Problems of man and revolution in the work of M. A. Bulgakov "White Guard", "Running"

1. Fight or surrender: The theme of the intelligentsia and revolution in the works of M.A. Bulgakov (novel "The White Guard" and the plays "Days of the Turbins" and "Running")

2. Problems of the novel "White Guard"

1. Fight or capitulation: The theme of the intelligentsia and revolution in the work of M.A. Bulgakov (novel "The White Guard" and the plays "Days of the Turbins" and "Running")

The son of a professor at the Kiev Academy, who absorbed best traditions Russian culture and spirituality, M.A.Bulgakov graduated from the medical faculty in Kiev, from 1916 he worked as a zemstvo doctor in the village of Nikolskoye, Smolensk province, and then in Vyazma, where the revolution found him. From here, in 1918, Bulgakov finally moved through Moscow to his native Kiev, and there he and his family had a chance to endure a difficult period of the civil war, which was then described in the novel "The White Guard", the plays "Days of the Turbins", "Run" and numerous stories.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov revolution of October 1917. perceived it as a turning point not only in the history of Russia, but also in the fate of the Russian intelligentsia, with which he rightly considered himself vitally connected. The post-revolutionary tragedy of the intelligentsia, who found itself in the whirlpool of the civil war, and after its end, in large part - in emigration, the writer captured in his first novel "The White Guard" and the play - "Run".

In the novel "The White Guard" there is a lot of autobiographical information, but this is not only a description of one's life experience during the years of the revolution and civil war, but also a penetration into the problem of "Man and the Epoch"; it is also the study of an artist who sees the inextricable link between Russian history and philosophy. This is a book about the fate of classical culture in the formidable era of the breaking of age-old traditions. The problematic of the novel is extremely close to Bulgakov, he loved "The White Guard" more than his other works. With an epigraph from Pushkin's "The Captain's Daughter" Bulgakov emphasized that we are talking about people who were overtaken by the storm of the revolution, but who were able to find the right path, retain courage and a sober view of the world and their place in it. The second epigraph is biblical. And with this Bulgakov introduces us into the zone of eternal time, without introducing any historical comparisons into the novel. The epic inception of the novel develops the motif of the epigraphs: “The year was great and terrible after the birth of Christ in 1918, the second from the beginning of the revolution. It was abundant in the summer with the sun, and in the winter with snow, and especially high in the sky were two stars: the shepherd's star Venus and the red trembling Mars. The inception style is almost biblical. Associations make you remember the eternal Book of Being, which in itself peculiarly materializes the eternal, like the image of the stars in heaven. The concrete time of history is, as it were, soldered into the eternal time of being, framed by it. The opposition of the stars, the natural series of images related to the eternal, at the same time symbolizes the collision of historical time. The grand, tragic and poetic opening of the work contains the grain of social and philosophical problems associated with the confrontation between peace and war, life and death, death and immortality. The very choice of stars makes it possible to descend from the cosmic distance to the world of the Turbins, since it is this world that will resist enmity and madness. In the White Guard, the sweet, quiet, intelligent family of the Turbins suddenly becomes involved in great events, becomes a witness and participant in terrible and amazing affairs. The days of the Turbins absorb the eternal charm of calendar time: “But the days both in peaceful and bloody years fly like an arrow, and the young Turbins did not notice how white, shaggy December had come in the hard frost. Oh, Christmas tree grandfather, sparkling with snow and happiness! Mom, bright queen, where are you? " Memories of mother and former life contrast with the real situation of the bloody eighteenth year. The great misfortune - the loss of a mother - merges into another terrible catastrophe - the collapse of the old, seemingly durable and beautiful world. Both catastrophes give rise to internal distraction, mental pain of the Turbins. In Bulgakov's novel, there are two spatial scales - small and large space, House and World. These spaces are in opposition, like the stars in the sky, each of them has its own correlation with time, contains a certain time. The small space of the Turbins' house preserves the strength of everyday life: “The tablecloth, despite the cannons and all this languor, anxiety and nonsense, is white and starchy ... The floors are shiny, and in December, now, on the table, in a matte, columnar vase, are blue hydrangeas and two gloomy and sultry roses ”. Flowers in the Turbins 'house - the beauty and strength of life- Already in this detail, the small space "of the house begins to absorb eternal time, the very interior of the Turbins' house is" a bronze lamp under a lampshade, the best cabinets in the world with books smelling of mysterious old chocolate, with Natasha Rostov, the Captain's daughter, gilded cups, silver, portraits, curtains "- all this small space fenced off by walls contains the eternal immortality of art, landmarks of culture. The Turbins' house opposes the external world in which destruction, horror, inhumanity, death reign. The house cannot separate, leave the city, it is a part of it, like a city - a part of the earthly space. And at the same time this earthly space of social passions and battles is included in the vastness of the World. The city, according to Bulgakov's description, was “beautiful in frost and fog on the mountains, over the Dnieper. "But its appearance has changed dramatically, here fled" ... industrialists, merchants, lawyers, public figures. Journalists fled, Moscow and St. Petersburg, greedy and greedy, cowardly. Cocottes, honest ladies from aristocratic families ... ”and many others. And the city healed with “a strange, unnatural life ...” Suddenly and threateningly, the evolutionary course of history is disrupted, and man finds himself at its turning point. Bulgakov's image of the large and small space of life grows up in opposition to the destructive time of war and the eternal time of Peace. You cannot sit out a difficult time, shutting yourself off from it on the heck, like the landlord Vasilisa - “an engineer and a coward, a bourgeois and unsympathetic”. This is how the Turbins perceive Lisovich, who do not like philistine isolation, narrow-mindedness, hoarding, and isolation from life. No matter what happens, they will not start counting coupons, hiding in the dark, like Vasily Lisovich, who only dreams of surviving the storm and not losing the accumulated capital. Turbines meet a formidable time differently. They do not betray themselves in anything, do not change their way of life. Friends gather in their house every day and are greeted by light, warmth, and a laid table. Nikolkin's guitar is ringing with brute force - despair and challenge even before the impending catastrophe. Everything honest and pure, like a magnet, is attracted by the House. Here, in this comfort of the House, comes the mortally frozen Myshlaevsky from the terrible World. A man of honor, like Turbiny, he did not leave his post near the city, where in a terrible frost forty people waited a day in the snow, without fires, a shift that would never have come if Colonel Nai-Tours, too, was a man of honor and duty, could not, in spite of the disgrace that is happening in the headquarters, have brought two hundred cadets, through the efforts of Nai-Turs, beautifully dressed and armed. Some time will pass, and Nye Tours, realizing that he and his cadets have been treacherously abandoned by the command, that the fate of cannon fodder is prepared for his children, will save their boys at the cost of their own lives. The lines of the Turbins and Nai-Tours will intertwine in the fate of Nikolka, who witnessed the last heroic minutes of the colonel's life. Delighted by the colonel's feat and humanism, Nikolka will accomplish the impossible - he will be able to overcome the seemingly insurmountable in order to pay Nai-Turs his last duty - to bury him with dignity and become a loved one for the mother and sister of the deceased hero. The Turbins' world contains the fate of all truly decent people, be it the courageous officers Myshlaevsky and Stepanov, or deeply civilian by nature, but not shying away from what fell to his lot during the hard times, Alexei Turbin, or even the seemingly absurd Lariosik. But it was Lariosik who was able to quite accurately express the very essence of the House, opposing the era of cruelty and violence. Lariosik talked about himself, but under these words many could have signed, “that he suffered a drama, but here, with Elena Vasilievna, he comes alive with his soul, because this is a completely exceptional person Elena Vasilievna and their apartment is warm and comfortable, and in particular wonderful cream curtains on all windows, thanks to which you feel cut off from the outside world ... And he, this outside world ... you must agree yourself, is formidable, bloody and meaningless. ”There, outside the windows, is the merciless destruction of everything that was valuable in Russia. Here, behind the curtains, there is an immutable belief that it is necessary to protect and preserve all that is beautiful, that it is necessary under any circumstances, that it is feasible. "... The clock, fortunately, is completely immortal, both the Saardam Carpenter and the Dutch tile, like a wise scan, are life-giving and hot in the most difficult time." And outside the windows - "the eighteenth year flies to the end and day by day looks more and more menacing, bristly." And Alexey Turbin thinks with alarm not about his possible death, but about the death of the House: “The walls will fall, the alarmed falcon will fly away from the white mitten, the fire in the bronze lamp will go out, and the Captain's Daughter will be burned in the oven.” But maybe love and devotion given the power to protect and save and the House will be saved? There is no clear answer to this question in the novel. There is a confrontation between the hearth of peace and culture against the Petliura gangs, which are being replaced by the Bolsheviks. One of the last sketches in the novel is the description of the Proletarian armored train. Horror and disgust emanate from this picture: “He hissed quietly and viciously, something oozed in the side shots, his blunt snout was silent and squinted into the Dnieper forests. From the last platform at the height, black and blue, a wide muzzle was aimed in a deaf muzzle for twenty versts and straight at the midnight cross ”. Bulgakov knows that in old Russia there were many things that led to the tragedy of the country.

In the "White Guard" in many respects the autobiographical intelligent family of the Turbins is drawn into the events of the civil war in an unnamed City, which is easily guessed as Bulgakov's native Kiev. The main character Romana, the elder brother Alexei Turbin is a military physician who has seen a lot during the three years of the World War. He is one of the thousands of officers of the old Russian army who, after the revolution, have to make a choice between the opposing sides, voluntarily or involuntarily serve in one of the warring armies.

In the "White Guard" two groups of officers are opposed - those who "hated the Bolsheviks with hot and direct hatred, the one that can move into a fight", and "those who returned from the war to their old nests with the thought, like Alexei Turbin, to rest and to rest and reorganize not a military, but an ordinary human life. " However, Alexei and his younger brother Nikolka cannot avoid participating in a fight. They, as part of the officers' squads, participate in the hopeless defense of the city, where the government of the unsupported operetta hetman sits, against the army of Petliura, which enjoys broad support of the Ukrainian peasantry. However, the Turbins brothers serve in the hetman's army for only a few hours. True, the elder manages to get wounded in a shootout with the Petliurists pursuing him. Alexey does not intend to participate in the civil war anymore. Nikolka is still going to fight the Reds as part of the volunteer army, and the finale contains a hint of his future death in the defense of the Wrangel Crimea at Perekop.

The writer himself is clearly on the side of Alexei Turbin, striving for a peaceful life, for preserving family foundations, for establishing a normal life, for organizing life, despite the domination of the Bolsheviks, who destroyed the old life and are trying to replace the old culture with a new, revolutionary one. Bulgakov embodied in the "White Guard" his idea of \u200b\u200bpreserving his home, his home after all the upheavals of the revolution and civil war. The house that Aleksey is trying to preserve in the ocean of public storms is the Turbins house, in which one can guess Bulgakov's house on Andreevsky Descent in Kiev.

When the writer was finishing his novel in the first half of the 1920s, he still believed that under the Soviet regime it was possible to restore a normal life, without fear and violence. In the final of the White Guard, he predicted: “Everything will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain when the shadows of our bodies and deeds are gone. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to look at them? Why?" The novel gave rise to the play Days of the Turbins, where the same theme arose in the final scene, but in a somewhat reduced form. One of the comic characters in the play, Zhytomyr's cousin Lariosik, pronounces a sublime monologue: “... My fragile ship was flapping for a long time along the waves of the civil war ... Until it was nailed to this harbor with cream curtains, to the people I liked so much .. However, I found a drama with them too ... But let's not remember the sorrows ... Time turned, and Petliura disappeared. We are alive ... yes ... all together again ... and even more than that.

Elena Vasilievna, she also endured a lot and deserves happiness, because she is a wonderful woman. And I want to tell her with the words of the writer: "We will rest, we will rest ..." Here are quoted the words of Sonya from the finale of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya", with which the famous adjoins: "We will see the whole sky in diamonds." Bulgakov saw the ideal in preserving the “harbor with cream curtains,” although time had turned. Bulgakov clearly saw in the Bolsheviks a better alternative in comparison with Petliura's freemen and believed that the intellectuals who survived the fire of the civil war, reluctantly, had to come to terms with the Soviet regime. However, at the same time one should preserve the dignity and inviolability of the inner spiritual world, and not go for unprincipled surrender.

The bearer of the white idea in the play Bulgakov made Alexei Turbin, who is here - an artillery colonel, a military officer. His death symbolizes the collapse of the white movement. And before his death, Alexei Vasilyevich admits the hopelessness of the struggle against both the Petliurists and the Reds. He dissolves his division, urging officers, cadets and students to disperse to their homes: meaningless - you. " Turbin does not advise his subordinates to go to the Don to the volunteer army of Denikin: “Listen, you, there, on the Don, you will meet the same thing, if you only make your way to the Don. You will meet the same generals and the same troop of staff. "

The white idea turned out to be weak in front of the red one, discredited by the cowardice and selfishness of the staffs, the stupidity of the leaders. However, this does not mean that the ideas of the Bolsheviks who won the civil war are morally attractive to Bulgakov in any way. There is also violence, also blood, for which no one will answer, as emphasized in the finale of the "White Guard".

The surviving heroes of the play - Nikolka Turbin, Shervinsky, Myshlaevsky refuse to leave Kiev when the Red Army approaches, but decide to adapt to the new government, to serve it, without compromising, however, their own conscience. Head-captain Myshlaevsky, for example, understands perfectly well that the Reds are mobilizing him, and is even glad of this in his own way: "At least I know that I will serve in the Russian army." Myshlaevsky rejects the offer of his comrade Captain Studzinsky to emigrate: “They need you there, like a cannon, a third wheel, wherever you go, they will spit in a mug. I will not go, I will be here in Russia. And whatever happens to her ... ”The same decision was made by Bulgakov himself. He depicted the bitter fate of the Russian emigres in the play "The Run" written in the late 1920s.

In "Beg" in the end the decision to return to Russia is made by the White Guard general Roman Khludov, on whose conscience hundreds and thousands of executed, and carried away by the general flow of refugees, St. Petersburg privat-docent Sergei Golubkov and his beloved, young St. no blood. If Khludov aspires to his homeland in order to calm his aching conscience, then Seraphima and Golubkov are driven to their homelands not only by the disorder of emigre life, but also by nostalgic melancholy. Serafima gak explains why she decided to return: “I want to go to Karavannaya again, I want to see snow again! I want to forget everything, as if nothing had happened! " Golubkov echoes her: “Nothing, nothing, everything was imagining! Forget it, forget it! A month will pass, we will get there, we will return, and then it will snow, and our tracks will be covered ... "

Bulgakov rightly believed that the desire to live in their homeland, in Russia, is inherent in the overwhelming majority of Russians, and for this it is necessary to find some kind of consensus with the Bolsheviks, abandoning the fight against the Soviet regime, but not compromising moral principles. In his later famous letter to the government dated March 28, 1930, the writer frankly admitted: "... My last features in the ruined plays" Days of the Turbins "," Run "and in the novel" White Guard ": the persistent depiction of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country. In particular, the image of an intelligentsia-noble family, by the will of an immutable historical fate, was thrown into the camp of the White Guard during the civil war, in the tradition of "War and Peace". Such an image is quite natural for a writer who is closely associated with the intelligentsia. " However, as Bulgakov noted in the same letter, all his "great efforts to become dispassionate over the reds and whites" led only to the fact that the authorities began to see in him a "white guard enemy." Therefore, the publication of the "White Guard" was never completed in the USSR during the author's lifetime, "Run" never saw the scene until Bulgakov's death, and "Days of the Turbins" were banned for more than two years and were returned to the stage only on Stalin's personal order. Nevertheless, the writer remained true to his principled position. And the position he proposed for the intelligentsia was ultimately correct. Its best representatives managed to preserve the traditions of Russian culture and the moral core in the soul, despite the decades of the domination of the totalitarian regime.

2. Problems of the novel "White Guard"

In 1925, the magazine "Russia" published the first two parts of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard", which immediately attracted the attention of connoisseurs of Russian literature.

In the opinion of the writer himself, "The White Guard" is "a stubborn image of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country ...", "an image of an intelligentsia-noble family thrown into the camp of the White Guard during the Civil War." It tells about a very difficult time, when it was impossible to immediately understand everything, understand everything, reconcile conflicting feelings and thoughts in ourselves. This novel captures still not cooled, burning memories of the city of Kiev during the Civil War.

I think that in his work Bulgakov wanted to affirm the idea that people, although they perceive events in different ways, treat them differently, strive for peace, for the settled, familiar, prevailing. So the Turbins want their whole family to live together in their parents' apartment, where everything is familiar from childhood, familiar, where the house is a fortress, there are always flowers on a snow-white tablecloth, music, books, peaceful tea drinking at a large table, and in the evenings, when the whole family gathering, reading aloud and playing the guitar. Their life developed normally, without any shocks and mysteries, nothing unexpected or accidental came to their house. Everything here was strictly organized, ordered, determined for many years to come. And if not for the war and revolution, then their life would have passed in peace and comfort. But the terrible events taking place in the city disrupted their plans and assumptions. The time has come when it was necessary to define one's life and civic position.

I think that it is not external events that convey the course of the revolution and the Civil War, not a change of power, but moral conflicts and contradictions that drive the plot of the White Guard. Historical events are the background against which human destinies unfold. Bulgakov is interested in the inner world of a person who has fallen into such a cycle of events when it is difficult to keep his face, when it is difficult to remain himself. If at the beginning of the novel the heroes try to brush aside politics, then by the course of events they are drawn into the very thick of revolutionary clashes.

Alexey Turbin, like his friends, is for the monarchy. Everything new that enters their life, it seems to him, only bad. Completely politically undeveloped, he wanted only one thing - peace, the opportunity to joyfully live with his mother, his beloved brother and sister. It is only at the end of the novel that the Turbins become disillusioned with the old and realize that there is no return to it.

The turning point for the Turbins and the rest of the heroes of the novel is the fourteenth day of December 1918, the battle with Petliura's troops, which was supposed to be a test of strength before the subsequent battles with the Red Army, but turned into defeat, defeat. It seems to me that the description of this day of battle is the heart of the novel, its central part.

In this catastrophe, the “white” movement and such heroes of the novel as Itman, Petlyura and Talberg are revealed to the participants in the events in their true light - with humanity and betrayal, with the cowardice and meanness of “generals” and “staff”. A guess flares up that everything is a chain of mistakes and delusions, that the duty is not in protecting the collapsed monarchy and the traitor of the hetman, and honor in something else. Tsarist Russia is dying, but Russia is alive ...

On the day of the battle, the decision to surrender the White Guard arises. Colonel Malyshev finds out in time about the flight of the hetman and manages to withdraw his division without loss. But this act was not easy for him - perhaps the most decisive, most courageous act in his life. “I, a career officer who endured the war with the Germans ... I take responsibility on my own conscience, everything!., Everything!., I warn you! I'm sending you home! Clear? "Colonel Nai-Turs will have to make this decision a few hours later, under enemy fire, in the middle of the fateful day:" Guys! Guys! .. Staff stegvy! .. "The last words that the colonel uttered in his life were addressed to Nikolka:" Unteg-tseg, be welcome to be heroic to someone ... "But he, it seems, did not draw any conclusions. At night after Nai's death, Nikolka hides - in case of Petliura's searches - Nai-Tours and Aleksey's revolvers, shoulder straps, a chevron and a card of Aleksey's heir.

But the day of the battle and the subsequent month and a half of Petliura's domination, I believe, is too short a time for the recent hatred of the Bolsheviks, “an ardent and direct hatred that can move into a fight”, passed into the recognition of opponents. But this event made such recognition possible in the future.

Bulgakov pays a lot of attention to clarifying Thalberg's position. This is the antipode of the Turbins. He is a careerist and opportunist, a coward, a man devoid of moral foundations and moral principles. It costs him nothing to change his beliefs, as long as it is beneficial for his career. In the February Revolution, he was the first to put on a red bow, took part in the arrest of General Petrov. But the events quickly flashed, the authorities often changed in the city. And Talberg did not have time to understand them. For what it seemed to him the position of the hetman, supported by German bayonets, was strong, but even this, yesterday so unshakable, today fell apart like dust. And so he needs to run, to save himself, and he abandons his wife Elena, for whom he has tenderness, abandons the service and the hetman, whom he recently worshiped. Throws home, family, hearth and in fear of danger runs into the unknown ...

All the heroes of the White Guard have stood the test of time and suffering. Only Talberg, in pursuit of success and fame, lost the most valuable thing in life - friends, love, homeland. The turbines, however, were able to preserve their home, to preserve the values \u200b\u200bof life, and most importantly - honor, managed to withstand the whirlpool of events that engulfed Russia. This family, following Bulgakov's thought, is the embodiment of the color of the Russian intelligentsia, that generation of young people who are trying to honestly understand what is happening. This is the guard that made its choice and stayed with its people, found its place in the new Russia.

M. Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard" is a book of path and choice, a book of insight. But the author's main idea, I think, is in the following words of the novel: “Everything will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain when the shadows of our deeds and bodies are gone. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to look at them? Why? “And the whole novel is the author's call for peace, justice, truth on earth.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov is a complex writer, but at the same time clearly and simply expounds the highest philosophical questions in his works. His novel The White Guard tells about the dramatic events unfolding in Kiev in the winter of 1918-1919. The writer speaks dialectically about the deeds of human hands: about war and peace, about human enmity and wonderful unity - "a family where only one can hide from the horrors of the surrounding chaos."

The beginning of the novel tells about the events preceding those described in the novel. In the center of the work is the Turbins family, left without a mother, the keeper of the hearth. But she passed on this tradition to her daughter, Elena Talberg. Young Turbines, stunned by the death of their mother, still managed not to get lost in this terrible world, they were able to remain true to themselves, preserve patriotism, officer honor, comradeship and first brotherhood. That is why their house attracts close friends and acquaintances. Talberg's sister sends her son, Lariosik, from Zhitomir to them.

And here it is interesting, there is no Talberg himself, Elena's husband, who fled and abandoned his wife in the front-line city, but Turbins, Nikolka and Aleksey are only glad that their house was cleared of a stranger to them. No need to lie and adapt. Now there are only relatives and kindred spirits around.

All thirsty and suffering people are received in house 13 on Alekseevsky descent.

Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Karas - childhood friends of Alexei Turbin, arrive here, as to a salvage pier, and the timidly pestering Lariosik - Larion Surzhansky - arrived here.

Elena, sister of the Turbins, is the keeper of the traditions of the house, where they will always welcome and help, warm them up and make them sit at the table. And this house is not just hospitable, but also very cozy, in which “furniture of old and red velvet, and beds with shiny knobs, shabby carpets, variegated and crimson, with a falcon on the hand of Alexei Mikhailovich, with Louis XIV, lounging on the shore of a silk lakes in the Garden of Eden, Turkish carpets with wonderful curls in the eastern field ... a bronze lamp under a lampshade, the best bookcases in the world, gilded cups, silver, curtains - all seven magnificent rooms that brought up the young Turbins ... ”.

The problem, "becoming free", is faced ...

"WHITE GUARD" - a novel by M.A. Bulgakov. Written in 1922-1929. Originally thought by the author as the first part of a trilogy. Preliminary versions of the name: "White Cross", "Yellow Prapor", "Scarlet Mach". First published (in part: 13 chapters out of 19) in the magazine "Russia" (1925, # 4 and 5); completely - in two books: book 1 - 1927 (Paris), book 2 - 1929 (Paris and Riga). Completely published in the USSR in 1966.

The writer's work on the novel probably began in 1920-1921. in Vladikavkaz (indirect confirmation is the novel by Y. Slezkin "Table Mountain": Bulgakov was the prototype of his protagonist, Alexei Vasilyevich, who is writing the novel "The Deserter"). It is possible that the image of the Turbins family appeared in Bulgakov's drama earlier than in his epic works: in the summer of 1920 he wrote the play "The Turbins Brothers" (the premiere was in Vladikavkaz on October 21, 1920; the text did not survive), which, however, is not enough resembled the future drama Days of the Turbins.

The main work on the novel began after the writer moved to Moscow in 1921. The first message that the manuscript was roughly finished is found in Bulgakov's letter to Slezkin on August 31, 1923; but the work on the text continued in 1924-1925. - Several stories and fragments published by Bulgakov since 1922, during the creation of the novel and after its completion, are thematically and plot related with the White Guard. The Red Crown (Historia morbi ) "," The extraordinary adventures of the doctor "," On the night of the 3rd day (Excerpt from the novel "Scarlet Mach") "," Raid (In the magic lantern) "," Petliura goes to the parade "," Evening at Vasilisa's ", "The End of Petliura", "I Have Killed". The events taking place in them are connected with the finale or with the "aftereffect" of the "White Guard": the main character is mobilized by the Petliurites, taken away by them, then escapes.

When "The White Guard" was practically written, Bulgakov on January 19, 1925 began and in August finished a five-act play under the same title as the novel; in January 1926 the second edition of this play will appear, and only then the final version under the title “Days of the Turbins” (staged in 1926 at the Moscow Art Theater).

The last time the writer turned to the novel was in the late 1920s, when he revised the final chapter while preparing a manuscript for the Paris publishing house Concorde.

Both epigraphs to the novel - from "The Captain's Daughter" by A.S. Pushkin and from the Apocalypse - actualize the theme of the catastrophe. The story is likened to a stormy sea that threatens to ruin an indecisive swimmer: this collision makes Bulgakov's novel related not only to The Captain's Daughter, but also to Pushkin's Feast in Time of Plague, as well as to the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky. The symbolic, generalized image of Bulgakov's City is associated with Gogol's “city-world”, recalling also the “History of one city” by ME Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Bulgakov's man feels himself on the verge of two realities - historical and cultural, which are relatively separate and opposed to each other. The saturation of the cultural space with quotations and reminiscences is realized by the heroes of the White Guard themselves, who perceive everything that happens in the projection of numerous cultural associations. When the cultural mythology absorbed from childhood is destroyed and life requires a return to reality, the characters discover that this reality is elusive, appears as "the mystery and duality of unstable time." Exaggerating the theme of chaos, dating back to the novels of Pushkin and Dostoevsky, Bulgakov builds a situation of absolute ethical crisis, when no act, no life position can be morally invulnerable: the inviolability of moral principles becomes an impermissible luxury. Accordingly, none of the characters (including the autobiographical hero Alexei Turbin) can claim to be a completely adequate embodiment of the author's position.

The novel is fully "historical": the political situation of 1918-1919. in Ukraine, it is reflected here clearly biased - in accordance with certain creative tasks; the author openly subjectivized the perception of what was happening, without going into any subtleties of political programs and creating a generalized image of the historical process. The White Guard is not a novel about a revolution, but a civil war in which there are no winners. Hence the bitter irony of the author, observing how tragedy is mixed with farce: the emphasis is on the "costs" of the story, which seems to turn off the mainstream and is drawn into a bloody cycle.

Drawing contemporary political events, Bulgakov projects the plot on other historical epochs. The importance have "Roman" allusions; the historical situation depicted in the "White Guard" is clearly compared by Bulgakov with the last times antiquity. It is not without reason that the real Kiev is only a prototype of the novel City: this name reads "Urbs" - one of the names of ancient Rome. The decline of Roman civilization is a period of transition from paganism to Christianity, a time of coexistence of two cultural paradigms; Kiev as the center of the baptism of Rus in this respect is similar to the "eternal city" - Rome, the capital of the early Christian world. Therefore, the interaction in the "White Guard" of pagan and Christian symbols is natural. The sacredness of the image of Bulgakov's city is also enhanced by associations with Jerusalem, primarily due to the commonality of their functions as centers of Christianity.

The topic of the Trojan War plays a significant role in the subtext of the novel: the motive of the war to restore the hearth and peace; traversed "kidnapping of Elena". The image of Elena Turbina is associated with the mythological Elena, the patroness of the hearth and, at the same time, of the navigators and sailors: these two sides of the image correspond to Bulgakov's motive of the “Ark” House as a bulwark of comfort, family in the stormy sea of \u200b\u200blife (the Turbins house, Alexander Gymnasium).

The action of the novel also parodically correlates with the history of France at the end of the 18th century. and the era of the Napoleonic wars. The influence of the motives of "War and Peace" is directly reflected in the creation of the theme of the "new Borodin": for example, the ceremonial hall of the Alexander Gymnasium turns out to be traversed by the Borodino field. However, the solemnly declared liberation mission turns out to be impracticable: the "new Borodino" did not take place. Paradoxical as it may sound, it is "Napoleon" that wins the victory here: the city is taken by Petliura, who (albeit comically) is compared with Bonaparte.

The main historical events in the plot time last a little more than one and a half months (51 days) and are concluded in the interval between the day of St. Andrew the First-Called (the heavenly patron of Kiev and all of Russia) - and the feast of the Presentation of the Lord. Tying the moment of the completion of the event in the novel to the Meeting, Bulgakov, naturally, accentuates the day of Christmas, for these holidays are interdependent; (The "resurrection" of Alexei Turbin is associated with the motive of "premature Christmas"). In the Roman time system, the beginning of events in the novel is associated with the period of the Saturnalia, and the end with the feast of the Lupercalia. Along with the "historical" time, as a kind of background of earthly events, with the help of mythopoetic associations, a layer of "cosmic" existence was created in the novel - the level of ahistorical reality, which manifests itself in moments of activation of the characters' subconsciousness (dreams and various kinds of visions).

A complex system of subtextual relations brings additional meanings to the title of the novel, which, at first glance, is quite politically specific. Additional meanings of the word "white" are introduced by both epigraphs. The verse from the Apocalypse switches semantics to the sacred plane (white is the color of Christ); the title then reads "Heavenly Host", "the Host of Christ in White Clothes."

Lit .: Burmistrenko S., Rogozovskaya T. Forty-seven days in the life of the City: Chronicle of late 1918 - early 1919 // Collegium. Kiev, 1995. No. 1-2; Gasparov B.M. Literary leitmotifs: Essays on Russian literature of the XX century. M., 1994; Petrovsky M. Mythological urban studies of Mikhail Bulgakov // Theater, 1991, №5; Tinchenko Y. White Guard Mikhail Bulgakov. Kiev; Lvov, 1997; Fialkova L A. Space and time in the novel by MA Bulgakov "The White Guard": On the problem of studying the genre and composition of the work // Genre and composition of a literary work. Petrozavodsk, 1986; Chudakova M. Biography of Mikhail Bulgakov. M., 1988; Yablokov E.A. Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard". M., 1997; Milne L. Mikhail Bulgakov: A Critical Biography. Cambridge, 1990.

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 Kiev in late 1918 - early 1919.

The Turbins are largely the Bulgakovs. Turbines are the maiden name of Bulgakov's grandmother from the mother's side. The White Guard was launched in 1922, after the death of the writer's mother. The manuscripts of the novel have not survived. According to the typist Raaben, who reprinted the novel, the White Guard was originally thought of as a trilogy. Possible titles for novels in the proposed trilogy included Midnight Cross and White Cross. The prototypes of the heroes of the novel were Bulgakov's Kiev friends and acquaintances.

So, Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevskii was copied from childhood friend Nikolai Nikolaevich Sigaevsky. The prototype of Lieutenant Shervinsky was another friend of Bulgakov's youth - Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky, an amateur singer. In "White Guard" Bulgakov seeks to show the people and the intelligentsia in the flames of the civil war in Ukraine. The main character, Alexei Turbin, although clearly autobiographical, but, unlike the writer, is not a zemstvo doctor, only formally listed in the military service, but a real military doctor who has seen and experienced a lot during the years of the world war. The novel opposes two groups of officers - those who “hate the Bolsheviks with hot and direct hatred, the one that can move into a fight” and “those who have returned from the warriors to their homes with the thought, like Alexei Turbin, - to rest and rebuild a non-military one, but ordinary human life ”.

Bulgakov shows the mass movements of the era with sociological accuracy. He demonstrates the age-old hatred of the peasants for the landowners and officers, and the newly emerging, 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 persistent portrayal of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in the impudent country.

In particular, the image of an intelligentsia-noble family, by the will of historical fate, was thrown into the camp of the White Guard during the Civil War, in the tradition of War and Peace. “White Guard” - Marxist criticism of the 1920s: “Yes, Bulgakov's talent was not as deep as 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 crowd that is mysterious and cruel. ” Bulgakov's talent was not imbued with interest in the people, in his life, his joy and sorrow cannot be recognized from Bulgakov.

M.A. Bulgakov twice, in two different works of his, 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, Civil War ... In my 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 "The 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 striking like a tower in the dining room, sleepy doze in bed, books and frost ... ”With this mood Bulgakov set about creating a new novel.

The novel "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", constantly published in the newspaper of railway workers "Gudok", where he met I. Babel, I. Ilf, E. Petrov, V. Kataev, Yu. Olesha. According to Bulgakov himself, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe novel "The White Guard" was finally formed in 1922. During this time, several important events his personal life: during the first three months of this year, he received news of the fate of the 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 Kiev 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 as follows: “I consider my novel a failure, although I single it out from my other things, because he 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 a trilogy, leaving it to Count A.N. Tolstoy ("Walking through the agony"). And the theme of "running", emigration, in the "White Guard" is only outlined in the history of Talberg's departure and in the episode of Bunin's reading "The Lord 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, was terribly tired: “Third life. And my third life bloomed with writing desk... The pile of sheets was all puffy. I wrote with both pencil and ink. " Subsequently, the author repeatedly returned to his favorite novel, 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 terribly sorry, 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 heap over which I think a lot. I am correcting something. " It was a rough version of the text, which is said in the "Theatrical novel": "The novel must be corrected for a long time. It is necessary 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 had already read excerpts from the "White Guard" from the writer S. Zayitsky and from his new friends Lyamin, considering the book finished.

The first known mention of the completion of work on the novel dates back to March 1924. The novel was published in the 4th and 5th books of the magazine "Russia" for 1925. And the 6th issue with the final part of the novel did not come out. According to researchers, the novel "The White Guard" was being finished 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 Paris publishing house "Concorde". The full text of the novel was published in Paris: Volume One (1927), Volume Two (1929).

Due to the fact that in the USSR the White Guard was not finished with publication, and foreign editions of the late 1920s were inaccessible in the writer's homeland, the first Bulgakov novel did not receive special attention from the press. The well-known critic A. Voronsky (1884-1937) at the end of 1925 called the "White Guard" together with "Fatal Eggs" works of "outstanding literary quality." The answer to this statement was a sharp attack from the chapter Russian Association Proletarian Writers (RAPP) L. Averbakh (1903-1939) in the Rapp organ - the magazine "On a 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 fall of 1926 turned the attention of critics to this work, and the novel itself was forgotten.

K. Stanislavsky, worried about the passage through the censorship of the "Days of the Turbins", originally named as the novel, "White Guard", strongly advised Bulgakov to abandon the epithet "white", which seemed to many to be openly hostile. But the writer treasured this very word. He agreed to the "cross", and to "December", and to the "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 Kiev in late 1918 - early 1919. The members of the Turbins' family reflected the characteristic features of Bulgakov's relatives. Turbines are the maiden name of Bulgakov's grandmother from the mother's side. The manuscripts of the novel have not survived. The prototypes of the heroes of the novel were Bulgakov's Kiev friends and acquaintances. Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky was copied from childhood friend 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 on 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 Afanasyevna. Captain Thalberg, her husband, has many similarities with the husband of Varvara Afanasyevna Bulgakova, Leonid Sergeevich Karuma (1888-1968), a German by birth, a career officer who first served 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 Mikhail Afanasyevich (Nikolai) was also a doctor. Here's to the person younger brother, Nikolay, and I want to stop. My heart has always been dear to the noble and cozy little man Nikolka Turbin (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 junior representative of the profession chosen by 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 at a difficult time for the country. Young Soviet Russia, which did not have a regular army, found itself drawn into the Civil War. The dreams of the traitorous hetman Mazepa, whose name is not accidentally mentioned in Bulgakov's novel, have come true. The White Guard is based on the events associated with 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, a great uncle of the writer, in his book "At the Feast of the Gods" described the death of the homeland as follows: “There was a mighty power that friends needed, terrible for enemies, and now it is rotting carrion, from which piece by 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 was in many respects in agreement with his uncle. And it is no coincidence that this terrible picture is reflected in the article by M.A. Bulgakov's "Hot Prospects" (1919). Studzinsky speaks about this in his play Days of the Turbins: “We had Russia - a great power ...” So for Bulgakov, an optimist and a talented satirist, despair and grief became the starting points in creating a book of hope. It is this definition that most accurately reflects the content of the novel "White Guard". In the book "At the Feast of the Gods" another thought seemed to the writer closer and more interesting: "What Russia will become depends in many ways on how the intelligentsia will determine itself." Bulgakov's heroes are painfully looking for the answer to this question.

In "White Guard" Bulgakov tried to show the people and the intelligentsia in the flames of the Civil War in Ukraine. The protagonist, Alexei Turbin, although clearly autobiographical, but, unlike the writer, is not a zemstvo doctor, only formally enlisted in 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.

“You must love your heroes; if this does not happen, I do not advise anyone to take up the pen - you will get the biggest troubles, so you know, "- said in" Theatrical novel ", and this is the main law of Bulgakov's work. 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 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, while the rest were categorized as “hostile and abusive”. The writer received rude responses. In one of his articles, Bulgakov was called "a new bourgeois spawn, splashing poisonous 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 counterrevolutionary" - this is not a complete list of characteristics that were endowed with the "White Guard" by those who believed that the main thing in literature is an political position writer, his attitude to "white" and "red".

One of the main motives of the White Guard is faith in life, its victorious power. Therefore, 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. The writer from Kiev Viktor Nekrasov, who read the White Guard in the 1960s, quite rightly remarked: “It turns out that nothing has faded, nothing is outdated. As if there hadn't been those forty years ... before our very eyes an obvious miracle happened, which happens very rarely in literature and by no means all of them - a rebirth took place. " The life of the heroes of the novel continues today, but in a different direction.

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Illustrations:

Problems of the novel "White Guard"

In 1925, the magazine "Russia" published the first two parts of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard", which immediately attracted the attention of connoisseurs of Russian literature.

In the opinion of the writer himself, "The White Guard" is "a stubborn image of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country ...", "an image of an intelligentsia-noble family thrown into the camp of the White Guard during the Civil War." It tells about a very difficult time, when it was impossible to immediately understand everything, understand everything, reconcile conflicting feelings and thoughts in ourselves. This novel captures still not cooled, burning memories of the city of Kiev during the Civil War.

I think that in his work Bulgakov wanted to affirm the idea that people, although they perceive events in different ways, treat them differently, strive for peace, for the settled, familiar, prevailing. So the Turbins want all of them to live together with their whole family in their parents' apartment, where from childhood everything is familiar, familiar, where the house is a fortress, there are always flowers on a snow-white tablecloth, music, books, peaceful tea drinking at a large table, and in the evenings, when the whole family is together, reading aloud and playing the guitar. Their life developed normally, without any shocks and mysteries, nothing unexpected or accidental came to their house. Everything here was strictly organized, ordered, determined for many years to come. And if not for the war and revolution, then their life would have passed in peace and comfort. But the terrible events taking place in the city disrupted their plans and assumptions. The time has come when it was necessary to define one's life and civic position.

I think that it is not external events that convey the course of the revolution and the Civil War, not a change of power, but moral conflicts and contradictions that drive the plot of the White Guard. Historical events are the background against which human destinies unfold. Bulgakov is interested in the inner world of a person who has fallen into such a cycle of events when it is difficult to keep his face, when it is difficult to remain himself. If at the beginning of the novel the heroes try to brush aside politics, then by the course of events they are drawn into the very thick of revolutionary clashes.

Alexey Turbin, like his friends, is for the monarchy. Everything new that enters their life, it seems to him, only bad. Completely politically undeveloped, he wanted only one thing - peace, the opportunity to joyfully live with his mother, beloved brother and sister. It is only at the end of the novel that the Turbins become disillusioned with the old and realize that there is no return to it.

The turning point for the Turbins and the rest of the heroes of the novel is the fourteenth day of December 1918, the battle with Petliura's troops, which was supposed to be a test of strength before the subsequent battles with the Red Army, but turned into defeat, defeat. It seems to me that the description of this day of battle is the heart of the novel, its central part.

In this catastrophe, the “white” movement and such heroes of the novel as Itman, Petlyura and Talberg are revealed to the participants in the events in their true light - with humanity and betrayal, with the cowardice and meanness of “generals” and “staff”. A guess flares up that everything is a chain of mistakes and delusions, that the duty is not in protecting the collapsed monarchy and the traitor of the hetman, and honor in something else. Tsarist Russia is dying, but Russia is alive ...

On the day of the battle, the decision to surrender the White Guard arises. Colonel Malyshev finds out in time about the flight of the hetman and manages to withdraw his division without loss. But this act was not easy for him - perhaps the most decisive, most courageous act in his life. “I, a career officer who endured the war with the Germans ... I take responsibility on my own conscience, everything!., Everything!., I warn you! I'm sending you home! Clear? "Colonel Nai-Turs will have to make this decision a few hours later, under enemy fire, in the middle of the fateful day:" Guys! Guys! .. Staff stegvy! .. "The last words that the colonel uttered in his life were addressed to Nikolka:" Unteg-tseg, be welcome to be heroic to someone ... "But he, it seems, did not draw any conclusions. At night after Nai's death, Nikolka hides - in case of Petliura's searches - Nai-Tours and Aleksey's revolvers, shoulder straps, a chevron and a card of Aleksey's heir.

But the day of the battle and the subsequent month and a half of Petliura's domination, I believe, is too short a time for the recent hatred of the Bolsheviks, “an ardent and direct hatred that can move into a fight,” turned into a confession of opponents. But this event made such recognition possible in the future.

Bulgakov pays much attention to clarifying Thalberg's position. This is the antipode of the Turbins. He is a careerist and opportunist, a coward, a man devoid of moral foundations and moral principles. It costs him nothing to change his beliefs, as long as it is beneficial for his career. In the February Revolution, he was the first to put on a red bow, took part in the arrest of General Petrov. But the events quickly flashed, the authorities often changed in the city. And Talberg did not have time to understand them. For what it seemed to him the position of the hetman, supported by German bayonets, was strong, but even this, yesterday so unshakable, today fell apart like dust. And so he needs to run, to save himself, and he abandons his wife Elena, for whom he has tenderness, abandons the service and the hetman, whom he recently worshiped. Throws home, family, hearth and in fear of danger runs into the unknown ...

All the heroes of the White Guard have stood the test of time and suffering. Only Talberg, in pursuit of success and fame, lost the most valuable thing in life - friends, love, homeland. The turbines, however, were able to preserve their home, to preserve the values \u200b\u200bof life, and most importantly - honor, they managed to withstand the whirlpool of events that engulfed Russia. This family, following Bulgakov's thought, is the embodiment of the color of the Russian intelligentsia, that generation of young people who are trying to honestly understand what is happening. This is the guard that made its choice and stayed with its people, found its place in the new Russia.

M. Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard" is a book of paths and choices, a book of insight. But the author's main idea, I think, is in the following words of the novel: “Everything will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain when the shadows of our deeds and bodies are gone. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to look at them? Why? “And the whole novel is the author's call for peace, justice, truth on earth.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov is a complex writer, but at the same time clearly and simply expounds the highest philosophical questions in his works. His novel The White Guard tells about the dramatic events unfolding in Kiev in the winter of 1918-1919. The writer speaks dialectically about the deeds of human hands: about war and peace, about human enmity and wonderful unity - "a family where only one can hide from the horrors of the surrounding chaos."

The beginning of the novel tells about the events preceding those described in the novel. In the center of the work is the Turbins family, left without a mother, the keeper of the hearth. But she passed on this tradition to her daughter, Elena Talberg. Young Turbines, stunned by the death of their mother, nevertheless managed not to get lost in this terrible world, were able to remain true to themselves, preserve patriotism, officer honor, comradeship and brotherhood. That is why their house attracts close friends and acquaintances. Talberg's sister sends her son, Lariosik, from Zhitomir to them.

And now, interestingly, there is no Talberg himself, Elena's husband, who fled and abandoned his wife in the front-line city, but Turbins, Nikolka and Alexei are only glad that their house was cleared of a stranger to them. Don't lie and adapt. Now there are only relatives and kindred spirits around.

All those who are thirsty and suffering are received in house 13 along Alekseevsky descent.

Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Karas - childhood friends of Alexei Turbin, arrive here, as to a salvage pier, and the timidly pestering Lariosik - Larion Surzhansky - arrived here.

Elena, sister of the Turbins, is the keeper of the traditions of the house, where they will always welcome and help, warm them up and make them sit at the table. And this house is not just hospitable, but also very cozy, in which “furniture of old and red velvet, and beds with shiny knobs, shabby carpets, variegated and crimson, with a falcon on the hand of Alexei Mikhailovich, with Louis XIV, lounging on the bank of a silk lakes in the Garden of Eden, Turkish carpets with wonderful curls in the eastern field ... a bronze lamp under a lampshade, the best bookcases in the world, gilded cups, silver, curtains - all seven magnificent rooms that brought up the young Turbins ... ”.

Overnight this world can crumble, since Petliura comes on the city, and then captures it, but there is no anger in the Turbins' family, unaccountable hostility to everything indiscriminately.

The novel "White Guard" was created for about 7 years. Initially, Bulgakov wanted to make it the first part of a trilogy. The writer began work on the novel in 1921, having moved to Moscow, by 1925 the text was almost finished. Once again Bulgakov ruled the novel in 1917-1929. before publication in Paris and Riga, reworking the final.

The variants of names considered by Bulgakov are all connected with politics through the symbolism of flowers: "White Cross", "Yellow Prapor", "Scarlet Mach".

In 1925-1926. Bulgakov wrote a play, in the final version called "Days of the Turbins", the plot and characters of which coincide with the novels. The play was staged at the Moscow Art Theater in 1926.

Literary direction and genre

The novel The White Guard was written in the tradition of 19th century realistic literature. Bulgakov uses a traditional technique and, through the history of the family, describes the history of an entire people and country. Thanks to this, the novel takes on the features of an epic.

The work begins as a family romance, but gradually all events receive a philosophical understanding.

The novel "White Guard" is historical. The author does not set himself the task of objectively describing political situation in Ukraine in 1918-1919. Events are depicted in a biased manner, this is associated with a certain creative task. Bulgakov's goal is to show the subjective perception of the historical process (not the revolution, but the civil war) by a certain circle of people close to him. This process is perceived as a disaster, because there are no winners in a civil war.

Bulgakov balances on the verge of tragedy and farce, he is ironic and focuses on failures and shortcomings, losing sight of not only the positive (if any), but also the neutral in human life in connection with the new order.

Problematic

Bulgakov in the novel avoids social and political problems. His heroes are the White Guard, but the careerist Thalberg belongs to the same guard. The author's sympathies are not on the side of white or red, but on the side good peoplewho do not turn into rats running from the ship, do not change their opinions under the influence of political twists and turns.

Thus, the problematic of the novel is philosophical: how, at the moment of a universal catastrophe, to remain human, not to lose yourself.

Bulgakov creates a myth about a beautiful white City, covered with snow and, as it were, protected by it. The writer asks the question whether historical events depend on him, the change of power, which Bulgakov in Kiev in civil war survived 14. Bulgakov comes to the conclusion that myths rule over human destinies. He considers Petliura to be a myth that arose in Ukraine “in the fog of the terrible eighteenth year”. Such myths give rise to fierce hatred and force some who believe in a myth to become a part of it without reasoning, while others, living in another myth, fight to death for theirs.

Each of the heroes is experiencing the collapse of their myths, and some, like Nai Tours, die even for what they no longer believe. The problem of the loss of myth and faith is the most important for Bulgakov. For himself, he chooses a house as a myth. Life at home is still longer than that of a person. Indeed, the house has survived to this day.

Plot and composition

In the center of the composition is the Turbins family. Their house with cream curtains and a lamp with a green shade, which in the mind of the writer has always been associated with peace, homeliness, is like Noah's Ark in the stormy sea of \u200b\u200blife, in a whirlwind of events. Invited and uninvited people, all like-minded people, come together into this ark from all over the world. Alexey's comrades-in-arms enter the house: Lieutenant Shervinsky, Second Lieutenant Stepanov (Karas), Myshlaevsky. Here they find shelter, a table, and warmth in a frosty winter. But the main thing is not this, but the hope that everything will be fine, so necessary for the youngest Bulgakov, who finds himself in the position of his heroes: "Their life was interrupted at the very dawn."

The events in the novel unfold in the winter of 1918-1919. (51 days). During this time, the power in the city changes: the hetman runs along with the Germans and enters the city of Petliura, which has ruled for 47 days, and at the end the Petliurites also run to the cannonade of the Red Army.

The symbolism of time is very important for a writer. Events begin on the day of St. Andrew the First-Called, the patron saint of Kiev (December 13), and end with Sretenya (on the night of December 2 to 3). For Bulgakov, the motive of the meeting is important: Petliura with the Red Army, the past with the future, grief with hope. He associates himself and the world of the Turbins with the position of Simeon, who, looking at Christ, did not take part in exciting events, but remained with God in eternity: "Now let go of your servant, Master." With the same God, who at the beginning of the novel is mentioned by Nikolka as a sad and mysterious old man flying away into a black, cracked sky.

The novel is dedicated to Bulgakov's second wife, Lyubov Belozerskaya. The work has two epigraphs. The first describes a storm in Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter, as a result of which the hero goes astray and meets the robber Pugachev. This epigraph explains that the vortex historical events detailed in a snowstorm, so it's easy to get confused and go astray, not knowing where good manand where is the robber.

But the second epigraph from the Apocalypse warns: everyone will be judged by their deeds. If you have chosen the wrong path, lost in the storms of life, this does not excuse you.

At the beginning of the novel, 1918 is called great and terrible. In the last, 20 chapter, Bulgakov notes that the next year was even worse. The first chapter begins with an omen: high above the horizon are the shepherd's Venus and the red Mars. With the death of the mother, the bright queen, in May 1918, the Turbins' family misfortunes began. Delays, and then Talberg leaves, a frostbitten Myshlaevsky appears, an absurd relative Lariosik arrives from Zhitomir.

Disasters are becoming more and more destructive, they threaten to destroy not only the usual foundations, the peace of the house, but the very lives of its inhabitants.

Nikolka would have been killed in a senseless battle, if not for the fearless Colonel Nai Tours, who himself died in the same hopeless battle, from which he defended, dismissing, the cadets, explaining to them that the hetman whom they were going to defend fled at night.

Alexei was wounded, shot by the Petliurites, because he was not informed about the dissolution of the defensive division. He is rescued by an unknown woman Julia Reiss. The illness from the wound turns into typhus, but Elena begs the Mother of God, the Intercessor for her brother's life, giving her happiness with Thalberg.

Even Vasilisa is experiencing a raid by bandits and is deprived of her savings. This trouble for the Turbins is not grief at all, but, according to Lariosik, "everyone has their own grief."

Grief also comes to Nikolka. And it is not that the bandits, having watched Nikolka hide the Nai-Tours Colt, steal it and threaten Vasilisa with them. Nikolka confronts death face to face and avoids it, and the fearless Nai Tours dies, and it is Nikolkina's shoulders to report the death of his mother and sister, to find and identify the body.

The novel ends with the hope that both new strengthentering the City will not destroy the idyll of the house on Alekseevsky Spusk 13, where the magic stove that warmed and raised the Turbins' children now serves them as adults, and the only inscription left on its tiles informs by the hand of a friend that Lena has taken tickets to Hades (in hell). Thus, hope in the finale is mixed with hopelessness for a particular person.

Taking the novel out of the historical layer into the universal one, Bulgakov gives hope to all readers, because hunger will pass, sufferings and torments will pass, and the stars, which need to be looked at, will remain. The writer turns the reader to true values.

Heroes of the novel

The main character and older brother is 28-year-old Alexey.

He is a weak person, a “rag-man”, and he takes care of all family members on his shoulders. He does not have the grip of a military, although he belongs to the White Guard. Alexey is a military doctor. Bulgakov calls his soul gloomy, the one that loves women's eyes most of all. This character in the novel is autobiographical.

Alexei absent-minded, for this he almost paid with his life, removing all the officer's distinctions from his clothes, but forgetting about the cockade, by which the Petliurites recognized him. The crisis and the death of Alexei falls on December 24, Christmas. Having experienced death and rebirth through injury and illness, the "resurrected" Alexei Turbin becomes a different person, his eyes "forever become unsmiling and gloomy."

Elena is 24 years old. Myshlaevsky calls her clear, Bulgakov calls her reddish, her glowing hair is like a crown. If in the novel Bulgakov calls his mother a bright queen, then Elena looks more like a deity or priestess, the keeper of the hearth and the family itself. Bulgakov wrote to Elena from his sister Vary.

Nikolka Turbin is 17 and a half years old. He is a cadet. With the beginning of the revolution, the schools ceased to exist. Their thrown out students are called crippled, not children or adults, not military or civilians.

Nai Tours introduces himself to Nikolka as a man with an iron face, simple and courageous. This is a person who does not know how to adapt or seek personal gain. He dies, having fulfilled his military duty.

Captain Talberg is Elena's husband, a handsome man. He tried to adjust to rapidly changing events: as a member of the revolutionary military committee, he arrested General Petrov, became part of the "operetta with great bloodshed", chose the "hetman of all Ukraine", so he had to run away with the Germans, betraying Elena. At the end of the novel, Elena learns from her friend that Talberg has betrayed her again and is going to marry.

Vasilisa (landlord engineer Vasily Lisovich) occupied the first floor. He is a negative hero, money-grubber. At night, he hides money in a cache in the wall. Outwardly he looks like Taras Bulba. Having found counterfeit money, Vasilisa thinks out how he will attach it.

Vasilisa is essentially an unhappy person. It is painful for him to save and profit. His wife Wanda is crooked, her hair is yellow, her elbows are bony, her legs are dry. It is sickening for Vasilisa to live with such a wife in the world.

Stylistic features

The house in the novel is one of the heroes. The Turbins' hope to survive, survive and even be happy is connected with him. Thalberg, who did not become part of the Turbins' family, ravages his nest, leaving with the Germans, so he immediately loses the protection of the Turbino house.

The City is also a living hero. Bulgakov deliberately does not name Kiev, although all the names in the City are Kiev, slightly altered (Alekseevsky descent instead of Andreevsky, Malo-Provalnaya instead of Malopodvalnaya). The city lives, smokes and makes noise, "like a multi-tiered honeycomb."

There are many literary and cultural reminiscences in the text. The reader associates the city with Rome during the decline of Roman civilization, and with the eternal city of Jerusalem.

The moment of preparation of the cadets for the defense of the city is associated with the Battle of Borodino, which never comes.