The image of the house in the novel "The White Guard" is central. It unites the heroes of the work, protects them from danger. The turning point events in the country instill anxiety and fear in the souls of people. And only home comfort and warmth can create the illusion of peace and security.
1918
The year nineteen hundred and eighteen is great. But he's also scary. Kyiv, on the one hand, was occupied by German troops, on the other - by the hetman's army. And rumors about the arrival of Petlyura instill more and more anxiety in the townspeople, who are already frightened. Visitors and all sorts of dubious personalities scurry about in the street. Anxiety is even in the air. Such Bulgakov portrayed the situation in Kyiv in the last year of the war. And he used the image of the house in the novel "The White Guard" so that his characters could hide, at least for a while, from the impending danger. The characters of the main characters are revealed precisely within the walls of the Turbins' apartment. Everything outside of it is like another world, scary, wild and incomprehensible.
intimate conversations
The theme of the house in the novel "The White Guard" plays an important role. The Turbins' apartment is cozy and warm. But here, too, the characters of the novel argue, conduct political discussions. Aleksey Turbin, the oldest occupant of this apartment, scolds the Ukrainian hetman, whose most innocuous offense is that he forced the Russian population to speak a "vile language." Then he spews curses at the representatives of the hetman's army. However, the obsceneness of his words does not detract from the truth that lurks in them.
Myshlaevsky, Stepanov and Shervinsky, Nikolka's younger brother, are all excitedly discussing what is happening in the city. And also here is Elena - the sister of Alexei and Nikolka.
But the image of the house in the novel "The White Guard" is not the embodiment of a family hearth and not a refuge for dissident personalities. This is a symbol of what is still bright and real in a dilapidated country. A political turning point always gives rise to unrest and robbery. And people, in peacetime, it would seem, are quite decent and honest, in difficult situations they show their true face. Turbines and their friends are few who have not been made worse by the changes in the country.
Thalberg's betrayal
At the beginning of the novel, Elena's husband leaves the house. He runs away into the unknown with a "rat run". Listening to her husband's assurances of an imminent return with Denikin's army, Elena, "aged and grown ugly", understands that he will not return. And so it happened. Thalberg had connections, he took advantage of them and was able to escape. And already at the end of the work, Elena learns about his upcoming marriage.
The image of the house in the novel "The White Guard" is a kind of fortress. But for cowardly and selfish people, she is like a sinking ship for rats. Thalberg flees, and only those who can trust each other remain. Those who are not capable of betrayal.
Autobiographical work
Based on his own life experience, Bulgakov created this novel. "The White Guard" is a work in which the characters express the thoughts of the author himself. The book is not nationwide, as it is dedicated only to a certain social stratum close to the writer.
Bulgakov's heroes turn to God more than once in the most difficult moments. There is complete harmony and mutual understanding in the family. This is how Bulgakov imagined the ideal house. But, perhaps, the theme of the house in the novel "The White Guard" was inspired by the author's youthful memories.
Universal hatred
In 1918, anger prevailed in the cities. It had an impressive scale, as it was generated by the centuries-old hatred of the peasants towards the nobles and officers. And to this it is also worth adding the anger of the local population towards the invaders and Petliurists, whose appearance is awaited with horror. All this the author depicted on the example of the Kyiv events. And only the parental home in the novel "The White Guard" is a bright, kind image, inspiring hope. And here, not only Aleksey, Elena and Nikolka can hide from external life storms.
The house of the Turbins in the novel "The White Guard" becomes a haven for people who are close in spirit to their inhabitants. Myshlaevsky, Karas and Shervinsky became relatives to Elena and her brothers. They know about everything that happens in this family - about all the sorrows and hopes. And they are always welcome here.
mother's testament
Turbina Sr., who died shortly before the events described in the work, bequeathed to her children to live together. Elena, Alexey and Nikolka keep their promise, and only this saves them. Love, understanding and support do not allow them to perish - the components of the true Home. And even when Alexei is dying, and the doctors call him "hopeless", Elena continues to believe and finds support in prayers. And, to the surprise of the doctors, Alexei is recovering.
The author paid much attention to the interior elements in the Turbins' house. Small details create a striking contrast between this apartment and the one below. The atmosphere in Lisovich's house is cold and uncomfortable. And after the robbery, Vasilisa goes to the Turbins for spiritual support. Even this seemingly unpleasant character feels safe in the house of Elena and Alexei.
The world outside of this house is mired in confusion. But here they still sing songs, sincerely smile at each other and boldly look danger in the eye. This atmosphere also attracts another character - Lariosik. Talberg's relative almost immediately became his own here, which Elena's husband failed to do. The thing is that a guest from Zhitomir has such qualities as kindness, decency and sincerity. And they are obligatory for a long stay in the house, the image of which was depicted so vividly and colorfully by Bulgakov.
The White Guard is a novel that was published over 90 years ago. When a play based on this work was staged in one of the Moscow theaters, the audience, whose fates were so similar to the lives of the heroes, wept and fainted. This work has become extremely close to those who survived the events of 1917-1918. But the novel did not lose its relevance later. And some fragments in it are unusually reminiscent of the present. And this once again confirms that a real literary work is always, at any time, relevant.
Year of writing:
1924
Reading time:
Description of the work:
The novel The White Guard, which was written by Mikhail Bulgakov, is one of the main works of the writer. Bulgakov wrote the novel in 1923-1925, and at that moment he himself believed that the White Guard was the main work in his creative biography. It is known that Mikhail Bulgakov even once said that from this novel "the sky will become hot."
However, as the years passed, Bulgakov took a different look at his work and called the novel "failed". Some believe that most likely Bulgakov's idea was to create an epic in the spirit of Leo Tolstoy, but this did not work out.
Read below a summary of the novel The White Guard.
Winter 1918/19 A certain City, in which Kyiv is clearly guessed. The city is occupied by the German occupation troops, the hetman of "all Ukraine" is in power. However, Petliura's army may enter the City from day to day - fighting is already going on twelve kilometers from the City. The city lives a strange, unnatural life: it is full of visitors from Moscow and St. Petersburg - bankers, businessmen, journalists, lawyers, poets - who rushed there from the moment the hetman was elected, from the spring of 1918.
In the dining room of the Turbins' house at dinner, Alexei Turbin, a doctor, his younger brother Nikolka, a non-commissioned officer, their sister Elena and family friends - lieutenant Myshlaevsky, second lieutenant Stepanov, nicknamed Karas and lieutenant Shervinsky, adjutant in the headquarters of Prince Belorukov, commander of all the military forces of Ukraine - excitedly discussing the fate of their beloved City. Senior Turbin believes that the hetman is to blame for everything with his Ukrainization: until the very last moment he did not allow the formation of the Russian army, and if this happened on time, a select army of junkers, students, high school students and officers, of which there are thousands, would be formed, and not only would they have defended the City, but Petliura would not have had a spirit in Little Russia, moreover, they would have gone to Moscow and saved Russia.
Elena's husband, Captain of the General Staff Sergei Ivanovich Talberg, announces to his wife that the Germans are leaving the City and that he, Talberg, is being taken on the staff train departing tonight. Talberg is sure that even three months will not pass before he returns to the City with Denikin's army, which is now being formed on the Don. Until then, he can't take Elena into the unknown and she'll have to stay in the City.
To protect against the advancing troops of Petlyura, the formation of Russian military formations begins in the City. Karas, Myshlaevsky and Alexei Turbin come to the commander of the emerging mortar division, Colonel Malyshev, and enter the service: Karas and Myshlaevsky - as officers, Turbin - as a divisional doctor. However, the next night - from December 13 to 14 - the hetman and General Belorukov flee from the City in a German train, and Colonel Malyshev disbands the newly formed division: he has no one to defend, there is no legal authority in the City.
Colonel Nai-Tours by December 10 completes the formation of the second department of the first squad. Considering the conduct of the war without winter equipment for soldiers impossible, Colonel Nai-Tours, threatening the head of the supply department with a colt, receives felt boots and hats for his one hundred and fifty junkers. On the morning of December 14, Petliura attacks the City; Nai-Tours receives an order to guard the Polytechnic Highway and, in the event of the appearance of the enemy, to take the fight. Nai-Turs, having entered into battle with the advanced detachments of the enemy, sends three cadets to find out where the hetman's units are. The sent ones return with a message that there are no units anywhere, machine-gun fire is in the rear, and the enemy cavalry enters the City. Nye realizes that they are trapped.
An hour earlier, Nikolai Turbin, corporal of the third division of the first infantry squad, receives an order to lead the team along the route. Arriving at the appointed place, Nikolka sees with horror the running junkers and hears the command of Colonel Nai-Tours, ordering all the junkers - both his own and from Nikolka's team - to tear off shoulder straps, cockades, throw weapons, tear documents, run and hide. The colonel himself covers the withdrawal of the junkers. In front of Nikolka's eyes, the mortally wounded colonel dies. Shocked, Nikolka, leaving Nai-Turs, makes his way to the house through courtyards and lanes.
In the meantime, Alexei, who was not informed about the dissolution of the division, having appeared, as he was ordered, at two o'clock, finds an empty building with abandoned guns. Having found Colonel Malyshev, he gets an explanation of what is happening: the city is taken by Petliura's troops. Aleksey, tearing off his shoulder straps, goes home, but runs into Petliura's soldiers, who, recognizing him as an officer (in his haste he forgot to tear off the cockade from his hat), pursue him. Wounded in the arm, Alexei is sheltered in her house by a woman unknown to him named Yulia Reise. The next day, having changed Alexei into a civilian dress, Yulia takes him home in a cab. Simultaneously with Aleksey, Larion, Talberg's cousin, comes from Zhytomyr to the Turbins, who has experienced a personal drama: his wife left him. Larion really likes being in the Turbins' house, and all the Turbins find him very nice.
Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich, nicknamed Vasilisa, the owner of the house in which the Turbins live, occupies the first floor in the same house, while the Turbins live in the second. On the eve of the day when Petlyura entered the City, Vasilisa builds a hiding place in which she hides money and jewelry. However, through a gap in a loosely curtained window, an unknown person is watching Vasilisa's actions. The next day, three armed men come to Vasilisa with a search warrant. First of all, they open the cache, and then they take Vasilisa's watch, suit and shoes. After the departure of the "guests" Vasilisa and his wife guess that they were bandits. Vasilisa runs to the Turbins, and Karas is sent to protect them from a possible new attack. The usually stingy Vanda Mikhailovna, Vasilisa's wife, does not skimp here: there is cognac, veal, and pickled mushrooms on the table. Happy Karas is dozing, listening to Vasilisa's plaintive speeches.
Three days later, Nikolka, having learned the address of the Nai-Tours family, goes to the colonel's relatives. He tells Nye's mother and sister the details of his death. Together with the colonel's sister, Irina, Nikolka finds the body of Nai-Turs in the morgue, and on the same night, a funeral service is held in the chapel at the anatomical theater of Nai-Turs.
A few days later, Alexei's wound becomes inflamed, and in addition, he has typhus: high fever, delirium. According to the conclusion of the consultation, the patient is hopeless; On December 22, the agony begins. Elena locks herself in the bedroom and passionately prays to the Most Holy Theotokos, begging to save her brother from death. “Let Sergei not return,” she whispers, “but don’t punish this with death.” To the amazement of the doctor on duty with him, Alexei regains consciousness - the crisis has passed.
A month and a half later, the finally recovered Alexei goes to Yulia Reisa, who saved him from death, and gives her the bracelet of his deceased mother. Alexei asks Yulia for permission to visit her. After leaving Yulia, he meets Nikolka, who is returning from Irina Nai-Tours.
Elena receives a letter from a friend from Warsaw, in which she informs her about Thalberg's upcoming marriage to their mutual friend. Elena, sobbing, remembers her prayer.
On the night of February 2-3, Petliura's troops begin to leave the City. The roar of the guns of the Bolsheviks approaching the City is heard.
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The history of the creation of Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard"The novel "White Guard" was first published (not completely) in Russia, in 1924. Completely - in Paris: volume one - 1927, volume two - 1929. The White Guard is largely an autobiographical novel based on the writer's personal impressions of Kyiv in late 1918 and early 1919.
The Turbin family is largely the Bulgakov family. Turbines is the maiden name of Bulgakov's grandmother on her mother's side. The "White Guard" was started in 1922, after the death of the writer's mother. The manuscripts of the novel have not survived. According to the typist Raaben, who retyped the novel, The White Guard was originally conceived as a trilogy. As possible titles of the novels of the proposed trilogy appeared "Midnight Cross" and "White Cross". Kyiv friends and acquaintances of Bulgakov became the prototypes of the heroes of the novel.
So, Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky was written off from a childhood friend of Nikolai Nikolaevich Sigaevsky. Another friend of Bulgakov's youth, Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky, an amateur singer, served as the prototype for Lieutenant Shervinsky. In The White Guard, Bulgakov seeks to show the people and the intelligentsia in the flames of the civil war in Ukraine. The main character, Aleksey Turbin, although clearly autobiographical, but, unlike the writer, is not a zemstvo doctor, who was only formally registered in the military service, but a real military doctor who has seen and experienced a lot during the years of World War II. The novel contrasts two groups of officers - those who “hate the Bolsheviks with a hot and direct hatred, one that can move into a fight” and “who returned from the war to their homes with the thought, like Alexei Turbin, to rest and arrange a new non-military, but ordinary human life.
Bulgakov sociologically accurately shows the mass movements of the era. He demonstrates the centuries-old hatred of the peasants for the landlords and officers, and the newly emerged, but no less deep hatred for the "occupiers. All this fueled the uprising raised against the formation of Hetman Skoropadsky, the leader of the Ukrainian national movement Petliura. Bulgakov called one of the main features of his work in the "White Guard" the stubborn portrayal of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in an impudent country.
In particular, the image of an intelligentsia-noble family, by the will of historical fate thrown into the camp of the White Guard during the Civil War, in the tradition of "War and Peace". “The White Guard” is a Marxist criticism of the 1920s: “Yes, Bulgakov's talent was precisely not as deep as it was brilliant, and the talent was great ... And yet Bulgakov's works are not popular. There is nothing in them that affected the people as a whole. There is a mysterious and cruel crowd.” Bulgakov's talent was not imbued with an interest in the people, in his life, his joys and sorrows cannot be recognized from Bulgakov.
M.A. Bulgakov twice, in two different works, recalls how his work on the novel The White Guard (1925) began. The hero of the “Theatrical novel” Maksudov says: “It was born at night, when I woke up after a sad dream. I dreamed of my hometown, snow, winter, the Civil War ... In a dream, a soundless blizzard passed in front of me, and then an old piano appeared and near it people who were no longer in the world. The story “Secret Friend” contains other details: “I pulled my barracks lamp as far as possible to the table and put on a pink paper cap over its green cap, which made the paper come to life. On it I wrote the words: "And the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, according to their deeds." Then he began to write, not yet knowing well what would come of it. I remember that I really wanted to convey how good it is when it's warm at home, the clock that strikes towers in the dining room, sleepy slumber in bed, books and frost ... ”With such a mood, Bulgakov began to create a new novel.
The novel "The White Guard", the most important book for Russian literature, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov began writing in 1822.
In 1922-1924, Bulgakov wrote articles for the newspaper "Nakanune", was constantly published in the railway newspaper "Gudok", where he met I. Babel, I. Ilf, E. Petrov, V. Kataev, Yu. Olesha. According to Bulgakov himself, the idea of the novel The White Guard finally took shape in 1922. At this time, several important events in his personal life took place: during the first three months of this year, he received news of the fate of his brothers, whom he never saw again, and a telegram about the sudden death of his mother from typhus. During this period, the terrible impressions of the Kyiv years received an additional impetus for embodiment in creativity.
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Bulgakov planned to create a whole trilogy, and spoke about his favorite book like this: “I consider my novel a failure, although I single it out from my other things, because. I took the idea very seriously." And what we now call the "White Guard" was conceived as the first part of the trilogy and originally bore the names "Yellow Ensign", "Midnight Cross" and "White Cross": "The action of the second part should take place on the Don, and in the third part Myshlaevsky will be in the ranks of the Red Army. Signs of this plan can be found in the text of the "White Guard". But Bulgakov did not write the trilogy, leaving it to Count A.N. Tolstoy ("Walking through the torments"). And the theme of "running", emigration, in "The White Guard" is only hinted at in the history of Thalberg's departure and in the episode of reading Bunin's "The Gentleman from San Francisco".
The novel was created in an era of greatest material need. The writer worked at night in an unheated room, worked impulsively and enthusiastically, terribly tired: “Third life. And my third life blossomed at the desk. The pile of sheets was all swollen. I wrote with both pencil and ink. Subsequently, the author returned to his favorite novel more than once, reliving the past anew. In one of the entries relating to 1923, Bulgakov noted: “And I will finish the novel, and I dare to assure you, it will be such a novel, from which the sky will become hot ...” And in 1925 he wrote: “It will be a terrible pity, if I am mistaken and the “White Guard” is not a strong thing.” On August 31, 1923, Bulgakov informed Yu. Slezkin: “I have finished the novel, but it has not yet been rewritten, it lies in a pile, over which I think a lot. I'm fixing something." It was a draft version of the text, which is said in the "Theatrical Novel": "The novel must be corrected for a long time. You need to cross out many places, replace hundreds of words with others. Big but necessary work!” Bulgakov was not satisfied with his work, crossed out dozens of pages, created new editions and versions. But at the beginning of 1924, he was already reading excerpts from The White Guard by the writer S. Zayaitsky and his new friends Lyamins, considering the book finished.
The first known reference to the completion of the novel is in March 1924. The novel was published in the 4th and 5th books of the Rossiya magazine in 1925. And the 6th issue with the final part of the novel was not released. According to researchers, the novel The White Guard was completed after the premiere of Days of the Turbins (1926) and the creation of Run (1928). The text of the last third of the novel, corrected by the author, was published in 1929 by the Parisian publishing house Concorde. The full text of the novel was published in Paris: volume one (1927), volume two (1929).
Due to the fact that the White Guard was not published in the USSR, and foreign editions of the late 1920s were inaccessible in the writer's homeland, Bulgakov's first novel did not receive much press attention. The well-known critic A. Voronsky (1884-1937) at the end of 1925 called The White Guard, together with The Fatal Eggs, works of "outstanding literary quality." The answer to this statement was a sharp attack by the head of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) L. Averbakh (1903-1939) in Rapp's organ - the magazine "At the Literary Post". Later, the production of the play Days of the Turbins based on the novel The White Guard at the Moscow Art Theater in the autumn of 1926 turned the attention of critics to this work, and the novel itself was forgotten.
K. Stanislavsky, worried about the passage of the Days of the Turbins, originally called, like the novel, The White Guard, through censorship, strongly advised Bulgakov to abandon the epithet "white", which seemed to many openly hostile. But the writer valued precisely this word. He agreed to “cross”, and “December”, and “blizzard” instead of “guard”, but he did not want to give up the definition of “white”, seeing in it a sign of the special moral purity of his beloved heroes, their belonging to the Russian intelligentsia as parts of the best layer in the country.
The White Guard is largely an autobiographical novel based on the writer's personal impressions of Kyiv in late 1918 - early 1919. The members of the Turbin family reflected the characteristic features of Bulgakov's relatives. Turbines is the maiden name of Bulgakov's grandmother on her mother's side. The manuscripts of the novel have not survived. Kyiv friends and acquaintances of Bulgakov became the prototypes of the heroes of the novel. Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky was written off from a childhood friend of Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky.
The prototype of Lieutenant Shervinsky was another friend of Bulgakov's youth - Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky, an amateur singer (this quality also passed to the character), who served in the troops of Hetman Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky (1873-1945), but not as an adjutant. Then he emigrated. The prototype of Elena Talberg (Turbina) was Bulgakov's sister, Varvara Afanasievna. Captain Talberg, her husband, has many features in common with the husband of Varvara Afanasievna Bulgakova, Leonid Sergeevich Karuma (1888-1968), a German by birth, a career officer who served at first Skoropadsky, and then the Bolsheviks.
The prototype of Nikolka Turbin was one of the brothers M.A. Bulgakov. The second wife of the writer, Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya-Bulgakova, wrote in her book “Memoirs”: “One of the brothers of Mikhail Afanasyevich (Nikolai) was also a doctor. It is on the personality of my younger brother, Nikolai, that I would like to dwell. The noble and cozy little man Nikolka Turbin has always been dear to my heart (especially based on the novel The White Guard. In the play Days of the Turbins, he is much more schematic.). In my life, I never managed to see Nikolai Afanasyevich Bulgakov. This is the youngest representative of the profession chosen in the Bulgakov family - a doctor of medicine, bacteriologist, scientist and researcher, who died in Paris in 1966. He studied at the University of Zagreb and was left there at the department of bacteriology.
The novel was created in a difficult time for the country. Young Soviet Russia, which did not have a regular army, was drawn into the Civil War. The dreams of the hetman-traitor Mazepa, whose name is not accidentally mentioned in Bulgakov's novel, came true. The "White Guard" is based on the events related to the consequences of the Brest Treaty, according to which Ukraine was recognized as an independent state, the "Ukrainian State" was created, headed by Hetman Skoropadsky, and refugees from all over Russia rushed "abroad". Bulgakov in the novel clearly described their social status.
The philosopher Sergei Bulgakov, the writer's cousin, in his book "At the Feast of the Gods" described the death of the motherland as follows: "There was a mighty state, needed by friends, terrible by enemies, and now it is a rotting carrion, from which piece after piece falls off to the delight of a flying crow. In place of the sixth part of the world, there was a fetid, gaping hole ... ”Mikhail Afanasyevich agreed with his uncle in many respects. And it is no coincidence that this terrible picture is reflected in the article by M.A. Bulgakov "Hot prospects" (1919). Studzinsky speaks about the same in the play "Days of the Turbins": "We had Russia - a great power ..." So for Bulgakov, an optimist and talented satirist, despair and sorrow became the starting points in creating a book of hope. It is this definition that most accurately reflects the content of the novel "The White Guard". In the book “At the Feast of the Gods,” another thought seemed closer and more interesting to the writer: “How Russia will become self-determined largely depends on what Russia will become.” The heroes of Bulgakov are painfully looking for the answer to this question.
In The White Guard, Bulgakov sought to show the people and the intelligentsia in the flames of the Civil War in Ukraine. The main character, Aleksey Turbin, although clearly autobiographical, is, unlike the writer, not a zemstvo doctor, who was only formally registered in the military service, but a real military doctor who has seen and experienced a lot during the years of the World War. Much brings the author closer to his hero, and calm courage, and faith in old Russia, and most importantly - the dream of a peaceful life.
“Heroes must be loved; if this does not happen, I do not advise anyone to take up the pen - you will get the biggest trouble, just know it, ”the Theater Novel says, and this is the main law of Bulgakov’s creativity. In the novel "The White Guard" he speaks of white officers and intellectuals as ordinary people, reveals their young world of soul, charm, intelligence and strength, shows the enemies as living people.
The literary community refused to recognize the dignity of the novel. Out of almost three hundred reviews, Bulgakov counted only three positive ones, and classified the rest as "hostile and abusive." The writer received rude comments. In one of the articles, Bulgakov was called "a new-bourgeois offspring, splashing poisoned, but impotent saliva on the working class, on its communist ideals."
“Class untruth”, “a cynical attempt to idealize the White Guard”, “an attempt to reconcile the reader with the monarchist, Black Hundred officers”, “hidden counter-revolutionary” - this is not a complete list of characteristics that were given to the White Guard by those who believed that the main thing in literature is the political position of the writer, his attitude towards the "whites" and "reds".
One of the main motives of the "White Guard" is faith in life, its victorious power. That is why this book, considered forbidden for several decades, found its reader, found a second life in all the richness and brilliance of Bulgakov's living word. Viktor Nekrasov, a writer from Kiev who read The White Guard in the 1960s, quite rightly remarked: “Nothing, it turns out, has faded, nothing has become outdated. It was as if those forty years had never happened... an obvious miracle happened before our eyes, which happens very rarely in literature and far from everyone - a second birth took place. The life of the heroes of the novel continues today, but in a different direction.
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Illustrations:
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 titles - for example, Bulgakov chose between "Midnight Cross" and "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.
In 1923, Bulgakov wrote about his work: “And I will finish the novel, and, I can assure you, it will be such a novel, from which the sky will become hot ...” In his autobiography of 1924, Bulgakov wrote: “I wrote the novel The White Guard for a year. I love this novel more than all my other works.
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. That was the original intention of the 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.
Essay text:
The novel The White Guard was completed by Mikhail Bulgakov in 1925 and tells about revolutionary events in Kyiv in the winter of 1918-1919. It was a difficult, disturbing time, when the Soviet government was hard to win its right to exist.
Bulgakov in his novel The White Guard truthfully showed the confusion, turmoil, and then the bloody orgy that reigned in Kyiv at that time.
The heroes of the novel are the Turbin family, their friends and acquaintances, the circle of people who preserve the original traditions of the Russian intelligentsia. Officers: Alexei Turbin and his brother Junker Nikolka, Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Colonel Malyshev and Nai-Tours were thrown out of history as unnecessary. They are still trying to resist Petlyura, fulfilling their duty, but the General Staff betrayed them, leaving Ukraine, leaving its inhabitants at the mercy of Petlyura, and then to the Germans.
Fulfilling their duty, the officers are trying to save the junkers from senseless death. Malyshev was the first to learn about the betrayal of the headquarters, he disbands the regiments created from the junkers so as not to shed senseless blood. The writer very dramatically showed the situation of people who were called to defend ideals, the city, the Fatherland, but who were betrayed and left to the mercy of fate. Each of them experiences this tragedy in their own way. Aleksey Turbin almost dies from the bullet of a Petliurist, and only an accident in the person of Reiss, a resident of the suburbs, who helped him hide, protect himself from the massacre of bandits, saves him.
Nikolka is saved by Nai-Turs, ordering the junker to stop firing and hide, save his life. Nikolka will never forget this man, a true hero, not broken by the betrayal of the headquarters. Nye fights his own battle, in which he dies, but does not give up. Nikolka fulfills her duty to this man by telling his family about the last moments of Turs's life and burying him with dignity.
It seems that the Turbins and their circle will die in this whirlwind of revolution, civil war, bandit pogroms, but no, they will survive, because there is something in these people that can protect them from senseless death.
They think, dream about the future, try to find their place in this new world that has so cruelly rejected them. They understand that Motherland, family, love, friendship are enduring values that a person cannot part with so easily.
They hold on to each other, to their cozy home behind cream curtains and a lamp with a green shade. But the Turbins understand perfectly well that they cannot sit in the walls of their apartment. The described time is very difficult for the characters, they perceive their forced inactivity as a respite, a desire to comprehend and understand their place in life.
Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Lariosik not by chance go to the Turbins. There is charm, cordiality, warmth in these people, which they give to loved ones, receiving sincere love and devotion in return.
There are eternal values that exist outside of time, and Bulgakov was able to talentedly and sincerely tell about them in his novel The White Guard. The author ends his story with prophetic words. His heroes are on the eve of a new life, they believe that all the worst is in the past. And together with the author, the characters, we believe in the good.
All will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain when even the shadow of our bodies does not remain on the earth. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to turn our eyes to them? Why?
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