The main character in the novel is the white guard. Home and City - the two main characters of the novel "The White Guard

The novel "White Guard" was first published (not completely) in Russia, in 1924. Completely - in Paris: volume one - 1927, volume two - 1929. The White Guard is largely an autobiographical novel based on the writer's personal impressions of Kyiv in late 1918 and early 1919.

The Turbin family is largely the Bulgakov family. Turbines is the maiden name of Bulgakov's grandmother on her mother's side. The "White Guard" was started in 1922, after the death of the writer's mother. The manuscripts of the novel have not survived. According to the typist Raaben, who retyped the novel, The White Guard was originally conceived as a trilogy. As possible titles of the novels of the proposed trilogy appeared "Midnight Cross" and "White Cross". Kyiv friends and acquaintances of Bulgakov became the prototypes of the heroes of the novel.

So, Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky was written off from a childhood friend of Nikolai Nikolaevich Sigaevsky. Another friend of Bulgakov's youth, Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky, an amateur singer, served as the prototype for Lieutenant Shervinsky. In The White Guard, Bulgakov seeks to show the people and the intelligentsia in the flames of the civil war in Ukraine. The main character, Aleksey Turbin, although clearly autobiographical, is, unlike the writer, not a zemstvo doctor, who was only formally registered in the military service, but a real military medic who has seen and experienced a lot during the years of World War II. The novel contrasts two groups of officers - those who “hate the Bolsheviks with a hot and direct hatred, one that can move into a fight” and “who returned from the war to their homes with the thought, like Alexei Turbin, to rest and arrange anew a non-military, but ordinary human life.

Bulgakov sociologically accurately shows the mass movements of the era. He demonstrates the centuries-old hatred of the peasants for the landlords and officers, and the newly emerged, but no less deep hatred for the "occupiers. All this fueled the uprising raised against the formation of hetman Skoropadsky, the leader of the Ukrainian national movement Petlyura. Bulgakov called one of the main features of his work in the "White Guard" the stubborn image of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in an impudent country.

In particular, the image of an intelligentsia-noble family, by the will of historical fate thrown into the camp of the White Guard during the Civil War, in the tradition of "War and Peace". The “White Guard” is a Marxist criticism of the 1920s: “Yes, Bulgakov's talent was precisely not as deep as it was brilliant, and the talent was great ... And yet Bulgakov's works are not popular. There is nothing in them that affected the people as a whole. There is a mysterious and cruel crowd.” Bulgakov's talent was not imbued with an interest in the people, in his life, his joys and sorrows cannot be recognized from Bulgakov.

M.A. Bulgakov twice, in two different works, recalls how his work on the novel The White Guard (1925) began. The hero of the “Theatrical novel” Maksudov says: “It was born at night, when I woke up after a sad dream. I dreamed of my hometown, snow, winter, the Civil War ... In a dream, a soundless blizzard passed in front of me, and then an old piano appeared and near it people who were no longer in the world. The story “Secret Friend” contains other details: “I pulled my barracks lamp as far as possible to the table and put on a pink paper cap over its green cap, which made the paper come to life. On it I wrote the words: "And the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, according to their deeds." Then he began to write, not yet knowing well what would come of it. I remember that I really wanted to convey how good it is when it is warm at home, the clock that strikes towers in the dining room, sleepy slumber in bed, books and frost ... ”With such a mood, Bulgakov began to create a new novel.

The novel "The White Guard", the most important book for Russian literature, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov began writing in 1822.

In 1922-1924, Bulgakov wrote articles for the newspaper "Nakanune", was constantly published in the railway newspaper "Gudok", where he met I. Babel, I. Ilf, E. Petrov, V. Kataev, Yu. Olesha. According to Bulgakov himself, the idea of ​​the novel The White Guard finally took shape in 1922. At this time, several important events in his personal life took place: during the first three months of this year, he received news of the fate of his brothers, whom he never saw again, and a telegram about the sudden death of his mother from typhus. During this period, the terrible impressions of the Kyiv years received an additional impetus for embodiment in creativity.

According to the memoirs of his contemporaries, Bulgakov planned to create a whole trilogy, and spoke about his favorite book like this: “I consider my novel a failure, although I single it out from my other works, because. I took the idea very seriously." And what we now call the "White Guard" was conceived as the first part of the trilogy and originally bore the names "Yellow Ensign", "Midnight Cross" and "White Cross": "The action of the second part should take place on the Don, and in the third part Myshlaevsky will be in the ranks of the Red Army. Signs of this plan can be found in the text of the "White Guard". But Bulgakov did not write the trilogy, leaving it to Count A.N. Tolstoy ("Walking through the torments"). And the theme of "running", emigration, in "The White Guard" is only hinted at in the history of Thalberg's departure and in the episode of reading Bunin's "The Gentleman from San Francisco".

The novel was created in an era of greatest material need. The writer worked at night in an unheated room, worked impulsively and enthusiastically, terribly tired: “Third life. And my third life blossomed at the desk. The pile of sheets was all swollen. I wrote with both pencil and ink. Subsequently, the author returned to his favorite novel more than once, reliving the past anew. In one of the entries relating to 1923, Bulgakov noted: “And I will finish the novel, and I dare to assure you, it will be such a novel, from which the sky will become hot ...” And in 1925 he wrote: “It will be a terrible pity, if I am mistaken and the “White Guard” is not a strong thing.” On August 31, 1923, Bulgakov informed Yu. Slezkin: “I have finished the novel, but it has not yet been rewritten, it lies in a pile, over which I think a lot. I'm fixing something." It was a draft version of the text, which is said in the "Theatrical Novel": "The novel must be corrected for a long time. You need to cross out many places, replace hundreds of words with others. Big but necessary work!” Bulgakov was not satisfied with his work, crossed out dozens of pages, created new editions and versions. But at the beginning of 1924, he was already reading excerpts from The White Guard by the writer S. Zayaitsky and his new friends Lyamins, considering the book finished.

The first known reference to the completion of the novel is in March 1924. The novel was published in the 4th and 5th books of the Rossiya magazine in 1925. And the 6th issue with the final part of the novel was not released. According to researchers, the novel The White Guard was completed after the premiere of Days of the Turbins (1926) and the creation of Run (1928). The text of the last third of the novel, corrected by the author, was published in 1929 by the Parisian publishing house Concorde. The full text of the novel was published in Paris: volume one (1927), volume two (1929).

Due to the fact that the White Guard was not published in the USSR, and foreign editions of the late 1920s were inaccessible in the writer's homeland, Bulgakov's first novel did not receive much press attention. The well-known critic A. Voronsky (1884-1937) at the end of 1925 called The White Guard, together with The Fatal Eggs, works of "outstanding literary quality." The answer to this statement was a sharp attack by the head of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) L. Averbakh (1903-1939) in Rapp's organ - the magazine "At the Literary Post". Later, the production of the play Days of the Turbins based on the novel The White Guard at the Moscow Art Theater in the autumn of 1926 turned the attention of critics to this work, and the novel itself was forgotten.

K. Stanislavsky, worried about the passing of the Days of the Turbins, originally called, like the novel, The White Guard, through censorship, strongly advised Bulgakov to abandon the epithet "white", which seemed to many openly hostile. But the writer valued precisely this word. He agreed to the “cross”, and “December”, and “blizzard” instead of “guard”, but he did not want to give up the definition of “white”, seeing in it a sign of the special moral purity of his beloved heroes, their belonging to the Russian intelligentsia as parts of the best layer in the country.

The White Guard is largely an autobiographical novel based on the writer's personal impressions of Kyiv in late 1918 - early 1919. The members of the Turbin family reflected the characteristic features of Bulgakov's relatives. Turbines is the maiden name of Bulgakov's grandmother on her mother's side. The manuscripts of the novel have not survived. Kyiv friends and acquaintances of Bulgakov became the prototypes of the heroes of the novel. Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky was written off from a childhood friend of Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky.

The prototype of Lieutenant Shervinsky was another friend of Bulgakov’s youth, Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky, an amateur singer (this quality also passed to the character), who served in the troops of Hetman Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky (1873-1945), but not as an adjutant. Then he emigrated. The prototype of Elena Talberg (Turbina) was Bulgakov's sister, Varvara Afanasievna. Captain Talberg, her husband, has many features in common with the husband of Varvara Afanasievna Bulgakova, Leonid Sergeevich Karuma (1888-1968), a German by birth, a career officer who served first Skoropadsky, and then the Bolsheviks.

The prototype of Nikolka Turbin was one of the brothers M.A. Bulgakov. The second wife of the writer, Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya-Bulgakova, wrote in her book “Memoirs”: “One of the brothers of Mikhail Afanasyevich (Nikolai) was also a doctor. It is on the personality of my younger brother, Nikolai, that I would like to dwell. The noble and cozy little man Nikolka Turbin has always been dear to my heart (especially based on the novel The White Guard. In the play Days of the Turbins, he is much more schematic.). In my life, I never managed to see Nikolai Afanasyevich Bulgakov. This is the youngest representative of the profession chosen in the Bulgakov family - a doctor of medicine, bacteriologist, scientist and researcher, who died in Paris in 1966. He studied at the University of Zagreb and was left there at the department of bacteriology.

The novel was created in a difficult time for the country. Young Soviet Russia, which did not have a regular army, was drawn into the Civil War. The dreams of the hetman-traitor Mazepa, whose name is not accidentally mentioned in Bulgakov's novel, came true. The "White Guard" is based on the events related to the consequences of the Brest Treaty, according to which Ukraine was recognized as an independent state, the "Ukrainian State" was created, headed by Hetman Skoropadsky, and refugees from all over Russia rushed "abroad". Bulgakov in the novel clearly described their social status.

The philosopher Sergei Bulgakov, the writer's cousin, in his book "At the Feast of the Gods" described the death of the motherland as follows: "There was a mighty state, needed by friends, terrible by enemies, and now it is a rotting carrion, from which piece after piece falls off to the delight of a flying crow. In place of the sixth part of the world, there was a fetid, gaping hole ... ”Mikhail Afanasyevich agreed with his uncle in many respects. And it is no coincidence that this terrible picture is reflected in the article by M.A. Bulgakov "Hot prospects" (1919). Studzinsky speaks about the same in the play “Days of the Turbins”: “We had Russia - a great power ...” So for Bulgakov, an optimist and talented satirist, despair and sorrow became the starting points in creating a book of hope. It is this definition that most accurately reflects the content of the novel "The White Guard". In the book “At the Feast of the Gods,” another thought seemed closer and more interesting to the writer: “How Russia will become self-determined largely depends on what Russia will become.” The heroes of Bulgakov are painfully looking for the answer to this question.

In The White Guard, Bulgakov sought to show the people and the intelligentsia in the flames of the Civil War in Ukraine. The main character, Alexei Turbin, although clearly autobiographical, but, unlike the writer, is not a zemstvo doctor, who was 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. Much brings the author closer to his hero, and calm courage, and faith in old Russia, and most importantly - the dream of a peaceful life.

“Heroes must be loved; if this does not happen, I do not advise anyone to take up the pen - you will get the biggest troubles, just know it, ”the Theater Novel says, and this is the main law of Bulgakov’s creativity. In the novel "The White Guard" he speaks of white officers and intellectuals as ordinary people, reveals their young world of soul, charm, intelligence and strength, shows the enemies as living people.

The literary community refused to recognize the dignity of the novel. Out of almost three hundred reviews, Bulgakov counted only three positive ones, and classified the rest as "hostile and abusive." The writer received rude comments. In one of the articles, Bulgakov was called "a new-bourgeois offspring, splashing poisoned, but impotent saliva on the working class, on its communist ideals."

“Class untruth”, “a cynical attempt to idealize the White Guard”, “an attempt to reconcile the reader with the monarchist, Black Hundred officers”, “hidden counter-revolutionary” - this is not a complete list of characteristics that endowed the “White Guard” with those who believed that the main thing in literature is the political position of the writer, his attitude towards the "whites" and "reds".

One of the main motives of the "White Guard" is faith in life, its victorious power. That is why this book, considered forbidden for several decades, found its reader, found a second life in all the richness and brilliance of Bulgakov's living word. Viktor Nekrasov, a writer from Kiev who read The White Guard in the 1960s, quite rightly remarked: “Nothing, it turns out, has faded, nothing has become outdated. It was as if those forty years had never happened ... a clear miracle happened before our eyes, which happens very rarely in literature and far from everyone - there was a second birth. The life of the heroes of the novel continues today, but in a different direction.

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Essay text:

The novel The White Guard was completed by Mikhail Bulgakov in 1925 and tells about revolutionary events in Kyiv in the winter of 1918-1919. It was a difficult, disturbing time when the Soviet government was hard to win its right to exist.
Bulgakov in his novel The White Guard truthfully showed the confusion, turmoil, and then the bloody orgy that reigned in Kyiv at that time.
The heroes of the novel are the Turbin family, their friends and acquaintances, the circle of people who preserve the original traditions of the Russian intelligentsia. Officers: Alexei Turbin and his brother Junker Nikolka, Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Colonel Malyshev and Nai-Tours were thrown out of history as unnecessary. They are still trying to resist Petliura, doing their duty, but the General Staff betrayed them, leaving Ukraine, leaving its inhabitants at the mercy of Petlyura, and then to the Germans.
Fulfilling their duty, the officers are trying to save the junkers from senseless death. Malyshev was the first to learn about the betrayal of the headquarters, he disbands the regiments created from the junkers so as not to shed senseless blood. The writer very dramatically showed the position of people who were called to defend ideals, the city, the Fatherland, but who were betrayed and left to the mercy of fate. Each of them experiences this tragedy in their own way. Aleksey Turbin almost dies from the bullet of a Petliurist, and only an accident in the person of Reiss, a resident of the suburbs, who helped him hide, protect himself from the massacre of bandits, saves him.
Nikolka is saved by Nai-Turs, ordering the junker to stop firing and hide, save his life. Nikolka will never forget this man, a true hero, not broken by the betrayal of the headquarters. Nye fights his own battle, in which he dies, but does not give up. Nikolka fulfills her duty to this man by telling his family about the last moments of Turs's life and burying him with dignity.
It seems that the Turbins and their circle will die in this whirlwind of revolution, civil war, bandit pogroms, but no, they will survive, because there is something in these people that can protect them from senseless death.
They think, dream about the future, try to find their place in this new world that has so cruelly rejected them. They understand that Motherland, family, love, friendship are enduring values ​​that a person cannot part with so easily.
They hold on to each other, to their cozy home behind cream curtains and a lamp with a green shade. But the Turbins understand perfectly well that they cannot sit in the walls of their apartment. The described time is very difficult for the characters, they perceive their forced inactivity as a respite, a desire to comprehend and understand their place in life.
Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Lariosik not by chance go to the Turbins. There is charm, cordiality, warmth in these people, which they give to loved ones, receiving sincere love and devotion in return.
There are eternal values ​​that exist outside of time, and Bulgakov was able to talentedly and sincerely tell about them in his novel The White Guard. The author ends his story with prophetic words. His heroes are on the eve of a new life, they believe that all the worst is in the past. And together with the author, the characters, we believe in the good.
All will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain when even the shadow of our bodies does not remain on the earth. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to turn our eyes to them? Why?

The rights to the essay "SYSTEM OF IMAGES IN THE NOVEL WHITE GUARD" belong to its author. When citing material, it is necessary to indicate a hyperlink to

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

The work was conceived by the author as a large-scale trilogy covering the period of the civil war. Part of the novel was first published in the Rossiya magazine in 1925. The novel in its entirety was first published in France in 1927-1929. The novel was received ambiguously by critics - the Soviet side criticized the writer's glorification of class enemies, the emigrant side criticized Bulgakov's loyalty to Soviet power.

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

Plot

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

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

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

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

Characters

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

History of writing

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 1923, apparently, was completely devoted to work on the novel - Bulgakov did not even keep a diary at that time. On July 11, Bulgakov wrote: "The biggest break in my diary ... It's a disgusting, cold and rainy summer." On July 25, Bulgakov noted: “Because of the “Beep,” which takes away the best part of the day, the novel almost does not move.”

At the end of August 1923, Bulgakov informed Yu. L. Slezkin that he had finished the novel in a draft version - apparently, work had been completed on the earliest edition, the structure and composition of which still remain unclear. In the same letter, Bulgakov wrote: “... but it has not yet been rewritten, it lies in a heap, over which I think a lot. I'll fix something. Lezhnev is launching a thick monthly periodical, Rossiya, with the participation of Russians and foreigners... Apparently, Lezhnev has a huge publishing and editorial future ahead of him. "Russia" will be printed in Berlin ... In any case, things are clearly on the way to revival ... in the literary and publishing world.

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

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

Publication history of the novel

On April 12, 1924, Bulgakov signed an agreement for the publication of The White Guard with the editor of the Rossiya magazine I. G. Lezhnev. On July 25, 1924, Bulgakov wrote in his diary: “... phoned Lezhnev in the afternoon, found out that for the time being it was possible not to negotiate with Kagansky regarding the release of The White Guard as a separate book, since he had no money yet. This is a new surprise. That's when I didn't take 30 chervonets, now I can repent. I am sure that the “Guard” will remain in my hands.” December 29: “Lezhnev is negotiating ... to take the novel The White Guard from Sabashnikov and hand it over to him ... I don’t want to get involved with Lezhnev, and it’s inconvenient and unpleasant to terminate the contract with Sabashnikov.” January 2, 1925: “... in the evening ... I sat with my wife, drafting the text of an agreement on the continuation of the White Guard in Russia ... Lezhnev is courting me ... Tomorrow, a Jew Kagansky, still unknown to me, will have to pay me 300 rubles and bills. These bills can be wiped off. However, the devil knows! I wonder if the money will be brought tomorrow. I won't hand over the manuscript. January 3: “Today I received 300 rubles from Lezhnev on account of the novel The White Guard, which will go to Russia. They promised for the rest of the bill…”

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

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

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

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

Manuscript

The manuscript of the novel has not survived.

Until now, the canonical text of the novel "The White Guard" has not been determined. Researchers for a long time could not find a single page of handwritten or typewritten text of the "White Guard". In the early 1990s an authorized typescript of the end of the "White Guard" was found, with a total volume of about two printed sheets. During the examination of the found fragment, it was possible to establish that the text is the very end of the last third of the novel, which Bulgakov was preparing for the sixth issue of the Rossiya magazine. It was this material that the writer handed over to the editor of Rossiya I. Lezhnev on June 7, 1925. On this day, Lezhnev wrote a note to Bulgakov: “You have completely forgotten Russia. It's high time to submit material for No. 6 to the set, you have to type in the ending of the "White Guard", but you do not enter the manuscripts. We kindly ask you not to delay this matter any longer.” And on the same day, the writer, against receipt (it was preserved), handed over the end of the novel to Lezhnev.

The found manuscript was preserved only because the well-known editor, and then an employee of the Pravda newspaper, I. G. Lezhnev, used Bulgakov’s manuscript to stick on it, as on a paper basis, clippings from newspapers of his numerous articles. In this form, the manuscript was discovered.

The found text of the end of the novel not only differs significantly in content from the Parisian version, but is also much sharper politically - the author's desire to find common ground between the Petliurists and the Bolsheviks is clearly visible. Confirmed and guesses that the writer's story "On the night of the 3rd" is an integral part of the "White Guard".

Historical canvas

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

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

Denikin's telegrams and appeals were made public only after the capture of Kyiv by the Ukrainian Directory, when many of the defenders of Kyiv were captured by Ukrainian units. It turned out that the captured officers and volunteers were neither White Guards nor Hetmans. They were criminally manipulated and they defended Kyiv for no one knows why and no one knows from whom.

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

Character prototypes

"The White Guard" in many details is an autobiographical novel, which is based on the writer's personal impressions and memories of the events that took place in Kyiv in the winter of 1918-1919. Turbines is the maiden name of Bulgakov's grandmother on her mother's side. In the members of the Turbin family, one can easily guess the relatives of Mikhail Bulgakov, his Kyiv friends, acquaintances, and himself. The action of the novel takes place in a house that, down to the smallest detail, was copied from the house where the Bulgakov family lived in Kyiv; now it houses the Turbin House museum.

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

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

Myshlaevsky

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

“He was very handsome ... Tall, thin ... his head was small ... too small for his figure. Everyone dreamed of ballet, wanted to enter a ballet school. Before the arrival of the Petliurists, he went to the Junkers.

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

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

After 1920, the Syngaevsky family emigrated to Poland.

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

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

Shervinsky

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

Thalberg

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

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

Nikolka

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

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

carp

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

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

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

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

Then Zemsky continued to teach Russian, co-authored a textbook of the Russian language.

Lariosik

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

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

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

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

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

T. N. Lappa also recalled: “A relative of some Zhytomyr. I don't remember when he appeared ... An unpleasant type. Some strange, even something abnormal in it was. Clumsy. Something was falling, something was beating. So, some kind of mumbling ... Height is average, above average ... In general, he differed from everyone in something. He was so dense, middle-aged ... He was ugly. Varya liked him immediately. Leonid was not there ... "

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

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

Other prototypes

Dedications

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

Criticism

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

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

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

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

Bulgakov about the novel

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

Aleksey Vasilyevich Turbin, captain, military doctor, 28 years old, - Leshka Goryainov.
Demobilized, engaged in private practice.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Turbin, cadet, 19 years old, - apparently, Dimka, because Zhenya does not have time.
A very pleasant young man.

Sergei Ivanovich Talberg, captain of the general staff for 31 years - Igor. A rather private man, he serves in the hetman's military ministry as a captain (before that he served in a division under the command of Denikin. The author of a sensational note that begins with the words "Petlyura is an adventurer who threatens with his operetta death to the land ..."

Elena Vasilievna Turbina-Talberg, 24 years old - Dara. Sister of the Turbins, wife of Thalberg.

Larion Larionovich Surzhansky, engineer, cousin of the Turbins, 24 years old - Mitechka.
Just arrived in town.

Phillip Fillipovich Preobrazhensky, professor of medicine, the best and most famous doctor in the city of Kyiv, specializes in urology and gynecology, 47 years old - Kolya.
Single. Single, or more accurately, married to medicine. Harsh with loved ones, gentle with strangers.

Lidia Alekseevna Churilova, Head of the Institute for Noble Maidens, 37 years old - Irrra
Born and raised in Kyiv. In her youth, she lived in St. Petersburg for a couple of years, then returned. An excellent boss, loved by both teachers and schoolgirls and their parents. Goddaughter Obalkov. I started to write, but so far I have not really succeeded.

Maria Benkendorf, actress, 27 years old, - Vlad.
Moscow actress stuck in Kyiv due to riots.

Zinaida Genrikhovna Orbeli, niece of Professor Preobrazhensky, 22 years old - Marisha.
Just returned from Kharkov. The last time she was seen in Kyiv was 6 years ago, when she was studying at the institute. She did not finish the institute, got married and left the city.

Fedor Nikolaevich Stepanov, captain of artillery, - Menedin.
A close friend of the elder Turbin, as well as Myshlaevsky and Shervinsky. Before the war he taught mathematics.

Victor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky, staff captain, 34 years old - Sasha Efremov. Harsh, sometimes excessive. Best friend of Alexei Turbin.

Andrei Ivanovich Obalkov, assistant to the city manager, 51 years old - Fedor. He took a chair after the Central Rada came to power, became an assistant under Burchak. Surprisingly, he remained in his post under the hetman. They say he drinks bitter. Godfather Churilova and Nikolka Turbin.

Shervinsky Leonid Yurievich, adjutant of Prince Belorukov, 27 years old - Ingvall.
Former Lieutenant of the Lancers Regiment of the Life Guards of the Lancers Regiment. Opera lover and owner of a great voice. He says he somehow took the upper "A" and held seven measures.

Petr Alexandrovich Lestov, scientist, physicist, 38 years old - Andrey.
If Preobrazhensky is married to medicine, then Lestov is married to physics. He began to come to the Turbins relatively recently.

game technicians: Belka, Garik.

The image of the house in the novel "The White Guard" is central. It unites the heroes of the work, protects them from danger. The turning point events in the country instill anxiety and fear in the souls of people. And only home comfort and warmth can create the illusion of peace and security.

1918

The year nineteen hundred and eighteen is great. But he's also scary. Kyiv, on the one hand, was occupied by German troops, on the other - by the hetman's army. And rumors about the arrival of Petlyura instill more and more anxiety in the townspeople, who are already frightened. Visitors and all sorts of dubious personalities scurry about in the street. Anxiety is even in the air. Such Bulgakov portrayed the situation in Kyiv in the last year of the war. And he used the image of the house in the novel "The White Guard" so that his characters could hide, at least for a while, from the impending danger. The characters of the main characters are revealed precisely within the walls of the Turbins' apartment. Everything outside of it is like another world, scary, wild and incomprehensible.

intimate conversations

The theme of the house in the novel "The White Guard" plays an important role. The Turbins' apartment is cozy and warm. But here, too, the characters of the novel argue, conduct political discussions. Oleksiy Turbin, the oldest tenant of this apartment, scolds the Ukrainian hetman, whose most harmless offense is that he forced the Russian population to speak a "vile language." Then he spews curses at the representatives of the hetman's army. However, the obsceneness of his words does not detract from the truth that lurks in them.

Myshlaevsky, Stepanov and Shervinsky, Nikolka's younger brother, are all excitedly discussing what is happening in the city. And also here is Elena - the sister of Alexei and Nikolka.

But the image of the house in the novel "The White Guard" is not the embodiment of a family hearth and is not a refuge for dissident personalities. This is a symbol of what is still bright and real in a dilapidated country. A political turning point always gives rise to unrest and robbery. And people, in peacetime, it would seem, are quite decent and honest, in difficult situations they show their true colors. Turbines and their friends are few who have not been made worse by the changes in the country.

Thalberg's betrayal

At the beginning of the novel, Elena's husband leaves the house. He runs away into the unknown with a "rat run". Listening to her husband's assurances of an imminent return with Denikin's army, Elena, "aged and grown ugly", understands that he will not return. And so it happened. Thalberg had connections, he took advantage of them and was able to escape. And already at the end of the work, Elena learns about his upcoming marriage.

The image of the house in the novel "The White Guard" is a kind of fortress. But for cowardly and selfish people, she is like a sinking ship for rats. Thalberg flees, and only those who can trust each other remain. Those who are not capable of betrayal.

Autobiographical work

Based on his own life experience, Bulgakov created this novel. "The White Guard" is a work in which the characters express the thoughts of the author himself. The book is not nationwide, as it is dedicated only to a certain social stratum close to the writer.

Bulgakov's heroes turn to God more than once in the most difficult moments. There is complete harmony and mutual understanding in the family. This is how Bulgakov imagined the ideal house. But, perhaps, the theme of the house in the novel "The White Guard" was inspired by the author's youthful memories.

Universal hatred

In 1918, anger prevailed in the cities. It had an impressive scale, as it was generated by the centuries-old hatred of the peasants towards the nobles and officers. And to this it is also worth adding the anger of the local population towards the invaders and Petliurists, whose appearance is awaited with horror. All this the author depicted on the example of the Kyiv events. And only the parental home in the novel "The White Guard" is a bright, kind image, inspiring hope. And here, not only Aleksey, Elena and Nikolka can hide from external life storms.

The house of the Turbins in the novel "The White Guard" becomes a haven for people who are close in spirit to their inhabitants. Myshlaevsky, Karas and Shervinsky became relatives to Elena and her brothers. They know about everything that happens in this family - about all the sorrows and hopes. And they are always welcome here.

mother's testament

Turbina Sr., who died shortly before the events described in the work, bequeathed to her children to live together. Elena, Alexey and Nikolka keep their promise, and only this saves them. Love, understanding and support do not allow them to perish - the components of the true Home. And even when Alexei is dying, and the doctors call him "hopeless", Elena continues to believe and finds support in prayers. And, to the surprise of the doctors, Alexei is recovering.

The author paid much attention to the interior elements in the Turbins' house. Small details create a striking contrast between this apartment and the one below. The atmosphere in Lisovich's house is cold and uncomfortable. And after the robbery, Vasilisa goes to the Turbins for spiritual support. Even this seemingly unpleasant character feels safe in the house of Elena and Alexei.

The world outside of this house is mired in confusion. But here they still sing songs, sincerely smile at each other and boldly look danger in the eye. This atmosphere also attracts another character - Lariosik. Talberg's relative almost immediately became his own here, which Elena's husband failed to do. The thing is that a guest from Zhitomir has such qualities as kindness, decency and sincerity. And they are obligatory for a long stay in the house, the image of which was depicted so vividly and colorfully by Bulgakov.

The White Guard is a novel that was published over 90 years ago. When a play based on this work was staged in one of the Moscow theaters, the audience, whose fates were so similar to the lives of the heroes, wept and fainted. This work has become extremely close to those who survived the events of 1917-1918. But the novel did not lose its relevance later. And some fragments in it are unusually reminiscent of the present. And this once again confirms that a real literary work is always, at any time, relevant.