White Guard. The White Guard (play) Bulgakov the White Guard and the days of the turbines the difference

Mikhail Bulgakov. Collected works

White Guard

Victor Petelin. Days of the Turbins

The novel "The White Guard", chapters from which Bulgakov read in friendly companies, in the literary circle "Green Lamp", attracted the attention of Moscow publishers. But the real publisher is Isai Grigorievich Lezhnev with his magazine “Russia”. An agreement had already been concluded and an advance had been paid when Nedra became interested in the novel. In any case, one of the publishers of Nedra suggested that Bulgakov give them the novel for publication. “...He promised to talk about this with Isai Grigorievich, because the conditions for the novel were enslaving, and in our “Nedra” Bulgakov could have received incomparably more,” recalled the secretary of the “Nedra” publishing house P. N. Zaitsev. - There were two members of the Nedra editorial board in Moscow at that time: V.V. Veresaev and me... I quickly read the novel and forwarded the manuscript to Veresaev in Shubinsky Lane. The novel made a great impression on us. Without hesitation, I spoke out for its publication in Nedra, but Veresaev was more experienced and sober than me. In a reasonable written review, V.V. Veresaev noted the merits of the novel, the skill, objectivity and honesty of the author in showing events and characters, white officers, but wrote that the novel was completely unacceptable for Nedra.

And Klestov-Angarsky, who was vacationing in Koktebel at that time and became acquainted with the circumstances of the case, completely agreed with Veresaev, but immediately offered to conclude an agreement with Bulgakov for some other thing of his. A week later Bulgakov brought the story “ Fatal eggs“. Both Zaitsev and Veresaev liked the story, and they urgently sent it to type, without even coordinating its publication with Angarsky.

So Bulgakov had to publish the novel under enslaving conditions in the magazine “Russia” (No. 4–5, January - March 1925).

After the release of the first parts of the novel, all connoisseurs of great Russian literature responded vividly to its appearance. On March 25, 1925, M. Voloshin wrote to N. S. Angarsky: “I really regretted that you still did not decide to publish The White Guard, especially after I read an excerpt from it in Rossiya.” In print you see things more clearly than in the manuscript... And on secondary reading this thing seemed to me very large and original; As a debut of a beginning writer, it can only be compared with the debuts of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.”

From this letter it is clear that Angarsky, during Zaitsev’s stay in Koktebel, gave the novel to M. Voloshin to read, who spoke in favor of its publication in Nedra, because even then he saw in the novel the “soul of Russian strife” for the first time captured in literature.

Gorky asks S. T. Grigoriev: “Are you familiar with M. Bulgakov?” What is he doing? “The White Guard” is not on sale?

Bulgakov loved this novel, a lot of autobiographical things were embodied in it, thoughts, feelings, experiences not only of his own, but also of his loved ones, with whom he went through all the changes of power in Kyiv and in Ukraine in general. And at the same time, I felt that more work needed to be done on the novel... In the words of the writer himself, “The White Guard” is “a persistent depiction of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country...”, “a depiction of an intellectual-noble family, by the will of an immutable historical the fate of being thrown into a White Guard camp during the Civil War, in the traditions of “War and Peace.” Such an image is quite natural for a writer who is closely connected with the intelligentsia. But such images lead to the fact that their author in the USSR, along with his heroes, receives, despite his great efforts to become dispassionately above the Reds and Whites, a certificate of a White Guard enemy, and having received it, as everyone understands, he can consider himself a complete man. in the USSR."

Bulgakov's heroes are very different, different in their aspirations, in their education, intellect, in their place in society, but all his heroes are characterized by one, perhaps the most important quality - they want something of their own, something inherent only to them, something... then personal, they want to be themselves. And this trait was especially clearly embodied in the heroes of The White Guard. It tells about a very complex and contradictory time, when it was impossible to immediately sort everything out, understand everything, and reconcile contradictory feelings and thoughts within ourselves. With his entire novel, Bulgakov wanted to affirm the idea that people, although they perceive events differently, treat them differently, strive for peace, for the established, the familiar, the established. Whether this is good or bad is another matter, but it is absolutely true. A person does not want war, does not want external forces to interfere with the usual course of his life's destiny, he wants to believe in everything that is done as the highest manifestation of justice.

So the Turbins want them all to live together as a family in their parents’ apartment, where everything is familiar and familiar since childhood, from the slightly worn carpets with Louis to the clumsy clocks with a loud chime, where they have their own traditions, their own human laws, moral, moral, where a sense of duty to the Motherland, Russia is a fundamental feature of their moral code. Friends are also very close to them in their aspirations, thoughts, and feelings. All of them will remain faithful to their civic duty, their ideas about friendship, decency, and honesty. They have developed ideas about man, about the state, about morality, about happiness. The circumstances of life were such that they did not force us to think deeper than was customary in their circle.

The mother, dying, admonished the children - “live together.” And they love each other, worry, suffer if one of them is in danger, experience together these great and terrible events taking place in the beautiful City - the cradle of all Russian cities. Their life developed normally, without any life shocks or mysteries, nothing unexpected or random came into the house. Here everything was strictly organized, streamlined, and determined for many years to come. And if not for the war and revolution, their lives would have passed in peace and comfort. War and revolution disrupted their plans and assumptions. And at the same time something new has appeared that becomes predominant in their inner world- keen interest in political and social ideas. It was no longer possible to remain on the sidelines as before. Politics was part of everyday life. Life required everyone to decide the main question - who to go with, who to join, what to defend, what ideals to defend. The easiest way is to remain faithful to the old order, based on the veneration of the trinity - autocracy, Orthodoxy, nationality. Few people at that time understood politics, the programs of parties, their disputes and disagreements.

Bulgakov as a playwright

Today we will take a closer look at creative activities Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov- one of the most famous playwrights of the last century. He was born on May 3, 1891 in Kyiv. For the duration of his life fell big changes in the device Russian society, which was reflected in many of Bulgakov’s works. It is no coincidence that he is considered the heir to the best traditions of Russian classical literature, prose and drama. He gained worldwide fame thanks to such works as “The Master and Margarita”, “ Heart of a Dog" and "Fatal Eggs".

Three works by Bulgakov

A special place in the writer’s work is occupied by a cycle of three works: the novel "White Guard" and plays "Running" And "Days of the Turbins" based on real events. Bulgakov borrowed the idea from the memories of the emigration of his second wife, Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya. Part of the novel “The White Guard” was first published in the magazine “Russia” in 1925.

At the beginning of the work, the events taking place in the Turbin family are described, but gradually, through the history of one family, the life of the entire people and country is revealed, and the novel acquires philosophical meaning. The story is told about the events of the civil war of 1918 in Kyiv, occupied by the German army. As a result of the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, it does not fall under the rule of the Bolsheviks and becomes a refuge for many Russian intellectuals and military personnel who are fleeing Bolshevik Russia.

Alexey and Nikolka Turbin, like other residents of the City, volunteer to join the defenders’ detachments, and Elena, their sister, protects the house, which becomes a refuge for former officers of the Russian army. Let us note that it is important for Bulgakov not only to describe the revolution in history that was taking place, but also to convey the subjective perception of the civil war as a kind of catastrophe in which there are no winners.

The depiction of a social cataclysm helps to reveal characters - some run, others prefer death in battle. Some commanders, realizing the futility of resistance, send their fighters home, others actively organize resistance and die along with their subordinates. And also - during times of great historical turning points, people do not stop loving, believing, and worrying about loved ones. It’s just that the decisions they have to make every day have a different weight.

Characters of the works:

Alexey Vasilievich Turbin - doctor, 28 years old.
Elena Turbina-Talberg - Alexei's sister, 24 years old.
Nikolka - non-commissioned officer of the First Infantry Squad, brother of Alexei and Elena, 17 years old.
Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky is a lieutenant, a friend of the Turbin family, Alexei’s friend at the Alexander Gymnasium.
Leonid Yuryevich Shervinsky is a former lieutenant of the Life Guards Uhlan Regiment, adjutant at the headquarters of General Belorukov, a friend of the Turbin family, a friend of Alexei at the Alexander Gymnasium, a longtime admirer of Elena.
Fyodor Nikolaevich Stepanov (Karas) - second lieutenant artilleryman, friend of the Turbin family, Alexei's friend at the Alexander Gymnasium.
Nai-Tours is a colonel, commander of the unit where Nikolka serves.

Prototypes of characters and historical background

An important aspect is the autobiographical nature of the novel. Although the manuscripts have not survived, Bulgakov scholars have traced the fate of many characters and proved the almost documentary accuracy of the events described by the author. The prototypes of the main characters in the novel were relatives of the writer himself, and the scenery was the Kyiv streets and his own house, in which he spent his youth.

In the center of the composition is the Turbin family. It is quite widely known that its main prototypes are members of Bulgakov’s own family, however, for the purpose of artistic typification, Bulgakov deliberately reduced their number. In the main character, Alexei Turbine, one can recognize the author himself during the years when he was engaged in medical practice, and the prototype of Elena Talberg-Turbina, Alexei’s sister, can be called Bulgakov’s sister, Elena. Another noteworthy fact is that Bulgakov’s grandmother’s maiden name is Turbina.

Another of the main characters is Lieutenant Myshlaevsky, a friend of the Turbin family. He is an officer devotedly defending his fatherland. That is why the lieutenant enlists in the mortar division, where he turns out to be the most trained and tough officer. According to Bulgakov scholar Ya. Yu. Tinchenko, the prototype of Myshlaevsky was a friend of the Bulgakov family, Pyotr Aleksandrovich Brzhezitsky. He was an artillery officer and participated in the same events that Myshlaevsky talked about in the novel. The rest of the Turbinny's friends remain faithful to the officer's honor in the novel: Stepanov-Karas and Shervinsky, as well as Colonel Nai-Tours.

The prototype for Lieutenant Shervinsky was another friend of Bulgakov - Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky, an amateur singer who served (though not as an adjutant) in the troops of Hetman Skoropadsky; he later emigrated. The prototype of Karas is supposed to have been a friend of the Syngaevskys.

The three works are connected by the novel “The White Guard,” which served as the basis for the play “Days of the Turbins” and several subsequent productions.

“White Guard”, “Running” and “Days of the Turbins” on stage

After part of the novel was published in the Rossiya magazine, the Moscow Art Theater invited Bulgakov to write a play based on The White Guard. This is how “Days of the Turbins” were born. In it main character Turbin absorbs the features of three heroes from the novel “The White Guard” - Alexei Turbin himself, Colonel Malyshev and Colonel Nai-Tours. The young man in the novel is a doctor, but in the play he is a colonel, although these professions are completely different. In addition, one of the heroes, Myshlaevsky, does not hide the fact that he is a professional military man, since he does not want to find himself in the camp of the vanquished. The relatively easy victory of the Reds over the Petliurists makes a strong impression on him: “These two hundred thousand heels have been greased with lard and are blowing at the mere word ‘Bolsheviks’.” At the same time, Myshlaevsky does not even think about the fact that he will have to fight with his yesterday’s friends and comrades in arms - for example, with Captain Studzinsky.

One of the obstacles to accurately conveying the events of the novel is censorship.

As for the play “Running,” its plot is based on the story of the escape of guards from Russia during the Civil War. It all starts in the north of Crimea and ends in Constantinople. Bulgakov describes eight dreams. He uses this technique to convey something unreal, something that is difficult to believe. Heroes of different classes flee from themselves and circumstances. But this is a flight not only from war, but also to love, which is so lacking in the harsh years of war...

Film adaptations

Of course, this amazing story could be seen not only on stage, but also, ultimately, in the cinema. A film adaptation of the play “Running” was released in 1970 in the USSR. The script is based on the works “Running”, “White Guard” and “Black Sea”. The film consists of two episodes, directed by A. Alov and V. Naumov.

Back in 1968, a film was made based on the play “Running” in Yugoslavia, directed by Z. Shotra, and in 1971 in France, directed by F. Shulia.

The novel “The White Guard” served as the basis for the creation of a television series of the same name, which was released in 2011. Starring: K. Khabensky (A. Turbin), M. Porechenkov (V. Myshlaevsky), E. Dyatlov (L. Shervinsky) and others.

Another three-part feature television film, “Days of the Turbins,” was made in the USSR in 1976. A number of location shootings of the film were done in Kyiv (Andreevsky Descent, Vladimirskaya Hill, Mariinsky Palace, Sophia Square).

Bulgakov's works on stage

The stage history of Bulgakov's plays was not easy. In 1930, his works were no longer published, and his plays were removed from theater repertoires. The plays “Running”, “Zoyka’s Apartment”, “Crimson Island” were banned from production, and the play “Days of the Turbins” was withdrawn from the show.

In the same year, Bulgakov wrote to his brother Nikolai in Paris about the unfavorable literary and theatrical situation for himself and the difficult financial situation. Then he sends a letter to the government of the USSR with a request to determine his fate - either to give him the right to emigrate, or to give him the opportunity to work at the Moscow Art Theater. Joseph Stalin himself calls Bulgakov, who recommends that the playwright apply to enroll him in the Moscow Art Theater. However, in his speeches Stalin agreed: “Days of the Turbins” is “an anti-Soviet thing, and Bulgakov is not ours”.

In January 1932, Stalin again allowed the production of The Days of the Turbins, and before the war it was no longer prohibited. True, this permission did not apply to any theater except the Moscow Art Theater.

The performance was performed before the start of the Great Patriotic War. During the bombing of Minsk in June 1941, when the Moscow Art Theater was on tour in Belarus, the scenery burned down.

In 1968, the director, People's Artist of the RSFSR Leonid Viktorovich Varpakhovsky, again staged “Days of the Turbins”.

In 1991, “The White Guard,” directed by People’s Artist of the USSR Tatyana Vasilievna Doronina, once again returned to the stage. The performance was a great success among the audience. The genuine acting successes of V.V. Klementyev, T.G. Shalkovskaya, M.V. Kabanov, S.E. Gabrielyan, N.V. Penkov and V.L. Rovinsky revealed to the audience of the 1990s the drama of the revolutionary years, the tragedy of ruin and losses. The merciless cruelty of the revolutionary break-up, general destruction and collapse burst into life.

The “White Guard” embodies nobility, honor, dignity, patriotism and awareness of one’s own tragic end.

In the now distant 1927, the Riga publishing house “Literature” published new novel Mikhail Bulgakov "Days of the Turbins". Perhaps today, this fact would no longer be of particular interest to all of us, if not for one interesting detail. The fact is that the Literature publishing house not only did not receive permission from the author to publish the novel, but also had only part of the first volume, printed in Russia. But such a “minor” obstacle could not stop the enterprising businessmen, and the management of the publishing house instructed a certain follower of “Count Amaury,” and perhaps himself, to correct the first volume and finish the novel. first appeared before the St. Petersburg public at the beginning of the 20th century. The owner of this unusual pseudonym was a certain Ippolit Pavlovich Rapgoff. He studied piano at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Having completed his studies, he founded the Higher Courses in Piano Playing in St. Petersburg together with his brother Evgeniy, a fellow music connoisseur. The success of their enterprise was great, and the brothers' surname became very noticeable in the capital. musical world. But the music did not last long in the same composition: after a few years the relatives quarreled. The courses remained forever “E.P. Rapgoff’s Music Courses,” and the tireless Ippolit Pavlovich got involved in a rivalry with his brother. He headed a private music school F.I. Russo, whom he brought to a high professional level, while taking away a number of students from his brother. The changes began quite unexpectedly and quite banally: the first gramophone was brought to St. Petersburg. And Ippolit Pavlovich understood: this invention is the future. What didn’t he do for the triumph of the gramophone?! He traveled all over Russia, gave lectures about this miracle of technology, and opened a record store in Passage. His gramophone achievements were fully appreciated by his contemporaries and descendants: it was he, in the unanimous opinion, who managed to break the public’s mistrust of the “mechanical ventriloquist.” But having already achieved victory, he did not know peace. Ippolit Pavlovich was now attracted by literature. In 1898, a certain Doctor Fogpari (de Kuosa) appeared to the capital's readers: the name under which the same tireless Rapgoff hid. The doctor wrote about the “hygiene of love”, reflected on “how to live to be a hundred years old”, taught magic, described recipes for vegetarian cuisine - in a word, he undertook to write about everything that could interest the average person. Following Fogpari (the year was already 1904), Amaury himself finally came to the fore. The Count became the idol of lovers of pulp literature. Having made his debut in the magazine "Svet" with the novel "Secrets of the Japanese Court", he subsequently wrote several novels annually. In addition to favorite adventurous plots, these were also continuations of already known works - Artsybashev’s “Sanin”, Kuprin’s “The Pit”, Verbitskaya’s “Keys of Happiness”. Each time a scandal arose around the sequels, the authors fumed - and the books flew away, bringing considerable income to the publishers. So the “count” conscientiously fulfilled the order, Bulgakov’s novel was released in three parts, and the first volume was extremely illiterately distorted and abridged, and the third part of the novel - the last 38 pages of the book - had nothing in common with Bulgakov’s text, and was entirely invented by a hack . The original text of the novel, the audio version of which we present to you in a brilliant reading by Sergei Chonishvili, was released in Paris in 1927 by the Concord publishing house. Producer of the publication: Vladimir Vorobyov ©&℗ IP Vorobyov V.A. ©&℗ ID SOYUZ

“Days of the Turbins” - Bulgakov’s most popular play was born from the novel “The White Guard”. Its premiere took place at the Moscow Art Theater on October 5, 1926. In April 1929, “Days of the Turbins” was removed from the repertoire due to a censorship ban, after Stalin’s conversation with Ukrainian writers, which took place on February 12, 1929. Stalin's interlocutors were the head of the Main Art Department of Ukraine A. Petrenko-Levchenko, the head of Agitprop of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) A. Khvylya, the head of the All-Ukrainian Union of Proletarian Writers, the Union of Writers of Ukraine I. Kulik, writers A. Desnyak (Rudenko), I. Mikitenko and others . Stalin defended Bulgakov's play, saying: “Take “Days of the Turbins.” What is the general aftertaste of the impression left on the viewer (despite the negative aspects, what they are, I will also say), what is the overall aftertaste of the impression left when the viewer leaves the theater? This is the impression of the invincible strength of the Bolsheviks. Even such people, strong, persistent, honest in their own way, in quotation marks, must admit in the end that nothing can be done about these Bolsheviks. I think that the author, of course, did not want this, he is innocent of this, that is not the point, of course. “Days of the Turbins” is the greatest demonstration in favor of the all-crushing power of Bolshevism. (Voice from the place: And change of leadership.) Sorry, I cannot demand from a writer that he must be a communist and must adhere to the party point of view. For fictional literature, other standards are needed: non-revolutionary and revolutionary, Soviet - non-Soviet, proletarian - non-proletarian. But one cannot demand that literature be communist.” However, one of the interlocutors stated that “Days of the Turbins” “covers the uprising against the hetman. This revolutionary uprising is shown in terrible colors, under the leadership of Petlyura, at a time when it was a revolutionary uprising of the masses, which took place not under the leadership of Petlyura, but under the Bolshevik leadership. This kind of historical distortion of the revolutionary uprising, and on the other hand, the depiction of the peasant insurgent [movement] as (omission in the transcript) in my opinion, cannot be allowed from the stage of the Art Theater, and if it is positive that the Bolsheviks forced the intelligentsia to come to a change of religion, then, in any case, such a depiction of the revolutionary movement and the Ukrainian fighting masses cannot be allowed.” Another interlocutor was indignant: “Why do artists speak German in a purely German language and consider it completely acceptable to distort the Ukrainian language, mocking this language? It's just anti-art." Stalin agreed with this: “Indeed, there is a tendency to disdain the Ukrainian language.” And the writer Oleksa Desnyak stated: “When I watched “Days of the Turbins,” the first thing that struck me was that Bolshevism defeats these people not because it is Bolshevism, but because it makes one great indivisible Russia. This is a concept that catches everyone’s eye, and it’s better not to have such a victory for Bolshevism.” Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks L.M. spoke about the same thing. Kaganovich: “The one indivisible sticks out.”

Stalin once again tried to defend the play: “About “Days of the Turbins” - I said that this is an anti-Soviet thing, and Bulgakov is not ours. (...) But what, despite the fact that this is an anti-Soviet thing, can be taken from this thing? This is the all-destructive force of communism. There are Russian people depicted there - Turbins and the remnants of their group, all of them joining the Red Army as the Russian army. This is also true. (Voice from the place: With the hope of rebirth.) Maybe, but you have to admit that both Turbin himself and the remnants of his group say: “The people are against us, our leaders have sold out. There is nothing left to do but submit.” There is no other force. This also needs to be recognized. Why are such plays staged? Because there are few or no real plays of their own. I am against indiscriminately denying everything in “Days of the Turbins”, in order to talk about this play as a play that gives only negative results. I believe that it basically still gives more advantages than disadvantages.”

When Stalin directly asked A. Petrenko-Levchenko: “What do you want, exactly?”, he replied: “We want our penetration into Moscow to result in the filming of this play.” Voices from the field confirmed that this was the unanimous opinion of the entire delegation, and that instead of “Days of the Turbins” it would be better to stage Vladimir Kirshon’s play about the Baku commissars. Then Stalin asked the Ukrainians whether they should stage Ostrovsky’s Warm Heart or Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, and heard in response that Ostrovsky was outdated. Here Joseph Vissarionovich reasonably objected that people cannot watch only communist plays and “the worker does not know whether it is a classical thing or not, but watches what he likes.” And again he spoke well about Bulgakov’s play: “Of course, if a White Guard watches “Days of the Turbins,” he is unlikely to be satisfied, he will not be satisfied. If workers attend the play, the general impression is that this is the power of Bolshevism, nothing can be done about it. People who are more subtle will notice that there is a lot of shifting, of course, this is a negative side, the ugly image of Ukrainians is an ugly side, but there is also another side.” And to Kaganovich’s suggestion that the Main Repertoire Committee could correct the play, Stalin objected: “I do not consider the Main Repertoire Committee to be the center of artistic creativity. He is often wrong. (...) You want him (Bulgakov. – Author) did you draw a real Bolshevik? Such a demand cannot be made. You demand from Bulgakov that he be a communist - this cannot be demanded. No plays. Take the repertoire of the Art Theater. What do they put there? “At the Gates of the Kingdom”, “Warm Heart”, “Uncle Vanya”, “The Marriage of Figaro”. (Voice from the place: Is this a good thing?) What? This is a trivial, meaningless thing. Jokes of parasites and their minions. (...) Perhaps you will defend Petliura’s army? (Voice from the place: No, why?) You cannot say that the proletarians went with Petliura. (Voice from the place: The Bolsheviks took part in this uprising against the hetman. This is an uprising against the hetman.) Petliur’s headquarters, if we take it for granted, is it poorly depicted? (Voice from the seat: We are not offended for Petlyura) There are both minuses and pluses. I think there are generally more advantages.”

But in response to Kaganovich’s proposal to end the conversation about the “Days of the Turbins,” one of Ukrainian writers complained that while in Ukraine they are fully fighting against both great-power chauvinism and local, Ukrainian chauvinism, in the RSFSR they are not fighting against great-power chauvinism enough, “although many facts of chauvinism in relation to Ukraine can be found.”

However, in general, Stalin listened to criticism from Ukrainian communist writers and sanctioned the ban on Turbin Days. For the time being, he had to convince Ukrainian writers and nomenklatura that he stood for the development of Ukrainian culture and would protect Ukraine from manifestations of great-power chauvinism. The filming of “Days of the Turbins” became a certain symbolic gesture here.

On February 16, 1932 they were resumed on the personal instructions of Stalin. By that time, a course had already been set for the gradual de-Ukrainization and Russification of Ukraine, so that the distortion of the Ukrainian language could no longer be blamed on Bulgakov.

“Days of the Turbins” remained on the stage of the Art Theater until June 1941. In total, the play was performed 987 times between 1926 and 1941. If it were not for the almost three-year forced break, the play would probably have been performed on stage significantly more than 1000 times. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Art Theater toured Minsk. The performances continued until June 24, 1941. During the bombing, the building where the theater gave performances was destroyed, and all the scenery and costumes of the play “Days of the Turbins” were burned. The play was not resumed on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater until 1967, when “Days of the Turbins” was again staged at the Art Theater by the famous director Leonid Viktorovich Varpakhovsky.

During Bulgakov's lifetime, the play "Days of the Turbins" never appeared in print, despite its unheard-of popularity. “Days of the Turbins” was first published in the USSR in Bulgakov’s collection of two plays (together with the play about Pushkin “The Last Days”) only in 1955. It should be noted that 21 years earlier, in 1934, two translations of “The Days of the Turbins” were published in Boston and New York. English language, made by Y. Lyons and F. Bloch. In 1927, a translation made by K. Rosenberg appeared in Berlin German the second edition of Bulgakov’s play, which in the Russian original bore the title “The White Guard” (the publication had a double title: “Days of the Turbins. The White Guard”).

Since “Days of the Turbins” was written based on the novel “The White Guard,” the first two editions of the play bore the same name as the novel. Bulgakov began work on the first edition of the play “The White Guard” in July 1925. This was preceded by the following dramatic events. On April 3, 1925, Bulgakov received an invitation from the director of the Art Theater Boris Ilyich Vershilov to come to the theater, where he was offered to write a play based on the novel “The White Guard.” Vershilov, Ilya Yakovlevich Sudakov, Mark Ilyich Prudkin, Olga Nikolaevna Androvskaya, Alla Konstantinovna Tarasova, Nikolai Pavlovich Khmelev, head of the Moscow Art Theater Pavel Aleksandrovich Markov and other representatives of the young troupe of the Art Theater were looking for a play of the modern repertoire, where they could all get worthy roles and, in the event success, breathe new life the brainchild of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. Having become familiar with the publication of the novel “The White Guard” in the magazine “Russia”, young Moscow Art Theater students were able to appreciate the enormous dramatic potential of the novel from the first part. It is interesting that Bulgakov’s idea to write a play based on “The White Guard” originated in January 1925, i.e. before Vershilov’s proposal. To some extent, this idea continued the idea realized in Vladikavkaz in Bulgakov’s early play “The Turbine Brothers” in 1920. Then the autobiographical heroes were transferred to the times of the 1905 revolution.

At the beginning of September 1925, he read the first edition of the play “The White Guard” in the theater in the presence of Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky. The first edition of the play had five acts, not four, as in subsequent ones. Almost everything was repeated here storylines novel and almost all of its main characters are preserved. Alexey Turbin was still a military doctor here, and Colonels Malyshev and Nai-Tours were present among the characters. This edition did not satisfy the Moscow Art Theater because of its length and the presence of overlapping characters and episodes. In the next edition, which Bulgakov read to the Moscow Art Theater troupe at the end of October 1925, Nai-Tours had already been eliminated and his remarks and heroic death were transferred to Colonel Malyshev. And by the end of January 1926, when the final distribution of roles in the future performance was made, Bulgakov also removed Malyshev, turning Alexei Turbin into a career artillery colonel, a real exponent of the ideology of the White movement. As we have already mentioned, the husband of Bulgakov’s sister Nadezhda, Andrei Mikhailovich Zemsky, and Myshlaevsky’s prototype, Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky, served as artillery officers in 1917–1918. Perhaps this circumstance prompted the playwright to make the main characters of the play artillerymen, although the heroes of the play, like the heroes of the novel, do not have to act as artillerymen.

Now it was Turbin, and not Nai-Tours and Malyshev, who died in the gymnasium, covering the retreat of the cadets, and the intimacy of Turbin’s house exploded with the tragedy of the death of its owner. But Turbin also, with his death, gave the white idea a salutary catharsis.

Now the play is basically set. Subsequently, under the influence of censorship, the scene at the Petliura headquarters was filmed, because the Petliura freemen in their cruel element were very reminiscent of the Red Army. Let us note that in the early editions, as in the novel, the “turnover” of the Petliurites in red was emphasized by the “red tails” (shlykas) on their hats (some Petliurist kurens actually wore such shlykas). The very name of the play, “The White Guard,” raised censorship objections. KS. Stanislavsky, under pressure from the General Repertoire Committee, proposed replacing it with “Before the End,” which Bulgakov categorically rejected. In August 1926, the parties agreed on the name “Days of the Turbins” (the “Turbin Family” appeared as an intermediate option). On September 25, 1926, “Days of the Turbins” was approved by the Main Repertoire Committee for production only at the Art Theater. IN last days before the premiere, a number of changes had to be made, especially to the finale, where the increasing sounds of the “Internationale” appeared, and Myshlaevsky was forced to say a toast to the Red Army and express his readiness to serve in it with the words: “At least I know that I will serve in the Russian army.” , and at the same time proclaim that instead of the old Russia there will be a new one - just as great.

L.S. Karum recalled about “Days of the Turbins”: “Bulgakov remade the first part of his novel into a play called “Days of the Turbins” (in reality, it should be less about remaking the first part of the novel into a play, but about writing an original play based on the novel. Since Alexei Turbin was now dying in the gymnasium building, then in the final scene, which takes place at the moment when the Petliurists leave the city under the onslaught of the Reds, the role that he played in the novel was actually taken on by Myshlaevsky. B.S. ). This play was very sensational, because for the first time on the Soviet stage, although not direct opponents of the Soviet regime, but still indirect ones were brought out. But the “officers-drinking buddies” are somewhat artificially colored, they evoke vain sympathy for themselves, and this caused objections to staging the play on stage.

The case in the novel and play is played out in a family whose members serve in the ranks of the Hetman’s troops against the Petliurists, so that there is practically no White anti-Bolshevik army.

The play nevertheless suffered a lot of pain before it got to the stage. Bulgakov and the Moscow Art Theater, which staged this play, had to deepen it many times. So, for example, at one party in Turbin’s house, the officers - all monarchists - sing the anthem. Censorship demanded that the officers be drunk and sing the anthem out of tune, in drunken voices. (Here Karum is clearly mistaken. After all, in the text of the novel, the singing of the novel took place at a party at which Alexey Turbin, as well as Shervinsky and Myshlaevsky, got pretty drunk. – B.S.)

I read the novel a long time ago, I saw the play several years ago, and therefore the novel and the play merged into one.

I just have to say that my similarity was made less similar in the play, but Bulgakov could not deny himself the pleasure so that someone would not hit me in the play, and my wife would marry someone else. Only Talberg (a negative type) goes to Denikin’s army; the rest disperse after the capture of Kyiv by the Petliurists, in all directions.”

Under the influence of the image of Myshlaevsky in the play, Bulgakov somewhat ennobled this image in the edition of the end of the novel “The White Guard”, which was published in Paris in 1929. In particular, the episode with the abortion, which the Turbins’ maid Anyuta is forced to have from Myshlaevsky, was removed.

“Days of the Turbins” had a completely unique success with the public. This was the only play in the Soviet theater where the white camp was shown not as a caricature, but with undisguised sympathy, and its main representative, Colonel Alexei Turbin, was endowed with obvious autobiographical features. The personal integrity and honesty of the Bolshevik opponents were not questioned, and the blame for the defeat was placed on the headquarters, generals and political leaders who failed to propose a political program acceptable to the majority of the population and properly organize the White army. During the first season of 1926/27, the play was performed 108 times, more than any other performance in Moscow theaters. “Days of the Turbins” was loved by the intelligent non-party public, while the party public sometimes tried to create obstruction. The second wife of playwright L.E. Belozerskaya in her memoirs reproduces a friend’s story about the Moscow Art Theater performance: “The 3rd act of “Days of the Turbins” was going on... The battalion (more correctly, the artillery battalion. - B.S. ) destroyed. The city was taken by the Haidamaks. The moment is tense. There is a glow in the window of the Turbino house. Elena and Lariosik are waiting. And suddenly a faint knock... Both listen... Suddenly, an excited female voice comes from the audience: “Open up!” These are ours!” This is the merging of theater with life that a playwright, actor and director can only dream of.”

But here’s how “Days of the Turbins” was remembered by a person from another camp - the critic and censor Osaf Semenovich Litovsky, who did a lot to expel Bulgakov’s plays from the theatrical stage: “The premiere of the Art Theater was remarkable in many respects, and primarily because it was mainly attended by youth. In “Days of the Turbins” Moscow met for the first time with such actors as Khmelev, Yanshin, Dobronravov, Sokolova, Stanitsyn - with artists creative biography which took shape in Soviet times.

The utmost sincerity with which the young actors portrayed the experiences of the “knights” of the white idea, the evil punishers, the executioners of the working class, aroused the sympathy of one, the most insignificant part of the audience, and the indignation of another.

Whether the theater wanted it or not, it turned out that the performance called on us to have pity, to treat the lost Russian intellectuals in and out of uniform as human beings.

Nevertheless, we could not help but see that a new, young generation of artists from the Art Theater was entering the stage, who had every reason to stand on a par with the glorious old men.

And indeed, soon we had the opportunity to enjoy the wonderful creativity of Khmelev and Dobronravov.

On the evening of the premiere, all the participants in the performance literally seemed like a miracle: Yanshin, Prudkin, Stanitsyn, Khmelev, and especially Sokolova and Dobronravov.

It is impossible to convey how impressed Dobronravov in the role of Captain Myshlaevsky was with his exceptional, even for Stanislavsky’s students, simplicity.

Years have passed. Toporkov began to play the role of Myshlaevsky. And we, the audience, really want to say to the participants of the premiere: never forget Myshlaevsky - Dobronravov, this simple, slightly clumsy Russian man, who truly deeply understood everything, very simply and sincerely, without any solemnity and pathos, admitted his bankruptcy.

Here he is, an ordinary infantry officer (actually an artillery officer. - B.S. ), of which we have seen many on the Russian stage, doing the most ordinary thing: sitting on a bed and pulling off his boots, at the same time dropping individual words of recognition of surrender. And behind the scenes - “Internationale”. Life goes on. Every day you will need to pull the official, and maybe even military, burden...

Looking at Dobronravov, I thought: “Well, this one will probably be the commander of the Red Army, he will definitely be!”

Myshlaevsky - Dobronravov was much smarter and more significant, deeper than his Bulgakov prototype (and Bulgakov himself, we note, was smarter and more significant than his critic Litovsky. - B.S. ).

The director of the play was Ilya Yakovlevich Sudakov, who was only a year older than Bulgakov himself, and the main director was KS. Stanislavsky. It was in the work on “Days of the Turbins” that the young Moscow Art Theater troupe truly took shape.

Almost all Soviet criticism unanimously criticized Bulgakov’s play, although sometimes they risked praising the Moscow Art Theater production, in which the actors and director allegedly managed to overcome the playwright’s “reactionary plan.” Thus, People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky argued in an article in Izvestia on October 8, 1926, immediately after the premiere, that the play reigns in “the atmosphere of a dog’s wedding around some red-haired wife of a friend,” considered it “a semi-apology of the White Guard,” and later, in 1933, called “ Days of the Turbins" "a drama of restrained, even if you want sly, capitulation." In an article in the magazine “New Spectator” dated February 2, 1927, Bulgakov, who compiled an album of clippings of reviews of his works, emphasized the following: “We are ready to agree with some of our friends that “Days of the Turbins” is a cynical attempt to idealize the White Guard, but we have no doubt that that “Days of the Turbins” is an aspen stake in her coffin. Why? Because for a healthy Soviet viewer, the most ideal slush cannot present a temptation, and for dying active enemies and for passive, flabby, indifferent ordinary people, the same slush cannot provide either emphasis or charge against us. Just as a funeral hymn cannot serve as a military march.” The playwright, in a letter to the government on March 28, 1930, noted that his scrapbook had accumulated 298 “hostile and abusive” reviews and 3 positive ones, the vast majority of which were dedicated to “The Days of the Turbins.” Almost the only positive response to the play was N. Rukavishnikov’s review in Komsomolskaya Pravda dated December 29, 1926. This was a response to an abusive letter from the poet Alexander Bezymensky, who called Bulgakov a “new bourgeois brat.” Rukavishnikov tried to convince Bulgakov’s opponents that “on the threshold of the 10th anniversary October Revolution... it’s completely safe to show the viewer living people that the viewer is quite tired of both the shaggy priests from the propaganda and the pot-bellied capitalists in top hats,” but he never convinced any of the critics.

In the play, as in the novel, negative hero Talberg appears, concerned only with his career and has now been promoted to colonel. In the second edition of the play “The White Guard,” he quite selfishly explained his return to Kyiv, which the Bolsheviks were about to occupy: “I am perfectly aware of the matter. The Hetmanate turned out to be a stupid operetta. I decided to return and work in contact with the Soviet authorities. We need to change political milestones. That's all." However, for censorship, such an early “change of leadership” of such an unsympathetic character as Talberg turned out to be unacceptable. As a result, in the final text of the play, Talberg had to explain his return to Kyiv by a business trip to the Don to General P.N. Krasnov, although it remained unclear why this character, not distinguished by courage, chose such a risky route, with a stop in the city, which was still occupied by the Petliurists hostile to the whites and was about to be occupied by the Bolsheviks. The sudden outbreak of love for his wife Elena as an explanation for this act looked rather false, since before, when he hastily left for Berlin, Thalberg did not show much concern for the wife he left behind. Bulgakov needed the return of the deceived husband right before Elena’s wedding with Shervinsky to create a comic effect and the final shame of Vladimir Robertovich (that was Talberg’s name now).

The image of Talberg in The Days of the Turbins came out even more repulsive than in the novel The White Guard. Karum, naturally, did not want to admit that he was a negative character, which is why, as we remember, his family broke off all relations with Mikhail Afanasyevich. But in many ways, Colonel Thalberg, who was copied from him, was one of the strongest, although very repulsive, images of the play. In the opinion of the censors, it was absolutely impossible to bring such a person into service in the Red Army. Therefore, instead of returning to Kyiv in the hope of establishing cooperation with the Soviet government, Bulgakov had to send Talberg on a business trip to the Don to Krasnov. On the contrary, under pressure from the Main Repertoire Committee and the Moscow Art Theater, the handsome Myshlaevsky underwent a significant evolution towards change-of-government and willing acceptance of Soviet power. Here, for such development of the image, a literary source was used - the novel by Vladimir Zazubrin (Zubtsov) “Two Worlds” (1921). There, lieutenant of Kolchak’s army Ragimov explained his intention to go over to the Bolsheviks as follows: “We fought. They cut it honestly. Ours doesn't take. Let's go to those whose beret... In my opinion, both the homeland and the revolution are just a beautiful lie with which people cover up their selfish interests. This is how people are designed, that no matter what meanness they do, they will always find an excuse.” Myshlaevsky, in the final text, speaks of his intention to serve the Bolsheviks and break with the White movement: “Enough! I have been fighting since nine hundred and fourteen. For what? For the fatherland? And this is the fatherland, when they abandoned me to shame?! And go to these lordships again?! Well no! Have you seen it? (Shows shish.) Shish!.. Am I really an idiot? No, I, Viktor Myshlaevsky, declare that I no longer have anything to do with these scoundrel generals. I’m finished!..” Zazubrinsky Ragimov interrupted the carefree vaudeville song of his comrades with a recitation: “I am a commissar. There’s a fire in my chest!” In the final text of “Days of the Turbins,” Myshlaevsky inserts a toast into the white anthem - “Prophetic Oleg”: “So for the Council of People's Commissars...” Compared to Ragimov, Myshlaevsky was greatly ennobled in his motives, but the vitality of the image was completely preserved.

The essence of the changes that took place in the play compared to the novel was summed up by the critic I.M., who was hostile to Bulgakov. Nusinov:

“Now we no longer need to make excuses for our change of leadership, for adapting to a new life: this is a passed stage. Now the moment of reflection and repentance for the sins of the class has also passed. Bulgakov, on the contrary, taking advantage of the difficulties of the revolution, is trying to deepen the ideological offensive against the winner. He once again overestimates the crisis and death of his class and tries to rehabilitate it. Bulgakov reworks his novel The White Guard into the drama Days of the Turbins. Two figures in the novel - Colonel Malyshev and doctor Turbin - are combined in the image of Colonel Alexei Turbin.

In the novel, the colonel betrays the team and is saved himself, and the doctor dies not as a hero, but as a victim. In the drama, the doctor and the colonel are merged in Alexei Turbin, whose death is the apotheosis of white heroism. In the novel, peasants and workers teach the Germans to respect their country. Bulgakov evaluates the revenge of peasants and workers on the German and hetman enslavers as a fair verdict of fate on the “bastards.” In the drama, the people are just a wild Petlyura gang. In the novel, there is white culture - the restaurant life of “coked up prostitutes”, a sea of ​​filth in which the Turbins’ flowers are drowning. In the drama, the beauty of the Turbins’ flowers is the essence of the past and a symbol of dying life. The author’s task is the moral rehabilitation of the past in drama.”

The critic did not stop at direct distortion of Bulgakov's texts and plans. After all, in the novel, the doctor Alexei Turbin does not die at all, but is only wounded. Colonel Malyshev in the novel does not at all “betray the team” for the sake of his own salvation, but, on the contrary, first saves his subordinates, dissolving the division, which has no one else to protect, and only then leaves the gymnasium building.

In the early edition of “Days of the Turbins,” created in 1925, Myshlaevsky, in the middle of a feast, offers to drink to Trotsky’s health because he is “nice.” In the finale, in response to Studzinsky’s remark: “Have you forgotten what Alexey Vasilyevich predicted? Remember, Trotsky? “Everything has come true, there he is, Trotsky is coming!” – Viktor Viktorovich asserted, and as if quite soberly: “And wonderful! Magnificent thing! If it were my power, I would appoint him as corps commander!” However, by the time of the premiere of “Days of the Turbins” in October 1926, Trotsky was removed from the Politburo and found himself in disgrace, so that it became impossible to pronounce his name on stage in a positive context.

Bulgakov was attracted by the extraordinary personality of Trotsky, the main military leader of the Bolsheviks during the Civil War, against whom the future author of “The White Guard” had to fight for several months as a military doctor of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia in the North Caucasus. In the diary “Under the Heel,” the writer responded to Lev Davydovich’s temporary suspension from acting due to illness job responsibilities, regarding this as a defeat for the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council in the struggle for power. On January 8, 1924, Bulgakov commented unequivocally on the publication of the corresponding bulletin in newspapers: “So, on January 8, 1924, Trotsky was expelled. Only God knows what will happen to Russia. Let him help her." Obviously, he considered Trotsky’s victory to be a lesser evil compared to the rise to power of Stalin and G.E., who were closely allied with him at that time. Zinoviev and L.B. Kamenev, married, by the way, to Trotsky’s sister Olga. At the same time, the writer did not share the widespread opinion that a clash between Trotsky and the other members of the Politburo could lead to armed confrontation and mass unrest. In a recording made on the night of December 20-21, 1924, Bulgakov called the most important event of the last two months “the split in the party caused by Trotsky’s book “Lessons of October”, the united attack on him by all the leaders of the party led by Zinoviev, Trotsky’s exile under on the pretext of illness, to the south and after that - calm. The hopes of the white emigration and internal counter-revolutionaries that the story of Trotskyism and Leninism would lead to bloody clashes or a coup within the party, of course, as I expected, were not justified. Trotsky was eaten, and nothing more. Joke:

- Lev Davidich, how is your health?

“I don’t know, I haven’t read today’s newspapers yet (an allusion to the bulletin about his health, written in completely ridiculous tones).” It should be noted that both in the anecdote and in the main text of the entry there is some sympathy for Trotsky. Opponents of the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council are called “leaders” who “ate” their party comrade.

For Bulgakov, Trotsky is an adversary, but an adversary in many ways worthy of respect.

In the play, Bulgakov did not at all try to flatter the former chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, but only reflected an opinion widespread among white officers. I will refer to the testimony of my grandfather, by the way, like Bulgakov, doctors, B.M. Sokolov, who in 1919 in Voronezh had a chance to talk with the head of counterintelligence in the Shkuro corps, Yesaul Kargin, who was staying with him. For some reason, without any reason, Esaul considered his grandfather red, but was very friendly, invited him to dinner and admitted at the table: “You have one real commander - Trotsky. Eh, if we had one like that, we would definitely win.” It is curious that under the influence of Trotsky’s extraordinary personality, no matter how one views it, different times there turned out to be people very far from communist ideas and the Bolshevik Party.

By the way, my grandfather could have been mistaken about the fact that Kargin was the head of the corps’ counterintelligence. The only esaul known to me with the surname Kargin is Alexander Ivanovich Kargin, born in 1882, promoted to esaul on December 29, 1915, and on March 9, 1917 appointed commander of the 20th Don Cossack battery. On January 31, 1919, he was promoted to military sergeant major. He died on January 6, 1935 in the French city of Caen. His “Karginskaya” battery is mentioned in the novel “ Quiet Don" True, my grandfather remembered Kargin as a captain, but he could also have been the last rank he received in the imperial army. Kargin was a Don Cossack, and Shkuro commanded a corps of Kuban and Terek Cossacks. However, in Voronezh, the Don Cossack Corps of General KK Mamontov also came under the command of Shkuro.

During the 1926/27 season, Bulgakov received a letter at the Moscow Art Theater signed “Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky.” The fate of the unknown author during the Civil War coincided with the fate of Bulgakov’s hero, and in subsequent years it was just as bleak as that of the creator of “The White Guard” and “Days of the Turbins.” The letter stated:

“Dear Mr. author. Remembering your sympathetic attitude towards me and knowing how interested you were at one time in my fate, I hasten to inform you of my further adventures after we parted with you. Having waited for the Reds to arrive in Kyiv, I was mobilized and began to serve new government not for fear, but for conscience, and he even fought with the Poles with enthusiasm. It seemed to me then that only the Bolsheviks were that real power, strong with the people’s faith in it, that would bring happiness and prosperity to Russia, that would make strong, honest, straightforward citizens out of ordinary people and rogue God-bearers. Everything about the Bolsheviks seemed so good to me, so smart, so smooth, in a word, I saw everything in a rosy light to the point that I myself blushed and almost became a communist, but my past – being a nobility and an officer – saved me. But now the honeymoons of the revolution are passing. NEP, Kronstadt uprising. I, like many others, am going through a frenzy and my rose-colored glasses are starting to turn darker colors...

General meetings under the watchful inquisitorial gaze of the local committee. Resolutions and demonstrations under pressure. Illiterate bosses who have the appearance of a Votyat god and lust after every typist (one gets the impression that the author of the letter was familiar with the relevant episodes of Bulgakov’s story “The Heart of a Dog,” unpublished, but circulating in the lists. - B.S. ). No understanding of the matter, but a look at everything from the inside out. Komsomol spying casually with enthusiasm. The working delegations are distinguished foreigners, reminiscent of Chekhov's generals at a wedding. And lies, lies endlessly... Leaders? These are either little men holding on to power and comfort, which they have never seen, or rabid fanatics thinking of breaking through the wall with their foreheads (the latter, obviously, meant, first of all, L.D. Trotsky, who had already fallen into disgrace. - B.S. ). And the very idea! Yes, the idea is wow, quite complex, but absolutely not put into practice, like the teachings of Christ, but Christianity is both clearer and more beautiful (it seems that “Myshlaevsky” was also familiar with the works of Russian philosophers N.A. Berdyaev and S.N. Bulgakov, who argued that Marxism took the Christian idea and simply transferred it from heaven to earth. B.S. ).

So, sir. Now I'm left with nothing. Not materially. No. I serve even nowadays - wow, I’m getting by. But it’s lousy to live without believing in anything. After all, not believing in anything and not loving anything is the privilege of the next generation after us, our homeless replacement.

IN lately or under the influence of a passionate desire to fill the spiritual emptiness, or, indeed, it is so, but sometimes I hear subtle notes of some new life, real, truly beautiful, which has nothing in common with either Tsarist or Soviet Russia. I am making a great request to you on my own behalf and on behalf, I think, of many others like me, empty-hearted at heart. Tell me from the stage, from the pages of a magazine, directly or in Aesopian language, as you wish, but just let me know if you hear these subtle notes and what they sound about?

Or is all this self-deception and the current Soviet emptiness (material, moral and mental) is a permanent phenomenon. Caesar, morituri te salutant (Caesar, those doomed to death salute you (lat. - B.S. )».

The words about Aesopian language indicate that the author of the letter is familiar with the feuilleton “The Crimson Island” (1924). As an actual response to “Myshlaevsky,” one can consider the play “Crimson Island,” written on the basis of this feuilleton. Bulgakov, turning a parody of Smenovekhism into an “ideological” play within a play, showed that everything in modern Soviet life is determined by the omnipotence of officials strangling creative freedom, like Savva Lukich, and there can be no new shoots here. In “Days of the Turbins” he also signified hopes for some better future, which is why he introduced, as in the novel, the Epiphany tree in the last act as a symbol of hope for spiritual rebirth. For this purpose, the chronology of the play’s action was even shifted from the real one. Later Bulgakov explained it to his friend P.S. Popov: “I relate the events of the last act to the feast of baptism... I extended the dates. It was important to use the tree in the last act.” In fact, the abandonment of Kyiv by the Petliurists and the occupation of the city by the Bolsheviks took place on February 3–5, 1919, and in the novel this chronology is generally observed, since there the Epiphany tree precedes the abandonment of the city by the Petliurists, which occurs on the night of the 3rd. But in the play, Bulgakov moved these events forward two weeks in order to combine them with the Epiphany holiday on the night of January 18-19.

Criticism fell on Bulgakov because in “Days of the Turbins” the White Guards appeared as tragic Chekhovian heroes. O.S. Litovsky dubbed Bulgakov’s play “The Cherry Orchard” of the White movement, asking rhetorically: “What does the Soviet audience care about the suffering of the landowner Ranevskaya, who is being mercilessly cut down cherry orchard? What does the Soviet audience care about the suffering of external and internal emigrants about the untimely death of the White movement? The critic A. Orlinsky accused the playwright that “all commanders and officers live, fight, die and marry without a single orderly, without servants, without the slightest contact with people from any other classes and social strata.” On February 7, 1927, at a debate in Vsevolod Meyerhold’s theater dedicated to “Days of the Turbins” and “Love of the Yarovayas,” Bulgakov answered the critics: “I, the author of this play “Days of the Turbins,” was in Kyiv during the Hetmanate and Petliurism, and saw the White Guards in Kiev from the inside behind the cream curtains, I affirm that orderlies in Kyiv at that time, that is, when the events in my play took place, could not be obtained worth their weight in gold.” “Days of the Turbins” was to a much greater extent a realistic work than its critics admitted, who, unlike Bulgakov, presented reality in the form of given ideological schemes. At the same debate, the playwright explained why he removed the servant Anyuta, who was present in the novel, from the play. Since the play was already too drawn out in time, it was necessary to mercilessly cut down characters and entire plot lines. And critics and directors demanded that servants be added to the play, who were supposed to symbolize the people. Bulgakov recalled: “...The director says to me: “Give me a servant.” I say: “For mercy, where am I going to put it?” After all, with my own participation, huge pieces were torn out of the play, because the play did not fit into the size of the stage and because the last trams leave at 12 o'clock. Finally, driven to white heat, I wrote the phrase: “Where is Anyuta?” - “Anyuta has gone to the village.” So, I want to say that this is not a joke. I have a copy of the play, and it contains this phrase regarding the servants. I personally consider it historical.”

Many years after the premiere of “Days of the Turbins,” the performance was seen by the military attache of the German embassy in Moscow in the pre-war years, Major General Ernst Kestring. By the end of the war, he rose to the rank of cavalry general and commanded the Eastern Troops, which included the Russian Liberation Army A.A. Vlasov, was released from American captivity already in 1946 and died peacefully in 1953. German diplomat Hans von Herwarth, who was present at the theater with Kestring, testifies: “In one of the scenes of the play, it was necessary to evacuate the Hetman of Ukraine Skoropadsky so that he would not fall into the hands of the advancing Red Army. In order to conceal his identity, he was dressed in a German uniform and carried away on a stretcher under the supervision of a German major. While the Ukrainian leader was being transported in a similar way, the German major on stage said: “Pure German work,” all with a very strong German accent. So, it was Kestring who was the major who was assigned to Skoropadsky during the events described in the play. When he saw the performance, he strongly protested that the actor pronounced these words with a German accent, since he, Kestring, spoke Russian completely fluently. He filed a complaint with the theater director. However, despite Kestring's indignation, the execution remained the same.

Of course, decades later, Herwarth apparently got the details mixed up. In the stage version of “Days of the Turbins”, unlike the novel, the evacuation of the hetman is led not by a major, but by General von Schratt (although Major von Doust also acts with him), and the phrase about “pure German work”, naturally, is not spoken by the Germans themselves , and Shervinsky. But in general, I think the diplomat can be trusted: a similar incident actually took place. A native of Russia, Kestring (he was born in 1876 on his father’s Serebryanye Prudy estate in the Tula province, graduated from the Mikhailovsky Artillery School and left for Germany only on the eve of the First World War) really spoke Russian without any accent and was actually part of the German military mission under Hetman Skoropadsky. But Bulgakov, naturally, could not know this. However, he seems to have predicted this. The fact is that Bulgakov’s Schratt speaks Russian, sometimes with a strong accent, sometimes completely purely, and most likely he only needs the accent in order to quickly finish the conversation with the hetman, who is unsuccessfully seeking German military support.

In the play, compared to the novel, the image of the hetman was significantly expanded and caricatured. Bulgakov made fun of the hetman’s attempts to introduce the Ukrainian language into the army and civil service, which he himself did not really speak. He also showed the hetman’s penchant for posing and chatter. Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky was a brave general who earned the St. George's Arms and the Order of St. George, 4th degree, in the First World War, but he knew absolutely nothing about politics, which resulted in a tragedy for both the Ukrainian people and the Russian officers. In characterizing the hetman, Bulgakov relied not only on his own impressions of the hetman’s personality and policies, but also on the memories of memoirists who knew Skoropadsky well. Thus, already in 1921, journalist Alexander Ivanovich Malyarevsky (as a war correspondent for the Russian Word, signing himself: A. Sumskoy) published a book about Skoropadsky under the eloquent title “The Trembling and Timid Dictator.” Malyarevsky, as a war correspondent, spent two weeks with Skoropadsky during the war and received the most favorable impression from the future hetman. But it changed dramatically when they met again in Kyiv. Malyarevsky, who became the head of the press bureau, was repeatedly invited by Skoropadsky to dinner and several times had the opportunity to talk with him on political topics. In his book we find the source of Alexey Turbin’s speech, denouncing the hetman for his reluctance to form the Russian army: “Looking closely at the people surrounding Skoropadsky, I immediately established that most of them were purely Russian citizens, without any shade of Ukrainianness, and that the real citadel of Ukrainianness was placed only in the office of Poltavets, appointed general clerk, keeper of the state seal - rather an honorary than an administrative position.

Little by little it became absolutely clear to me that favorable fate had given the Russian bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia and everyone who did not sympathize with the Bolshevik revolution a break in order to pass an exam or re-examination for the right to exist in an oasis guarded by foreign troops and headed by a temporary dictator. True, on one condition - to temporarily repaint in Ukrainian colors.

Two competing principles were allegedly created on Russian territory. Soviet Russia and Skoropadsky's Russia. Russia seemed to be divided into two camps, without the need to wage a Civil War, only in order to outwit each other by the power of intellect. At the same time, Skoropadsky’s Russia was in conditions a thousand times more favorable than Lenin’s communist Russia. The Ukrainians demanded little. Their existence should only not be forgotten, for the time being, rewarding them with those toys that were tempting for them, but lifeless, which constituted their original dream - to give them a language and give them an external Ukrainian style of management. The inconvenience of the existence of the Ukrainian issue could be used for the benefit of all of Russia and a painless way out of the current situation.”

This maxim is reminiscent of Thalberg’s words that “we are fenced off from the bloody Moscow operetta” by German bayonets.

However, as Malyarevsky emphasizes, “the language was practically impossible; for a number of official institutions there were no terms in the Little Russian language, they still had to be invented, even in the Galician language there was no terminology for the fleet, since there never was a fleet there.” Shervinsky’s helpless attempts to make a report at the “sovereign language” precisely illustrate this idea.

The hetman missed all the favorable opportunities that were available, completely wasting the trust of society, which craved stability and order. According to Malyarevsky, “I failed brilliantly at the re-examination Russian society, which did not reveal any cohesion and not the slightest healthy egoistic instinct of self-preservation. After the first blows of Bolshevism, the majority, who fled in panic to Ukraine, frivolously squandered the respite.

What can we personally blame Skoropadsky for, who failed to “take the bull by the horns”? He was one of the atoms of this past society. An atom who tried to become a leader. But the burden of past beliefs, views, school and skill gave only an operetta hero, gave an operetta character to the entire Kyiv state education.

Fortunately, because otherwise there would have been a tragedy with Civil War. Better than an operetta.”

As we remember, Bulgakov’s Talberg calls the hetman’s regime an operetta.

According to Malyarevsky, all of his ministers deceived Skoropadsky, and he was unable or unwilling to expose the lie: “Gradually getting acquainted with the general state of affairs and the results of the work of the hetman, ministries and chancellery, I saw to my horror that absurd red tape reigned in the state apparatus and crowd, but I was sure that the military general I knew at the front would awaken in the hetman.

So far, the Hetman's entire day was occupied only with receiving private individuals and officials with reports. Skoropadsky loved to talk. This weakness of his was ridiculed by the ministers who left him after the reports. But the ministers said no less; they endlessly dragged out their meetings, avoiding substantive debate.

As far as I knew, the well-informed Germans behaved very correctly, encouraging creative initiative, wherever it came from, they constantly persistently reminded the government and the hetman of the need to take certain reasonable measures. But hardly a tenth of these instructions were followed. And if a matter was of exceptional importance, they were forced to carry it out themselves, of course, sometimes carrying it out not as smoothly as Russian hands would have done it, which the government treated with complete indifference - as an accomplished fact. There was even some kind of confidence among government officials that the Germans would do it anyway, and do it better...

Most officials lied to the hetman, pretending that everything was going brilliantly, and only reports about official breakfasts and lunches were published in the press. Looking through them in a row, one could get a not very flattering idea of ​​​​the performance of the dictator and hetman. The Germans, as they reported, also began to become disillusioned with the statesmanship abilities of the sweet and charming “Pavlo” and were looking forward to the arrival of his wife Alexandra Petrovna, apparently thinking that her arrival would create a more creative, rather than decorative, atmosphere.”

Of course, with the arrival of the hetman’s wife, the situation did not improve at all. Malyarevsky very accurately described the reason for the hetman’s failures in the field of state building: “Brave and decisive at the front, P.P. Skoropadsky trembled in front of his desk, like an inexperienced administrator who had never been able to understand the truth without quotation marks. Accepting one solution presented to him ready-made, he would change it half an hour later for another, also prepared by some random tipsters.”

The memoirist also writes about the peasants’ hatred of the hetman, generated by his support of the landowners: “When I arrived in Kyiv, the hetman’s reputation was already greatly tarnished among a significant part of the peasants by the story of the punitive expedition that was sent to the villages that took part in the destruction of the landowners’ estates.

There was a case when a landowner demanded 30,000 karbovanets from the peasants for a vine they had cut down, which had since grown back, and the one that was cut down was worth no more than two or three thousand at the highest estimate. The punitive expedition was suspended, but its result in the form of ill will continued to exist, and on this basis anti-hetman propaganda was carried out very successfully.”

Malyarevsky, just as skeptically as Bulgakov, assessed the society that had gathered in Kyiv under Skoropadsky: “Kyiv, with its semi-intelligent society, was not a very good point for the formation of a new healthy state principle. Giving such a definition to Kyiv society, it seems to me, is not too rash. Not to mention the general political illiteracy, the majority of Kiev residents lived on theaters, concerts, visiting each other and cafes. The bazaar and market rumors were relied on as the basis of public opinion created for the current day, newspapers somewhat smoothed out the early morning rumors brought by the servants, but during the day the telephone and a meeting with acquaintances again turned upside down everything that was reasonable in this “public opinion”...

“Hetman” could mean a dictator, president and sovereign prince, but in fact it was an ordinary cavalry general of the tsarist service - a sign that could be painted with colors desired by the majority, a roll of cardboard on which the threads of law and order were wound”...

As Malyarevsky admitted, after the fall of Emperor Wilhelm and the beginning of the Petliura uprising, “I did not believe in serious contact with the Entente, and there was no possibility of forming serious military units in a few days. And the reluctance with which they volunteered, despite the rise among the Russian part of society, suggested that failure was inevitable.

I had to transmit to the press telegrams and radio telegrams that I received first hand; they reported: about the landing of the French, their advance to Fastov, their sympathy and support for the Kyiv volunteer units. As it later turned out, these telegrams were fabricated by Petliura’s headquarters, which intercepted radios and telegrams sent by the hetman and responded to them.” These optimistic telegrams disoriented the heroes of the White Guard, and then aroused their hatred.

Literary critic V.Ya. Lakshin once noted that Stalin’s famous address in his speech on July 3, 1941 - his first speech to the Great Patriotic War Patriotic War: “I am addressing you, my friends!” - most likely goes back to Turbin’s address to the cadets in the gymnasium. The General Secretary was impressed by Colonel Turbin, brilliantly performed by Nikolai Khmelev - a real, uncompromising enemy, written without caricature and “without giveaways,” but recognizing the inevitability and regularity of the Bolshevik victory before his death. This must have flattered the communist leader’s vanity and gave him confidence in his own abilities, and it was no coincidence that Stalin remembered Turbino’s (Bulgakov’s) words in the critical first weeks of the war.

Stalin especially liked Alexey Turbin, performed by Khmelev, in the play. E.S. Bulgakova recorded in her diary on July 3, 1939: “Yesterday morning, Khmelev’s phone call asked me to listen to a play (“Batum.” - B.S. ). The tone is elevated, joyful, finally M.A.’s play again. at the Theater! And so on. In the evening we have Khmelev, Kalishyan, Olga. Misha read several pictures. Then dinner with a long sitting afterwards. Conversations about the play, about the Moscow Art Theater, about the system. Khmelev's story. Stalin once told him: you play Alexei well. I even dream about your black mustache (Turbino). I can’t forget.”

By the way, the interpretation of the image of Turbin that Khmelev gave and which Stalin liked so much was not accepted by some fans of Bulgakov’s work. Thus, writer V.E. Ardov wrote to director S.S. in February 1962. Yutkevich: “About N.P. Khmelev.” I would like to say this: I have not seen him in all roles in the theater and in films. In the movies he didn't make much of an impression on me at all. Of course, it was clear that the actor was strong, subtle, intelligent, demanding and talented. But in the theater I was dissatisfied with him in three roles that are considered his achievements. Alexei Turbin, in my opinion, Khmelev played incorrectly. His Turbin was a bit too “officer-like.” Nikolka and Lelya’s older brother was not from this family. Let us remember that in the novel “The White Guard,” which the author himself turned into a play about the Turbins, Colonel Turbin was written by a doctor, not a combat officer. Yes, it doesn't matter directly. But this fact cannot be left without influence on the image. Khmelev in “Days of the Turbins” succumbed to the temptation to play a “brilliant officer.” He was harsh, abused the external side of his bearing, etc. But I would like to see a doomed intellectual. This is what M.A. intended. Bulgakov".

But, surprisingly, the scene in the gymnasium, when Turbin disbanded the division, realizing the pointlessness of continuing the fight and trying to save hundreds of young lives, coincided with the actions of one of those who opposed Stalin on the other side of the front at the very end of World War II. The Italian prince Valerio Borghese until September 1943 commanded the special 10th flotilla of the MAS (small anti-submarine weapons), and after the surrender of the royal government of Italy he created and led the volunteer marine division “San Marco” - the most combat-ready unit of the army of the Italian Social Republic created by Mussolini ( or “Republic of Salo” - according to the seat of government). The 15,000-strong Borghese division fought against both Anglo-American troops and Italian partisans. At the end of April 1945, German troops in Italy capitulated. Mussolini tried to escape to Switzerland, but met an inglorious end on the way there. Borghese did not follow the Duce's offer to go with him to the Swiss border. This is how Borghese’s biographer, French historian Pierre Desmarais, describes the evening of April 25: “Having returned to the barracks of the San Marco division, Borghese locked himself in his office... At about 10 p.m. 30 min. one of his intelligence officers presented a report on the last clandestine meeting of the Committee for the National Liberation of Northern Italy, held on the morning of the same day in Milan. The partisan army was declared on full combat readiness. People's tribunals were created... It was stipulated that all fascists of the "Republic of Salo", captured with weapons in their hands or trying to resist, could be executed on the spot...

The prince should not have wasted time if he wanted to save his life and the lives of his soldiers! There was only a short night ahead. He used it to dress his men in civilian clothes and set them free to try to get to their homes, giving them what little money he had. By morning the barracks were empty. Only about twenty of his most faithful comrades refused to leave him. During the day of April 26, Borghese forced them to disperse, and in the evening, having changed clothes, he left the office.

“I could call on death for help,” he later recalled... “I could move abroad relatively easily. But I refused to leave my homeland, family and comrades... I never did anything for which a real soldier could be ashamed. I decided to send my wife and four children to a safe haven and then wait for the climate to soften before surrendering to the authorities.” Borghese did just that - and remained alive, like all the soldiers and officers of his division.

I think that this coincidence is by no means accidental. After all, the prince’s wife was a Russian emigrant, Countess Daria Olsufieva, and she had probably seen and read The Days of the Turbins. So Bulgakov’s play, a few years after the playwright’s death, may have helped thousands of people escape. You can vividly imagine Borghese announcing to his fighters: “The Duce has just fled to Switzerland in a German convoy. Now the commander of the German Army Group, General Fitingof, is fleeing.” Some hotheads suggest: “We need to make our way to Bavaria, to take Albert Kesselring under the wing!” And Borghese convinces them: “There you will meet the same mess and the same generals!”

In 1925, Bulgakov published the novel The White Guard in the magazine Rossiya. He talks about a topic closed to the era. In the center is the Turbin family, the Home – City (chaos) system is being built. Everything is allowed in the city and he encroaches on the house. The house is the only space in the novel filled with signs of a former life. Lies are not possible here. There is time in the house. The disintegration of the old world is indicated by the death of the mother. The disintegration of the Turbins’ spiritual unity is more terrible than the disintegration of the space around them. Everyone is assessed according to a vertical hierarchy of values. The highest point is Alexei's dream. In it, both whites and reds are forgiven. Opposite the “absolute bottom” is the morgue where Nikolka came to pick up Nai-Tours’ body. Thus, he closes the world of the novel - heaven and hell - into some unity. But the novel is not Bulgakov’s disappointment in everything, because the finale shows not only the divided Turbins and their friends, but also Petka Shcheglov, whose life goes past wars and revolutions. B. considered the main law to be the law of the Great Evolution, which preserves the connection of times and the natural order of things.

“Days of the Turbins” is more hopeless in sound. There are different heroes in it - those who cannot imagine themselves outside the usual values ​​and those who get along in new conditions. In the play, more space is given to Elena and the house.

"White Guard" put B. in the row of most. significant modern writers, although by that time there had already been the stories “Notes on Cuffs” (1922), “Diaboliad” (1924), stories that were later included in the “Doctor’s Notes” cycle. And although printing “B.g.” in the journal “Russia” it was broken off (the full text of the novel was published in Paris in 1927-1929), rom. was noticed. M. Voloshin compared B.’s debut with the debuts of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and called him “the first who captured the soul of Russian strife.”

B. depicted in "B.g." the world “in its fatal moments,” which was emphasized by the very beginning of the story, almost in a chronicle style: “Great was the year and terrible year after the Nativity of Christ 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution.” But B., together with the style of chronicling, recorded only the extraordinary. events, and chose the position of a writer of everyday life. The latter was traditional for the old Russian. literature, but unexpectedly for post-revolutionary literature, because everyday life as such disappeared.

B. demonstratively describing. family and the very spirit of the family - commitment to the Tolstoy tradition, which he himself said in a letter to the government of the USSR: “[...] The image of an intellectual-noble family, by the will of an immutable historical fate, thrown into the years of citizenship. war to the White Guard camp, in the traditions of War and Peace."

Turbines. 2 brothers and a sister, left without parents and trying to maintain the comfort and peace of their parents' home. The eldest is Alexey, a military doctor, 28 years old, junior. - Nikolka, cadet, 17, sister Elena - 24 years old. B. lovingly describing. surrounding their everyday life: a striking clock, a stove with Dutch tiles, old red velvet furniture, a bronze lamp with a lampshade, books in “chocolate” bindings, curtains. In T.’s family, not only comfort and order reign, but also decency and honesty, caring for others, and love. The prototype of this home paradise was the Bulgakov house in Kyiv.

However, outside the windows of the house a blizzard is raging and life is not at all the same as described in the “chocolate” books. The motives of a snowstorm and blizzard are associated with “Cap. daughter" Pushk., from which the epigraph is taken: "Fine snow began to fall and suddenly fell in flakes. The wind howled. There was a snowstorm. In an instant, the dark sky mixed with the snowy sea. Everything has disappeared. “Well, master,” the coachman shouted, “there’s trouble: a snowstorm.” As in "K. etc.,” the blizzard becomes a symbolic sign of the loss of the path - the heroes got lost in history.

T. love Russia and hate the Bolsheviks, who have brought the country to the brink of an abyss. But they hate Petliura with his idea of ​​independence. Kyiv for T. is a Russian city. Their task is to protect this city from both those and others. T. embodied. itself morals. pr-py, which have developed in the best layers of Russian. society Alexey and Nikolka, who have chosen the military profession, are well aware that it is their responsibility to enter. defend the country, and if necessary, die for it. However, Russia, which they want to protect, is split into “smart bastards with “yellow hard suitcases” and those who are faithful to their oath and duty. “Smart bastards,” to whom T. unmistakably includes Elena’s husband, Colonel of the General Staff Talberg, want to live. Others will die - those who are represented not only by the Turbins, but also by the regiment. Nai-Tours, trying, together with the cadets, to organize the defense of the city from the Petliurists. When he realizes that they have been betrayed, he orders the cadets to tear off their shoulder straps, cockades and leave, and he himself dies behind a machine gun, covering their retreat.

B. puts the regiment on a par with Nai-Tours. Malysheva k-th Having gathered the last defenders of the city at the cadet school, he announced that they had been betrayed and ordered them to leave. The officer's conscience tells him to make sure that people do not die a senseless death.

Alexey Turbin, Nai-Tours, Malyshev - few who understand that they nothing protect. That Russia, for which they are ready to die, no longer exists.

In chaos gr. wars, not only old Russia collapses, but also traditions. concepts of duty and conscience. Bulgakov is interested in people who have retained these concepts and are able to structure their actions in accordance with them. The moral side of people. personalities cannot depend on no external obs-v. It is absolute.

Alexei Turbin has a dream in which he sees Nai-Turs in heaven: “He was in a strange form: on his head was a luminous helmet, and his body was in chain mail, and he was leaning on a long sword, the likes of which are no longer found in any army with times of the Crusades." This is how the knightly essence of this h-ka is revealed. Together with him in heaven, Alexey sees sergeant Zhilin, “deliberately cut off by fire along with a squadron of Belgrade hussars in 1916 in the Vilna direction.” Zhilin is dressed in the same luminous chain mail.

But the most surprising thing is that the Reds who died at Perekop ended up in heaven with them. Because the action is rum. origin in 1918, and Perekop was taken in 1920 then => Turbin sees the future and the past at the same time. His soul is confused by the presence of the Bolsheviks, who do not believe in God, in paradise: “You are confusing something, Zhilin, this cannot be. They won’t be allowed in there.” Zhilin in response conveys to him the words of God: “Well, they don’t believe it, he says, what can you do? Let go. After all, your faith brings me neither gain nor loss. One believes, the other doesn’t believe, but you all have the same actions: now another one by the throat. All of you, Zhilin, are the same to me. - killed on the battlefield.”

This is how the second epigraph to “B.g.” is realized. - from the Apocalypse: “And the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, according to their deeds.” =>Morals. the actions of an individual are assessed by some Higher Authority. What's happening in time, estimated at eternity. Grinev's guide in "Cap. d." was Pugachev, while the heroes of “B.G.” there is no other guide except morals. instinct put into the h-ka from above. The manifestation of this instinct in history is described by B. as a miracle, and it was at this moment that his heroes found themselves in true spirit. height despite the complete dead end of their specific social networks. fate Nikolka T. can’t. allow Nai-Tours to remain unburied. He searches for his body in the morgue, finds his sister and mother, and the colonel is buried in Christ. rite.

It is no coincidence that the motif of stars in the novel has a cross-cutting character. B. introduces an orienting principle into the chaos of history, so that his stars, using the expression of Vyach. Ivanov, can be called “helmsmen.” If history is nothing more than time, and everything that happens in it is temporary h-r, then w-sh should. sensation yourself under the appraising gaze eternity. But in order for eternity to present itself to the h-ku living in time, a rupture of the temporal fabric is necessary.

One of the manifestations of such a gap, perhaps. h-ku look into eternity - this is dream. These are the dreams of Alexei Turbin, and in the end - a small dream. boy Petka Shcheglova: a large meadow with a sparkling diamond ball on it -> joy. This dream is about life as it is intended and as it can be. But the dream ends, and B. described. night over the long-suffering city, completing the rum. motive of the stars: “Everything will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, famine and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain when the shadow of our bodies and deeds does not remain on the earth. There isn't a single person who doesn't know this. So why don’t we want to turn our gaze to them?”

Dr. form of eternity's invasion of time - miracle. It happened. during Elena's fervent prayer in front of the icon of the Mother of God for the life of the seriously wounded Alexei. She saw Christ “at the torn open tomb, completely risen and blessed, and barefoot,” and for a moment it seemed that the Mother of God was answering the prayer addressed to her. Alexey is recovering.

The biggest miracle in rum. - these are morals. the choice his heroes make despite the dead end into which history has driven them. The rum would later be built on this. "M. and M." B. should, of course, remember Kant’s words about the two most amazing phenomena: the starry sky above his head and morality. the law is in my soul. In a certain sense, this Kantian formula is the key to “B.G.”

After the closure of the Rossiya magazine, the printing of the novel was interrupted, and B. reworked it. him in play "Days of the Turbins", which was staged by the Moscow Art Theater. The performance immediately becomes a fact of society. life, extremely scandalous. Advice. criticism saw here an apology for the white movement, and the poet A. Bezymensky called B. “a new bourgeois spawn, splashing poisoned, but powerless saliva on the working class and its communist. ideals." In 1927 the play was excluded. from the repertoire and was restored only at the request of Stanislavsky.

The play is more hopeless in sound. There are different heroes in it: those who cannot imagine life outside of familiar values ​​(Alexey Turbin), those who were largely indifferent to them and therefore will easily survive in new conditions (Shervinsky), and those who try to live with values general court reoriented to only family values ​​(Elena). In the play, the role of Elena is more noticeable, the leading place belongs to. A home in the almost complete absence of other spaces.

In the plays of the 20s the center. the thought began to arise that the era was turning out to be merciless to everything that was honest, intelligent and high-class. This is evidenced by the tragic dead ends in the destinies of Alexei and Nikolka Turbin, Khludov and Charnota, Serafima Korzukhina and Golubkov. Reality is beginning to resemble more and more a shameless farce demonstrating the degradation of h-ka (“Zoyka’s Apartment” - 1926; “Crimson Island” - 1927).