Where does the work “the fate of a person” begin? "The Fate of Man": analysis of the story

Still from the film “The Fate of Man” (1959)

Andrey Sokolov

Spring. Upper Don. The narrator and a friend rode on a chaise drawn by two horses to the village of Bukanovskaya. It was difficult to travel - the snow began to melt, the mud was impassable. And here near the Mokhovsky farm there is the Elanka River. Small in the summer, now it has spilled over a whole kilometer. Together with a driver who came from nowhere, the narrator swims across the river on some dilapidated boat. The driver drove a Willis car parked in the barn to the river, got into the boat and went back. He promised to return in two hours.

The narrator sat down on a fallen fence and wanted to smoke - but the cigarettes got wet during the crossing. He would have been bored for two hours in silence, alone, without food, water, booze or smoking - when a man with a child came up to him and said hello. The man (this was the main character of the further story, Andrei Sokolov) mistook the narrator for a driver - because of the car standing next to him and came up to talk to his colleague: he himself was a driver, only in a truck. The narrator did not upset his interlocutor by revealing his true profession (which remained unknown to the reader) and lied about what the authorities were waiting for.

Sokolov replied that he was in no hurry, but wanted to take a smoke break. Smoking alone is boring. Seeing the cigarettes laid out to dry, he treated the narrator to his own tobacco.

They lit a cigarette and started talking. The narrator was embarrassed because of the petty deception, so he listened more, and Sokolov spoke.

Pre-war life of Sokolov

At first my life was ordinary. I myself am a native of the Voronezh province, born in 1900. During the civil war he was in the Red Army, in the Kikvidze division. In the hungry year of twenty-two, he went to Kuban to fight the kulaks, and that’s why he survived. And the father, mother and sister died of hunger at home. One left. Rodney - even if you roll a ball - nowhere, no one, not a single soul. Well, a year later he returned from Kuban, sold his little house, and went to Voronezh. At first he worked in a carpentry artel, then he went to a factory and learned to be a mechanic. Soon he got married. The wife was brought up in an orphanage. Orphan. I got a good girl! Quiet, cheerful, obsequious and smart, no match for me. Since childhood, she learned how much a pound is worth, maybe this affected her character. Looking from the outside, she wasn’t that distinguished, but I wasn’t looking at her from the outside, but point-blank. And for me there was nothing more beautiful and desirable than her, there was not in the world and there never will be!

You come home from work tired, and sometimes angry as hell. No, she will not be rude to you in response to a rude word. Affectionate, quiet, doesn’t know where to seat you, struggles to prepare a sweet piece for you even with little income. You look at her and move away with your heart, and after a little you hug her and say: “Sorry, dear Irinka, I was rude to you. You see, my work isn’t going well these days.” And again we have peace, and I have peace of mind.

Then he talked again about his wife, how she loved him and did not reproach him even when he had to drink too much with his comrades. But soon they had children - a son, and then two daughters. Then the drinking was over - unless I allowed myself a glass of beer on the day off.

In 1929 he became interested in cars. He became a truck driver. Lived well and made good. And then there is war.

War and Captivity

The whole family accompanied him to the front. The children kept themselves under control, but the wife was very upset - they say we’ll see each other for the last time, Andryusha... In general, it’s already sickening, and now my wife is burying me alive. In upset feelings he went to the front.

During the war he was also a driver. Lightly wounded twice.

In May 1942 he found himself near Lozovenki. The Germans were going on the offensive, and he volunteered to go to the front line to carry ammunition to our artillery battery. It didn’t deliver the ammunition - the shell fell very close, and the blast wave overturned the car. Sokolov lost consciousness. When I woke up, I realized that I was behind enemy lines: the battle was thundering somewhere behind, and tanks were walking past. Pretended to be dead. When he decided that everyone had passed, he raised his head and saw six fascists with machine guns walking straight towards him. There was nowhere to hide, so I decided to die with dignity - I stood up, although I could barely stand on my feet, and looked at them. One of the soldiers wanted to shoot him, but the other held him back. They took off Sokolov's boots and sent him on foot to the west.

After some time, a column of prisoners from the same division as himself caught up with the barely walking Sokolov. I walked on with them.

We spent the night in the church. Three noteworthy events happened overnight:

a) A certain person, who introduced himself as a military doctor, set Sokolov’s arm, which was dislocated during a fall from a truck.

b) Sokolov saved from death a platoon commander he did not know, whom his colleague Kryzhnev was going to hand over to the Nazis as a communist. Sokolov strangled the traitor.

c) The Nazis shot a believer who was bothering them with requests to be let out of the church to go to the toilet.

The next morning they began to ask who was the commander, the commissar, the communist. There were no traitors, so the communists, commissars and commanders remained alive. They shot a Jew (perhaps it was a military doctor - at least that’s how the case is presented in the film) and three Russians who looked like Jews. They drove the prisoners further west.

All the way to Poznan, Sokolov thought about escape. Finally, an opportunity presented itself: the prisoners were sent to dig graves, the guards were distracted - he pulled to the east. On the fourth day, the Nazis and their shepherd dogs caught up with him, and Sokolov’s dogs almost killed him. He was kept in a punishment cell for a month, then sent to Germany.

“They sent me everywhere during my two years of captivity! During this time he traveled through half of Germany: he was in Saxony, he worked at a silicate plant, and in the Ruhr region he rolled out coal at a mine, and in Bavaria he made a living on earthworks, and he was in Thuringia, and the devil, wherever he had to, according to German walk the earth"

On the brink of death

In camp B-14 near Dresden, Sokolov and others worked in a stone quarry. He managed to return one day after work to say, in the barracks, among other prisoners: “They need four cubic meters of output, but for the grave of each of us, one cubic meter through the eyes is enough.”

Someone reported these words to the authorities and the commandant of the camp, Müller, summoned him to his office. Muller knew Russian perfectly, so he communicated with Sokolov without an interpreter.

“I will do you a great honor, now I will personally shoot you for these words. It’s inconvenient here, let’s go into the yard and sign there.” “Your will,” I tell him. He stood there, thought, and then threw the pistol on the table and poured a full glass of schnapps, took a piece of bread, put a slice of bacon on it and gave it all to me and said: “Before you die, Russian Ivan, drink to the victory of German weapons.”

I put the glass on the table, put down the snack and said: “Thank you for the treat, but I don’t drink.” He smiles: “Would you like to drink to our victory? In that case, drink to your death.” What did I have to lose? “I will drink to my death and deliverance from torment,” I tell him. With that, I took the glass and poured it into myself in two gulps, but didn’t touch the appetizer, politely wiped my lips with my palm and said: “Thank you for the treat. I’m ready, Herr Commandant, come and sign me.”

But he looks attentively and says: “At least have a bite before you die.” I answer him: “I don’t have a snack after the first glass.” He pours a second one and gives it to me. I drank the second one and again I don’t touch the snack, I’m trying to be brave, I think: “At least I’ll get drunk before I go into the yard and give up my life.” The commandant raised his white eyebrows high and asked: “Why aren’t you having a snack, Russian Ivan? Do not be shy!" And I told him: “Sorry, Herr Commandant, I’m not used to having a snack even after the second glass.” He puffed out his cheeks, snorted, and then burst into laughter and through his laughter said something quickly in German: apparently, he was translating my words to his friends. They also laughed, moved their chairs, turned their faces towards me and already, I noticed, they were looking at me differently, seemingly softer.

The commandant pours me a third glass, and his hands are shaking with laughter. I drank this glass, took a small bite of bread, and put the rest on the table. I wanted to show them, the damned one, that although I was disappearing from hunger, I was not going to choke on their handouts, that I had my own, Russian dignity and pride, and that they did not turn me into a beast, no matter how hard they tried.

After this, the commandant became serious in appearance, straightened two iron crosses on his chest, came out from behind the table unarmed and said: “That's what, Sokolov, you are a real Russian soldier. You are a brave soldier. I am also a soldier and I respect worthy opponents. I won't shoot you. In addition, today our valiant troops reached the Volga and completely captured Stalingrad. This is a great joy for us, and therefore I generously give you life. Go to your block, and this is for your courage,” and from the table he hands me a small loaf of bread and a piece of lard.

Kharchi divided Sokolov with his comrades - everyone equally.

Release from captivity

In 1944, Sokolov was assigned as a driver. He drove a German major engineer. He treated him well, sometimes sharing food.

On the morning of June twenty-ninth, my major orders him to be taken out of town, in the direction of Trosnitsa. There he supervised the construction of fortifications. We left.

On the way, Sokolov stunned the major, took the pistol and drove the car straight to where the earth was humming, where the battle was going on.

The machine gunners jumped out of the dugout, and I deliberately slowed down so that they could see that the major was coming. But they started shouting, waving their arms, saying you can’t go there, but I didn’t seem to understand, I threw on the gas and went at full eighty. Until they came to their senses and began firing machine guns at the car, and I was already in no man’s land between the craters, weaving like a hare.

Here the Germans are hitting me from behind, and here their outlines are firing towards me from machine guns. The windshield was pierced in four places, the radiator was pierced by bullets... But now there was a forest above the lake, our people were running towards the car, and I jumped into this forest, opened the door, fell to the ground and kissed it, and I couldn’t breathe...

They sent Sokolov to the hospital for treatment and food. In the hospital I immediately wrote a letter to my wife. Two weeks later I received a response from neighbor Ivan Timofeevich. In June 1942, a bomb hit his house, killing his wife and both daughters. My son was not at home. Having learned about the death of his relatives, he volunteered for the front.

Sokolov was discharged from the hospital and received a month's leave. A week later I reached Voronezh. He looked at the crater in the place where his house was - and that same day he went to the station. Back to the division.

Son Anatoly

But three months later, joy flashed through me, like the sun from behind a cloud: Anatoly was found. He sent a letter to me at the front, apparently from another front. I learned my address from a neighbor, Ivan Timofeevich. It turns out that he first ended up in an artillery school; This is where his talents for mathematics came in handy. A year later he graduated from college with honors, went to the front and now writes that he received the rank of captain, commands a battery of “forty-fives”, has six orders and medals.

After the war

Andrey was demobilized. Where to go? I didn’t want to go to Voronezh.

I remembered that my friend lived in Uryupinsk, demobilized in the winter due to injury - he once invited me to his place - I remembered and went to Uryupinsk.

My friend and his wife were childless and lived in their own house on the edge of the city. Although he had a disability, he worked as a driver in an auto company, and I got a job there too. I stayed with a friend and they gave me shelter.

Near the teahouse he met a homeless boy, Vanya. His mother died in an air raid (during the evacuation, probably), his father died at the front. One day, on the way to the elevator, Sokolov took Vanyushka with him and told him that he was his father. The boy believed and was very happy. He adopted Vanyushka. A friend's wife helped look after the child.

Maybe we could have lived with him for another year in Uryupinsk, but in November a sin happened to me: I was driving through the mud, in one farm my car skidded, and then a cow turned up, and I knocked her down. Well, as you know, the women started screaming, people came running, and the traffic inspector was right there. He took away my driver’s book, no matter how much I asked him to have mercy. The cow got up, lifted her tail and started galloping along the alleys, and I lost my book. I worked as a carpenter for the winter, and then got in touch with a friend, also a colleague - he works as a driver in your region, in the Kasharsky district - and he invited me to his place. He writes that if you work for six months in carpentry, then in our region they will give you a new book. So my son and I are going on a business trip to Kashary.

Yes, how can I tell you, and if I hadn’t had this accident with the cow, I would still have left Uryupinsk. Melancholy does not allow me to stay in one place for a long time. When my Vanyushka grows up and I have to send him to school, then maybe I’ll calm down and settle down in one place

Then the boat arrived and the narrator said goodbye to his unexpected acquaintance. And he began to think about the story he had heard.

Two orphaned people, two grains of sand, thrown into foreign lands by a military hurricane of unprecedented force... What awaits them ahead? And I would like to think that this Russian man, a man of unbending will, will endure and grow up next to his father’s shoulder, one who, having matured, will be able to endure everything, overcome everything on his way, if his Motherland calls him to do so.

With heavy sadness I looked after them... Maybe everything would have turned out well if we parted, but Vanyushka, walking away a few steps and braiding his scanty legs, turned to face me as he walked and waved his pink little hand. And suddenly, as if a soft but clawed paw squeezed my heart, I hastily turned away. No, it’s not only in their sleep that elderly men, who have turned gray during the years of war, cry. They cry in reality. The main thing here is to be able to turn away in time. The most important thing here is not to hurt the child’s heart, so that he doesn’t see a burning and stingy man’s tear running down your cheek...

Retold by Mikhail Shtokalo for Briefly.

Time quickly pushes into the depths of history important milestones in the lives of countries and peoples. The last volleys died down long ago. Time mercilessly takes living witnesses of heroic time into immortality. Books, films, and memories bring descendants back to the past. The exciting work The Fate of a Man, authored by Mikhail Sholokhov, takes us back to those difficult years.

In contact with

The title tells you what it will be about. The focus is on the fate of a person, the author spoke about it in such a way that it absorbed the fate of the whole country and its people.

The fate of man main characters:

Andrey Sokolov;
boy Vanyusha;
son of the main character - Anatoly;
wife Irina;
the daughters of the main character are Nastya and Olyushka.

Andrey Sokolov

Meeting with Andrey Sokolov

The first post-war war turned out to be “pushy”, the Upper Don melted quickly, and the roads were a mess. It was at this time that the narrator had to get to the village of Bukanovskaya. On the way, we crossed the overflowing Elanka River and sailed for an hour on a dilapidated boat. While waiting for the second flight, he met a father and son, a boy about 5-6 years old. The author noted the deep melancholy in the man’s eyes, as if they were sprinkled with ashes. The father's careless clothes suggested that he lived without female care, but the boy was dressed warmly and neatly. Everything became clear when the narrator learned a sad story new friend.

The life of the main character before the war

The hero himself is from Voronezh. At first, everything in life turned out as usual. Born in 1900, served and fought in the Kikvidze division. He survived the famine of 1922 working for the Kuban kulaks, but his parents and sister died that year from hunger in the Voronezh province.

All alone left. Having sold the house, he left for Voronezh, where started a family. He married an orphan; there was no one more beautiful and desirable for him than his Irina. Children were born, a son Anatoly and two daughters, Nastenka and Olyushka.

He worked as a carpenter, a factory worker, and a mechanic, but he was truly “attracted” by machines. Ten years flew by unnoticed in work and worries. The wife bought two goats, the wife and owner Irina was excellent. The children were well-fed, well-fed, and enjoyed excellent studies. Andrey earned good money, he saved some money. They built a house not far from the aircraft factory, which the main character later regretted. In another place, the house could have survived the bombing, and life could have turned out completely differently. Everything that was created over the years collapsed in an instant - the war began.

War

Andrey was summoned with a summons on the second day, we saw off the whole family to war. It was hard to say goodbye. His wife Irina seemed to feel that they would not see each other again; day and night her eyes did not dry out from tears.

Formation took place in Ukraine, near Bila Tserkva. They gave me a ZIS-5, and I went to the front with it. Andrei fought for less than a year. He was wounded twice, but he quickly returned to duty. He wrote home infrequently: there was no time, and there was nothing special to write about - they were retreating on all fronts. Andrei condemned those “bitches in pants who complain, seek sympathy, slobber, but don’t want to understand that these unfortunate women and children had it no worse in the rear.”

In May 1942, near Lozovenki, the main character fell into fascist captivity. The day before, he volunteered to deliver shells to the artillerymen. There was less than a kilometer left to the battery when a long-range shell exploded near the car. He woke up, and the battle was going on behind him. It was not of his own free will that he was captured. The German machine gunners took off his boots, but did not shoot him, but drove him in a column of Russian prisoners to work for their Reich.

Once we spent the night in a church with a destroyed dome. A doctor was found, and he did his great work in captivity - helping the wounded soldiers. One of the prisoners asked to go outside to relieve himself. Holy faith in God does not allow a Christian to desecrate the temple; the Germans slashed at the door with machine-gun fire, wounding three at once and killing a pilgrim. Fate also prepared a terrible test for Andrey - to kill a traitor from “his own.” By chance at night he overheard a conversation from which he realized that the big-faced guy was planning to hand over his platoon commander to the Germans. Andrei Sokolov cannot allow Judas Kryzhnev to save himself at the cost of betrayal and the death of his comrades. An incident full of drama in the church shows the behavior of different people in inhumane circumstances.

Important! It is not easy for the main character to commit murder, but he sees salvation in the unity of people. In the story “The Fate of Man” this episode is full of drama.

An unsuccessful escape from the Poznan camp, when they were digging graves for prisoners, almost cost Andrei Sokolov his life. When they caught him, beat him, hounded him with dogs, his skin, meat and clothes fell into shreds. They brought me to the camp naked, covered in blood. He served a month in a punishment cell and miraculously survived. For two years of captivity traveled half of Germany: worked at a silicate plant in Saxony, in a mine in the Ruhr region, in Bavaria, Thuringia. The prisoners were brutally beaten and shot. Here they forgot their name, remembered their number, Sokolov was known as 331. They fed him half-and-half bread with sawdust, thin rutabaga gruel. The list of inhumane trials in captivity does not end there.

Survive and withstand Nazi captivity helped. Lagerführer Müller appreciated the strength of spirit of the Russian soldier. In the evening in the barracks, Sokolov was indignant at the four cubic meters of output, bitterly joking that a cubic meter would be enough for the grave of every prisoner.

The next day, the camp commandant summoned Sokolov following a denunciation from some scoundrel. The description of the duel between the Russian soldier and Muller is fascinating. Refusal to drink German weapons for victory could cost Sokolov his life. Muller did not shoot and said that he respected a worthy opponent. As a reward he gave a loaf of bread and a piece of lard; the food was divided among everyone, captured by a harsh thread.

Sokolov did not give up the thought of escape. He carried an engineer for the construction of defensive structures with the rank of major. In the front line The captive driver managed to escape, taking the stunned engineer with important documents. They promised to present me with a reward for this.

They sent me to the hospital for treatment, Andrei Sokolov immediately wrote a letter to Irina. Are your relatives alive or not? I waited a long time for an answer from my wife, but received a letter from a neighbor, Ivan Timofeevich. When the aircraft factory was bombed, nothing was left of the house. Son Tolik was in the city at that time, and Irina and her daughters died. A neighbor reported that Anatoly volunteered for the front.

On vacation I went to Voronezh, but I could not stay even an hour in the place where there was his family happiness and family hearth. He went to the station and returned to the division. Soon his son found him, received a letter from Anatoly and dreamed of meeting him. The country was already preparing to celebrate the Victory when Andrei's son was killed Anatoly. A sniper shot him on the morning of May 9th. It is very tragic that Andrei Sokolov’s son lived to see victory, but was unable to enjoy life in peacetime. The main character buried his son in a foreign land, and he himself was soon demobilized.

After the war

It was painful for him to return to his native Voronezh. Andrey remembered that a friend invited me to Uryupinsk. He arrived and began working as a driver. Here fate brought two lonely people together. Boy Vanya is a gift of fate. A war-wounded man now has hope for happiness.

Sholokhov’s story ends with the father and son going “in marching order” to Kashary, where a colleague will get the father a job in a carpenter’s artel, and then they will give him a driver’s license. He lost his previous document by an unfortunate accident. On a muddy road, the car skidded and he knocked down a cow. Everything worked out, the cow got up and walked, but I had to put the book down.

Important! Any true story or story about the fate of a person who miraculously survived in fascist captivity is interesting. This is a special story, it is about the Russian character unbroken by the war. The author expressed with utmost clarity his admiration for the feat, heroism and courage of ordinary people during the Second World War.

Features of Sholokhov's story “The Fate of a Man”

In the history of literature, it is rare that a small story becomes a grand event. After the publication of the story “The Fate of a Man” in the first issue of the Pravda newspaper in 1957, the novelty attracted everyone’s attention.

In the story “The Fate of a Man”, a convincing and reliable description of real events is captivating. Mikhail Sholokhov heard the tragic story of a Russian soldier in 1946. Then ten long years of silence. The year the short story “The Fate of Man” was written is considered to be late 1956. Later the work was filmed.
Ring composition: the story “The Fate of a Man” begins with a chance meeting between the author and the main character. At the end of the conversation, the men say goodbye and go about their business. In the central part, Andrei Sokolov opened his soul to a new acquaintance. He heard the hero's story about pre-war life, years at the front, and return to peaceful life.

Fate of a person (meanings)

"The Fate of Man"- a story by Soviet Russian writer Mikhail Sholokhov. Written in 1956-1957. The first publication was the newspaper Pravda, issues for December 31, 1956 and January 1, 1957.

Plot

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, driver Andrei Sokolov has to leave his family and go to the front. Already in the first months of the war, he was wounded and captured by fascists. In captivity, he experiences all the hardships of the concentration camp, thanks to his courage he avoids execution and, finally, escapes from it behind the front line, to his own. On a short leave from the front to his small homeland, he learns that his beloved wife Irina and both daughters died during the bombing. Of his relatives, he only had a young son, an officer. Returning to the front, Andrei receives news that his son died on the last day of the war.

After the war, lonely Sokolov works in strange places. There he meets a little boy Vanya, who was left an orphan. His mother died and his father went missing. Sokolov tells the boy that he is his father, and this gives the boy (and himself) hope for a new life.

History of creation

The plot of the story is based on real events. In the spring of 1946, while hunting, Sholokhov met a man who told him his sad story. Sholokhov was captivated by this story, and he decided: “I’ll write a story about this, I’ll definitely write it.” Ten years later, rereading the stories of Hemingway, Remarque and other foreign writers, Sholokhov wrote the story “The Fate of a Man” in seven days.

Screen adaptation

In 1959, the story was filmed by Soviet director Sergei Bondarchuk, who played the main role. The film “The Fate of a Man” was awarded the main prize at the Moscow Film Festival in 1959 and opened the way for the director to big cinema.

Composition

The Russian people endured all the horrors of war and, at the cost of personal losses, won victory and the independence of their homeland. The best features of the Russian character, thanks to whose strength the victory in the Great Patriotic War was won, M. Sholokhov embodied in the main character of the story - Andrei Sokolov. These are traits such as perseverance, patience, modesty, and a sense of human dignity.

At the beginning of the story, the author calmly talks about the signs of the first post-war spring; he seems to be preparing us for a meeting with the main character, Andrei Sokolov, whose eyes “as if sprinkled with ashes, filled with inescapable mortal melancholy.” Sholokhov’s hero recalls the past with restraint, wearily; before confession, he “hunched over” and placed his large, dark hands on his knees. All this makes us feel how tragic the fate of this man is.

The life of an ordinary person, the Russian soldier Andrei Sokolov, passes before us. Since childhood, he learned how much a “pound is worth” and fought in the Civil War. A modest worker, the father of a family, he was happy in his own way. The war ruined this man’s life, tore him away from home, from his family. Andrei Sokolov goes to the front. From the beginning of the war, in its very first months, he was wounded twice and shell-shocked. But the worst thing awaited the hero ahead - he falls into fascist captivity.

The hero had to experience inhuman torment, hardship, and torment. For two years, Andrei Sokolov steadfastly endured the horrors of fascist captivity. He tries to escape, but is unsuccessful, he deals with a coward, a traitor who is ready, to save his own skin, to betray the commander. Self-esteem, enormous fortitude and self-control were revealed with great clarity in Sokolov’s moral duel with the concentration camp commandant. An exhausted, exhausted, exhausted prisoner is ready to face death with such courage and endurance that it amazes even a fascist who has lost his human appearance.

Andrei still manages to escape and becomes a soldier again. Death looked him in the eye more than once, but he remained human to the end. And yet the most serious trials befell the hero when he returned home. Having emerged from the war as a winner, Andrei Sokolov lost everything he had in life. In the place where the house built by his hands stood, there was a dark crater left by a German air bomb... All members of his family were killed. He says to his random interlocutor: “Sometimes you don’t sleep at night, you look into the darkness with empty eyes and think: “Why have you, life, crippled me like that?” I have no answer either in the dark or in the clear sun..."

After everything that this man had experienced, it would seem that he should have become embittered and bitter. However, life could not break Andrei Sokolov; it wounded, but did not kill the living soul in him. The hero gives all the warmth of his soul to his adopted orphan Vanyusha, a boy with “eyes as bright as the sky.” And the fact that he adopts Vanya confirms the moral strength of Andrei Sokolov, who managed to start life over again after so many losses. This person overcomes grief and continues to live. “And I would like to think,” writes Sholokhov, “that this Russian man, a man of unbending will, will endure, and near his father’s shoulder will grow one who, having matured, will be able to withstand everything, overcome everything on his way, if his Motherland calls him to this.” .

Mikhail Sholokhov's story “The Fate of Man” is imbued with a deep, bright faith in man. Its title is symbolic: this is not just the fate of the soldier Andrei Sokolov, but a story about the fate of a Russian man, a simple soldier who bore all the hardships of the war.

The writer shows at what enormous cost the victory in the Great Patriotic War was won and who was the real hero of this war. The image of Andrei Sokolov instills in us deep faith in the moral strength of the Russian person. In “The Fate of Man,” Sholokhov reminds the reader of the disasters that the Great Patriotic War brought to the Russian people, of the fortitude of a person who withstood all the torment and did not break. Sholokhov's story is permeated with boundless faith in the spiritual strength of the Russian person.

The plot is based on vivid psychological episodes. Farewell to the front, captivity, attempted escape, second escape, news of the family. Such rich material would be enough for a whole novel, but Sholokhov managed to fit it into a short story.

Sholokhov based the plot on a real story told to the author in the first post-war year by a simple driver who had just returned from the war. There are two voices in the story: “led” by Andrei Sokolov, the main character. The second voice is the voice of the author, listener, random interlocutor.

Andrei Sokolov's voice in the story is a frank confession. He told a stranger about his entire life, pouring out everything that he had kept in his soul for years. The landscape background for Andrei Sokolov's story was surprisingly unmistakably found. The junction of winter and spring. And it seems that only in such circumstances could the life story of a Russian soldier be heard with the breathtaking frankness of confession.

This man had a hard time in life. He goes to the front and is captured in inhuman living conditions. But he had a choice; he could have ensured a tolerable life for himself by agreeing to inform on his own comrades.

Once at work, Andrei Sokolov carelessly spoke about the Germans. His statement cannot be called a remark thrown at the enemy, it was a cry from the soul: “Yes, one square meter of these stone slabs is enough for the grave of each of us.”

A well-deserved reward was the opportunity to see my family. But, having arrived home, Andrei Sokolov learns that the family has died, and in the place where the family home stood there is a deep hole overgrown with weeds. Andrei's son dies in the last days of the war, when the long-awaited victory was just around the corner.

The author's voice helps us to comprehend human life as a phenomenon of an entire era, to see in it universal human content and meaning. But in Sholokhov’s story, another voice sounded - a ringing, clear child’s voice, which seemed not to know the full extent of all the troubles and misfortunes that befall the human lot. Having appeared at the beginning of the story so carefree and loud, he then leaves, this boy, in order to become a direct participant in the final scenes, the protagonist of a high human tragedy.

All that remains in Sokolov’s life are memories of his family and an endless road. But life cannot consist of only black stripes. The fate of Andrei Sokolov brought him together with a boy of about six years old, as lonely as he was. Nobody needed the grimy boy Vanyatka. Only Andrei Sokolov took pity on the orphan, adopted Vanyusha, and gave him all his unspent fatherly love.

It was a feat, a feat not only in the moral sense of the word, but also in the heroic one. In Andrei Sokolov’s attitude towards childhood, towards Vanyusha, humanism won a great victory. He triumphed over the inhumanity of fascism, over destruction and loss.

Sholokhov focuses the reader’s attention not only on the episode of Sokolov’s meeting with the orphan Vanya. The scene in the church is also very colorful. The Germans shot the man only because he asked to go outside so as not to desecrate God’s temple. In the same church, Andrei Sokolov kills a man. Sokolov killed a coward who was ready to betray his commander.

Andrei Sokolov endured so much in his life, but he did not become embittered at fate, at people, he remained a man with a kind soul, a sensitive heart, capable of love and compassion. Perseverance, tenacity in the struggle for life, the spirit of courage and camaraderie - these qualities not only remained unchanged in the character of Andrei Sokolov, but also increased. Sholokhov teaches humanism. This concept cannot be turned into a beautiful word. After all, even the most sophisticated critics, discussing the topic of humanism in the story “The Fate of Man,” talk about a great moral feat. Joining the opinion of critics, I would like to add one thing: you need to be a real person in order to be able to endure all the grief, tears, parting, death of relatives, the pain of humiliation and insults and not after that become a beast with a predatory look and an eternally embittered soul, but remain human.
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The story “The Fate of a Man,” which immediately evoked numerous responses from readers, was written by M. Sholokhov in a few days. It was based on impressions from the writer’s meeting with a stranger who told the sad story of his life. The work was first published in the New Year's issues of Pravda in 1956-1957.

An unexpected acquaintance

The summary continues with a description of an acquaintance with an older man and a boy of five or six years old: they left the farm and settled down next to the author. A conversation ensued. The stranger said that he was a driver and noted how difficult it was to walk with a small child. The author drew attention to the boy’s good-quality clothes, which were carefully adjusted to his height by women’s hands. However, the patches on the man’s quilted jacket and pants were rough, from which he concluded that he was a widower or did not get along with his wife.

The stranger sent his son to play, and he suddenly said: “I don’t understand why life punished me like this?” And he began his long story. Let's give a brief summary of it.

“The Fate of Man”: Sokolov’s pre-war life

Born in the Voronezh province, he fought in the Red Army during the civil war. In the twenty-second, his parents and sister died of hunger, but he survived - in the Kuban he fought with his fists. Then he settled in Voronezh and got married. The girl was good. They lived peacefully, and he had no one better and dearer than Irinka in the world. He worked at a factory, and from the twenty-ninth he sat behind the wheel and never parted with the car again. Sometimes he drank with his friends, but after the birth of his son and two daughters he gave up alcoholic drinks. He brought all his wages home, and during the pre-war ten years they acquired their own house and farm. There was plenty of everything, and the children were happy with their school successes. This is what Sholokhov talks about in the story “The Fate of Man.”

And then there was war: on the second day - a summons, on the third - they took me away. When parting, Irina, pale and crying, kept clinging to her husband and repeating that they would not see each other again. Then the hero was dismantled, as he admitted, by evil: he buried him ahead of time! He pushed his wife away from him - albeit lightly, but he still cannot forgive himself for this. I said goodbye to my family and jumped on the train. This is how I remember it: the huddled children waving their hands and trying to smile, and the pale wife standing and whispering something...

Start of the war

Formed in Ukraine. Sokolov received a truck and drove it to the front. They wrote from home often, but he himself rarely answered: everyone retreated, but I didn’t want to complain. The car came under fire more than once and received two minor wounds. And in May '42 he was captured. Sokolov described to the author the circumstances of this absurd, as he put it, incident. This was his story.

A person's fate in war often depends on circumstances. When the Nazis advanced, one of the Russian batteries found itself without shells. They should have been delivered to Sokolov in his truck. It was going to be a difficult task - to break through to our own people through the shelling. And when there was about a kilometer left to reach the battery, the hero felt as if something had burst in his head. When he woke up, he experienced severe pain throughout his body, stood up with difficulty and looked around. A car lies overturned nearby, and shells intended for the battery are scattered around. And the sounds of battle are heard somewhere behind. So Sokolov ended up behind the German lines. Sholokhov described all these events very vividly.

“The Fate of Man”: summary. First day in captivity

The hero lay down on the ground and began to observe. First the German tanks drove by, and then the machine gunners came. It was sickening to look at them, but I didn’t want to die lying down. That’s why Sokolov stood up, and the Nazis headed towards him. One even took the machine gun off his shoulder. However, the corporal tested the soldier's muscles and ordered him to be sent west.

Soon Sokolov joined the column of prisoners from his own division. The horrors of captivity are the next part of the story “The Fate of Man.” Sholokhov notes that the seriously wounded were shot immediately. Two soldiers who decided to escape when it got dark also died. At night they entered the village, and the prisoners were driven into the old church. The floor is stone, there is no dome, and it also rained so much that everyone got wet. Soon, Sokolov, who was dozing, was woken up by a man: “Aren’t you wounded?” The hero complained of unbearable pain in his arm, and the military doctor, identifying the dislocation, set it in place.

Soon Sokolov heard a quiet conversation next to him. Let's give a brief summary of it. The fate of the person who spoke (it was a platoon commander) completely depended on his interlocutor - Kryzhnev. The latter admitted that in the morning he would hand over the commander to the Nazis. The hero felt bad from such a betrayal, and he immediately made a decision. When it was just dawn, Sokolov signaled to the platoon commander, a thin and pale boy, to hold the traitor by the legs. And he leaned on the strong Kryzhnev and squeezed his hands on his throat. This is how the hero killed a person for the first time.

In the morning they began to ask communists and commanders, but there were no more traitors. Having shot four at random, the Nazis drove the column further.

Escape attempt

To get out to his own people - this was the hero’s dream from the first day of captivity. Once he managed to escape and even walk about forty kilometers. But at dawn on the fourth day, dogs found Sokolov sleeping in a haystack. The Nazis first brutally beat the captured man and then unleashed the dogs on him. Naked and tortured, they brought him to the camp and threw him into a punishment cell for a month.

Let's continue with the summary. “The Fate of Man” continues with the story of how the hero was driven around Germany for two years, severely beaten, fed so that only skin and bones remained, and he could hardly bear them. And at the same time they were forced to work, just as a draft horse could not do.

In the camp

Sokolov fell near Dresden in September. They worked in a stone quarry: they manually chiseled and crushed the rock. One evening the hero said in his hearts: “They need four cubic meters, but for us one is enough for the grave.” This was reported to Commandant Müller, who was particularly cruel. He liked to hit prisoners in the face with his hand, which was wearing a lead-lined glove.

Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of a Man” continues with the fact that the commandant summoned Sokolov to his place. The hero said goodbye to everyone, remembered his family and prepared to die. The authorities feasted, and Muller, seeing the prisoner, asked if he had said that one cubic meter of land was enough for him for a grave. And, having received an affirmative answer, he promised to personally shoot him. And then he poured a glass of vodka and handed it to the prisoner with a piece of bread and lard: “For our victory.” Sokolov supplied schnapps, declaring that he did not drink. “Well then, for your death,” answered the commandant. The hero poured vodka into himself in two sips, but did not touch the bread: “I don’t eat after the first.” And only after the third glass (“before I die, I’ll at least get drunk”) he took a bite of a small piece of bread. The smiling Müller became serious: “You are a brave soldier, and I respect such people. And our troops at the Volga. That’s why I give you life.” And he held out the bread and lard. The intoxicated hero stumbled into the barracks and fell asleep. And the grub was divided equally among everyone.

The escape

Soon Sokolov was sent to a new place, where he began to drive a small and fat engineer major. Near Polotsk - it was 1944 - the Russians were already standing. The hero decided that there would be no better opportunity to escape. He prepared a weight, a piece of wire, and even took off the drunken German’s uniform. In the morning, driving out of town, he stopped and hit the sleeping major on the head. Then he tied him up and headed towards the Russian troops. Survived under double shelling and delivered the tongue to headquarters. For this, the colonel, promising to present him for an award, sent him to the hospital, and then on leave.

This is the summary. “The Fate of Man,” however, does not end there.

Scary news

In the hospital, the hero received a letter from a neighbor. He said that back in '42, during a raid, a bomb hit his house - only one crater remained. His wife and daughters died, and his son, who was in the city that day, volunteered for the front. After receiving treatment, Sokolov went to Voronezh, stood at the crater and again went to the division. And soon I received a letter from my son, but I couldn’t see him alive either - on May 9, Anatoly was killed. Again Sokolov was left alone in the whole world.

Vanyushka

After the war, he settled with friends in Uryupinsk and got a job as a driver. Once I saw a boy near the tea shop - dirty, ragged and with shiny eyes. On the fourth day, he called me into his booth, randomly calling her Vanyushka. And, it turned out, he guessed right. The boy told how his mother was killed and his father died at the front. “We can’t disappear alone,” Sokolov decided. And he called himself the surviving father. He brought the boy to his friends, washed him, combed his hair, bought clothes, which the owner adjusted to his height. And now they are going to look for a new place to live. My only concern is that my heart is playing tricks, it’s scary to die in my sleep and frighten my little son. He also constantly dreams about his family - he wants to get to his wife and children from behind the wire, but they disappear.

Then the voice of a comrade was heard, and the author said goodbye to his new acquaintances. And when Sokolov and his son walked away, Vanyushka suddenly turned around and waved his hand. At that moment, the narrator felt as if someone had squeezed his heart. “No, it’s not only men who cry in their sleep,” M. Sholokhov ends his work “The Fate of Man” with this phrase.