Realist vignettes of Cossack life
Much like And Quiet Flows the Don, the stories collected here demonstrate Sholokhov to be a master of realism. More specifically, Sholokhov is a socialist realist who achieved great acclaim and won numerous awards in the Soviet Union. Sholokhov’s literature toes the party line, so to speak, and he enjoyed the approval of Joseph Stalin. Even so, his writing is not mere Soviet propaganda but truly insightful and powerful literature of the human condition that just happens to be set amid Soviet society and ideology.
Sholokhov was born in the territory of the Don Cossacks (near the Don River), and much of his literature is concerned with Cossack life. Most of the entries in Early Stories take place around the 1920s, when the majority of Cossacks were hostile toward communism. Sholokhov’s depiction of this time and place reveals the contrasts between the traditional pastoral Cossack lifestyle and the encroaching modern communist regime. As Sholokhov depicts it, the armed conflict between these two forces is played out in the bleak and dusty environment of the steppes, where life is hard to begin with even without the added horrors of warfare. Sholokhov’s writing here reminds me of the stories of Mexican author Juan Rulfo in his book The Burning Plain, which take place during the Mexican Revolution. Both authors vividly recreate the experiences of their homelands in stark and unsparing tones and illustrate the riveting drama of unsung human lives amid brutality, poverty, and oppression. Each relates such dark themes, however, not without touches of beauty, humor, and a mystical surrealism. Their works transcend location and ideology to elucidate universal truths of the human experience.
In “The Bastard,” an 8-year-old boy is reunited with his father, who has been gone for years fighting in the communist army. Their neighbors in their Cossack village, however, are not favorably disposed towards the Reds. In “The Azure Steppe,” an old serf tells his grandson stories of life before the Revolution, detailing the violent treatment of peasants by the landlord, and how some of those peasants fought back. In “The Herdsman,” a young man with communist leanings dreams of an urban education, but he’s stuck in his backwards Cossack village. “The Birth Mark” depicts the lawlessness and banditry rampant during wartime. “Alien Blood” is a poignant tale of a Cossack couple who lose their son to war, while “The Foal” relates the life of a horse unlucky enough to be born to an army unit during a military campaign.
Despite his Nobel Prize, I imagine Sholokhov’s association with Stalin hasn’t done his long-term literary reputation any favors. Nevertheless, communist or not, Soviet or not, Sholokhov is a terrific author of powerful and fascinating fiction. And Quiet Flows the Don is a masterpiece. By comparison, these short stories are more like the sketches of a master painter. They aren’t as impressive as the artist’s masterworks, but they display the same prodigious talent. Anything by Sholokhov is worth reading; unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot available in English. If you come across a copy of the now out-of-print Early Stories in a used book store, snatch it up.
Stories in this collection
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