Nagulnov Makar - secretary of the party cell in Gremyachiy Log. The hero's main life goal is "world revolution". According to him, he felt “hatred of property from childhood”, despite the fact (or rather, due to the fact) that he himself came from a wealthy family. On the front of the First World War, N. was poisoned with gases, and during the civil war he was shell-shocked. The day after the meeting of the poor, conducted by Davydov, N. takes part in dispossession. When, after dispossession, Razmetnov speaks of pity for the "kids", N. shouts that he is ready to "disperse" at least thousands of old people, children and women for the revolution; he has a seizure. When N. Lushka's wife, in front of everyone, wails for her lover Timofey Rvany, who, among other kulaks, is being expelled, N. cannot forgive her for this and kicks her out. When cattle are being slaughtered in the village, N. proposes to petition the CEC for the execution of those responsible. When, due to provocative rumors, the collection of the seed fund is very slow, N., in order to speed up the delivery of grain, puts several peasants under lock and key for the night, and Vannik, who defiantly refuses to hand over bread, hits his temple with a revolver and threatens to kill him if he does not come to his senses. N. expresses dissatisfaction with Stalin's article "Dizziness from Success", justifying his own violent actions by the fact that he "hurried to the world revolution." N. admits his mistakes, but claims that Stalin's article is "wrong"; he intends to inform the region about his position and about his own "excesses". N. approves Razmetnov's break with Marina Poyarkova, because, in his opinion, now he is "again for the cause of the world revolution." N. studies English in order to communicate with the proletarians of England and other countries when Soviet power triumphs there. At the bureau of the district committee, where N.'s personal matter is being dealt with, he is expelled from the party and demanded to hand over his party card, but he categorically refuses to do so. N. returns to Gremyachiy Log in the midst of a "women's riot"; with a revolver in hand, he does not allow barns with seed grain to be plundered until the collective farmers from the field come to his aid. Some time later, a decision came from the district committee to cancel the previous decision: N. was reprimanded. N. continues to study English at night and, together with Shchukar, listens to the singing of roosters, finding aesthetic pleasure in this. At night, when N. is sitting over a book, they shoot at him, but the bullet only scratched his temple; N. can neither catch up with the shooter nor hit him with a revolver. Having learned from Davydov about the appearance of Timofey Rvany in the farm, N. , in order to catch him, fictitiously "arrests" Lushka and puts her under lock and key. A few days later, Timofey comes to save Lushka, and N. kills him, and Lushka advises to leave the farm; she moves to the city of Shakhty. Watching Ostrovnov's house, N. notices strangers. During the assault on the house, N. was killed.

Makar Nagulnov is a faithful companion and comrade of Davydov. In his image, Sholokhov showed the contradiction between the lofty humanistic goal of transformation and the unbridled temperament, stubbornness, straightforwardness of a person striving for this goal. Nagulnov is the most ardent supporter of the revolution of all the Gremyachinsky communists. For him, property is the greatest, hated evil.

Makar gives all his acquired property to the neighboring commune, while he himself is left with nothing. He strives in everything and always to follow the laws of communism. Makar is simply obsessed with the idea of ​​a world revolution, all his actions are aimed at its good. He does not doubt the correctness of his actions, in party affairs he is firm, towards his enemies he is ruthless. Moreover, Nagulnov easily classifies even slightly doubtful people into the list of enemies. Acting for the benefit of the world revolution, he uses very cruel methods. The peasant Bannik Nagulnov is beaten only because he promises to feed the pigs bread, which he does not want to give for sowing. According to Nagulny, Bannik is an enemy that can and should be destroyed.

Those who voluntarily do not want to join the collective farm and donate grain for sowing, Makar locks up all night in a cold room. He considers such methods justified, because everything that harms the revolution must be completely eradicated. Menka Makar cuts off the head of Arkashka's rooster, because his cry breaks the harmony of the rooster's choir. And in order to teach a lesson to those who slaughtered cattle, Makar offers to shoot a couple of people. Even relationships with the female sex Makar is ready to neglect for the sake of the revolution. In his opinion, for a communist, a woman is nothing, she can only spoil the great cause of communism. It seems that Makar also applies to Lushka. But, in my opinion, his neglect is just a screen behind which Nagulnov's real feeling for this woman is hidden. He loves her and is worried because she lives with Timofey Rvany, the son of a kulak. Even when Makar kills Timofey, he allows Lushka to say goodbye to the murdered.

Makar is always busy with something, even at a time when he is not making a world revolution. For example, he diligently studies English, which, he is sure, will definitely be needed to communicate with workers from other countries, after the victory of communism all over the world. Outside the party, Nagulnov does not think of himself. He cannot even think that he, the revolutionary and communist Makar Nagulny, can be expelled from the party in disgrace for his actions for the benefit of the revolution. Makar does not understand what he did wrong, for which he is expelled. When this actually happens, Makar has only one thought left - suicide.

In my opinion, Nagulnov's fanaticism and obsession with the idea of ​​world revolution are completely alien to Sholokhov.

39 Even during the sowing period, Lushka Nagulnova, a divorced wife and a cheerful, dissolute wench, began to work in the field. She was assigned to the third brigade, and she willingly settled in the brigade's booth. During the day, Afanasia Krasnokutova worked as a chauffeur in a harness, and at night, near the red field booth in which she lived, the balalaika rang until dawn, the basses sighed and subtly pronounced the lower frets of the two-row, the guys and girls danced and sang; and all this merry amusement was led by Lushka. The world for her has always been bright and simple. There was not a single wrinkle of concern or anxiety on Lushkin's thoughtless face. Through life she walked easily, confidently, walking, expectantly raising her tender eyebrows, as if hoping to meet with joy at any moment. On the very next day after the divorce, she did not even think about Makar. Timofey Torn was somewhere far away, but was Lushka to grieve for the lost loved ones? "These males are enough for my lifetime!" she said contemptuously to the girls and women, who pointed out her semi-widowhood. And they really were in abundance. Guys and young married Cossacks from the third brigade vying with each other solicited Lushka's love. On the camp near the booth at night, under the blue and twilight light of the moon, the soles of the Cossack tweets and boots, knocking out "krakowiaks" and "polka with heels" flew off with a crack. But often between the plowshares, gardeners and harrowers who were dancing and looking for Lushkin's closeness, swearing, densely mixed with swearing, turned into fierce fights. And all because of Lushka. She seemed painfully accessible in appearance; all the more so since the whole farm knew her shameful connection with Timofey Rvany, and it was flattering for everyone to take the place that Timofey involuntarily vacated and, out of a good hunt, Nagulnov. Agafon Dubtsov tried to reason with Lushka, but failed miserably. - I am good at work, but no one will order me to dance and twist love. You, uncle Agathon, do not be angry, hide yourself in a zipun and sleep. And if you take envy and you want to participate in the games yourself - come. We also accept pock-marked people. Pocked for love, they say, hefty evil! - laughing scoffed Lushka. Then Agathon, upon his first arrival in Gremyachy, turned to Davydov for assistance. - Outlandish orders you start, comrade Davydov! he said indignantly. - Lyubishkin's grandfather Shchukar was assigned to the brigade, I - Lushka Nagulnov ... Are you planting them for sabotage or for what? Come some night, see what's going on in the camp. Lushka pissed off all the guys. She smiles at everyone, seems to make promises, well, and they fight for her like young cochets. And they dance at night in such a way that the muzzle stands groaning, the muzzle is a pity for their heels: before that, not sparing life, they get on the ground with them! The point near the booth was knocked out unsimilar! The fires are fading away, and we will become noisy, like at a fair ... In Kharkov, during the German war, I lay wounded at the hospital, and after recovery, the merciful opera sisters took us to hear ... And there comes a terrible mess: someone in a bad voice howls, who dances, and who plays the violin. You won't understand anything! Such music that the collar is enough for the collar! It’s the same with us: they tear up songs, and they get hot on music, and they dance ... Well, a pure canine wedding! They rage until dawn, and during the day what work with him! She walks and sleeps on the move, lies down under the bull ... You, Comrade Davydov, either remove this infection Lushka from the brigade, or tell her to observe herself like a husband's woman. - What am I to you? - Davydov was furious. - I what? mentor to her?.. Roll from me to hell!.. They climb with all sorts of dirt... Am I going to teach her the behavior of modesty? Doesn't work well - drive out of the brigade, fact! What kind of habit is this: a little something - in the board. "Comrade Davydov, the plow is broken!", "Comrade Davydov, the mare is sick!" Or with this case: the woman's tail is trembling, and I, in your opinion, should teach her? To hell! Repair the plow - to the blacksmith! On the horse side - to the veterinarian! When will you learn to show your own initiative? Until when am I going to lead you on the leash? Go!.. Agathon left, deeply dissatisfied with Davydov, who, after his departure, smoked two cigarettes in a row, slammed the door with a thunder, and locked it on a hook. Dubtsov's story excited Davydov. Not because he got angry and shouted that the brigadiers, who had not mastered their duties, really overcame him, asking for permission for all sorts of petty economic issues, but because Lushka, according to Dubtsov, "smiled at everyone, made promises." After that playful conversation with Lushka, when he ran into her near the board and she, concealing a smile under the eyelashes of her half-lowered eyes, asked to find her some kind of "little fiancé", and then she herself offered herself as a wife, Davydov, imperceptibly for himself, changed in attitude towards her. Of late, more and more often he caught himself thinking about this essentially absurd and extremely trifling wench. If earlier he treated her with a slight touch of squeamish pity and indifference, now he felt completely different ... And the fact that Dubtsov came with an absurd complaint about Lushka served Davydov only as a purely external pretext for swearing. He was drawn to Lushka, but not at the right time, just at the moment of the greatest tension in the sowing. The newly arisen feeling was certainly facilitated by the fact that Davydov lived all winter in a "bishop's position," as Andrey Razmetnov joked, and perhaps the spring imperiously pressed on the mortal flesh of the impeccable chairman of the Gremyachinsky collective farm, who coped with all the economic and political campaigns. More and more often at night he woke up for no reason, smoked, grimaced in pain, listening to the melodious whistles and the choking snapping of nightingales, then furiously slammed the window, wrapped himself in a flannelette blanket and lay down until the white dawn, not closing his eyes, clinging to the pillow with his wide tattooed chest. And the spring of 1930 - impetuous and early - settled so many nightingales in gardens and levadas that they filled not only the deaf emptiness of the night with thunderous peals, but even in daylight they could not calm down. There was not enough short spring night for the love joys of the nightingales. "Blowing in two shifts, scoundrels!" - Davydov whispered at dawn, overwhelmed by tedious languor, courageously struggling with insomnia. Lushka Nagulnova was in the brigade until the end of the sowing, but as soon as the brigade, having finished tilled crops, left the field, she came to Davydov that same day in the evening. After dinner, he lay in his little room, reading Pravda. In the passage, subtly, like a mouse, someone scratched the door, and then - a quiet female voice: - Can I go up? - Can. - Davydov jumped up from the bunk, threw on his jacket. Lushka entered, quietly shutting the door behind her. A black half-shawl aged her weathered, darkened face. Thick and small freckles, burnt by the sun, stood out more distinctly on her cheeks. But the eyes under the dark canopy of the pulled-down half-hut laughed and sparkled brighter and brighter. - I came to visit... - Come in, sit down. Davydov, surprised and delighted at her arrival, pulled up a stool, buttoned his coat, and sat down on the bunk. He was expectantly silent, feeling uneasy, awkward. And Lushka walked freely to the table, turned up her skirt with a deft and imperceptible movement (so as not to wrinkle), sat down. - How are you, collective farm chairman? - I live nothing. - Are you bored? - No time to be bored and nothing to do. - What about me? Never lost Davydov turned pink and frowned. Lushka lowered her eyelashes with mock humility, and a smile fluttered irresistibly at the corners of her lips. “I made up the devil knows what,” he answered somewhat uncertainly. - So you didn't get bored? - No, it's a fact! Do you have business with me? - There is ... What is new in the newspapers? What do you hear about the world revolution? - Lushka leaned on her elbows, gave her face a serious expression corresponding to the conversation. It was as if her recent demonic smile was not on her lips. - They write different things ... What business do you have with me? - Davydov braced himself. Their conversation was probably overheard by the hostess. Davydov sat as if on hot coals. Absolutely unthinkable, downright intolerable was his position! Tomorrow the hostess will spread all over Gremyachy that Makarov's ex-wife goes to her lodger at night, and - Davydov's unsullied reputation is gone! Women greedy for gossip will tirelessly gossip on the lanes and at the wells, the collective farmers will chuckle knowingly when they meet. Razmetnov will begin to sneer at the address of a comrade who has fallen into Pushkin's nets, and there he will reach the district, and in the district field and water union - what good - they will sew a case, they will say: "That's why he finished sitting down only on the tenth, because the women ran to him. He, apparently , more in love affairs than in sowing! And it was not for nothing that the secretary of the district committee said, before sending twenty-five thousand people to the districts: "The authority of the working class - the vanguard of the revolution - in the countryside must be kept at the highest level. Behave, comrades, you must be especially careful. I'm not talking about big, but even in household you have to be prudent about trifles. In the countryside, you can drink for a penny, and there will be a hundred political rubles to talk about ... " Davydov even began to sweat, in an instant he thought over all the consequences of visiting Lushka and having a free conversation with her. There was a clear threat of compromise. And Lushka sat, completely oblivious to Davydov's painful experiences. And he, croaking a little with excitement, already sternly asked again: - What's the matter? Talk and go, I have no time to deal with trifles with you, well, a fact! Do you remember what you said to me then? I didn't ask Makar, but I already know: he's the opposite... Davydov jumped up, waved his hands: - I don't have time! After! Then! At that moment, he was ready to squeeze her laughing mouth with his palm, if only she would be silent. And she understood, contemptuously wiggled her eyebrows. - Oh you! And isho... Well, okay. Give me a newspaper, whichever is more interesting. Besides, I have no business with you. Sorry to disturb you... She left, and Davydov breathed a sigh of relief. But a minute later he was already sitting at the table, fiercely clutching his hair, thinking: “What a boot, I have no strength! I'm a monk, or what? Yes, and who cares? I like her, therefore, I can spend time with her ... As long as there is no damage to the work, and do not care about the rest! And now she will not come, a fact. I am very rude to her, and she noticed that I was somewhat frightened ... Take the ashes of you, how stupid it happened! "But his fears were in vain: Lushka did not at all belong to that category of people who easily deviate from their plans "And her plans included the conquest of Davydov. In fact, she shouldn't have connected her life with the life of some Gremyachny guy? And for what? To dry up to old age by the stove and disappear in the steppe near the bulls and plowing? And Davydov would have been a simple, broad-shouldered and sweet guy, not at all like Makar, hardened in business and waiting for the world revolution, not like Timofey ... He had one small flaw: a gap in his mouth, and even in the most prominent place - in the front; but Lushka reconciled herself to this shortcoming in the appearance of the one she had chosen. In her short but rich life, she learned that teeth are not the main thing when evaluating a man ... The next day at dusk she came again, this time dressed up and even more defiant .Pretext for pose There were newspapers. - I brought your newspaper ... Can I take it? Don't you have any books? I would like some enticing, about love. - Take newspapers, but there are no books, I don’t have a reading room. Lushka, without waiting for an invitation, sat down and began a serious conversation about sowing in the third brigade, about the disorders she had noticed at the dairy farm organized in Gremyachiy Log. With naive ingenuity, she adapted herself to Davydov, to that circle of interests in which - it seemed to her - he should have lived. At first, Davydov listened to her incredulously, but then he got carried away with the conversation, told about his plans for setting up a dairy farm, along the way told about the latest technical achievements in the processing of dairy products that had appeared abroad, and in the end, not without chagrin, said: - We need a lot of money. We need to buy a few heifers from cows that give a high milk yield, we need to get a breeding bull ... All this must be done as soon as possible. After all, a properly established dairy farm will give a huge income! The fact is that in this case the collective farm will correct its budget. Well, what do they have there now? An old separatist who is worth a penny, who cannot miss the spring milk yield, that's all. And there are no cans, and milk is poured into troughs in the old fashioned way. What is this business? So you say that their milk sours, but why does it sour? Probably poured into dirty dishes. - Korchazhki do not fry well, and through this it turns sour. - Well, I’m saying that they don’t keep the dishes well. You take this case and put it in order. What needs to be done - do it, the board will always help. And so what? Milk will always perish if there is no supervision over the utensils, if milkmaids milk the way I recently saw: sit under a cow, do not wash her udder, her teats are all in mud, in manure ... and the hands of the milkmaid herself are actually unwashed. She, perhaps, before that, the devil knows what she took up and climbs under the cow with dirty hands. I didn't have time to do this. And I'll take it! And you, instead of powdering yourself with powders and putting on beauty, would you undertake to take care of the farm, huh? We will appoint you as a manager, you will go to courses, you will learn how to scientifically manage, and you will become a qualified woman. “No, let them manage without me,” Lushka sighed, “there, even without me, there is someone to put everything in order. And I don't want to be the manager. And I don't want to go to class. A lot of tights. I like to work easily, so that I can live more spaciously, but what about it? .. Work, it loves fools. - You're talking nonsense again! - Davydov said annoyed, but did not convince. Soon Lushka was going home. Davydov went to see her off. They walked side by side along a dark alley, were silent for a long time, then Lushka, who unusually quickly got to know all the worries of Davydov, asked: - Did you go to look at the Kubanka today? - Traveled. - Well, how? - Badly! If it doesn't rain this week... I'm afraid it won't come up. And do you understand how all this, take his ashes, works out? The old people who came to me for permission to pray will gloat, a fact! "Aha, - they will say, - he did not allow a prayer service to be served - and God did not give rain!" And their god has absolutely nothing to do with it, since the barometer has ossified in a variable position. But they will be strengthened in their foolish faith. Straight trouble, fact! In part, we ourselves missed the mark a little ... We should have spit on the melons, on some of the row crops and sow wheat as soon as possible, that's what the mistake came out of! And the same with Melionopus: in fact, he proved to this club - Lyubishkin, that in our conditions this breed is the most suitable for all agronomic data ... - Davydov perked up again and, having got on his "horse", would have talked for a long time and with enthusiasm, but Lushka interrupted him with obvious impatience: - Come on, about bread! Let's sit down, sit down, - and pointed to the crest of the ditch, blue in the moonlight. Come up. Lushka picked up her skirts and suggested economically: - You should put your little jacket on, otherwise I'm afraid to get my skirt dirty. It is festive for me ... And when they sat down side by side on a spread out jacket, she brought her face, which had become strict, strangely prettier, closer to Davydov's mocking face, and said: - Enough about bread and about the collective farm! That’s not what you need to talk about at once... Do you smell how a young leaf on a poplar tree smells? he got up and from under his feet, rustling, rolled a dry scree of clay into the ditch. Lushka was still lying on her back, arms outstretched, wearily closing her eyes. They were silent for a minute. Then she rose with unexpected vivacity, clasped her knees bent in her arms, and trembled with a fit of soundless laughter. She laughed like she was being tickled. - You... what is it? - Davydov asked in bewilderment and offended. But Lushka just as suddenly broke off her laughter, stretched out her legs and, stroking her hips and stomach with her palms, said thoughtfully, in a slightly hoarse and happy voice: - embittered Davydov. - No, no, it's you in vain ... you're angry in vain. My stomach immediately became somehow burdenless ... some kind of empty and light, and I laughed at that. And why should I cry, eccentric, or what? Sit down, why did you jump up? Davydov reluctantly obeyed. "What should we do with her now? We'll have to actually formalize it somehow, otherwise it's inconvenient in front of Makar and in general ... There was no sadness, so the devils pumped up!" he thought, glancing askance at Lushka's greenish face in the moonlight. And she, not touching the ground with her hands, flexibly got up, - smiling, screwing up her eyes, she asked: - Am I good? BUT? - How can I tell you ... - Davydov answered vaguely, embracing Pushkin's narrow shoulders.

Scarlet Tulip - Makar Nagulnov

The thirtieth year ... Our Ukrainian steppe village, life in which resembled a disturbed beehive ... I remember now the barn beams falling with a crash, engulfed in flames and people throwing themselves into the fire to save the collective farm grain ... The narrow street of the village from tyn to tyn is crowded with people who are walking behind a coffin covered with a red banner - this is fellow villagers escorting a collective farm activist who was killed with fists on his last journey. Of course, there was no orchestra in the village. I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t even in our entire Skadovsky district. And people sang: “You fell a victim in the fatal struggle ...” I remember how scary it was then ...

And in a day or two - screams, laughter, ditties: a locomobile, a huge steam engine, was taken out into the field. One of the villagers asked a lad with a sword belt over his shoulder:

What is this curiosity?

I'm sorry, what? Together we will thresh! ..

And remember - everyone had fun ...

My early childhood passed without books, except for the primer. Fairy-tale characters could not amaze my imagination. And I, a village boy, did not dream of Humpbacked Skates, Ilya Muromets, Alyonushki and Nightingale the Robbers.

When I was twelve years old, I began to read “adult”, thick books. Reading, of course, was unsystematic and often just chaotic. From that crowded book, my memory has preserved especially distinctly the image of Jacklondon's Martin Eden and Sholokhov's Makar Nagulnov. "Virgin Soil Upturned" made a stunning impression on me. Undoubtedly, I, then still a boy, could not have a complete understanding of its meaning. The enormous philosophical power of the work entered my consciousness little by little, gradually. I still do not cease to rejoice at the discovery of something new for myself in Virgin Soil Upturned.

Makar Nagulnov burst into my life and immediately captured me with his irresistible thirst to live, fight and create. Which of the teenagers did not choose literary characters as their ideals? Who among us has not dreamed of being in the image of a beloved hero?

Makar haunted me all my life - I wanted to measure everything with his passionate, uncompromising determination, sincerity and devotion: “... And the party will still need me ... And I can’t live without the party ... Here it is a ticket in my chest pocket ... Try it, take it! I'll cut my throat!"

I wanted to look at everything with clear, clear eyes. Through the eyes of a man from the people, with his whole being connected with the people and living for the people ... I wanted to be able to feel just as strongly, to pain, to suffering ...

Later, when I was already an officer, taught at a military school, wrote endless reports asking me to be sent to the front to fight the Nazis, I constantly returned to Virgin Soil Upturned, to its heroes, and once again thought about Nagulnov's boundless hatred for enemies of the revolution. So, throughout the war, the Red Army soldier Makar Nagulnov stood with us in the same ranks. How many times have I heard how, jokingly or seriously, the soldiers whom we trained in the art of warfare said to each other: “Oh, no Makar for you!” or “If you think about a girl, it means that you are distracted from the main thing ... So it turns out that you are from another platoon, not from Nagulnovskaya ...”

And once, for excessive vehemence and intolerance, a senior officer cut me off with the words: “You, Matveev, are smart like Nagulny! Everything is in your back, everything is in your back! .. "

I remember that I was offended by him not because he pulled me down, but because he incorrectly pronounced the name of my favorite hero. But it was after that incident that I reached out to him: it was clear that the officer had read this book ... Then, when we got to know each other better, I found out that he was from those places that are described in Virgin Soil Upturned. We became friends, although we argued mercilessly about Nagulnov, about Davydov, about Shchukar, about Lushka ... And our argument was always interrupted by his peremptory phrase: “Don't tell me ... I'm Sholokhov, that's how I saw you ... "

I fell silent, became dumb ... I envied him to the point of aching pain ... Naturally, since my studies at the Dovzhenko film school, I dreamed of playing Makar Nagulnov - I understood that this was mine! This is my hero! I let his revolutionary passion through me, and I long to bring a wonderful future closer to today. Nagulnov's impatience to make our life better was also my impatience...

And now, almost twenty years later, my dream came true: I was invited to the role of Makar Nagulnov in the film adaptation of the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov.

When the shooting began, I tried to attune myself to everything that surrounded my hero: to the Don nature, to the mores, customs, speech of the Cossacks. He walked around the villages and farms always in Makar's costume. Naturally, I often attracted the attention of local residents, which I was always happy about. Communicating with them, I had the opportunity to listen to the peculiar melody of the speech of the Don Cossacks and Cossacks ...

The name of Mikhail Sholokhov, the names of his heroes not only entered, but grew into the lives of these people with such force that legends began to be born. I was amazed at how popular the writer's work was among the people. With what deep knowledge of the content and meaning of "The Quiet Flows the Don" and "Virgin Soil Upturned" simple people, without a special philological education, spoke about these works.

Of course, it was not without curiosities. Once I spent the whole evening surrounded by Cossacks. The people they, frankly, are mocking, witty, they don’t climb into their pockets for a word: neither give nor take - Lushka and Aksinya.

Have you seen Nagulnov himself? - one young woman asked not without malice.

What is not, is not...

It can be seen.

Hump, hump! - She walked in a circle, putting forward the socks of her boots, and her hands, as if in a dance, holding on lush hips. - How Makar walked - like a cochet! My mother told me everything about him. He hit her a little...

I recorded this dialogue in the village of Karginovskaya. But what I happened to hear in the village of Bokovskaya - this time I spoke with the old people.

Everything in that little book is described about our village. Everything is clean, - the old stanitsa said in all seriousness.

I, to encourage, objected:

How so? But the Karginites say that Mikhail Alexandrovich described their life.

They are great to break! Here, go through, and after two houses you will run into the house of Baba Lushka, she is ill now ... And grandfather Shchukar is also ours ...

Well, it’s written off from you, grandfather, ”someone shouted, and everyone was drowned in laughter.

Broke, broke! .. When was it that I fed you a frog? - And again the Cossacks burst into explosive laughter.

Preparing to play the role of Nagulnov, I experienced incredible difficulties, although I had nurtured the image for so many years. Already the first searches for makeup forced us - the make-up artist, director and me - to stop for deeper reflection.

With what generous, I would say, flowery and amazingly accurate colors Sholokhov described his bottom Nagulnov:

“He was broad in the chest and, like a cavalry, a tick-legged ... Widened black eyebrows grew together ... a predatory cut of the nostrils of a small hawk nose ... a cloudy pillowcase over his eyes ...”

All this was clearly lacking in my physical data, and cinematic make-up is extremely economical. But how clearly and almost tangibly I felt the "sculpture" of the portrait! My reverent attitude to the novel did not give me the opportunity to deviate in any way from the author's intention. I was on the verge of despair...

Few people know about these invisible torments of the actor. For a patient, such nervous tension can be relieved by a doctor, and for an actor - only a director. A kind man - Alexander Gavrilovich Ivanov - said:

Evgeny Semenovich, let's figure it out. The author of the novel presented Semyon Davydov to us without a front tooth, so should we look for an artist on this basis? Or maybe a healthy tooth should be pulled out from Pyotr Chernov? Salvation, I think, we will seek from Sholokhov himself. Take the trouble to extract verbs from the novel. In my opinion, they are the key to the role.

I read, pondered, and again marveled at the power of Sholokhov's word.

"You have to dig into the ground, and lure everyone to the collective farm."

“But Nagulnov turned his eyes in his direction…”

“And Nagulnov brought a gray horse out of the stable, turned it around and, grabbing its mane, mounted it.”

"Unable to stand it, cried Nagulnov."

"Clawed into the tabletop."

“Suddenly Nagulnov screamed wildly, and fury splashed in his huge, dilated pupils.”

“Loving you, I endured a lot of shame, and at once my patience broke.”

“Dejectedly lowered his head and immediately threw it up like a horse.”

"The bird flew up on the saddle."

Yes, it’s true, Sholokhov’s verbs, which define the living, active essence of Makar Nagulnov, are saturated with elasticity, dynamism, energy ...

The first test shootings clearly made me feel that the emotional charge that had been accumulating in me for years splashes out instantly, without much tension and over the edge. But I was definitely in danger of falling into exaggeration - not even feelings, but feelings. Nothing can be more terrible.

With my mind, I understood that the writer's Makar was ideologically purposeful, focused on completing tasks and, in his own way, gathered into a clenched fist. I understood that the strength of the emotions that had gripped me had to be contained inside, chained into “steel” arches-ribs of the chest, and it was advisable to distribute this strength. But understanding, wanting is one thing, but how to do it?

And it happens like this: on a barrow, in the steppe, I noticed a wild tulip. From a strong wind, he bent and with his scarlet petals almost reached the ground. A thin stalk springy and straightened. In this resistance, the flower was stunningly beautiful and majestic.

I don’t know, dear readers, whether you understand what happened to me, but some unknown force seemed to shock me: in an instant I felt both hot and cold. In the tulip, I suddenly saw my dear Makar Nagulnov and felt the image in all its epic and poetic beauty. This is how I tried to convey my Makar to the viewer.

Fate gave me the happiness to once again meet with the work of M.A. Sholokhov - in the film "Foal" based on "Don stories".

Trofim from "Foal" and Makar Nagulnov lived in me almost simultaneously and alternately demanded from me full, to the end return. Two Sholokhov's images ... Two completely opposite characters: Makar is a man who erupts emotions like a volcano; Trofim, on the contrary, kept his attitude to people, nature, animals in himself, without immediately revealing, painfully, in a peasant way, it was difficult to think.

And so I nurtured in my soul these images of two soldiers of the Fatherland: Makar - eccentric, all in a fit, and Trofim - internally restrained ...

And my heroes died in the struggle for a bright life the way they lived:

“Stricken, mutilated by grenade fragments, Nagulnov died instantly ...”

“... Trofim was writhing two steps away from the foal, and hard blue lips, which had not kissed children for five years, smiled and foamed with blood.”

Two heroes - two deaths. One - instantaneous, the other - not immediately ... not immediately ... But how much optimistic strength, thirst to work, create, they evoke in those who read Sholokhov! ..

“Is it true that you, on the set of Virgin Soil Upturned, fell off a horse and crashed?” In different versions, this question was asked to me quite often ... And I tried to answer it in detail so that the “incident” would not be overgrown with all sorts of guesses and would not eventually turn into a terrible legend. And how many such "horrors" are told about the actors! ..

So what really happened?

According to the plot of the film, Makar Nagulnov, already expelled from the party, lies on a mound and in complete desperation brings the revolver to his temple, whispers: “I will shoot myself ... And the Revolution will not suffer ... How many people are following it? ..” And suddenly he hears incomprehensible screams coming from from his native farm. He understands - the Cossacks are rioting! He jumps on a horse and in a wild gallop rushes to the collective farm compound. This is the content of the frame.

We started rehearsing. Director-producer Alexander Ivanov with his team, and the cameraman with his team settled down near a solid collective farm barn, from which the Cossacks are pulling sacks of grain. I, on horseback, was already at my starting position, about six hundred meters from the barn. With a wave of the director Vladimir Stepanov, I have to take off and break into a bunch of furious farmers at maximum speed, jump off my horse, shoot up and shout: “I’ll kill seven reptiles, and then you’ll enter the barn. Well, who's first? Come on!"

After that, the command should follow: “Stop!”

The rehearsal was a success: all services worked smoothly. My horse and I received praise and admiration. It never occurred to anyone that the rider, that is, I, for the first time in my life, committed such a desperate act: galloping half a kilometer on a horse.

And there was nothing else left for me: after all, once I answered Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov’s question “Do you sit well in the saddle?” answered without blinking an eye that I was born on a horse. Sholokhov, however, remarked on this: “You lie famously, which means you will ride.”

"Gruzdev called himself get in the body". Shooting. Double first. The red flag directed by Stepanov dropped sharply to the ground. I rushed! .. The horse threw forward its legs, as if pulling them out of itself forever ... Foam flew out of its mouth in lush flakes ... The snoring seemed to spread throughout the entire Don district ...

My body was firmly glued to the horse's croup - I held on with all the necessary and unnecessary muscles ... And my soul rang, sang, burst out of my chest somewhere - this is rapture! this is happiness! .. In a word, not only a frisky horse carried me, but also my temperament, heated to the limit. But without jumping ten or fifteen meters to the camera, the horse, unexpectedly for everyone, and most importantly, for me, rushed to the side ... I blurted out to the ground! And the leg remained in the stirrup ... The heated horse dragged its unfortunate rider for another fifty meters along the dusty ground ...

The film group, extras with oohs and aahs surrounded me. Overcoming a burning shame for myself, clumsy, I jumped up cheerfully, shaking off the dust from my clothes, mumbled something like: "It's okay! .. Everything's fine !!!"

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief: “Well, thank God.” They sat me on a folding chair (director's chair, what an honor!) and began to wonder how such a "fall" could happen.

Why did you put the boot in the stirrup to the heel? .. - grumbled the stern Alexander Gavrilovich, in the past a red cavalryman, a red bannerman. - This is the first sign that the horse is wearing a mattress, not a Cossack.

It was a shame to hear such a review. After all, it seemed to me that in a gallop I was irresistibly beautiful.

Why did the horse jump sideways?

What, what? Scared! You see, what a hubbub they raised ... They staged a doomsday ... And this horse lived all its life in the silence of the forest, drove the huntsmen, - the bearded Cossack admonished the townspeople.

Indeed, the horse needs to be run in, accustomed to the hubbub, ”Volodya Stepanov suggested. - Here let the bearded man pogartsuet.

The bearded man, flattered by the trust, spectacularly took off into the saddle and retired to his original position. Everything was repeated, as it was with me: the horse in front of the camera again jerked to the side. True, the horseman held on, did not fall, but, jumping off to the ground, fell upon the filmmakers with a hail of such words that I would not dare to repeat:

Well, you ... blind the horse's eyes!

Here's the solution: at rehearsal, the lights were not turned on, but at the shooting they all hit at once. The horse, of course, was frightened and ... By this time the sky was just covered with clouds - the sun had disappeared for a long time. The directors joked, then made a decision: today to train the horse for “blinding”, and tomorrow to shoot.

How, Evgeny Semyonovich? - Alexander Gavrilovich Ivanov turned to me without irritation, rather with sympathy.

I answered yes. I got up from his chair with a jerk and ... like a mowed down fell on the dust-gray grass: a wild pain in my back ... My leg, as if someone else's, did not obey ... They laid me on the straw, began to take off my boots ... Pain ... They cut the bootleg ... Pain ... They cut the trouser leg of the riding breeches. Leg - deck ...

In the district hospital they told us that they had no electric light, and they would not undertake an operation with kerosene lamps ...

Then there was the Moscow CITO (Central Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics). There I fell into the hands (after all, I'm lucky) of the famous surgeon, in the past the famous athlete Zoya Sergeevna Mironova, who returned many ballet dancers, football players, and motorcyclists to service. I had to get rid of two torn menisci in my left knee.

But the back pain remained. Well, I thought (and so set up those around me) - this is an ordinary sciatica that has been accompanying me for a long time. So, we need hot sand, electric heating pads, pancakes from dough for the back - and that's it! Think sciatica!

It is quite logical to ask: where did the security service look on the set? Why didn't I exercise the right to have an understudy?

The director, starting the production of the film, gets acquainted and signs a document on safety precautions, and there are about a hundred of these “no” points. Of course, if you obey this kind of requirements in everything, the film will never be made.

And how to allow the understudy to put his athletic, technical and yet soulless skill into the fine structure of the artistic image that I, the actor, have suffered through. It seems to me personally (which makes me shudder thinking about the understudy) that it will be a prosthesis in the body of "my" image. In the film “The Eighteenth Year” from “Walking Through the Torments” (directed by Grigory Roshal), I rode on a horse as Commander-in-Chief Sorokin (a small, but my favorite role). But in the frame, when Sorokin flies over a high fence, it was not me, but an understudy. I still regret that there was no time to seriously practice and perform the trick myself. Maybe I’m wrong, but even after so many years (the shooting was in 1957) I can’t forget that Sorokin’s understudy had a cold back, and his eyes were indifferent, although a shot was taken in a general shot and the eye, of course, was not visible.

No, a role, an image for an actor is something very dear, close and sick... Unfortunately, not all directors - especially those who have never been in the shoes of an actor - understand this.

My horse epic did not end on Virgin Soil Upturned...

In the 1960s and 1970s, Tovarishch Kino gala concerts with the participation of film and theater stars, as well as pop and circus artists, were widely and with great success throughout the country at stadiums. I remember how Nikolai Cherkasov in the role of Professor Polezhaev rode along the cinder path in an armored car; Boris Babochkin with Leonid Kmit - Chapaev and Petka - raced on a cart; Pyotr Glebov - Grigory Melekhov - and a hundred Cossacks with drafts unsheathed rushed in a circle; Marina Ladynina, to the soundtrack of a song from the Kuban Cossacks, “What you were, remained so,” went out in a bedarka ...

The spectator enthusiastically received the performers and applauded the directors who organized these theatrical spectacles.

I was repeatedly invited to such performances, and with a prerequisite: in the costume and make-up of Makar Nagulnov and with a spectacular ride on a dashing horse. Horse riding at that time still caused me a kind of allergy. In addition, my leg and back continued to ache, so I always refused to sit in the saddle. Then - on the cart!

And here is a daytime concert in the city of Nikolaev. To the screams, laughter and applause of the audience, I rushed in half with grief on a cart harnessed by two horses that did not fit each other. One horse already knew what a drawbar was before, and the other obviously felt the harness for the first time. This stubborn mare bared her teeth, kicked and tried to bite her partner. Raising her croup up, she kicked furiously with her hind legs, rattling on the barges and the drawbar. Then, as I found out, the wheels also made a pretzel, wagging in all directions. The audience burst into laughter. Viewer - clownery! What about me?..

Having played our number from “Virgin Soil Upturned” with Pavel Vinnik, I, furious, burst into the directors:

Who… made a mockery of me?!

Well, where can I get a good cart now? Thank you, we found it with some grandfather - it had been lying in his garden since the time of the Civil War. We tinted it, - the somewhat frightened director justified himself.

In the evening - no travel! I categorically warned.

And in the evening, something extraordinary began. Some prim uncles surrounded me (from the city committee and the regional committee), began to coax ingratiatingly:

Understand... Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny (at that time the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine) will be at the performance!.. Please! Horses have been changed...

Persuaded. Our number was in the second half of the concert, when it was already dark. We left. The horses walked harmoniously and "in concert." I didn’t even have time to make half a circle - the lights were turned on at the stadium ...

And the horses rushed wildly!

Pulling on the reins with all my might, I tried to restrain the enraged horses. People in the stands realized that something was wrong, they began to shout: “Stop! ..”, “Shut it down! ..”

In a whirlwind gallop, the horses rushed to an unforeseen second circle. At the turn, the wheel bounced off, the tachanka overturned, I flew off about eight meters and crashed onto the asphalt ...

For a month I lay in Nikolaev in the regional committee hospital - the local "Kremlin". It was watermelon time, and my huge separate (as for a particularly honored guest) chamber was literally filled up not only with them, but also with melons and grapes. I did not know what to do with this abundance, and I fed the entire hospital with gifts from my worshipers. My spectators constantly walked under the windows of the ward, bringing jam with them, some homemade eggplant caviar - they learned from somewhere that I adore it. Once someone brought grated radish to treat back pain - to apply to a bruised place. I could not use this folk remedy: the heat was then such that one could suffocate from the smell of radish ...

I was transported from Nikolaev to Moscow, to the Institute of Balneology and Physiotherapy. My arms and legs didn’t move… At the slightest attempt to move, I lost consciousness because of the pain in my vertebra…

After lengthy research, Vera Stepanovna Preobrazhenskaya, a wonderful specialist, a neuropathologist, the kindest, sweetest person, gathered her courage and began to explain the essence of my disease using Latin terminology.

Vera Stepanovna, pronounce the verdict immediately and in Russian,” I said.

Well… Your vertebrae is severely damaged: two discs are crushed, pinching a nerve…

Let's try to do without surgery. But you will need a lot of patience for a long time.

And then what?

Then it will be visible. Maybe I'll have to think about another profession ... - She tried to speak softly and helpfully ...

I don't know how I looked at the doctor, only her face changed. In her eyes, I saw sparks of sympathy and compassion. Maybe she, my dear, only now understood, felt what unbearable mental pain she had caused - the physical pain seemed to have faded in comparison with this pain.

After a painful silence, Vera Stepanovna left without commuting her sentence. And yet, be that as it may, the truth is better. Or maybe she's preparing me for the worst? I thought. - So that there is something to rejoice at the end of the treatment? And the treatment was long and painful. I don't want to talk about it...

But here's something else I can't say. Somewhere in the press, it seems in the "Soviet Screen", a note about that incident in Nikolaev slipped through. Yes, and the rumor has already spread - after all, I plopped down in front of thirty thousand spectators. There was a flood of letters. Written by people from all over the country. In addition to expressing sympathy, they offered ways to treat with herbs, roots, resins ... They offered their services to be nurses or guides ... They offered money, food ...

The touching participation of ordinary people, my viewers, fans, warmed the soul, gave strength in overcoming the disease. Thanks to them all!

I left the institute chained in a hard wide wrestling belt and with a wand. Barely persuaded not to give a disability of the 2nd group (this is without the right to work) - they agreed to the 3rd. Thank you!.. And, as they say, "put a pension" - 41 rubles. In a word, “walk - I don’t want to!”

I called Elena Nikolaevna Gogoleva, my constant mother in performances at the Maly Theater. At that time she was the chairman of the local committee.

Zhenechka, why don't you apply for a pension?

Thank you, completed.

You are entitled to a personal, republican value.

If you have to, give it.

Write a request for...

Why??.

It's embarrassing to judge yourself! It's humiliating to beg!..

Elena Nikolaevna sighed into the phone, spoke displeasedly about my character, began to convince me that it was the way it was, it was accepted, everyone did it ...

I was very worried about this conversation. And really, what does she have to do with it: a bureaucratic rigmarole and it makes her go in a soulless circle created by someone ...

Leo Tolstoy has wise words: "It's time to stop waiting for unexpected gifts from life, and make life yourself."

I did not expect gifts, although they came from kind people in the form of offers: to work as a teacher, to become the head of the troupe, director of the theater ... The Lenfilm Film Studio and the Dovzhenko Film Studio offered me to direct films. Directing - it was what I secretly dreamed of ...

So, it was necessary to start all over again, it was necessary to “make life yourself”! And I decided ... But more on that in the next chapters ...

In the center of the novel "Virgin Soil Upturned" are three communists, three comrades. There is much in common in their destinies: difficult youth, military service, imperialist war, proletarian revolution, civil war, peaceful work to strengthen Soviet power. They are all captured by one idea, obsessed with one desire - to build a happy life for humanity. With all the passion of the soul, they surrender to the powerful flow of historical events, shaping and directing its movement along the right path. The fate of the three comrades reveals the fate of a generation that endured on its shoulders all the hardships and hardships of the civil war for the sake of a happy future for its people. One of them will be discussed.

Nagulnov sees the purpose of his life in serving the great cause of the working class. Makar Nagulnov always does what his conscience tells him to do. He has the character of a stern, unbending, unbending person who is afraid to outwardly express his feelings, experiences, tries to hide them from others.

F. Dostoevsky noted that there are such closed, proud characters, “who, although they harbor the warmest feelings in their hearts, are always somehow ashamed of their discovery; there is little affection in them, they have little caressing words, hugging, jumping on the neck. This trait is also manifested in the character of Nagulnov.

Makar Nagulnov's personal interests have never been in the foreground, they have never occupied the main place in his activities. His whole life is determined by the desire to bring the world revolution closer. Everything that, as it seems to him, contributes to its accomplishment, arouses a vested interest in Makar Nagulnov.

He doesn't hide anything, he doesn't even try to hide it. He directly and honestly admits his mistakes, he is not able to either prevaricate or act according to calculation. Nagulnov gives his whole soul to every business, he can’t do anything halfway.

Nagulnov is such an emotional and mobile nature that all his experiences and feelings at this important moment for him are reflected on his face. And a heavy sigh, no matter how he tried to suppress it, betrays his condition. His whole character, all his passion and love for the party, for the cause for which he is fighting, are truthfully revealed in the scene of the meeting of the district committee bureau, which is truly tragic for him. When Nagulnov, expelled from the party, returned home, he could not imagine life outside the party and decides to commit suicide. And only at the last second he realizes that with his death the party will lose one fighter, and the enemies will rejoice. This forces him to hide his weapons and return to the line of fighters for the cause of the party.

Semyon Davydov, a former sailor and mechanic at the Putilov factory, arrives at the Gremyachiy Log farm to organize a collective farm. The task before him is not an easy one, because the Cossacks have long considered themselves a privileged estate, humility is not at all characteristic of them, as, ...

Since the creation of M. Sholokhov's "Virgin Soil Upturned", many works have been written devoted to the topic of collectivization, but none of them has such a complete and embossed picture of village life, full of dramatic events. In "Virgin Soil Upturned"...

M. A. Sholokhov is one of the largest and most talented Soviet writers, whose whole life and creative activity were devoted to the struggle for the achievement of the goals that the Soviet people aspired to: the construction of communism, peace throughout the world ....

The creation of Sholokhov's novel "Virgin Soil Upturned" falls on the 30s - the years of collectivization. This is a response to the events taking place in the country. “Socialist transformations” in the countryside is the main content of Sholokhov's novel. Massive collectivization...

Many works have been written about forced collectivization and the massacre of the peasantry. We were told about the tragedy of the Russian peasant by the books of S. Zalygin "On the Irtysh", "Men and Women" by B. Mozhaev, "A Pair of Bays" by V. Tendryakov, "The Raid" by V. Bykov...