White Guard analysis of chapter 20. M.A

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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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.

Topics

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.
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.
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 atheism, 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.

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

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).

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. 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.

"White Guard"

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 Kyiv, 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 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 Kyiv for some time and remembered those terrible years of constant changes of power and bloody events.

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 and economic confusion in people’s lives. Deep experiences of socio-political conflicts were also expressed in the portraits of the novel’s heroes: Elena and Talberg, before separation, even outwardly became haggard and aged.

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 Kyiv, 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 Petliuraites, Alexei Turbin needlessly offends the newspaper boy and immediately feels shame and absurdity from his action. However, most often the heroes of the novel remain true to their life values. It is no coincidence that Elena, when she learns that Alexei is hopeless and must die, lights a lamp in front of 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 over the sunny and stormy summer, poured out in the light”), overgrown with hyperbole (“And there were so many gardens in the City as in no other city in the world”), M,A. Bulgakov widely uses ancient Kyiv toponymy (Podol, Khreshcha-tik), and often mentions the sights of the city dear to every Kievite’s heart (Golden Gate, St. Sophia Cathedral, St. Michael’s Monastery). He calls Vladimirskaya Hill with the monument to Vladimir the best place in the world. Some fragments of the city landscape are so poetic that they resemble prose poems: “A sleepy drowsiness passed over the City, a cloudy white bird flew past Vladimir’s cross, fell beyond the Dnieper in the thick of the night and floated along an iron arc.” And immediately this poetic picture is interrupted by the description of an armored train locomotive, wheezing angrily, with a blunt snout. In this contrast of war and peace, the cross-cutting image is the cross of Vladimir - a symbol of Orthodoxy. At the end of the work, the illuminated cross visually turns into a threatening sword. And the writer encourages us to pay attention to the stars. Thus, the author moves from a specific historical perception of events to a generalized philosophical one.

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 all around it becomes more and more terrible. In the north the blizzard howls and howls, but here underfoot the disturbed womb of the earth muffles and grumbles dully.” The blizzard force destroys the life of the Turbin family, the life of the City. White snow in Bulgakov does not become a symbol of purification.

“The provocative novelty of Bulgakov’s novel was that five years after the end of the Civil War, when the pain and heat of mutual hatred had not yet subsided, he dared to show the officers of the White Guard not in the poster guise of the “enemy,” but as ordinary, good and bad, suffering and misguided, intelligent and limited people, showed them from the inside, and the best in this environment - with obvious sympathy. What does Bulgakov like about these stepsons of history who lost their battle? And in Alexey, and in Malyshev, and in Nai-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.

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