And Quiet Flows the Don (Tikhii Don) (1934) is the first part of the great Don epic written by Mikhail Sholokhov.
The novel, which follows the fortunes of the Don Cossacks in peace and war, revolution and civil war, is centred around Gregor Melekhov and his home village of Tatarsk over the tumultuous second decade of the twentieth century in Russia.
Sholokhov follows the doomed love story of Gregor and Aksinia and the shifting of Gregor's political alignment from the provisional government to Communism to Cossack nationalism. The work is often praised for its sweeping descriptions of nature. The novel is often compared to War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
Last updated: 10-16-2005 08:12:58