And Quiet Flows the Don
OCLC 51565813 | |
And Quiet Flows the Don (Quiet Flows the Don or The Silent Don, Russian: Тихий Дон, literally The Quiet Don) is a novel in four volumes by Russian writer Mikhail Sholokhov. The first three volumes were written from 1925 to 1932 and published in the Soviet magazine Oktyabr in 1928–1932, and the fourth volume was finished in 1940.
The novel is considered one of the most significant works of world and Russian literature in the 20th century. It depicts the lives and struggles of
Plot summary
The novel deals with the life of the
The second eldest son, Grigory Panteleevich Melekhov, is a promising young soldier who falls in love with Aksinia, the wife of Stepan Astakhov, a family friend. Stepan regularly beats her and there is no love between them. Grigory and Aksinia's romance and elopement raise a feud between her husband and his family. The outcome of this romance is the focus of the plot as well as the impending World and Civil Wars which draw the best young Cossack men into what will be two of Russia's bloodiest wars. The action moves to the Austro-Hungarian front, where Grigory ends up saving Stepan's life, but that doesn't end the feud. Grigory, at his father's insistence, takes a wife, Natalya, but still loves Aksinia.
Grigory takes part in the Civil War, changing sides four times (Red to White to Red to White to indifferent). Many of his friends and relatives are killed in action or executed by both the Reds and Whites. Natalya dies after a failed amateur abortion, leaving Grigory with two small children who are eventually cared for by Aksinia. This does not prevent Grigory and Aksinia from trying a final escape alone together, but she is killed by a stray bullet during a fight with Red troops. Grief-stricken, Grigory buries her and returns home, with his prospects unclear.
The book deals not only with the struggles and suffering of the Cossacks but also the landscape itself, which is vividly brought to life. There are also many
And Quiet Flows the Don grew out of an earlier, unpublished work, the Donshina:
I began the novel by describing the event of the
Kornilov putschin 1917. Then it became clear that this putsch, and more importantly, the role of the Cossacks in these events, would not be understood without a Cossack prehistory, and so I began with the description of the life of the Don Cossacks just before the beginning of World War I. (quote from M.A. Sholokhov: Seminarii, (1962) by F.A. Abramovic and V.V. Gura, quoted in Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, by L.L. Litus.)
Protagonist Grigory Melekhov is reportedly based on two Cossacks from
Literary significance, criticism, and accusations of plagiarism
The novel has been compared to
During the
Awards and nominations
The novel won the Stalin Prize in 1941 and its author won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965.[7]
Adaptations
The novel has been adapted for the screen four times: a 1931 film by Ivan Pravov and Olga Preobrazhenskaya; a second, 1958 adaption was directed by Sergei Gerasimov and starred Elina Bystritskaya and Pyotr Glebov. In 1992–1993 a remake was directed by Sergei Bondarchuk (starring Rupert Everett); the film was not finished until 2006, when Fyodor Bondarchuk completed the editing, and was shown on Russian television as a seven-part miniseries. A shorter, 3-hour version of Bondarchuk's And Quiet Flows the Don was released on DVD in several countries. In 2015 the novel was adapted again more comprehensively as a 14-part TV-series, directed by Sergey Ursulyak.
Ivan Dzerzhinsky based his opera Quiet Flows the Don (Tikhiy Don) on the novel, with the libretto adapted by his brother Leonid. Premiered in October 1935, it became wildly popular after Stalin saw and praised it a few months later. The opera was proclaimed a model of socialist realism in music and won Dzerzhinsky a Stalin Prize.[8]
The lyrics for the
English translations
The English translation by Stephen Garry of the first two volumes appeared under the title And Quiet Flows the Don in 1934, while the other two were published in 1940 as The Don Flows Home to the Sea. The whole work was published as a set of two books under the title The Silent Don. Garry's translation lacks about 25 percent of the novel text. In 1950 Garry's translation was "revised and completed" by Robert Daglish. In 1984 Daglish published his own translation of the novel as Quiet Flows the Don.[11]
- And Quiet Flows the Don. Translated by Stephen Garry, 1934, Alfred A. Knopf.
- The Don Flows Home to the Sea. Translated by Stephen Garry, 1941, Alfred A. Knopf.
- The Silent Don. Translated by Stephen Garry, 1943, Alfred A. Knopf.
- Volume 1. And Quiet Flows the Don.
- Volume 2. The Don Flows Home to the Sea.
- And Quiet Flows the Don. Translated by Stephen Garry, revised and completed by Robert Daglish. Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow (in 4 volumes).
- Quiet Flows the Don. Translated by Robert Daglish. Raduga Publishers, 1984 (in 4 volumes).
- Quiet Flows the Don. Translated by Robert Daglish, edited by Carroll & Graf, 1996.
- Quiet Flows the Don. Translated by Robert Daglish, edited by
References
- ^ And Quiet Flows the Don, part 1, And Quiet Flows the Don, part 2
- ^ Sofranov, Anatoly (June 1985). "Farewell Mikhail Sholokhov". Soviet Life. 345: 50–51.
- ISBN 978-0-241-28440-7.
- ^ Hjort N. L. (2007), "And quiet does not flow the Don: statistical analysis of a quarrel between Nobel laureates Archived October 30, 2008, at the Wayback Machine", Consilience Archived October 5, 2015, at the Wayback Machine (editor—Østreng W.) 134–140 (Oslo: Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters).
- ^ Trud.ru (in Russian)
- ^ Felix Kuznetsov, "The Manuscript of the 'Quiet Don' and the Problem of Authorship" (in Russian)
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1965". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
- Macmillan, 1980), 20 vols., 5:797.
- ^ Spiegel, Max. "Origins: 'Where Have All the Flowers Gone?'". mudcat.org. Retrieved 2020-07-25.
- ISBN 978-0306812651.
- ^ BOOKEND; The Don Flows Again - The New York Times
Sources
- Scammell, Michael (25 January 1998). "The Don Flows Again". The New York Times. Retrieved 2015-01-16.
External links
- Tikhiy Don at IMDb(1931 version)
- And Quiet Flows the Don at IMDb(1957 version)
- Quiet Flows the Don at IMDb(2006 version)
- Text of the novel in English (volume 1 only)