White Guard (novel). White Guard White Guard genre

The history of the creation of Bulgakov's novel " White Guard»

The novel “The White Guard” was first published (incompletely) in Russia, in 1924. Completely in Paris: volume one - 1927, volume two - 1929. “The White Guard” is a largely autobiographical novel based on the writer’s personal impressions of Kyiv at the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919.

The Turbin family is to a large extent the Bulgakov family. Turbiny is the maiden name of Bulgakov’s grandmother on his mother’s side. “White Guard” was started in 1922, after the death of the writer’s mother. No manuscripts of the novel have survived. According to the typist Raaben, who retyped the novel, “The White Guard” was originally conceived as a trilogy. Possible titles for the novels in the proposed trilogy included “The Midnight Cross” and “The White Cross.” The prototypes of the novel's heroes were Bulgakov's Kyiv friends and acquaintances.

So, Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky was copied from his childhood friend Nikolai Nikolaevich Sigaevsky. The prototype of Lieutenant Shervinsky was another friend of Bulgakov’s youth - Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky, an amateur singer. In “The White Guard” Bulgakov strives to show the people and intelligentsia in the flames of the civil war in Ukraine. Main character, Alexey Turbin, although clearly autobiographical, but, unlike the writer, is not a zemstvo doctor who was only formally listed in military service, but a real military medic who has seen and experienced a lot during the years of the World War. The novel contrasts two groups of officers - those who “hate the Bolsheviks with a hot and direct hatred, the kind that can lead to a fight” and “those who returned from the war to their homes with the idea, like Alexei Turbin, to rest and rebuild a non-military, but ordinary human life.”

Bulgakov sociologically accurately shows the mass movements of the era. He demonstrates the centuries-old hatred of the peasants for the landowners and officers, and the newly emerged, but no less deep hatred for the “occupiers.” All this fueled the uprising raised against the rise of Hetman Skoropadsky, the leader of the Ukrainian national movement Petlyura. Bulgakov called one of the main features of his work in “The White Guard” there is a persistent portrayal of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in an impudent country.

In particular, the depiction of an intellectual-noble family, by the will of historical fate, thrown into the camp of the White Guard during the Civil War, in the traditions of “War and Peace”. “The White Guard” - Marxist criticism of the 20s: “Yes, Bulgakov’s talent was not as deep as it was brilliant, and the talent was great... And yet Bulgakov’s works are not popular. There is nothing in them that affected the people as a whole. There is a mysterious and cruel crowd.” Bulgakov's talent was not imbued with interest in the people, in their life, their joys and sorrows cannot be recognized from Bulgakov.

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

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

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

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

The novel was created in an era of greatest material need. The writer worked at night in an unheated room, worked impetuously and enthusiastically, and was terribly tired: “The third life. And my third life blossomed at the desk. The pile of sheets kept swelling. I wrote with both pencil and ink.” Subsequently, the author returned to his favorite novel more than once, reliving the past. In one of the entries dating back to 1923, Bulgakov noted: “And I will finish the novel, and, I dare to assure you, it will be the kind of novel that will make the sky feel hot...” And in 1925 he wrote: “It will be a terrible pity, if I’m mistaken and the “White Guard” is not a strong thing.” On August 31, 1923, Bulgakov informed Yu. Slezkine: “I finished the novel, but it has not yet been rewritten, it lies in a heap, over which I think a lot. I’m fixing something.” This was a draft version of the text, which is mentioned in the “Theatrical Novel”: “The novel takes a long time to edit. It is necessary to cross out many places, replace hundreds of words with others. A lot of work, but necessary!” Bulgakov was not satisfied with his work, crossed out dozens of pages, created new editions and variants. But at the beginning of 1924, I already read excerpts from “The White Guard” from the writer S. Zayaitsky and from my new friends the Lyamins, considering the book finished.

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

Due to the fact that “The White Guard” was not completed publication in the USSR, and foreign publications of the late 20s were not readily available in the writer’s homeland, Bulgakov’s first novel did not receive much attention from the press. The famous critic A. Voronsky (1884-1937) at the end of 1925 “The White Guard” together with “ Fatal eggs" called works of "outstanding literary quality." The response to this statement was a sharp attack by the head of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) L. Averbakh (1903-1939) in the Rapp organ - the magazine “At the Literary Post”. Later, the production of the play “Days of the Turbins” based on the novel “The White Guard” at the Moscow Art Theater in the fall of 1926 turned the attention of critics to this work, and the novel itself was forgotten.

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

"The White Guard" is a largely autobiographical novel based on the writer's personal impressions of Kyiv at the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919. Members of the Turbin family reflected characteristic features relatives of Bulgakov. Turbiny is the maiden name of Bulgakov’s grandmother on his mother’s side. No manuscripts of the novel have survived. The prototypes of the novel's heroes were Bulgakov's Kyiv friends and acquaintances. Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky was copied from his childhood friend Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky.

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

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

The philosopher Sergei Bulgakov, the writer’s cousin, in his book “At the Feast of the Gods” described the death of his homeland as follows: “There was a mighty power, needed by friends, terrible by enemies, and now it is rotting carrion, from which piece by piece falls off to the delight of the crows that have flown in. In place of a sixth of the world there was a stinking, gaping hole...” Mikhail Afanasyevich agreed with his uncle in many respects. And it’s no coincidence that this scary picture reflected in the article by M.A. Bulgakov “Hot Prospects” (1919). Studzinsky speaks about this in his play “Days of the Turbins”: “We had Russia - a great power...” So for Bulgakov, an optimist and talented satirist, despair and grief became the starting points in creating a book of hope. It is this definition that most accurately reflects the content of the novel “The White Guard.” In the book “At the Feast of the Gods,” the writer found another thought closer and more interesting: “What Russia will become depends largely on how the intelligentsia determines itself.” Bulgakov's heroes are painfully searching for the answer to this question.

In The White Guard, Bulgakov sought to show the people and intelligentsia in the flames of the Civil War in Ukraine. The main character, Alexei Turbin, although clearly autobiographical, is, unlike the writer, not a zemstvo doctor who was only formally enrolled in military service, but a real military medic who saw and experienced a lot during the years of the World War. There are many things that bring the author closer to his hero: calm courage, faith in old Russia, and most importantly, the dream of a peaceful life.

“You have to love your heroes; if this does not happen, I do not advise anyone to take up the pen - you will get into the biggest troubles, so you know,” says the “Theatrical Novel”, and this is the main law of Bulgakov’s work. In the novel "The White Guard" he talks about white officers and intelligentsia as ordinary people, reveals their young world of soul, charm, intelligence and strength, and shows their enemies as living people.

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

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

One of the main motives of the “White Guard” is faith in life and its victorious power. Therefore, this book, considered banned for several decades, found its reader, found a second life in all the richness and splendor of Bulgakov’s living word. Kiev writer Viktor Nekrasov, who read The White Guard in the 60s, quite rightly noted: “Nothing, it turns out, has faded, nothing has become outdated. It was as if these forty years had never happened... before our eyes an obvious miracle happened, something that happens very rarely in literature and not to everyone - a rebirth took place.” The life of the novel's heroes continues today, but in a different direction.

http://www.litra.ru/composition/get/coid/00023601184864125638/wo

http://www.licey.net/lit/guard/history

Illustrations:

Composition

M. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” was written in 1923-1925. At that time, the writer considered this book to be the main one in his destiny, he said that this novel “will make the sky hot.” Years later he called him "a failure." Perhaps the writer meant that that epic in the spirit of L.N. Tolstoy, which he wanted to create, did not work out.

Bulgakov witnessed the revolutionary events in Ukraine. He outlined his view of his experience in the stories “The Red Crown” (1922), “ Extraordinary Adventures Doctor" (1922), " Chinese history"(1923), "Raid" (1923). Bulgakov’s first novel with the bold title “The White Guard” became, perhaps, the only work at that time in which the writer was interested in the experiences of a person in a raging world, when the foundation of the world order is collapsing.

One of the most important motives of M. Bulgakov’s work is the value of home, family, and simple human affections. The heroes of The White Guard are losing the warmth of their home, although they are desperately trying to preserve it. In her prayer to the Mother of God, Elena says: “You are sending too much grief at once, intercessor mother. So in one year you end your family. For what?.. My mother took it from us, I don’t have a husband and never will, I understand that. Now I understand very clearly. And now you’re taking away the older one too. For what?.. How will we be together with Nikol?.. Look what is happening around, look... Intercessor Mother, won’t you have mercy?.. Maybe we are bad people, but why punish like that? -That?"

The novel begins with the words: “The year after the Nativity of Christ 1918 was a great and terrible year, the second from the beginning of the revolution.” Thus, as it were, two systems of counting time, chronology, two systems of values are proposed: traditional and new, revolutionary.

Remember how at the beginning of the 20th century A.I. Kuprin portrayed in the story “The Duel” Russian army- decayed, rotten. In 1918, the same people who made up the pre-revolutionary army found themselves on the battlefields of the Civil War, in general Russian society. But on the pages of Bulgakov’s novel we see not Kuprin’s heroes, but rather Chekhov’s ones. Intellectuals, who even before the revolution were yearning for a bygone world and understood that something needed to be changed, found themselves in the epicenter of the Civil War. They, like the author, are not politicized, they live their own lives. And now we find ourselves in a world in which there is no place for neutral people. The Turbins and their friends desperately defend what is dear to them, singing “God Save the Tsar,” tearing off the fabric hiding the portrait of Alexander I. Like Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, they do not adapt. But, like him, they are doomed. Only Chekhov's intellectuals were doomed to vegetation, and Bulgakov's intellectuals were doomed to defeat.

Bulgakov likes the cozy Turbino apartment, but everyday life is not valuable for a writer in itself. Life in the “White Guard” is a symbol of the strength of existence. Bulgakov leaves the reader no illusions about the future of the Turbin family. Inscriptions from the tiled stove are washed away, cups are broken, and the inviolability of everyday life and, therefore, existence is slowly but irreversibly destroyed. The Turbins' house behind the cream curtains is their fortress, a refuge from the blizzard, the blizzard raging outside, but it is still impossible to protect yourself from it.

Bulgakov's novel includes the symbol of a blizzard as a sign of the times. For the author of The White Guard, the blizzard is a symbol not of the transformation of the world, not of the sweeping away of everything that has become obsolete, but of the evil principle, violence. “Well, I think it will stop, the life that is written about in chocolate books will begin, but not only does it not begin, but all around it becomes more and more terrible. In the north the blizzard howls and howls, but here underfoot the disturbed womb of the earth muffles and grumbles dully.” The blizzard force destroys the life of the Turbin family, the life of the City. White snow in Bulgakov it does not become a symbol of purification.

“The provocative novelty of Bulgakov’s novel was that five years after the end of the Civil War, when the pain and heat of mutual hatred had not yet subsided, he dared to show the officers of the White Guard not in the poster guise of the “enemy,” but as ordinary, good and bad, tormented and deluded, smart and limited people, showed them from the inside, and the best in this environment - with obvious sympathy. What does Bulgakov like about these stepsons of history who lost their battle? And in Alexey, and in Malyshev, and in Nai-Turs, and in Nikolka, he most of all values courageous straightforwardness, loyalty to honor,” notes literary critic V.Ya. Lakshin. The concept of honor is the starting point that determines Bulgakov’s attitude towards his heroes and which can be taken as a basis in a conversation about the system of images.

But despite all the sympathy of the author of “The White Guard” for his heroes, his task is not to decide who is right and who is wrong. Even Petliura and his henchmen, in his opinion, are not the culprits of the horrors taking place. This is a product of the elements of rebellion, doomed to quickly disappear from the historical arena. Kozyr, who was a bad school teacher, would never have become an executioner and would not have known about himself that his calling was war, if this war had not begun. Many of the heroes’ actions are brought to life Civil War. “War is a native mother” for Kozyr, Bolbotun and other Petliurists, who take pleasure in killing defenseless people. The horror of war is that it creates a situation of permissiveness and undermines the foundations of human life.

Therefore, for Bulgakov it does not matter whose side his heroes are on. In Alexey Turbin’s dream, the Lord says to Zhilin: “One believes, the other doesn’t believe, but you all have the same actions: now each other is at each other’s throats, and as for the barracks, Zhilin, then you have to understand this, I have you all, Zhilin, identical - killed on the battlefield. This, Zhilin, must be understood, and not everyone will understand it.” And it seems that this view is very close to the writer.

V. Lakshin noted: “Artistic vision, the mindset of the creative mind always embraces a broader spiritual reality than can be verified by evidence of simple class interest. There is a biased class truth that has its own right. But there is a universal, classless morality and humanism, smelted by the experience of mankind.” M. Bulgakov stood in the position of such universal humanism.

Other works on this work

“Every noble person is deeply aware of his blood ties with the fatherland” (V.G. Belinsky) (based on the novel “The White Guard” by M.A. Bulgakov) “Life is given for good deeds” (based on the novel “The White Guard” by M. A. Bulgakov) “Family Thought” in Russian literature based on the novel “The White Guard” “Man is a piece of history” (based on M. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”) Analysis of Chapter 1, Part 1 of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” Analysis of the episode “Scene in the Alexander Gymnasium” (based on the novel “The White Guard” by M. A. Bulgakov) Thalberg's flight (analysis of an episode from Chapter 2 of Part 1 of M. A. Bulgakov's novel “The White Guard”). Struggle or surrender: The theme of the intelligentsia and revolution in the works of M.A. Bulgakov (novel "The White Guard" and plays "Days of the Turbins" and "Running") The death of Nai-Turs and the salvation of Nikolai (analysis of an episode from chapter 11 of part 2 of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”) Civil war in the novels by A. Fadeev “Destruction” and M. Bulgakov “The White Guard” The Turbin House as a reflection of the Turbin family in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” Tasks and Dreams of M. Bulgakov in the novel "The White Guard" Ideological and artistic originality of Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” Portrayal of the white movement in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” Depiction of the Civil War in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” The “imaginary” and “real” intelligentsia in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” Intelligentsia and revolution in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” History as depicted by M. A. Bulgakov (using the example of the novel “The White Guard”). The history of the creation of Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” How is the white movement presented in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”? The beginning of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” (analysis of Chapter 1, Part 1) The beginning of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” (analysis of Chapter 1 of the first part). The image of the City in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” The image of a house in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” The image of the house and the city in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” Images of white officers in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” The main images in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” The main images of the novel “The White Guard” by M. Bulgakov Reflection of the civil war in Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”. Why is the Turbins' house so attractive? (Based on the novel by M. A. Bulgakov “The White Guard”) The problem of choice in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” The problem of humanism in war (based on the novels by M. Bulgakov “The White Guard” and M. Sholokhov “Quiet Don”) The problem of moral choice in the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The White Guard". The problem of moral choice in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” Problems of the novel by M. A. Bulgakov “The White Guard” Discussions about love, friendship, military duty based on the novel “The White Guard” The role of Alexei Turbin's dream (based on the novel by M. A. Bulgakov “The White Guard”) The role of the heroes’ dreams in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” The Turbin family (based on the novel by M. A. Bulgakov “The White Guard”) The system of images in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” Dreams of heroes and their meaning in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” The dreams of the heroes and their connection with the problems of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”. The characters’ dreams and their connection with the problems of M. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” Dreams of the heroes of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”. (Analysis of Chapter 20 of Part 3) Scene in the Alexander Gymnasium (analysis of an episode from Chapter 7 of M. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”) The caches of engineer Lisovich (analysis of an episode from chapter 3 of part 1 of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”) The theme of revolution, civil war and the fate of the Russian intelligentsia in Russian literature (Pasternak, Bulgakov) The tragedy of the intelligentsia in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” A man at a turning point in history in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” What is attractive about the Turbins’ house (based on M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”) The theme of love in Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” Discussions about love, friendship, the basis of the novel “The White Guard” Analysis of the novel "The White Guard" by M.A. Bulgakov I Reflection of the civil war in the novel Discussions about love, friendship, military duty based on the novel The man at the breaking point of history in the novel A house is a concentration of cultural and spiritual values (Based on the novel by M. A. Bulgakov “The White Guard”) Symbols of Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” Thalberg's escape. (Analysis of an episode from Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”) How does the white movement appear in Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”

“The White Guard” by Bulgakov M.A.

Bulgakov witnessed the revolutionary events in Ukraine. He outlined his view of his experience in the stories “The Red Crown” (1922), “The Extraordinary Adventures of the Doctor” (1922), “Chinese History” (1923), “The Raid” (1923). Bulgakov’s first novel with the bold title “The White Guard” became, perhaps, the only work at that time in which the writer was interested in the experiences of a person in a raging world, when the foundation of the world order is collapsing.

Remember how at the beginning of the 20th century A.I. Kuprin depicted the Russian army in the story “The Duel” - decayed, rotten. In 1918, the same people who made up the pre-revolutionary army, and Russian society in general, found themselves on the battlefields of the Civil War. But on the pages of Bulgakov’s novel we see not Kuprin’s heroes, but rather Chekhov’s ones. Intellectuals, who even before the revolution were yearning for a bygone world and understood that something needed to be changed, found themselves in the epicenter of the Civil War. They, like the author, are not politicized, they live their own lives. And now we find ourselves in a world in which there is no place for neutral people. The Turbins and their friends desperately defend what is dear to them, singing “God Save the Tsar,” tearing off the fabric hiding the portrait of Alexander I. Like Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, they do not adapt. But, like him, they are doomed. Only Chekhov's intellectuals were doomed to vegetation, and Bulgakov's intellectuals were doomed to defeat.

Bulgakov likes the cozy Turbino apartment, but everyday life is not valuable for a writer in itself. Life in “The White Guard” is a symbol of the strength of existence. Bulgakov leaves the reader no illusions about the future of the Turbin family. Inscriptions from the tiled stove are washed away, cups are broken, and the inviolability of everyday life and, therefore, existence is slowly but irreversibly destroyed. The Turbins' house behind the cream curtains is their fortress, a refuge from the blizzard, the blizzard raging outside, but it is still impossible to protect yourself from it.

Bulgakov's novel includes the symbol of a blizzard as a sign of the times. For the author of The White Guard, the blizzard is a symbol not of the transformation of the world, not of the sweeping away of everything that has become obsolete, but of an evil principle, violence. “Well, I think it will stop, the life that is written about in chocolate books will begin, but not only does it not begin, but all around it becomes more and more terrible. In the north the blizzard howls and howls, but here underfoot the disturbed womb of the earth muffles and grumbles dully.” The blizzard force destroys the life of the Turbin family, the life of the City. White snow in Bulgakov does not become a symbol of purification.

“The provocative novelty of Bulgakov’s novel was that five years after the end of the Civil War, when the pain and heat of mutual hatred had not yet subsided, he dared to show the officers of the White Guard not in the poster guise of the “enemy,” but as ordinary, good and bad, suffering and misguided, intelligent and limited people, showed them from the inside, and the best in this environment - with obvious sympathy. What does Bulgakov like about these stepsons of history who lost their battle? And in Alexey, and in Malyshev, and in Nai-Turs, and in Nikolka, he most of all values courageous straightforwardness and loyalty to honor,” notes literary critic V.Ya. Lakshin. The concept of honor is the starting point that determines Bulgakov’s attitude towards his heroes and which can be taken as a basis in a conversation about the system of images.

But despite all the sympathy of the author of “The White Guard” for his heroes, his task is not to decide who is right and who is wrong. Even Petliura and his henchmen, in his opinion, are not the culprits of the horrors taking place. This is a product of the elements of rebellion, doomed to quickly disappear from the historical arena. Kozyr, who was a bad school teacher, would never have become an executioner and would not have known about himself that his calling was war, if this war had not begun. Many of the heroes’ actions were brought to life by the Civil War. “War is a native mother” for Kozyr, Bolbotun and other Petliurists, who take pleasure in killing defenseless people. The horror of war is that it creates a situation of permissiveness and undermines the foundations of human life.

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

In 1922–1924, Bulgakov wrote articles for the newspaper “Nakanune”, constantly published in the newspaper of railway workers “Gudok”, where he met I. Babel, I. Ilf, E. Petrov, V. Kataev, Yu. Olesha. According to Bulgakov himself, the concept of the novel “The White Guard” was finally formed in 1922. During this time, several important events in his personal life occurred: during the first three months of this year, he received news of the fate of his brothers, whom he never saw again, and a telegram about the sudden death of his mother from typhus. During this period, the terrible impressions of the Kyiv years received additional impetus for embodiment in creativity.
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Bulgakov planned to create a whole trilogy, and spoke about his favorite book like this: “I consider my novel a failure, although I distinguish it from my other things, because I took the idea very seriously.” And what we now call the “White Guard” was conceived as the first part of the trilogy and initially bore the names “Yellow Ensign”, “Midnight Cross” and “White Cross”: “The action of the second part should take place on the Don, and in the third part Myshlaevsky will end up in the ranks of the Red Army." Signs of this plan can be found in the text of The White Guard. But Bulgakov did not write a trilogy, leaving it to Count A.N. Tolstoy (“Walking through Torment”). And the theme of “flight”, emigration, in “The White Guard” is only outlined in the story of Thalberg’s departure and in the episode of reading Bunin’s “The Gentleman from San Francisco”.

Due to the fact that “The White Guard” was not completed publication in the USSR, and foreign publications of the late 20s were not readily available in the writer’s homeland, Bulgakov’s first novel did not receive much attention from the press. The famous critic A. Voronsky (1884–1937) at the end of 1925 called The White Guard, together with Fatal Eggs, works of “outstanding literary quality.” The response to this statement was a sharp attack by the head of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) L. Averbakh (1903–1939) in the Rapp organ - the magazine “At the Literary Post”. Later, the production of the play “Days of the Turbins” based on the novel “The White Guard” at the Moscow Art Theater in the fall of 1926 turned the attention of critics to this work, and the novel itself was forgotten.

"The White Guard" is a largely autobiographical novel based on the writer's personal impressions of Kyiv at the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919. The members of the Turbin family reflected the characteristic features of Bulgakov’s relatives. Turbiny is the maiden name of Bulgakov’s grandmother on his mother’s side. No manuscripts of the novel have survived. The prototypes of the novel's heroes were Bulgakov's Kyiv friends and acquaintances. Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky was copied from his childhood friend Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky.

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

The prototype of Nikolka Turbin was one of the brothers M.A. Bulgakov. The writer’s second wife, Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya-Bulgakova, wrote in her book “Memoirs”: “One of Mikhail Afanasyevich’s brothers (Nikolai) was also a doctor. It’s the personality of my younger brother, Nikolai, that I want to dwell on. The noble and cozy little man Nikolka Turbin has always been dear to my heart (especially in the novel “The White Guard”. In the play “Days of the Turbins” he is much more sketchy.). In my life I never managed to see Nikolai Afanasyevich Bulgakov. This is the youngest representative of the profession favored by the Bulgakov family - doctor of medicine, bacteriologist, scientist and researcher, who died in Paris in 1966. He studied at the University of Zagreb and was assigned to the department of bacteriology there.”
The novel was created at a difficult time for the country. Young Soviet Russia, which did not have a regular army, found itself embroiled in the Civil War. The dreams of the traitor hetman Mazepa, whose name was not accidentally mentioned in Bulgakov’s novel, came true. The “White Guard” is based on events related to the consequences of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, according to which Ukraine was recognized as an independent state, the “Ukrainian State” was created led by Hetman Skoropadsky, and refugees from all over Russia rushed “abroad.” Bulgakov clearly described their social status in the novel.

The philosopher Sergei Bulgakov, the writer’s cousin, in his book “At the Feast of the Gods” described the death of his homeland as follows: “There was a mighty power, needed by friends, terrible by enemies, and now it is rotting carrion, from which piece by piece falls off to the delight of the crows that have flown in. In place of a sixth of the world there was a stinking, gaping hole...” Mikhail Afanasyevich agreed with his uncle in many respects. And it is no coincidence that this terrible picture is reflected in the article by M.A. Bulgakov “Hot Prospects” (1919). Studzinsky speaks about this in his play “Days of the Turbins”: “Russia was a great power...” So for Bulgakov, an optimist and talented satirist, despair and grief became the starting points in creating a book of hope. It is this definition that most accurately reflects the content of the novel “The White Guard.” In the book “At the Feast of the Gods,” the writer found another thought closer and more interesting: “What Russia will become depends largely on how the intelligentsia determines itself.” Bulgakov's heroes are painfully searching for the answer to this question.

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

Shelter from the blizzard, blizzard raging outside, but it’s still impossible to protect yourself from it.

“The provocative novelty of Bulgakov’s novel was that five years after the end of the Civil War, when the pain and heat of mutual hatred had not yet subsided, he dared to show the officers of the White Guard not in the poster guise of the “enemy,” but as ordinary, good and bad, suffering and misguided, intelligent and limited people, showed them from the inside, and the best in this environment - with obvious sympathy. What does Bulgakov like about these stepsons of history who lost their battle? And in Alexey, and in Malyshev, and in Nai-Turs, and in Nikolka, he most of all values courageous straightforwardness, loyalty to honor,” notes literary critic V.Ya. Lakshin. The concept of honor is the starting point that determines Bulgakov’s attitude towards his heroes and which can be taken as a basis in a conversation about the system of images.

But despite all the sympathy of the author of “The White Guard” for his heroes, his task is not to decide who is right and who is wrong. Even Petliura and his henchmen, in his opinion, are not the culprits of the horrors taking place. This is a product of the elements of rebellion, doomed to quickly disappear from the historical arena. Kozyr, who was a bad school teacher, would never have become an executioner and would not have known about himself that his calling was war, if this war had not begun. Many of the heroes’ actions were brought to life by the Civil War. “War is a native mother” for Kozyr, Bolbotun and other Petliurists, who take pleasure in killing defenseless people. The horror of war is that it creates a situation of permissiveness and undermines the foundations of human life.