White Guard literary movement. Comparative analysis of the prose images of the novel "The White Guard" and the dramatic "Turbine Days"

M.A. Bulgakov twice, in two different works of his, recalls how his work on the novel began " White Guard"(1925). The hero of the “Theatrical Novel” Maksudov says: “It arose at night when I woke up after a sad dream. I dreamed hometown, snow, winter, Civil War... In a 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 cap of pink paper, causing the paper to 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 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. Several things happened at this time important events his personal life: 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 the draft text referred to in " Theatrical novel": "The novel takes a long time to edit. It is necessary to cross out many places, replace hundreds of words with others. Big, but necessary work! Bulgakov was not satisfied with his work, crossed out dozens of pages, created new editions and 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). Text last third The novel, corrected by the author, was published in 1929 by the Parisian publishing house Concorde. Full text 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 inaccessible in the writer’s homeland, Bulgakov’s first novel was not awarded special attention press. 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 from the head Russian Association 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 a special moral purity favorite heroes, their belonging to the Russian intelligentsia as part 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 character traits 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 Thalberg, her husband, has a lot common features 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. Here's to the individual younger brother, Nikolai, I want to stop. 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 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, according to which Ukraine was recognized as an independent state, a “Ukrainian state” was created headed 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 to enemies, and now it is rotting carrion, from which piece after 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 sorrow became 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.

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

The literary community refused to recognize the 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 reviews. 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 far from full list characteristics that were given to the "White Guard" by those who believed that the main thing in literature is political position 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.

1. Introduction. M. A. Bulgakov was one of those few writers who, during the years of omnipotent Soviet censorship, continued to defend their rights to authorial independence.

Despite fierce persecution and a ban on publishing, he never followed the lead of the authorities and created sharp independent works. One of them is the novel "The White Guard".

2. History of creation. Bulgakov was a direct witness to all the horrors. The events of 1918-1919 made a huge impression on him. in Kyiv, when power passed several times to different political forces.

In 1922, the writer decided to write a novel, the main characters of which would be the people closest to him - white officers and the intelligentsia. Bulgakov worked on The White Guard during 1923-1924.

He read individual chapters in friendly companies. Listeners noted the undoubted merits of the novel, but agreed that publishing it in Soviet Russia it will be unrealistic. The first two parts of "The White Guard" were nevertheless published in 1925 in two issues of the magazine "Russia".

3. The meaning of the name. The name "White Guard" carries a partly tragic, partly ironic meaning. The Turbin family are staunch monarchists. They firmly believe that only the monarchy can save Russia. At the same time, the Turbins see that there is no longer any hope for restoration. The abdication of the Tsar became an irrevocable step in the history of Russia.

The problem lies not only in the strength of the opponents, but also in the fact that there are practically no real people devoted to the idea of ​​the monarchy. "White Guard" is dead symbol, a mirage, a dream that is never destined to come true.

Bulgakov's irony is most clearly manifested in the scene of a night drinking session in the Turbins' house with enthusiastic talk about the revival of the monarchy. This is the only strength of the “white guard”. Sobering up and hangover are exactly like the condition noble intelligentsia a year after the revolution.

4. Genre Novel

5. Theme. The main theme of the novel is the horror and helplessness of ordinary people in the face of enormous political and social upheavals.

6. Issues. the main problem the novel - a feeling of uselessness and uselessness among white officers and the noble intelligentsia. There is no one to continue the fight, and it makes no sense. There are no more people like Turbins left. In the environment white movement Betrayal and deceit reign. Another problem is the sharp division of the country into many political opponents.

The choice has to be made not only between monarchists and Bolsheviks. Hetman, Petliura, bandits of all stripes - these are just the most significant forces that are tearing Ukraine and, in particular, Kyiv apart. Ordinary people who do not want to join any camp become defenseless victims of the next owners of the city. An important problem is great amount victims of fratricidal war. Human life has become so devalued that murder has become commonplace.

7. Heroes. Alexey Turbin, Nikolay Turbin, Elena Vasilyevna Talberg, Vladimir Robertovich Talberg, Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Vasily Lisovich, Lariosik.

8. Plot and composition. The novel takes place at the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919. At the center of the story is the Turbin family - Elena Vasilievna with two brothers. Alexey Turbin recently returned from the front, where he worked as a military doctor. He dreamed of a simple and quiet life, of a private medical practice. Dreams are not destined to come true. Kyiv becomes the arena of a fierce struggle, which in some ways even worse than the situation on the front line.

Nikolai Turbin is still very young. The romantically inclined young man endures the Hetman’s power with pain. He sincerely and ardently believes in the monarchical idea, dreams of taking up arms in its defense. Reality roughly destroys all his idealistic ideas. The first military clash, the betrayal of the high command, and the death of Nai-Tours amaze Nikolai. He understands that he has until now harbored ethereal illusions, but cannot believe it.

Elena Vasilievna is an example of the resilience of a Russian woman who will protect and take care of her loved ones with all her might. The Turbins' friends admire her and, thanks to Elena's support, find the strength to live on. In this regard, Elena’s husband, Staff Captain Talberg, makes a sharp contrast.

Talberg - chief negative character novel. This is a person who has no beliefs at all. He easily adapts to any authority for the sake of his career. Thalberg's flight before Petlyura's offensive was due only to his harsh statements against the latter. In addition, Thalberg learned that a new major political force was being formed on the Don, promising power and influence.

In the image of captain, Bulgakov showed the worst qualities of the white officers, which led to the defeat of the white movement. Careerism and lack of sense of homeland are deeply disgusting to the Turbin brothers. Thalberg betrays not only the defenders of the city, but also his wife. Elena Vasilievna loves her husband, but even she is amazed by his actions and in the end is forced to admit that he is a scoundrel.

Vasilisa (Vasily Lisovich) personifies the worst type of everyman. He does not evoke pity, since he himself is ready to betray and inform, if he had the courage. Vasilisa’s main concern is to better hide her accumulated wealth. Before the love of money, the fear of death even recedes in him. Bandit search in the apartment - best punishment for Vasilisa, especially since he still saved his miserable life.

Bulgakov's inclusion in the novel looks a little strange original character- Lariosika. This is a clumsy young man who, by some miracle, remained alive after making his way to Kyiv. Critics believe that the author specifically introduced Lariosik to soften the tragedy of the novel.

As is known, Soviet criticism subjected the novel to merciless persecution, declaring the writer a defender of white officers and “philistines.” However, the novel does not at all defend the white movement. On the contrary, Bulgakov paints a picture of incredible decline and decay in this environment. The main supporters of the Turbine monarchy, in fact, no longer want to fight with anyone. They are ready to become ordinary people, withdrawing from their surroundings. hostile world in your warm and cozy apartment. The news their friends report is depressing. The white movement no longer exists.

The most honest and noble order, paradoxically, is the order to the cadets to throw down their weapons, tear off their shoulder straps and go home. Bulgakov himself subjected the “white guard” to sharp criticism. At the same time, the main thing for him becomes the tragedy of the Turbin family, who are unlikely to find their place in their new life.

9. What the author teaches. Bulgakov refrains from making any author's assessments of the novel. The reader's attitude towards what is happening arises only through the dialogues of the main characters. Of course, this is pity for the Turbin family, pain for the bloody events that shook Kyiv. “The White Guard” is the writer’s protest against any political coups, which always bring death and humiliation for ordinary people.

"White Guard"

It is no coincidence that the author chooses for the epigraph a fragment from “ The captain's daughter", a novel that paints a picture of a peasant revolt. The image of a blizzard symbolizes the whirlwind of revolutionary changes unfolding in the country. The novel is dedicated to the writer’s second wife, Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya-Bulgakova, who also lived in Kyiv for some time and remembered those terrible years permanent shift power and bloody events.

At the very beginning of the novel, the Turbins’ mother dies, bequeathing her children to live. “And they will have to suffer and die,” exclaims M.A. Bulgakov. However, the answer to the question of what to do in difficult times is given by the priest in the novel: “Despondency cannot be allowed... A great sin is despondency...”. “The White Guard” is to a certain extent an autobiographical work. It is known, for example, that the reason for writing the novel was the sudden death of M.A.’s own mother. Bulgakov Varvara Mikhailovna from typhus. The writer was very worried about this event; it was doubly difficult for him because he could not even come from Moscow to the funeral and say goodbye to his mother.

Of the many artistic details The novel outlines the everyday realities of that time. “Revolutionary riding” (you drive for an hour and stand for two), Myshlaevsky’s dirtiest cambric shirt, frostbitten feet - all this eloquently testifies to the complete everyday and economic confusion in people’s lives. Deep experiences of socio-political conflicts were also expressed in the portraits of the novel’s heroes: Elena and Talberg, before separation, even outwardly became haggard and aged.

The collapse of the established way of life of M.A. Bulgakov also shows the example of the interior of the Turbins’ house. Since childhood, the order familiar to the heroes with wall clocks, old red velvet furniture, a tiled stove, books, gold watches and silver - all this turns out to be in complete chaos when Talberg decides to run to Denikin. But still M.A. Bulgakov urges never to pull the lampshade off a lamp. He writes: “The lampshade is sacred. Never run like a rat into the unknown from danger. Read by the lampshade - let the blizzard howl - wait until they come to you.” However, Talberg, a military man, tough and energetic, is not satisfied with the humble submission with which the author of the novel calls to treat life's trials. Elena perceives Thalberg's flight as a betrayal. It is no coincidence that before leaving he mentions that Elena has a passport for maiden name. He seems to be renouncing his wife, although at the same time he is trying to convince her that he will return soon. During further development In the story, we learn that Sergei went to Paris and got married again. Sister M.A. is considered the prototype of Elena. Bulgakova Varvara Afanasyevna (married to Karum). Thalberg is a well-known name in the world of music: in the nineteenth century there was a pianist in Austria, Sigmund Thalberg. The writer loved to use in his work sonorous surnames famous musicians(Rubinstein in " Fatal eggs", Berlioz and Stravinsky in the novel "The Master and Margarita").

Exhausted people in a whirlwind revolutionary events they don’t know what to believe and where to go. The Kiev officer society greets the news of the death with pain in its soul. royal family and, contrary to caution, sings the forbidden royal anthem. Out of desperation, the officers drink half to death.

A terrifying story about Kyiv life during this period civil war interspersed with memories of past life, which now look like an unaffordable luxury (for example, trips to the theater).

In 1918, Kyiv became a refuge for those who, fearing reprisals, left Moscow: bankers and homeowners, actors and artists, aristocrats and gendarmes. Describing cultural life Kieva, M.A. Bulgakov mentions famous theater“Lilac Negro”, cafe “Maxim” and the decadent club “Prah” (in fact it was called “Trash” and was located in the basement of the Continental Hotel on Nikolaevskaya Street; many celebrities visited it: A. Averchenko, O. Mandelstam, K. Paustovsky, I. Ehrenburg and M. Bulgakov himself). “The city swelled, expanded, and rose like sourdough from a pot,” writes M.A. Bulgakov. The motive of escape outlined in the novel will become a cross-cutting motif for a number of the writer’s works. In “The White Guard,” as is clear from the title, for M.A. For Bulgakov, what is important, first of all, is the fate of the Russian officers during the years of the revolution and civil war, which for the most part lived with the concept of officer honor.

The author of the novel shows how people go berserk in the crucible of fierce trials. Having learned about the atrocities of the Petliuraites, Alexei Turbin needlessly offends the newspaper boy and immediately feels shame and absurdity from his action. However, most often the heroes of the novel remain true to their life values. It is no coincidence that Elena, when she learns that Alexei is hopeless and must die, lights a lamp in front of old icon and prays. After this, the disease recedes. M.A. describes with admiration. Bulgakov Noble act Yulia Alexandrovna Reis, who, risking herself, saves the wounded Turbin.

The City can be considered a separate hero of the novel. In his native Kyiv, the writer himself had best years. The city landscape in the novel amazes with its fabulous beauty (“All the energy of the city, accumulated over the sunny and stormy summer, poured out in the light”), overgrown with hyperbole (“And there were so many gardens in the City as in no other city in the world”), M,A. Bulgakov widely uses ancient Kyiv toponymy (Podol, Khreshcha-tik), and often mentions the sights of the city dear to every Kievite’s heart (Golden Gate, St. Sophia Cathedral, St. Michael’s Monastery). The best place in the world he calls Vladimirskaya Hill with a monument to Vladimir. Some fragments of the city landscape are so poetic that they resemble prose poems: “A sleepy drowsiness passed over the City, a cloudy white bird flew past Vladimir’s cross, fell beyond the Dnieper in the thick of the night and floated along an iron arc.” And immediately this poetic picture is interrupted by the description of an armored train locomotive, wheezing angrily, with a blunt snout. In this contrast of war and peace, the cross-cutting image is the cross of Vladimir - a symbol of Orthodoxy. At the end of the work, the illuminated cross visually turns into a threatening sword. And the writer encourages us to pay attention to the stars. Thus, the author moves from a specific historical perception of events to a generalized philosophical one.

The dream motif plays an important role in the novel. Dreams are seen in the work by Alexey, Elena, Vasilisa, the guard at the armored train and Petka Shcheglov. Dreams help expand art space novel, to better characterize the era, and most importantly, they raise the theme of hope for the future, that after the bloody civil war the heroes will begin a new life.

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 sweeping away everything that has become obsolete, but evil beginning, 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 it becomes more and more terrible all around. 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-Tours, 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. Trump who was 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, shakes the foundations 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 cast of the creative mind always embraces a wider spiritual reality than can be attested to by evidence of mere 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

M.A. Bulgakov twice, in two different works, recalls how his work on the novel “The White Guard” (1925) began. In “Theatrical Novel” Maksudov says: “It arose at night when I woke up after a sad dream. I dreamed of my hometown, snow, winter, 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.”

And in the story “To a Secret Friend” there are 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...”

It was with this mood that the first pages of the novel were written. But his plan was hatched for more than one year.

In both epigraphs to “The White Guard”: from “The Captain’s Daughter” (“The evening howled, a blizzard began”) and from the Apocalypse (“... the dead were judged ...”) - there are no riddles for the reader. They are directly related to the plot. And the blizzard really rages on the pages - sometimes the most natural, sometimes allegorical (“The beginning of revenge from the north has long since begun, and it sweeps and sweeps”). And the trial of those “who are no longer in the world,” and essentially the Russian intelligentsia, continues throughout the novel. The author himself speaks on it from the first lines. Acts as a witness. Far from impartial, but honest and objective, not missing either the virtues of the “defendants” or the weaknesses, shortcomings and mistakes.

The novel opens with a majestic image of 1918. Not by date, not by designation of the time of action - precisely by image.

“It was a great and terrible year after the birth of Christ, 1918, and the second since the beginning of the revolution. It was full of sun in summer and snow in winter, and two stars stood especially high in the sky: the shepherd star - evening Venus and red, trembling Mars.

House and City are the two main inanimate characters of the book. However, not completely inanimate. The Turbins' house on Alekseevsky Spusk, depicted with all the features of a family idyll, crossed out criss-cross by the war, lives, breathes, suffers, as Living being. It’s as if you feel the warmth from the tiles of the stove when it’s frosty outside, you hear the tower clock striking in the dining room, the strumming of a guitar and the familiar sweet voices of Nikolka, Elena, Alexey, their noisy, cheerful guests...

And the City is immensely beautiful on its hills even in winter, snow-covered and flooded with electricity in the evenings. The Eternal City, tormented by shelling, street fighting, disgraced by crowds of soldiers and temporary workers who captured its squares and streets.

It was impossible to write a novel without a broad, conscious view, what was called a worldview, and Bulgakov showed that he had it. The author avoids in his book, at least in the part that was completed, a direct confrontation between the Reds and Whites. On the pages of the novel, the Whites are fighting the Petliurists. But the writer is occupied by a broader humanistic thought - or, rather, a thought-feeling: the horror of a fratricidal war. With sadness and regret, he observes the desperate struggle of several warring elements and does not sympathize with any of them to the end. Bulgakov defended in the novel Eternal values: home, homeland, family. And he remained a realist in his narration - he did not spare either the Petliurites, or the Germans, or the Whites, and he did not say a word of lies about the Reds, placing them as if behind the curtain of the picture.

The provocative novelty of Bulgakov’s novel lay in the fact 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 an “enemy”, but as ordinary people - good and bad, suffering and misguided, intelligent and limited - people, showed them from the inside, and the best in this environment - with obvious sympathy. In Alexei, in Myshlaevsky, in Nai-Turs and in Pikolka, the author most of all values ​​courageous straightforwardness and loyalty to honor. For them, honor is a kind of faith, the core of personal behavior.

Officer's honor demanded the protection of the white banner, unreasoning loyalty to the oath, the fatherland and the tsar, and Alexey Turbin painfully experiences the collapse of the symbol of faith, from under which the main support was pulled out with the abdication of Nicholas II. But honor is also loyalty to other people, comradeship, and duty to the younger and weaker. Colonel Malyshev is a man of honor because he dismisses the cadets to their homes, having realized the pointlessness of resistance: courage and contempt for the phrase are needed for such a decision. Nai-Turs is a man of honor, even a knight of it, because he fights to the end, and when he sees that the matter is lost, he tears off the cadet's shoulder straps, almost a boy thrown into a bloody mess, and covers his retreat with a machine gun. Nikolka is also a man of honor, because he rushes through the bullet-riddled streets of the city, looking for Nai-Tours’s loved ones to inform them about his death, and then, risking himself, he almost steals the body of the deceased commander, removing him from the mountain of frozen corpses in the basement of the anatomical theater .

Where there is honor, there is courage, where there is dishonor, there is cowardice. The reader will remember Thalberg, with his “patented smile,” stuffing travel bag. He is a stranger in the Turbino family. People tend to be mistaken, sometimes tragically mistaken, to doubt, to search, to come to new faith. But a man of honor makes this journey out of inner conviction, usually with anguish, with anguish, parting with what he worshiped. For a person devoid of the concept of honor, such changes are easy: he, like Thalberg, simply changes the bow on the lapel of his coat, adapting to changing circumstances.

The author of “The White Guard” was also concerned about another question: the bond of the old “peaceful life”, in addition to autocracy, was Orthodoxy, faith in God and the afterlife - some sincere, some weathered and remaining only as loyalty to rituals. In Bulgakov's first novel there is no break with traditional awareness, but there is no sense of loyalty to it.

Elena’s lively, fervent prayer for the salvation of her brother, addressed to the Mother of God, performs a miracle: Alexey recovers. Before Elena’s inner gaze appears the one whom the author will later call Yeshua Ha-Nozri, “completely resurrected, and blessed, and barefoot.” The light transparent vision anticipates the late novel in its visibility: “the glass light of the heavenly dome, some unprecedented red-yellow sand blocks, olive trees...” - the landscape of ancient Judea.

Much brings the author together with his main character - the doctor Alexei Turbin, to whom he gave a piece of his biography: calm courage, and faith in old Russia, faith to the last, until the course of events destroys it completely, but most of all - the dream of a peaceful life .

The semantic culmination of the novel lies in prophetic dream Alexey Turbin. “I have neither profit nor loss from your faith,” God, who “appeared” to Sergeant Zhilin, simply argues in a peasant manner. “One believes, the other doesn’t believe, but your actions... you all have the same: now you’re at each other’s throats...” And the whites, the reds, and those who fell at Perekop are equally subject to the highest mercy: “.. “All of you are the same to me - killed on the battlefield.”

The author of the novel did not pretend to be a religious person: both hell and heaven for him were most likely “so... a human dream.” But Elena says in her home prayer that “we are all guilty of blood.” And the writer was tormented by the question of who would pay for the blood shed in vain.

The suffering and torment of a fratricidal war, the consciousness of the justice of what he called “the clumsy peasant anger,” and at the same time the pain from trampling on the old human values led Bulgakov to create his own unusual ethics - essentially non-religious, but retaining the features of Christian moral tradition. The motif of eternity, which arose in the first lines of the novel, in one of the epigraphs, in the image of the great and terrible year, rises in the finale. The biblical words about the Last Judgment: “And every one was judged according to his works, and whoever was not written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.”

“...The cross turned into a threatening sharp sword. But he's not scary. All 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 will not remain on the earth. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to turn our gaze to them? Why?"