The love story of Gregory and Aksinya. Creative works on literature. Position in the Aksinya family

The relationship between the Don Cossack Grigory Melekhov and his beloved Cossack Aksinya Astakhova constitutes one of the main plot lines of Mikhail Sholokhov’s epic novel “Quiet Don”. The very nature of this love was initially very difficult, but the situation was further complicated by the fact that the heroes had a difficult lot - to live in a terrible time for our country, during the First World War and the Civil War.

The characters' romance begins to develop rapidly even when relative peace and tranquility reigns on the Tatar farm. Ardent and persistent Gregory with a “beastly” look and similar habits begins to actively court the married woman Aksinya, tempting her with his “persistent and waiting” love. A young Cossack woman realizes with horror that “she is drawn to a black, affectionate guy.” She resists her feeling for a long time, but living with her husband Stepan and silently enduring all the beatings and other bullying from him is unbearable for her, so she decides to open up to her love.

From this moment on, the heroes' lives change dramatically: a tempting forbidden relationship makes young people very happy and incredibly unhappy at the same time. The relationship between Gregory and Aksinya is destined to withstand many tests: separation and separation, hatred and jealousy of the legal spouses of each of the heroes, war, the death of a common child and betrayal. But, despite this, the love of the young people only grows stronger every day, and both of them realize that they cannot live without each other.

At the same time, the connection between Gregory and Aksinya breaks the fates of other people. First of all, the fate of Natalya Korshunova. Aksinya cannot come to terms with the fact that Gregory is being married to this “happy girl who has never seen the sorrow or joy of love” and therefore decides to “new dishonor, the same shame” and takes her Grishka away from Natalya. But Grigory himself is not averse to being in such a position, so he constantly rushes between his two women, until, finally, Natalya dies, trying to get rid of the child she shared with Grigory.

Aksinya also becomes a victim of her own love: the woman is killed by Red Army soldiers while she and Grigory are trying to leave for Kuban. The true tragedy of this situation lies in the fact that Aksinya dies precisely when, finally, after all the suffering that has befallen her, the heroine is reunited with her lover, and the unknown attracts her with “ghostly happiness.”

We see how a “quiet smile” never leaves Aksinya’s lips, how joyfully her eyes, “swollen from tears,” glow. The woman is sure that she and Grigory will finally find “their share,” but cruel fate deprives them of this chance. She takes away the man’s beloved, forcing the hero to “die” from horror, holding the dying Aksinya in her arms.

Now Gregory’s life becomes black, “like a steppe scorched by burning fires,” because everything dear to him is gone from it, and only children remain. It is to them, or rather, to the only surviving son, Mishatka, that Grigory ultimately returns, since only this can now betray at least some meaning to his “broken” life and force the hero to “cling to the ground.”

Introduction

The image of Aksinya in the novel “Quiet Don” by Sholokhov is one of the central ones. Her difficult relationship with Grigory Melekhov, developing against the backdrop of fateful historical events, runs like a red thread through the entire work. In “Quiet Flows the Flow”, the image of Aksinya allows the reader to comprehend the full depth of the experiences of a woman for whom love becomes, at the same time, a blessing and a curse.

Description of Aksinya

A detailed description of Aksinya is nowhere to be found in the novel “Quiet Don”. But, the author focuses the reader’s attention on individual details of her appearance, thanks to which an idea of ​​the heroine’s appearance as a whole is formed.

From the first chapters of the novel, a woman of remarkable beauty appears before us. Full body, steep back, plump shoulders, black curly hair and hands rough from work. This is exactly what a classic Cossack woman from the beginning of the century looks like. This is how Sholokhov saw his heroine.

Aksinya’s deep black eyes and full lips attract special attention. They drive Gregory crazy, and the author talks about them most often. Aksinya’s beauty is wild, alluring, even “shameless,” according to the writer, arousing the envy of her neighbors.

Over time, the heroine's appearance changes. When Aksinya meets Gregory again, she is still beautiful, but the “autumn of life” has already left its mark on her appearance. Silver threads appeared in my hair and my skin darkened. The eyes, burning and shining in youth, now exude fatigue. Sholokhov draws a parallel between a faded lily of the valley and a fading woman mourning her life.

It must be said that every meeting with Gregory is reflected in Aksinya’s appearance. The happiness of owning a lover transforms the heroine, makes her more stately, enlivens her facial features, the whole world seems to her “jubilant and bright.”

Characteristics of Aksinya

Aksinya was created for love and family happiness. She dreams of a happy marriage and having children. Aksinya lives by traditions that have developed in the farmstead from time immemorial. Submitting to the will of her mother, she gets married, suffers beatings and humiliation from her husband, and does not dare to contradict her mother-in-law. But Aksinya’s flexible disposition is deceptive. Passion and strength sleep in her soul, which awaken along with her feelings for Gregory.

The characterization of Aksinya in “Quiet Don” is ambiguous. On the one hand, a woman is capable of boundless tenderness towards her lover and children. Finds the most kind words for them. She replaces the children's mother after Natalya's death. On the other hand, she has the strength to defend her love. So, Aksinya rebuffs Pantelei Prokofievich, who came to reproach her for her relationship with her son. He openly admits to Stepan his connection with Grigory, without fear of inevitable reprisals. I am ready to leave home and household in order to be close to my lover.

Life without a loved one makes no sense for Aksinya, who is emotional, capable of self-sacrifice and deep devotion. She, despite the danger, follows him everywhere in pursuit of “illusory happiness.” Her words: “I will follow you everywhere, even to death,” turn out to be prophetic. Love gives her the strength to live, but it also leads the heroine to a tragic death.

Aksinya's fate

Aksinya's fate is tragic from the very beginning. When the heroine was 16 years old, her own father abused her. For this crime, the girl's mother and brother kill him. This event predetermined the future life of the heroine. Aksinya marries Stepan Astakhov, but life with her husband does not work out. After their wedding night, Stepan beats Aksinya, drinks and cheats on her. The heroine hopes that the birth of a child will change their relationship. But the baby soon dies.

Aksinya, like Ostrovsky’s Katerina, needs love. And she finds her in the arms of Grigory Melekhov. The unknown feeling captures the heroine so much that she becomes indifferent to the consequences of this connection. She understands: her husband can kill her, but even possible death cannot keep Aksinya from meeting with Grigory.

Having learned about the upcoming marriage of her lover, the woman tries to forget him. She tries to reconcile with her husband and even performs a “lapel” ritual with the help of a farm healer. But a chance meeting again brings Aksinya and Gregory together. She decides to leave home and, together with her beloved, goes to work at Yagodnoye, the Listnitsky estate.

It would seem that happiness finally smiled on the woman. Her lover lives with her, and they have a daughter. But fate again treated Aksinya cruelly. Gregory goes to the front, and his daughter dies of scarlet fever. The heroine is left alone again. There is no one next to her who would provide her with moral support or comfort her in grief. Despair pushes Aksinya into the arms of Evgeny Listnitsky, who has long shown her signs of attention. Grigory cannot understand the reason that pushed Aksinya to betrayal, and leaves her. The heroine returns to Stepan and gradually fades away, living by inertia next to an unloved person.

Only the acquisition of Gregory brings the woman back to life. She hopes to finally know family happiness. Grigory comes to her with the children, and she tries with all her might to replace Melekhov’s deceased wife, Natalya. But circumstances again separate the lovers and destroy their dreams of a quiet life. Aksinya, hoping for a better life, accepts Grigory’s offer to go to Kuban. But this trip turns out to be the last in the woman’s life. A random bullet ends her life.

Conclusion

Aksinya in “Quiet Don” is a character with a tragic fate. Why does Sholokhov kill his heroine? Could her life have turned out differently? Aksinya is looking for peace, but life circumstances do not allow her to find it. Gregory, who became the meaning of her life, turned out to be an outcast under the new government. He is forced to wander. What kind of life could await the woman next to him? Deprivation away from home and the children she loved. Like Bulgakov’s heroes, apparently, only in death could Aksinya finally calm down.

Work test

Gregory's passionate feeling for the proud and beautiful Aksinya, whose fiery, destructive beauty does not fade over the years, is compared in the novel with his measured married life with Natalya - a beautiful woman of a different kind, a faithful and loving wife and mother. Strictly speaking, Melekhov never loved Natalya, who was by no means a stranger to Grigory, having married her under his father’s coercion, clearly realizing the absurdity of his parents’ idea, but also not having the right to resist. And Grigory was destined to carry his true, eternal, unquestioning and enduring love for Aksinya throughout his life. This love was a kind of inner core of Grigory Melekhov, it was she who supported the Don Cossack in the most intense moments of difficult moral decisions, with uncontrollable force pulled him to his native land, plunging the hero into the abyss of desperate happiness, it was she who dictated Grigory the will to live.

The strength of this feeling, its development, its bends were conveyed by Sholokhov with remarkable psychological accuracy, warmed by living excitement. The writer depicted the all-consuming passion, the readiness for all sacrifices on the part of Aksinya, a married woman who fearlessly rebelled against farm customs and mores, and the youthful carelessness of Gregory, who initially abandoned his love and broke up with Aksinya. The passion is fatal, inevitable, for the Cossack was unable to forget Aksinya, his craving for his beloved was uncontrollable. Love for Aksinya, which at first reconciled rudeness and tenderness, becomes increasingly spiritual. Grigory often remembers their life together in Yagodnoye on the fronts of the imperialist and civil war as the happiest time of his life. And every time, remembering Aksinya, Grigory thinks about his childhood, remembering his childhood, he thinks about Aksinya. This subtle psychological observation of the writer speaks better than many words about the strength and depth of feeling that connected Gregory and Aksinya. Aksinya entered him forever, forever... She, like barefoot childhood, became a part of his life.

Sholokhov is rather stingy with unnecessary descriptions of Grigory’s feelings. When, at the very beginning of the uprising, Melekhov comes to arrest Stepan, who does not want to fight, he tries not to even look at Aksinya, who is standing right there, by the stove. What does he think and feel when he enters the Astakhovs’ kuren and sees Aksinya, whom he continues to love? Not a word is said about this. And this is a manifestation of that economy, which is an essential sign of artistry.

A mention of Gregory’s feelings for Aksinya would have violated artistic integrity, and therefore was not necessary in this place. After all, Grigory was then seething with rage; the owner bristled within him, taking up arms against the Soviet regime. He thought only about struggle and revenge then, that was all that occupied him. Grigory pays a high price for his delusions. His own life seemed painfully difficult and unnecessary to him. Sholokhov, with soulful skill, conveys to the reader the full depth of Grigory’s tragic emptiness: he met Aksinya, their love flared up with renewed vigor, but at the moment she is not able to fill the cold emptiness in Melekhov’s soul. The previously heard motif of the search for happiness in this abundant land is repeated. The whole world seems jubilant and bright to Aksinya: “Aksinya with lively curiosity examined the snow-covered, snowdrift steppe, the road polished to a gloss, the distant horizons drowning in darkness; smiling at the fact that the dream that had captivated her for a long time had come true so unexpectedly and strangely - to leave with Grigory somewhere far away from Tatarsky...”

But even here fate takes its own turn. Aksinya falls ill with typhus on the way. To save Aksinya’s life, she has to leave her in the village with strangers. Together with Prokhor, Grigory goes to Kuban. The war is nearing its end. More and more often, Grigory remembers Aksinya when he is apart. In the morning he got into a sleigh, rode along the snow-covered steppe, and in the evening, having found somewhere to stay for the night, he went to bed. And so on day after day.

But the disease does not bypass Gregory either. He lives as if in a dream: he often loses consciousness, it is difficult for him to talk. He barely raises his clouded head to look at the sky. Fortunately, after some time Gregory began to recover. Aksinya also recovers, returning from an unfamiliar village to her native Veshki. Waiting for Gregory to return, the days drag on long and tediously. The hope is born in my soul that after long and painful separations, Grigory and Aksinya will be together.

Long before dawn, Grigory galloped to the Tatarsky farm, tied the horses to the dry karaich he had known from childhood, and went to the village. And here, finally, Don, the old Melekhov kuren, dark clumps of apple trees, Aksinya’s window, her hands. Aksinya kneels down in front of him, pressing her face to her wet overcoat, shaking with sobs. Aksinya's love is selfless. Feeling the illusory quality of the happiness-dream that has come true, she joyfully responds to Gregory’s call to run away with him. Grigory calls her to the south, to Kuban, almost repeating the words she once said: “To Kuban or further. We'll survive and feed ourselves somehow, eh? I don’t disdain any work. I need to work with my hands, not fight..."

For the last time, without knowing it, Aksinya and Grigory go down to the Don. The Don, the steppe, receives its beloved for the last time. A random bullet interrupts this getaway date in search of its share. The wounded Aksinya, bleeding, dies in the arms of Gregory, never having met a new dawn, in the darkness of the night.

The story of Grigory Melekhov and Aksinya is a story of tragic love, a story of a burnt out, incinerated life. Their love - so great in its passion and mutual desire, so majestic in the most burning need to love, so desirable in its forbiddenness - does not bring happiness to the heroes, it simply does not have time to be fully realized.

Thus ends the long dance of death. Begun by the murder of an Austrian soldier in the war, it ends with the death of the person dearest to Gregory. This is the logic of war: the swing of the saber, for which Gregory executed himself in such a way, is destined to respond with the ridiculous bullet that Aksinya got.

On a sunny morning, Gregory buries his Aksinya in a deep hole. The grief that befell Gregory is immeasurable. After Natalya's death, Grigory tossed about and suffered. Before us was still a living person, but wounded, tormented by pain. Aksinya’s death was so terrible that everything in Gregory seemed to die. Now he has no need and nowhere to rush. Gregory buries all his spiritual quests, all his hopes, all his life. He buries himself alive: Grigory says goodbye to the dead Aksinya, “firmly believing that they will not part for long.” Now he has no reason to live.

Love for Aksinya was the whole meaning of Gregory’s existence and was the main driving force of his entire life. The tragedy lies in the fact that the spark of passion that ran between Gregory and Aksinya at the very beginning of the novel was initially doomed to blaze with bright light and go out from the brutal invasion of historical cataclysms. The rich world of heroes, the world of vivid feelings and pristine emotions, is not able to squeeze into the rigid schemes of class struggle, the meaning of which is not even completely clear to the characters of Sholokhov’s novel. Grigory and Aksinya, created for happiness, like millions of other people, lost their master's role in the plot and in life, fell into cruel submission to forces beyond their control, were left alone with their own fate and found themselves desperately powerless to change anything.

(450 words) Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don” is a truly unique classic of Russian fiction. It was for this work that the writer received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965. The novel has been filmed many times and still continues to attract readers with its depth and truthfulness.

One of the central plot lines of “Quiet Don” connects two heroes of the work - Grigory Melikhov and Aksinya Astakhova. Grigory falls in love with his married neighbor, the beautiful Aksinya, for which he receives condemnation from his family, especially from his father, who wants to marry his son to another girl, Natalya Korshunova. Grigory is opposed to the union in his soul, but decides that his relationship with Aksinya may turn out to be only a temporary hobby, and there is no point in giving up a profitable marriage. Aksinya is unhappy in her marriage; for her, love for Gregory is a breath of fresh air, rest for the heart. Aksinya suffers with all her soul after learning about her lover’s marriage.

However, fate unites the heroes again. Grigory realizes that he has made a mistake and leaves his wife, running away with Aksinya to a remote estate, where they both find work. However, the happiness of the heroes is not cloudless. Having finally become convinced of their love for each other, they are forced to endure many trials: the death of a small child, a long separation, betrayal, constant military clashes and intrigues around them.

Despite the difficulties, both Grigory and Aksinya carried their all-consuming, sometimes destructive feeling throughout their lives. Throughout the novel they learn to love. Two principles - Aksinya, close to nature, a natural, responsive woman, and Gregory - a rebellious, strong-willed man - they unite in a union that, alas, is not destined to be long. Aksinya dies tragically, and Gregory’s only salvation is his little son.

The author fully showed how complex and contradictory the inner world of a person is at times, how immensely difficult it is to merge two worlds into a single and indestructible union, even through love and self-denial. The relationship between Gregory and Aksinya is consonant with revolution and war - they also stepped over the traditions and foundations of their society and fought with it for the right to be together. Sholokhov does not accept either the white side or the red side. For him, only one powerful force matters - the strength of the family hearth, love and peace.

Of course, the story of the relationship between the two lovers is not simple; Life sometimes pushes them together, sometimes pulls them apart. They make many mistakes, search for themselves, seek the truth among many half-truths and outright lies. They face difficulties, losses and pain; they have to make responsible, sometimes overwhelmingly difficult decisions.

Love in the fate of Gregory and Aksinya becomes as fatal, a turning point as the civil war for all of Russia. It opens the eyes of the heroes, makes them rethink what seemed clear and familiar for a long time.

Sholokhov in his novel showed that love is no less a strong and powerful element than the element of war and destruction. It is like a quiet, but inside, under the surface - powerful and bubbling current of the great Don, capable of instantly capturing the human soul and turning it over, carrying it with irresistible force towards a difficult, but such an important meeting, first of all, with oneself.

The beautiful Aksinya lived most of her life without feeling loved. The poor girl endured the bullying of her father and husband for a long time until she met a person in whom she could dissolve. And if initially Aksinya’s love for was filled only with a selfish desire to know a wonderful feeling, then closer to her death the beauty learned to give a bright feeling to her lover without causing pain.

History of creation

The writer made his first attempt to create a work telling about the revolution on the Don in 1925. Initially, the novel was only 100 pages long. But the author, not satisfied with the result, left for the village of Veshenskaya, where he began to reshape the plot. The final version of the four-volume work was published in 1940.

One of the main characters in the book, which touches on military events, is Aksinya Astakhova. Sholokhov describes the biography of the heroine from the age of 16, touching on the deep psychological problems of the character. Residents of the village where work on the novel was carried out are sure that Sholokhov copied the image of the unfortunate beauty from a girl named Ekaterina Chukarina.

The Cossack woman knew the writer personally. The author of the novel even wooed the beauty, but the girl’s father did not consent to the marriage. However, Sholokhov himself claimed that in “Quiet Don” he did not use images of acquaintances, but only generalized traits and characters of common characters:

“Don’t look for Aksinya. We had a lot of such Aksiniyas on the Don.”

Plot

Aksinya was born in a Cossack village located near the Rostov region. The girl became the second child in a poor family. Already at the age of 16, the Cossack woman had a bright appearance and attracted the attention of men.

The girl did not hide her long curly hair and sloping shoulders. The beauty's black eyes and plump lips attracted particular attention. Because of her attractiveness, the fate of the Cossack woman went downhill.

Even before her marriage, Aksinya was raped by her own father. Having learned about her husband's act, the mother killed the villain. To hide the shame, the girl was forcibly married to Stepan Astakhov, who could not forgive the beauty for her lack of innocence.

Not loved by her husband, who suffered beatings, Aksinya becomes close to her neighbor, Grigory Melekhov. The girl understands that she is hurting her family and friends, but the beauty is so tired of humiliation that she does not pay attention to the gossip of the Cossacks.

Concerned about the behavior of young people, Grigory's parents marry Natalya Korshunova to the guy. Realizing that marriage, even with an unloved woman, is the best way out, the man breaks off relations with Aksinya. But the feelings that Gregory awakened in the unhappy beauty do not fade away so quickly, so the love affair is soon resumed.

Unfree heroes leave their own families and go off to build a future together. Soon Grigory and Aksinya become parents. The couple has a daughter, Tatyana. But the happy time is interrupted by military training. The beloved is taken to the service, and the beauty is left alone.

Suddenly, little Tatyana, who occupies all the thoughts of young Aksinya, dies of scarlet fever. Having barely coped with grief, the beauty plunges into an affair with Evgeny Listnitsky. However, no matter how hard the woman tries to forget Gregory, the relationship between man and woman is renewed every time with the same passion.

Aksinya’s beloved is appointed chief of military operations on the Don, Grigory takes the woman with him. Once again, circumstances and their own families separate the lovers. Military operations, in which Grigory Melekhov takes an active part, constantly separates the heroes. He does not lose hope of returning the man and.

Ultimately, trying to hide from the bandits with whom Grigory unexpectedly connected his life, the man and woman run away to Kuban. But, crossing the steppe, Aksinya receives a bullet wound from her pursuers - employees at the outpost. A woman dies in the arms of her beloved man, the only one who gave the beauty a real, sincere and full of life feeling.

Film adaptations

In 1930, the first film adaptation of Mikhail Sholokhov's novel was released. The film "Quiet Don" touches on the plot of only the first two volumes of the drama. The role of Aksinya in the silent film was played by actress Emma Tsesarskaya.

In 1958, a film director made a film about the fate of the Don Cossacks. Many Soviet actresses wanted to recreate Aksinya’s image on television. As a result, they also applied for the main role. The final choice was made by Sholokhov, who viewed the sample films. Seeing Bystritskaya, the writer expressed the opinion that this is how Aksinya should look.

In 2006, they entrusted the reconstruction of the history of the residents of the village, and the final editing of the film was performed. The initiator of the new film adaptation was Sholokhov, who did not like the final version of Gerasimov’s film. Negotiations about filming began back in 1975. The role of Aksinya was played by Dolphin Forest.

The premiere took place on the Rossiya-1 TV channel in 2015.” The new film adaptation is dedicated to the 110th anniversary of Sholokhov. The plot of the film is very different from the original source - the film focuses exclusively on the relationship between the main characters. The role of Aksinya was played by the actress.

Quotes

“I’ll never love you for the rest of my life!.. And then kill me! My Grishka! My!"

“My friend... darling... let's leave. Let's throw everything in and leave. I’ll throw away my husband and everything just to have you. We’ll go to the mines, far away.”

“I didn’t come to impose, don’t be afraid. Does this mean our love is over?