숄로호프와 혁명, 그리고 문학: 카자크 작가인가 소비에트 작가인가

Тhis paper examines the relationship between political opinions and literary life of Mikhail Sholokhov. He was one of the most famous and widely loved Soviet novelists and also achieved a worldwide fame as a winner of the 1965 Nobel prize in Literature. As a writer who comes from a Cossack village, he knew well about tough situation and tragic fate of Don Cossacks during the Russian Revolution, the civil war and the period of collectivization. Though he participated actively in various operations of Bolshevik and soviet government, in his literature we can read different point of view on the political situation of the time. Especially the main characters of And Quiet Flows the Don and Virgin Soil Upturned experience an inner conflict between a soviet reality and an identity as a Cossacks. In Russian history Cossacks were always apprehended a special group, because they were on the one hand violent soldiers protecting Russian territory and Russian tsar, and on the other hand anti-Russian ethnic group always dreaming an independent state of Cossacks. In his works Sholokhov shows that Cossacks eventually lose their national identity and become Soviet people, but he never depicts this process in the view of socialist realism. Though he was not a Cossack, but with a sympathy for them he tried to prove that Cossacks were people of free spirit.