Composition “The Flight of Thalberg. (Analysis of an episode of Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard")

IN complex events turning point in tragic days war is the most common problem facing man moral choice, and then the character of the hero is revealed especially fully and deeply. Such is the situation in M.A. Bulgakov " white guard”, which describes the events of a terrible fratricidal civil war. Without condemning either the “whites” or the “reds”, the author shows how people managed to remain faithful even in such a tragic time. moral criteria honor, kindness and justice. Such people in the novel are Turbins, Colonel Malyshev, Colonel Nai-Tours. But always, at all times there were people who cared not about the spiritual and not about keeping their military honor spotless, but about their personal well-being. Such is Captain Sergei Ivanovich Talberg, husband of Elena Turbina. This man entered the Turbin family, but he is alien to her in spirit, and the brothers tolerate him only for the sake of Elena. Just for the sake of not worrying her, the brothers are worried that he was delayed and justify his delay with a "revolutionary ride". And the joy that he returned, they feel only for Elena. Since her marriage, “a kind of crack has formed in the vase of turbine life,” says the author, explaining the reason with the “two-layered eyes” of Captain Thalberg. Already in the portrait of the hero one can feel the insincerity of this person: “two-story eyes” do not express sincere feeling, as well as the "eternal patented smile". He is held straight and firm, turning like an automaton. “Slowly and cheerfully,” he tells the Turbins about the attack on the train that he was escorting, but his self-confidence is false - he skillfully disguises his anxiety and only, having called Elena into the bedroom, confesses to her real position case: he needs to run.

The essence of the character of Sergei Ivanovich Talberg is the ability to adapt. He changes his beliefs depending on the changing political situation. In March 1917, Thalberg was the first "who came to military school with a wide red bandage on his sleeve ", immediately becoming a member of the military revolutionary committee. When they came Ukrainian nationalists, “Talberg became irritable and dryly declared that this was not what was needed, this was a vulgar operetta,” and the roots of these people in Moscow, “even though these roots are Bolshevik.” He repeats the same words about "operetta" when the hetman arrives, but referring them to Moscow, and when the German occupation leaves, referring them already to the hetman's ministry. Thalberg does not seem to want to notice that this is not just an “operetta”, “but with great bloodshed”, - for him the main thing is to join the winners in time. He does not serve for two months, saying that the nationalists who came after the Germans "have no roots" - he sees "roots" in the regular German army, well-armed and strong. At the same time, he slowly learns Ukrainian grammar and then takes part in the election of the "hetman of all Ukraine." After that, “water poured out of the vessel”: the Turbin brothers lost mutual language with Sergei Ivanovich, and Talberg became irritated and "very angry" when Nikolka "tactlessly" reminded him of his former convictions. People of honor, Turbins do not change their views under this or that power, but Captain Thalberg is not like that, for whom it is important to successfully adapt in this life. Now he must flee: after his articles in the Vesti newspaper, he cannot stay in the City, where the Petliura troops will come. He is taken on a train to Germany - "Thalberg found connections ...". But when he leaves, he does not take Elena with him, and this is not a departure, but a hasty flight. The author draws the chaos of a devastated room, scattered things and considers it unworthy: "never run away with a rat's run into the unknown from dangers." It is more worthy to wait "until they come to you," even if "a blizzard howls." But Thalberg runs like a rat from a sinking ship, and actually betrays Elena. He explains this by the fact that he cannot take her “on wanderings and the unknown”, and Elena is silent out of pride. But even so, it is clear that it is more dangerous not to leave in a German staff car for Germany, but to stay in the City, where Petliur’s troops come, and then the power will change again, and no one is protected from the violence and bloody arbitrariness of this element. Talberg does not even want to tell his brothers that the Germans are leaving the City, leaving it to Elena. Only for a moment, Sergei Ivanovich's eyes were filled with one feeling - tenderness for Elena at parting. Parting with the house of the Turbins, with the immortal "Faust", which Talberg will no longer have to hear performed by Elena, Talberg loses his last connection with people of a different spiritual culture, other life principles than himself. Now he has to “politely and ingratiatingly” smile at German officers, look for a new place in life, having won it at the cost of betrayal.

The development of actions in the novel is conveyed through the perception of a real eyewitness of the events of 1918, since the prototype of Alexei Turbin was the author himself, M.A. Bulgakov, who "during the war and the constant change of authorities was called to serve as a doctor." He writes that hatred and malice ruled people who could not figure out the rightness or injustice of the demands of numerous parties, social or class groups, or even just gangs hiding behind revolutionary slogans. There were hungry landless peasants, and there were landlords who took most harvest. By that time, people had accumulated a lot of ammunition, weapons, with which they wanted to win back their right to bread and life.

The situation in the City (meaning Kyiv) had been tense for a long time, and there was not much time left before the explosion. At the very center of this explosion were the inhabitants of the City and the officers of the White Guard, who happened to see a senseless and endless change of power, but in this situation people behaved differently. So, for example, Alexei Turbin, the eldest of the brothers, was opposed to revolutions, bloodshed, but he understood the peasants with their "hearts burning with unquenched malice." The peasants also hated the German officers, who left their notes on scraps of paper: “To give a Russian pig for a pig bought from her 25 marks.” The peasants were outraged by the mockery of the Germans over the Ukrainians, but they also saw the enemy in the Ukrainian hetman, under whom “landlords with fat faces” again sat on their necks. Senior Turbin did not condemn the common people for their hatred of Russian officers, the “Muscovites”, since hostile relations arose between people because they were “knocked off the screws of life by war and revolution.”

"In the fire of revolutions" each person made his own moral choice. When the Turbin brothers and their comrades were striving to fulfill their duty by defending the City, the engineer Lisovich, the Turbins' neighbor, and those like him arranged their own, personal affairs. The staff officer Shchetkin, who turned himself into a civilian, left for his cozy apartment and, having drunk coffee, fell asleep sweetly: he was not going to save anyone. Meanwhile, the junkers, led by Nai-Tours, were supposed to “spin under a shrapnel sky”, protecting the townspeople, among whom were both the staff officer Shchetkin and the layman Lisovich, who diligently and ingeniously arranged more and more new hiding places for money stolen and accumulated under all authorities. Lisovich was never bothered by thoughts about decency, honor, or civic consciousness: "He carefully put aside counterfeit (money) intended for the cab driver and for the market." To cheat, to deceive people is the old talent of this opportunist, who lives quietly without conviction, without a sense of duty to people and the Fatherland. For him in Time of Troubles one thing is important: to learn how to reliably hide “katerinka” and “petrovka”, gold and silver.

Both officers of the "White Guard" and insufficiently trained junkers participated in the defense of the City. The younger Turbin, Nikolai, was about to die at a time when Lisovich was counting and hiding money. Each in his own way saw his place in this "fire". “Folk teachers, paramedics, Ukrainian seminarians, who by the will of fate became ensigns, hefty sons of beekeepers, staff captains with Ukrainian surnames... everyone speaks Ukrainian, everyone loves Ukraine”, ... and everyone is armed. When those same Muscovite officers (White Guard) died for Ukraine, they were considered enemies by some representatives Ukrainian nation and sometimes former co-workers. For example, after participating in the First World War, the village teacher Kozyr turned into a colonel in the Petliura army, he now fought against tsarist army. An explanation for this can be found: "... the war for Kozyr was a vocation, and teaching was only a long and major mistake." Who to serve and whom to kill was not a matter of principle for him, as long as his military career developed well. People like Kozyr cannot understand why one of the commanders, seeing how his four officers and two cadets died under the blows of a hundred cavalry, shot himself in the mouth, saying before that: “Staff bastard. I understand the Bolsheviks very well.” He was a man with the highest sense of responsibility for the lives of his subordinates, faithful to the oath and duty of the defender of the Fatherland.

profoundly honest and honest man, with a high sense of duty, loyalty to the oath, with a sense of dignity there was such a representative of the White Guard as Colonel Malyshev. He turned out to be a far-sighted military commander who managed to find out that the hetman and his entourage shamefully fled abroad, just like the commander of the army. Therefore, Malyshev saves his “foolish children” from death, who wanted to lay down their lives in the defense of the City and its inhabitants from the Petliurists. Deceived, drawn into an adventure, people could be killed in a slaughter with well-armed, twenty times their number of Petlyura's troops. Colonel Malyshev took responsibility for deciding the fate of the soldiers and officers of the division entrusted to him. He ordered to tear off shoulder straps, go home and not take unnecessary risks.

M.A. Bulgakov displayed in the novel a harsh, cruel truth Stories, showed different tempers, fate, moral choice of people in the most difficult circumstances of the era of wars and destruction. Some heroes (for example, Turbines, Nai-Tours, Malyshev) remained true to such moral values as honest service to society and the country, selflessness, decency, patriotism and courage, and were ready to die without changing their principles. Other characters, like Lisovich, accumulated wealth, others, like Kozyr, did military career used the war to improve their own well-being. Or, for example, staff officer Sergei Talberg, who neglected even such a feeling as love for close person. He betrays his friends, his wife and, acting in his own interests, secretly prepares to flee abroad, making his choice in accordance with his own convictions. Thalberg does not suffer from remorse about duty or responsibility to people and country.

Probably, a person has the right to choose: to stay alive or "burn out in the fire of revolutions." But it is difficult to agree that all means are good, and therefore it is impossible to forgive meanness, dishonesty, greed for blood, betrayal. One cannot but agree with the point of view of M. Bulgakov, who recalled the well-known truths: there is nothing higher eternal values, that is, life itself, love for each other, fidelity and decency.

Reviews

You are smart as always. Try to compare and isolate the purely in a fierce struggle, while remaining outside the bounds of predilections. It seems to me that you succeed for one simple reason: you are smart.

And I have one serious complaint for you. Namely. Reading your talented critical articles, I do not dare to fish out of the table - my own. I'm afraid to goof off: the bar you set is high.
As for the ill-wishers, so become a camel. Let them bark. And you spit. And publish again. If you really get it, then share it. From childhood to this day, I have been fighting not jokingly, both virtual and real.
Low bow.

Problems of M. Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard" PROBLEMS OF M. BULGAKOV'S NOVEL
"WHITE GUARD"
All will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger and pestilence.
The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain when the shadows
our bodies and deeds will not remain on earth. None
one person who doesn't know. So
why don't we want to look at them?
Why?
M. Bulgakov "White Guard"

According to the writer himself, “The White Guard” is “a
stubborn portrayal of the Russian intelligentsia as
the best layer in our country...”, “image
noble family abandoned during the Civil
war in the camp of the White Guard. Here it is told about
very difficult time, when it was impossible
understand everything at once, understand everything, reconcile in
self-contradictory feelings and thoughts.

THE PROBLEM OF MORAL CHOICE
In Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard" is very sharp and
the problem of moral choice is painful.
Each of the heroes of the work takes inside
himself a decision, according to which he will
live and act in the future. Somebody
sacrifices his conscience for the sake of life, and someone -
his life for the sake of conscience. I think Bulgakov is worth
on the side the best representatives white guard

The problem of moral choice

THE PROBLEM OF MORAL CHOICE
Alexei Turbin - one of the officers of the old Russian army,
who, after the revolution, have to make a choice between
opposing sides, voluntarily or involuntarily
serve in one of the warring armies. Turbine does not burn
desire to fight. However, he and his younger brother Nikolka
war cannot be avoided. They are part of disparate
officer squads participate in the hopeless defense of the city from
Petliura. None of them would have dared to evade their duty.
This is not in the rules of Russian officers. Honor and dignity
controls the behavior of the characters.

The problem of duty, honor

PROBLEM OF DUTY, HONOR
Turbines have a special decency, a sense of
debt, responsibility. These people are representatives
intelligentsia, they do not accept betrayal and
meanness, for them above all such concepts,
as honor and dignity. That is why Turbin
and their friends wildly and incomprehensibly everything that happens in
Russia.

The problem of courage and courage

THE PROBLEM OF COURAGE AND COURAGE
The younger Turbin showed, perhaps, special courage and
courage. He remained with his commander NightTours to the last, was not afraid for his life, and fulfilled the duty of an officer.

The problem of betrayal, selfishness, dishonor

THE PROBLEM OF BETRAYAL, EGOISM,
DISHONOR
Elena's husband Sergei Talberg at the first
opportunities fled with the Germans from Russia,
leaving his wife to her fate. No wonder himself
Bulgakov says the following about this hero: “Oh, damn
a doll devoid of the slightest notion of honor!”

The problem of lack of morality

THE PROBLEM OF THE ABSENCE
MORALS
Also, the Turbin family is opposed by their neighbors.
Lisovichi. These are opportunists who are alien
concepts of honor and dignity. The only thing
they care about their own peace and prosperity.
Lisovichi without a twinge of conscience will betray anyone, only
to protect themselves. Before Vasily Lisovich
and his wife Wanda never had a problem
moral choice, they can adapt to
any conditions.

The problem of the return of the departed

THE PROBLEM OF THE RETURN OF THE GONE
But the tragedy of the Russian intelligentsia and their moral
choice is that these people could not
to see the doom of the monarchical system in Russia.
They fought, worried, suffered for the old,
old Rus', which can no longer be returned. And it is not necessary
return the obsolete, life must move
forward.

10. The problem of the value of the hearth

THE PROBLEM OF THE VALUE OF THE HOME
One of the most important motives of M. Bulgakov's creativity
- the value of home, family, ordinary human
attachments. The heroes of the "White Guard" are losing
warm hearth though desperately trying
save it. Despite hard times war,
they all stay together.

11. The problem of equality of all people before God

THE PROBLEM OF EQUALITY FOR ALL PEOPLE
BEFORE GOD
In a dream of Alexei Turbin, the Lord says to Zhilin: “One
believes, the other does not believe, but you all have actions
the same: now each other by the throat, and as for
barracks, Zhilin, then it must be understood this way, all of you
me, Zhilin, are the same - killed in the battlefield.
This, Zhilin, must be understood, and not everyone will understand this.

Talberg Sergei Ivanovich is the husband of Elena Turbina, a traitor and opportunist. Seeing the coming changes, T. decides to flee abroad, leaving his wife and relatives behind. Elena knew that he would not return, that he would be the first to surrender, get scared and run away, leaving her, the woman she loved, her friends, relatives, and the hetman to the mercy of fate. T. cannot but leave, he is afraid of ruining his career. This is a person who changes his mind very quickly. He was the first to put on a red armband at the military school in March 1917. T., as a member of the military committee, arrested the famous General Petrov.
T. easily says to his wife: "I'm sure that in less than three months, well, at the latest in May, we will come to the city. Don't be afraid of anything." When she asks him to inform the brothers about the betrayal of the Germans, he hesitates, blushes deeply and shifts this mission to her. T. is cowardly, but meanwhile proud and arrogant. For the sake of a possible career, he abandons his happy family life. He runs out of fear. Only twice do we see the manifestation of at least some emotions in T.: at parting with his wife, “there was a moment when only one thing pierced his two-story eyes - tenderness,” and when he, already on the train, realizes that he is leaving, from what leaves, runs. T. is the exact opposite of the Turbins. He easily changes his principles, beliefs, without special efforts and remorse. He is always where it is easier to live.

M.A. Bulgakov was born and raised in Kyiv. All his life he was devoted to this city. It is symbolic that the name of the future writer was given in honor of Archangel Michael, the guardian of the city of Kyiv. The action of the novel by M.A. Bulgakov's "White Guard" takes place in the very famous ...

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...

The novel "White Guard" was first published (not completely) in Russia, in 1924. Completely - in Paris: volume one - 1927, volume two - 1929. "White Guard" - in many ways autobiographical novel, based on the writer's personal impressions of Kyiv ...

"The White Guard" is a work that continues the traditions of Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in the depiction of history and man against the backdrop of the great historical events. Bulgakov is interested inner world a person caught in such a cycle of events when it is difficult to save ...

Alexei Turbin is the oldest in the family, a military doctor, he is 28 years old. The concept of honor for A., ​​as for all the Turbins, is above all. This is one of the best representatives white movement. He fights with the new orders to the end, although he understands that he has nothing ...

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

From the winter of 1923, Bulgakov began work on the novel The White Guard, which describes the events of the Ukrainian Civil War at the end of 1918, when Kiev was occupied by the troops of the Directory, who overthrew the power of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky. In December 1918, the power of the hetman was tried to be defended by officer squads, where he was either signed up as a volunteer, or, according to other sources, Bulgakov was mobilized. Thus, the novel contains autobiographical features - even the number of the house in which the Bulgakov family lived during the years of the capture of Kyiv by Petliura is preserved - 13. In the novel, this figure becomes symbolic meaning. Andreevsky Spusk, where the house is located, is called Alekseevsky in the novel, and Kyiv is simply the City. The prototypes of the characters are the relatives, friends and acquaintances of the writer:

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

However, it should be noted that The White Guard is not a completely autobiographical novel. Something fictional - for example, the fact that the mother of the Turbins died. In fact, at that time, Bulgakov's mother, who is the prototype of the heroine, lived in another house with her second husband. And there are fewer family members in the novel than Bulgakov actually had. The novel was first published in its entirety in 1927-1929. in France.

About what?

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

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

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

In the finale, the city, captured by the Petliurists, is recaptured by the Bolsheviks. The "White Guard" clearly expressed a negative, negative attitude towards Bolshevism - as destructive force, which will eventually wipe out everything holy and human from the face of the earth, and a terrible time will come. With this thought, the novel ends.

Main characters and their characteristics

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

Subject

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

Christian symbols

• The mad patient, who came to Turbin for an appointment, calls the Bolsheviks "aggels", and Petliura was released from cell No. 666 (in the Revelation of John the Theologian - the number of the Beast, the Antichrist).
• The house on Alekseevsky Spusk is No. 13, and this number, as you know, is popular superstitions - « Baker's dozen”, The number is unlucky, and various misfortunes befall the Turbins’ house - parents die, the elder brother receives a mortal wound and barely survives, and Elena is abandoned and betrayed by her husband (and betrayal is a trait of Judas Iscariot).
• In the novel, there is an image of the Virgin, to whom Elena prays and asks to save Alexei from death. In the terrible time described in the novel, Elena experiences similar experiences as the Virgin Mary, but not for her son, but for her brother, who, in the end, overcomes death like Christ.
• Also in the novel there is a theme of equality before God's court. Before him, everyone is equal - both the White Guards and the soldiers of the Red Army. Aleksey Turbin sees a dream about paradise - how Colonel Nai-Tours, white officers and Red Army soldiers get there: they are all destined to go to paradise as those who fell on the battlefield, but God does not care if they believe in him or not. Justice, according to the novel, exists only in heaven, and godlessness, blood, and violence reign under the red five-pointed stars on the sinful earth.

Issues

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

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

Meaning

In general, the meaning of the novel "The White Guard" is a struggle. The struggle between courage and cowardice, honor and dishonor, good and evil, god and devil. Courage and honor are the Turbins and their friends, Nai-Tours, Colonel Malyshev, who dismissed the junkers and did not allow them to die. Cowardice and dishonor, opposed to them, is the hetman, Talberg, staff captain Studzinsky, who, fearing to violate the order, was about to arrest Colonel Malyshev because he wants to dissolve the junkers.

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

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

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