"Fate of a Man" (, translit. Sudba Cheloveka) is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

written by

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

writer

Mikhail Sholokhov Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov ( rus, Михаил Александрович Шолохов, p=ˈʂoləxəf; – 21 February 1984) was a Russian novelist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is known for writing about life ...

in 1956.

Plot

With the outbreak of the

Great Patriotic War The Eastern Front, also known as the Great Patriotic War (term), Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and its successor states, and the German–Soviet War in modern Germany and Ukraine, was a Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II ...

, the truck driver Andrey Sokolov has to leave for army and part with his family. In the first months of the war, he gets wounded and is captured by Nazis. In captivity, he experiences all the burdens of a

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

. Due to a display of courage that he shows to the camp's chief, when he refuses to drink with him to victory of the Nazis, he avoids execution and, later, runs from Nazis. In a short vacation in his hometown, Sokolov finds out that his beloved wife Irina and both of their daughters were killed during the bombing. He immediately returns to the front, unable to stay in his native town any more. The only relative Andrey still has is his son, who serves as an officer in the army. Right on

Victory Day Victory Day is a commonly used name for public holidays in various countries, where it commemorates a nation's triumph over a hostile force in a war or the liberation of a country from hostile occupation. In many cases, multiple countries may ob ...

, Andrey receives news that his son was killed on the last day of the war. After the war, lonely Andrei Sokolov doesn't return to his town and works somewhere else. He meets a little boy Vanya, who was left an orphan. His mother died in bombing and his father missed in action. Sokolov tells the boy that he is his father, and this gives the boy (and himself) a hope for a new life.

Background

The plot of the story is based on real events. In the spring of 1946, on hunting Sholokhov met a man who told him this story. Sholokhov was stricken and said: "I'll write a short story about this, I surely will." Ten years later, after reading some short stories by

Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized f ...

and Remarque, Sholokhov wrote "The Fate of a Man" in seven days.

Film adaptation

{{main, Fate of a ManIn 1959, the story was screened by

Sergei Bondarchuk Sergei Fyodorovich Bondarchuk (25 September 192020 October 1994) was a Soviet and Russian actor and filmmaker of Ukrainian origin who was one of the leading figures of Soviet cinema in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He is known for his sweeping p ...

, who also played the main role there. The film "Fate of Man" was awarded the main prize at the Moscow Film Festival in 1959 and paved the way for Bondarchuk to big cinema.

References

1957 books Works by Mikhail Sholokhov