And New York

« Days of the Turbins" - a play by M. A. Bulgakov, written based on the novel "The White Guard". Exists in three editions.

History of creation

On April 3, 1925, Bulgakov was offered at the Moscow Art Theater to write a play based on the novel “ White Guard" Bulgakov began work on the first edition in July 1925. In the play, as in the novel, Bulgakov based his own memories of Kyiv during the Civil War. The author read the first edition in the theater at the beginning of September of the same year; on September 25, 1926, the play was allowed to be staged.

Subsequently, it was edited several times. Currently, three editions of the play are known; the first two have the same title as the novel, but due to censorship problems it had to be changed. The title “Days of the Turbins” was also used for the novel. In particular, its first edition (1927 and 1929, Concorde publishing house, Paris) was entitled “Days of the Turbins (White Guard)”. There is no consensus among researchers as to which edition is considered the latest. Some point out that the third appeared as a result of the ban on the second and therefore cannot be considered the final manifestation of the author's will. Others argue that “Days of the Turbins” should be recognized as the main text, since performances based on it have been staged for many decades. No manuscripts of the play have survived. The third edition was first published by E. S. Bulgakova in 1955. The second edition was first published in Munich.

In 1927, the rogue Z. L. Kagansky declared himself the copyright holder for translations and production of the play abroad. In this regard, M. A. Bulgakov on February 21, 1928 turned to the Moscow Soviet with a request for permission to travel abroad to negotiate the production of the play. [ ]

Characters

• Turbin Alexey Vasilievich - artillery colonel, 30 years old.
• Turbin Nikolay - his brother, 18 years old.
• Talberg Elena Vasilievna - their sister, 24 years old.
• Talberg Vladimir Robertovich - General Staff colonel, her husband, 38 years old.
• Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky - staff captain, artilleryman, 38 years old.
• Shervinsky Leonid Yurievich - lieutenant, personal adjutant of the hetman.
• Studzinsky Alexander Bronislavovich - captain, 29 years old.
• Lariosik - cousin from Zhitomir, 21 years old.
• Hetman of All Ukraine (Pavel Skoropadsky).
• Bolbotun - commander of the 1st Petliura Cavalry Division (prototype - Bolbochan).
• Galanba is a Petliurist centurion, a former Uhlan captain.
• Hurricane.
• Kirpaty.
• Von Schratt - German general.
• Von Doust - German major.
• German army doctor.
• Sich deserter.
• Man with a basket.
• Chamber footman.
• Maxim - former gymnasium teacher, 60 years old.
• Gaydamak the telephone operator.
• First officer.
• Second officer.
• Third officer.
• The first cadet.
• Second cadet.
• Third cadet.
• Junkers and Haidamaks.

Plot

The events described in the play take place at the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919 in Kyiv and cover the fall of the regime of Hetman Skoropadsky, the arrival of Petliura and his expulsion from the city by the Bolsheviks. Against the backdrop of a constant change of power, a personal tragedy occurs for the Turbin family, and the foundations of the old life are broken.

The first edition had 5 acts, while the second and third editions had only 4.

Criticism

Modern critics consider “Days of the Turbins” to be the pinnacle of Bulgakov’s theatrical success, but its stage fate was difficult. First staged at the Moscow Art Theater, the play enjoyed great audience success, but received devastating reviews in the then Soviet press. In an article in the magazine “New Spectator” dated February 2, 1927, Bulgakov emphasized the following:

We are ready to agree with some of our friends that “Days of the Turbins” is a cynical attempt to idealize the White Guard, but we have no doubt that “Days of the Turbins” is an aspen stake in its coffin. Why? Because for a healthy Soviet viewer, the most ideal slush cannot present a temptation, and for dying active enemies and for passive, flabby, indifferent ordinary people, the same slush cannot provide either emphasis or charge against us. Just as a funeral hymn cannot serve as a military march.

Stalin himself, in a letter to the playwright V. Bill-Belotserkovsky, indicated that he liked the play, on the contrary, because it showed the defeat of the whites. The letter was subsequently published by Stalin himself in his collected works after Bulgakov’s death, in 1949:

Why are Bulgakov's plays staged so often? Therefore, it must be that there are not enough plays of our own suitable for production. Without fish, even “Days of the Turbins” is a fish. (...) As for the play “Days of the Turbins” itself, it is not so bad, because it does more good than harm. Do not forget that the main impression that remains with the viewer from this play is an impression favorable to the Bolsheviks: “if even people like the Turbins are forced to lay down their arms and submit to the will of the people, recognizing their cause as completely lost, it means that the Bolsheviks are invincible, “Nothing can be done with them, the Bolsheviks,” “Days of the Turbins” is a demonstration of the all-crushing power of Bolshevism.

Well, we watched “Days of the Turbins”<…>Tiny ones, from officers’ meetings, with the smell of “drink and snacks,” passions, love affairs, affairs. Melodramatic patterns, a little bit of Russian feelings, a little bit of music. I hear: What the hell!<…>What have you achieved? The fact that everyone watches the play, shaking their heads and remembering the Ramzin affair...

- “When I will soon die...” Correspondence between M. A. Bulgakov and P. S. Popov (1928-1940). - M.: EKSMO, 2003. - P. 123-125

For Mikhail Bulgakov, who did odd jobs, a production at the Moscow Art Theater was perhaps the only opportunity to support his family.

Productions

• - Moscow Art Theater. Director Ilya Sudakov, artist Nikolai Ulyanov, artistic director of the production K. S. Stanislavsky. Roles performed by: Alexey Turbin- Nikolay Khmelev, Nikolka- Ivan Kudryavtsev, Elena- Vera Sokolova, Shervinsky- Mark Prudkin, Studzinski- Evgeny Kaluzhsky, Myshlaevsky- Boris Dobronravov, Thalberg- Vsevolod Verbitsky, Lariosik- Mikhail Yanshin, Von Schratt- Victor Stanitsyn, von Doust- Robert Schilling, Hetman- Vladimir Ershov, deserter- Nikolai Titushin, Bolbotun- Alexander Anders, Maksim- Mikhail Kedrov, also Sergei Blinnikov, Vladimir Istrin, Boris Maloletkov, Vasily Novikov. The premiere took place on October 5, 1926.

In the excluded scenes (with the Jew captured by the Petliurists, Vasilisa and Wanda) Joseph Raevsky and Mikhail Tarkhanov with Anastasia Zueva were supposed to play, respectively.

Typist I. S. Raaben (daughter of General Kamensky), who typed the novel “The White Guard” and whom Bulgakov invited to the performance, recalled: “The performance was amazing, because everything was vivid in people’s memory. There were hysterics, fainting, seven people were taken away ambulance, because among the spectators there were people who survived Petliura, these horrors in Kyiv, and the difficulties of the civil war in general...”

Publicist I. L. Solonevich subsequently described the extraordinary events associated with the production:

… It seems that in 1929 the Moscow Art Theater staged Bulgakov’s then-famous play “Days of the Turbins.” It was a story about deceived White Guard officers stuck in Kyiv. The audience at the Moscow Art Theater was not an average audience. It was "selection". Theater tickets were distributed by trade unions, and the top of the intelligentsia, bureaucracy and party received, of course, the best seats in the best theaters. I was among this bureaucracy: I worked in the very department of the trade union that distributed these tickets. As the play progresses, the White Guard officers drink vodka and sing “God Save the Tsar! " It was the best theater in the world, and on its stage they performed best artists peace. And so it begins - a little chaotic, as befits a drunken company: “God Save the Tsar”...

And then the inexplicable comes: the hall begins get up. The artists' voices are growing stronger. The artists sing while standing and the audience listens while standing: sitting next to me was my boss for cultural and educational activities - a communist from the workers. He also stood up. People stood, listened and cried. Then my communist, confused and nervous, tried to explain something to me, something completely helpless. I helped him: this is mass suggestion. But this was not only a suggestion.

For this demonstration, the play was removed from the repertoire. Then they tried to stage it again - and they demanded from the director that “God Save the Tsar” be sung like a drunken mockery. Nothing came of it - I don’t know why exactly - and the play was finally removed. “All of Moscow” knew about this incident at one time.

- Solonevich I. L. The mystery and solution of Russia. M.: Publishing house "FondIV", 2008. P.451

After being removed from the repertoire in 1929, the performance was resumed on February 18, 1932 and remained on the stage of the Art Theater until June 1941. In total, the play was performed 987 times between 1926 and 1941.

M. A. Bulgakov wrote in a letter to P. S. Popov on April 24, 1932 about the resumption of the performance:

From Tverskaya to the Theater, male figures stood and muttered mechanically: “Is there an extra ticket?” The same thing happened on the Dmitrovka side.
I was not in the hall. I was backstage, and the actors were so worried that they infected me. I began to move from place to place, my arms and legs became empty. There are ringing calls in all directions, then the light will hit the spotlights, then suddenly, as in a mine, darkness, and<…>it seems that the performance is going on at head-spinning speed...

Although the manuscripts of the novel have not survived, Bulgakov scholars have traced the fate of many prototype characters and proved the almost documentary accuracy and reality of the events and characters described by the author.

The work was conceived by the author as a large-scale trilogy covering the period of the Civil War. Part of the novel was first published in the magazine "Russia" in 1925. The entire novel was first published in France in 1927-1929. The novel was received ambiguously by critics - the Soviet side criticized the writer’s glorification of class enemies, the emigrant side criticized Bulgakov’s loyalty to Soviet power.

The work served as a source for the play “Days of the Turbins” and subsequent several film adaptations.

Plot

The novel takes place in 1918, when the Germans who occupied Ukraine leave the City and it is captured by Petliura's troops. The author describes the complex, multifaceted world of a family of Russian intellectuals and their friends. This world is breaking under the onslaught of a social cataclysm and will never happen again.

The heroes - Alexey Turbin, Elena Turbina-Talberg and Nikolka - are involved in the cycle of military and political events. The city, in which Kyiv is easily guessed, is occupied by the German army. As a result of the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, it does not fall under the rule of the Bolsheviks and becomes a refuge for many Russian intellectuals and military personnel who are fleeing Bolshevik Russia. Officer military organizations are created in the city under the patronage of Hetman Skoropadsky, an ally of the Germans, Russia's recent enemies. Petlyura's army is attacking the City. By the time of the events of the novel, the Compiegne Truce has been concluded and the Germans are preparing to leave the City. In fact, only volunteers defend him from Petlyura. Understanding the complexity of their situation, the Turbins reassure themselves with rumors about the approach of French troops, who allegedly landed in Odessa (in accordance with the terms of the truce, they had the right to occupy the occupied territories of Russia up to the Vistula in the west). Alexey and Nikolka Turbin, like other residents of the City, volunteer to join the defenders’ detachments, and Elena protects the house, which becomes a refuge for former officers of the Russian army. Since it is impossible to defend the City on its own, the hetman’s command and administration abandon him to his fate and leave with the Germans (the hetman himself disguises himself as a wounded German officer). Volunteers - Russian officers and cadets unsuccessfully defend the City without command against superior enemy forces (the author created a brilliant heroic image of Colonel Nai-Tours). Some commanders, realizing the futility of resistance, send their fighters home, others actively organize resistance and die along with their subordinates. Petlyura occupies the City, organizes a magnificent parade, but after a few months is forced to surrender it to the Bolsheviks.

The main character, Alexei Turbin, is faithful to his duty, tries to join his unit (not knowing that it has been disbanded), enters into battle with the Petliurists, is wounded and, by chance, finds love in the person of a woman who saves him from being pursued by his enemies.

A social cataclysm reveals characters - some flee, others prefer death in battle. The people as a whole accept the new government (Petlyura) and after its arrival demonstrate hostility towards the officers.

Characters

• Alexey Vasilievich Turbin- doctor, 28 years old.
• Elena Turbina-Talberg- sister of Alexei, 24 years old.
• Nikolka- non-commissioned officer of the First Infantry Squad, brother of Alexei and Elena, 17 years old.
• Victor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky- lieutenant, friend of the Turbin family, Alexei’s friend at the Alexander Gymnasium.
• Leonid Yurievich Shervinsky- former lieutenant of the Life Guards Uhlan Regiment, adjutant at the headquarters of General Belorukov, friend of the Turbin family, friend of Alexei at the Alexander Gymnasium, longtime admirer of Elena.
• Fedor Nikolaevich Stepanov(“Karas”) - second lieutenant artilleryman, friend of the Turbin family, Alexei’s friend at the Alexander Gymnasium.
• Sergei Ivanovich Talberg- Captain of the General Staff of Hetman Skoropadsky, Elena’s husband, a conformist.
• father Alexander- priest of the Church of St. Nicholas the Good.
• Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich(“Vasilisa”) - the owner of the house in which the Turbins rented the second floor.
• Larion Larionovich Surzhansky(“Lariosik”) - Talberg’s nephew from Zhitomir.

History of writing

Bulgakov began writing the novel “The White Guard” after the death of his mother (February 1, 1922) and wrote until 1924.

The typist I. S. Raaben, who retyped the novel, argued that this work was conceived by Bulgakov as a trilogy. The second part of the novel was supposed to cover the events of 1919, and the third - 1920, including the war with the Poles. In the third part, Myshlaevsky went over to the side of the Bolsheviks and served in the Red Army.

The novel could have other names - for example, Bulgakov chose between “Midnight Cross” and “White Cross”. One of the excerpts from an early edition of the novel in December 1922 was published in the Berlin newspaper "On the Eve" under the title "On the night of the 3rd" with the subtitle "From the novel" The Scarlet Mach "." The working title of the first part of the novel at the time of writing was The Yellow Ensign.

It is generally accepted that Bulgakov worked on the novel The White Guard in 1923-1924, but this is probably not entirely accurate. In any case, it is known for sure that in 1922 Bulgakov wrote some stories, which were then included in the novel in a modified form. In March 1923, in the seventh issue of the Rossiya magazine, a message appeared: “Mikhail Bulgakov is finishing the novel “The White Guard,” covering the era of the struggle with whites in the south (1919-1920).”

T. N. Lappa told M. O. Chudakova: “...I wrote “The White Guard” at night and liked me to sit next to me, sewing. His hands and feet were cold, he told me: “Hurry, quickly, hot water”; I was heating water on a kerosene stove, he put his hands in a basin of hot water...”

In the spring of 1923, Bulgakov wrote in a letter to his sister Nadezhda: “... I’m urgently finishing the 1st part of the novel; It’s called “Yellow Ensign.” The novel begins with the entry of Petliura's troops into Kyiv. The second and subsequent parts, apparently, were supposed to tell about the arrival of the Bolsheviks in the City, then about their retreat under the attacks of Denikin’s troops, and, finally, about the fighting in the Caucasus. This was the writer's original intention. But after thinking about the possibilities of publishing a similar novel in Soviet Russia, Bulgakov decided to shift the time of action to an earlier period and exclude events associated with the Bolsheviks.

June 1923, apparently, was completely devoted to work on the novel - Bulgakov did not even keep a diary at that time. On July 11, Bulgakov wrote: “The biggest break in my diary... It’s a disgusting, cold and rainy summer.” On July 25, Bulgakov noted: “Because of the “Beep”, which takes up the best part of the day, the novel is making almost no progress.”

At the end of August 1923, Bulgakov informed Yu. L. Slezkin that he had completed the novel in a draft version - apparently, work on the earliest edition was completed, the structure and composition of which still remain unclear. In the same letter, Bulgakov wrote: “... but it has not yet been rewritten, it lies in a heap, over which I think a lot. I'll fix something. Lezhnev is starting a thick monthly “Russia” with the participation of our own and foreign ones... Apparently, Lezhnev has a huge publishing and editorial future ahead of him. “Russia” will be published in Berlin... In any case, things are clearly moving forward... in the literary publishing world.”

Then, for six months, nothing was said about the novel in Bulgakov’s diary, and only on February 25, 1924, an entry appeared: “Tonight... I read pieces from The White Guard... Apparently, I made an impression in this circle too.”

On March 9, 1924, the following message from Yu. L. Slezkin appeared in the newspaper “Nakanune”: “The novel “The White Guard” is the first part of a trilogy and was read by the author over four evenings in the “Green Lamp” literary circle. This thing covers the period of 1918-1919, the Hetmanate and Petliurism until the appearance of the Red Army in Kyiv... Minor shortcomings noted by some pale in front of the undoubted merits of this novel, which is the first attempt to create a great epic of our time.”

Publication history of the novel

On April 12, 1924, Bulgakov entered into an agreement for the publication of “The White Guard” with the editor of the magazine “Russia” I. G. Lezhnev. On July 25, 1924, Bulgakov wrote in his diary: “... in the afternoon I called Lezhnev on the phone and found out that for now there is no need to negotiate with Kagansky regarding the release of The White Guard as a separate book, since he does not have the money yet. This is a new surprise. That's when I didn't take 30 chervonets, now I can repent. I’m sure that the Guard will remain in my hands.” December 29: “Lezhnev is negotiating... to take the novel “The White Guard” from Sabashnikov and give it to him... I don’t want to get involved with Lezhnev, and it’s inconvenient and unpleasant to terminate the contract with Sabashnikov.” January 2, 1925: “... in the evening... I sat with my wife, working out the text of the agreement for the continuation of “The White Guard” in “Russia”... Lezhnev is courting me... Tomorrow, a Jew Kagansky, still unknown to me, will have to pay me 300 rubles and a bill. You can wipe yourself with these bills. However, the devil only knows! I wonder if the money will be brought tomorrow. I won’t give up the manuscript.” January 3: “Today I received 300 rubles from Lezhnev towards the novel “The White Guard”, which will be published in “Russia”. They promised a bill for the rest of the amount...”

The first publication of the novel took place in the magazine “Russia”, 1925, No. 4, 5 - the first 13 chapters. No. 6 was not published because the magazine ceased to exist. The entire novel was published by the Concorde publishing house in Paris in 1927 - the first volume and in 1929 - the second volume: chapters 12-20 newly corrected by the author.

According to researchers, the novel “The White Guard” was written after the premiere of the play “Days of the Turbins” in 1926 and the creation of “Run” in 1928. The text of the last third of the novel, corrected by the author, was published in 1929 by the Parisian publishing house Concorde.

For the first time, the full text of the novel was published in Russia only in 1966 - the writer’s widow, E. S. Bulgakova, using the text of the magazine “Russia”, unpublished proofs of the third part and the Paris edition, prepared the novel for publication Bulgakov M. Selected prose. M.: Fiction, 1966 .

Modern editions of the novel are printed according to the text of the Paris edition with corrections of obvious inaccuracies according to the texts of the magazine publication and proofreading with the author's editing of the third part of the novel.

Manuscript

The manuscript of the novel has not survived.

The canonical text of the novel “The White Guard” has not yet been determined. For a long time, researchers were unable to find a single page of handwritten or typewritten text of the White Guard. At the beginning of the 1990s. An authorized typescript of the ending of “The White Guard” was found with a total volume of about two printed sheets. When conducting an examination of the found fragment, it was possible to establish that the text is the very ending of the last third of the novel, which Bulgakov was preparing for the sixth issue of the magazine “Russia”. It was this material that the writer handed over to the editor of Rossiya, I. Lezhnev, on June 7, 1925. On this day, Lezhnev wrote a note to Bulgakov: “You have completely forgotten “Russia”. It’s high time to submit the material for No. 6 to the typesetting, you need to type the ending of “The White Guard”, but you don’t include the manuscripts. We kindly request you not to delay this matter any longer.” And on the same day, the writer handed over the end of the novel to Lezhnev against a receipt (it was preserved).

The found manuscript was preserved only because the famous editor and then employee of the newspaper “Pravda” I. G. Lezhnev used Bulgakov’s manuscript to paste newspaper clippings of his numerous articles onto it as a paper base. It is in this form that the manuscript was discovered.

The found text of the end of the novel not only differs significantly in content from the Parisian version, but is also much more politically acute - the author’s desire to find commonality between the Petliurists and the Bolsheviks is clearly visible. The guesses were also confirmed that the writer’s story “On the Night of the 3rd” is an integral part of “The White Guard”.

Historical outline

The historical events described in the novel date back to the end of 1918. At this time, in Ukraine there is a confrontation between the socialist Ukrainian Directory and the conservative regime of Hetman Skoropadsky - the Hetmanate. The heroes of the novel find themselves drawn into these events, and, taking the side of the White Guards, they defend Kyiv from the troops of the Directory. "The White Guard" of Bulgakov's novel differs significantly from White Guard White Army. The volunteer army of Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin did not recognize the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty and de jure remained at war with both the Germans and the puppet government of Hetman Skoropadsky.

When a war broke out in Ukraine between the Directory and Skoropadsky, the hetman had to turn for help to the intelligentsia and officers of Ukraine, who mostly supported the White Guards. In order to attract these categories of the population to its side, Skoropadsky’s government published in newspapers about Denikin’s alleged order to include the troops fighting the Directory into the Volunteer Army. This order was falsified by the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Skoropadsky government, I. A. Kistyakovsky, who thus joined the ranks of the hetman’s defenders. Denikin sent several telegrams to Kyiv in which he denied the existence of such an order, and issued an appeal against the hetman, demanding the creation of a “democratic united power in Ukraine” and warning against providing assistance to the hetman. However, these telegrams and appeals were hidden, and Kyiv officers and volunteers sincerely considered themselves part of the Volunteer Army.

Denikin's telegrams and appeals were made public only after the capture of Kyiv by the Ukrainian Directory, when many defenders of Kyiv were captured by Ukrainian units. It turned out that the captured officers and volunteers were neither White Guards nor Hetmans. They were criminally manipulated and they defended Kyiv for unknown reasons and unknown from whom.

The Kiev “White Guard” turned out to be illegal for all the warring parties: Denikin abandoned them, the Ukrainians did not need them, the Reds considered them class enemies. More than two thousand people were captured by the Directory, mostly officers and intellectuals.

Character prototypes

“The White Guard” is in many details an autobiographical novel, which is based on the writer’s personal impressions and memories of the events that took place in Kyiv in the winter of 1918-1919. Turbiny is the maiden name of Bulgakov’s grandmother on his mother’s side. Among the members of the Turbin family one can easily discern the relatives of Mikhail Bulgakov, his Kyiv friends, acquaintances and himself. The action of the novel takes place in a house that, down to the smallest detail, is copied from the house in which the Bulgakov family lived in Kyiv; Now it houses the Turbin House Museum.

The venereologist Alexei Turbine is recognizable as Mikhail Bulgakov himself. The prototype of Elena Talberg-Turbina was Bulgakov’s sister, Varvara Afanasyevna.

Many of the surnames of the characters in the novel coincide with the surnames of real residents of Kyiv at that time or are slightly changed.

Myshlaevsky

The prototype of Lieutenant Myshlaevsky could be Bulgakov's childhood friend Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky. In her memoirs, T. N. Lappa (Bulgakov’s first wife) described Syngaevsky as follows:

“He was very handsome... Tall, thin... his head was small... too small for his figure. I kept dreaming about ballet and wanted to go to ballet school. Before the arrival of the Petliurists, he joined the cadets.”

T.N. Lappa also recalled that the service of Bulgakov and Syngaevsky with Skoropadsky boiled down to the following:

“Syngaevsky and Misha’s other comrades came and they were talking about how we had to keep the Petliurists out and defend the city, that the Germans should help... but the Germans kept scurrying away. And the guys agreed to go the next day. They even stayed overnight with us, it seems. And in the morning Mikhail went. There was a first aid station there... And there should have been a battle, but it seems there was none. Mikhail arrived in a cab and said that it was all over and that the Petliurists would come.”

After 1920, the Syngaevsky family emigrated to Poland.

According to Karum, Syngaevsky “met the ballerina Nezhinskaya, who danced with Mordkin, and during one of the changes in power in Kyiv, he went to Paris at her expense, where he successfully acted as her dance partner and husband, although he was 20 years younger her" .

According to Bulgakov scholar Ya. Yu. Tinchenko, the prototype of Myshlaevsky was a friend of the Bulgakov family, Pyotr Aleksandrovich Brzhezitsky. Unlike Syngaevsky, Brzhezitsky was indeed an artillery officer and participated in the same events that Myshlaevsky talked about in the novel.

Shervinsky

The prototype of Lieutenant Shervinsky was another friend of Bulgakov - Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky, an amateur singer who served (though not as an adjutant) in the troops of Hetman Skoropadsky; he later emigrated.

Thalberg

Leonid Karum, husband of Bulgakov's sister. OK. 1916. Thalberg prototype.

Captain Talberg, the husband of Elena Talberg-Turbina, has many common features with Varvara Afanasyevna Bulgakova’s husband, Leonid Sergeevich Karum (1888-1968), a German by birth, a career officer who served first Skoropadsky and then the Bolsheviks. Karum wrote a memoir, “My Life. A story without lies,” where he described, among other things, the events of the novel in his own interpretation. Karum wrote that he greatly angered Bulgakov and other relatives of his wife when, in May 1917, he wore a uniform with orders to his own wedding, but with a wide red bandage on the sleeve. In the novel, the Turbin brothers condemn Talberg for the fact that in March 1917 he “was the first - understand, the first - to come to military school with a wide red bandage on his sleeve... Talberg, as a member of the revolutionary military committee, and no one else, arrested the famous General Petrov.” Karum was indeed a member of the executive committee of the Kyiv City Duma and participated in the arrest of Adjutant General N.I. Ivanov. Karum escorted the general to the capital.

Nikolka

The prototype of Nikolka Turbin was the brother of M. A. Bulgakov - Nikolai Bulgakov. The events that happened to Nikolka Turbin in the novel completely coincide with the fate of Nikolai Bulgakov.

“When the Petliurists arrived, they demanded that all officers and cadets gather in the Pedagogical Museum of the First Gymnasium (the museum where the works of gymnasium students were collected). Everyone has gathered. The doors were locked. Kolya said: “Gentlemen, we need to run, this is a trap.” Nobody dared. Kolya went up to the second floor (he knew the premises of this museum like the back of his hand) and through some window he got out into the courtyard - there was snow in the courtyard, and he fell into the snow. It was the courtyard of their gymnasium, and Kolya made his way into the gymnasium, where he met Maxim (pedel). It was necessary to change the cadet clothes. Maxim took his things, gave him to put on his suit, and Kolya got out of the gymnasium in a different way - in civilian clothes - and went home. Others were shot."

crucian carp

“There was definitely a crucian carp - everyone called him Karasem or Karasik, I don’t remember if it was a nickname or a surname... He looked exactly like a crucian carp - short, dense, wide - well, like a crucian carp. The face is round... When Mikhail and I came to the Syngaevskys, he was there often..."

According to another version, expressed by researcher Yaroslav Tinchenko, the prototype of Stepanov-Karas was Andrei Mikhailovich Zemsky (1892-1946) - the husband of Bulgakov’s sister Nadezhda. 23-year-old Nadezhda Bulgakova and Andrei Zemsky, a native of Tiflis and a philologist graduate of Moscow University, met in Moscow in 1916. Zemsky was the son of a priest - a teacher at a theological seminary. Zemsky was sent to Kyiv to study at the Nikolaev Artillery School. During his short leave, the cadet Zemsky ran to Nadezhda - to the very house of the Turbins.

In July 1917, Zemsky graduated from college and was assigned to the reserve artillery division in Tsarskoye Selo. Nadezhda went with him, but as a wife. In March 1918, the division was evacuated to Samara, where the White Guard coup took place. Zemsky's unit went over to the White side, but he himself did not participate in the battles with the Bolsheviks. After these events, Zemsky taught Russian.

Arrested in January 1931, L. S. Karum, under torture at the OGPU, testified that Zemsky was listed in Kolchak’s army for a month or two in 1918. Zemsky was immediately arrested and exiled to Siberia for 5 years, then to Kazakhstan. In 1933, the case was reviewed and Zemsky was able to return to Moscow to his family.

Then Zemsky continued to teach Russian and co-authored a Russian language textbook.

Lariosik

Nikolai Vasilievich Sudzilovsky. Lariosik prototype according to L. S. Karum.

There are two candidates who could become the prototype of Lariosik, and both of them are full namesakes of the same year of birth - both bear the name Nikolai Sudzilovsky, born in 1896, and both are from Zhitomir. One of them is Nikolai Nikolaevich Sudzilovsky, Karum’s nephew (his sister’s adopted son), but he did not live in the Turbins’ house.

In his memoirs, L. S. Karum wrote about the Lariosik prototype:

“In October, Kolya Sudzilovsky appeared with us. He decided to continue his studies at the university, but was no longer at the medical faculty, but at the law faculty. Uncle Kolya asked Varenka and me to take care of him. Having discussed this problem with our students, Kostya and Vanya, we offered him to live with us in the same room with the students. But he was a very noisy and enthusiastic person. Therefore, Kolya and Vanya soon moved to their mother at 36 Andreevsky Spusk, where she lived with Lelya in the apartment of Ivan Pavlovich Voskresensky. And in our apartment the imperturbable Kostya and Kolya Sudzilovsky remained.”

T.N. Lappa recalled that at that time Sudzilovsky lived with the Karums - he was so funny! Everything fell out of his hands, he spoke at random. I don’t remember whether he came from Vilna or from Zhitomir. Lariosik looks like him.”

T.N. Lappa also recalled: “Someone’s relative from Zhitomir. I don’t remember when he appeared... An unpleasant guy. He was kind of strange, there was even something abnormal about him. Clumsy. Something was falling, something was beating. So, some kind of mumble... Average height, above average... In general, he was different from everyone else in some way. He was so dense, middle-aged... He was ugly. He liked Varya right away. Leonid was not there..."

Nikolai Vasilyevich Sudzilovsky was born on August 7 (19), 1896 in the village of Pavlovka, Chaussky district, Mogilev province, on the estate of his father, state councilor and district leader of the nobility. In 1916, Sudzilovsky studied at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. At the end of the year, Sudzilovsky entered the 1st Peterhof Warrant Officer School, from where he was expelled for poor academic performance in February 1917 and sent as a volunteer to the 180th Reserve Infantry Regiment. From there he was sent to the Vladimir Military School in Petrograd, but was expelled from there in May 1917. To get a deferment from military service, Sudzilovsky got married, and in 1918, together with his wife, he moved to Zhitomir to live with his parents. In the summer of 1918, Lariosik's prototype unsuccessfully tried to enter Kiev University. Sudzilovsky appeared in the Bulgakovs' apartment on Andreevsky Spusk on December 14, 1918 - the day Skoropadsky fell. By that time, his wife had already left him. In 1919, Nikolai Vasilyevich joined the Volunteer Army, and his further fate is unknown.

The second likely contender, also named Sudzilovsky, actually lived in the Turbins’ house. According to the memoirs of Yu. L. Gladyrevsky’s brother Nikolai: “And Lariosik is my cousin, Sudzilovsky. He was an officer during the war, then he was demobilized and tried, it seems, to go to school. He came from Zhitomir, wanted to settle with us, but my mother knew that he was not a particularly pleasant person, and sent him to the Bulgakovs. They rented a room to him..."

Other prototypes

Dedications

The question of Bulgakov’s dedication to L. E. Belozerskaya’s novel is ambiguous. Among Bulgakov scholars, relatives and friends of the writer, this question gave rise to different opinions. The writer’s first wife, T. N. Lappa, claimed that in handwritten and typewritten versions the novel was dedicated to her, and the name of L. E. Belozerskaya, to the surprise and displeasure of Bulgakov’s inner circle, appeared only in printed form. Before her death, T. N. Lappa said with obvious resentment: “Bulgakov... once brought The White Guard when it was published. And suddenly I see - there is a dedication to Belozerskaya. So I threw this book back to him... I sat with him for so many nights, fed him, looked after him... he told his sisters that he dedicated it to me...”

Criticism

Critics on the other side of the barricades also had complaints about Bulgakov:

“... not only is there not the slightest sympathy for the white cause (which would be complete naivety to expect from a Soviet author), but there is also no sympathy for the people who devoted themselves to this cause or are associated with it. (...) He leaves lubriciousness and rudeness to other authors, but he himself prefers condescending, almost loving relationship to your characters. (...) He almost does not condemn them - and he does not need such condemnation. On the contrary, it would even weaken his position, and the blow that he deals to the White Guard from another, more principled, and therefore more sensitive side. The literary calculation here, in any case, is evident, and it was done correctly.”

“From the heights from where the whole “panorama” opens up to him (Bulgakov) human life, he looks at us with a dry and rather sad smile. Undoubtedly, these heights are so significant that at them red and white merge for the eye - in any case, these differences lose their meaning. In the first scene, where the tired, confused officers, together with Elena Turbina, are having a drinking binge, in this scene, where characters not only ridiculed, but somehow exposed from the inside, where human insignificance obscures all other human properties, devalues ​​virtues or qualities - Tolstoy is immediately felt.”

As a summary of the criticism heard from two irreconcilable camps, one can consider I. M. Nusinov’s assessment of the novel: “Bulgakov entered literature with the consciousness of the death of his class and the need to adapt to a new life. Bulgakov comes to the conclusion: “Everything that happens always happens as it should and only for the better.” This fatalism is an excuse for those who have changed milestones. Their rejection of the past is not cowardice or betrayal. It is dictated by the inexorable lessons of history. Reconciliation with the revolution was a betrayal of the past of a dying class. The reconciliation with Bolshevism of the intelligentsia, which in the past was not only by origin, but also ideologically connected with the defeated classes, the statements of this intelligentsia not only about its loyalty, but also about its readiness to build together with the Bolsheviks - could be interpreted as sycophancy. With his novel “The White Guard,” Bulgakov rejected this accusation of the White emigrants and declared: the change of milestones is not capitulation to the physical winner, but recognition of the moral justice of the victors. For Bulgakov, the novel “The White Guard” is not only reconciliation with reality, but also self-justification. Reconciliation is forced. Bulgakov came to him through the brutal defeat of his class. Therefore, there is no joy from the knowledge that the reptiles have been defeated, there is no faith in the creativity of the victorious people. This determined his artistic perception of the winner."

Bulgakov about the novel

It is obvious that Bulgakov understood the true meaning of his work, since he did not hesitate to compare it with “

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891–1940) - a writer with a difficult, tragic fate that influenced his work. Coming from an intelligent family, he did not accept the revolutionary changes and the reaction that followed them. The ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity imposed by the authoritarian state did not inspire him, because for him, a man with education and a high level of intelligence, the contrast between the demagoguery in the squares and the wave of red terror that swept Russia was obvious. He deeply felt the tragedy of the people and dedicated the novel “The White Guard” to it.

In the winter of 1923, Bulgakov began work on the novel “The White Guard,” which describes the events of the Ukrainian Civil War at the end of 1918, when Kyiv was occupied by the troops of the Directory, who overthrew the power of Hetman Pavel Skoropadsky. In December 1918, officers tried to defend the hetman's power, where Bulgakov was either enrolled as a volunteer or, according to other sources, was mobilized. Thus, the novel contains autobiographical features - even the number of the house in which the Bulgakov family lived during the capture of Kyiv by Petlyura is preserved - 13. In the novel, this number becomes symbolic meaning. Andreevsky Descent, where the house is located, is called Alekseevsky in the novel, and Kyiv is simply called the City. The prototypes of the characters are the writer’s relatives, friends and acquaintances:

• Nikolka Turbin, for example, is Bulgakov’s younger brother Nikolai
• Dr. Alexey Turbin is a writer himself,
• Elena Turbina-Talberg - Varvara's younger sister
• Sergei Ivanovich Talberg - officer Leonid Sergeevich Karum (1888 - 1968), who, however, did not go abroad like Talberg, but was ultimately exiled to Novosibirsk.
• The prototype of Larion Surzhansky (Lariosik) is a distant relative of the Bulgakovs, Nikolai Vasilyevich Sudzilovsky.
• The prototype of Myshlaevsky, according to one version - Bulgakov's childhood friend, Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky
• The prototype of Lieutenant Shervinsky is another friend of Bulgakov, who served in the hetman’s troops - Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky (1898 - 1968).
• Colonel Felix Feliksovich Nai-Tours is a collective image. It consists of several prototypes - firstly, this is the white general Fyodor Arturovich Keller (1857 - 1918), who was killed by the Petliurists during the resistance and ordered the cadets to run and tear off their shoulder straps, realizing the meaninglessness of the battle, and secondly, this is Major General Nikolai of the Volunteer Army Vsevolodovich Shinkarenko (1890 – 1968).
• There was also a prototype from the cowardly engineer Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich (Vasilisa), from whom the Turbins rented the second floor of the house - architect Vasily Pavlovich Listovnichy (1876 - 1919).
• The prototype of the futurist Mikhail Shpolyansky is a major Soviet literary scholar and critic Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (1893 – 1984).
• The surname Turbina is the maiden name of Bulgakov’s grandmother.

However, it should also be noted that “The White Guard” is not a completely autobiographical novel. Some things are fictitious - for example, that the Turbins’ mother died. In fact, at that time, the Bulgakovs’ mother, who is the prototype of the heroine, lived in another house with her second husband. And there are fewer family members in the novel than the Bulgakovs actually had. The entire novel was first published in 1927–1929. in France.

About what?

The novel "The White Guard" - about tragic fate intelligentsia during the difficult times of the revolution, after the assassination of Emperor Nicholas II. The book also tells about the difficult situation of officers who are ready to fulfill their duty to the fatherland in the conditions of a shaky, unstable political situation in the country. The White Guard officers were ready to defend the hetman's power, but the author poses the question: does this make sense if the hetman fled, leaving the country and its defenders to the mercy of fate?

Alexey and Nikolka Turbin are officers ready to defend their homeland and the former government, but before the cruel mechanism of the political system they (and people like them) find themselves powerless. Alexei is seriously wounded, and he is forced to fight not for his homeland or for the occupied city, but for his life, in which he is helped by the woman who saved him from death. And Nikolka runs away at the last moment, saved by Nai-Tours, who is killed. With all their desire to defend the fatherland, the heroes do not forget about family and home, about the sister left by her husband. The antagonist character in the novel is Captain Talberg, who, unlike the Turbin brothers, leaves his homeland and his wife in difficult times and goes to Germany.

In addition, “The White Guard” is a novel about the horrors, lawlessness and devastation that are happening in the city occupied by Petliura. Bandits with forged documents break into the house of engineer Lisovich and rob him, there is shooting in the streets, and the master of the kurennoy with his assistants - the “lads” - commit a cruel, bloody reprisal against the Jew, suspecting him of espionage.

In the finale, the city, captured by the Petliurists, is recaptured by the Bolsheviks. “The White Guard” clearly expresses a negative, negative attitude towards Bolshevism - as a destructive force that will ultimately wipe out everything holy and human from the face of the earth, and a terrible time will come. The novel ends with this thought.

The main characters and their characteristics

• Alexey Vasilievich Turbin- a twenty-eight-year-old doctor, a division doctor, who, paying a debt of honor to the fatherland, enters into a battle with the Petliurites when his unit was disbanded, since the fight was already pointless, but is seriously wounded and forced to flee. He falls ill with typhus, is on the verge of life and death, but ultimately survives.
• Nikolai Vasilievich Turbin(Nikolka) - a seventeen-year-old non-commissioned officer, Alexei’s younger brother, ready to fight to the last with the Petliurists for the fatherland and hetman’s power, but at the insistence of the colonel he runs away, tearing off his insignia, since the battle no longer makes sense (the Petliurists captured the City, and the hetman escaped). Nikolka then helps her sister care for the wounded Alexei.
• Elena Vasilievna Turbina-Talberg(Elena red) - twenty-four years old married woman who was left by her husband. She worries and prays for both brothers participating in hostilities, waits for her husband and secretly hopes that he will return.
• Sergei Ivanovich Talberg- captain, husband of Elena the Red, unstable in his political views, who changes them depending on the situation in the city (acts on the principle of a weather vane), for which the Turbins, true to their views, do not respect him. As a result, he leaves his home, his wife and leaves for Germany by night train.
• Leonid Yurievich Shervinsky- lieutenant of the guard, a dapper lancer, admirer of Elena the Red, friend of the Turbins, believes in the support of the allies and says that he himself saw the sovereign.
• Victor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky- lieutenant, another friend of the Turbins, loyal to the fatherland, honor and duty. In the novel, one of the first harbingers of the Petliura occupation, a participant in the battle a few kilometers from the City. When the Petliurists break into the City, Myshlaevsky takes the side of those who want to disband the mortar division so as not to destroy the lives of the cadets, and wants to set fire to the building of the cadet gymnasium so that it does not fall to the enemy.
• crucian carp- a friend of the Turbins, a restrained, honest officer, who, during the dissolution of the mortar division, joins those who disband the cadets, takes the side of Myshlaevsky and Colonel Malyshev, who proposed such a way out.
• Felix Feliksovich Nai-Tours- a colonel who is not afraid to defy the general and disbands the cadets at the moment of the capture of the City by Petliura. He himself dies heroically in front of Nikolka Turbina. For him, more valuable than the power of the deposed hetman is the life of the cadets - young people who were almost sent to the last senseless battle with the Petliurists, but he hastily disbands them, forcing them to tear off their insignia and destroy documents. Nai-Tours in the novel is the image of an ideal officer, for whom not only the fighting qualities and honor of his brothers in arms are valuable, but also their lives.
• Lariosik (Larion Surzhansky)- a distant relative of the Turbins, who came to them from the provinces, going through a divorce from his wife. Clumsy, a bungler, but good-natured, he loves to be in the library and keeps a canary in a cage.
• Yulia Alexandrovna Reiss- a woman who saves the wounded Alexei Turbin, and he begins an affair with her.
• Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich (Vasilisa)- a cowardly engineer, a housewife from whom the Turbins rent the second floor of his house. He is a hoarder, lives with his greedy wife Wanda, hides valuables in secret places. As a result, he is robbed by bandits. He got his nickname, Vasilisa, because due to the unrest in the city in 1918, he began to sign documents in a different handwriting, abbreviating his first and last name as follows: “You. Fox."
• Petliurites in the novel - only gears in a global political upheaval, which entails irreversible consequences.

Subjects

1. Subject moral choice. The central theme is the situation of the White Guards, who are forced to choose whether to participate in meaningless battles for the power of the escaped hetman or still save their lives. The Allies do not come to the rescue, and the city is captured by the Petliurists, and, ultimately, by the Bolsheviks - a real force that threatens the old way of life and political system.
2. Political instability. Events unfold after the events October revolution and the execution of Nicholas II, when the Bolsheviks seized power in St. Petersburg and continued to strengthen their positions. The Petliurists who captured Kyiv (in the novel - the City) are weak in front of the Bolsheviks, as are the White Guards. "White Guard" is tragic romance about how the intelligentsia and everything connected with it are dying.
3. The novel contains biblical motifs, and in order to enhance their sound, the author introduces the image of a patient obsessed with the Christian religion who comes to doctor Alexei Turbin for treatment. The novel begins with a countdown from the Nativity of Christ, and just before the end, lines from the Apocalypse of St. John the Theologian. That is, the fate of the City, captured by the Petliurists and Bolsheviks, is compared in the novel with the Apocalypse.

Christian symbols

• A crazy patient who came to Turbin for an appointment calls the Bolsheviks “angels,” and Petliura was released from cell No. 666 (in the Revelation of John the Theologian - the number of the Beast, the Antichrist).
• The house on Alekseevsky Spusk is No. 13, and this number, as is known in popular superstitions, is the “devil’s dozen”, an unlucky number, and various misfortunes befall the Turbins’ house - the parents die, the older brother receives a mortal wound and barely survives, and Elena is abandoned and the husband betrays (and betrayal is a trait of Judas Iscariot).
• The novel contains the image of the Mother of God, to whom Elena prays and asks to save Alexei from death. In the terrible time described in the novel, Elena experiences similar experiences as the Virgin Mary, but not for her son, but for her brother, who ultimately overcomes death like Christ.
• Also in the novel there is a theme of equality before God's court. Everyone is equal before him - both the White Guards and the soldiers of the Red Army. Alexey Turbin has a dream about heaven - how Colonel Nai-Tours, white officers and Red Army soldiers get there: they are all destined to go to heaven as those who fell on the battlefield, but God doesn’t care whether they believe in him or not. Justice, according to the novel, exists only in heaven, and on the sinful earth atheism, blood, and violence reign under red five-pointed stars.

Issues

The problematic of the novel “The White Guard” is the hopeless, plight of the intelligentsia, as a class alien to the winners. Their tragedy is the drama of the entire country, because without the intellectual and cultural elite, Russia will not be able to develop harmoniously.

• Dishonor and cowardice. If the Turbins, Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Karas, Nai-Tours are unanimous and are going to defend the fatherland to the last drop of blood, then Talberg and the hetman prefer to flee like rats from a sinking ship, and individuals like Vasily Lisovich are cowardly, cunning and adapt to existing conditions.
• Also, one of the main problems of the novel is the choice between moral duty and life. The question is posed bluntly - is there any point in honorably defending a government that dishonorably leaves the fatherland in the most difficult times for it, and there is an answer to this very question: there is no point, in this case life is put in first place.
• The split of Russian society. In addition, the problem in the work “The White Guard” lies in the attitude of the people to what is happening. The people do not support the officers and White Guards and, in general, take the side of the Petliurists, because on the other side there is lawlessness and permissiveness.
• Civil War. The novel contrasts three forces - the White Guards, Petliurists and Bolsheviks, and one of them is only intermediate, temporary - the Petliurists. The fight against the Petliurists will not be able to have such a strong impact on the course of history as the fight between the White Guards and the Bolsheviks - two real forces, one of which will lose and sink into oblivion forever - this is the White Guard.

Meaning

In general, the meaning of the novel “The White Guard” is struggle. The struggle between courage and cowardice, honor and dishonor, good and evil, God and the devil. Courage and honor are the Turbins and their friends, Nai-Tours, Colonel Malyshev, who disbanded the cadets and did not allow them to die. Cowardice and dishonor, opposed to them, are the hetman, Talberg, staff captain Studzinsky, who, afraid to violate the order, was going to arrest Colonel Malyshev because he wants to disband the cadets.

Ordinary citizens who do not participate in hostilities are also assessed in the novel according to the same criteria: honor, courage - cowardice, dishonor. For example, female images- Elena, waiting for her husband who left her, Irina Nai-Tours, who was not afraid to go with Nikolka to the anatomical theater for the body of her murdered brother, Yulia Aleksandrovna Reiss is the personification of honor, courage, determination - and Wanda, the wife of engineer Lisovich, stingy, greedy things - personifies cowardice, baseness. And engineer Lisovich himself is petty, cowardly and stingy. Lariosik, despite all his clumsiness and absurdity, is humane and gentle, this is a character who personifies, if not courage and determination, then simply kindness and kindness - qualities that are so lacking in people at that cruel time described in the novel.

Another meaning of the novel “The White Guard” is that those who are close to God are not those who officially serve him - not churchmen, but those who, even in a bloody and merciless time, when evil descended to earth, retained the grains of humanity in themselves, and even if they are Red Army soldiers. This is told in Alexei Turbin’s dream - a parable from the novel “The White Guard”, in which God explains that the White Guards will go to their paradise, with church floors, and the Red Army soldiers will go to theirs, with red stars, because both believed in the offensive good for the fatherland, albeit in different ways. But the essence of both is the same, despite the fact that they are on different sides. But the churchmen, “servants of God,” according to this parable, will not go to heaven, since many of them departed from the truth. Thus, the essence of the novel “The White Guard” is that humanity (goodness, honor, God, courage) and inhumanity (evil, devil, dishonor, cowardice) will always fight for power over this world. And it doesn’t matter under what banners this struggle will take place - white or red, but on the side of evil there will always be violence, cruelty and base qualities, which must be opposed by goodness, mercy, and honesty. In this eternal struggle, it is important to choose not the convenient, but the right side.

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

The novel “The White Guard” became the first voluminous work of Mikhail Bulgakov, and in it one can already see themes that were subsequently traced in his work. Initially, the author planned to write three books, but never started creating the second.

In the novel, the writer talks about the difficult period of the Civil War at the turn of 1918-1919. At that time, the worldview was changing, everyone advocated their own idea, it got to the point where members of the same family fought against each other. The events take place in the city of Kyiv, although the author himself never indicated the name of the city. However, from the descriptions of the streets, houses, and the general atmosphere, you can easily recognize that this is it.

The central theme of the novel is the situation of the intelligentsia at that time. Since Kyiv did not fall under the rule of the Bolsheviks, it became the place where families of intellectuals went. The German army is in the city, but soon, in accordance with the agreement, it will have to leave it. And Kyiv will be captured by Petliura’s troops. In fact, there is even no one to resist him; the city is defended only by volunteers. But with the arrival of the new government, many people will agree to join it, and everything will become different again.

The author reveals to the readers the characters of many heroes, the main ones being members of the Turbin family. However, there are others, and their actions cause no less emotions. While reading the book, you catch yourself thinking that you are constantly experiencing different emotions: from irritation to admiration. The writer was able to colorfully describe that era, thanks to which you are immersed in it, imbued with the mood, and experience a feeling of anxiety and fear along with the people. And the most important thing is that you understand a lot.

The work belongs to the Prose genre. It was published in 1923 by the World of Books publishing house. The book is part of the "List" series school literature Grades 10-11." On our website you can download the book "The White Guard" in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format or read online. The book's rating is 4.22 out of 5. Here you can also refer to reviews from readers before reading familiar with the book, and find out their opinion. In our partner’s online store, you can buy and read the book in paper form.

Today we are starting a conversation about one of the most popular, best Russian writers of Soviet times, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, and our next lecture will be devoted to his final novel, “The Master and Margarita.” And today we will talk about Bulgakov’s first novel, “The White Guard,” which was written in the mid-1920s, the first part of which was published in the magazine “Russia” in 1925, and the entire novel was first published in France in Russian in 1927-29.

In our lectures, we have already talked several times about Bulgakov as a Moscow writer, and this is not at all accidental, because it is, of course, impossible to bypass this figure, although Bulgakov himself, as you all know, of course, was not Muscovite.

He was a resident of Kyivian, and Kyiv appeared in many of his works, and there is even a wonderful book by Kyiv researcher Miron Semenovich Petrovsky about Kyiv and its role in the life and work of Bulgakov. And the novel that we will talk about today, its setting is Kyiv. At the end of 1918, the action of “The White Guard” unfolds in Kyiv.

It is very important here to say a few words about how Bulgakov came to write this text. Firstly, you need, of course, to know that Bulgakov was not an outside observer in this Civil War, which unfolded in Russia after October 1917, and he fought on the side of the whites. And, as a matter of fact, he left for Moscow (not immediately, however, to the capital, but through Vladikavkaz), partly covering his tracks. He decided to stay in Soviet Russia. He needed to start his biography from scratch. Moscow was just such a city where this could be done.

And, having arrived in Moscow, he, like many of the writers we have already talked about - like Yuri Olesha, like Ilya Ilf and like Valentin Kataev, to whom we did not devote a special, separate lecture, but who also naturally appears all the time in our conversations about Soviet-era literature of the 1920s and 30s - so, he, like these writers, got a job at the Gudok newspaper. And just like Olesha, this work of his... And he published feuilletons in the newspaper “Gudok”, and not only in this newspaper, it’s just in “Gudok” that he published the most texts, it seems.

He, unlike Mikhail Zoshchenko, about whom we spoke in detail and who perceived his feuilleton production as serious, great literature, Bulgakov, like Olesha (here again it is convenient to note such a difference between Petrograd and Moscow literature of this time ), and so, Bulgakov perceived this work as an absolute hack, he was very burdened by it, he scolded himself in his diaries for giving himself up to hackwork, instead of writing serious things. However, if we begin to compare his newspaper feuilletons and those feuilletons that were published in humorous magazines with his serious works, with “The Master and Margarita”, with “Notes of a Dead Man”, “Theatrical Novel”, with “ Fatal eggs", With " With a dog's heart“And with “The White Guard,” we will see that Bulgakov, of course, did not go through this school in vain, that he learned a lot as a feuilletonist, and his style, his tone was largely developed precisely at the time when he wrote feuilletons.

In this respect, it is convenient to compare Bulgakov, of course, with Chekhov. Here we can recall one more parallel or two parallels. Bulgakov, like Chekhov, as is known, received a medical education.

And, like Chekhov, Bulgakov was not only a prose writer, but a playwright, and even, like Chekhov, the Art Theater became his main theater in his life, and, like Chekhov, Bulgakov worked with Stanislavsky. So, having made this sideways roll, let's return to the main topic.

Bulgakov perceived his feuilleton production as something that was written exclusively for money. He wrote The White Guard in earnest. He wrote in rather difficult conditions, because Moscow in the 1920s lived poorly, at least the layer to which Bulgakov belonged.

And Tatyana Lappa, his wife since 1913, and to whom “The White Guard” was originally supposed to be dedicated (as a result it was dedicated to Bulgakov’s second wife, Lyubov Belozerskaya), talked about how Bulgakov wrote this text: “Wrote “White Guard” at night guard" and liked me to sit nearby, sewing. His hands and feet were cold, he told me: “Hurry, quickly, hot water.” I heated water on a kerosene stove, he put his hands in a basin of hot water.” And it is in these difficult conditions that Bulgakov writes his text.

In addition to Lappa’s memoirs, one can recall, for example, the wonderful pages of “Notes of a Dead Man,” where the autobiographical character also writes a novel called “Black Snow,” and, of course, it is “The White Guard” that is meant. Let's remember these two things: this is a treasured book that is written at that time, at night, at night, because during the day all the strength is taken away by feuilletons, and secondly, this book is written not just by a witness, this book is written by a participant in the events who fought in one of the side, who fought on the side that lost. But, one way or another, due to various circumstances, primarily due to the fact that he was a patriot of Russia (sorry for these big words, but it seems to me that they can be fully said), he decides to stay in the country where those who won with whom he fought, his enemies defeated. It seems to me that this explains quite a lot in The White Guard, in what theme Bulgakov chose for this novel, and in how this theme is resolved in the novel.

Before starting the analysis of this work, let me just remind you that Bulgakov originally intended to write a trilogy. This was supposed to be a trilogy, where “The White Guard” was supposed to be only the first part, and in general the entire period of the Civil War was supposed to be described, but as a result, Bulgakov limited himself to only this novel, which was later reworked into the play “Days of the Turbins”, gained enormous popularity on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater and on the stage of the Art Theater.

Epigraphs from Pushkin and the Apocalypse

Now we can move on to talking directly about this work, and I propose to try to see the key in it in the epigraph, or rather, in two epigraphs with which this novel is accompanied. I'll read them.

The first epigraph: “Fine snow began to fall and suddenly fell in flakes. The wind howled; there was a snowstorm. In an instant, the dark sky mixed with the snowy sea. Everything has disappeared.

Well, master,” the coachman shouted, “trouble: a snowstorm!”

"Captain's daughter". Second epigraph: “And the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, according to their deeds...”

Bulgakov did not sign the second epigraph. He did not explain where this epigraph was taken from, and he had reasons for this, primarily related to censorship. In the same “Theatrical Novel” we remember that the editor Rudolphi, who is reading the novel “Black Snow”, orders the author to delete three words from this text, and all of them are connected with religious motives. In particular, the word “God” is crossed out. But most readers of that time, of course, knew very well that this quote was taken from one of the most read, one of the most famous texts included in the New Testament - from the Apocalypse, from its 20th chapter. Let’s try to think and speculate a little about why Bulgakov chooses these particular epigraphs, from these texts, and, perhaps, the most interesting thing is not just why, but how these epigraphs are adjacent to each other, what meaning is carved out of the neighborhood quotes from " The captain's daughter"and quotes from the Apocalypse.

With Pushkin, it would seem, everything is very simple. Bulgakov chooses the following snow fragment for the epigraph: a blizzard, the whole sky is covered with a sea of ​​​​snow. Indeed, the motive cold winter, a motif of snow that covers the city. Bulgakov never calls Kyiv by name in the novel. Other cities are named, Moscow, Petrograd, Kyiv are not, and this, of course, adds symbolic connotations to the novel. We will talk about this with you later.

So, indeed, Kyiv, covered with snow, winter Kyiv - indeed this is such an important setting for the entire text. As we remember, the main action of the novel begins with the fact that a frozen, chilled Myshlaevsky comes from near Kyiv to the house of the hospitable Turbins and warms up near this stove. And the stove is also one of the most important symbols of this novel, and we will definitely talk about this with you today. But still, it seems, such an explanation is not enough.

Okay, well, snow. Why, strictly speaking, is it necessary to highlight this in such a way, prefacing the entire text with an epigraph from “The Captain’s Daughter”? I think there are two things to pay attention to. Firstly, you need to pay attention to the fact that this fragment of “The Captain’s Daughter”, namely: Petrusha Grinev, Savelich and the coachman are covered in snow, and then Pugachev, the counselor, appears in order to save them from the snow, from this blizzard.

This fragment certainly echoes the famous Pushkin poem, one of Pushkin’s main late poems, “Demons.” And thus, the roll call of this fragment becomes obvious: a bridge is thrown across “Demons” just to that fragment of the Apocalypse about which...