Analysis of the 3rd chapter of the white guard. M.A

Analysis of the work

The White Guard is a work that meant that a new writer had come into 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 a destructive step across the country. Terrifying pictures appear before the reader's eyes: son goes against father, brother against brother. It reveals illogical, brutal rules of war that are against human nature. And in this environment, filled with the most cruel pictures of bloodshed, the Turbin family finds itself. This quiet, calm, pretty family, far from any political upheavals, turns out to be not only a witness to large-scale upheavals in the country, but also an unwitting participant in them, she suddenly found herself in the very epicenter of a huge storm. This is a kind of strength test, a lesson in courage, wisdom, and perseverance. And no matter how hard this lesson was, you can’t get away from it. He must necessarily bring the whole past life to a common denominator in order to start 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 Vasilisa house, the brave and courageous Colonel Nai-Tours, who sacrificed his life to save young cadets, the frivolous Larion, the brave Yulia Reise, Alexei Turbin, Nikolai Turbin, who remained true to their own rules of life, the principles of humanity and love for man , the principles of human brotherhood, valor, honor. The Turbin family seems to remain 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 in order to save his own life.

The novel tells about the bloody page of Russian history, but its depiction is complicated by the fact that this is a war of our own against our 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 empathize passionately, to hurt himself. Historical prose about the Civil War, like about any other, is characterized by heaviness, heavy rethinking. what you write about. Bulgakov brilliantly copes with his task: his style is light, his thought glides correctly, precisely, 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. “Heroes must be loved; if this does not happen, I do not advise anyone to take up the pen - you will get the biggest trouble, just know it.

The writer talks about the fate of Russia, about the fate of millions of her unreasonable children. Bulgakov is having a hard time with this period, he himself, like Alexei 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 true to the principles of justice and love for people. In his novel, he goes far beyond the problems associated with the actual war. He thinks about enduring 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 earth. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to turn our eyes to them? Why?" The author talks about how insignificant a person is with his petty problems and experiences compared to the eternal and harmonious course of world life. This is a question about the meaning of life. One must live 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.

No less interesting are the epigraphs to the novel. There is a deep meaning here. These epigraphs stretch the threads from the novel "The White Guard" to the entire work of Bulgakov, to the problem of creative heritage. “It started to snow lightly, and suddenly it fell in flakes. The wind howled; there was a blizzard. In an instant, the dark sky mingled with the snowy sea. Everything is gone. “Well, sir,” shouted the driver, “trouble: a snowstorm!” This epigraph is taken from "The Captain's Daughter" by A. S. Pushkin. A snowstorm, a storm, is a symbol of the civil war, where everything is mixed up in a furious whirlwind, the road is not visible, it is not known where to go. The feeling of loneliness, fear, the uncertainty of the future and the fear of it are the characteristic moods of the era. The reference to the work of Pushkin also gives a reminder of Pugachev's rebellion. As many researchers aptly noted, the Pugachevs appeared again in the 20th century, only their rebellion is much more terrible and larger.

By mentioning Pushkin, Bulgakov hints at his connection with the creative heritage of the poet. He writes in his novel: “Walls will fall, a falcon will fly from a white mitten, the fire will go out in a bronze lamp, and the Captain’s Daughter will be burned in an oven.” The writer expresses great concern about the fate of the 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, the works of the "golden age" than to build anew. Moreover, it is practically impossible to build a new state, a new bright life on the basis of suffering, war, and bloody terror. What will be left after the revolution, which will sweep everything out of its way? - Emptiness.

No less interesting is the second epigraph: "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 Evangelist. The "apocalyptic" theme acquires the significance of a pivotal one. People who lost their way got into the whirlwind of the revolution and the Civil War. And they were very easily won over by smart and insightful politicians, instilling the idea of ​​a brighter future. And justifying this slogan, people went to kill. But is it possible to build the 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 actually “white” soldiers and officers, that is, the “white army”, but also all people who find themselves in the cycle of revolutionary events, people trying to find shelter in the City.

The novel is based on the writer's personal impressions of the events in Kyiv in 1918-1919. The author of the novel "The White Guard", the analysis of which we will now carry out, is Mikhail Bulgakov. Initially, the names "White Cross", "Midnight Cross" were planned. This work was supposed to be the first part of a trilogy about Russia and the revolution. Many heroes have prototypes. First of all, the Turbin family is very similar to the Bulgakov family.

The novel was only partially printed in 1922. Subsequently, the novel was published abroad. In Russia, the work was published in full in 1966.

The circle of problems in the novel

Let's start the analysis of the novel "The White Guard" with a consideration of the problems. Bulgakov focuses on the image of the fate of the noble intelligentsia, the fate of Russian culture in a formidable era. The author prefaced the work with two epigraphs. One of Pushkin's "The Captain's Daughter" is intended to emphasize that in the harsh times of the "Russian rebellion" the inner integrity of a person is tested. The biblical epigraph brings philosophical overtones.

The novel The White Guard begins with a symbolic, cosmic description of the beginning of 1918: two stars are visible in the sky - "evening Venus and red, trembling Mars." Venus is the goddess of love, Mars is the god of war. Love and war, life and death, man and the world - these are the main motives of one of Bulgakov's most tragic and brightest works.

The test time tests a person for strength, and when carefully analyzing the novel The White Guard, this is easy to understand. No matter how hard the Turbins try to stay away from politics, they are drawn into the very center of events. The reasons for the split in society, mutual hatred of representatives of different classes excite the author. The image of a multidimensional, tragic, complex era, with its heroes and scoundrels, with cruelty and generosity - that's what the writer is interested in.

The White Guard is a story about honor, duty, devotion and fidelity. A novel about home, the importance of family values, which serve as a support in difficult moments of trials.

Analysis of the novel "The White Guard" - the Turbin family

The Turbin family is the ideal of the writer. Love and comfort reign in their home. Interior details speak volumes. We see a lamp under a shade, a bookcase, old portraits, sets, vases. For heroes, these are not just things, they are part of their lives, the history of their ancestors, a sign of the traditional noble way of life. Mutual love, trust reign in their world. It is no coincidence that even a stranger, Lariosik, is surrounded by such love.

Love helps the heroes to endure; in moments of trial, it does not separate, but unites them. Julia not only saves the life of Alexei Turbin during the persecution by the Petliurists, but also gives him love. Love also triumphs at the moment of Elena's prayer for her brother's recovery.

Alexey Turbin goes through a difficult path of searching for the truth, and the analysis of the novel "The White Guard" clearly reveals this. Initially, Alexey is faithful to monarchical ideals, then he wants to stay away from politics, living for the sake of his home and family. But in the end, he comes to the conclusion that there is no return to the old, that Russia did not die with the death of the monarchy. Whatever trials fell on the lot of Alexei, he was always guided by the concept of honor. This is the highest value for him. It is noteworthy that contempt for Thalberg is based on the fact that this is a man without honor, changing his beliefs depending on momentary political gain.

Elena Turbina is the moral core of the family and the guardian of the house. The writer's ideas about femininity and beauty are associated with her image. Her spiritual integrity, her willingness to sacrifice herself for the sake of loved ones saves and supports them. The fact that the Turbins have kept their house, managed to resist gives hope for the opportunity to find understanding between people of different political views. It is in the image of Turbin Bulgakov that he shows people who seek to honestly understand the events that are taking place.

This article presented an analysis of the novel "The White Guard", which was written by Mikhail Bulgakov. Hundreds of articles on literary topics can be found in the Blog section of our website.

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 was born at night, when I woke up after a sad dream. I dreamed of my hometown, snow, winter, civil war... In my dream, a soundless blizzard passed in front of me, and then an old piano appeared and near it people who are no longer in the world.

And in the story “The Secret Friend” there are other details: “I pulled my barracks lamp to the table as far as possible and put on a pink paper cap over 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 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 that beats with towers in the dining room, sleepy slumber in bed, books and frost ... "

With such a mood, the first pages of the novel were written. But his idea was nurtured for more than one year.

In both epigraphs to the "White Guard": from "The Captain's Daughter" ("The evening howled, a snowstorm 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 (“It has long been the beginning of revenge from the north, and sweeping, and sweeping”). And the trial of those "who are no longer in the world", and in essence - over the Russian intelligentsia, goes throughout the novel. The author himself speaks on it from the first lines. Serves as a witness. Far from being impartial, but honest and objective, not missing the virtues of the "defendants", nor the weaknesses, shortcomings and mistakes.

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

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

House and City are the two main inanimate characters of the book. However, not completely inanimate. The Turbin House on Alekseevsky Spusk, depicted with all the features of a family idyll crossed out by war, lives, breathes, suffers like a living being. It’s as if you feel the heat from the tiles of the stove when it’s cold outside, you hear the tower clock in the dining room, the strum of a guitar and the familiar sweet voices of Nikolka, Elena, Alexei, their noisy, cheerful guests ...

And the City - 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, temporary workers who seized 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 has been completed, a direct confrontation between Reds and Whites. On the pages of the novel, whites are at war with the Petliurists. But the writer is occupied with a broader humanistic thought - or, rather, a thought-feeling: the horror of 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 Petliurists, or the Germans, or the Whites, and he did not say a word of untruth about the Reds, placing them, as it were, behind the curtain of the picture.

The provoking 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 subsided yet, 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 erring, smart 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 appreciates courageous directness, fidelity to honor. For them, honor is a kind of faith, the core of personal behavior.

The officer's honor demanded the protection of the white banner, unreasoning loyalty to the oath, the fatherland and the tsar, and Alexei Turbin is painfully experiencing the collapse of the creed, from under which, with the abdication of Nicholas II, the main support was pulled out. But honor is also loyalty to other people, camaraderie, duty to the younger and the weak. Colonel Malyshev is a man of honor, because he sends the junkers home, realizing the senselessness of resistance: courage and contempt for phrases are needed for such a decision. Nai-Tours is a man of honor, even a knight of it, because he fights to the end, and when he sees that the case is lost, he rips off the cadet, almost a boy, thrown into a bloody mess, shoulder straps and covers his retreat with a machine gun. A man of honor and Nikolka, because he rushes through the streets of the city, looking for relatives of Nai-Turs in order to inform them of his death, and then, at the risk of himself, 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 dishonor is cowardice. The reader will remember Thalberg, with his "patented smile", stuffing his travel suitcase. He is a stranger in the Turbine family. People tend to err, sometimes tragically err, to doubt, to seek, to come to a new faith. But a man of honor makes this way out of inner conviction, usually with pain, with anguish, parting with what he worshiped. For a person deprived of the concept of honor, such changes are easy: he, like Thalberg, simply changes the bow on the lapel of his coat, adapting to changed circumstances.

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

Elena's lively, fervent prayer for the salvation of her brother, addressed to the Mother of God, performs a miracle: Alexei recovers. Before Elena's inner gaze, there appears the one whom the author will later call Yeshua Ha-Nozri - "completely resurrected, and gracious, and barefoot." A light transparent vision will anticipate with its visibility the late novel: “the glassy light of the heavenly dome, some unprecedented red-yellow sand blocks, olive trees ...” - a landscape of ancient Judea.

Much brings the author closer to his main character - the doctor Alexei Turbin, to whom he gave a particle of his biography: both calm courage, and faith in old Russia, faith to the last, until the course of events exhausts her to the end, but most of all - the dream of a peaceful life .

The semantic climax of the novel lies in the prophetic dream of Alexei Turbin. “I have neither profit nor loss from your faith,” God simply argues in a peasant way, “appearing” to Wahmister Zhilin. - One believes, the other does not believe, but the actions ... you all have the same: now each other by the throat ... "Both whites, and reds, and those that fell at Perekop are equally subject to the highest mercy:" .. .all of you are the same for me - killed in the battlefield.

The author of the novel did not pretend to be a religious person: both hell and heaven for him are 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 anguish of the fratricidal war, the awareness of the justice of what he called "the clumsy wrath of the peasants", and at the same time the pain from trampling on old human values ​​led Bulgakov to create his own unusual ethics - essentially non-religious, but preserving the features of the Christian moral tradition. The motive of eternity, which arose in the first lines of the novel, in one of the epigraphs, in the form of a great and terrible year, rises in the finale. The biblical words about the Last Judgment sound especially expressive: “And each one 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 terrible. All will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain, when the shadow of our bodies and deeds will not remain on earth. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to turn our eyes to them? Why?"

"White Guard"

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

At the very beginning of the novel, the mother of the Turbins dies, bequeathing to the 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 must not be allowed... Despondency is a great sin...”. The White Guard is, to a certain extent, an autobiographical work. It is known, for example, that the sudden death of the mother of M.A. himself became the reason for writing the novel. Bulgakov Varvara Mikhailovna from typhus. The writer was very upset by this event, it was doubly hard 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, everyday realities of that time emerge. "Revolutionary riding" (you drive for an hour - you stand for two hours), Myshlaevsky's dirtiest batiste shirt, frostbitten legs - all this eloquently testifies to the complete household and economic confusion in people's lives. Deep experiences of socio-political conflicts were also expressed in the portraits of the heroes of the novel: before parting, Elena and Talberg even outwardly haggard, aged.

The collapse of the established way of M.A. Bulgakov also shows the example of the interior of the Turbins' house. From 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 off the lampshade from the 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 humility with which the author of the novel calls to treat life's trials. Elena perceives Thalberg's flight as a betrayal. It is no coincidence that before leaving, he mentions that Elena has a passport for her maiden name. He seems to renounce his wife, although at the same time he tries to convince her that he will return soon. In the course of further development of the plot, we learn that Sergei went to Paris and remarried. The prototype of Elena is the sister of M.A. Bulgakova Varvara Afanasievna (by her husband Karum). Thalberg is a well-known surname in the world of music: in the nineteenth century there was a pianist Sigmund Thalberg in Austria. The writer liked to use the sonorous names of famous musicians in his work (Rubinstein in The 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 in and where to go. With pain in the soul, the Kiev officer society meets the news of the death of the royal family and, contrary to caution, sings the forbidden royal anthem. Out of desperation, the officers drink half to death.

A terrifying account of life in Kyiv during the Civil War is interspersed with memories of a past life that now looks like an unaffordable luxury (for example, trips to the theater).

In 1918, Kyiv became a haven for those who, fearing reprisals, left Moscow: bankers and homeowners, artists and painters, aristocrats and gendarmes. Describing the cultural life of Kyiv, M.A. Bulgakov mentions the famous Lilac Negro Theatre, the Maxim cafe and the decadent Prakh club (in fact it was called Khlam 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, climbed like dough from a pot,” writes M.A. Bulgakov. The motive of flight, indicated in the novel, will become a through motive for a number of the writer's works. In the "White Guard", as it becomes clear from the name, for M.A. Bulgakov, first of all, the fate of the Russian officers during the years of the revolution and the civil war, which for the most part lived with the concept of officer honor, is important.

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

The city can be considered a separate hero of the novel. In his native Kyiv, the writer himself had his best years. The urban landscape in the novel amazes with fabulous beauty (“All the energy of the city, accumulated during the sunny and stormy summer, poured out in the light), overgrown with hyperbole (“And there were as many gardens in the City as in no other city in the world”), M, A. Bulgakov makes extensive use of ancient Kyiv toponymy (Podil, Kreschatik), often mentions the sights of the city dear to every heart of a Kiev citizen (Golden Gate, St. Sophia Cathedral, St. Michael's Monastery). He calls the Vladimir Hill with the monument to Vladimir the best place in the world. Separate fragments of the urban landscape are so poetic that they resemble poems in prose: “A sleepy slumber passed over the City, a cloudy white bird swept past the cross of Vladimir, fell across the Dnieper into the thick of the night and swam along the iron arc.” And then this poetic picture is interrupted by a description of an armored train locomotive, angrily hooting, with a blunt snout. In this contrast of war and peace, the cross of Vladimir, a symbol of Orthodoxy, is a through image. 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 concrete historical perception of events to a generalized philosophical one.

An important role in the novel is played by the motif of sleep. Dreams are seen in the work by Alexei, Elena, Vasilisa, the sentry at the armored train and Petka Shcheglov. Dreams help to 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 a bloody civil war, the heroes will begin a new life.

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 Archangel Michael, the guardian of the city of Kiev. The action of the novel by M.A. Bulgakov's "White Guard" takes place in the same famous house number 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 the Literary and Memorial 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, a blizzard, symbolizes the whirlwind of revolutionary changes unfolding in the country. The novel is dedicated to the second wife of the writer Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya-Bulgakova, who also lived in Kiev for some time and remembered those terrible years of constant change of power and bloody events.

At the very beginning of the novel, the mother of the Turbins dies, bequeathing to the 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 must not be allowed... Despondency is a great sin...”. The White Guard is, to a certain extent, an autobiographical work. It is known, for example, that the sudden death of the mother of M.A. himself became the reason for writing the novel. Bulgakov Varvara Mikhailovna from typhus. The writer was very upset by this event, it was doubly hard 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, everyday realities of that time emerge. "Revolutionary riding" (you drive for an hour - you stand for two), Myshlaevsky's dirtiest batiste shirt, frostbitten legs - all this eloquently testifies to the complete household and economic confusion in people's lives. Deep experiences of socio-political conflicts were also expressed in the portrait of the heroes of the novel: before parting, Elena and Talberg even outwardly haggard, aged.

The collapse of the established way of M.A. Bulgakov also shows the example of the interior of the Turbins' house. From 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 off the lampshade from the 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 humility with which the author of the novel calls to treat life's trials. Elena perceives Thalberg's flight as a betrayal. It is no coincidence that before leaving, he mentions that Elena has a passport for her maiden name. He seems to renounce his wife, although at the same time he tries to convince her that he will return soon. In the course of further development of the plot, we learn that Sergei went to Paris and remarried. The prototype of Elena is the sister of M.A. Bulgakova Varvara Afanasievna (by her husband Karum). Thalberg is a well-known surname in the world of music: in the nineteenth century there was a pianist Sigmund Thalberg in Austria. The writer liked to use the sonorous names of famous musicians in his work (Rubinstein in The 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 in and where to go. With pain in the soul, the Kiev officer society meets the news of the death of the royal family and, contrary to caution, sings the forbidden royal anthem. Out of desperation, the officers drink half to death.

A terrifying account of life in Kyiv during the Civil War is interspersed with memories of a past life that now looks like an unaffordable luxury (for example, trips to the theater).

In 1918, Kyiv became a haven for those who, fearing reprisals, left Moscow: bankers and homeowners, artists and painters, aristocrats and gendarmes. Describing the cultural life of Kiev, M.A. Bulgakov mentions the famous Lilac Negro Theatre, the Maxim cafe and the decadent Prakh club (in fact it was called Khlam 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, climbed like dough from a pot,” writes M.A. Bulgakov. The motive of flight, indicated in the novel, will become a through motive for a number of the writer's works. In the "White Guard", as it becomes clear from the name, for M.A. Bulgakov, first of all, the fate of the Russian officers during the years of the revolution and the civil war, which for the most part lived with the concept of officer honor, is important.

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

The city can be considered a separate hero of the novel. In his native Kyiv, the writer himself had his best years. The urban landscape in the novel is striking in its fabulous beauty (“All the energy of the city, accumulated during the sunny and (pink summer, poured out in the light), is overgrown with hyperbole (“And there were as many gardens in the City as in no other city in the world”). M.A Bulgakov makes extensive use of ancient Kiev toponymy (Podil, Khreshchatyk), often mentions the sights of the city dear to every Kievan heart (Golden Gates, St. Sophia Cathedral, St. Michael's Monastery). He calls Vladimir Hill with the monument to Vladimir the best place in the world. so poetic that they resemble poems in prose: “A sleepy slumber passed over the City, a muddy white bird swept by, bypassing the cross of Vladimir, fell across the Dnieper into the thick of the night and floated along an iron arc.” And then this poetic picture is interrupted by a description of an armored train locomotive , angrily sibilant, with a blunt snout. In this contrast of war and peace, the cross of Vladimir, a symbol of Orthodoxy, is a through image. In the finale 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 concrete historical perception of events to a generalized philosophical one.

An important role in the novel is played by the motif of sleep. Dreams are seen in the work by Alexei, Elena, Vasilisa, the sentry at the armored train and Petka Shcheglov. Dreams help to 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 a bloody civil war, the heroes will begin a new life.