The first screen adaptation of an epic Russian novel about a village of Cossacks on the Don River, covering the last days of peace on the riverside before the beginning of the First World War.

There, under the straw which roofs his three-room cottage, Sholokhov watches the great river swell and wither with the seasons and writes novels (such as And Quiet Flows the Don) which are the ...

With World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Russian Civil War as backdrop, it's an old-fashioned, blood-and-guts narrative, filled with earthly humor and a wealth of colorful characters.