Novel
Quiet Flows the Don
Тихий Дон
Mikhail Sholokhov · 1940
Synopsis
In the Cossack village of Tatarsk, on the Don, lives the Melekhov family, descended from a Cossack who came back from the Crimean War with a Turkish wife, taken captive. Grigori, the second son, falls in love with Aksinia, the wife of their neighbour Stepan Astakhov, who beats her. Their affair sets the two families at odds. Married by his father's order to Natalia, Grigori still loves Aksinia, and this love forces him to leave the family farm. Then come the First World War, the revolution and the civil war, in which he wavers between the Reds and the Whites.
Context
The first three books appeared in the journal Oktiabr from 1928 to 1932, the fourth in Novy mir from 1937 to 1940; the novel won its author the Stalin Prize in 1941. From its publication, it was accused of plagiarism, some attributing the book to the writer Fyodor Kryukov. The autograph manuscript, long lost, was acquired in 1999 by the Institute of World Literature, and expert examinations confirmed that it was in his hand. The novel has been adapted for cinema and television, notably in 1958, 2006 and 2015.
Who it is for
A very long novel in four books, to be read in the complete edition by Claude Frioux; the civil war on the Don sheds light on the whole story.
Prizes and reception
Awarded as early as 1941, the book was the most widely read Soviet work of fiction according to the Nobel Foundation, and was brought to the screen several times.
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