The White Guard are the main characters. Home and City - the two main characters of the novel "The White Guard

Anatoly Pepelyaev became the youngest general in Siberia - at the age of 27. Prior to this, the White Guards under his command took Tomsk, Novonikolaevsk (Novosibirsk), Krasnoyarsk, Verkhneudinsk and Chita.
When Pepelyaev’s troops occupied Perm abandoned by the Bolsheviks, about 20,000 Red Army soldiers were captured by the young general, who, on his orders, were released home. Perm was liberated from the Reds on the day of the 128th anniversary of the capture of Ishmael, and the soldiers began to call Pepelyaev "Siberian Suvorov."

Sergei Ulagay

Sergei Ulagay, a Kuban Cossack of Circassian origin, was one of the brightest cavalry commanders of the White Army. He made a serious contribution to the defeat of the North Caucasian front of the Reds, but especially the 2nd Kuban Corps Ulagay distinguished himself during the capture of the "Russian Verdun" - Tsaritsyn - in June 1919.
General Ulagay went down in history as the commander of the special forces group of the Russian Volunteer Army, General Wrangel, who landed troops from the Crimea to the Kuban in August 1920. To command the landing force, Wrangel chose Ulagay "as a popular Kuban general, it seems, the only one of the famous who did not stain himself with robbery."

Alexander Dolgorukov

A hero of the First World War, who for his exploits was awarded admission to the retinue of His Imperial Majesty, Alexander Dolgorukov proved himself in the Civil War. On September 30, 1919, his 4th Infantry Division in a bayonet battle forced Soviet troops retreat; Dolgorukov captured the crossing over the Plyussa River, which soon made it possible to occupy Struga Beliye.
Dolgorukov got into literature. In the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov "The White Guard" he is bred under the name of General Belorukov, and is also mentioned in the first volume of the trilogy of Alexei Tolstoy "Walking through the torments" (attack of the cavalry guards in the battle of Kaushen).

Vladimir Kappel

The episode from the film "Chapaev", where the Kappelites go on a "psychic attack", is fictional - Chapaev and Kappel never crossed paths on the battlefield. But Kappel was a legend without cinema.
During the capture of Kazan on August 7, 1918, he lost only 25 people. In his reports on successful operations, Kappel did not mention himself, explaining the victory by the heroism of his subordinates - up to the sisters of mercy.
During the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, Kappel had frostbite on the feet of both legs - they had to be amputated without anesthesia. He continued to lead the troops and refused a place on the hospital train.
The general's last words were: Let the troops know that I was devoted to them, that I loved them and by my death among them proved this.».

Mikhail Drozdovsky

Mikhail Drozdovsky with a volunteer detachment of 1000 people walked 1700 km from Yassy to Rostov, freed him from the Bolsheviks, then helped the Cossacks defend Novocherkassk. Drozdovsky's detachment participated in the liberation of the Kuban, and North Caucasus. Drozdovsky was called "the crusader of the crucified Motherland." Here is his description from Kravchenko’s book “Drozdovites from Yass to Gallipoli”: “ Nervous, thin Colonel Drozdovsky was the type of an ascetic warrior: he did not drink, did not smoke, and did not pay attention to the blessings of life; always - from Jassy until death - in the same worn jacket, with a worn St. George ribbon in his buttonhole; out of modesty, he did not wear the order itself».

Alexander Kutepov

Kutepov’s colleague wrote about him on the fronts of the First World War: “ Kutepov's name has become a household name. It means fidelity to duty, calm determination, intense sacrificial impulse, cold, sometimes cruel will and ... clean hands - and all this is brought and given to the service of the Motherland».
In January 1918, Kutepov twice defeated the Red troops under the command of Sievers near Matveev Kurgan. According to Anton Denikin, this was the first serious battle in which the art and enthusiasm of the officer detachments were opposed to the furious pressure of the unorganized and ill-managed Bolsheviks, mostly sailors».

Sergey Markov

The White Guards called Sergei Markov "the white knight", "the sword of General Kornilov", the "god of war", and after the battle near the village of Medvedovskaya - the "guardian angel". In this battle, Markov managed to save the remnants of the Volunteer Army retreating from Ekaterinograd, destroy and capture the armored train of the Reds, and get a lot of weapons and ammunition. When Markov died, Anton Denikin wrote on his wreath: Both life and death - for the happiness of the Motherland».

Mikhail Zhebrak-Rusanovich

For the White Guards, Colonel Zhebrak-Rusanovich was a cult figure. For personal prowess, his name was sung in the military folklore of the Volunteer Army.
He firmly believed that "there will be no Bolshevism, but there will be only one United Great Indivisible Russia." It was Zhebrak who brought the Andreevsky flag with his detachment to the headquarters of the Volunteer Army, and soon he became the battle flag of the Drozdovsky brigade.
He died heroically, personally leading the attack of two battalions on the superior forces of the Red Army.

Viktor Molchanov

The Izhevsk division of Viktor Molchanov was awarded Kolchak's special attention: he handed her the St. George banner, and attached the St. George crosses to the banners of a number of regiments. During the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, Molchanov commanded the rearguard of the 3rd Army and covered the retreat of the main forces of General Kappel. After his death, he led the vanguard of the white troops.
At the head of the rebel army, Molchanov occupied almost all of Primorye and Khabarovsk.

Innokenty Smolin

In the summer and autumn of 1918, at the head of the partisan detachment of his own name, Innokenty Smolin successfully operated in the rear of the Reds, captured two armored trains. The partisans of Smolin played important role in the capture of Tobolsk.
Innokenty Smolin participated in the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, commanded a group of troops of the 4th Siberian Rifle Division, which, numbering more than 1,800 fighters, came to Chita on March 4, 1920.
Smolin died in Tahiti. In the last years of his life he wrote memoirs.

Sergei Voitsekhovsky

General Voitsekhovsky accomplished many feats, performing the seemingly impossible tasks of the command of the white army. A faithful “Kolchakist”, after the death of the admiral, he abandoned the assault on Irkutsk and led the remnants of the Kolchak army to Transbaikalia on the ice of Baikal.
In 1939, in exile, being one of the highest Czechoslovak generals, Wojciechowski advocated resistance to the Germans and created the underground organization Obrana národa ("Protection of the People"). Arrested by SMERSH in 1945. Repressed, died in a camp near Taishet.

Erast Hyacinths

Erast Hyacinthov in the First World War became the owner of a full set of orders available to the chief officer of the Russian Imperial Army.
After the revolution, he was obsessed with the idea of ​​overthrowing the Bolsheviks and even occupied with friends a number of houses around the Kremlin in order to start resistance from there, but in time he realized the futility of such tactics and joined the white army, becoming one of the most productive scouts.
In emigration, on the eve of and during World War II, he took an open anti-Nazi position and miraculously avoided being sent to a concentration camp. After the war, he resisted the forced repatriation of "displaced persons" to the USSR.

Mikhail Yaroslavtsev (archimandrite Mitrofan)

During the Civil War, Mikhail Yaroslavtsev showed himself to be an energetic commander and distinguished himself by personal prowess in several battles.
Yaroslavtsev embarked on the path of spiritual service already in exile, after the death of his wife on December 31, 1932.
In May 1949, hegumen Mitrofan was elevated to the rank of archimandrite by Metropolitan Seraphim (Lukyanov).
Contemporaries wrote about him: Always impeccable in the performance of his duty, richly endowed with excellent spiritual qualities, he was a true consolation for very many of his flock...».
He was rector of the Resurrection Church in Rabat and defended the unity of the Russian Orthodox community in Morocco with the Moscow Patriarchate.

Mikhail Khanzhin

General Khanzhin became a movie hero. He is one of the characters feature film 1968 Thunderstorm over Belaya. The role of the general was played by Yefim Kapelyan. About his fate is also filmed documentary"The Return of General Khanzhin".
For the successful command of the western army of the Western Front, Mikhail Khanzhin was promoted by Kolchak to the rank of artillery general - highest distinction of the kind that was appropriated by Kolchak when he was his Supreme Ruler.

Pavel Shatilov

Pavel Shatilov is a hereditary general, both his father and his grandfather were generals. He especially distinguished himself in the spring of 1919, when, in an operation in the area of ​​the Manych River, he defeated a 30,000-strong group of Reds.
Pyotr Wrangel, whose chief of staff was later Shatilov, spoke of him as follows: "Brilliant mind, outstanding abilities, having great military experience and knowledge, with great capacity for work, he knew how to work with a minimum expenditure of time."
In the autumn of 1920, it was Shatilov who led the emigration of whites from the Crimea.

The novel by M. Bulgakov "The White Guard" was written in 1923-1925. At that time, the writer considered this book to be the main one in his destiny, he said that from this novel "the sky will become hot." Years later, he called him "failed". Perhaps the writer meant that that epic in the spirit of L.N. Tolstoy, which he wanted to create, did not work out.

Bulgakov witnessed the revolutionary events in Ukraine. He expressed his view of the experience in the stories The Red Crown (1922), The Extraordinary Adventures of the Doctor (1922), The Chinese Story (1923), The Raid (1923). Bulgakov's first novel with the bold title "The White Guard" was, perhaps, the only work at that time in which the writer was interested in human experiences in a raging world, when the foundation of the world order is collapsing.

One of the most important motives of M. Bulgakov's creativity is the value of home, family, simple human affections. The heroes of the "White Guard" are losing the warmth of the hearth, although they are desperately trying to keep it. In a prayer to the Mother of God, Elena says: “You send too much grief at once, intercessor mother. So in one year you end your family. For what?.. My mother took it from us, I don't have a husband and never will, I understand that. Now I understand very clearly. And now you're taking away the elder. For what?.. How will we be together with Nikol?.. Look at what is happening around, you look... Protective mother, won’t you take pity?.. Maybe we are bad people, but why punish like that -That?"

The novel begins with the words: "Great was the year and terrible year after the Nativity of Christ 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution." Thus, as it were, two systems of time reference, chronology, two systems of values ​​are offered: traditional and new, revolutionary.

Remember how at the beginning of the 20th century A.I. Kuprin portrayed the Russian army in the story "Duel" - decayed, rotten. In 1918, on the battlefields of the Civil War were the same people who made up the pre-revolutionary army, in general Russian society. But on the pages of Bulgakov's novel, we do not see Kuprin's heroes, but rather Chekhov's. The intellectuals, who even before the revolution yearned for the bygone world, who understood that something had to be changed, found themselves at the epicenter of the Civil War. They, like the author, are not politicized, they live their own lives. And now we find ourselves in a world in which there is no place for neutral people. Turbines and their friends desperately defend what is dear to them, sing "God Save the Tsar", tear off the fabric hiding the portrait of Alexander I. Like Chekhov's uncle Vanya, they do not adapt. But, like him, they are doomed. Only Chekhov's intellectuals were doomed to vegetate, and Bulgakov's intellectuals to defeat.

Bulgakov likes a cozy Turbine apartment, but life for a writer is not valuable in itself. Life in the "White Guard" is a symbol of the strength of being. Bulgakov leaves no illusions to the reader about the future of the Turbin family. The inscriptions from the tiled stove are washed off, cups are beating, slowly, but irreversibly, the inviolability of everyday life and, consequently, being is crumbling. The Turbins' house behind cream curtains is their fortress, a refuge from a blizzard, a snowstorm raging outside, but it is still impossible to protect oneself from it.

Bulgakov's novel includes the symbol of a blizzard as a sign of the times. For the author of The White Guard, the blizzard is not a symbol of the transformation of the world, not the sweeping away of everything that has become obsolete, but of an evil inclination, violence. “Well, I think it will stop, that life will begin, which is written in chocolate books, but not only does it not begin, but around it it becomes more and more terrible. In the north, a blizzard howls and howls, but here underfoot it rumbles muffledly, the disturbed womb of the earth grumbles. Blizzard force destroys the life of the Turbin family, the life of the City. Bulgakov's white snow does not become a symbol of purification.

“The provocative novelty of Bulgakov’s novel was that five years after the end of the Civil War, when the pain and heat of mutual hatred had not yet subsided, he dared to show the officers of the White Guard not in the poster guise of an “enemy”, but as ordinary, good and bad, suffering and deluded, intelligent and limited people, showed them from the inside, and the best in this environment - with obvious sympathy. What does Bulgakov like about these stepchildren of history, who lost their battle? And in Alexei, and in Malyshev, and in Nai-Tours, and in Nikolka, he most of all appreciates courageous directness, fidelity to honor, ”says literary critic V.Ya. Lakshin. The concept of honor is the starting point that determines Bulgakov's attitude to his heroes and which can be taken as a basis in a conversation about the system of images.

But for all the sympathy of the author of The White Guard for his heroes, his task is not to decide who is right and who is wrong. Even Petlyura and his henchmen, in his opinion, are not responsible for the horrors that are taking place. This is a product of the elements of rebellion, doomed to a quick disappearance from the historical arena. Trump, who was a bad school teacher, would never have become an executioner and would not have known about himself that his vocation was war, if this war had not started. A lot of the actions of the heroes are brought to life by the Civil War. "War is mother dear" for Kozyr, Bolbotun and other Petliurists who take pleasure in killing defenseless people. The horror of war is that it creates a situation of permissiveness, shakes the foundations human life.

Therefore, for Bulgakov, it does not matter which side his heroes are on. In Alexei Turbin’s dream, the Lord says to Zhilin: “One believes, the other does not believe, but you all have the same actions: now each other’s throats, and as for the barracks, Zhilin, then you need to understand this, you are all with me, Zhilin, identical - killed in the battlefield. This, Zhilin, must be understood, and not everyone will understand this. And it seems that this view is very close to the writer.

V. Lakshin noted: “Artistic vision, creative mindset always encompasses a broader spiritual reality than can be verified by evidence in a simple class interest. There is biased, rightful class truth. But there is a universal, classless morality and humanism, melted down by the experience of mankind. M. Bulgakov stood on the positions of such universal humanism.

The hero's surname indicates the autobiographical motives present in this image: Turbines are Bulgakov's maternal ancestors. The surname Turbina in combination with the same name-patronymic (Aleksey Vasilievich) was borne by the character of Bulgakov's lost play "The Turbine Brothers", composed in 1920-1921. in Vladikavkaz and staged at the local theater.

The heroes of the novel and the play are connected by a single plot space and time, although the circumstances and vicissitudes in which they find themselves are different. The place of action is Kyiv, the time is "the terrible year after the Nativity of Christ 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution." The hero of the novel is a young doctor, the play is an artillery colonel. Doctor Turbin is 28 years old, the colonel is two years older. Both fall into the whirlpool of events of the civil war and are faced with a historical choice, which they understand and evaluate as personal, relating more to the inner being of the individual than to its external existence.

The image of Dr. Turbin traces the development of Bulgakov's lyrical hero, as he is presented in the Notes of a Young Doctor and other early works. The hero of the novel is an observer whose vision constantly merges with the author's perception, although not identical to the latter. The novel hero is drawn into the whirlwind of what is happening. If he participates in events, then against his will, as a result of a fatal combination of circumstances, when, for example, he is captured by the Petliurists. The hero of the drama largely determines the events. So, the fate of the junkers, abandoned in Kyiv to the mercy of fate, depends on his decision. This person is acting, literally-stage and plot. The most active people during the war are the military. Those who act on the side of the vanquished are the most doomed. That is why Colonel T. dies, while Dr. Turbin survives.

Between the novel "The White Guard" and the play "Days of the Turbins" there is a huge distance, not too long in time, but very significant in terms of content. An intermediate link in this path was a staging presented by the writer to the Art Theater, which was subsequently subjected to significant processing. The process of turning a novel into a play, in which many people were involved, proceeded under conditions of double “pressure”: from the side of the “artists”, who sought from the writer greater (in their terms) theatricality, and from the side of censorship, instances of ideological monitoring, who demanded to show with with all certainty “the end of the whites” (one of the variants of the name).

The "final" version of the play was the result of a serious artistic compromise. The original author's layer in it is covered with many extraneous layers. This is most noticeable in the image of Colonel T., who periodically hides his face under the mask of a reasoner and, as it were, steps out of his role in order to declare, referring more to the stalls than to the stage: “The people are not with us. He is against us."

In the first production of "Days of the Turbins" on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater (1926), the role of T. was played by N.P. Khmelev. He also remained the only performer of this role in the continuation of all subsequent 937 performances.

E. Mustangova: “At the center of Bulgakov's work is the novel The White Guard... Only in this novel does the usually mocking and caustic Bulgakov turn into a soft lyricist. All the chapters and places connected with the Turbins are sustained in a tone of a little condescending admiration...

Sister of Alexei and Nikolka, the keeper of the hearth and comfort. She was a pleasant, tender woman of twenty-four. Researchers say that Bulgakov copied her image from his sister. E. replaced Nikolka's mother. She is loyal but unhappy...

The novel "The White Guard" is a disturbing, restless novel, telling about the harsh and terrible time of the Civil War. The action of the novel takes place in the writer's favorite city - Kyiv, which he simply calls the City. The seventh chapter is also very disturbing...

1. New!

   All will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain, when the shadow of our deeds and bodies will not remain on earth. M. Bulgakov In 1925, the first two parts of Mikhail's novel were published in the Rossiya magazine ...

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov revolution of October 1917. He perceived it as a turning point not only in the history of Russia, but also in the fate of the Russian intelligentsia, with whom he rightly considered himself to be related by blood. The post-revolutionary tragedy of the intelligentsia, which found itself ...

Although the manuscripts of the novel have not been preserved, the Bulgakov scholars 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 Rossiya magazine in 1925. The novel in its entirety 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 The Days of the Turbins and several subsequent screen adaptations.

Plot

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

The characters - Alexei 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 Peace, it does not fall under the rule of the Bolsheviks and becomes a refuge for many Russian intellectuals and military men who flee from Bolshevik Russia. Officer combat organizations are being created in the city under the auspices of Hetman Skoropadsky, an ally of the Germans, recent enemies of Russia. Petliura's army advances on the City. By the time of the events of the novel, the Compiègne truce has been concluded and the Germans are preparing to leave the City. In fact, only volunteers defend him from Petliura. Understanding the complexity of their situation, the Turbins console themselves with rumors about the approach of French troops, who allegedly landed in Odessa (in accordance with the terms of the armistice, they had the right to occupy the occupied territories of Russia up to the Vistula in the west). Alexei and Nikolka Turbins, like other residents of the City, volunteer to join the defenders, and Elena guards 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 leave it to its 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 perish along with their subordinates. Petlyura occupies the City, arranges a magnificent parade, but after a few months he is forced to surrender it to the Bolsheviks.

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

The social cataclysm exposes the characters - someone runs, someone prefers death in battle. The people as a whole accept the new government (Petlyura) and, after her arrival, demonstrate hostility towards the officers.

Characters

• Alexey Vasilievich Turbin- doctor, 28 years old.
• Elena Turbina-Talberg- Alexei's sister, 24 years old.
• Nikolka- non-commissioned officer of the First Infantry Squad, brother of Alexei and Elena, 17 years old.
• Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky- lieutenant, friend of the Turbin family, Alexei's comrade at the Alexander Gymnasium.
• Leonid Yurievich Shervinsky- former Life Guards Lancers Regiment, lieutenant, adjutant at the headquarters of General Belorukov, friend of the Turbin family, Alexei's comrade at the Alexander Gymnasium, a longtime admirer of Elena.
• Fedor Nikolaevich Stepanov("Karas") - second lieutenant artilleryman, friend of the Turbin family, Alexei's comrade 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 Zhytomyr.

History of writing

Bulgakov began writing the novel The White Guard after the death of his mother (February 1, 1922) and continued writing 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 had other names - for example, Bulgakov chose between The Midnight Cross and The White Cross. One of the excerpts from the early edition of the novel was published in December 1922 in the Berlin newspaper "On the Eve" under the title "On the night of the 3rd" with the subtitle "From the novel 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 then entered 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 against whites in the south (1919-1920).”

T. N. Lappa told M. O. Chudakova: “... He wrote The White Guard at night and liked me to sit around and sew. His hands and feet were getting cold, he would say to me: “Hurry, hurry hot water”; I heated the water on a kerosene stove, he put his hands into a basin of hot water ... "

In the spring of 1923, Bulgakov wrote in a letter to his sister Nadezhda: “... I am urgently finishing the 1st part of the novel; It's called "Yellow Ensign". The novel begins with the entry into Kyiv of the Petliura troops. 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 blows of Denikin, and, finally, about the fighting in the Caucasus. Such was original intention writer. But after thinking about the possibility of publishing such a novel in Soviet Russia, Bulgakov decided to shift the time of the action to an earlier period and exclude the 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 been a disgusting, cold and rainy summer." On July 25, Bulgakov noted: “The novel is due to“ Beep “, which takes away the best part day, almost does not move.

At the end of August 1923, Bulgakov informed Yu. L. Slezkin that he had finished the novel in draft version- apparently, work was completed on the earliest edition, 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 launching a thick monthly magazine "Russia" with the participation of our own and foreign ... Apparently, Lezhnev has a huge publishing and editorial future ahead of him. Rossiya will be printed in Berlin... In any case, things are clearly on the way to revival... in the literary and publishing world.

Then, for half a year, 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, this circle also made an impression.”

On March 9, 1924, the following message by Yu. L. Slezkin appeared in the Nakanune newspaper: “The White Guard novel is the first part of the trilogy and was read by the author for 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 Kiev ... The minor flaws 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 Rossiya magazine I. G. Lezhnev. On July 25, 1924, Bulgakov wrote in his diary: “... phoned Lezhnev in the afternoon, found out that for the time being it was not possible to negotiate with Kagansky regarding the release of The White Guard as a separate book, since he had no money yet. This is a new surprise. That's when I didn't take 30 chervonets, now I can repent. I am sure that the “Guard” will remain in my hands.” December 29: “Lezhnev is negotiating ... to take the novel The White Guard from Sabashnikov and hand it over 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 an agreement on 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 bills. These bills can be wiped off. However, the devil knows! I wonder if the money will be brought tomorrow. I won't hand over the manuscript. January 3: “Today I received 300 rubles from Lezhnev on account of the novel The White Guard, which will go to Russia. They promised for the rest of the bill…”

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, as the magazine ceased to exist. The novel was published in full by the Concorde publishing house in Paris in 1927 - the first volume and in 1929 - the second volume: chapters 12-20 re-corrected by the author.

According to researchers, the novel The White Guard was completed after the premiere of the play Days of the Turbins in 1926 and the creation of The 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 Rossiya magazine, 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 in the texts of the journal publication and proofreading with the author's revision of the third part of the novel.

Manuscript

The manuscript of the novel has not survived.

Until now, the canonical text of the novel "The White Guard" has not been determined. Researchers for a long time could not find a single page of handwritten or typewritten text of the "White Guard". In the early 1990s an authorized typescript of the end of the "White Guard" was found with a total volume of about two printed sheets. During the examination of the found fragment, it was possible to establish that the text is the very end of the last third of the novel, which Bulgakov was preparing for the sixth issue of the Rossiya magazine. 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 material for No. 6 to the set, you have to type in the ending of "The White Guard", but you do not enter the manuscripts. We kindly ask you not to delay this matter any longer.” And on the same day, the writer, against receipt (it was preserved), handed over the end of the novel to Lezhnev.

The found manuscript was preserved only because the well-known editor, and then an employee of the Pravda newspaper, I. G. Lezhnev, used Bulgakov’s manuscript to stick on it, as on a paper basis, clippings from newspapers of his numerous articles. In this form, 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 sharper politically - the author's desire to find common ground between the Petliurists and the Bolsheviks is clearly visible. The conjectures that the writer's story "On the Night of the 3rd" is an integral part of The White Guard were also confirmed.

Historical canvas

The historical events that are described in the novel refer 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 are drawn into these events, and, having taken 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 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and de jure remained at war with both the Germans and the puppet government of Hetman Skoropadsky.

When the war broke out in Ukraine between the Directory and Skoropadsky, the hetman had to seek help from the intelligentsia and officers of Ukraine, who mostly supported the White Guards. In order to attract these categories of the population to their side, the Skoropadsky government published in the newspapers about the alleged order of Denikin on the entry of troops fighting the Directory into the Volunteer Army. This order was falsified by the Minister of Internal Affairs of Skoropadsky's government, I. A. Kistyakovsky, who thus filled 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 government in Ukraine" and warning against helping the hetman. However, these telegrams and appeals were hidden, and the 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 of the 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 no one knows why and no one knows from whom.

The Kiev "White Guard" for all the warring parties turned out to be illegal: Denikin refused 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" in many details is 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. Turbines is the maiden name of Bulgakov's grandmother on her mother's side. In the members of the Turbin family, one can easily guess 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, was copied from the house where the Bulgakov family lived in Kyiv; now it houses the Turbin House museum.

Mikhail Bulgakov himself is recognizable in the venereologist Alexei Turbina. The prototype of Elena Talberg-Turbina was Bulgakov's sister, Varvara Afanasievna.

Many surnames of the characters in the novel coincide with the surnames of real residents of Kyiv at that time or have been 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. Everyone dreamed of ballet, wanted to enter a ballet school. Before the arrival of the Petliurists, he went to the Junkers.

T. N. Lappa also recalled that the service of Bulgakov and Syngaevsky at Skoropadsky was reduced to the following:

“Syngaevsky and other Mishin’s comrades came and they were talking that it was necessary to keep the Petliurists out and protect the city, that the Germans should help ... and the Germans were still draping. And the guys agreed to go the next day. We even stayed overnight, it seems. And in the morning Michael went. There was a first-aid post... And there was supposed to be a fight, but it seems that there was none. Mikhail arrived in a cab and said that it was all over and that there would be Petliurists.

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 Kiev, went to Paris at her expense, where he successfully acted as her dancing partner and husband, although he was 20 years younger her" .

According to the Bulgakov scholar Ya. Yu. Tinchenko, the prototype of Myshlaevsky was a friend of the Bulgakov family, Pyotr Aleksandrovich Brzhezitsky. Unlike Syngaevsky, Brzhezitsky really was an artillery officer and participated in the same events that Myshlaevsky told 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 an adjutant) in the troops of Hetman Skoropadsky, he subsequently emigrated.

Thalberg

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

Captain Talberg, husband of Elena Talberg-Turbina, has many common features with the husband of Varvara Afanasyevna Bulgakova, Leonid Sergeevich Karum (1888-1968), a German by birth, a career officer who served at 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 annoyed Bulgakov and other relatives of his wife when, in May 1917, he put on a uniform with orders, but with a wide red bandage on his sleeve, for his own wedding. In the novel, the Turbin brothers condemn Thalberg for the fact that in March 1917 he "was the first - understand, the first - who came 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 Turbina 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 the officers and cadets gather in the Pedagogical Museum of the First Gymnasium (a museum where the works of the gymnasium students were collected). Everyone gathered. The doors were locked. Kolya said: "Gentlemen, you 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 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 to the gymnasium, where he met Maxim (pedel). It was necessary to change the Junker clothes. Maxim took his things, gave him his suit to put on, and Kolya, in civilian clothes, got out of the gymnasium in a different way and went home. Others were shot."

carp

“The crucian was for sure - everyone called him Karas or Karasik, I don’t remember if it was a nickname or a surname ... He looked exactly like a crucian - short, dense, wide - well, like a crucian. His face is round... When Mikhail and I came to the Syngaevsky, he often went there...”

According to another version, which was expressed by the researcher Yaroslav Tinchenko, Andrey Mikhailovich Zemsky (1892-1946) - the husband of Bulgakov's sister Nadezhda, became the prototype of Stepanov-Karas. 23-year-old Nadezhda Bulgakova and Andrey 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. In a short leave of absence, the cadet Zemsky ran to Nadezhda - in the same house of the Turbins.

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

Arrested in January 1931, L. S. Karum, under torture in the OGPU, testified that the Zemsky in 1918 was in the Kolchak army for a month or two. Zemsky was immediately arrested and exiled for 5 years to Siberia, 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, co-authored a textbook of the Russian language.

Lariosik

Nikolay Vasilievich Sudzilovsky. The prototype of Lariosik according to L. S. Karum.

There are two applicants 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 from Zhytomyr. One of them, Nikolai Nikolaevich Sudzilovsky, was 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 he was no longer on medical, but on law faculty. Uncle Kolya asked Varenka and me to take care of him. We, having discussed this problem with our students, Kostya and Vanya, suggested that he 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 Andreevsky Descent, 36, where she lived with Lelya in the apartment of Ivan Pavlovich Voskresensky. And in our apartment there were unperturbed Kostya and Kolya Sudzilovsky.

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

T. N. Lappa also recalled: “A relative of some Zhytomyr. I don't remember when he appeared ... An unpleasant type. Some strange, even something abnormal in it was. Clumsy. Something was falling, something was beating. So, some kind of mumbling ... Height is average, above average ... In general, he differed from everyone in something. He was so dense, middle-aged ... He was ugly. Varya liked him immediately. 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 law faculty of Moscow University. At the end of the year, Sudzilovsky entered the 1st Peterhof School of Ensigns, from where he was expelled for poor progress 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 as early as May 1917. In order to get a deferment from military service, Sudzilovsky married, and in 1918 he and his wife moved to Zhytomyr to live with their parents. In the summer of 1918, the prototype of Lariosik unsuccessfully tried to enter the University of Kiev. Sudzilovsky appeared in the Bulgakovs' apartment on Andreevsky Spusk on December 14, 1918 - the day Skoropadsky fell. By that time, his wife had already abandoned him. In 1919, Nikolai Vasilievich joined the Volunteer Army, and his further fate unknown .

The second likely contender, also by the name of Sudzilovsky, really lived in the Turbins' house. According to the memoirs of brother Yu. L. Gladyrevsky Nikolai: “And Lariosik is my cousin, Sudzilovsky. He was an officer during the war, then demobilized, trying, it seems, to go to school. He came from Zhytomyr, wanted to settle with us, but my mother knew that he was not a particularly pleasant person, and fused him to the Bulgakovs. They rented a room to him…”

Other prototypes

Dedications

The question of Bulgakov's dedication of the novel to L. E. Belozerskaya is ambiguous. Among the Bulgakov scholars, relatives and friends of the writer, this issue caused different opinions. The writer's first wife, T. N. Lappa, claimed that the novel was dedicated to her in handwritten and typewritten versions, and the name of L. E. Belozerskaya, to the surprise and displeasure of Bulgakov's inner circle, appeared only in printed form. T. N. Lappa, before her death, said with obvious resentment: “Bulgakov ... once brought The White Guard when it was printed. And suddenly I see - there is a dedication to Belozerskaya. So I threw this book back to him ... So many nights I sat with him, fed, looked after ... he told the sisters that he dedicated 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 sheer naivety to expect from a Soviet author), but there is also no sympathy for people who have devoted themselves to this cause or are associated with it. (...) He leaves the lubok and rudeness to other authors, while he himself prefers condescending, almost love relationship to your characters. (...) He almost does not condemn them - and he does not need such a condemnation. On the contrary, it would even weaken his position, and the blow that he inflicts on the White Guard from another, more principled, and therefore more sensitive side. The literary calculation here, in any case, is evident, and it is done correctly.

“From the heights, from where the whole “panorama” of human life opens up to him (Bulgakov), he looks at us with a rather dry and rather sad smile. Undoubtedly, these heights are so significant that red and white merge for the eye - in any case, these differences lose their meaning. In the first scene, where tired, bewildered officers, together with Elena Turbina, are having a drinking bout, in this scene, where the characters are 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 that came from two irreconcilable camps, one can consider the assessment of the novel by I. M. Nusinov: “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 and 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 the 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. In the novel The White Guard, Bulgakov rejected this accusation of the white emigrants and declared: the change of milestones is not a capitulation to the physical winner, but a recognition of the moral justice of the winners. The novel "The White Guard" for Bulgakov 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 consciousness that the bastards are 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 "

At the end of the 21st year, he arrived without money, without things in Moscow ... In Moscow he suffered for a long time; to maintain existence, he served as a reporter and feuilletonist in newspapers and hated these titles, devoid of distinctions ... In the Berlin newspaper "On the Eve" for two years he wrote large satirical and humorous feuilletons. Year wrote the novel "White Guard". I love this novel more than all my other works.
_________________________________
Michael Bulgakov. Biography, 1924

"WHITE GUARD" - A NOVEL OF DREAMS IN THE FRAME OF QUOTATIONS FROM PUSHKINSKY AND FROM THE APOCALYPSE. Explicit and hidden biblical quotations, along with quotations from the classics of Russian literature, initially flash in early prose Bulgakov is part of the thinking style of a well-educated person in pre-revolutionary times. But only Bulgakov managed to turn the style of thinking into a vivid literary style, which also required a special form of the novel.

Sharp-tongued from youth, - a lover of charades and practical jokes, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, possessed phenomenal memory: spontaneous quotations from Russian classics and biblical texts did not give him any trouble. On the other hand, Bulgakov, as his works show, was always tormented by universal questions: the meaning of life and history, faith and unbelief, good and evil...

No matter how much the future Author of The White Guard hated writing feuilletons, he had to write them for the sake of his daily bread. But after all, the style was polished! During such violence against oneself, one had to entertain oneself somehow?! Not from this necessity, but to it, plus the love of playing with language and quotation memory, a new form was born?! Its birth can be traced already in the early "trinkets".
* * *

IN BULGAKOV'S FEILETON “WATER OF LIFE” (1925): “Sukhaya Kanava station dozed in snowdrifts… A muddy and calm winter day flowed in the railway village. “Everything that is available to the eye (as they say) Sleeps, appreciating peace ... “” When “cleaned” wine – vodka – was brought to the station shop, the residents of the village who immediately “awoke” attacked the shop. But the vodka ran out, and again: “In the evening, snowdrifts lay quietly, and a lamp flashed at the station ... And some figure walked along the rutted street, and quietly sang, swaying: “Everything that is available to the eye, Sleeps, appreciating peace” ".

Hardly at a dead station, a drunken "figure" in reality sang the lines from the end of the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov’s “DISPUTE” (Once in front of a crowd of tribal mountains ...) It is Bulgakov himself, even in the genre of a feuilleton that does not allow much fantasies to unfold, is clearly prone to different levels of opposition - parallels. Where are the parallels?! Moreover, before Lermontov, the very name of the feuilleton - “WATER OF LIFE” - is a paraphrase of the beginning of the last 22 chapters of the Apocalypse: “And (the angel) showed me a pure river of water of life, bright as crystal, emanating from the throne of God and the Lamb ... "

IT IS LIKE A TRIPLE EVALUATION FRAMEWORK OF EVENTS: Lermontov's lines emphasize the wretchedness of existence at the Dry Kanava station. And outside the text, this level of understanding of being in the Apocalypse casts a completely sarcastic shadow on the “Dry Ditch” ... Of course! all these "shadow" comparisons "work" for those who are familiar with both Lermontov's poetry and the text of the Apocalypse. And if you expand such a funny shape ?! To begin with, it turned out the "White Guard"

"WHITE GUARD" is a novel of many different levels of narratives merged together in different styles speeches: solemnly biblical, publicistic, emotionally excited to the point of insanity, etc. Of the many levels of the "GUARDS", the two most important themes - the framework of the entire novel - are declared by the Author immediately in the epigraph: this is Pushkin's and from the Apocalypse the estimated framework of what is happening.
* * *

L I T E R A T U R N O E R O D D O S L O V I E G E R O E V - "B E L O Y G V A R D I I".

Light snow began to fall and suddenly fell in flakes. The wind howled; there was a blizzard. In an instant, the dark sky mingled with the snowy sea. Everything is gone.
“Well, master,” shouted the driver, “trouble: a snowstorm! – A.S. Pushkin. Captain's daughter.

And the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, according to their deeds. – Apocalypse of St. Ap. John the Evangelist. 20:12.
___________________________________________
Two Epigraphs by Mikhail Bulgakov to The White Guard

“WHITE GUARD”, Part One: “GREAT WAS THE YEAR AND TERRIBLE YEAR AFTER CHRISTMAS 1918, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND REVOLUTION. It was plentiful in the summer with the sun, and in the winter with snow, and two stars stood especially high in the sky: the shepherd's star - the evening Venus and the red, trembling Mars (the confrontation between peace and war!) But days in peaceful and bloody years fly like an arrow, and young Turbins did not notice how white, shaggy December came in a hard frost ...

Well, I think it will stop, the life that is written in chocolate books will begin, but not only does it not begin, but it becomes more and more terrible all around ... ”“ Chocolate books ”(the frequent color of well-bound books at that time was brown with gold) is Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy...

THE WHOLE TEXT OF THE "WHITE GUARD" IS CONSTRUCTED IN THE SIMILARITY OF A PROPHETIC DREAM - DELUSION, tossing between two Pushkin's poles: a kind person and scary man- wolf. In this big dream after Pushkin's, Gogol's, Dostoyevsky's, Tolstoy's motifs will "jump out" separately - in general, reflecting and reflecting mirrors as a whole.

Like the Author of The White Guard himself, its heroes were educated before 1917. And just like the Author himself, each of the heroes of The Guard, in an atmosphere of extreme nervous tension, will try to think from childhood with quotations familiar to him - sometimes not understood, sometimes not quite suitable for reality. This will not seem enough to the Author: a shadow, as it were, falls on each of the heroes of the "Guard" - a reflection of the images of the great Russian writers familiar to the reader. For what?

The variety of human characters is reduced to certain psychological types. Hence, in the literature, the concept of “type” has long appeared - a certain type of behavior of the hero: a villain, positive in different options and so on. We are well acquainted with the type, at least by " extra people"- Onegin, Pechorin ... In each of the bright heroes, reflecting the traits of a generation, Russian writers were to some extent reflected in the types they found and themselves, - as prominent representatives of his generation. Bulgakov will play with this. What will happen?

It turns out that Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, Chekhov, being present at the level of the apocalyptic framework of the novel, along with Pushkin, will, as it were, see a performance in the new time with their heroes. Or even partly play this performance themselves: not themselves, but the “types” described by them.

Bulgakov has no direct prototyping at all - all images are collective. For example, on the already existing images of Andrei Bolkonsky and Vaska Denisov from "War and Peace", a similarly highly patriotic behavior of individual officers of the civil war of 1914-1922 was superimposed, as it were. - without changing the essence from the past, "translates" the type into the present.

Loving Russian literature not with a passive, active love, Bulgakov asked Pushkin and Gogol - how to live ?! Using the examples of Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov, "I calculated what would come of such behavior? ..
* * *

“But how to live? How to live? Alexei Vasilievich Turbin, the eldest - a young doctor - is twenty-eight years old. Elena is twenty-four. Her husband, Captain Talberg, is thirty-one, and Nikolka is seventeen and a half. Their life was just interrupted at the very dawn. It has long been the beginning of revenge from the north and sweeps, and sweeps, and does not stop, and the farther, the worse ... "; “The Captain's Daughter will be burned in the oven…” - it seems that it is worse for culture?!
* * *
THE THEME OF GOGOL AND DOSTOYEVSKY IN THE WHITE GUARD. LET'S START WITH THE TURBIN BROTHERS: “Senior Turbin, shaven, fair-haired, aged and gloomy since October 25, 1917, in a jacket with huge pockets, in blue trousers and soft new shoes, in his favorite position - in an armchair with legs. At his feet, on a bench, Nikolka with a whirlwind, stretching his legs almost to the sideboard ... Feet in boots with buckles. Nikolka's friend, the guitar, gently and muffledly: chirp... vaguely chirp... because so far, you see, nothing is really known yet. Anxious in the City, foggy, bad ... "

OLDER BROTHER. From "Notes young doctor» Aleksey Turbin, who has grown up, is the author's hero. The author Bulgakov honored Dostoevsky as a teacher. It is precisely Alexei who has a nightmare - the devil of Ivan Karamazov, and: "The unread (and not understood) Dostoevsky is lying on the floor by Alexei's bed, and the "Demons" are mocking with desperate words ...". On Turbine, the elder, lies the reflection of Dostoevsky's heroes entangled in ideas.

YOUNGER BROTHER. “... AT THE FEET OF THE OLD BROWN SAINT NICHOLAS. NIKOLKINS blue eyes, set on the sides of a long bird's nose, looked confused, killed, ”- together with the“ whirlwind ”, this appearance of the younger Turbine Nikolka - Nikolai Vasilyevich - for students in pre-revolutionary gymnasiums was easily recognizable from the portraits in the gymnasium textbooks of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. And in the novel there is also an analogy with St. Nicholas!

The generally Christian Saint Saint Nicholas - the patron saint of sailors and from any spontaneous death, the patron saint of children and the innocently convicted - was so revered in Russia that he became the intercessor of the Russian people. So the younger Turbin is a very interesting character: more than an author.

With clear topographical features of Kiev on the Dnieper, the place of action of the "White Guard" is correctly called by the author with a capital letter "City": as in "The Government Inspector", this is a generalization and a symbol of Russia. And the scene of the new novel is in Gogol's homeland Ukraine, in Kyiv. This is how Gogol's syllable "City" will be described. Why does the shadow of the writer himself fall on Nikolka - not his heroes? Well-known Gogol's heroes, mostly types rather satirical: they are easy and abundant to find on the lower floors of the narrative of the "White Guard" - on the streets of the City, outside the windows of a cozy turbine apartment:

«IN THE WINDOWS THERE IS A REAL OPERA "CHRISTMAS NIGHT" (N. Rimsky-Korsakov By story of the same name Gogol) - snow and lights. They tremble and shimmer. Nikolka clung to the window ... in his eyes - the most intense hearing. Where (cannons fire)? He shrugged his non-commissioned officer's shoulders. “The devil knows.” – with a Gogol glow, but still not Gogol. Under the alleged visions of both Turbin brothers, the disguised dreams of the author - of Bulgakov himself - will be presented in the manner of Gogol. So, a hero with a Gogol glow was needed: Nikolka became him.

BACK TO THE PLOT OF THE NOVEL. “The door to the hall let the cold in, and before Alexei and Elena found himself a tall, broad-shouldered figure in a gray overcoat to the heels and in protective shoulder straps with three railing stars chemical pencil... ”- from the outside window“ Christmas Night ”to the Turbins, Lieutenant Myshlaevsky, who is barely alive from the positions, stumbled from the positions, how much in vain obscenely scolds the headquarters bastard who sent undressed people into the bitter cold to defend the City from an unknown enemy:

– But who are they? Is it really Petliura? It can't be.
“Ah, the devil knows their soul.” I think that these are the local god-bearing peasants Dostoevsky! (A phrase from Dostoevsky's "Demons").
* * *

ON THE OCCASION OF THAT EVERYONE IS ALIVE, THE TURBINS HAVE A Feast: “Elena is in the chair, at the narrow end of the table .. On the opposite side is Myshlaevsky ... in a dressing gown, and his face is stained from vodka and frenzied fatigue. His eyes in red rings - cold, experienced fear, vodka, anger. On the long edges of the table, on one side, Alexei and Nikolka, and on the other, Leonid Yuryevich Shervinsky, a former lieutenant of the Life Guards Lancers, and now an adjutant at the headquarters of Prince Belorukov ... "

Myshlaevsky utters a phrase straight from the theatrical scene from a bad drama: “Only one thing is possible in Rus': the Orthodox faith, autocratic power!” - "I ... shouted: "Werr-no!" ... There was applause all around. And only some bastard in the tier shouted: "Idiot!" …Fog. Fog. Fog…” Does the form of this conversation remind you of anything? The speeches of Dostoevsky's heroes in the jeweled form of Chekhov's conversation from the "Teacher of Literature" (it was read by high school students of Bulgakov's generation!)

HERE AT BULGAKOV AN ANALOGY WITH A Feast IN A.P. CHEKHOV: “This is rudeness!” came from the other end of the table. - "Rrr ... nga-nga-nga" ... - was heard from under the chair (dog grunt). - "Confess that you are wrong! ... Confess!", - with Chekhov's dialogue, the similarity of the feast at the Turbins means the presence in the "White Guard" of "double" Chekhov's - dialogue and "underwater action", when what is not said is more important. The analogy with the vulgar conversation in Chekhov's story reduces the important topics of table conversations for the characters themselves.

But Chekhov's heroes do not conduct military conversations: the origins of such conversations are already in War and Peace. If in the first paragraph of the novel, the patroness of lovers, the star Venus is mentioned in opposition to the personification of the god of war by Mars, then the conversation about “War and Peace” will certainly happen!
* * *
LIEUTENANT MYSHLAEVSKY WILL INTRODUCE THE THEME OF “WAR AND PEACE” INTO THE NOVEL: “This is indeed a book. Yes, sir ... the writer was Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, artillery lieutenant ... It’s a pity that he quit serving ... he would have risen to the rank of general, ”- by the will of the author, Lieutenant Myshlaevsky introduces the motive of unsuccessful for the Russian company of 1805 against Napoleon.

In the gymnasium, where a student mortar division is being formed to protect the City, its commander, Colonel Malyshev, to raise the patriotic spirit of the fighters, orders to remove the covers from the portrait of Alexander the Blessed: the untalented commander Alexander I, who lost the company of 1805, - implies the sarcastic Author of the novel. An open portrait predicts the defeat of the White Guard:

“In a cocked hat, broken from the field, with a white sultan, bald and sparkling Alexander flew out in front of the gunners. Sending them smile after smile, filled with insidious charm, Alexander waved his broadsword and pointed it to the junkers at the Borodino regiments with its tip ... "The gunners immediately sing Lermontov's famous poem" Borodino ":" ... After all, there were ... fighting battles ?! ... Yes, they say, what else! bass boomed. - Not yes-a-a-a-rum the whole of Russia remembers About the day of Borodin !!

LET'S REMEMBER NOW HISTORY WITHOUT MONARCHIC SENTIMENTS: correcting the mistakes of Alexander the Blessed in 1905, Borodino was won by the great commander Illarion Kutuzov. And in our novel, instead of Kutuzov with a significant surname, Colonel Malyshev - also a man of honor with reflections of Tolstoy's heroes - having learned about the betrayal of the headquarters, will disband the division: “I can’t do anything else, sir. I saved all of mine. Not sent to the slaughter! Did not send to shame! - Malyshev suddenly began to shout hysterically, obviously something burned in him and burst ... - Well, generals! He clenched his fists...

Also from the "War and Peace" of the dashing commander Vaska Denisov, the beloved curse "devil's doll" becomes in the "White Guard" the name of the humorous newspaper "Devil's doll" lying around in the Turbins' apartment. From War and Peace, Myshlaevsky is closest to Bretter Dolokhov, a generalized and somewhat shredded descendant of Tolstoy's heroes:

“This head (of Myshlaevsky) was very beautiful, strange and sad and attractive beauty of an old, real breed and degeneration. Beauty in different colors, bold eyes, long eyelashes. A hooked nose, proud lips, a white and clean forehead ... But now, one corner of the mouth is lowered sadly, and the chin is obliquely cut off as if a sculptor who sculpted a noble face had a wild fantasy ... to leave a small and irregular female chin to a courageous face.

IN BULGAKOV'S PROSE, THE EYES OF THE HEROES ARE ALWAYS THE MIRROR OF THE SOUL AND EVERYTHING HIGHER REFLECTED IN THIS SOUL. Y and positive and negative significant heroes Bulgakov describes the eyes. Tolstoy's hero and "with mournful eyes (prediction!) A cavalryman in colonel's hussar epaulettes" Nai-Tours personifies the best of everything in the tsarist army - honor, loyalty to the word, readiness to give life for the motherland.

COLONEL NAY-TOURS BATTLE LIKE VASK DENISOV IN "WAR AND PEACE": "And I pg" pouted bg "at, vcheg" a, like a son of a bitch! - Denisov shouted, without pronouncing r. - Such a misfortune! Such a misfortune! .. » On Nai-Turs, there are still reflections of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and the modest artillery captain Tushin, who is unaware of his exceptional courage, with “big smart and kind eyes”.

“If it were possible to know what would happen after death, then none of us would be afraid of death ...,” Tushin argues before the fight. In a dream, Alexei Turbin sees in advance the colonel with mournful eyes already in paradise: “He was in a strange form: a luminous helmet was on his head, and his body was in chain mail, and he leaned on a sword ... Heavenly radiance followed Nay with a cloud,” - to Captain Tushin, as it were answer to his doubts.

Andrey Bolkonsky sees captain Tushin for the first time in an absurd form - barefoot. In the inverted mirrors of the "White Guard" part of the burry colonel with mournful eyes in the City is the only one in the weather - in severe frost - shod in felt boots, which the commander took out, threatening the staff general with a pistol: we have no time ... Nepgiyatel, they say, under the very year ... Live, - said Nai in some kind of funeral voice ... "

The general, turning purple, said to him: “I am now calling the headquarters of the commander and raising the case of bringing you to a military court. It's something...”
- “Popgobuyte,” Nai replied and swallowed his saliva, “just gobuyte. Well, here's a bastard of curiosity. He took hold of the handle poking out of the unbuttoned holster. The general went in spots and became numb ... ".

In the battle at Shengraben, the battery: Tushina "... continued to shoot, and was not taken by the French only because the enemy could not assume the audacity of firing four unprotected cannons" - the enemy assumed the entire Russian center here. Finally, from headquarters, only the third order to retreat reaches the forgotten battery.

In the confusion of the retreat, instead of a well-deserved reward for heroism, only the intervention of Andrei Bolkonsky saves from punishment for supposedly non-fulfillment of Tushin's order. And having understood the betrayal of the staff, Nai-Tours will without hesitation give an unheard-of anti-Tushino order: “Yunkegga! Listen to my command: get rid of shoulder straps, kokagdy, pouches, bgosai oguzhie! ... Save yourselves at home! The fight is over! Run Magsh!"

“NAY-TOURS ... JUMPED TO THE MACHINE GUN ... Turning to Nikolka from his haunches, he thundered furiously: “Deaf? Run!” A strange drunken ecstasy arose from Nikolka from somewhere in his stomach ... “I don’t want it, Mr. Colonel,” he answered in a cloth voice ... he grabbed the tape with both hands and fired it at the machine gun ... ". How Prince Andrei Bolkonsky dies, and as predicted in advance in a dream, the Turbine in the person of Nai-Tours - all the best in the White Guard - dies, and this will, as it were, sign the final and verdict of the “staff bastard” who abandoned the City to its fate, and the verdict to all white movement.(1)

Nai-Tours will die instead of Nikolka, because in Alexei's dream, an unknown cadet, Nikolka, also appeared near the gates of heaven. “He died ... you know, like a hero ... A real hero ... He drove all the cadets away in time ... - Nikolka, telling, cried, - and he covered them with fire. And I almost got killed along with him ... ". The saved Nikolka helps Nai's mother find and bury her son's body: “The old mother from three fires (near Nai's coffin) turned her shaking head to Nikolka and said to him: “My son. Well, thank you.” But all the best adopted from Nye threatens Nikolka with death too. (In one of the editions of the novel, Nikolka died.)

BUT THE HEROIC DEATH IS NOT TOO THAT THREATENING TO CALCULATE CAREERISTS! “The lean figure turns under the black clock like an automaton ...” - what good can one expect from such an initial characterization of Sergei Ivanovich Talbrg? Berg, son of the "dark Livonian nobleman".

Like Hermann from The Queen of Spades and Berg from War and Peace, he is also a Baltic citizen (with German blood, according to the then concepts), the brother-in-law of the Turbin brothers is not very lucky: “tal” in Dahl’s dictionary means “pledge or hostage”. Talberg - comes out as a hostage of his passion to make a prosperous career, which he would have succeeded in pre-revolutionary Russia, but does not succeed in post-revolutionary Russia, when the "weather" changes several times a day.

In addition, even in Pushkin's time, Thalberg Sigismund (1812 - 1871), an Austrian virtuoso pianist and composer, was well known in Europe. A representative of the salon style of playing, Thalberg became famous for his inspired improvisations - variations of well-known themes, while his own pieces amaze only with outward virtuosity. By a sarcastic analogy, Captain Thalberg, a virtuoso of his salon career, who talks about the “bloody Moscow operetta”, cannot get into a completely “non-salon” tone of time.

ELENA'S HUSBAND, CAPTAIN SERGEI IVANOVICH TALBERG (eyes with a double bottom!) is a collective image, except for his own person, of indifferent careerists to everything - both to the Motherland and to culture as a whole. The author of the novel really needs the “role” of Thalberg: this role justifies the inevitability of changes in Russia. Revolutions don't happen in a vacuum.

“Almost from the very day of Elena’s wedding, some kind of crack appeared in the vase of Turbine life, and good water left through it imperceptibly. Dry vessel. Perhaps, main reason this in the double-layered eyes of the captain ... ”- it’s not okay in a family where brothers hate their sister’s husband.

Not all right in all of Russia: the Turbin family, and the house of the Turbins surrounding the many-sided City, and dangerous "fogs" around it - all different faces of Russia engulfed in a fratricidal civil war. The image of the bloody Petlyura, which is captivating, seems to thicken in the novel from many “hatreds”: there is a role, but there is no specific carrier character. Hence, the "role" of purifying change, the "role" of the revolution, becomes absolutely necessary.

Fleeing after the hetman with a “rat run”, Talberg abandons both his homeland and his wife: “I can’t take you, Elena ... on wanderings and the unknown. Is not it? Elena did not answer a sound, because she was proud ... "But being villain, Talberg is at the same time an important bearer of the continuation in the epigraph of the declared Pushkin theme of a man met by Grinev in a snowstorm or a wolf-beast:

"A kind person!" - according to the spoken word of Petrusha Grinev, Pugachev turns out to be a kind person. When the government is at war with a robber and a murderer, he gets such a bloodthirsty wolf. According to Pushkin's epigraph: a man-beast in the text must surely appear. Here Talberg in "... The Guard" is the middle link on the ladder between man and beast.

The "bestial" characteristics of an unsympathetic character stick out from the text. For example, when disputes about politics reminded Talberg of his career rushes from rank to camp, he “immediately showed upper, rarely spaced, but large and white teeth, yellow sparks appeared in his eyes, and Talberg began to worry ...” - like a snarling dog or wolf teeth - fangs.

Since Talberg is a shredded literary descendant of Pushkin's Hermann, then his wife, the sister of the Turbin brothers, Elena Vasilievna, also falls Pushkin's reflection. Actually, not Pushkin's story, but Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades serves in the novel as a cultural symbol of a better past: in the opera, having seen the obvious on three cards Hermann's insanity, Princess Liza, who loves him, drowned herself, as we remember. Everything is different in the novel:

“ON THE LIGHT, STANDING ON THE BED BY THE BED, SHE (ELENA) PUT ON A DARK RED THEATER HOOD. Once, in this hood, Elena went to the theater in the evening, when her hands and fur and lips smelled of perfume, and her face was finely and gently powdered, and from the box of the hood Elena looked at Liza looking from The Queen of Spades. But the hood fell into disrepair, quickly and strangely, in one last year ...

LIKE THE LISA OF THE "QUEEN OF SPADES", THE RED-HEADED ELENA, sitting with her hands dangling on her knees... Tremendous sadness dressed Elena's head like a bonnet... Elena was alone and therefore... she was talking... with a hood flooded with light, and with two black stained windows... …”<…>Kapor listened with interest ... He asked: “What kind of person is your husband?” - "He's a scoundrel. Nothing else!" Turbin said to himself.

“Almost from the very day of Elena’s wedding, some kind of crack appeared in the vase of Turbine life, and good water left through it imperceptibly. Dry vessel. Perhaps the main reason for this is in the double-layered eyes of the captain ... "- something is wrong in a family where brothers hate their sister's husband. It's not okay in all of Russia.

For his multi-layered betrayal, Thalberg will be “deprived” by the Author of all common cultural symbols: “The piano showed cozy white teeth and the score of Faust where black musical squiggles go in a thick black system and the multi-colored red-bearded Valentine sings: “I beg you for your sister. Have pity, oh, have pity on her! You protect her!”

Even Thalberg, who was not characterized by any sentimental feelings, remembered at that moment ... the tattered pages of the eternal Faust. Eh, eh ... Thalberg will no longer have to hear cavatinas about the almighty God, not to hear Elena playing Shervinsky's accompaniment!

And why, in fact, not to hear the opera "Faust" by the end of the novel, written by Thalberg, who appeared in Paris? Isn't opera available in Paris?.. You're joking!.. A traitor cannot hear the opera that has taken root in Russia in Russian. In general, the traitor is separated from the true culture.

AND HERE IS TIME FOR US TO BACK TO TYPES: in the drama, when the unworthy husband left, his place is taken by a charming hero - a lover. In addition to the part of the lover, "a charming bouncer, foppish and impudent little" lieutenant of the former Life Guards Lancers Regiment, and now adjutant ... "Leonid Yuryevich Shervinsky - a kind of descendant of Pechorin - in the novel also leads Lermontov's line: it is not for nothing that he is "Yurievich".

* * *
In the insolent eyes of little Shervinsky, joy jumped like balls at the news of Thalberg's disappearance. The little lancer immediately felt that he, as never before, was in voice, and the pinkish living room was filled with a truly monstrous hurricane of sounds, Shervinsky sang the epithalamus to the god Hymen, and how he sang!
_______________________________

SHERVINSKY IS A SPECIAL "DESCENDANT" OF LERMONTOVSKY AND PECHORIN, AND - THE DEMON. So Shervinsky visits the "Cellar - Tamara's Castle" for wine. Possessing operatic voice the lieutenant performs the parts of Gretchen's brother Valentin in Faust and the Demon (in A. Rubinstein's opera based on the plot of Lermontov's The Demon). In Elena's dream, Leonid Yuryevich seems to be the Demon - the seducer of Tamara ... As a result, Elena marries the Demon for the second time - or Shervinsky? .. In any case, her marriage is almost literary.

Shervinsky has a velvety baritone: “Yes, perhaps everything is nonsense in the world, except for such a voice. Of course, now ... this stupid war, the Bolsheviks, and Petliura, and duty, but then, when everything returns to normal, he quits military service, despite his St. Petersburg connections, you know what connections he has - oh-hoo-hoo - and onto the stage. He will sing in La Scala and in Bolshoi Theater in Moscow..."

Through the bouncer, but talented singer Shervinsky in the second Chekhov act, the theme of the eternal and eternally playing with human feelings, but also ennobling their art, flows, as it were: “Nevertheless, when the Turbins and Talberg are gone, the keys will sound again, and a multi-colored Valentine… because Faust, like the Carpenter of Saardam, is completely immortal.” As a result, Elena's new marriage with the Demon - Shervinsky, beyond the limits of everyday life, in a high sense, symbolizes this "perfect immortality" of art.
* * *

IN THE LIST OF PARTICULAR EPOCHAAL HEROES, THERE IS TO BE "EXPLAINED" THE OFTEN UNFAIRLY FORGOTTEN "FAMOUS WRITTEN OFFICER, who personally received the St. George Cross from the hands of Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky in May 1917, MIKHAIL SEMENOVICH SHPOLYANSKY" - "dressed in an expensive fur coat with a beaver collar ohm and cylinder":

“Mikhail Semyonovich was black and clean-shaven, with velvet sideburns, extremely similar to Eugene Onegin. Mikhail Semenovich became known to the whole City ... as an excellent reader in the "Dust" club of his own poems "Drops of Saturn" and as an excellent organizer of poets and chairman of the city poetic order "Magnetic Triolet" ... "

From "Triolet" "phantomists and futurists" under the auspices of Shpolyansky publish a collection of atheistic verses: "Beat God. The sound of the scarlet running battle I meet with obscene prayer ... ”- Myshlaevsky did this, as we remember. Did Bulgakov borrow these verses from any magazine? Composed or composed by himself? .. In any case, "RUNNING BATTLE" is practically a synonym for "WHITE GUARD" and an anticipation of the title of the play "RUN Forgetting "God" and all that is beautiful, good, eternal" is present to varying degrees at all earthly levels and Bulgakov's first novel, and all his work.

BUT BACK TO SHPOLYANSKY: “IN ADDITION, MIKHAIL SEMENOVICH had no equal as an orator, in addition, he drove both military and civilian machines, in addition, he supported the ballerina of the Opera House Musya Ford and another lady, whose name is Mikhail Semenovich, like a gentleman, he didn’t open up to anyone, had a lot of money and generously loaned it out ... drank white wine, played with a piece of iron, bought a painting “The Bathing Venetian”, lived on Khreshchatyk at night, in the Bilboke cafe in the morning, in his cozy room of the best hotel "Continental", in the evening - in the "Dust", at dawn he wrote treatise"Intuitive in Gogol".

The Hetman's City perished about three hours earlier than it should have, precisely because Mikhail Semyonovich, on the evening of December 2, 1918, in the "Dust" said... the following: “All scoundrels. Both the hetman and Petliura. But Petliura is also a pogromist. The most important thing, however, is not this. I got bored because I haven’t dropped bombs in a long time…”

SHPOLYANSKY IS A CLEAR PARODY OF ALL THE SILVER AGE EXPOSURE. Thus, the literary pedigree of the characters in the "Guards" is as follows: heroes with reflections - Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov (cousin from Zhytomyr - Lariosik) and the Silver Age that has not yet left the stage.

Under the similarity of Shpolyansky to Onegin, we mean the tradition of operatic make-up - how the singers usually represented Eugene (his "real" appearance is unknown to history). In addition to wigs and costumes, opera singers- men line their eyes, paint their lips, - otherwise you can’t see the face in the hall. As a result, not only in the part of the Demon or Mephistopheles, but in general, opera singers went out and go on stage with a completely different face - not like in life.

And from here, the theme of prostitutes “in green, red, black and white hats, beautiful as dolls ...” is textually “adjacent” to the theme of Shpolyansky’s “not his own” face - Dr. Alexei Turbin treats those infected with syphilis from them. Thus, the image of not only the spectacular lieutenant is reduced, but also, to some extent, the image of Turbine.

It is the excessive theatrical love to a literary pose - to not one's own face to the complete oblivion of one's own and is parodied in the image of Shpolyansky. (2) Moreover, in contrast to the allegedly sophisticated outward novelty of the pose, the essence of the character turns out to be not at all new: “Mikhail Semenovich Shpolyansky ... in a large room with a low ceiling and an old portrait, on which epaulettes of the forties looked dimly, touched by time” - 1840s, the time of Nicholas I, who still could not stand Pushkin.

Bulgakov, in terms of cultural views and etiquette, was, by his own admission, a traditionalist: i.e. admirer of the heritage of world culture - classical, well-established forms. (3) Silver age overexposures - pretentiousness of language and behavior - a person of classical tastes could not like. And in any case, having extended the chain of heroes from Pushkin to the time of the novel, forget about silver age it was no longer possible. Shpolyansky's transformations continue violently:

"MIKHAIL SEMENOVICH SHPOLYANSKY spent the rest of the night on Malaya-Provalnaya
street in a large room with a low ceiling and an old portrait in which
dimly looked, touched by time, epaulettes of the forties. Michael
Semyonovich without a jacket, in only a white marshmallow shirt, over which a black waistcoat with a large neckline flaunted, sat on a narrow chaise longue and spoke to a woman with a pale and dull face these words:

“Well, Yulia, I have finally decided and I am joining this bastard – the hetman in the armored division.” After that, the woman ... tormented half an hour ago and crushed by the kisses of the passionate Onegin (when did Onegin kiss anyone in Pushkin's poem?), Answered like this: “... I have never understood and cannot understand your plans.”
Mikhail Semyonovich took from the table in front of the chaise longue a glass of fragrant cognac cinched at the waist, took a sip and said: “And it’s not necessary.”

Two days after this conversation, Mikhail Semyonitch was transformed. Instead of a cylinder, he was wearing a pancake cap with an officer's cockade, instead of a civilian dress - a short fur coat to the knees and crumpled protective shoulder straps on it. Hands in gloves with bells, like Marseille in the Huguenots ... (4) The whole Mikhail Semenovich was smeared from head to toe in machine oil (even his face) and for some reason in soot ... "

The unrecognizable Shpolyansky performed “miracles” in the division, up to the complete collapse of armored cars. As a result, Petlyura took the City 3 hours earlier. And if the armored cars of the division had not been disabled? All the same, Petlyura would have taken the City. But maybe Nai-Tours would not have perished?.. Who knows... The Author's malice about Shpolyansky's manners, however, does not turn into contempt, as in the case of Hetman.

It seems that the Author even admires the artistry of Shpolyansky. It is especially interesting that it was the woman kissed by Onegin with a matte face who would save Alexei Turbin, who was being pursued by the Petliurists, and hide him, wounded, in the very room where Shpolyansky drank cognac.

A SAVED TURBINE WILL APPRECIATE HIS RESORT: “He saw the patterns of velvet, the edge of a double-breasted frock coat on the wall in a frame and a yellow-gold epaulette. (Like Gogol, not even things - parts of things replace people) The ceilings are so low ... In the depths, it was dark, but the side of the old piano shone with varnish, something else gleamed, and, it seems, ficus flowers. And here again this edge of the epaulette in the frame. God, what an old man! .. Epaulettes chained him. There was the peaceful light of a tallow candle in a shandal. There was peace, and now the world has been killed. Years will not return... What a strange house?

"STRANGE HOUSE" IS A TIME DEFAULT OR A SAVING DOOR TO THE PAST (depending on the merits of the heroes). In spirit, Alexei Turbin did not leave the 19th century, which is why the old days enchant him. "STRANGE HOUSE" - as if in a everyday version, compressed time from Pushkin's times to the moment of action: the past contains both good and bad - you need to be able to manage ... After all, the Nai-Turs family lives on Malo - Provalnaya.

The deceased Nai-Tours is the personification of the past best past of the Russian army. It is as if a culture covered with the dust of oblivion gives rise to a desire to shake off this dust at any cost: is this why the Author does not sharply "push" Shpolyansky into the category of negative characters? ..

Shpolyansky's rooms are low, dark and dusty: it is no longer culture, but attributes in the theatrical warehouse are dormant symbols of the past. And here, through the Turbins, Shpolyansky is unexpectedly joined by another character who occupies an important place in discussions about culture and on the border between a kind man and a beast: the Turbins' householder - Lisovich.
* * *

BACK TO THE TURBIN HOUSE: “For many years ... in the house N_13 on Alekseevsky Spusk ... the clock played gavotte, and always at the end of December it smelled of pine needles ... In response to bronze ... black walls beat in the dining room with tower battle ... Time flashed like a spark ... everyone grew up, and the clock remained the same and beat with a tower battle. Everyone is so accustomed to them that if they disappeared somehow miraculously from the wall, it would be sad, as if dead. native voice… But the clock, fortunately, is completely immortal...

Furniture of old red velvet, and beds with shiny knobs, worn carpets, colorful and crimson, with a falcon on the arm of Alexei Mikhailovich (1629 - 1676), with Louis XIV (1638-1715), basking on the shore of a silk lake in the Garden of Eden, Turkish carpets with wonderful curlicues... a bronze lamp under a shade, the best bookcases in the world with books smelling of mysterious old chocolate, with Natasha Rostova, the Captain's Daughter, gilded cups, silver, portraits, curtains - all seven dusty and full rooms that raised the young Turbins .. .” After all, these are white verses - a real poem about the connection of times!

IN THE "DUSTY AND FULL ROOMS" OF THE YOUNG TURBINES, TIME moves. With Shpolyansky, time seems to have frozen, which, by analogy with the double clocks of the Turbins, is achieved by completely missing any clock from the “frame” of Shpolyansky's lair. In a kind of "temporal corridor" of the novel, Shpolyansky's lair is far from the Turbins. But immediately below them in the "lower apartment" lives a householder engineer Lisovich. In vain! Oh, in vain they pay little attention to him, reducing the whole thing only to the real - prototypical neighborhood of the Bulgakov family in Kyiv.

“DURING THIS NIGHT HOUR… THE ENGINEER WAS awake and was in his crowded, curtained, full of books and, as a result, extremely comfortable office. A standing lamp depicting an Egyptian princess, covered with a green parasol with flowers, painted the whole room gently and mysteriously, and the engineer himself was mysterious in a deep leather armchair. The mystery and duality of the unsteady time was expressed primarily in the fact that the person in the chair was not Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich at all, but Vasilisa ...

That is, he himself called himself - Lisovich, many people ... called him Vasily Ivanovich, but only point-blank. Behind the eyes ... no one called the engineer otherwise than Vasilisa. This happened because since January 1918, when miracles began quite clearly in the City ... instead of a definite “V. Lisovich”, out of fear of some future responsibility, began to write in questionnaires, certificates ... and cards “You. Fox"".

MISHER LISOVICH HAS JUST HID JEWELERY AND MONEY IN A STASH: “Night. Vasilisa in the chair. In the green shade, he is pure Taras Bulba. Mustache down, fluffy - what the hell, Vasilisa! - this is a man ... In front of Vasilisa on a red cloth of a pack of oblong pieces of paper - a green playing mark: “... 50 karbovantsiv” On the mark - a peasant with a drooping mustache ... And ... a warning inscription: “For falsification, punishable by prison” ...

From the wall, an official with Stanislav around his neck, Vasilisa's ancestor, painted in oil, looked in horror at the papers. In the green light, the roots of Goncharov and Dostoyevsky shone softly, and the golden-black horse guard Brockhaus-Efron stood in a powerful formation. Cosiness..."

ALLOW! DID GONCHAROV AND DOSTOYEVSKY WRITE FOR COMFORT?! Before us is a dead culture used as an interior: “Vasilisa looked around, as he always did when he counted money, and began to salivate the speck. His face became divinely inspired (when counting money!). Then he suddenly turned pale. “Fake, fake,” he muttered angrily, shaking his head, “what a shame. A?" Vasilisa's blue eyes were devastatingly sad... There were only one hundred and thirteen pieces of paper, and, if you please, there are clear signs of falsification on eight. “Tomorrow evening the driver will be alone,” Vasilisa was talking to himself, “it’s all the same to go, and, of course, to the market” ... ”- these are the ideals of Dostoevsky? ..

And the Russian classic Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov is also mentioned not just in a line: it was Goncharov who, in the novel “The Precipice”, explored the consequences, as well as the loss of old good traditions, and their excessive pressure. The "CLIP" of life in the City - the personification of Russia happened more abruptly than the very predictions of the novel "Cliff"...

“In ten minutes, complete darkness was in the apartment. Vasilisa slept ... in a damp bedroom. There was a smell of mice, mold, grouchy sleepy boredom. And so, in a dream ... some Tushino Thieves with master keys opened the cache. The Jack of Hearts climbed onto a chair, spat in Vasilisa's moustache, and fired point-blank. In a cold sweat, Vasilisa jumped up with a cry ... ”- the dream turned out to be prophetic! The dead culture avenges itself: the “ragged gray figure of a wolf” who spies Vasilisina’s secret actions through the window robs the householder.
* * *

THEREFORE, THE FRAMEWORK OF ACTION IS THE GRADATION OF SPACE IN THE "WHITE GUARD" IS CLEAR:

– TOP FLOOR – Turbins’ apartment: culture still alive and livable space;

- BASEMENT FLOOR - a dead culture in the person of the shredded Gogol hero Taras Bulba - now Vasilisa, who is also completely Gogol reflected in the image of a "peasant with a drooping mustache" from a money note.

- OUTSIDE THE TURBINSKY HOUSE - related to him, but personifying the more frozen past of the "lair" of Shpolyansky - Onegin on Malo - Provalnaya.

- OUTSIDE THE HOUSE AND THE CITY THE DANGEROUS SPACE OF PUSHKIN'S BLOWING storm is a snowstorm from where everything terrible comes: the mythical bloody Petliura, the robber man - the wolf ...
In this blizzard of war, the understanding of book ideals by the heroes is tested. And in the bloody massacre, the realized mutual hatred of the opposing sides develops into the fulfilled prophecies of the Apocalypse, among which the fall of the German Emperor Wilhelm “to dust” is a trifle. (5)

HERE WE ARE BACK TO FULL IMPLEMENTATION IN THE NOVEL OF ITS TWO EPICGRAPHS: at the level of Pushkin's epigraph from " captain's daughter» The core of the organized space is enclosed in the Apocalyptic space - with the memory of the first fratricide, a symbol of retribution for another fratricidal civil war.

The frame of two epigraphs, realized by a reminiscent roll call with the works of Russian writers that are landmark for our culture, makes it possible to vividly describe difficult situation civil war 1917 - 1922
______________________________________________________

1. One of the historical prototypes of Felix Nai-Turs should be considered Count Fyodor Arturovich Keller (1857 -1918, Kiev) - the Russian Imperial Army, a general from the cavalry, one of the leaders of the white movement in the South of Russia, heroically defended Kiev and was killed by the Petliurists after the capture of the city.

Like Nai-Turs, Count Keller was extremely caring about his subordinates, making sure that people were always well fed and clothed. “It always seemed to me disgusting and deserving of contempt when people are ready to change their beliefs for personal benefit, profit or personal security, and such people are the vast majority,” from F.A. Keller’s dying diary.

In the role of Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian and Northern armies, the count was only a week and was dismissed from his post by Hetman Skoropadsky. After the flight of the hetman, Keller again took over the leadership of the defense in an already hopeless position for the white army. Keller refused to leave Kyiv and after its capture by Petliura, to hide or at least take off his shoulder straps. And was arrested and killed as an officer.

Accordingly, together with Nai, Keller could say: “Nai-Turs spread his arms, shook his fist at the sky, and his eyes filled with light, and shouted: “Guys! Nai-Turs's order to the cadets: "Lyunkegga! Listen to my command: get rid of your shoulder straps, kokagdy, pouches, bgo your horses!

The count also had features that did not suit Bulgakov: in 1905, while temporarily acting as Governor-General of Kalisz, Keller, during the pacification of popular unrest, used the usual repressive measures: dispersal of demonstrations with weapons, rods, etc. The officer devoted to the emperor could not and could not have acted otherwise! For which he was sentenced to death by the militant organization of the Polish Party of Socialists (two attempts on K. in 1906 failed).

In addition to everything, Keller's rank and official role are incomparably higher than Colonel Nye, and the latter is suitable for his father in age: Keller was 61 years old at the time of his death. After the capture of Kiev by Petlyura in full uniform and epaulettes, waiting for his arrest, Keller apparently clearly understood: the white movement was lost, and in exile he had nothing to do with his age and his convictions. Keller loved his Motherland too much and lived for it. And a dignified death has always been part of the unwritten code of honor of a real Russian officer.

All this indicates that Nye's collective "pedigree" outweighs - Andrei Bolkonsky, Captain Tushin and Vaska Denisov and after already with Keller's personality traits. Colonel Nai-Tours is a highly poetic idealized image of the commander of the tsarist army, who in the "White Guard" in his circumstances - was - alas! - two ways: emigration and death. We can assume that the Author of the novel rewarded Nye with a heroic death. But Khludov in "Running" will be terribly tormented by homesickness in exile.

2. Shklovsky Viktor Borisovich (1893 -1984) - Russian writer, literary critic, critic and screenwriter. After 1918, Shklovsky left Petrograd for Kyiv, where, combining his bohemian life with service in the 4th armored division, he participated in failed attempt overthrow of Hetman Skoropadsky. This gave Bulgakov a reason to bring out Shklovsky in the person of the new Eugene Onegin - the trickster lieutenant Shpolyansky, which, having offended Shklovsky, caused on his part printed attacks on Bulgakov's story "Fatal Eggs".

The stormy biography of Shklovsky, in addition to the White Guard, gave rise to the reflection of his features in more than one work: O. D. Forsh "The Crazy Ship" (under the name - Zhukanets); V. A. Kaverina "Brawler, or Evenings on Vasilyevsky Island" ("Nekrylov"); V. N. Ivanov "U" ("Andreyshin") and others.

Now, vague lines flicker in the studies that, having hostility towards Shklovsky on the basis of love rivalry, Bulgakov introduced his rival in the image of Shpolyansky in his novel ... If Bulgakov had used his works for petty settling of scores, they would hardly have been readable so far: private "love scores" and Shklovsky - in some ways the standard of his time - this is a different level of comprehension - agree?.

3. The innovative theater of Meyerhold Bulgakov sarcastically ridiculed in "Fatal Eggs", in a series of feuilletons "The Capital in a Notebook" - VI. "Biomechanical chapter".

4. Opera by composer Giacomo Meyerbeer "Huguenots" (1836) based on a plot from the era of religious wars based on the novel "Chronicles of the times of Charles 9" by Prosper Merimee. Marseille (bass part) - servant of the protagonist of the Huguenot. The first Soviet production of The Huguenots took place in 1922 at the Zimin Free Opera. In 1925 the opera was staged at the Bolshoi Theatre.

5. Kaiser Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Victor Albert of Prussia; 1859 - 1941) the last Emperor Germany and the King of Prussia from June 15, 1988 - November 9, 1918, the emperor, who had lost control over the situation in the country, abdicated under strong pressure from the opposition.