Lariosik white guard characteristics. “The significance of the episode “The Amazing Incident” in the novel “The White Guard”

The novel “The White Guard” took about 7 years to create. Initially, Bulgakov wanted to make it the first part of a trilogy. The writer began work on the novel in 1921, moving to Moscow, and by 1925 the text was almost finished. Once again Bulgakov ruled the novel in 1917-1929. before publication in Paris and Riga, reworking the ending.

The name options considered by Bulgakov are all connected with politics through the symbolism of flowers: “White Cross”, “Yellow Ensign”, “Scarlet Swoop”.

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

Literary direction and genre

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

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

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

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

Issues

Bulgakov in the novel avoids social and political problems. His heroes are the White Guard, but the careerist Talberg also belongs to the same guard. The author's sympathies are not on the side of the whites or the reds, but on the side of good people who do not turn into rats running away from the ship and do not change their opinions under the influence of political vicissitudes.

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

Bulgakov creates a myth about a beautiful white City, covered with snow and, as it were, protected by it. The writer asks himself whether historical events, changes in power, which Bulgakov experienced in Kyiv during the civil war 14, depend on him. Bulgakov comes to the conclusion that myths rule over human destinies. He considers Petliura to be a myth that arose in Ukraine “in the fog of the terrible year of 1818.” Such myths give rise to fierce hatred and force some who believe in the myth to become part of it without reasoning, and others, living in another myth, to fight to the death for their own.

Each of the heroes experiences the collapse of their myths, and some, like Nai-Tours, die even for something they no longer believe in. The problem of the loss of myth and faith is the most important for Bulgakov. For himself, he chooses the house as a myth. The life of a house is still longer than that of a person. And indeed, the house has survived to this day.

Plot and composition

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

The events in the novel take place in the winter of 1918-1919. (51 days). During this time, the power in the city changes: the hetman flees with the Germans and enters the city of Petliura, who ruled for 47 days, and at the end the Petliuraites flee under the cannonade of the Red Army.

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

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

But the second epigraph from the Apocalypse warns: everyone will be judged according to their deeds. If you chose the wrong path, getting lost in the storms of life, this does not justify you.

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

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

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

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

Even Vasilisa survives a raid by bandits and loses her savings. This trouble for the Turbins is not a grief at all, but, according to Lariosik, “everyone has their own grief.”

Grief comes to Nikolka too. And it’s not that the bandits, having spied Nikolka hiding the Nai-Tours Colt, steal it and threaten Vasilisa with it. Nikolka faces death face to face and avoids it, and the fearless Nai-Tours dies, and Nikolka’s shoulders bear the responsibility of reporting the death to his mother and sister, finding and identifying the body.

The novel ends with the hope that the new force entering the City will not destroy the idyll of the house on Alekseevsky Spusk 13, where the magic stove that warmed and raised the Turbin children now serves them as adults, and the only inscription remaining on its tiles says in the hand of a friend that tickets to Hades (to hell) have been taken for Lena. Thus, hope in the finale is mixed with hopelessness for a particular person.

Taking the novel from the historical layer to the universal one, Bulgakov gives hope to all readers, because hunger will pass, suffering and torment will pass, but the stars, which you need to look at, will remain. The writer draws the reader to true values.

Heroes of the novel

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

He is a weak person, a “rag”, and caring for all family members falls on his shoulders. He does not have the acumen of a military man, although he belongs to the White Guard. Alexey is a military doctor. Bulgakov calls his soul gloomy, the kind that loves women’s eyes most of all. This image in the novel is autobiographical.

Alexey, absent-minded, almost paid for this with his life, removing all the officer’s insignia from his clothes, but forgetting about the cockade, by which the Petliurists recognized him. The crisis and death of Alexei occurs on December 24, Christmas. Having experienced death and a new birth through injury and illness, the “resurrected” Alexey Turbin becomes a different person, his eyes “have forever become unsmiling and gloomy.”

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

Nikolka Turbin is 17 and a half years old. He is a cadet. With the beginning of the revolution, the schools ceased to exist. Their discarded students are called crippled, neither children nor adults, neither military nor civilian.

Nai-Tours appears to Nikolka as a man with an iron face, simple and courageous. This is a person who neither knows how to adapt nor seek personal gain. He dies having fulfilled his military duty.

Captain Talberg is Elena’s husband, a handsome man. He tried to adapt to rapidly changing events: as a member of the revolutionary military committee, he arrested General Petrov, became part of an “operetta with great bloodshed,” elected “hetman of all Ukraine,” so he had to escape with the Germans, betraying Elena. At the end of the novel, Elena learns from her friend that Talberg has betrayed her once again and is going to get married.

Vasilisa (houseowner engineer Vasily Lisovich) occupied the first floor. He is a negative hero, a money-grubber. At night he hides money in a hiding place in the wall. Outwardly similar to Taras Bulba. Having found counterfeit money, Vasilisa figures out how he will use it.

Vasilisa is, in essence, an unhappy person. It is painful for him to save and make money. His wife Wanda is crooked, her hair is yellow, her elbows are bony, her legs are dry. Vasilisa is sick of living with such a wife in the world.

Stylistic features

The house in the novel is one of the heroes. The Turbins’ hope to survive, survive and even be happy is connected with it. Talberg, who did not become part of the Turbin family, ruins his nest by leaving with the Germans, so he immediately loses the protection of the Turbin house.

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

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

The moment the cadets prepared to defend the city is associated with the Battle of Borodino, which never came.

The son of a professor at the Kyiv Academy, who absorbed the best traditions of Russian culture and spirituality, M. A. Bulgakov graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Kyiv, and since 1916 he worked as a zemstvo doctor in the village of Nikolskoye, Smolensk province, and then in Vyazma, where the revolution found him. From here, in 1918, Bulgakov finally moved through Moscow to his native Kyiv, and there he and his relatives had to survive the difficult period of the civil war, later described in the novel “The White Guard,” the plays “Days of the Turbins,” “Running” and numerous stories.

There is a lot of autobiography in the novel “The White Guard,” but it is not only a description of one’s life experience during the years of the revolution and civil war, but also an insight into the problem of “Man and the Age”; this is also a study of an artist who sees an inextricable connection between Russian history and philosophy. This is a book about the fate of classical culture in a formidable era of the breakdown of centuries-old traditions. The problems of the novel are extremely close to Bulgakov; he loved “The White Guard” more than his other works.

With an epigraph from Pushkin’s “The Captain’s Daughter,” Bulgakov emphasized that we are talking about people who were overtaken by the storm of revolution, but who were able to find the right path, maintain courage and a sober view of the world and their place in it. The second epigraph is biblical. And with this Bulgakov introduces us to the zone of eternal time, without introducing any historical comparisons.

The epic beginning of the novel develops the motif of epigraphs: “It was a great and terrible year after the birth of Christ, 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution. It was full of sun in summer and snow in winter, and two stars stood especially high in the sky: the shepherd star Venus and the red trembling Mars.” The style of the opening is almost biblical. Associations make one remember the eternal Book of Genesis, which in itself

It materializes the eternal in a unique way, just like the image of the stars in the heavens. The specific time of history is, as it were, sealed into the eternal time of existence, framed by it. The opposition of stars, a natural series of images related to the eternal, at the same time symbolizes the collision of historical time. The beginning of the work, majestic, tragic and poetic, contains the seed of social and philosophical problems associated with the opposition between peace and war, life and death, death and immortality. The very choice of stars allows one to descend from the cosmic distance to the world of the Turbins, since it is this world that will resist hostility and madness.

In “The White Guard,” the sweet, quiet, intelligent Turbin family suddenly becomes involved in great events, becomes a witness and participant in terrible and amazing deeds. The days of the Turbins absorb the eternal charm of calendar time: “But the days in both peaceful and bloody years fly like an arrow, and the young Turbins did not notice how white, shaggy December came in the bitter frost. Oh, Christmas tree grandfather, sparkling with snow and happiness! Mom, bright queen, where are you?” Memories of his mother and his former life contrast with the real situation of the bloody year of eighteen. A great misfortune - the loss of a mother - merges with another terrible catastrophe - the collapse of an old, seemingly strong and beautiful world. Both catastrophes give rise to internal confusion and mental pain for the Turbins. There are two spatial scales in Bulgakov's novel - small and large space, Home and World. These spaces are in opposition, like the stars in the sky, each of them has its own correlation with time, contains a certain time. The small space of the Turbins’ house preserves the strength of everyday life: “The tablecloth, despite the guns and all this languor, anxiety and nonsense, is white and starchy... The floors are shiny, and in December, now, on the table, in a matte, columnar vase, there are blue hydrangeas and two dark and sultry roses.” Flowers in the Turbins' house - and the strength of life - Already in this detail, the small space of the house begins to absorb eternal time, the very interior of the Turbins' house - “a bronze lamp under a lampshade, the best cabinets in the world with books that smell of mysterious ancient chocolate, with Natasha Rostova , The captain’s daughter, gilded cups, silver, portraits, curtains” - all this small space enclosed by walls contains the eternal - the immortality of art, the milestones of culture.

The Turbins' house confronts the outside world, in which destruction, horror, inhumanity, and death reign. But the House cannot separate, leave the city, it is part of it, just as the city is part of the earthly space. And at the same time, this earthly space of social passions and battles is included in the vastness of the World.

The city, according to Bulgakov’s description, was “beautiful in the frost and fog on the mountains above the Dnieper.” But its appearance changed dramatically, “...industrialists, merchants, lawyers, public figures fled here. Journalists from Moscow and St. Petersburg, corrupt and greedy, cowardly, fled. Cocottes, honest ladies from aristocratic families...” and many others. And the city began to live a “strange, unnatural life...” The evolutionary course of history is suddenly and menacingly disrupted, and man finds himself at its breaking point.

Bulgakov’s image of the large and small space of life grows in contrast to the destructive time of war and the eternal time of Peace.

You can’t sit out a difficult time by closing yourself off from it, like the homeowner Vasilisa - “an engineer and a coward, a bourgeois and unsympathetic.” This is how Lisovich is perceived by the Turbins, who do not like the philistine isolation, narrow-mindedness, hoarding, and isolation from life. Whatever happens, they will not count coupons, hiding in the dark, like Vasily Lisovich, who only dreams of surviving the storm and not losing his accumulated capital. Turbines face a threatening time differently. They do not change themselves in anything, do not change their lifestyle. Every day friends gather in their house and are greeted by light, warmth, and a laid table. Nikolkin’s guitar rings with desperation and defiance even in the face of an impending catastrophe.

Everything honest and pure is attracted to the House like a magnet. Here, in this comfort of the House, the mortally frozen Myshlaevsky comes from the terrible World. A man of honor, like Turbins, he did not leave his post near the city, where in the terrible frost forty people waited for a day in the snow, without fires, for a shift,

Which would never have come if Colonel Nai-Tours, also a man of honor and duty, could not, despite the disgrace happening at the headquarters, bring two hundred cadets, thanks to the efforts of Nai-Tours, perfectly dressed and armed. Some time will pass, and Nai-Tours, realizing that he and his cadets have been treacherously abandoned by the command, that his guys are destined for cannon fodder, will save his boys at the cost of his own life. The lines of the Turbins and Nai-Tours will intertwine in the fate of Nikolka, who witnessed the last heroic minutes of the colonel’s life. Admired by the colonel's feat and humanism, Nikolka will do the impossible - she will be able to overcome the seemingly insurmountable in order to give Nai-Turs his last duty - to bury him with dignity and become a loved one for the mother and sister of the deceased hero.

The world of the Turbins contains the fates of all truly decent people, be it the courageous officers Myshlaevsky and Stepanov, or deeply civilian by nature, but not shying away from what befell him in the era of hard times, Alexei Turbin, or even the completely seemingly ridiculous Lariosik . But it was Lariosik who managed to quite accurately express the very essence of the House, opposing the era of cruelty and violence. Lariosik spoke about himself, but many could subscribe to these words, “that he suffered a drama, but here, with Elena Vasilievna, his soul comes to life, because this is a completely exceptional person, Elena Vasilievna, and in their apartment it is warm and cozy, and especially the cream curtains on all the windows are wonderful, thanks to which you feel cut off from the outside world... And this outside world... you must admit, it’s menacing, bloody and meaningless.”

There, outside the windows, is the merciless destruction of everything that was valuable in Russia.

Here, behind the curtains, there is an unshakable belief that everything beautiful must be protected and preserved, that this is necessary under any circumstances, that it is feasible. “... The clock, fortunately, is completely immortal, the Saardam Carpenter is immortal, and the Dutch tile, like a wise scan, is life-giving and hot in the most difficult times.”

And outside the windows - “the eighteenth year is flying to the end and day by day it looks more menacing and bristly.” And Alexei Turbin thinks with alarm not about his possible death, but about the death of the House: “The walls will fall, the alarmed one will fly away from the white mitten, the fire in the bronze lamp will go out, and the Captain’s Daughter will be burned in the oven.”

But maybe love and devotion are given the power to protect and save, and the House will be saved?

There is no clear answer to this question in the novel.

There is a confrontation between the center of peace and culture and the Petliura gangs, which are being replaced by the Bolsheviks.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891–1940) - a writer with a difficult, tragic fate that influenced his work. Coming from an intelligent family, he did not accept the revolutionary changes and the reaction that followed them. The ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity imposed by the authoritarian state did not inspire him, because for him, a man with education and a high level of intelligence, the contrast between the demagoguery in the squares and the wave of red terror that swept Russia was obvious. He deeply felt the tragedy of the people and dedicated the novel “The White Guard” to it.

In the winter of 1923, Bulgakov began work on the novel “The White Guard,” which describes the events of the Ukrainian Civil War at the end of 1918, when Kyiv was occupied by the troops of the Directory, who overthrew the power of Hetman Pavel Skoropadsky. In December 1918, officers tried to defend the hetman's power, where Bulgakov was either enrolled as a volunteer or, according to other sources, was mobilized. Thus, the novel contains autobiographical features - even the number of the house in which the Bulgakov family lived during the capture of Kyiv by Petlyura is preserved - 13. In the novel, this number takes on a symbolic meaning. Andreevsky Descent, where the house is located, is called Alekseevsky in the novel, and Kyiv is simply called the City. The prototypes of the characters are the writer’s relatives, friends and acquaintances:

• Nikolka Turbin, for example, is Bulgakov’s younger brother Nikolai
• Dr. Alexey Turbin is a writer himself,
• Elena Turbina-Talberg - Varvara's younger sister
• Sergei Ivanovich Talberg - officer Leonid Sergeevich Karum (1888 - 1968), who, however, did not go abroad like Talberg, but was ultimately exiled to Novosibirsk.
• The prototype of Larion Surzhansky (Lariosik) is a distant relative of the Bulgakovs, Nikolai Vasilyevich Sudzilovsky.
• The prototype of Myshlaevsky, according to one version - Bulgakov's childhood friend, Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky
• The prototype of Lieutenant Shervinsky is another friend of Bulgakov, who served in the hetman’s troops - Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky (1898 - 1968).
• Colonel Felix Feliksovich Nai-Tours is a collective image. It consists of several prototypes - firstly, this is the white general Fyodor Arturovich Keller (1857 - 1918), who was killed by the Petliurists during the resistance and ordered the cadets to run and tear off their shoulder straps, realizing the meaninglessness of the battle, and secondly, this is Major General Nikolai of the Volunteer Army Vsevolodovich Shinkarenko (1890 – 1968).
• There was also a prototype from the cowardly engineer Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich (Vasilisa), from whom the Turbins rented the second floor of the house - architect Vasily Pavlovich Listovnichy (1876 - 1919).
• The prototype of the futurist Mikhail Shpolyansky is a major Soviet literary scholar and critic Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (1893 – 1984).
• The surname Turbina is the maiden name of Bulgakov’s grandmother.

However, it should also be noted that “The White Guard” is not a completely autobiographical novel. Some things are fictitious - for example, that the Turbins’ mother died. In fact, at that time, the Bulgakovs’ mother, who is the prototype of the heroine, lived in another house with her second husband. And there are fewer family members in the novel than the Bulgakovs actually had. The entire novel was first published in 1927–1929. in France.

About what?

The novel “The White Guard” is about the tragic fate of the intelligentsia during the difficult times of the revolution, after the assassination of Emperor Nicholas II. The book also tells about the difficult situation of officers who are ready to fulfill their duty to the fatherland in the conditions of a shaky, unstable political situation in the country. The White Guard officers were ready to defend the hetman's power, but the author poses the question: does this make sense if the hetman fled, leaving the country and its defenders to the mercy of fate?

Alexey and Nikolka Turbin are officers ready to defend their homeland and the former government, but before the cruel mechanism of the political system they (and people like them) find themselves powerless. Alexei is seriously wounded, and he is forced to fight not for his homeland or for the occupied city, but for his life, in which he is helped by the woman who saved him from death. And Nikolka runs away at the last moment, saved by Nai-Tours, who is killed. With all their desire to defend the fatherland, the heroes do not forget about family and home, about the sister left by her husband. The antagonist character in the novel is Captain Talberg, who, unlike the Turbin brothers, leaves his homeland and his wife in difficult times and goes to Germany.

In addition, “The White Guard” is a novel about the horrors, lawlessness and devastation that are happening in the city occupied by Petliura. Bandits with forged documents break into the house of engineer Lisovich and rob him, there is shooting in the streets, and the master of the kurennoy with his assistants - the “lads” - commit a cruel, bloody reprisal against the Jew, suspecting him of espionage.

In the finale, the city, captured by the Petliurists, is recaptured by the Bolsheviks. “The White Guard” clearly expresses a negative, negative attitude towards Bolshevism - as a destructive force that will ultimately wipe out everything holy and human from the face of the earth, and a terrible time will come. The novel ends with this thought.

The main characters and their characteristics

• Alexey Vasilievich Turbin- a twenty-eight-year-old doctor, a division doctor, who, paying a debt of honor to the fatherland, enters into a battle with the Petliurites when his unit was disbanded, since the fight was already pointless, but is seriously wounded and forced to flee. He falls ill with typhus, is on the verge of life and death, but ultimately survives.
• Nikolai Vasilievich Turbin(Nikolka) - a seventeen-year-old non-commissioned officer, Alexei’s younger brother, ready to fight to the last with the Petliurists for the fatherland and hetman’s power, but at the insistence of the colonel he runs away, tearing off his insignia, since the battle no longer makes sense (the Petliurists captured the City, and the hetman escaped). Nikolka then helps her sister care for the wounded Alexei.
• Elena Vasilievna Turbina-Talberg(Elena the redhead) is a twenty-four-year-old married woman who was left by her husband. She worries and prays for both brothers participating in hostilities, waits for her husband and secretly hopes that he will return.
• Sergei Ivanovich Talberg- captain, husband of Elena the Red, unstable in his political views, who changes them depending on the situation in the city (acts on the principle of a weather vane), for which the Turbins, true to their views, do not respect him. As a result, he leaves his home, his wife and leaves for Germany by night train.
• Leonid Yurievich Shervinsky- lieutenant of the guard, a dapper lancer, admirer of Elena the Red, friend of the Turbins, believes in the support of the allies and says that he himself saw the sovereign.
• Victor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky- lieutenant, another friend of the Turbins, loyal to the fatherland, honor and duty. In the novel, one of the first harbingers of the Petliura occupation, a participant in the battle a few kilometers from the City. When the Petliurists break into the City, Myshlaevsky takes the side of those who want to disband the mortar division so as not to destroy the lives of the cadets, and wants to set fire to the building of the cadet gymnasium so that it does not fall to the enemy.
• crucian carp- a friend of the Turbins, a restrained, honest officer, who, during the dissolution of the mortar division, joins those who disband the cadets, takes the side of Myshlaevsky and Colonel Malyshev, who proposed such a way out.
• Felix Feliksovich Nai-Tours- a colonel who is not afraid to defy the general and disbands the cadets at the moment of the capture of the City by Petliura. He himself dies heroically in front of Nikolka Turbina. For him, more valuable than the power of the deposed hetman is the life of the cadets - young people who were almost sent to the last senseless battle with the Petliurists, but he hastily disbands them, forcing them to tear off their insignia and destroy documents. Nai-Tours in the novel is the image of an ideal officer, for whom not only the fighting qualities and honor of his brothers in arms are valuable, but also their lives.
• Lariosik (Larion Surzhansky)- a distant relative of the Turbins, who came to them from the provinces, going through a divorce from his wife. Clumsy, a bungler, but good-natured, he loves to be in the library and keeps a canary in a cage.
• Yulia Alexandrovna Reiss- a woman who saves the wounded Alexei Turbin, and he begins an affair with her.
• Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich (Vasilisa)- a cowardly engineer, a housewife from whom the Turbins rent the second floor of his house. He is a hoarder, lives with his greedy wife Wanda, hides valuables in secret places. As a result, he is robbed by bandits. He got his nickname, Vasilisa, because due to the unrest in the city in 1918, he began to sign documents in a different handwriting, abbreviating his first and last name as follows: “You. Fox."
• Petliurites in the novel - only gears in a global political upheaval, which entails irreversible consequences.

Subjects

1. Theme of moral choice. The central theme is the situation of the White Guards, who are forced to choose whether to participate in meaningless battles for the power of the escaped hetman or still save their lives. The Allies do not come to the rescue, and the city is captured by the Petliurists, and, ultimately, by the Bolsheviks - a real force that threatens the old way of life and political system.
2. Political instability. Events unfold after the events of the October Revolution and the execution of Nicholas II, when the Bolsheviks seized power in St. Petersburg and continued to strengthen their positions. The Petliurists who captured Kyiv (in the novel - the City) are weak in front of the Bolsheviks, as are the White Guards. “The White Guard” is a tragic novel about how the intelligentsia and everything connected with them perish.
3. The novel contains biblical motifs, and in order to enhance their sound, the author introduces the image of a patient obsessed with the Christian religion who comes to doctor Alexei Turbin for treatment. The novel begins with a countdown from the Nativity of Christ, and just before the end, lines from the Apocalypse of St. John the Theologian. That is, the fate of the City, captured by the Petliurists and Bolsheviks, is compared in the novel with the Apocalypse.

Christian symbols

• A crazy patient who came to Turbin for an appointment calls the Bolsheviks “angels,” and Petliura was released from cell No. 666 (in the Revelation of John the Theologian - the number of the Beast, the Antichrist).
• The house on Alekseevsky Spusk is No. 13, and this number, as is known in popular superstitions, is the “devil’s dozen”, an unlucky number, and various misfortunes befall the Turbins’ house - the parents die, the older brother receives a mortal wound and barely survives, and Elena is abandoned and the husband betrays (and betrayal is a trait of Judas Iscariot).
• The novel contains the image of the Mother of God, to whom Elena prays and asks to save Alexei from death. In the terrible time described in the novel, Elena experiences similar experiences as the Virgin Mary, but not for her son, but for her brother, who ultimately overcomes death like Christ.
• Also in the novel there is a theme of equality before God's court. Everyone is equal before him - both the White Guards and the soldiers of the Red Army. Alexey Turbin has a dream about heaven - how Colonel Nai-Tours, white officers and Red Army soldiers get there: they are all destined to go to heaven as those who fell on the battlefield, but God doesn’t care whether they believe in him or not. Justice, according to the novel, exists only in heaven, and on the sinful earth godlessness, blood, and violence reign under red five-pointed stars.

Issues

The problematic of the novel “The White Guard” is the hopeless, plight of the intelligentsia, as a class alien to the winners. Their tragedy is the drama of the entire country, because without the intellectual and cultural elite, Russia will not be able to develop harmoniously.

• Dishonor and cowardice. If the Turbins, Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Karas, Nai-Tours are unanimous and are going to defend the fatherland to the last drop of blood, then Talberg and the hetman prefer to flee like rats from a sinking ship, and individuals like Vasily Lisovich are cowardly, cunning and adapt to existing conditions.
• Also, one of the main problems of the novel is the choice between moral duty and life. The question is posed bluntly - is there any point in honorably defending a government that dishonorably leaves the fatherland in the most difficult times for it, and there is an answer to this very question: there is no point, in this case life is put in first place.
• The split of Russian society. In addition, the problem in the work “The White Guard” lies in the attitude of the people to what is happening. The people do not support the officers and White Guards and, in general, take the side of the Petliurists, because on the other side there is lawlessness and permissiveness.
• Civil War. The novel contrasts three forces - the White Guards, Petliurists and Bolsheviks, and one of them is only intermediate, temporary - the Petliurists. The fight against the Petliurists will not be able to have such a strong impact on the course of history as the fight between the White Guards and the Bolsheviks - two real forces, one of which will lose and sink into oblivion forever - this is the White Guard.

Meaning

In general, the meaning of the novel “The White Guard” is struggle. The struggle between courage and cowardice, honor and dishonor, good and evil, God and the devil. Courage and honor are the Turbins and their friends, Nai-Tours, Colonel Malyshev, who disbanded the cadets and did not allow them to die. Cowardice and dishonor, opposed to them, are the hetman, Talberg, staff captain Studzinsky, who, afraid to violate the order, was going to arrest Colonel Malyshev because he wants to disband the cadets.

Ordinary citizens who do not participate in hostilities are also assessed in the novel according to the same criteria: honor, courage - cowardice, dishonor. For example, female characters - Elena, waiting for her husband who left her, Irina Nai-Tours, who was not afraid to go with Nikolka to the anatomical theater for the body of her murdered brother, Yulia Aleksandrovna Reiss - this is the personification of honor, courage, determination - and Wanda, the wife of engineer Lisovich, stingy, greedy for things - personifies cowardice, baseness. And engineer Lisovich himself is petty, cowardly and stingy. Lariosik, despite all his clumsiness and absurdity, is humane and gentle, this is a character who personifies, if not courage and determination, then simply kindness and kindness - qualities that are so lacking in people at that cruel time described in the novel.

Another meaning of the novel “The White Guard” is that those who are close to God are not those who officially serve him - not churchmen, but those who, even in a bloody and merciless time, when evil descended to earth, retained the grains of humanity in themselves, and even if they are Red Army soldiers. This is told in Alexei Turbin’s dream - a parable from the novel “The White Guard”, in which God explains that the White Guards will go to their paradise, with church floors, and the Red Army soldiers will go to theirs, with red stars, because both believed in the offensive good for the fatherland, albeit in different ways. But the essence of both is the same, despite the fact that they are on different sides. But the churchmen, “servants of God,” according to this parable, will not go to heaven, since many of them departed from the truth. Thus, the essence of the novel “The White Guard” is that humanity (goodness, honor, God, courage) and inhumanity (evil, devil, dishonor, cowardice) will always fight for power over this world. And it doesn’t matter under what banners this struggle will take place - white or red, but on the side of evil there will always be violence, cruelty and base qualities, which must be opposed by goodness, mercy, and honesty. In this eternal struggle, it is important to choose not the convenient, but the right side.

Retelling plan

1. The Turbin family.
2. The city is in danger.
3. Thalberg's escape.
4. Conversation about the formation of the Russian army.
5. Life of the City in the winter of 1918
6. Petlyura is advancing on the City.
7. A division to protect the City is created.
8. Flight of the hetman and army commander. Dissolution of the division.
9. Nikolai Turbin is forced to disband the detachment of cadets. Death of Nai-Tours.
10. Alexey Turbin is wounded. Arrival of Lariosik.
11. Evening at the Turbins’ house. The attack on Vasilisa and the disappearance of pistols from the Turbinnykh’s hiding place.
12. Nikolka finds Nai-Turs’ mother and sister and tells them about his heroic death.
13. Elena's prayer. Recovery of Alexey Turbin.
14. Elena finds out that Talberg got married abroad.
15. Death of Petliura. Philosophical thoughts of the author.

Retelling

Chapters 1, 2 and 3

“It was a great year and a terrible year after the Nativity of Christ, 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution... The young Turbins did not notice how a white, shaggy December came in the bitter frost... In May, “a year after their daughter Elena got married with captain Sergei Ivanovich Talberg, and in the week when the eldest son, Alexey Vasilyevich Turbin, after difficult campaigns, service and troubles returned to Ukraine to the City, to his native nest, the white coffin with the body of his mother was carried down the steep Alekseevsky descent to Podol , to the small church of St. Nicholas the Good.”

Alexey Turbin, Elena, Nikolka - everyone seemed stunned by the death of their mother. They had a funeral service and buried him in the cemetery where his father, the professor, had been lying for a long time. The turbines live in house number 13 on Alekseevsky Spusk. The house is filled with objects familiar and loved from childhood. A tiled stove, covered with inscriptions and drawings of the Turbins and their friends, a bronze clock, cream curtains, old red velvet furniture, Turkish carpets, a bronze lamp under a lampshade, a cabinet with books, with Natasha Rostova, “The Captain’s Daughter” - “all this is mother at the very She left a difficult time for the children and, already out of breath and weakening, clinging to the hand of Elena, who was crying, said: “United... live together.” “But how to live? How to live? Alexey Vasilyevich Turbin, the eldest, is a young doctor - twenty-eight years old, Elena is twenty-four, and Nikolka is seventeen and a half. Their lives were interrupted at dawn... The walls will fall, the fire in the bronze lamp will go out, and “The Captain’s Daughter” will be burned in the oven. The mother told the children: “Live.” And they will have to suffer and die.

The painted tiles glow with heat, the black clock runs as it did thirty years ago: a tonk-tank.” In the dining room, “senior Turbin, shaven, fair-haired, aged and gloomy since October 25, 1917,” Nikolka, a non-commissioned officer, and his guitar girlfriend. “It’s alarming in the City, foggy, bad... But, despite everything, in the dining room, essentially speaking, it’s wonderful. It’s hot, cozy, the cream curtains are drawn.” Elena is worried: where is Talberg? Outside the windows you can hear the roar of guns and shots. “Nikolka finally can’t stand it:

“I’d like to know why they’re shooting so close?” It can't be...

“They shoot because the Germans are scoundrels,” the elder suddenly mutters.

Elena looks up at her watch and asks:

- Will they really, really leave us to our fate? “Her voice is sad.”

All three are thinking about whether Petlyura will be able to enter the city, and why there are still no allies.”

Soon footsteps were heard and a knock on the door. A “tall, broad-shouldered figure in a gray overcoat,” wearing a frosty cap, entered. It was Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky. His head “was very beautiful, strange and sad and attractive with the beauty of an ancient, real breed and degeneration.” He asks to spend the night: he is very cold, even frostbitten. Myshlaevsky “abused with obscene words Colonel Shchetkin, the frost, Petliura, and the Germans, and the blizzard, and ended up accusing the Hetman of All Ukraine himself of the most vile vulgar words.” He said that they spent a day in the cold, lightly dressed, without felt boots, defending the City, and only at two o’clock in the afternoon did a shift come - “about two hundred cadets” under the command of Colonel Nai-Turs. Two froze to death, two will have to have their legs amputated. Myshlaevsky talks about complete confusion: “what is being done is incomprehensible to the mind,” about the indifference and betrayal of the command. Listening to Myshlaevsky's story, Elena cries. It seems to her that Talberg has been killed.

The bell rings. This is Thalberg - a tall, stately man with “double-layer eyes”, with an “eternal patented smile.” He serves in the Hetman's War Ministry. The Turbin brothers do not like Talberg; they feel a certain two-facedness and falseness in him. Although Thalberg “smiles favorably on everyone,” his arrival sows anxiety. He tells “slowly and cheerfully” that the train with money that he was escorting was attacked by “an unknown person.”

Elena and Talberg go to their half. Thalberg informs his wife that circumstances force him to flee the City now, immediately. Elena, “thinner and stricter,” packs his suitcase. Talberg says that it is dangerous for him to stay in the City, since there is a possibility that “Petliura will enter” soon. Thalberg says that he cannot take her with him “on the wanderings and the unknown.” Elena asks Thalberg why he doesn’t inform his brothers about the betrayal of the Germans. Talberg blushes and says that he will warn the Turbins. Saying goodbye to her husband, “Elena cried, but quietly - she was a strong woman.” Thalberg told Elena's brothers about the Germans and said goodbye: “he pricked both brothers with brushes of his black trimmed mustache.” Thalberg flees with the Germans.

At night, in the apartment on the floor below, the housekeeper Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich, nicknamed Vasilisa (out of fear, from January 1918, he began to write his name “Vas. Lis.” on all documents), hid a wad of money in a hiding place under the wallpaper. There were three caches in total. At the same time, a wolfish, ragged gray figure was watching him from a tree branch on a deserted street through a crack in the sheet on the window. Vasilisa went to bed and dreamed that thieves used master keys to open the cache, and the jack of hearts shot at him point-blank. Vasilisa jumped up screaming, but the house was quiet, and the sounds of a guitar were heard from above from the Turbins.

In the Turbins’ room, their friends were sitting at the table: Leonid Yuryevich Shervinsky, now an adjutant at the headquarters of Prince Belorukov, the “little uhlan”, he brought roses to Elena; Second Lieutenant Stepanov - by the gymnasium nickname Karas, “small, sleek, really very similar to crucian carp,” and Myshlaevsky. Myshlaevsky’s eyes “are in red rings - cold, experienced fear, vodka, anger.” Karas reports the news: “everyone needs to go fight... The commander is Colonel Malyshev, the division is wonderful - student.”

Shervinsky joyfully accepts the news of Talberg's disappearance: he is in love with Elena. Shervinsky has a wonderful voice: “Everything is nonsense in the world, except for such a voice.” He dreams that after the war he will leave military service and sing at La Sca1a and at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. Friends discuss the situation in the City. Turbin shouts that the hetman should be hanged; for six months he “mocked Russian officers, everyone”: he banned the formation of the Russian army. He, Turbin, is going to enlist in Malyshev’s division, if not as a doctor, then as a simple private. Alexey thinks that in the City it would be possible to recruit an army of fifty thousand, “selected, the best, because all the cadets, all the students, high school students, officers, and there are thousands of them in the City, everyone would go with dear souls. Not only would there be no spirit in Little Russia for Petlyura, but we would have swatted Trotsky in Moscow like a fly.”

The friends went to bed, Elena did not sleep in her room: “a huge black sadness covered Elena’s head like a bonnet.” Elena tries to find an excuse for Talberg’s action: “he is a very reasonable person,” but she understands that “the most important thing was not in her soul” - respect for him.

Alexey also cannot sleep for a long time. And he is tormented by the thought of Thalberg’s betrayal and cowardice: “He’s a bastard. Nothing else! ...Oh, a damn doll, devoid of the slightest concept of honor!” In the morning, Alexey falls asleep and “a short nightmare appeared to him in large-checked trousers and mockingly said: “Holy Rus' is a wooden country, poor and ... dangerous, and for a Russian man honor is just an extra burden.” Turbin is about to shoot him, but the nightmare disappears. At dawn, Turbin dreams of the City.

Chapter 4

“Like a multi-tiered honeycomb, the City smoked and made noise and lived. Beautiful in the frost and fog on the mountains, above the Dnieper... And there were so many gardens in the City, like in no other city in the world... The city played with light and shimmered, shone, and danced, and shimmered at night until the morning, and in the morning it faded away, covered with smoke and fog. But best of all sparkled the electric white cross in the hands of the enormous Vladimir on Vladimirskaya Hill...” In the winter of 1918, the life of the City was “strange, unnatural.” Crowds of “new newcomers” flocked to the City. Bankers, homeowners, journalists, aristocrats, secretaries of department directors, poets, money lenders, actresses, etc., who fled from Moscow and St. Petersburg. “The city swelled, expanded, and came out like sourdough from a pot.” At night, shots were heard on the outskirts. “No one knows who shot whom.”

All the inhabitants of the City hated the Bolsheviks, hated them with a “cowardly, hissing” hatred. Some of the new townspeople, such as Colonel Nai-Tours, “hundreds of warrant officers and second lieutenants, former students, like Stepanov - Karas, knocked off the screws of life by war and revolution, and lieutenants, also former students, but finished for the university forever, like Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky, they hated the Bolsheviks with a hot and direct hatred, the kind that could lead to a fight...”

The appearance of the hetman rested on the Germans. The city did not know how the Germans dealt with the peasants. Having learned about the punitive measures, people like Vasilisa said about the men: “Now they will remember the revolution! The Germans will learn them.” “Okay: here are the Germans, and there, beyond the distant cordon, the Bolsheviks. Only two forces."

Chapter 5

In September, Semyon Vasilyevich Petliura was released from prison by the Hetman authorities. “His past was plunged into the deepest darkness.” This would be “a myth generated in Ukraine in the fog of the terrible year 18.” ...And there was something else - fierce hatred. There were four hundred thousand Germans, and around them four times forty times four hundred thousand men with hearts burning with unquenchable anger.” Hatred was generated by backs mutilated by ramrods, requisitioned horses, and confiscated bread. Among the peasants there were those who returned from the war and knew how to shoot. In a word, it wasn’t about Petliura specifically. If it weren't for him, there would be someone else. The Germans are leaving Ukraine, which means that someone will pay with their lives, and, of course, not those who flee the city.

Alexey Turbin sees paradise in a dream. There is Colonel Nai-Tours in the guise of a knight with a luminous helmet and Sergeant Zhilin, killed in 16. Zhilin says that there is a lot of space in heaven and is enough for all the Bolsheviks who will die at Perekop in 2020, talks about his conversation with God. God said: “All of you, Zhilin, are the same to me - killed in the battlefield.” Turbin extended his hands to the sergeant and asked to join his team as a doctor. Zhilin shook his head affirmatively and then Turbin woke up.

In November, the word "Petlyura", pronounced by the Germans as "Peturra", began to sound on everyone's lips. Petliura was advancing on the City.

Chapter 6

In the center of the City, on the window of the former Parisian Chic store, hung a large poster calling for volunteers to enroll in the mortar division. At noon Myshlaevsky and Turbin came here. Colonel Malyshev assigned Myshlaevsky as commander of the fourth platoon and Alexey Turbin as a doctor. The purpose of the division is to protect the City and the Hetman from Petliura’s gangs and, possibly, from the Bolsheviks. In an hour, Turbin was supposed to appear on the parade ground of the Alexander Gymnasium. On the way to the parade ground, Turbin bought the newspaper “Vesti” dated December 13, 1918, which stated that Petlyura’s troops were in complete disarray and would soon collapse.

The guns roared. Suddenly, Turbin saw a procession of coffins with the bodies of officers on Vladimirskaya Street. The dead were cut and mutilated by the men and Petliurists. In the crowd gathered around the coffins, Turbin heard a voice: “That’s what they need.” In a rage, he grabbed the sleeve of the one who said this, intending to shoot the scoundrel, but realized that he was mistaken. Someone else spoke. Indignant, Turbin poked a crumpled sheet of Vesti into the newspaper boy’s nose: “Here’s some news for you. It is for you. Bastard! “This is where his fit of rage passed. ...Feeling ashamed, Turbin pulled his head into his shoulders and, turning sharply...” ran out onto the gymnasium parade ground.

Turbin approached his native gymnasium, where he studied for eight years. He hadn't seen her for that long. “For some reason his heart sank with fear. It suddenly seemed to him that a black cloud had obscured the sky, that some kind of whirlwind had flown in and washed away all his life, like a terrible wave washes away a pier.” He remembers his high school years: “there was so much absurdity and sadness and despair, but there was so much joy.” “Where did it all go?”

A hasty training exercise was taking place on the parade ground. Faces familiar to Turbin flashed by. Turbin instructs student paramedics. Myshlaevsky explains to the student cadets how to handle rifles. Colonel Malyshev appears on the parade ground. He was saddened when he learned that out of one hundred and twenty cadets, there were eighty students who did not know how to handle a rifle. The colonel orders the division to disband and go home for the night. Studzinski tries to argue, insists that the recruits spend the night on the parade ground. However, the colonel abruptly cuts him off.

Malyshev greets the division: “Gunners! I won’t waste words... We will beat Petlyura, the son of a bitch, and, rest assured, we will!” Memories of his high school years came flooding back to Turbin. He saw an old man - the guard of the gymnasium, Maxim, who once dragged them, the boys who had gotten into trouble, to the gymnasium authorities. In a fit of emotion, he intends to catch up with Maxim, but he stops himself: “It’s enough to be sentimental. They sentimentalized their lives. Enough".

Chapter 7

On a dark night, a certain man, all wrapped in bandages, was secretly taken from the palace to a German hospital under the name of Major von Schratto. He allegedly accidentally wounded himself in the neck.

At the beginning of five o'clock, an artillery colonel from the palace conveyed a certain message to Colonel Malyshev's headquarters. And at seven, Malyshev announced to the audience: “During the night, sharp and sudden changes occurred in the state situation in Ukraine. Therefore, I announce to you that the division is disbanded! Go home immediately!” Everyone was stunned, some officers suspected Malyshev of treason and wanted to arrest him. The Colonel had to explain himself. It turned out that there was no one else to protect: the hetman fled, followed by the army commander, General Belorukov. Petlyura is already approaching the City, he has a huge army.

Myshlaevsky proposes to burn down the gymnasium building, Malyshev does not allow this, he says that soon Petlyura will get something more valuable - hundreds of lives, and there is no way to save them.

Part II

Chapter 8

By the morning of December 14, 1918, the City was surrounded by Petliura’s troops, but the City did not yet know about it. Colonel Shchetkin was not at the headquarters - the headquarters did not exist. His aides also disappeared. Nobody understood what was happening. “And in the future, they probably won’t understand soon.” The staff phones were calling less and less often. There was shooting and roaring all around the City. But the City was still living its normal life. A certain Colonel Bolbotun appears. Who is he for?

Chapter 9

Bolbotun and his cavalry regiment entered the City without hindrance. Only at the Nikolaev Column School he was met by a machine gun and fire from 30 cadets and 4 officers. Only one of the four armored cars came to the rescue - there was treason in the armored division: the remaining armored cars were disabled. The traitor was Mikhail Semenovich Shpolyansky. If all the armored cars had arrived, Bolbotun would have gotten away. But Shpolyansky decided that it was not worth defending the hetman, let him clash with Petliura.

Chapter 10

Nai-Tours with cadets guards the Polytechnic Highway. Seeing the mounted Haidamaks, he gives the command “Fire!”, not yet knowing that the forces of the defenders are negligible compared to several regiments of the attackers. The cadets sent by Nai-Tours for reconnaissance returned with the message: “Mr. Colonel, no of our units... are anywhere...” And Nai-Tours, realizing that they had been betrayed and left to die, “gave the cadets something they had never heard of before.” , strange team..."

In the premises of the former barracks, a detachment of the first infantry squad consisting of twenty-eight cadets languished. They were commanded by Nikolka Turbin. “The squad commander, Staff Captain Bezrukov, and his two assistant warrant officers left for headquarters in the morning and did not return.” Nikolai Turbin receives an order over the phone and takes twenty-eight people out into the street.

Alexey Turbin decides to go to his division. His soul “was very anxious.” He didn't understand what was going on in the City. Arriving in a cab, Turbin saw an armed crowd near the museum. He thought that he was late, then he realized: “It’s a disaster... But here’s the horror - they probably left on foot. Petlyura probably came up unexpectedly...” He finds Colonel Malyshev burning documents in the stove. Malyshev tells him: “Take off your shoulder straps quickly and run, hide... Petlyura is in the city. The city is taken. The headquarters betrayed us... I managed to disperse the division.” And suddenly he shouts hysterically: “I saved everyone of my own. I didn’t send you to slaughter! I didn’t send it for shame!” Hearing a machine gun, he advises Turbin to run and goes into hiding. “The thoughts in Turbin’s head huddled together in a shapeless heap. Then, in silence, the lump gradually unraveled.” Turbin tore off his shoulder straps, threw them into the oven and ran out into the yard.

Chapter 11

Obeying the order, the younger Turbin led the cadets into the City. “The route led Turbin to a completely dead crossroads,” although a telephone voice ordered to find a detachment of the third squad here and reinforce it. Nikolka decided to wait for the detachment. In the end, expectations were met, but not at all as Turbin had imagined. “Our people” appeared, but they behaved in a strange way: they ran away, tearing off their shoulder straps, tearing up documents. Nikolka’s pride did not allow him to flee shamefully, and he tried to get involved in the battle. Colonel Nai-Tours suddenly appeared. He tore off Nikolka’s shoulder straps and ordered the cadets to flee, tear off their shoulder straps, throw away their weapons, and tear up their documents. But Nikolka was suddenly seized by a “strange drunken ecstasy.” “I don’t want to, Mr. Colonel,” he answered in a cloth voice, squatted down, grabbed the tape with both hands and launched it into the machine gun.” Nai-Tours fell to the machine gun - the horsemen chasing the cadets disappeared. Nye “shook his fist at the sky and shouted: “Guys! Guys! Staff bitches! Nai-Turs was killed in front of Turbin. “Nikolka’s brain was covered in black fog.” And only when he realized that he was left alone, he still ran. Nikolka realized that the Petliurists had captured the City. He fled to the saving Podil, indicated to him by Nai-Tours. People were fussing around, running in panic. “Nikolka’s path was long.” At dusk he returned home and learned from Elena that Alexey had not returned. Elena thinks that Alexey was killed.

Someone’s voice from the headquarters continues to give commands to the firing points of the city’s defenders: “Fire with hurricane fire at the tract, at the cavalry!” A hundred cavalry swooped in and killed several cadets and officers near a dugout, located about eight versts from the city. “The commander, who remained in the dugout near the telephone, shot himself in the mouth. The commander’s last words were: “Staff bastard. I understand the Bolsheviks very well.”

Nikolka is going to wait for Alexei at home, but falls asleep. He has a nightmare, through which he hears Elena calling him, then some absurd figure appears with a cage in which a canary sits, introducing himself as a relative from Zhitomir. Finally, Nikolka finally wakes up, sees her older brother in an unconscious position, and three minutes later she is rushing along Alekseevsky Spusk to get a doctor for the wounded Alexei.

Part III

Chapter 12

Elena tells Alexei, who has regained consciousness, about the latest events. Lariosik, Talberg's nephew, appeared at the house a few minutes before some lady brought the wounded Alexei. Lariosik asks to live with the Turbins. “I have never seen such a fool in my life. He started with us by smashing all the dishes. Blue service." Lariosik says about himself that his wife cheated on him, that it took him eleven days to get from Zhitomir, the train was seized by bandits, he was almost shot, and in general he is a “terrible loser.” He “enjoyed it extremely” at the Turbins’.

Alexey Turbin is in serious condition. The temperature is in the forties. He's delusional. Nikolka finds her brother’s weapon, and now the find must be safely hidden. Alexey's Ny-Tursov Colt and Browning, along with shoulder straps enclosed in a box, were hung through the window into the gap between two converging houses on a crutch left over from the fire escape. It was decided to tell all curious neighbors that Turbin Sr. had typhus.

Chapter 13

Alexey, delirious, relives what happened. He sees that he does not have time for verification and comes to the parade ground when the gymnasium building is empty. He hurries to Madame Anjou's store and meets there with Malyshev, who hastily burns all the division's documents. Only then will Alexey find out that it’s all over, Petlyura is in the city and he needs to save himself. However, I really wanted to know what was going on in the city near the museum, and it faces Vladimirskaya Street. Turbin hears Malyshev’s voice whispering to him: “Run!” Petliurists were moving straight towards him along Proriznaya sloping street, from Khreshchatyk. Noticing Turbin, they begin to pursue him. Alexey tries to escape. He is wounded, almost overtaken, when a woman comes to his aid, appearing from a gate in a blank black wall. She hides it in her place. The woman's name is Yulia Aleksandrovna Reiss.

“In the morning, at about nine o’clock, a random cab driver at the extinct Malo-Provalnaya received two riders - a man in black civilian clothes, very pale, and a woman.” They arrive at Alekseevsky Spusk, to house number 13.

Chapter 14

The next evening, Myshlaevsky, Karas, Shervinsky gathered in the Turbins’ house - all were alive. There was a consultation at Alexey’s bedside: it was determined that he had typhus.

The officers talk about the betrayal of the commander-in-chief, the hetman and the "staff", about the fate of Naya, about the Petliurites. A strange noise was heard from below: it was as if the neighbors had guests - Vasilisa’s laughter and the loud voice of his wife Wanda could be heard. “Then it died down.” The ringing call alarmed everyone in earnest. It turned out that a belated telegram had arrived from Lariosik’s mother. Then a frightened Vasilisa appears in the apartment, having been robbed by armed bandits who had robbed his hiding places. As soon as Vasilisa said that one of the bandits’ pistols was large and black, and the other was small, with a chain, Nikolka took off from his seat and rushed to the window of his room. There was a crash of glass and a scream. There was no box of pistols in the hiding place.

Chapter 16

“It’s not a gray cloud with a snake’s belly that is pouring across the city, or it’s not brown, muddy rivers flowing through the old streets - it’s the countless force of Petliura who is marching to the square of Old Sofia for a parade.” The strength of the Petliurites is amazing: the artillery seems endless, the horses are well-fed, “strong, tough-bodied,” and the horsemen are brave. In the crowd of gathered onlookers is Nikolka Turbin. Everyone is waiting for Petliura to appear. Suddenly, a volley rang out in Rylsky Lane. The crowd went into panic: people fled from the square, crushing each other.

Chapter 17

All three days Nikolka thinks about her cherished goal. Having obtained Nai-Tours' address, Nikolka finds a house and meets Nai-Tours' mother and sister. They understand from Nikolka’s face and confusion that Nai-Tours is dead. When the first attack of grief has passed, Nikolka tells them that his commander “died like a hero.” He drove the cadets away in time, and he covered them with machine-gun fire. The bullets hit Nai-Turs in the head and chest. Nikolka talked and cried. He and his sister Nai-Tursa decide to find the commander’s body. They found him in the storeroom of the barracks, littered with corpses.

“That same night in the chapel everything was done as Nikolka wanted, and his conscience was completely calm, but sad and strict.” “The old mother turned her shaking head to Nikolka and said to him: “My son. Well, thank you." And this made Nikolka cry again.”

Chapter 18

“Turbin began to die on the afternoon of December twenty-second.” The doctor said that there was no hope, that agony was beginning. They already wanted to call the priest, but did not dare. Elena, locked in the room, prayed in front of the icon of the Mother of God: “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... And now you’re taking away the eldest one too. For what? There is only one hope for You, Most Pure Virgin. At you. Beg your Son, beg the Lord God to send a miracle...” Elena prayed for a long time, earnestly: “We are all guilty of blood, but You do not punish. Don’t punish...” Elena dreamed that the face on the icon came to life and heeded her prayers. She fell unconscious from “fear and drunken joy.” At this time, Alexei's illness crisis occurred. He survived.

Chapter 19

Petlyura was in the city for forty-seven days. The year was 1919. “On the second of February, a black figure walked through the Turbino apartment, with a shaved head, covered with a black silk cap. It was the resurrected Turbin. He changed dramatically. On the face, at the corners of the mouth, two folds, apparently, have dried forever, the color of the skin is waxy, the eyes are sunk in the shadows and forever become unsmiling and gloomy.

Turbin meets with Reiss and, as a token of gratitude for saving her, gives her a bracelet from his late mother. “You are dear to me... Let me come to you again.” “Come...” she answered.

Elena receives a letter from a friend in Warsaw, who reports that Talberg is marrying Lidochka Hertz, and they are leaving for Paris together. Elena gives this letter to Alexei. He reads and mutters: “With what pleasure... I would hit him in the face...” He tears Thalberg’s photograph to shreds. “Elena roared like a woman and buried herself in Turbin’s starchy chest.”

Chapter 20

“It was a great and terrible year after the birth of Christ, 1918, but 1919 was worse than it.” The Petliurists are leaving the City. “Why was it? Nobody will tell. Will anyone pay for the blood? No. Nobody". The Bolsheviks are coming.

The house on Alekseevsky Spusk was sleeping peacefully. The inhabitants of the house were also asleep: Turbin, Myshlaevsky, Karas, Lariosik, Elena and Nikolka. “Over the Dnieper, from the sinful and bloody and snowy ground, the midnight cross of Vladimir rose into the black, gloomy heights. From a distance it seemed that the crossbar had disappeared - it had merged with the vertical, and from this 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?"

Composition

There are books that hold attention only by the movement of the plot, the dynamism of the actions. They are easy to read and immediately forgotten. But there are other books. They make you think and reflect. It is these books that become faithful companions in life. Among them I include M. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”.

M. Bulgakov is a very frank writer. His books are filled with his own experiences. And the soul of a writer is an ocean of wisdom and love. Bulgakov surprisingly subtly and unobtrusively strives to bring the reader closer to the flow of his thoughts, as well as the feelings of his characters. In the novel "The White Guard", the main task for the artist was to show the attitude of the hero, who witnessed the collapse of the old world, the breakdown of traditional foundations. It was also very important for the author to show not so much historical events as their moral component. It seems to me that these themes are at the heart of the episode, which I have given the title "The Amazing Occurrence of..."

Why did I choose this name? Firstly, these words belong to one of the main characters of the episode - Nikolka Turbin. It is through his eyes that we see all the events that take place. This is how he described the arrival of a new tenant in the house.

Secondly, the title sounds both serious and humorous at the same time. This is exactly the mood that arises when reading this fragment.

Thirdly, isn’t it surprising the return of the long-awaited elder brother Alexei, who was already mourned and considered dead. The appearance of a new hero, who introduces different intonations into the novel and expresses the author’s position, is also surprising.

This is one of the episodes that expands and deepens the idea of ​​the heroes of the novel; it is here, in chapter 11, that the ideals and illusions of the previous bright years by which the heroes lived begin to collapse. They begin to see the light and understand that they cannot live as before.

This fragment is also very important for revealing the inner world of the heroes. We understand that Nikolka Turbin is a courageous person, ready to do anything for the sake of his loved ones. Bulgakov deeply valued these qualities in people.

Thanks to this episode, the reader sees the amazing spiritual unity of the author with his heroes.

One of the important ideas of M. Bulgakov is reflected here: “We must fearlessly look into the future.”

It is from these positions that I want to consider the episode “An Amazing Incident...”

It is preceded by a number of very important events that better help us understand the mental state of the characters. The division has been disbanded, it cannot defend the City, there is nothing and no one to defend. But the cadets don’t know about this. “Obeying the telephone voice, non-commissioned officer Nikolai Turbin led out twenty-eight cadets and led them through the entire City according to the route.” For Nikolka, this was that “moment when you can be a hero.” He was ready to defend his City, his Home, his Family to the last. But something “monstrous” happened. The city was abandoned, surrendered without a fight, the troops were fleeing in panic. Colonel Nai-Tours saves the cadets from imminent death at the cost of his life. His death shocked Nikolka, he became incredibly scared. Like a hunted animal, Nikolka rushes about in search of salvation and realizes that the City and people are becoming strangers. Here the janitor Nero is ready to hand him over to the Petliurists, and voices are heard from all sides: “The officers are dealt with as it suits them.” These events can be called turning points in the hero’s life. There is only one salvation left - Home. but there is no peace here either: brother Alexei has not returned yet.

At night, Nikolka carves a large cross and an inscription on the door about the death of Colonel Nai-Tours. This is how the episode begins. It ends with the doctor, having examined and given medicine to Alexei, promising not to tell anyone about his injury and leaving.

The episode begins at night. And this is no coincidence. After all, night is the embodiment of vital principles, it is a special state when the element of life is revealed in unconsciously impulsive movements. The episode ends in the afternoon. During this short time, two very important events happen in the Turbins’ house: the missing Alexey returns and a new face appears - a cousin from Zhitomir, who talks about his life tragedy. That's the plot of the episode.

The main character in this fragment is Nikolka Turbin, a seventeen and a half year old cadet. We see him at the beginning of the episode depressed and lonely. He recently had to look into the eyes of death; Colonel Nai-Tours died heroically before his eyes. Junker, he witnessed the betrayal of people with whom he walked the same streets and breathed the same air. Now they are enemies. So much immediately fell on the fragile shoulders of the younger Turbin. But for the rest of his life he will remember how real officers can look death in the eye. Colonel Nai-Tours will remain in Nikolka’s memory as such a person. It is no coincidence that, upon arriving home, the young man carves on the door with a penknife a “broken inscription” that is understandable only to him and important only to him. But he also remembers how hard it is for his sister Elena, who worries about her older brother, who has not yet returned home. And yet the emotional stress takes its toll. He "fell asleep like dead, clothed, on the bed." This is the beginning of the episode.

And then - Nikolka’s dream. “Dreams play an exceptional role for me,” wrote M. Bulgakov. For the author, this is a time of understanding the essence of life, its internal aspects and movements. Correlating reality with ideal ideas, they reveal the truth in symbolic form. It is no coincidence that Nikolka sees a cobweb in her dreams. This is a symbol of “times of troubles”, when everything is so confusing that it is impossible to figure it out. It is very important for the writer that the reader pays attention to this image, so he uses repetition. All around there is a cobweb that grows and grows, getting closer to your face. It can envelop you so much that if you can’t get out, you’ll suffocate. The main thing is to get out. After all, ahead are entire plains of pure snow. This is perceived as a symbol of moral stability. After all, white color symbolizes purity and truth. Bulgakov also connects his ideas about eternal values ​​with this color: about home, family, Motherland. Everything here is permeated with chaos: it comes from the outside and develops from the inside, filling the hero’s soul. Bulgakov very accurately conveys the state that the hero experiences with the help of the metaphor “the nightmare has settled its paws on his chest.” The dream gives not only the hero, but also the readers an understanding of the meaning of events, how important it is for a person, tragically lost in the historical whirlpool of events, to find his way. helps to foresee subsequent events, connects the author with the hero. We feel his constant presence. It is both in direct statements (“He’s sleeping in an original way, I’ll tell you!”) and in emotional syntax (sentences with exclamatory intonation, ellipsis ends the sentence). And one more image accompanies Nikolka’s dream - a whistle. The sound background is also significant: all the sounds reaching the hero are somewhat muffled and blurred, reminiscent of the same whistle. (Nikolka fell backwards with his head, his face turned purple, there was a whistle from his throat... Whistle!.. Snow and some kind of cobwebs... The most - through- grows, grows, gets closer to your face...)

Thus, the dream once again emphasizes the hero’s loneliness, fatigue and weakness, and reveals new facets of the hero’s character... Together with Bulgakov, we come to a fairly simple, but at the same time philosophical thought: despite the tragic events that accompany a turning point, the decisive ones always remain, according to the author, imperishable moral truths.

The dream is an indicator of the hero’s internal duality. In his soul there is a conflict between the cruel reality and those moral concepts and laws that govern human life, by which a person lived and would like to continue to live.

Against the backdrop of dramatic events, an awkward but kind young man appears before us, whom Elena calls himself, introduces himself as a brother from Zhitomir, and in the letter his mother calls him Lariosik. The bird he brought attracts our attention. The canary is a symbol of life, joy, carefree. Again Bulgakov uses the technique of contrast. The new hero brings optimism and hope to the Turbins' house.

Nikolka is in some kind of intermediate state between drowsiness and sleep, when the light of reason is still felt, but power has already been given to the subconscious. Therefore, he does not immediately understand what is happening, but he already hears “a mournful voice, full of internal tears.” This is how a new hero enters the novel. We see him through Nikolka’s eyes and understand that he is a tactful, attentive person who will help anyone who needs his help, he will even forget about his troubles, but will never offend a person.

Thus, the episode reveals new facets of the hero’s character.

Since he is on the verge of reality and sleep, a new person for him is a vision. The author persistently repeats this word. It's symbolic. The portrait is based on contrast: young, but the skin on the face is old, in the hands of a black cage with a black scarf and a blue letter. Black color accompanies the new hero, but at the same time blue. This is no coincidence. The contrasting combination of black and blue not only emphasizes the tragedy of the character, but also conveys the tragedy of the time. Next we learn that the hero experienced a tragedy. Moreover, the hero’s personal tragedy is spoken of with irony, and this against the background of truly tragic events in the Turbin family. Nikolka remembers that Alexey did not return, and then a terrible thought: “They killed ...” Everything he sees and hears seems to him nonsense, despite tragic voice of vision. Nikolka’s condition can be judged by those short sentences using interjections (Ah, Oi, O.ey, ey, my God), by very expressive verbs. His eyes rolled out, his back went cold.

The thought of Alexei’s death finally brought Nikolka out of her sleep state. An unknown person hands Nikolka a blue letter. The author more than once emphasizes that the envelope is blue, and the letter is written on a delicate heavenly leaf, thereby reducing the tragedy of the situation and being ironic. And the very text of the letter about the terrible blow that befell Lariosik is perceived as irony. For Nikolka, this is still a vision, unknown, but the reader has already noticed his openness, sincerity, naivety, helplessness, and awkwardness. . The author needed just such a hero, and this is how he expresses a very important author’s thought:

The tragedy of the situation is relieved by the presence of the Unknown. And his statement about the bird as man’s best friend shows that before us is a kind man, not embittered, despite the hardships that fell on his shoulders. He does not understand what tragic events are happening in the house. It seems that he is busy only with himself, with his problems, and forgets to say about the most important thing, that Alexey is alive and arrived with him, that he needs help. “Your brother arrived with me,” the unknown man answered in surprise. I think this is the climax of the episode. Everything began to stir, a terrible, tragic world fell upon Nikolka again. But nevertheless, the author likes him: his emotionality, his romanticism.

Alexey Turbin is also accompanied by black. this is the color of evil, sorrow, chaos, a symbol of violation of harmony. (Black someone else's coat, black someone else's trousers) repetition of the words alien is symbolic. The color black appears when the values ​​that are important to the author are under threat. His condition is described as lying motionless, teeth clenched, face pale bluish pallor - a tautology. This is what they say about a dead person, but not about a living one.

Nikolka is running, confusion of thoughts is a sign of anxiety.

Let us pay attention to one important detail, which Bulgakov speaks about as if in a hurry: an unknown person knocked down dishes from the buffet. Everyone was running and crunching back and forth on the fragments. This is a family heirloom - a table service, a symbol of comfort, peace, family. Family comfort is collapsing; it is no longer in the turbine house. The tragic leitmotif is the theme of the collapse of the old life, old views and beliefs. The old world is collapsing. But you need to live.

Color plays a special role in the episode. It creates a stable emotional motive, the melody of the image. So the tragic reality of what is happening - the blood, the wound of Alexei - is reflected in red and black tones. Red color appears. Symbol.

An important artistic technique that Bulgakov uses is revealing the characters’ characters through their everyday well-being, their emotionally charged reflections. The state of the characters is also conveyed through color and actions. Elena was thrashing about, clutching, disheveled. Anyuta is white, chalky, with huge eyes. Unknown – eyes were moistened with tears.

Lariosik's plot role is to show that life is rich, varied, and continues no matter what.

The episode ends with Elena's conversation with the doctor. From this micro-episode we see that Bulgakov continues to defend his model of the universe - a house that must withstand winds and storms. The city is a symbol of the collapse of foundations, immorality, betrayal. People are running away from it, they are afraid of it. This is what happened with Nikolka. At home everything is different. Therefore, the doctor’s behavior becomes understandable. He is a decent person, he cannot be different here. The Doctor is another hero of the episode. Didn't take the money. He promised to come in the evening. An abrupt conversation - excitement. He understands what everything threatens at the present time. The contrast is what Nikolka saw on the street - betrayal, and at home all the relatives, friends, people.

The ending still sounds optimistic. The Turbins have a strong foundation - the ability to stick together. Take care and respect each other, selflessness, honor and dignity.

The episode is both tragic and humorous. Bulgakov’s style is interesting. The inevitable tragedy of events is combined with good humor and a prophetic dream. The author's voice is clearly audible, full of inner pain and lyricism. I would especially like to note this feature of the author's style - the precise choice of words, laconicism. The heroes close to the author are given as if from within, although at the same time their tragedy is given. In this episode, another feature of the writer’s talent was especially clearly revealed. Critics noted that those with whom the writer sympathizes are easy to recognize. Their story, no matter how dramatic the events unfold, is told with humor. We see this in the mini-episode of Nikolka’s awakening (Quote), and in the introduction of the new hero Lariosik.

Bulgakov is a virtuoso master. He has a complex associative writing technique. Skillfully portray the experiences of the characters, their thoughts, emotions, feelings. For this he does not need long monologues. He is fluent in another means of depicting the hero’s inner world – psychologism.

Thus, the episode “An Amazing Incident...” expands and deepens the idea of ​​the inner world of the characters.

New storylines are outlined: Alexey's acquaintance with, and the death of Nai-Tours will later lead Nikolka to (The life paths of Alexey and Nikolka will intersect.) Thus, the episode is important for the development of the plot..

The episode helps to understand even better the writer’s unique author’s style.

The episode is very important in the novel and is closely connected with the ideological meaning of the entire work. Oman and is closely connected with the ideological meaning of the entire work. In addition, here the author with particular force asserts his point of view on the family. He once again emphasized that the family is a whole, indivisible, special world of people, which contains all the best and brightest. And only a family, bound by the bonds of love, empathy and compassion, is able to withstand the destructive influence of time.

The main meaning of the episode, it seems to me, is to show “those secret bends along which the human soul runs and hides.” Bulgakov revealed the suffering and perplexed soul of the generation to the reader.

Other works on this work