and Aksinia, one finds perhaps the tenderest love story in Soviet literature. Their passionate and fatal love recalls Anna Karenina or Dmitri Karamazov. As with Sholokhov’s poetic lyricism, his love stories are close to the earth and show the deep bond of human beings with nature. The tenderness of maternal love also plays an important role in Sholokhov’s works, as seen in the tender farewell of Ilinichna for her dead son, Piotra, and contrasts sharply with the brutality and violence of war.

Sholokhov’s humorous vein is more evident in Virgin Soil Upturned but is not absent from The Silent Don, where one might cite Panteleimon Melekhov’s wit. Virgin Soil Upturned abounds in comic characters and scenes: Shchukar’s endless stories, the exuberance of the induction into the party, the initial reactions to collectivization at the village meetings. Sholokhov’s dialogue is brisk and witty; his colloquial and dialectical language, always appropriate to the speaker, lightens the heavy subject and makes both novels highly readable.

Indeed, Sholokhov’s style is brisk and light; the chapters, composed of short vignettes, leave the reader momentarily in suspense, for Sholokhov knows where to break his tale. His rapid transitions from humor to violence, from love to war, from nature to humanity, show the all-encompassing unity of life and the complexity of the Revolution and its effects. He shows the stark reality of war, the atrocities of both Reds and Whites, and humankind’s inhumanity to others. On the other hand, he portrays the tenderness of love and the exultation of nature, as in his beautiful apostrophe to the steppe that rivals Gogol. He works in a linear manner, without flashbacks or foreshadowing, much in the tradition of the nineteenth century or indeed the ancient and medieval epic. He portrays life and love, the endless rhythm of birth and death, as seen in one great epoch, the Soviet Revolution.

The Silent Don was first conceived as an epic of the Don and of the role of the Don Cossacks in the Revolution, and Sholokhov projected the title Donshchina, later abandoning it because of its archaic allusions. The story begins in 1912 and ends in 1922. It shows the peaceful agrarian life of the Don Cossacks in the small village of Tatarsk. The domineering patriarch Panteleimon Melekhov and his independent and passionate son, Grigorii, clash often, especially in regard to Grigorii’s liaison with the bewitching Aksinia. Neither the father’s wrath and the arranged marriage with the beautiful and virtuous Natalia Korshunova, daughter of the prosperous Miron, nor the abuse by Aksinia’s husband, Stepan Ashtakov, can break the liaison. The two lovers, defying all convention, finally choose to live together as hired help on the estate of Listnitsky.

The calm of the Cossack existence, broken only by such outbursts of passion, is shattered by mobilization in Tatarsk in 1914. Grigorii is called into battle, where his attraction and repulsion toward killing and violence are first evident. The war provides Grigorii’s first contact with Bolshevism, for which he also feels both an attraction and repulsion. On leave in Tatarsk because of a wound, he learns of Aksinia’s unfaithfulness and returns to his wife, who later gives birth to twins.

Like World War I, the Revolution is portrayed through the eyes of the soldiers and villagers and evoked through images of nature: “Above blood-soaked White Russia, the stars wept mournfully.” The desertion of the troops, Kornilov’s arrest, and the fall of Kerensky are moments of confusion to the Don Cossack soldiers. Grigorii embraces Bolshevism and becomes an officer but is incapable of the cold dedication exemplified by Bunchuk, whose brief idyll with the Jew Anna Pogudko softens the drama, and by Mishka Koshevoi, Grigorii’s former friend and henceforth implacable enemy.

When Grigorii joins the Whites, his position becomes more dangerous. The violence grows more senseless and immediate, with victims such as Miron Korshunov and Piotra Melekhov, the latter killed by Mishka Koshevoi. Family tragedies also cloud Grigorii’s existence and confuse his values. His sister-in-law, Daria, commits suicide; his wife, Natalia, dies as the result of an abortion after learning of Grigorii’s return to Aksinia; his father dies of typhus. Parallel to Grigorii’s uncertainty is Mishka’s advance in the Soviet ranks and in coldheartedness. Even his marriage to Grigorii’s sister, Dunia, does not dull his determination to kill Grigorii, which the reader surmises will occur when Grigorii returns home, having lost Aksinia to a stray bullet. Only his son, Mishatka, remains, and the implacable march of history will destroy the unwilling Grigorii, born to greatness at a point in history when only conformity can save him.

In 1930, Sholokhov interrupted his work on The Silent Don to address a contemporary problem: collectivization. He published part 1 of Virgin Soil Upturned in 1932, practically without any censorship difficulties. Part 2 was not completed until 1960 and is radically different in spirit. This novel is much more concentrated in scope, since it covers only the period between 1930 and 1932, has fewer characters, and is confined to the small Cossack village of Gremyachy Log. Although it does not have the epic sweep of The Silent Don, it is an on-the-spot documentary of a crucial phase in Soviet history.

Virgin Soil Upturned

Also unlike The Silent Don, Virgin Soil Upturned has no main tragic character. Stewart observes that the heroes are dissolved by the party, so that the real hero is perhaps the collective people at Gremyachy Log. The logical hero is Siemion Davydov, a former factory worker and sailor, who was mobilized in 1930 to organize collective farms. He becomes chair at Gremyachy Log and manifests the zeal and inefficiency typical of early Soviet leaders. He is a colorless but not unlikable character. His death at the end of part 2 is far less tragic than Grigorii’s return to Tatarsk. Although he shows his human side in his love affairs with Nagulnov’s former wife, Lukeria, and with a gentle, shy seventeen-year-old, Varia Kharlamova, he is not convincing as a lover.

Siemon’s associate, the passionate and impulsive Makar Nagulnov, secretary of the Gremyachy Log Party nucleus and still secretly in love with his former wife, is more attractive. Even better portrayed is Andrei Razmiotov, chair of the village Soviet. His one passion is his deceased wife, Yevdokia, and the novel ends as he visits her grave and wistfully mourns her absence. Stewart, however, regards Kondrat Maidannikov as the novel’s most convincing character: A “middling Cossack,” Kondrat joins the collective farm because he believes in it, yet his instincts draw him to his own property. He does not join the party until he has reflected carefully. In his simplicity, he is the most philosophical and intellectually convinced Communist in the novel.

The plot of the story is simple: the gradual conversion of the village to the collective farm. The beginning reflects Sholokhov’s portrayal of violence and brutality, as entire kulak families are deported. Although collectivization is presented as voluntary, those who withdraw after reading Stalin’s pronouncement are left with no animals and inferior land. The end of part 1 is indecisive though promising. In part 2, collectivization is complete, and a revolt is suppressed. Thus, this volume becomes mainly a series of sketches and stories, mostly in a humorous vein. It seems to be the work of a writer who has totally accepted party policies, writing about an accomplished fact no longer questioned.

Actually Sholokhov’s best creative period ended before World War II, and part 2, written in 1960, weakens what promised to be a powerful, though limited, novel. Nevertheless, Sholokhov’s treatment of collectivization has not been surpassed, and his wit and lyricism make Virgin Soil Upturned a valuable contribution to literature.