Alyoshka by Mikhail Sholokhov. Short summary

5 seconds

The main character is Alyoshka, who was 14 years old. The latter lost his relatives — they died because of starvation. He was rescued by the local political committee, and then helped protect the village from bandits.

1 minute

Because of the two-year drought, a large-scale famine began — people were dying one by one. The boy Alyosha’s family had eaten practically nothing for months, so its members had an extremely pitiable appearance.

One day a child found the warm corpse of a recently deceased foal. Soon the representative of the younger generation was able to carry the meat and entrails of the dead animal into the house, but the sharp overeating had a terrible effect — the younger sister of the protagonist went to the other world.

A week later, Alyoshka became seriously ill — his gums were inflamed and his teeth began to wobble. The older sister climbed into the house of a rich neighbor to eat. The girl managed to taste the lean soup, after which she was killed by the neighbor. A short time later the boy’s mother also died.

He himself was saved from starvation by the local politician, Sinitsyn.

Soon the boy learned of the bandits’ plans to make a mess in the village and helped prevent the criminal intentions from being realized.