‘Cossack versus Red Army . . a war of unparalleled savagery […] A story of incredible brutality, well-larded with sexual adventures […] This book makes compulsive if horrifying reading; it is on a plane of human conduct as bestial as if it had occurred in the Dark Ages.’
From the blurb to The Don Flows Home to the Sea: Part One, 1960 Four Square Books edition
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The 1919 Review 
I first read Sholokhov in the 1960s as a teen. It was traumatizing. What I learned from it was: never ever ever trust men, and maybe not women either. Which was consistant with what a teacher told me: never put your faith in humans, as they are unreliable, but trust God alone. Not that God will come to our rescue (look at the martyred saints), nope. But that at least if we trust the worth of “love thy neighbor as thyself,” we can retain a shred of spiritual integrity (regardless of religion). Now Putin magnifies that world of horror of Sholokhov. Can we be like good Samaritans, help rescue his victims? Or do we accept a medieval chaos?
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As Dr King said, we must be the Samaritans at life’s roadside. I’m not sure that message comes across in Sholokhov however!
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