goals of the revolution and civil war, cannot accept the methods by which they are achieved.

Here are the moments of such soul-tearing experiences for the hero: “Against the moon... I sat wearing glasses, with boils on my neck and bandaged legs. With vague poetic brains I digested the struggle of classes... I am sick, apparently the end has come for me, and I am tired of living in your Cavalry...”

But, however, nearby the cavalrymen are fighting in the name of life, and on their banner there is a star drawn and it is written about the Third International (“Death of Dolgushev”). This short story is about death, laughing at the life of Afonka Bida. A true cavalryman, he sacrifices his life every minute with the gaiety of an immortal being: “Encircled by the halo of sunset, Afonka Bida galloped towards us. “We’re scratching a little,” he shouted cheerfully. “What kind of fair do you have here?”

The halo is a clear sign of immortality and holiness, the fair is a self-contained world of habitual fun that has become a kind of ritual. Afonka - the same Afonka who, in one of the following short stories "At St. Valentine's" in a desecrated church, tries to "pick up a march on the organ" - is perceived by the narrator Lyutov as a saint of some new faith. Pushkin also said that “rapture in battle” is “the key to immortality.” If so, then Afonka’s rapture is quite understandable.

However, Babel’s hero is not alone: ​​the coachman Grischuk, it turns out, also thinks and feels the same way as Lyutov. For them, life becomes meaningless if death awaits a person everywhere: “A Polish patrol jumped out from behind the graves and, raising their rifles, began to hit us. Grischuk turned around. His cart screamed with all four of its wheels. - Grischuk! - I shouted through the whistle and wind. “Pampering,” he answered sadly. “We’re lost,” I exclaimed, overcome with disastrous delight, “we’re lost, father!” - Why do women work? - he answered even more sadly. “Why matchmaking, weddings, why do godfathers go to weddings...”

As we see, Lyutov’s “disastrous delight” is not quite the same as “delight in battle.” As a result of the story different attitude to death forever separated the heroes into different poles. “Today I lost Afonka, my first friend,” Lyutov grieves.

Afonka’s character, in my opinion, deserves attention for its depth. Afonka is the type of that new person who sacrificially burned in the heat of the civil war, and in theory, such people should have stayed alive and started building a new life. In Afonka’s soul there was moral strength for a future creative impulse. I remember how he, who necessarily took part in the killing of bees, said: “...deprived of bread, we extracted honey with sabers,” that is, killing for Afonka was not an end in itself. Under other circumstances, he probably wouldn’t have hurt a fly. “Let the bee be patient. And for her, I suppose, we are poking around...” he further argues. It is this sincere belief in the necessity of revolution and war, blood and death for the future of all living things that makes Afonka and cavalrymen like him truly immortal.

So subtly and at the same time naturally, Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel indicated the birth of a new type of people in the fire of the civil war.

He became known in Russian literature in the 20s of the XX century and still remains a unique phenomenon in it. His novel-diary is a collection short stories O civil war, united by the image of the author-narrator.
In the 1920s, Babel was a war correspondent for the newspaper “Red Cavalryman” and took part in the Polish campaign of the First Cavalry Army. He kept a diary, wrote down the stories of the soldiers, noticed and recorded everything. At that time, there was already a myth about the invincibility of the Bolshevik army. With his smart, truthful and cruel book, Babel destroyed this myth. As an eyewitness and participant in historical events, the writer showed the horror of a fratricidal war. He sincerely believed that the Bolsheviks were bringing freedom to people, but the truth of life he saw did not allow him to remain silent. This was a real act of an honest man, who was not forgiven by Marshals Budyonny and Voroshilov, who accused the writer of malicious slander against the heroic army.
Babel was amazed by everything he saw during the war. This was not at all how the war itself and the people at war seemed to him. The Cossacks came to the service with their horses, equipment and weapons. They had to provide themselves with food, horses and feed for them. This was done at the expense of the civilian population and often led to bloodshed: “The village is groaning. The cavalry poisons grain and changes horses.”
Babel's style in stories is that of a correspondent who primarily collects facts. The tone of his narration is emphatically even, which makes the story even more tragic and terrible. The author does not single out anyone; he has no heroes or villains. The Civil War corrupted everyone, made murder commonplace and cruelty commonplace. A person's life is worth nothing. Day after day, observing manifestations of rudeness, cruelty, anarchism, and bullying of each other among the fighters, the author asks the question: “Why do I have persistent melancholy?” And he answers to himself: “Because we are far from home, because we are destroying, we are moving like a whirlwind, like lava... life is scattering, I am at a big, ongoing funeral service.”
The first story, “Crossing the Zbruch,” begins with a description of the joy on the occasion of the successful capture of the city. Pictures of peaceful nature contrast with the actions of people: “Fields of purple poppies bloom around us, the midday wind plays in the yellowing rye...” The victory was achieved thanks to the cruel and terrible actions of people. The tension and anxiety in the story increase: “the orange sun rolls across the sky like a severed head,” “the smell of yesterday’s blood of killed horses drips into the evening cool.” The story ends in tragedy: the sleeping neighbor is stabbed to death.
The story “The Letter” shocks the reader with its indifferent attitude towards concepts that are sacred to man. The young fighter, Vasily Kurdyukov, dictates a letter to his mother, in which he tells her how his brother Senka “finished” his “dad”, a White Guard who killed his own son Fedya. The author sees anger, revenge and fierce hatred in this war. Here they are fighting for power, not for their homeland.
Wartime laws give rise to arbitrariness and impunity. Brigade commander Maslak from the story “Afonko Bida” orders the squadron to attack the villagers who helped them in the fight against the Poles. Afonko goes off to take revenge alone for the killed horse. He sets fire to villages, shoots village elders, and commits robbery. Both red and white are equally dangerous for the civilian population.
Nikita Balmashev, the hero of the story “Salt,” writes a letter to the editor. He describes an incident from his life with a sense of accomplishment. When the cavalry soldiers went to the front, out of pity, he let a woman and a child into the carriage, and guarded her along the way. When it turned out that the package contained not a child, but salt, Balmashev threw the woman out of the carriage and shot her. The letter ended with the words: “...I washed away this shame from the face of the working land and the republic.”
Babel was a communist, but an honest man and a writer. He fulfilled his civic duty by writing the truth about the revolution and civil war. In 1939 he was arrested, accused of “anti-Soviet conspiratorial terrorist activities,” and in 1940 he was shot. Book "Cavalry" on long years was prohibited.

“Cavalry” is an episode of the struggle for freedom of creativity. Early 1920s – stories, publications in the magazine “October”. Budyonny’s article “Babism of Babel from Krasnaya Novy” is an accusation against the writer of slandering the First Cavalry Army, where Babel himself served.

Collection of short stories, related topic civil war and a single image of the narrator. “Cavalry” is written based on Babel’s diaries (when he fought in the First Cavalry Army). The writer is concerned about the problem of humanism in war. He strives not to talk about a person, but to show him, revealing to the reader individual pages of the life of his heroes, revealing their essence.

Poetry of banditry; accused of deliberately de-heroizing history.

A life in which heroism and cruelty, truth-seeking and mental underdevelopment, the beautiful and the disgusting, the funny and the tragic are intertwined. The story is told on behalf of Lyutov, an employee of the division headquarters. The hero is autobiographical. The hero, an intellectual, a humanist, thought that the war would bring about an internationalization of good people. Trying to become one of our own looks pathetic.

"My first goose." Among the cavalrymen, Lyutov is a stranger. Bespectacled, intellectual, Jewish. He is forced to prove that he is capable of being one of his own: he must kill the goose. This is a forced murder. The goose is an innocent victim of the civil war.

"The Death of Dolgushov"(1923). One of the short stories that directly depicts a military episode. The action takes place after the battle, household painting. What does it mean to feel sorry for a mortally wounded person? What is willpower in war? Main meaning The short story is associated with the death of Dolgushov. The drama of the main character. He understands, but it can’t be simpler, he can’t shoot a person. The author, Kirill Lyutov, is an intellectual who, as a result of a conscious choice, ends up on the side of the Reds, finds himself in a difficult moral situation. A mortally wounded cavalryman, telephone operator Dolgushov, asks to be finished off, saving him from torment and possible abuse from the Poles. Lyutov refuses to do this. The very fact of the choice that Lyutov has to make is deeply tragic. To kill a person is to violate the internal moral law. Not killing him means dooming him to a slower and more painful death. It’s as if Afonka Vida is performing an act of mercy, finishing off Dolgushov and thereby doing good. However, the Cossack was already infected with a passion for murder.

"Letter" highlighted by many researchers. Written in 1923. The father is a company commander with the Whites, and his three sons are in the Red Army. Author's assessment - only in the episode with the photo.

Style. Voronsky: the relationship between daydreaming and “womanish life.” Contemporaries began to read everyday, naturalistic literature according to the code. Babel’s thinking is based on a carnivalized worldview (life turned out of the ordinary rut, the world in reverse, liberation from laws ordinary life). Carnival as a worldview brings together the sacred and the profane, the high and the low, the wise and the foolish (Bakhtin). This must be taken into account in order to understand Cavalry.

Municipal educational institution

"Secondary School No. 6"

____________________________________________________________________________

Mirsaeva Guzel Gabtullovna

The tragedy of man in the civil war

(By " Don stories» M.A. Sholokhova

and “Cavalry” by I.E. Babel)

Scientific supervisor Ashurkina T.I.,

teacher of Russian language and literature

Gubkinsky

2006

1.Introduction………………………………………………………………………………3

2.The theme of the civil war in literature…………………………………….5

3. Civil war as a tragedy of the people in “Cavalry” by I. Babel………...8

4. Civil war as depicted by Sholokhov………………………………....10

5. Comparative analysis of the depiction of the civil war in works

M. Sholokhov and Babel…………………………………………………………….. 12

6. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..16

7. Bibliography………………………………………………………..19

Introduction

The topic of my essay“The tragedy of man in the civil war” based on the works of M. Sholokhov and I. Babel.

Why did I choose this topic?

The theme of revolution and civil war for a long time became one of the main themes of Russian literature of the 20th century. These events not only radically changed the life of Russia, redrew the entire map of Europe, but also changed the life of every person, every family.

Having crossed the threshold of the 21st century, we must not forget the events of the early 20th century and try to understand them. History repeats itself when we forget its lessons. Literature in its depiction of these events is multifaceted and contradictory.

Purpose of the abstract: compare the image of the civil war and the Red Army in the works of Babel and Sholokhov.

Tasks:

Study the works of M. Sholokhov “Don Stories” and I. Babel “Cavalry”.

Study critical literature on these works.

Find out what brings writers together in depicting the Civil War and what sets them apart.

Subject of study: stories by I. Babel from the collection “Cavalry”; stories by M.A. Sholokhov from the collection “Don Stories”.

Subject of the study: heroes of the stories of Sholokhov and Babel.

Research methods: reading the stories of Sholokhov and Babel, studying critical literature By this issue, selection and grouping of material, comparative analysis works.

Literature analysis

“Don Stories” by M. Sholokhov literary criticism were accepted immediately and unconditionally. A. Serafimovich, noting their high artistic merit, wrote: “Like a steppe flower, Comrade Sholokhov’s stories stand out like a living spot. Simple, bright... Huge knowledge of what he’s talking about... The ability to choose the most characteristic ones from many.” A reviewer for “New World” wrote: “The book “Don Stories” will take far from last place in literature devoted to the reproduction of the era of the Civil War." Both points of view are close to me.

With the publication of stories from the “Cavalry” series, Babel’s work became the subject of serious controversy. The legendary army commander S. Budyonny made an angry protest against the denigration and caricature of his soldiers, claiming that “Cavalry” is “the poetry of banditry” and slandering the Red Army.

V. Polonsky and A. Vronsky, one of the best critics, tried to protect the writer from such accusations. Both critics wrote that Babel welcomed the revolution, despite all its contradictions and overlaps. A. Vronsky believed that the most important thing for a writer is “to express his artistic perception of the world.” Babel himself explained that creating a heroic history with the First Cavalry was not his intention. M. Gorky, who discovered the writer’s literary talent, also came to Babel’s defense. Gorky said that Babel depicted the Red Army soldiers more picturesquely than Gogol did the Cossacks. And yet, tension around Babel’s name persisted, although Cavalry was continuously republished (in 1930 the next edition was sold out within seven days, and Gosizdat began preparing the next issue).

After reading the critical articles by V. Shklovsky, A. Voronsky, A. Lezhnev and V. Polonsky, written about Babel, I concluded that they generally give a positive assessment to Babel’s work. In particular, Babel was spoken of as the founder of a writing genre that was just beginning to appear during the times of the Soviet Republic, an individual genre that, as critics argued, all other writers could only repeat. Only S. Budyonny spoke about him as a writer who did not know the goals of military operations in the country, therefore, as he believed, Babel slandered the First Cavalry.

But A. Lezhnev’s statement seemed closest to me. He speaks of Babel as “...a master who ages his short stories under wraps for years, like wine in cellars. Babel is short, rich, clear and expressive. He is unlike any of his contemporaries." The critic admires Babel's stylistic source, his Russian-Jewish, Odessa jargon, which was introduced into literature by Yushkevich.

In my opinion, Babel, as a true artist of words, depicted the revolution as he felt and saw it. In no case did he go against the people, whose image was depicted with such vividness and naturalism in his stories.

At the beginning of my work, I put forward the following hypothesis as a working one:: a civil war, like any other, is a test for the people, changes their values, inner world, psychology and fate. Techniques for depicting this historical event due to a number of reasons: social status the writer, his attitude to the event, his worldview, education, upbringing.

The theme of the civil war in literature

A revolution is a huge event in its scale, so as not to be reflected in literature. Only a few writers and poets who came under her influence did not touch on this topic in their work.

This problem initially implied two options: either the writer accepted the revolution and automatically became its faithful singer, or he did not accept it, as a result of which he showed overt or secret resistance to it.

The writer always expects an aesthetic explosion from a powerful political event and gets burned by the monstrous moral consequences. “Listening to the music of the revolution” is always dangerous; it's captivating, but ends up producing too much sound effects.
The year 17 awakened and legally formalized a colossal surge of violence, making it the driving force of Russian culture for many years to come.

October Revolution- the most important stage in the history of mankind - gave rise to the most complex phenomena in literature and art.

Many works have been written about revolution and counter-revolution. Writers tried to understand what motivated the people at a turning point in history, what was the truth of life that they defended. Why did the people direct their hatred even towards those who tried to awaken them for centuries, fought for their independence - against the intelligentsia?

Writers used various techniques to embody and convey all their thoughts about the revolution in the form that they themselves experienced while in the very centers of the civil war.

Among the writers who reflected these turning points in the history of the country, there were those who “equated the pen to the bayonet”: A. Fadeev, who wrote the novel “Destruction”; N. Ostrovsky, who embodied the experience of revolution and civil war in the novel “How the Steel Was Tempered”; M. Sholokhov, to whom “Don Stories” brought fame; I. Babel, whose “Cavalry” was ambiguously received by literary critics.

His vision of the revolution and civil war is shown in M. Bulgakov’s novel “ White Guard”, in B. Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”.

The revolution was welcomed and sung in different periods of their creativity V. Mayakovsky, A. Blok, S. Yesenin.

M. Gorky's novel "Mother" shows how the revolution changes the inner world of a person and contributes to the moral awakening of a person.

The revolutionary present is shown in A. Platonov’s novel “The Pit,” and the future of a totalitarian society is shown in E. Zamyatin’s novel “We.”

In my work, I want to turn to the works of I. Babel and M. Sholokhov, to find out how these two writers depicted in their works the collapse of the old world and the emergence of a new type of society. How are the events and heroes of the revolution and civil war depicted? What has changed in people’s lives, in their characters, psychology, worldview?

What gives me the right to conduct a comparative analysis of works about the Civil War by these particular authors? What do they have in common?

I will talk about this as I work. Now I would like to say a few explanations about my position.

Both writers enthusiastically greeted the revolution.

Both are participants, witnesses to the events they describe. During the civil war, Babel, under a false name, goes to fight in the Budyonny Cavalry. He came to the front as a correspondent for the newspaper “Red Cavalryman” - Kirill Vasilyevich Lyutov, Russian. While moving with units, he had to write propaganda articles and keep a diary of military operations.

M. Sholokhov participated in the civil war and the establishment Soviet power on the Don. He was a literacy teacher, a statistician, a clerk, and a food inspector. He worked in the committees for the confiscation of grain, and in 1922 he was sentenced to a suspended sentence of 1 year for abuse of power.

Thus, both writers knew firsthand about the events depicted by I. Babel in “Cavalry” and M. Sholokhov in “Don Stories”; in these stories they described everything that happened before their eyes.

The stories of these writers are united not only by a common historical background, but also heroes. These are Cossacks.

The collections consist of stories combined common theme, but new heroes appear every time. This is especially true for “Don Stories” by M. Sholokhov. The stories from “Cavalry” by I. Babel are united by the image of the narrator.

Both “Don Stories” by M. Sholokhov and “Cavalry” by I. Babel did not go unnoticed by critics and the public.

If Sholokhov's stories were accepted with unanimous approval, then the attitude towards Babel's stories was contradictory. For a long time they were banned due to the death of Babel in Stalin’s dungeons.

Why is this different fate from writers and their stories?

We will try to figure this out in our work.

So, my task is to figure out why Sholokhov’s works were accepted by the authorities, and Babel’s works were first banned and then forgotten. After all, the answer to this question can be the image of the civil war and its main heroes.

The tragedy of man in the civil war in “Cavalry” by I. Babel

I. Babel was one of the famous revolutionary writers, complex in human and literary understanding. One gets the impression that even after his death, the question of the works created by him is still not resolved.

I. E. Babel was born in 1894 in Odessa, on Moldavanka, in a wealthy and educated Jewish family. As Babel later recalled, at home he was forced to study many sciences, and until the age of sixteen, “at the insistence of his father,” he studied the Hebrew language, the Bible, and the Talmud.

During the civil war, Babel, under a false name, goes to fight in the Budyonny Cavalry. His first stories about the Cavalry caused a violent negative reaction from Budyonny himself. This is not surprising: the style of chanting victories was already emerging then.

Bolsheviks and their various achievements, criticism was unacceptable. His own army commander called Babel this: “... a degenerate from literature, Babel spits with the artistic saliva of class hatred” of the cavalrymen. But M. Gorky, who knew the value of this writer’s talent, helped. Objecting to Budyonny, M. Gorky very highly appreciated Babel’s “Cavalry” and even said that the writer portrayed the heroes of his book more colorfully, “better, more truthfully than Gogol of the Cossacks.” But we know that Gorky himself came into conflict with the totalitarian regime of Stalin, and
Babel has lost his last defense. In 1939, Babel was arrested and soon died.
During the “Khrushchev Thaw” they started talking about Babel again. His book “Favorites” was published. But the official literary rehabilitation of Babel proceeded slowly. The “Thaw” ended, and the writer was again subjected to harsh criticism in the style of Budyonnovsky, but now he was accused of anti-scientific views and concepts.
What were his so-called anti-scientific views? It seems to me, first of all, that the Soviet censorship of that time pushed into the shadows the works about the revolution and civil war of those writers who spoke openly about their era.

Now that the Russian reader has been completely returned creative heritage this wonderful writer, we see how wrong those who accused him of treason were own people.
In all his works about the revolution and civil war, Babel denounced the unfair accusations that cost the lives of many innocent people, and which also overtook him.

The novel "Cavalry" occupies leading place in the works of Babel. This novel is not like the works of other authors who describe the events of the civil war and revolution. The novel consists of 36 short stories. The narration is told in the first person. The main character is Kirill Vasilyevich Lyutov. Under this name Babel fought in the ranks of the Red Army. Lyutov expresses the writer's views.

The hero-narrator finds himself in a world of poorly educated, ignorant people, wild from the war. Babel deprives the events he describes of the heroic aura, as was customary in official literature, and reveals the terrifying face of war. The author's sympathy is on the side of the victims of the civil war, the local residents of those villages and towns through which the Cossacks of the First Cavalry Army pass.

By portraying the Red Army soldiers as cruel sadists, Babel breaks the established tradition in depicting revolutionary, and therefore just, wars. A hero fighting on the side of the Reds must be endowed with every conceivable virtue. For what purpose is Babel doing this?

For him, any war, even a civil one, is inherently unnatural. In no way does he blame his heroes for being who they are. After all, culture and morality are not given at birth, they are developed throughout life. Moreover, even cultured person, finding himself in a situation of war, is not able to fully preserve his human face.

The merit of I. Babel is that he remains consistent in his work, as a humanist writer, he rejects any war and depicts the picture of events and its heroes in the form in which it presented itself to him. By drawing the truth, he accomplishes a human and civic feat. It was precisely these considerations that guided Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist through whose eyes we saw the truth of the war in Chechnya. How honest this truth was was confirmed by the fate of the journalist and her contract killing.

It was no coincidence that the author made the main character an alien, intelligent, educated person, since only such a person could comprehend and understand the whole tragedy of the revolution. For Babel, the tragedy of the civil war lies in the fact that it kills the human soul, blurring the line of what is permitted, devaluing the main human values ​​and qualities: life, humanity, mercy. Humanity pays too much for fratricidal wars high price, destroying the humanistic traditions accumulated by the people for centuries.

The image of a person in the civil war in the stories of M.A. Sholokhov.

M. Sholokhov Born on the Kruzhilinsky Khutor of the Veshenskaya village into a peasant family. He studied at a parochial school, then at a gymnasium, graduating from four classes. The outbreak of revolution and civil war prevented him from continuing his education. Sholokhov served in the village revolutionary committee and volunteered to join the food detachment. At the end of 1922 he came to Moscow to study. But I had to work as a loader, a mason, an accountant, and a clerk. In 1924, his first story, “The Birthmark,” was published in “Young Komsomolets.”

In 1925, a meeting took place with A. Serafimovich, to whom Sholokhov would remain grateful for the rest of his life.

Stories appeared in newspapers and magazines of that time, later combined into the collection “Don Stories”. These stories received positive criticism. “This is not only a test of the pen, but also a wonderful debut of the writer,” said the writer’s biographer I. Lezhnev. The reviewer of “New World” believed that “Don Stories” would occupy far from the last place in the literature devoted to reproducing the era of the Civil War. Sholokhov himself admitted that in “Don Stories” he tried to write the truth of life, to write about what worried him most, was the topic of the day for party and people. Known fact from his biography that Sholokhov was convicted of abuse of power during the seizure of surplus grain speaks volumes.

One feels that “Don Stories” was written in hot pursuit and deserves attention as documents of history. Sholokhov talks about the most terrible, tragic events in the life of the people during that period. There is a lot of death and inhuman torment in the stories.

All stories are about the clash between the white and red Cossacks. What is significant in the principles of Sholokhov’s depiction is that his “reds” are really red, and his whites are white. Everyone who fights for a just cause, for the happiness of the people, is warmed by the warmth of Sholokhov’s heart. The writer believes in his heroes, supports them in difficult times of life, because he sees that all these people are restive, stubborn, and will stand up for a person even when death stares them in the face.

Sholokhov’s “Don Stories” skillfully combines the image of young contemporary, fighting evil, clearing the way to the future, with the cruel truth of life.

Sholokhov lived a long and full life of trials. He is a Nobel, Lenin and State Prize, twice Hero Socialist Labor, monuments were erected to him in Veshenskaya and Moscow; during his lifetime, one of the main streets of the village was named Sholokhovskaya. He was favored by all the rulers of the Soviet era - Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev.

But these are only the external aspects of the life of a great writer. His letters to Stalin reveal his sense of the tragedy of that time, when trials were carried out everywhere without investigation... In these letters he speaks people's defender. And more than once he himself was under attack and spent sleepless nights awaiting arrest. Only personal courage and people's love saved him.

Sholokhov will address the topic of depicting the civil war in the novel “ Quiet Don" This suggests that this topic was not a passing, temporary one, but a very important, painful one.

Comparison of stories by M. Sholokhov and I. Babel

To compare the image of a person in the civil war, I chose Sholokhov’s stories “Birthmark”, “Food Commissar”, “Shibalkovo Seed” and Babel’s stories “Letter”, “Salt”, “Biography of Pavlichenka, Matvey Rodionich”.

These stories are based on similar situations that took place very often at that tragic time: hatred pits people related by blood in war. Fathers, due to their age and life experience, defend the old time and the old order, sons fight on the side of the new owners of the young country, the Bolsheviks, i.e. fathers are on the side of the whites, and sons are on the side of the reds.

The main character of the story “Birthmark” - Nikolka Koshevoy. He is a squadron commander, a member of the RKSM, and he is only 18 years old.

His Cossack father disappeared into the German army, his mother died. Until he was fifteen, he hung around among the workers, then he went with the Reds to fight Wrangel.

Eliminated two gangs without damage. He led the squadron into battle for six months.

He is tired of the war and dreams of studying. “I’m sick of everything... There’s blood again, I’m tired of living like this...” These words from Nikolka emphasize his humanity, his soul resists life, which brings death and blood.

But White Guard gangs are still roaming the earth, and the time has not yet come for Nikolka to sit down at his desk and learn how to govern the young republic.

Chasing the gang, Nikolka does not know that the ataman of the gang is his father, who disappeared in Germany.

The advantage in this battle is on the side of the gang. Nikolka is destined to die at the hands of his father. But the father does not know at whom he is swinging his sharp saber. The ataman’s description of the killing of squadron commander Nikolka Koshevoy in battle is laconic: “... he waved his sword, for a moment he felt his body go limp under the blow and obediently slid to the ground.”

Pulling off the boots of the killed Red commander, the ataman “... on his leg, above the ankle, saw a mole the size of a pigeon’s egg” and realized that he had killed his son.

But at this moment he does not experience the triumph of victory over the enemy, over the traitor to his faith and truth: “Slowly, as if afraid to wake him up, he turned his cold head face up, smeared his hands in the blood crawling out of his mouth..., he peered and only then awkwardly hugged his angular shoulders and said dully:

Son!..Nikolushka!..Dear! My little blood...

Blackening, he shouted:

Yes, say at least a word! How is this possible, huh?

He fell, looking into the fading eyes; eyelids, drenched in blood, lifted, shaking the limp, pliable body..."

The denouement of the story: “Pressing the ataman to his chest, he kissed his son’s freezing hands and, clenching the steamed steel of the Mauser with his teeth, shot himself in the mouth...” is tragic. A father's life lost meaning when he killed his own son.

The landscape in Sholokhov’s story is consonant with the heroes’ tragedy: “The sun was covered by a cloud, and floating shadows fell on the steppe, on the highway, on the forest, torn away by the winds and in the fall.”

The afterword of the story tells the reader that life does not stand still, horsemen are trampling the ground again, which means that a gang is raging somewhere again: “And in the evening, when horsemen loomed behind the copse, the wind carried voices, horses snorting and the ringing of stirrups, with shaggy The ataman's head reluctantly fell off the vulture kite. He fell off and melted into the gray, colorless autumn sky.”

At the heart of the story I. Babel “Letter“There is a similar situation: the father serves the whites, the sons serve the reds. The genre of the story is a letter written by the boy Kurdyukov to his mother. Vasily tells his mother that he serves in the Red Army. Cavalry Army Comrade Budyonny. He asks his mother to send him a parcel. Inquiring about his horse Styopa. And only in the second lines of his letter does he describe to his mother how dad “cut up Fyodor Timofeevich Kurdyukov’s brother about a year ago.” How can this be explained? A year has passed: feelings have dulled or the person does not have the call of his native blood. Another brother, Semyon Timofeevich, avenges his murdered brother, kills his father with his own hands, although the father was already in prison and awaiting trial and investigation. And Vaska writes to her mother with regret that she cannot describe to her mother “how they killed daddy.” In the images of the Kurdyukovs, the writer depicts the composure with which one kills his father, and the other reports it. The war hardened their hearts, taught them to live in the present day, with worries about their daily bread, about the physical component of their bodies: “They gave us two pounds of bread a day, half a pound of meat and enough sugar”; “...at lunchtime I went to my brother Semyon Timofeevich for pancakes or goose and after that I went to rest.”

In Sholokhov’s story “Food Commissar» main character story - Ignashka Bodyagin. Appointed district food commissioner. His father kicked him out of the house at the age of fourteen, when Ignacha, seeing his father hit a worker in the teeth for breaking a pitchfork, said:

You're a bastard, dad...

The father whipped his son until he bled and ordered him to go around the world.

And now, six years later, Ignakha found himself in his native village as a food commissar. It was decided to shoot two Cossacks, including Ignakha’s father, for resisting the search.

Having met six years later, they feel nothing but hatred for each other. The father was shot. In putting the execution sentence into effect there is no gloating or intoxication of revenge, only the sound of last words son: “Don’t be angry, dad...” Ignakha simply cannot do otherwise, because he was appointed district commissioner. If he did not have such a responsibility, perhaps he would have acted differently.

Ignakha also finds death. He is killed by Cossacks who rebelled against Soviet power. But before his death, Ignakha saves a boy who is freezing by the road, which costs him own life. In the image of this young man, builder of the future, Sholokhov emphasizes self-sacrifice and kindness, courage and resilience.

In Sholokhov's story “Shibalkovo Seed”"The Cossack girl Daria, who was sheltered by the detachment out of pity, turned out to be a pion sent by Ignatiev’s gang. Shibalok, a machine gunner in the detachment, has become attached to her, but having learned that because of her reports his comrades were dying, he understands that Daria must die, despite the fact that Daria gave birth to a son from him. The Cossacks first wanted to finish off Shibalok himself if he did not finish off Daria and her baby. Shibalok begged to leave his son in exchange for Daria's death. He personally carries out the order.

Daria's death is justified here by the entire course of the narrative; the author understands the hero's action and supports him. There is a war going on, there can be no halftones. If you turn out to be an enemy, take a bullet. Shibalok is shown as a real Red Army soldier, whose class conscience does not sleep. When Daria needed help, he showed compassion, mutual assistance, he even fell in love with her. But he is unable to forgive the betrayal. Shibalok reveals himself to us as a loving and caring father; he only gives the baby to an orphanage until the end of hostilities.

In the story “Salt” by I. Babel the woman also becomes a victim of the revolutionary-minded masses. The plot of the story is as follows: the Red Army soldiers put a woman and a child in their carriage at the station. As time passed, it seemed strange to the Red Army soldiers what kind of child this was: he didn’t ask for food, didn’t cry... Having unwrapped the diapers, they saw “a good pood of salt.” The conversation with the enemies of Soviet power, with the bag makers, is short: “And by removing the faithful screw from the wall, I washed away this shame from the face of the working land and the republic.” What is the reason for this action? “...you, vile citizen, are more counter-revolutionary than that white general who threatens us with a sharp saber...” The hero not only sees the bagwoman, but “the indescribable scattering around her, and peasant fields without ears, and comrades who ride a lot on front, but few return…” This vision of the heroine’s act obscures from him the very culprit of his disorder, the reality of what is happening and, most importantly, humanity, the laws of morality.

In the story by I. Babel “Biography of Pavlichenka, Matvey Rodionich“The former shepherd and now general Matvey Rodionovich tells how he took revenge on master Nikitinsky for all the oppression because he was not paid for his work. His words reek of primitive cruelty, fury, inhumanity:“And then I trampled my master Nikitinsky. I trampled him for an hour or more than an hour... Shooting, I’ll put it this way, is the only way to get rid of a person: shooting is a pardon for him, but it’s a vile ease for yourself; shooting doesn’t reach the soul, where a person has it and how it shows itself. But sometimes I don’t feel sorry for myself, sometimes I trample the enemy for an hour or more, I would like to know life as it is for us...” Human life has become devalued by people who build new world, unjustified cruelty took over. You can hear the author’s voice through the lines: “I hate war.”

Conclusion

Civil wars are usually called fratricidal. Any war is fratricidal in its essence, but in civil war this essence is especially acute.

Hatred often brings together people who are related by blood, as confirmed by the stories of Babel and Sholokhov. The tragedy of the events depicted here is extremely exposed.

The Civil War became a test not only for the people through whose destinies the red wheel of history passed, but also for writers. It cost some of them their lives, others a deal with their own conscience.

As a result of working on the topic of my research, I came to the following conclusions:

1. History burst into people's lives. The 19th century with its traditions and way of life is replaced by the 20th century, filled with turbulent and tragic events.

2. The stories of Babel and Sholokhov reflect life in extreme conditions, because war - even for the beautiful ideals of the revolution - is always conditions different from normal life. People, having replaced universal human values ​​with momentary, political ones, unite into whites and reds and begin to kill each other, sincerely believing that they are doing good deeds.

3. Sholokhov has no halftones. "Red" is really red, and white white. Youth is no obstacle to courage and perseverance in the image of Nikolka Koshevoy, the hero of the story “The Birthmark”; Sholokhov admires the humanity of Ignat Bodyagin, the hero of the story “Food Commissar”; justifies Mitka's action from the story "Melon Grower". The images of the enemies of the revolution are striking in their unjustified cruelty, hatred, and inhumanity (the father of Ignat Bodyagin, who mocked his workers and resisted Soviet power; the father of Mitka and Fyodor, who was appointed commandant at a military court and, with the support of the white Cossacks, dealt with the Red Army soldiers; who beat his wife).

4. I. Babel depicts Azak soldiers who served in Budyonny’s army, who hated local residents only because they had a different way of life, language, culture, who despised them for belonging to a different nationality, because they were Jews, Poles or Ukrainians, because they wanted maintain the same way of life. His heroes, contrary to the established tradition of depicting Red Army soldiers only with positive side, very contradictory. The writer shows, along with heroism, the rudeness and even cruelty of the soldiers of Budyonny’s cavalry towards the civilian population. Violence has become commonplace for them. The reader sees a lot, a lot of blood of innocent people. For Babel’s Red Army soldiers there are no prohibitions left, they are no longer afraid of anything, nothing is holding them back (the story “Letter”, “Salt”, “Biography of Pavlichenka, Matvey Rodionich”). The author does not idealize his heroes, as was customary in Soviet literature.

5. Sholokhov’s heroes are young. Nikolka Koshevoy is 18 years old, Grigory Frolov from the story “The Shepherd” is 19 years old, his sister Dunyatka is 17 years old. Is this a coincidence? For them, the young ones, it is arranged new life When they no longer need bread, they will begin to study. This means that Sholokhov’s stories are imbued with optimism: all adversity will be overcome, the pain of loss will subside, a new fair life will begin.

6. There is no such confidence in Babel’s stories. Babel, Having plunged into the passionate element of the revolution, he does not understand where the truth is, where the lies are, one thing is clear to him: “Revolution is a good deed of good people. But good people don't kill. So they are making a revolution evil people». Babel does not justify such cruelty; we understand his unspoken thought that we need to look for another path to a new life.

7.Sholokhov, through the actions and thoughts of his heroes, makes it clear that there is no other way, revolution, even with blood and cruelty, is the only way to change something on earth. Sholokhov explains the causes of the revolution and civil war with pictures of people’s miserable life, hunger, exploitation and cruelty (the story “Alyoshka’s Heart”).

8. Babel sees the negative sides of the revolution and does not hush them up. Sometimes Babel, it seems to me, uses the power of hyperbolization, like Saltykov-Shchedrin, for artistic purposes. By using artistic exaggeration shows the danger of remaking the world by any means.

9.Babel and Sholokhov have significant differences in the characteristics of their heroes . So, for example, Babel writes about a true Bolshevik: “... a young Kuban citizen, a tireless boor, a cleansed communist, a future flea dealer, a careless syphilitic, a leisurely liar” (“Prishchepa”). We see a completely different person in the description of Nikolka Koshevoy, the squadron commander, brave, dashing, devoted to the revolution: “He’s a boy, a kid, but look for someone else who could eliminate two gangs almost without damage and lead the squadron into battles and fights for six months no worse than anyone.” old commander! ("Mole").

The tasks and goals set at the beginning of the work can be considered completed. Based on the study of works, critical literature, acquaintance with the creative and personal biography of writers, I was able to conduct a comparative analysis of the depiction of the civil war, the images of the Red Army soldiers in the stories of M. Sholokhov “Don Stories” and in the stories of I. Babel from “Cavalry”.

It can be clearly stated why Sholokhov’s life was successful and Babel’s life ended so tragically. The writers lived during a time of brutal class struggle, when differences in the interpretation of the images of the Red Army soldiers and the meaning of the civil war were not allowed, when the principle of socialist realism dominated in literature. Sholokhov’s point of view on what was happening in the country at that time coincided with the generally accepted one, and honest look Babel doomed him to death and oblivion.

Now we understand that every writer is individual, everyone sees life

in my own way. Perhaps someone will reproach Sholokhov for some schematism of his heroes, and Isaac Babel will be reproached for excessive naturalism. But for us, readers, their works seem to complement each other. Both “Don Stories”, full of hope for a wonderful future, and the confusing, complex, but at the same time very truthful and honest collection of stories “Cavalry” present a complex picture of revolutionary times.

The awareness of the civil war as a national tragedy became decisive in many works of Russian writers brought up in the traditions of humanistic values classical literature. Including for Sholokhov (as the novel “Quiet Don” will show) and for Babel.

The results of my research can become auxiliary material when studying the topic of the Civil War in literature classes.

The next stage of work on this complex topic could be a comparative analysis of the image of man in the civil war based on “Cavalry” by I. Babel and the novel “Destruction” by A. Fadeev.

.

Bibliography

1. Babel I.E. Favorites.-M.: Olympus; Publishing house AST, 1996.

2. Babel I.E. Articles and materials. Edited by B.K. Kazansky and Yu.N. Tynyanov.L., 1996.

3. Petelin V.V. M. Sholokhov. Pages of life and creativity. - M., 1990.

4. Sholokhov M.A. Stories.- M.: Bustard: Veche, 2002

Catastrophic events social revolutions The 20th century could not help but become the greatest shock in the fate of literature. October 1917 exploded Russia from within and gave birth to a civil war. Devotion to the revolution and the defense of its ideals in the civil war were reflected in the novels of D. Furmanov “Chapaev”, N. Ostrovsky “How the Steel Was Tempered”, A. Fadeev “Destruction”, A. Serafimovich “Iron Stream”.
But there were many writers who went into conscious opposition and, following the laws of humanistic morality, spoke about the revolutionary time as a violence that distorted the destinies of people in Russia. Such works as “Quiet Don”, “Don Stories” by M. Sholokhov, “Cavalry” by I. Babel, “Running”, “White Guard”, “Days of the Turbins” by M. Bulgakov, “Doctor Zhivago” by B. Pasternak and other. Most of these authors became victims of a dictatorial regime that did not want to know the truth about itself.
I. BABEL. "CACONARMY"
A striking example The fate of a person, distorted under the wheels of revolution, can be considered the life of I. Babel. Tragic fate writer, shot in January 1940 in Moscow, was predetermined: the author of Cavalry could not survive the terror of the 30s. Reading his books, we remember that they were paid at the highest rate.
“Cavalry” is a novel in short stories, typical of the literature of the 20-30s. All novellas are combined literary storyteller Kirill Vasilyevich Lyutov, candidate of rights from St. Petersburg University, seconded to the headquarters of one of the divisions of the First Cavalry Army. The fate of the hero is not a special case concerning an individual representative of the intelligentsia, but a colossally powerful generalization of the most important problem - the intelligentsia and the revolution.
The plot conflict is based on Lyutov’s attempts to become an equal soldier of the Cavalry, to turn into a true red cavalryman who would not stand out from the crowd. Hence the hero's ordeal. It couldn’t have been any other way, because a well-educated, intelligent person, in many ways an idealist and romantic, finds himself in a circle of poorly educated, ignorant people who have simply gone wild from many years of slaughter.
After an explosion of despair, the hero’s affairs are slowly but surely moving towards a positive conclusion: he gains significant authority among the cavalrymen, as can be judged by the fact that they call him “Lyutych” and turn to him as an arbitrator in case of difficulties.
Moreover, when Lyutov finds the courage and strength in a heated combat situation to resist the execution of prisoners, he achieves his goal. This is the denouement: the hero has overcome (of course, to a certain limit) the abyss that separated him from the fighters of the First Cavalry.
One of the most important in the novel is the problem of humanism, considered in the theme “man at war.” The writer emphasizes that the heroes’ thirst for revolutionary justice develops into a fratricidal war, and courage and selfless devotion to the fight “for a just cause” compensates for any moral shortcomings.
These are the heroes of “Cavalry”: Konkin, Ivan Akinfiev, Kolesnikov. Afonka Bida, Nikita Balmashev, even “the lady of all squadrons Sashka.” For example, Ivan Akinfiev is a sophisticated sadist, for him “Soviet power is a bitter bloodshed,” and he is ready to kill Lyutov because he goes on the attack without shooting at the enemy.
War is equally morally disastrous for all its participants. So, Lyutov, on the one hand, protests against the killing of prisoners and insulting the religious feelings of Catholics, and, on the other, sets fire to a pile of straw on the floor of the house for this purpose.
to force the owner to feed him. This means that even a cultured person, finding himself in such a situation, is unable to adhere to the principles of humanism.
Describing the horrors of war is not an end in itself for a writer. The attitude of the candidate of rights Lyutov to what is happening, the attempt to reconcile in the mind the aversion to violence and the idea of ​​​​its inevitability - this is the contradiction that is fundamental to the novel.
The book about the war contains practically no battle scenes. For example, in the short stories “Brigade Commander Two”, “Chesniki”. "Afonka Vida" only mentions the battle. There is only one explanation for this: “Cavalry” is not a chronicle, it is a novel about human soul, restless, seeking truth in an unjust, bleeding world. Having told tragic truth about the war, Babel, as a writer, as a humanist, completely rejects the wild, unnatural state of civil war, “seasoned” with revolutionary slogans about justice.
M.A. BULGAKOV. “WHITE GUARD”, “RUN”, “DAYS OF THE TURBINES”
Bulgakov entered literature with a theme that he remained faithful to in his work - revolution and culture, where the connecting conjunction “and” sometimes sounded like a dividing “or” for the writer.
When the world around Bulgakov was shocked by the revolution, the question arose: what would happen to the culture created by millennia of civilization?
For Bulgakov, destroying the old means destroying first of all cultural values. He believes that only culture, the world of the intelligentsia, brings harmony into the chaos of human existence.
Thinking about Russia, the writer could not imagine it without the intelligentsia as main force historical development. This idea takes on a tragic sound in the novel The White Guard. The Turbins' attempt with a sword in their hands to defend a way of life that had already lost its existence was assessed by Bulgakov as quixotic. With their death, according to the writer, everything perishes. Art world The novel seems to be bifurcated: on the one hand, this is the world of the Turbins with their established cultural way of life, on the other hand, this is the barbarism of Petliurism. The world of the Turbins is dying, but so is Petlyura. The battleship "Proletary" enters the city, bringing the same chaos to the world of human kindness.
Following The White Guard, Bulgakov creates the dramatic duology “Days of the Turbins” and “Running”. If in “The White Guard” the idea is clearly expressed that with the death of the old intelligentsia everything perishes, then in “Days of the Turbins” and “Running” with the death of the Turbins only part of the world perishes. Tragic heroes- Turbin and Khludov are warming their parody doubles - Lariosik and General Charnota.
The heroism and personal courage of Turbin, who defends the gymnasium alone, is parodically reduced by the farcical performance of a lone watchman, ready to save the gymnasium desks at the cost of his life. Maxim is a kind of twin of the Turbins. They also have a “Mr. Director” who has sunk into oblivion. Their lives were also given up for the sake of historical illusion. This is where it starts main feature Bulgakov's vision and reflection of the world: tragedy and farce. It is bitter irony, laughter, and farce that will become decisive in describing the tragic essence of the lives of people who have fallen under the wheels of history. And in “The White Guard”, and in “Running”, and in “Days of the Turbins” Bulgakov portrayed the Russian intelligentsia dying in the fire of the revolution.
For a long time, Bulgakov was called the singer of the “white guard”, and his works were regarded as “a direct attack class enemy" Realizing the impossibility of surviving with romantic nostalgia for the old culture, Bulgakov develops in his work satirical image new world, born of revolution, in the famous story “ dog's heart", in "Diaboliad" and other works.