M.A. Bulgakov “The White Guard” - analysis of the work

M.A. Bulgakov was born and raised in Kyiv. All his life he was devoted to this city. It is symbolic that the name of the future writer was given in honor of the guardian of the city of Kiev, Archangel Michael. The action of the novel by M.A. Bulgakov's "The White Guard" takes place in the same famous house No. 13 on Andreevsky Spusk (in the novel it is called Alekseevsky), where the writer himself once lived. In 1982, a memorial plaque was installed on this house, and since 1989 there has been a Literary and Memorial House-Museum named after M.A. Bulgakov.

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 Kiev for some time and remembered those terrible years of constant changes of 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.

From the numerous artistic details in the novel, the everyday realities of that time emerge. “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 1 economic confusion in people’s lives. The deep experiences of socio-political conflicts were expressed in the portrait: 1 * the heroes of the novel: 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, Thalberg, a military man, tough and energetic, is not satisfied with the humble submission with which the author of the novel calls for approaching 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 in her 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. As the plot develops further, 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 the sonorous names of famous musicians in his work (Rubinstein in “Fatal Eggs”, Berlioz and Stravinsky in the novel “The Master and Margarita”).

Exhausted people in the whirlwind of revolutionary events do not know what to believe and where to go. With pain in their souls, the Kiev officer society greets the news of the death of the royal family and, despite caution, sings the forbidden royal anthem. Out of despair, the officers drink half to death.

A terrifying story about life in Kyiv during the civil war is interspersed with memories of a past life that 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 the cultural life of Kiev, M.A. Bulgakov mentions the 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 Petliurites, Alexei Turbin needlessly offends the newspaper boy and immediately feels the shame and absurdity of 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 the old icon and prays. After this, the disease recedes. M.A. describes with admiration. Bulgakov is a noble act of Yulia Alexandrovna Reis, who, risking herself, saves the wounded Turbin.

The City can be considered a separate hero of the novel. The writer himself spent his best years in his native Kyiv. The city landscape in the novel amazes with its fabulous beauty (“All the energy of the city, accumulated during the sunny and pink summer, poured out in the light), is overgrown with hyperboles (“And there were so many gardens in the City as in no other city in the world”). M.A. Bulgakov widely uses ancient Kiev toponymy (Podol, Khreshchatyk), often mentions the sights of the city dear to every Kievite’s heart (Golden Gate, St. Sophia Cathedral, St. Michael’s Monastery). He calls Vladimirskaya Hill with the monument to Vladimir the best place in the world. Separate fragments of the city landscape so poetic that they resemble prose poems: “A sleepy slumber passed over the City, a cloudy white bird flew past Vladimir’s cross, fell beyond the Dnieper in the thick of the night and sailed along an iron arc.” And immediately this poetic picture is interrupted by a description of an armored train locomotive , angrily wheezing, with a blunt snout 76. In this contrast of war and peace, the cross-cutting image is Vladimir's cross - 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 the artistic space of the novel, characterize the era more deeply, 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.

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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, criss-crossed by war, lives, breathes, suffers like a 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 eternal values ​​in the novel: 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 his travel suitcase. He is a stranger in the Turbino family. People tend to be mistaken, sometimes tragically mistaken, to doubt, to search, to come to a 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 the prophetic dream of Alexei 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’s anger,” and at the same time the pain from the violation of old human values ​​led Bulgakov to the creation of his unusual ethics - essentially non-religious, but preserving the features of the 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 a great and terrible year, rises in the finale. The biblical words about the Last Judgment sound especially expressive: “And everyone was judged according to his deeds, 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?"

Analysis of the work

“The White Guard” is a work that signified that a new writer had come to literature, with his own style and his own manner of writing. This is Bulgakov's first novel. The work is largely autobiographical. The novel reflects that terrible era in the life of Russia, when the Civil War was devastating across the country. Horrifying pictures appear before the reader's eyes: son goes against father, brother against brother. This reveals the illogical, cruel rules of war that are contrary to human nature. And into this environment, filled with the most brutal images of bloodshed, the Turbin family finds itself. This quiet, calm, pretty family, far from any political vicissitudes, turns out to be not only a witness to large-scale upheavals in the country, but also an involuntary participant in them; it unexpectedly found itself in the very epicenter of a huge storm. This is a kind of test of strength, a lesson in courage, wisdom, and perseverance. And no matter how hard this lesson is, you cannot escape it. He must bring his entire past life to a common denominator in order to begin a new life. And Turbines overcome this with dignity. They make their choice, stay with their people.

The characters in the novel are very diverse. This is the cunning owner of the house Vasilisa, the brave and courageous Colonel Nai-Tours, who sacrificed his life to save the young cadets, the frivolous Larion, the brave Julia Reise, Alexey Turbin, Nikolai Turbin, who remained faithful only to their life rules, the principles of humanity and love for people , the principles of human brotherhood, valor, honor. The Turbin family remains as if on the periphery of the Civil War. They do not take part in bloody skirmishes, and if Turbin kills one of his pursuers, it is only to save his own life.

The novel tells the story of a bloody page in Russian history, but its depiction is complicated by the fact that it is a war of one’s own against one’s own. And therefore, the writer faces a doubly difficult task: to judge, to give a sober assessment, to be impartial, but at the same time to ardently empathize, to be sick himself. Historical prose about the Civil War, like any other, is characterized by ponderousness and heavy rethinking. what you are writing about. Bulgakov copes with his task brilliantly: his style is light, his thought glides correctly, accurately, snatching events from the very thick of it. V. Sakharov wrote about this in the preface to Bulgakov’s book. Sakharov speaks of “the amazing spiritual unity of the author with his characters. “You have to love your heroes; If this doesn’t happen, I don’t advise anyone to take up writing - you’ll get into big trouble, you know that.”

The writer talks about the fate of Russia, about the fate of millions of its foolish children. Bulgakov is having a hard time going through this period; he himself, like Alexey Turbin, was mobilized as a doctor, first into the troops of Petliura, from where he escaped, and then ended up with the White Guards. He saw everything with his own eyes, felt the fury and uncontrollability of the Russian storm. However, he remained faithful to the principles of justice and love for people. In his novel, he goes far beyond the boundaries of problems associated with the war itself. He thinks about lasting values. He ends his work with the words: “Everything will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger, 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?" The author talks about how insignificant a person is with his petty problems and experiences in comparison with the eternal and harmonious flow of world life. This is a question about the meaning of life. You must live your life in such a way as to remain human, not to commit evil, not to envy, not to lie, not to kill. These Christian commandments are the guarantee of true life.

The epigraphs to the novel are no less interesting. There is a deep meaning here. These epigraphs draw threads from the novel “The White Guard” to the entire work of Bulgakov, to the problem of creative heritage. “It began to snow lightly and suddenly began to fall in flakes. The wind howled; there was a snowstorm. In an instant, the dark sky mixed with the snowy sea. Everything has disappeared. “Well, master,” the coachman shouted, “trouble: a snowstorm!” This epigraph is taken from “The Captain’s Daughter” by A. S. Pushkin. A blizzard, a storm, is a symbol of civil war, where everything is mixed up in a mad whirlwind, the road is not visible, it is not known where to go. The feeling of loneliness, fear, the unknown of the future and fear of it are the characteristic moods of the era. The reference to Pushkin’s work also provides a reminder of Pugachev’s rebellion. As many researchers aptly noted, the Pugachevs appeared again in the 20th century, but their rebellion was much more terrible and larger-scale.

By mentioning Pushkin, Bulgakov hints at his connection with the poet’s creative heritage. He writes in his novel: “The walls will fall, the falcon 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.” The writer expresses great concern about the fate of Russian cultural heritage. Like many intellectuals, he did not accept the ideas of the October Revolution. The slogan “Throw Pushkin off the ship of modernity” scared him away. He understood that it is much easier to destroy centuries-old traditions and the works of the “golden age” than to build anew. Moreover, it is almost impossible to build a new state, a new bright life on suffering, war, and bloody terror. What will remain after a revolution that sweeps away everything from its path? - Emptiness.

The second epigraph is no less interesting: “And the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, according to their deeds.” These are words from a book known as the Apocalypse. These are the Revelations of John the Theologian. The “apocalyptic” theme takes on a core meaning. People who lost their way were caught in the whirlwind of revolution and civil war. And they were very easily won over to their side by smart and insightful politicians, instilling the idea of ​​a bright future. And justifying themselves with this slogan, people went to murder. But is it possible to build a future on death and destruction?

In conclusion, we can say about the meaning of the title of the novel. The White Guard is not just the “white” soldiers and officers themselves, that is, the “white army”, but also all the people who find themselves in the cycle of revolutionary events, people trying to find shelter in the City.

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

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

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

Bulgakov's novel includes the symbol of a blizzard as a sign of the times. For the author of “The White Guard,” the blizzard is a symbol not of the transformation of the world, not of the sweeping away of everything that has become obsolete, but of the evil principle, violence. “Well, I think it will stop, the life that is written about in chocolate books will begin, but not only does it not begin, but 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 does not become a symbol of purification.

“The provocative novelty of Bulgakov’s novel was that five years after the end of the Civil War, when the pain and heat of mutual hatred had not yet subsided, he dared to show the officers of the White Guard not in the poster guise of the “enemy,” but as ordinary, good and bad, suffering and misguided, intelligent and limited people, showed them from the inside, and the best in this environment - with obvious sympathy. What does Bulgakov like about these stepsons of history who lost their battle? And in Alexey, and in Malyshev, and in Nai-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. Kozyr, who was a bad school teacher, would never have become an executioner and would not have known about himself that his calling was war, if this war had not begun. Many of the heroes’ actions were brought to life by the Civil War. “War is a native mother” for Kozyr, Bolbotun and other Petliurists, who take pleasure in killing defenseless people. The horror of war is that it creates a situation of permissiveness and undermines the foundations of human life.

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

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

Other works on this work

Bulgakov's "The White Guard", a brief summary of which is unlikely to reflect the full depth of the work, describes the events of the end of 1918 and the beginning of 1919. This book is largely autobiographical: the author himself, his friends and family are present on its pages. The action of the novel undoubtedly takes place in Kyiv, which is simply called the city. In the “pseudonyms” of the streets, the originals are easily guessed, and Bulgakov left the names of the districts (Pechersk, Podol) completely unchanged.

Situation in the city

The townspeople have already experienced the brief “coming” of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Betrayed by the allies, the White Guard disappeared into space. The novel, a summary of which is presented below, fully reflects the nightmare of post-revolutionary life in Kyiv. As events begin, the city is experiencing its last days under the rule of the German-backed hetman.

On Alekseevsky Spusk, in house No. 13, the Turbin family lives: 27-year-old Alexey, 24-year-old Elena and Nikolka, who is only 17 years old. The story begins with the fact that on a frosty December evening, Lieutenant Myshlaevsky, frozen half to death, stumbles into the apartment. From his story it is clear that there is confusion and betrayal in the army. Late in the evening, Elena's husband, Sergei Talberg, returns from a business trip - an insignificant person, ready to adapt to any boss. He informs his wife that he is forced to flee immediately: the Germans are leaving the capital.

Illusions and unrealistic hopes

Squads are actively being formed in the city to protect against the advancing Petliura. These scattered units, in which 80 out of 120 cadets do not know how to shoot, are the same White Guard desperately clinging to their former life and suffering imminent disaster. A summary of events can hardly adequately describe the subsequent disaster.

Someone in the city is still experiencing rainbow illusions. The turbines and family friends also did not lose hope for a good outcome. In the depths of their souls they cherish the hope that somewhere on the Don there is Denikin and his invincible White Guard. The content of the conversations in the Turbins’ apartment produces a depressing impression: tales of the emperor’s miraculous salvation, toasts to his health, talk of the impending “attack on Moscow.”

Lightning War

The hetman flees shamefully, the generals in command of the troops follow his example. There is confusion at headquarters. The officers, who have not lost their conscience, warn the personnel and give young guys, almost children, the opportunity to escape. Others abandon untrained, poorly armed cadets to certain death. Among the latter is Nikolka Turbin, a 17-year-old squad leader of twenty-eight people. Having received the order to go “for reinforcements,” the guys do not find anyone at the position, and after a few minutes they see the remnants of the fleeing unit of Colonel Nai-Turs, who dies in front of the younger Turbin, trying to cover the panicky “retreat” of the city’s defenders with machine-gun fire.

The capital was taken by the Petliurites without a fight - the pitiful, scattered White Guard could not give it. It doesn’t take long to read a summary of her future fate - it fits into the answer of a little boy met by the younger Turbin on Alekseevsky: “There are eight hundred of them in the whole city, and they were playing the fool. Petlyura came, and he has a million troops.”

The theme of God in the novel "The White Guard"

Nikolka himself manages to get home in the evening, where he finds a pale, agitated Elena: Alexey has not returned. The elder brother is brought back only the next day by the stranger who saved him, Julia Reiss. His condition is critical. When typhus is added to the fever caused by the wound, the doctors decide that Turbin is dead.

In Bulgakov's works, the theme of religion is an everyday phenomenon. The White Guard was no exception. The summary of the prayer that Elena brings to the Mother of God looks like a deal: take your husband, but leave your brother. And a miracle happens: the hopeless patient is on the mend and recovers by the time Petlyura leaves the city. At the same time, Elena learns from a letter she received that her husband left her.

This is where the Turbins' misadventures end. A warm company of surviving friends gathers again on Alekseevsky Spusk: Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Karas.

...and the devil theme

Life takes its toll: Nikolka and Alexey Turbin collide on Malo-Provalnaya Street. The younger one comes from the Nai-Tours: he is attracted by the sister of the deceased colonel. The eldest went to thank his savior and admits that she is dear to him.

In the Reiss house, Alexey sees a photograph of a man and, asking who it is, receives the answer: a cousin who has left for Moscow. Julia is lying - Shpolyansky is her lover. The surname named by the savior evokes in the doctor an “unpleasant, sucking thought”: a patient “touched” on the basis of religion spoke to Turbin about this “cousin” as a forerunner of the Antichrist: “He is young. But there are abominations in him, like in the thousand-year-old devil...”

It is amazing that The White Guard was published in the Soviet Union at all - an analysis of the text, even the most superficial, gives a clear understanding that Bulgakov considered the Bolsheviks the worst of threats, “angels”, minions of Satan. From 1917 to 1921, Ukraine was a kingdom of chaos: Kyiv found itself in the power of one or another “benefactors” who could not agree with each other or with anyone else - and as a result were unable to fight the dark force, which was approaching from the North.

Bulgakov and the revolution

When reading the novel “The White Guard,” analysis is, in principle, useless: the author speaks out quite directly. Mikhail Afanasyevich had a bad attitude towards revolutions: for example, in the story “Future Prospects” he unambiguously assesses the situation: the country found itself “at the very bottom of the pit of shame and disaster into which the “great social revolution” drove it.

The White Guard does not at all contradict this worldview. A summary cannot convey the general mood, but it clearly appears when reading the full version.

Hatred is the root of what is happening

The author understood the nature of the cataclysm in his own way: “four times forty times four hundred thousand men with hearts burning with unquenchable anger.” And these revolutionaries wanted one thing: an agrarian reform in which the land would go to the peasants - for eternal ownership, with the right to transfer to children and grandchildren. This is very romantic, but the sensible Bulgakov understands that “the beloved hetman could not carry out such a reform, and no devil will carry it out.” It must be said that Mikhail Afanasyevich was absolutely right: as a result of the arrival of the Bolsheviks, the peasants were hardly in a better position.

Times of great upheaval

What people do out of hatred and in the name of hatred cannot be good. Bulgakov demonstrates the senseless horror of what is happening to the reader using abrupt but memorable images. The “White Guard” abounds in them: here a man whose wife is giving birth runs to the midwife. He hands the mounted Petliurist the “wrong” document - and he chops it with a saber. The Haidamaks discover a Jew behind a stack of firewood and beat him to death. Even the greedy Turbino homeowner, robbed by bandits under the guise of a search, adds a touch to the picture of the chaos that the revolution ultimately brought to the “little man.”

Anyone who wants to better understand the essence of the events of the early twentieth century cannot find a better textbook than Bulgakov’s “The White Guard.” Reading a summary of this work is the lot of careless schoolchildren. This book certainly deserves a better fate. Written in magnificent, piercing prose, it once again reminds us what an unsurpassed master of words Mikhail Bulgakov was. “The White Guard,” a brief summary of which is offered in a variety of versions on the World Wide Web, belongs to the category of literature that is best to get acquainted with as closely as possible.