Alexey Vasilyevich Turbin, captain, military doctor, 28 years old, - Leshka Goryainov.
Demobilized, engaged in private practice.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Turbin, cadet, 19 years old - apparently, Dimka, because Zhenka does not have time.
A very nice young man.

Sergei Ivanovich Talberg, captain of the general staff for 31 years, - Igor. A rather private person, he serves in the Hetman's War Ministry as a captain (previously he served in a division under Denikin. The author of a sensational note beginning with the words “Petlyura is an adventurer who threatens the region with destruction with his operetta..."

Elena Vasilievna Turbina-Talberg, 24 years old - Dara. Sister of the Turbins, wife of Talberg.

Larion Larionovich Surzhansky, engineer, cousin of the Turbins, 24 years old - Mitechka.
Just arrived in town.

Phillip Phillipovich Preobrazhensky, professor of medicine, the best and most famous doctor in the city of Kyiv, specializes in urology and gynecology, 47 years old - Kolya.
Single. Single, or more accurately, married to medicine. He is harsh with loved ones, gentle with strangers.

Lidiya Alekseevna Churilova, head of the Institute of Noble Maidens, 37 years old - Irrra
Born and raised in Kyiv. In her youth she lived in St. Petersburg for a couple of years, then returned. An excellent boss, loved by both teachers and schoolgirls and their parents. Goddaughter of Obalkov. I started writing, but haven’t been very successful yet.

Maria Benkendorf, actress, 27 years old, - Vlada.
Moscow actress stuck in Kyiv due to unrest.

Zinaida Genrikhovna Orbeli, niece of Professor Preobrazhensky, 22 years old - Marisha.
I just returned from Kharkov. She was last seen in Kyiv 6 years ago, when she was studying at the institute. She didn’t finish college, got married and left the city.

Fedor Nikolaevich Stepanov, captain of artillery, - Menedin.
A close friend of the elder Turbin, as well as Myshlaevsky and Shervinsky. Before the war he taught mathematics.

Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky, staff captain, 34 years old - Sasha Efremov. Harsh, sometimes too harsh. Best friend of Alexey Turbin.

Andrey Ivanovich Obalkov, assistant city manager, 51 years old - Fedor. He took the chair after the Central Rada came to power and became an assistant under Burchak. Surprisingly, he remained at his post under the hetman. They say he drinks bitter. Godfather of Churilova and Nikolka Turbin.

Shervinsky Leonid Yurievich, adjutant of Prince Belorukov, 27 years old - Ingvall.
Former lieutenant of the Ulan Regiment of the Life Guards Uhlan Regiment. Opera lover and owner of a magnificent voice. He says he once took the top “A” and held it for seven bars.

Petr Aleksandrovich Lestov, scientist, physicist, 38 years old - Andrey.
If Preobrazhensky is married to medicine, then Lestov is married to physics. I started coming to the Turbins relatively recently.

gaming equipment: Belka, Garik.

Although the manuscripts of the novel have not survived, Bulgakov scholars have traced the fate of many prototype characters and proved the almost documentary accuracy and reality of the events and characters described by the author.

The work was conceived by the author as a large-scale trilogy covering the period of the Civil War. Part of the novel was first published in the magazine "Russia" in 1925. The entire novel was first published in France in 1927-1929. The novel was received ambiguously by critics - the Soviet side criticized the writer’s glorification of class enemies, the emigrant side criticized Bulgakov’s loyalty to Soviet power.

The work served as a source for the play “Days of the Turbins” and subsequent several film adaptations.

Plot

The novel takes place in 1918, when the Germans who occupied Ukraine leave the City and it is captured by Petliura's troops. The author describes the complex, multifaceted world of a family of Russian intellectuals and their friends. This world is breaking under the onslaught of a social cataclysm and will never happen again.

The heroes - Alexey Turbin, Elena Turbina-Talberg and Nikolka - are involved in the cycle of military and political events. The city, in which Kyiv is easily guessed, is occupied by the German army. As a result of the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, it does not fall under the rule of the Bolsheviks and becomes a refuge for many Russian intellectuals and military personnel who are fleeing Bolshevik Russia. Officer military organizations are created in the city under the patronage of Hetman Skoropadsky, an ally of the Germans, Russia's recent enemies. Petlyura's army is attacking the City. By the time of the events of the novel, the Compiegne Truce has been concluded and the Germans are preparing to leave the City. In fact, only volunteers defend him from Petliura. Realizing the complexity of their situation, the Turbins reassure themselves with rumors about the approach of French troops, who allegedly landed in Odessa (in accordance with the terms of the truce, they had the right to occupy the occupied territories of Russia as far as the Vistula in the west). Alexey and Nikolka Turbin, like other residents of the City, volunteer to join the defenders’ detachments, and Elena protects the house, which becomes a refuge for former officers of the Russian army. Since defending the City on our own impossible, the hetman’s command and administration abandon him to his fate and leave with the Germans (the hetman himself disguises himself as a wounded German officer). Volunteers - Russian officers and cadets unsuccessfully defend the City without command against superior enemy forces (the author created a brilliant heroic image Colonel Nai-Tours). Some commanders, realizing the futility of resistance, send their fighters home, others actively organize resistance and die along with their subordinates. Petlyura occupies the City, organizes a magnificent parade, but after a few months is forced to surrender it to the Bolsheviks.

The main character, Alexei Turbin, is faithful to his duty, tries to join his unit (not knowing that it has been disbanded), enters into battle with the Petliurists, is wounded and, by chance, finds love in the person of a woman who saves him from being pursued by his enemies.

A social cataclysm reveals characters - some flee, others prefer death in battle. The people as a whole accept the new government (Petlyura) and after its arrival demonstrate hostility towards the officers.

Characters

• Alexey Vasilievich Turbin- doctor, 28 years old.
• Elena Turbina-Talberg- sister of Alexei, 24 years old.
• Nikolka- non-commissioned officer of the First Infantry Squad, brother of Alexei and Elena, 17 years old.
• Victor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky- lieutenant, friend of the Turbin family, Alexei’s friend at the Alexander Gymnasium.
• Leonid Yurievich Shervinsky- former lieutenant of the Life Guards Uhlan Regiment, adjutant at the headquarters of General Belorukov, friend of the Turbin family, friend of Alexei at the Alexander Gymnasium, longtime admirer of Elena.
• Fedor Nikolaevich Stepanov(“Karas”) - second lieutenant artilleryman, friend of the Turbin family, Alexei’s friend at the Alexander Gymnasium.
• Sergei Ivanovich Talberg- Captain of the General Staff of Hetman Skoropadsky, Elena’s husband, a conformist.
• father Alexander- priest of the Church of St. Nicholas the Good.
• Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich(“Vasilisa”) - the owner of the house in which the Turbins rented the second floor.
• Larion Larionovich Surzhansky(“Lariosik”) - Talberg’s nephew from Zhitomir.

History of writing

Bulgakov began writing the novel " White Guard"after the death of his mother (February 1, 1922) and wrote until 1924.

The typist I. S. Raaben, who retyped the novel, argued that this work was conceived by Bulgakov as a trilogy. The second part of the novel was supposed to cover the events of 1919, and the third - 1920, including the war with the Poles. In the third part, Myshlaevsky went over to the side of the Bolsheviks and served in the Red Army.

The novel could have other names - for example, Bulgakov chose between “Midnight Cross” and “White Cross”. One of the excerpts from an early edition of the novel in December 1922 was published in the Berlin newspaper "On the Eve" under the title "On the night of the 3rd" with the subtitle "From the novel" The Scarlet Mach "." The working title of the first part of the novel at the time of writing was The Yellow Ensign.

It is generally accepted that Bulgakov worked on the novel The White Guard in 1923-1924, but this is probably not entirely accurate. In any case, it is known for sure that in 1922 Bulgakov wrote some stories, which were then included in the novel in a modified form. In March 1923, in the seventh issue of the Rossiya magazine, a message appeared: “Mikhail Bulgakov is finishing the novel “The White Guard,” covering the era of the struggle with whites in the south (1919-1920).”

T. N. Lappa told M. O. Chudakova: “...I wrote “The White Guard” at night and liked me to sit next to me, sewing. His hands and feet were cold, he told me: “Hurry, quickly, hot water”; I was heating water on a kerosene stove, he put his hands in a basin of hot water...”

In the spring of 1923, Bulgakov wrote in a letter to his sister Nadezhda: “... I’m urgently finishing the 1st part of the novel; It’s called “Yellow Ensign.” The novel begins with the entry of Petliura's troops into Kyiv. The second and subsequent parts, apparently, were supposed to tell about the arrival of the Bolsheviks in the City, then about their retreat under the attacks of Denikin’s troops, and, finally, about the fighting in the Caucasus. That's how it was original plan writer. But after thinking about the possibilities of publishing a similar novel in Soviet Russia, Bulgakov decided to shift the time of action to an earlier period and exclude events associated with the Bolsheviks.

June 1923, apparently, was completely devoted to work on the novel - Bulgakov did not even keep a diary at that time. On July 11, Bulgakov wrote: “The biggest break in my diary... It’s a disgusting, cold and rainy summer.” On July 25, Bulgakov noted: “Because of the “Beep”, which takes up the best part of the day, the novel is making almost no progress.”

At the end of August 1923, Bulgakov informed Yu. L. Slezkin that he had completed the novel in a draft version - apparently, work on the earliest edition was completed, the structure and composition of which still remain unclear. In the same letter, Bulgakov wrote: “... but it has not yet been rewritten, it lies in a heap, over which I think a lot. I'll fix something. Lezhnev is starting a thick monthly “Russia” with the participation of our own and foreign ones... Apparently, Lezhnev has a huge publishing and editorial future ahead of him. “Russia” will be published in Berlin... In any case, things are clearly moving forward... in the literary publishing world.”

Then, for six months, nothing was said about the novel in Bulgakov’s diary, and only on February 25, 1924, an entry appeared: “Tonight... I read pieces from The White Guard... Apparently, I made an impression in this circle too.”

On March 9, 1924, the following message from Yu. L. Slezkin appeared in the newspaper “Nakanune”: “The novel “The White Guard” is the first part of a trilogy and was read by the author over four evenings in a literary circle “ Green lamp“. This thing covers the period of 1918-1919, the Hetmanate and Petliurism until the appearance of the Red Army in Kyiv... Minor shortcomings noted by some pale in front of the undoubted merits of this novel, which is the first attempt to create a great epic of our time.”

Publication history of the novel

On April 12, 1924, Bulgakov entered into an agreement for the publication of “The White Guard” with the editor of the magazine “Russia” I. G. Lezhnev. On July 25, 1924, Bulgakov wrote in his diary: “... in the afternoon I called Lezhnev on the phone and found out that for now there is no need to negotiate with Kagansky regarding the release of The White Guard as a separate book, since he does not have the money yet. This is a new surprise. That's when I didn't take 30 chervonets, now I can repent. I’m sure that the Guard will remain in my hands.” December 29: “Lezhnev is negotiating... to take the novel “The White Guard” from Sabashnikov and give it to him... I don’t want to get involved with Lezhnev, and it’s inconvenient and unpleasant to terminate the contract with Sabashnikov.” January 2, 1925: “... in the evening... I sat with my wife, working out the text of the agreement for the continuation of “The White Guard” in “Russia”... Lezhnev is courting me... Tomorrow, a Jew Kagansky, still unknown to me, will have to pay me 300 rubles and a bill. You can wipe yourself with these bills. However, the devil only knows! I wonder if the money will be brought tomorrow. I won’t give up the manuscript.” January 3: “Today I received 300 rubles from Lezhnev towards the novel “The White Guard”, which will be published in “Russia”. They promised a bill for the rest of the amount...”

The first publication of the novel took place in the magazine “Russia”, 1925, No. 4, 5 - the first 13 chapters. No. 6 was not published because the magazine ceased to exist. The entire novel was published by the Concorde publishing house in Paris in 1927 - the first volume and in 1929 - the second volume: chapters 12-20 newly corrected by the author.

According to researchers, the novel “The White Guard” was written after the premiere of the play “Days of the Turbins” in 1926 and the creation of “Run” in 1928. The text of the last third of the novel, corrected by the author, was published in 1929 by the Parisian publishing house Concorde.

For the first time, the full text of the novel was published in Russia only in 1966 - the writer’s widow, E. S. Bulgakova, using the text of the magazine “Russia”, unpublished proofs of the third part and the Paris edition, prepared the novel for publication Bulgakov M. Selected prose. M.: Fiction, 1966 .

Modern editions of the novel are printed according to the text of the Paris edition with corrections of obvious inaccuracies according to the texts of the magazine publication and proofreading with the author's editing of the third part of the novel.

Manuscript

The manuscript of the novel has not survived.

The canonical text of the novel “The White Guard” has not yet been determined. For a long time, researchers were unable to find a single page of handwritten or typewritten text of the White Guard. At the beginning of the 1990s. An authorized typescript of the ending of “The White Guard” was found with a total volume of about two printed sheets. When conducting an examination of the found fragment, it was possible to establish that the text is the very ending of the last third of the novel, which Bulgakov was preparing for the sixth issue of the magazine “Russia”. It was this material that the writer handed over to the editor of Rossiya, I. Lezhnev, on June 7, 1925. On this day, Lezhnev wrote a note to Bulgakov: “You have completely forgotten “Russia”. It’s high time to submit the material for No. 6 to the typesetting, you need to type the ending of “The White Guard”, but you don’t include the manuscripts. We kindly request you not to delay this matter any longer.” And on the same day, the writer handed over the end of the novel to Lezhnev against a receipt (it was preserved).

The found manuscript was preserved only because the famous editor and then employee of the newspaper “Pravda” I. G. Lezhnev used Bulgakov’s manuscript to paste newspaper clippings of his numerous articles onto it as a paper base. It is in this form that the manuscript was discovered.

The found text of the end of the novel not only differs significantly in content from the Parisian version, but is also much sharper in political terms - the author’s desire to find commonality between the Petliurists and the Bolsheviks is clearly visible. The guesses were also confirmed that the writer’s story “On the Night of the 3rd” is an integral part of “The White Guard”.

Historical outline

The historical events described in the novel date back to the end of 1918. At this time, in Ukraine there is a confrontation between the socialist Ukrainian Directory and the conservative regime of Hetman Skoropadsky - the Hetmanate. The heroes of the novel find themselves drawn into these events, and, taking the side of the White Guards, they defend Kyiv from the troops of the Directory. "The White Guard" of Bulgakov's novel differs significantly from White Guard White Army. The volunteer army of Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin did not recognize the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty and de jure remained at war with both the Germans and the puppet government of Hetman Skoropadsky.

When a war broke out in Ukraine between the Directory and Skoropadsky, the hetman had to turn for help to the intelligentsia and officers of Ukraine, who mostly supported the White Guards. In order to attract these categories of the population to its side, Skoropadsky’s government published in newspapers about Denikin’s alleged order to include the troops fighting the Directory into the Volunteer Army. This order was falsified by the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Skoropadsky government, I. A. Kistyakovsky, who thus joined the ranks of the hetman’s defenders. Denikin sent several telegrams to Kyiv in which he denied the existence of such an order, and issued an appeal against the hetman, demanding the creation of a “democratic united power in Ukraine” and warning against providing assistance to the hetman. However, these telegrams and appeals were hidden, and Kyiv officers and volunteers sincerely considered themselves part of the Volunteer Army.

Denikin's telegrams and appeals were made public only after the capture of Kyiv by the Ukrainian Directory, when many defenders of Kyiv were captured by Ukrainian units. It turned out that the captured officers and volunteers were neither White Guards nor Hetmans. They were criminally manipulated and they defended Kyiv for unknown reasons and unknown from whom.

The Kiev “White Guard” turned out to be illegal for all the warring parties: Denikin abandoned them, the Ukrainians did not need them, the Reds considered them class enemies. More than two thousand people were captured by the Directory, mostly officers and intellectuals.

Character prototypes

“The White Guard” is in many details an autobiographical novel, which is based on the writer’s personal impressions and memories of the events that took place in Kyiv in the winter of 1918-1919. Turbines - maiden name Bulgakov's maternal grandmothers. Among the members of the Turbin family one can easily discern the relatives of Mikhail Bulgakov, his Kyiv friends, acquaintances and himself. The action of the novel takes place in a house that, down to the smallest detail, is copied from the house in which the Bulgakov family lived in Kyiv; Now it houses the Turbin House Museum.

The venereologist Alexei Turbine is recognizable as Mikhail Bulgakov himself. The prototype of Elena Talberg-Turbina was Bulgakov’s sister, Varvara Afanasyevna.

Many of the surnames of the characters in the novel coincide with the surnames of real residents of Kyiv at that time or are slightly changed.

Myshlaevsky

The prototype of Lieutenant Myshlaevsky could be Bulgakov's childhood friend Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky. In her memoirs, T. N. Lappa (Bulgakov’s first wife) described Syngaevsky as follows:

“He was very handsome... Tall, thin... his head was small... too small for his figure. I kept dreaming about ballet and wanted to go to ballet school. Before the arrival of the Petliurists, he joined the cadets.”

T.N. Lappa also recalled that the service of Bulgakov and Syngaevsky with Skoropadsky boiled down to the following:

“Syngaevsky and Misha’s other comrades came and they were talking about how we had to keep the Petliurists out and defend the city, that the Germans should help... but the Germans kept scurrying away. And the guys agreed to go the next day. They even stayed overnight with us, it seems. And in the morning Mikhail went. There was a first aid station there... And there should have been a battle, but it seems there was none. Mikhail arrived in a cab and said that it was all over and that the Petliurists would come.”

After 1920, the Syngaevsky family emigrated to Poland.

According to Karum, Syngaevsky “met the ballerina Nezhinskaya, who danced with Mordkin, and during one of the changes in power in Kiev, he went to Paris at her expense, where he successfully acted as her dance partner and husband, although he was 20 years younger her" .

According to Bulgakov scholar Ya. Yu. Tinchenko, the prototype of Myshlaevsky was a friend of the Bulgakov family, Pyotr Aleksandrovich Brzhezitsky. Unlike Syngaevsky, Brzhezitsky was indeed an artillery officer and participated in the same events that Myshlaevsky talked about in the novel.

Shervinsky

The prototype of Lieutenant Shervinsky was another friend of Bulgakov - Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky, an amateur singer who served (though not as an adjutant) in the troops of Hetman Skoropadsky; he later emigrated.

Thalberg

Leonid Karum, husband of Bulgakov's sister. OK. 1916. Thalberg prototype.

Captain Talberg, the husband of Elena Talberg-Turbina, has many similarities with Varvara Afanasyevna Bulgakova’s husband, Leonid Sergeevich Karum (1888-1968), a German by birth, a career officer who served first Skoropadsky and then the Bolsheviks. Karum wrote a memoir, “My Life. A story without lies,” where he described, among other things, the events of the novel in his own interpretation. Karum wrote that he greatly angered Bulgakov and other relatives of his wife when, in May 1917, he wore a uniform with orders to his own wedding, but with a wide red bandage on the sleeve. In the novel, the Turbin brothers condemn Talberg for the fact that in March 1917 “he was the first - understand, the first - who came to the military school with a wide red bandage on his sleeve... Talberg, as a member of the revolutionary military committee, and no one else, arrested the famous General Petrov." Karum was indeed a member of the executive committee of the Kyiv City Duma and participated in the arrest of Adjutant General N.I. Ivanov. Karum escorted the general to the capital.

Nikolka

The prototype of Nikolka Turbin was the brother of M. A. Bulgakov - Nikolai Bulgakov. The events that happened to Nikolka Turbin in the novel completely coincide with the fate of Nikolai Bulgakov.

“When the Petliurists arrived, they demanded that all officers and cadets gather in the Pedagogical Museum of the First Gymnasium (the museum where the works of gymnasium students were collected). Everyone has gathered. The doors were locked. Kolya said: “Gentlemen, we need to run, this is a trap.” Nobody dared. Kolya went up to the second floor (he knew the premises of this museum like the back of his hand) and through some window he got out into the courtyard - there was snow in the courtyard, and he fell into the snow. It was the courtyard of their gymnasium, and Kolya made his way into the gymnasium, where he met Maxim (pedel). It was necessary to change the cadet clothes. Maxim took his things, gave him to put on his suit, and Kolya got out of the gymnasium in a different way - in civilian clothes - and went home. Others were shot."

crucian carp

“There was definitely a crucian carp - everyone called him Karasem or Karasik, I don’t remember if it was a nickname or a surname... He looked exactly like a crucian carp - short, dense, wide - well, like a crucian carp. The face is round... When Mikhail and I came to the Syngaevskys, he was there often..."

According to another version, expressed by researcher Yaroslav Tinchenko, the prototype of Stepanov-Karas was Andrei Mikhailovich Zemsky (1892-1946) - the husband of Bulgakov’s sister Nadezhda. 23-year-old Nadezhda Bulgakova and Andrei Zemsky, a native of Tiflis and a philologist graduate of Moscow University, met in Moscow in 1916. Zemsky was the son of a priest - a teacher at a theological seminary. Zemsky was sent to Kyiv to study at the Nikolaev Artillery School. During his short leave, the cadet Zemsky ran to Nadezhda - to the very house of the Turbins.

In July 1917, Zemsky graduated from college and was assigned to the reserve artillery division in Tsarskoe Selo. Nadezhda went with him, but as a wife. In March 1918, the division was evacuated to Samara, where the White Guard coup took place. Zemsky's unit went over to the White side, but he himself did not participate in the battles with the Bolsheviks. After these events, Zemsky taught Russian.

Arrested in January 1931, L. S. Karum, under torture at the OGPU, testified that Zemsky was listed in Kolchak’s army for a month or two in 1918. Zemsky was immediately arrested and exiled to Siberia for 5 years, then to Kazakhstan. In 1933, the case was reviewed and Zemsky was able to return to Moscow to his family.

Then Zemsky continued to teach Russian and co-authored a Russian language textbook.

Lariosik

Nikolai Vasilievich Sudzilovsky. Lariosik prototype according to L. S. Karum.

There are two candidates who could become the prototype of Lariosik, and both of them are full namesakes of the same year of birth - both bear the name Nikolai Sudzilovsky, born in 1896, and both are from Zhitomir. One of them is Nikolai Nikolaevich Sudzilovsky, Karum’s nephew (his sister’s adopted son), but he did not live in the Turbins’ house.

In his memoirs, L. S. Karum wrote about the Lariosik prototype:

“In October, Kolya Sudzilovsky appeared with us. He decided to continue his studies at the university, but was no longer at the medical faculty, but at the law faculty. Uncle Kolya asked Varenka and me to take care of him. Having discussed this problem with our students, Kostya and Vanya, we offered him to live with us in the same room with the students. But he was a very noisy and enthusiastic person. Therefore, Kolya and Vanya soon moved to their mother at 36 Andreevsky Spusk, where she lived with Lelya in the apartment of Ivan Pavlovich Voskresensky. And in our apartment the imperturbable Kostya and Kolya Sudzilovsky remained.”

T.N. Lappa recalled that at that time Sudzilovsky lived with the Karums - he was so funny! Everything fell out of his hands, he spoke at random. I don’t remember whether he came from Vilna or from Zhitomir. Lariosik looks like him.”

T.N. Lappa also recalled: “Someone’s relative from Zhitomir. I don’t remember when he appeared... An unpleasant guy. He was kind of strange, there was even something abnormal about him. Clumsy. Something was falling, something was beating. So, some kind of mumble... Average height, above average... In general, he was different from everyone else in some way. He was so dense, middle-aged... He was ugly. He liked Varya right away. Leonid was not there..."

Nikolai Vasilyevich Sudzilovsky was born on August 7 (19), 1896 in the village of Pavlovka, Chaussky district, Mogilev province, on the estate of his father, state councilor and district leader of the nobility. In 1916, Sudzilovsky studied at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. At the end of the year, Sudzilovsky entered the 1st Peterhof Warrant Officer School, from where he was expelled for poor academic performance in February 1917 and sent as a volunteer to the 180th Reserve Infantry Regiment. From there he was sent to the Vladimir Military School in Petrograd, but was expelled from there in May 1917. To get a reprieve from military service, Sudzilovsky got married, and in 1918, together with his wife, he moved to Zhitomir to live with his parents. In the summer of 1918, Lariosik's prototype unsuccessfully tried to enter Kiev University. Sudzilovsky appeared in the Bulgakovs' apartment on Andreevsky Spusk on December 14, 1918 - the day Skoropadsky fell. By that time, his wife had already left him. In 1919, Nikolai Vasilyevich joined the Volunteer Army, and his further fate is unknown.

The second likely contender, also named Sudzilovsky, actually lived in the Turbins’ house. According to the memoirs of Yu. L. Gladyrevsky’s brother Nikolai: “And Lariosik is my cousin, Sudzilovsky. He was an officer during the war, then he was demobilized and tried, it seems, to go to school. He came from Zhitomir, wanted to settle with us, but my mother knew that he was not a particularly pleasant person, and sent him to the Bulgakovs. They rented a room to him..."

Other prototypes

Dedications

The question of Bulgakov’s dedication to L. E. Belozerskaya’s novel is ambiguous. Among Bulgakov scholars, relatives and friends of the writer, this question gave rise to different opinions. The writer's first wife, T. N. Lappa, claimed that in handwritten and typewritten versions the novel was dedicated to her, and the name of L. E. Belozerskaya, to the surprise and displeasure of Bulgakov's inner circle, appeared only in printed form. Before her death, T. N. Lappa said with obvious resentment: “Bulgakov... once brought The White Guard when it was published. And suddenly I see - there is a dedication to Belozerskaya. So I threw this book back to him... I sat with him for so many nights, fed him, looked after him... he told his sisters that he dedicated it to me...”

Criticism

Critics on the other side of the barricades also had complaints about Bulgakov:

“... not only is there not the slightest sympathy for the white cause (which would be complete naivety to expect from a Soviet author), but there is also no sympathy for the people who devoted themselves to this cause or are associated with it. (...) He leaves lubriciousness and rudeness to other authors, but he himself prefers condescending, almost loving relationship to your characters. (...) He almost does not condemn them - and he does not need such condemnation. On the contrary, it would even weaken his position, and the blow that he deals to the White Guard from another, more principled, and therefore more sensitive side. The literary calculation here, in any case, is evident, and it was done correctly.”

“From the heights from where the whole “panorama” opens up to him (Bulgakov) human life, he looks at us with a dry and rather sad smile. Undoubtedly, these heights are so significant that at them red and white merge for the eye - in any case, these differences lose their meaning. In the first scene, where the tired, confused officers, together with Elena Turbina, are having a drinking binge, in this scene, where characters not only ridiculed, but somehow exposed from the inside, where human insignificance obscures all other human properties, devalues ​​virtues or qualities - Tolstoy is immediately felt.”

As a summary of the criticism heard from two irreconcilable camps, one can consider I. M. Nusinov’s assessment of the novel: “Bulgakov entered literature with the consciousness of the death of his class and the need to adapt to a new life. Bulgakov comes to the conclusion: “Everything that happens always happens as it should and only for the better.” This fatalism is an excuse for those who have changed milestones. Their rejection of the past is not cowardice or betrayal. It is dictated by the inexorable lessons of history. Reconciliation with the revolution was a betrayal of the past of a dying class. The reconciliation with Bolshevism of the intelligentsia, which in the past was not only by origin, but also ideologically connected with the defeated classes, the statements of this intelligentsia not only about its loyalty, but also about its readiness to build together with the Bolsheviks - could be interpreted as sycophancy. With his novel “The White Guard,” Bulgakov rejected this accusation of the White emigrants and declared: the change of milestones is not capitulation to the physical winner, but recognition of the moral justice of the victors. For Bulgakov, the novel “The White Guard” is not only reconciliation with reality, but also self-justification. Reconciliation is forced. Bulgakov came to him through the brutal defeat of his class. Therefore, there is no joy from the knowledge that the reptiles have been defeated, there is no faith in the creativity of the victorious people. This defined him artistic perception winner."

Bulgakov about the novel

It is obvious that Bulgakov understood the true meaning of his work, since he did not hesitate to compare it with “

Analysis of Bulgakov's "The White Guard" allows us to study in detail his first novel in creative biography. It describes the events that took place in 1918 in Ukraine during the Civil War. The story is about a family of intellectuals who are trying to survive in the face of serious social cataclysms in the country.

History of writing

The analysis of Bulgakov's "The White Guard" should begin with the history of the work. The author began working on it in 1923. It is known that there were several variations of the name. Bulgakov also chose between the “White Cross” and the “Midnight Cross”. He himself admitted that he loved the novel more than his other works, promising that it would “make the sky hot.”

His acquaintances recalled that he wrote “The White Guard” at night, when his feet and hands were cold, asking those around him to warm the water in which he warmed them.

Moreover, the beginning of work on the novel coincided with one of the most difficult periods in his life. At that time he was frankly in poverty, there was not enough money even for food, his clothes were falling apart. Bulgakov looked for one-time orders, wrote feuilletons, performed the duties of a proofreader, while trying to find time for his novel.

In August 1923, he reported that he had completed the draft. In February 1924, one can find references to the fact that Bulgakov began reading excerpts from the work to his friends and acquaintances.

Publication of the work

In April 1924, Bulgakov entered into an agreement to publish the novel with the Rossiya magazine. The first chapters were published about a year after this. However, only the initial 13 chapters were published, after which the magazine closed. The novel was first published as a separate book in Paris in 1927.

In Russia, the entire text was published only in 1966. The manuscript of the novel has not survived, so it is still unknown what the canonical text was.

Nowadays this is one of the most famous works Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, which was repeatedly filmed, was staged on the stage of drama theaters. It is considered one of the most significant and beloved works by many generations in the career of this famous writer.

The action takes place at the turn of 1918-1919. Their place is an unnamed City, in which Kyiv is guessed. To analyze the novel "The White Guard" it is important where the main action takes place. There are German occupation troops in the City, but everyone is waiting for Petliura’s army to appear; the fighting continues just a few kilometers from the City itself.

On the streets, residents are surrounded by an unnatural and very strange life. There are many visitors from St. Petersburg and Moscow, among them journalists, businessmen, poets, lawyers, bankers, who flocked to the City after the election of its hetman in the spring of 1918.

At the center of the story is the Turbin family. The head of the family is the doctor Alexey, his younger brother Nikolka, who has the rank of non-commissioned officer, is having dinner with him. Native sister Elena, as well as friends of the whole family - lieutenants Myshlaevsky and Shervinsky, second lieutenant Stepanov, whom those around him call Karasem. Everyone is discussing the fate and future of their beloved City.

Alexei Turbin believes that the hetman is to blame for everything, who began to pursue a policy of Ukranization, not allowing the formation of the Russian army until the last time. And if If the army had been formed, it would have been able to defend the City; Petliura’s troops would not now be standing under its walls.

Elena’s husband, Sergei Talberg, an officer of the general staff, is also present here, who announces to his wife that the Germans are planning to leave the city, so they need to leave today on the headquarters train. Talberg assures that in the coming months he will return back with Denikin’s army. Just at this time she is going to the Don.

Russian military formations

To protect the city from Petliura, Russian military formations are formed in the City. Turbin Sr., Myshlaevsky and Karas go to serve under the command of Colonel Malyshev. But the formed division disbands the very next night, when it becomes known that the hetman fled from the City on a German train along with General Belorukov. The division has no one left to protect, since there is no legal authority left.

At the same time, Colonel Nai-Tours was instructed to form a separate detachment. He threatens the head of the supply department with weapons, because he considers it impossible to fight without winter equipment. As a result, his cadets receive the necessary hats and felt boots.

On December 14, Petlyura attacks the City. The colonel receives direct orders to defend the Polytechnic Highway and, if necessary, take the fight. In the midst of another battle, he sends a small detachment to find out where the hetman’s units are. The messengers return with the news that there are no units, machine guns are being fired in the area, and the enemy’s cavalry is already in the City.

Death of Nai-Tours

Shortly before this, Corporal Nikolai Turbin is ordered to lead the team along a certain route. Arriving at their destination, the younger Turbin watches the fleeing cadets and hears Nai-Tours’ command to get rid of shoulder straps and weapons and immediately hide.

At the same time, the colonel covers the retreating cadets to the last. He dies in front of Nikolai. Shocked, Turbin makes his way through the alleys to the house.

In an abandoned building

Meanwhile, Alexey Turbin, who was unaware of the dissolution of the division, appears at the appointed place and time, where he discovers a building in which a large number of thrown weapons. Only Malyshev explains to him what is happening around him, the city is in the hands of Petlyura.

Alexey gets rid of his shoulder straps and makes his way home, encountering a detachment of the enemy. The soldiers recognize him as an officer because he still has a badge on his hat, and they begin to chase him. Alexey is wounded in the arm, he is saved by an unfamiliar woman, whose name is Yulia Reise.

In the morning, a girl takes Turbin home in a cab.

Relative from Zhitomir

At this time, Talberg’s cousin Larion, who had recently experienced a personal tragedy: his wife left him, comes to visit the Turbins from Zhitomir. Lariosik, as everyone is beginning to call him, likes the Turbins, and the family finds him very nice.

The owner of the building in which the Turbins live is called Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich. Before Petlyura enters the city, Vasilisa, as everyone calls him, builds a hiding place in which she hides jewelry and money. But a stranger spied on his actions through the window. Soon, unknown people show up to him, they immediately find a hiding place, and take with them other valuable things from the house management.

Only when the uninvited guests leave does Vasilisa realize that in reality they were ordinary bandits. He runs for help to the Turbins so that they can save him from a possible new attack. Karas is sent to their rescue, for whom Vasilisa’s wife Vanda Mikhailovna, who has always been stingy, immediately puts veal and cognac on the table. The crucian carp eats its fill and remains to protect the safety of the family.

Nikolka with Nai-Tours' relatives

Three days later, Nikolka manages to get the address of Colonel Nai-Tours’ family. He goes to his mother and sister. Young Turbin talks about last minutes life of an officer. Together with his sister Irina, he goes to the morgue, finds the body and arranges a funeral service.

At this time, Alexey's condition worsens. His wound becomes inflamed and typhus begins. Turbin is delirious and has a high temperature. A council of doctors decides that the patient will soon die. At first, everything develops according to the worst scenario, the patient begins to go into agony. Elena prays, locking herself in her bedroom, to save her brother from death. Soon the doctor, who is on duty at the patient’s bedside, reports with amazement that Alexey is conscious and on the mend, the crisis has passed.

A few weeks later, having finally recovered, Alexey goes to Yulia, who saved him from certain death. He gives her a bracelet that once belonged to his deceased mother, and then asks permission to visit her. On the way back, he meets Nikolka, who is returning from Irina Nai-Tours.

Elena Turbina receives a letter from her Warsaw friend, who talks about Talberg's upcoming marriage to their mutual friend. The novel ends with Elena remembering her prayer, which she has addressed more than once. On the night of February 3, Petliura’s troops leave the City. Red Army artillery thunders in the distance. She approaches the city.

Artistic features of the novel

When analyzing Bulgakov's "The White Guard", it should be noted that the novel is certainly autobiographical. For almost all characters you can find prototypes in real life. These are friends, relatives or acquaintances of Bulgakov and his family, as well as iconic military and political figures of that time. Bulgakov even chose the surnames for the heroes, only slightly changing the surnames of real people.

Many researchers have analyzed the novel “The White Guard”. They managed to trace the fate of the characters with almost documentary accuracy. In the analysis of Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard", many emphasize that the events of the work unfold in the scenery of real Kyiv, which was well known to the author.

Symbolism of the "White Guard"

Carrying out even a brief analysis of The White Guard, it should be noted that symbols are key in the works. For example, in the City one can guess small homeland writer, and the house coincides with the real house in which the Bulgakov family lived until 1918.

To analyze the work "The White Guard" it is important to understand even symbols that are insignificant at first glance. The lamp symbolizes the closed world and comfort that reigns among the Turbins; snow is bright image Civil war and revolution. Another symbol important for analyzing Bulgakov’s work “The White Guard” is the cross on the monument dedicated to St. Vladimir. It symbolizes the sword of war and civil terror. Analysis of the images of the "White Guard" helps to better understand what he wanted tell the author of this work.

Allusions in the novel

To analyze Bulgakov's "The White Guard" it is important to study the allusions with which it is filled. Let's give just a few examples. So, Nikolka, who comes to the morgue, personifies the journey to afterworld. The horror and inevitability of the upcoming events, the approaching Apocalypse to the city can be traced by the appearance in the city of Shpolyansky, who is considered the “forerunner of Satan”; the reader should have a clear impression that the kingdom of the Antichrist will soon come.

To analyze the heroes of The White Guard, it is very important to understand these clues.

Dream Turbine

Turbin's dream occupies one of the central places in the novel. Analysis of The White Guard is often based on this episode of the novel. In the first part of the work, his dreams are a kind of prophecies. In the first, he sees a nightmare that declares that Holy Rus' is a poor country, and honor for a Russian person is an exclusively unnecessary burden.

Right in his sleep, he tries to shoot the nightmare that torments him, but it disappears. Researchers believe that the subconscious convinces Turbin to escape from the city and go into exile, but in reality he does not even allow the thought of escape.

Turbin’s next dream already has a tragicomic connotation. He is an even clearer prophecy of future events. Alexey dreams of Colonel Nai-Tours and Sergeant Zhilin, who went to heaven. In a humorous manner, it is told how Zhilin got to heaven on the wagon trains, but the Apostle Peter let them through.

Turbin's dreams acquire key significance at the end of the novel. Alexey sees how Alexander I destroys the lists of divisions, as if erasing from the memory of white officers, most of whom are dead by that time.

Afterwards Turbin sees his own death on Malo-Provalnaya. It is believed that this episode is associated with the resurrection of Alexei, which occurred after an illness. Bulgakov often invested great importance in the dreams of his heroes.

We analyzed Bulgakov's "White Guard". Summary also presented in the review. The article can help students when studying this work or writing an essay.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov attaches special importance to female images in the novel, although this is not so easy to notice. All male heroes of The White Guard are in one way or another connected with historical events, unfolding in the City and in Ukraine as a whole, we perceive them as nothing less than active protagonists of the civil war. The men of the “White Guard” are endowed with the ability to reflect on political events, take decisive steps, and defend their beliefs with arms in hand. The writer assigns a completely different role to his heroines: Elena Turbina, Julia Reiss, Irina Nai-Tours. These women, despite the fact that death hovers around them, remain almost indifferent to events, and in the novel they actually only engage in personal life. The most interesting thing is that in The White Guard there is, in general, no love in the classical literary sense. Several windy novels unfold before us, worthy of descriptions in “tabloid” literature. Mikhail Afanasyevich portrays women as frivolous partners in these novels. The only exception, perhaps, is Anyuta, but her love with Myshlaevsky also ends quite “tabloid”: as evidenced by one of the options in the 19th chapter of the novel, Viktor Viktorovich takes his beloved away to have an abortion.

Some rather frank expressions that Mikhail Afanasyevich uses in general female characteristics, clearly make us understand the writer’s somewhat disdainful attitude towards women as such. Bulgakov does not make a distinction even between representatives of the aristocracy and workers of the oldest profession in the world, reducing their qualities to one denominator. Here are some general phrases about them we can read: “Cocottes. Honest ladies from aristocratic families. Their gentle daughters, pale St. Petersburg libertines with painted carmine lips”; “Prostitutes walked past, in green, red, black and white caps, beautiful, like dolls, and cheerfully muttered to the screw: “Did you smell your mother?” Thus, the reader, inexperienced in “women’s” issues, having read the novel, may well conclude that aristocrats and prostitutes are one and the same.

Elena Turbina, Yulia Reiss and Irina Nai-Tours are completely different women in character and life experience. Irina Nai-Tours seems to us to be an 18-year-old young lady, the same age as Nikolka, who has not yet known all the delights and disappointments of love, but has a large supply of girlish flirtation capable of charming a young man. Elena Turbina, a 24-year-old married woman, is also endowed with charm, but she is simpler and more accessible. In front of Shervinsky, she does not “break” comedies, but behaves honestly. Finally, the most complex woman in character, Julia Reiss, who managed to be married, is a flamboyant hypocrite and selfish person who lives for her own pleasure.

All three women mentioned not only have differences in life experience and age. They represent the three most common types female psychology, which Mikhail Afanasyevich probably encountered

Bulgakov. All three heroines have their real prototypes, with whom the writer, apparently, not only communicated spiritually, but also had affairs or was related. Actually, we will talk about each of the women separately.

The sister of Alexei and Nikolai Turbins, “Golden” Elena, is depicted by the writer, as it seems to us, as the most trivial woman, the type of which is quite common. As can be seen from the novel, Elena Turbina belongs to the quiet and calm “homely” women who, with the appropriate attitude from a man, are capable of being faithful to him until the end of their lives. True, for such women, as a rule, the very fact of having a man is important, and not his moral or physical merits. In a man, they first of all see the father of their child, a certain support in life, and, finally, an integral attribute of the family of a patriarchal society. That is why such women, much less eccentric and emotional, more easily cope with betrayal or the loss of a man for whom they immediately try to find a replacement. Such women are very convenient for starting a family, since their actions are predictable, if not 100, then 90 percent. In addition, being a homebody and caring for offspring largely makes these women blind in life, which allows their husbands to go about their business and even have affairs without much fear. These women, as a rule, are naive, stupid, rather limited and of little interest to men who love thrills. At the same time, such women can be acquired quite easily, since they take any flirting at face value. Nowadays there are a lot of such women, they get married early, and to men older than them, give birth to children early and lead, in our opinion, a boring, tedious and uninteresting lifestyle. These women consider the main merit in life to be the creation of a family, “continuation of the family,” which is what they initially make their main goal.

There is plenty of evidence in the novel that Elena Turbina is exactly as we described. All her advantages, by and large, boil down to the fact that she knows how to create comfort in the Turbins’ house and perform household functions in a timely manner: “The tablecloth, despite the guns and all this languor, anxiety and nonsense, is white and starchy. This from Elena, who cannot do otherwise, this is from Anyuta, who grew up in the Turbins' house. The floors are shiny, and in December, now, on the table, in a matte, columnar vase, there are blue hydrangeas and two gloomy and sultry roses, affirming the beauty and strength of life..." . Bulgakov did not have any exact characteristics in store for Elena - she is simple, and her simplicity is visible in everything. The action of the novel “The White Guard” actually begins with a scene of Thalberg’s waiting: “In Elena’s eyes there is melancholy (not anxiety and worries, not jealousy and resentment, but melancholy - T.Ya.’s note), and the strands, covered with a reddish fire, sadly drooped.” .

Even her husband’s rapid departure abroad did not bring Elena out of this state. She showed no emotions at all, she just listened sadly, “she grew old and ugly.” To drown out her melancholy, Elena did not go to her room to sob, fight in hysterics, take out her anger on relatives and guests, but began to drink wine with her brothers and listen to the admirer who appeared instead of her husband. Despite the fact that there were no quarrels between Elena and her husband Thalberg, she still began to respond gently to the attentions shown to her by her admirer Shervinsky. As it turned out at the end of The White Guard, Talberg left not for Germany, but for Warsaw, and not in order to continue the fight against the Bolsheviks, but to marry a certain mutual acquaintance, Lidochka Hertz. Thus, Thalberg had an affair that his wife did not even suspect. But even in this case, Elena Turbina, who seemed to love Talberg, did not make a tragedy, but completely switched to Shervinsky: “And Shervinsky? Oh, the devil knows... That’s punishment with the women. Elena will definitely contact him, absolutely... And "What's good? Except maybe the voice? The voice is excellent, but in the end, you can listen to the voice without getting married, isn't it... However, it doesn't matter."

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov himself, although he objectively assessed life credo his wives, always focused on precisely this type of woman, like the one described by Elena Turbina. Actually, in many ways this was the writer’s second wife, Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya, who considered her given “from the people.” Here are some characteristics dedicated to Belozerskaya that we can find in Bulgakov’s diary in December 1924: “My wife helps me a lot with these thoughts. I noticed that when she walks, she sways. This is terribly stupid given my plans, but it seems "I'm in love with her. But one thought interests me. Would she adapt just as comfortably to anyone, or is it selective, for me?" “It’s a terrible state, I’m falling more and more in love with my wife. It’s such a shame - I’ve been denying my own for ten years... Women are like women. And now I’m even humiliating myself to the point of slight jealousy. She’s somehow sweet and sweet. And fat.” By the way, as you know, Mikhail Bulgakov dedicated the novel “The White Guard” to his second wife, Lyubov Belozerskaya.

The debate about whether Elena Turbina has her historical prototypes has been going on for a very long time. By analogy with the parallel Talberg - Karum, a similar parallel Elena Turbina - Varvara Bulgakova is drawn. As you know, Mikhail Bulgakov’s sister Varvara Afanasyevna was really married to Leonid Karum, depicted in the novel as Talberg. The Bulgakov brothers did not like Karum, which explains the creation of such an unpleasant image of Thalberg. In this case, Varvara Bulgakova is considered the prototype of Elena Turbina only because she was Karum’s wife. Of course, the argument is weighty, but Varvara Afanasyevna’s character was very different from Elena Turbina. Even before meeting Karum, Varvara Bulgakova could well have found a mate. Nor was it as accessible as the Turbine. As you know, there is a version that because of her, Mikhail Bulgakov’s close friend Boris Bogdanov, a very worthy young man, committed suicide at one time. In addition, Varvara Afanasyevna sincerely loved Leonid Sergeevich Karum, helped him even during the years of repression, when it was worth caring not about her arrested husband, but about her children, and followed him into exile. It is very difficult for us to imagine Varvara Bulgakova in the role of Turbina, who, out of boredom, does not know what to do with herself, and after her husband leaves, starts an affair with the first man she comes across.

There is also a version that all of Mikhail Afanasyevich’s sisters are in one way or another connected with the image of Elena Turbina. This version is based mainly on the similarity of the name of Bulgakov’s younger sister and the heroine of the novel, as well as some other external signs. However, this version, in our opinion, is erroneous, since Bulgakov’s four sisters were all individuals who, unlike Elena Turbina, had their own oddities and quirks. Mikhail Afanasyevich’s sisters are in many ways similar to other types of women, but not like the one we are considering. All of them were very picky in choosing a mate, and their husbands were educated, purposeful and enthusiastic people. Moreover, all the husbands of Mikhail Afanasyevich’s sisters were associated with humanities, which even in those days, in the gray environment of domestic scum, were considered the lot of women.

To be honest, it is very difficult to argue about the prototypes of Elena Turbina’s image. But if we compare the psychological portraits of literary images and women surrounding Bulgakov, we can say that Elena Turbina is very similar... to the writer’s mother, who devoted her entire life only to her family: men, everyday life and children.

Irina Nai-Tours also has a fairly typical for 17-18 year old representatives of the female half of society psychological picture. In the developing novel between Irina and Nikolai Turbin, we can notice some personal details, taken by the writer, probably from the experience of his early love affairs. The rapprochement between Nikolai Turbin and Irina Nai-Tours occurs only in a little-known version of the 19th chapter of the novel and gives us reason to believe that Mikhail Bulgakov still intended to develop this theme in the future, planning to finalize The White Guard.

Nikolai Turbin met Irina Nai-Tours when Colonel Nai-Tours’ mother was notified of his death. Subsequently, Nikolai, together with Irina, made a rather unpleasant trip to the city morgue to search for the colonel’s body. During the New Year celebration, Irina Nai-Tours appeared at the Turbins’ house, and Nikolka then volunteered to accompany her, as a little-known version of the 19th chapter of the novel tells:

“Irina shrugged her shoulders chillily and buried her chin in the fur. Nikolka walked alongside, tormented by a terrible and insurmountable problem: how to offer her his hand. And he just couldn’t. It was as if a two-pound weight had been hung on his tongue. “You can’t walk like that.” Impossible. How can I say?.. Let me... No, she might think something. And maybe it’s unpleasant for her to walk with me on my arm?.. Eh!..”

“It’s so cold,” Nikolka said.

Irina looked up, where there were many stars in the sky and, to the side on the slope of the dome, the moon above the extinct seminary on the distant mountains, she answered:

Very. I'm afraid you'll freeze.

“On you. On,” Nikolka thought, “not only is there no question of taking her arm, but she’s even unpleasant that I went with her. Otherwise, there’s no way to interpret such a hint...”

Irina immediately slipped, shouted “ouch” and grabbed the sleeve of her overcoat. Nikolka choked. But I still didn’t miss such an opportunity. After all, you really have to be a fool. He said:

Let me take your hand...

Where are your pigtails?.. You will freeze... I don’t want to.

Nikolka turned pale and firmly swore to the star Venus: “I will come and immediately

I'll shoot myself. It's over. A shame".

I forgot my gloves under the mirror...

Then her eyes appeared closer to him, and he was convinced that in these eyes there was not only blackness. starry night and already fading mourning for the burry colonel, but slyness and laughter. She took it with her right hand right hand, pulled it through her left one, put his hand into her muff, laid it next to hers and added mysterious words, which Nikolka thought about for twelve whole minutes until Malo-Provalnaya:

You need to be half-hearted.

“Princess... What do I hope for? My future is dark and hopeless. I’m awkward. And I haven’t even started university yet... Beauty...” thought Nikol. And Irina Nay was not a beauty at all. An ordinary pretty girl with black eyes. True, she is slender, and her mouth is not bad, it is correct, her hair is shiny, black.

At the outbuilding, in the first tier of the mysterious garden, they stopped at a dark door. The moon was cut out somewhere behind a tangle of trees, and the snow was patchy, sometimes black, sometimes purple, sometimes white. All the windows in the outbuilding were black, except for one, glowing with a cozy fire. Irina leaned against the black door, threw her head back and looked at Nikolka, as if she was waiting for something. Nikolka is in despair that he, “oh, stupid”, has not been able to tell her anything in twenty minutes, in despair that now she will leave him at the door, at this moment, just when some important words are forming in his mind in a useless head, he became emboldened to the point of despair, he himself put his hand into the muff and looked for a hand there, in great amazement he was convinced that this hand, which had been in a glove all the way, was now without a glove. There was complete silence all around. The city was sleeping.

Go,” Irina Nay said very quietly, “go, otherwise the Petlyugists will persecute you.”

Well, so be it,” Nikolka answered sincerely, “so be it.”

No, don't let it. Don't let it. - She paused. - I will be sorry...

What a pity?.. Eh?.. - And he squeezed his hand in the muff tighter.

Then Irina freed her hand along with the muff, and put it on his shoulder with the muff. Her eyes became extremely large, like black flowers, as it seemed to Nikolka, she rocked Nikolka so that he touched the velvet of his fur coat with the buttons with eagles, sighed and kissed him right on the lips.

Maybe you are smart, but so slow...

Then Nikolka, feeling that he had become incredibly brave, desperate and very agile, grabbed Nai and kissed her on the lips. Irina Nay insidiously threw her right hand back and, without opening her eyes, managed to ring the bell. And that hour the mother’s steps and cough were heard in the outbuilding, and the door shook... Nikolka’s hands unclenched.

Go away tomorrow,” Nai whispered, “everyday.” Now leave, leave..."

As we see, the “insidious” Irina Nai-Tours, probably more sophisticated in life’s issues than the naive Nikolka, completely takes into her own hands the emerging personal relationship between them. By and large, we see a young coquette who loves to please and make men dizzy. Such young ladies, as a rule, are able to quickly “inflame” with love, achieve the favor and love of a partner, and just as quickly cool down, leaving a man at the height of his feelings. When such women want to gain attention, they act as active partners, taking the first step towards meeting, as happened in the case of our heroine. We, of course, do not know how Mikhail Bulgakov planned to end the story with the naive Nikolka and the “insidious” Irina, but, logically, the younger Turbin should have fallen in love, and Colonel Nai-Tours’ sister, having achieved her goal, should have cooled down .

Literary image Irina Nai-Tours has its own prototype. The fact is that in the White Guard, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov indicated the exact address of Nai-Tours: Malo-Provalnaya, 21. This street is actually called Malopodvalnaya. At the address Malopidvalnaya, 13, next to number 21, lived the Syngaevsky family, friendly to the Bulgakovs. The Syngaevsky children and the Bulgakov children were friends with each other long before the revolution. Mikhail Afanasyevich was a close friend of Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky, some of whose features were embodied in the image of Myshlaevsky. There were five daughters in the Syngaevsky family, who also attended Andreevsky Spusk, 13. It was with one of the Syngaevsky sisters, most likely, that one of the Bulgakov brothers had an affair at school age. Probably, this novel was the first of one of the Bulgakovs (who may have been Mikhail Afanasyevich himself), otherwise it is impossible to explain the naivety of Nikolka’s attitude towards Irina. This version is also confirmed by the phrase Myshlaevsky said to Nikolka before Irina Nai-Tours arrived:

"- No, I’m not offended, I’m just wondering why you were jumping up and down like that. You’re a little too cheerful. You put your cuffs out... you look like a groom.”

Nikolka blossomed with crimson fire, and his eyes drowned in a lake of embarrassment.

“You go to Malo-Provalnaya too often,” Myshlaevsky continued to finish off the enemy with six-inch shells, this, however, is good. You need to be a knight, support the Turbino traditions."

In this case, Myshlaevsky’s phrase could well have belonged to Nikolai Syngaevsky, who was hinting at the “Bulgakov traditions” of alternately courting the Syngaevsky sisters.

But, perhaps, the most interesting woman in the novel “The White Guard” is Yulia Aleksandrovna Reiss (in some versions - Yulia Markovna). The real existence of which is not even in doubt. The characterization given by the writer to Yulia is so exhaustive that her psychological portrait is clear from the very beginning:

“Only in the hearth of peace, Julia, an egoist, a vicious, but seductive woman, agrees to appear. She appeared, her leg in a black stocking, the edge of a black fur-trimmed boot flashed on the light brick staircase, and the gavotte splashing with bells answered the hasty knock and rustle from there, where Louis XIV luxuriated in a sky-blue garden by the lake, intoxicated by his fame and the presence of charming women of color."

Yulia Reiss saved the life of the White Guard hero Alexei Turbin when he was running from Petliurists along Malo-provalnaya Street and was wounded. Julia led him through the gate and the garden and up the stairs to her house, where she hid him from his pursuers. As it turned out, Julia was divorced and lived alone at that time. Alexey Turbin fell in love with his savior, which is natural, and subsequently tried to achieve reciprocity. But Julia turned out to be too ambitious a woman. Having experience of marriage, she did not strive for a stable relationship, and in resolving personal issues she saw only the fulfillment of her goals and desires. She did not love Alexei Turbin, which can be clearly seen in one of the little-known versions of the 19th chapter of the novel:

"Tell me, who do you love?

“No one,” answered Yulia Markovna and looked so that the devil himself could not tell whether it was true or not.

Marry me... come out,” Turbin said, squeezing his hand.

Yulia Markovna shook her head negatively and smiled.

Turbin grabbed her by the throat, choked her, hissed:

Tell me, whose card was this on the table when I was wounded with you?.. Black sideburns...

Yulia Markovna’s face became flushed with blood, she began to wheeze. It's a pity - the fingers unclench.

This is my second... second cousin.

Left for Moscow.

Bolshevik?

No, he's an engineer.

Why did you go to Moscow?

It's his business.

The blood drained, and Yulia Markovna’s eyes became crystalline. I wonder what can be read in crystal? Nothing is possible.

Why did your husband leave you?

I left him.

He's trash.

You are trash and a liar. I love you, you bastard.

Yulia Markovna smiled.

So are the evenings and so are the nights. Turbin left around midnight through the multi-tiered garden, his lips bitten. He looked at the holey, ossified network of trees and whispered something.

Need money…"

The above scene is completely complemented by another passage related to the relationship between Alexei Turbin and Yulia Reiss:

“Well, Yulenka,” said Turbin and took Myshlaevsky’s revolver, rented for one evening, from his back pocket, “tell me, please, what is your relationship with Mikhail Semenovich Shpolyansky?”

Yulia backed away, bumped into the table, the lampshade clinked... ding... For the first time, Yulia's face became genuinely pale.

Alexey... Alexey... what are you doing?

Tell me, Yulia, what is your relationship with Mikhail Semenovich? - Turbin repeated firmly, like a man who has finally decided to pull out the rotten tooth that has tormented him.

What do you want to know? - Yulia asked, her eyes moved, she covered the barrel with her hands.

Only one thing: is he your lover or not?

Yulia Markovna's face came to life a little. Some blood returned to the head. Her eyes sparkled strangely, as if Turbin’s question seemed easy to her, not a difficult question at all, as if she was expecting the worst. Her voice came to life.

You have no right to torment me... you, - she said, - well, okay... for the last time I’m telling you - he was not my lover. Was not. Was not.

Swear it.

I swear.

Yulia Markovna's eyes were as clear as crystal.

Late at night, Doctor Turbin knelt in front of Yulia Markovna, burying his head in his knees, and muttered:

You tortured me. Tormented me, and this month that I recognized you, I don’t live. I love you, I love you... - passionately, licking his lips, he muttered...

Yulia Markovna leaned towards him and stroked his hair.

Tell me why did you give yourself to me? Do you love me? Do you love? Or

“I love you,” answered Yulia Markovna and looked at the back pocket of the man on his knees.

We will not talk about Julia’s lover, Mikhail Semenovich Shpolyansky, since we will devote a separate section to him. But it would be quite appropriate to talk about a real-life girl with the last name Reis.

Since 1893, the family of a colonel of the General Staff lived in the city of Kyiv Russian army Vladimir Vladimirovich Flight. Vladimir Reis was a participant in the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–1878, an honored and combat officer. He was born in 1857 and came from a Lutheran family of nobles in the Kovno province. His ancestors were of German-Baltic origin. Colonel Reis was married to the daughter of British citizen Peter Theakston, Elizabeth, with whom he came to Kyiv. Elizaveta Thixton's sister Sofia soon moved here too, and settled in the house on Malopodvalnaya, 14, apartment 1 - at the address where our mysterious Julia Reiss from the White Guard lived. The Reis family had a son and two daughters: Peter, born in 1886, Natalya, born in 1889, and Irina, born in 1895, who were raised under the supervision of their mother and aunt. Vladimir Reis did not take care of his family because he suffered from mental disorders. In 1899, he was admitted to the Psychiatric Department of a military hospital, where he remained almost all the time until 1903. The disease turned out to be incurable, and in 1900 the military department sent Vladimir Reis into retirement with the rank of major general. In 1903, General Reis died in the Kiev military hospital, leaving the children in the care of their mother.

The theme of Julia Reiss's father appears several times in the novel The White Guard. Even in his delirium, as soon as he gets into an unfamiliar house, Alexey Turbin notices a mourning portrait with epaulettes, indicating that the portrait depicts a lieutenant colonel, colonel or general.

After death, the entire Reis family moved to Malopodvalnaya Street, where Elizaveta and Sofia Thixton, Natalya and Irina Reis, as well as General Reis’ sister Anastasia Vasilievna Semigradova now lived. Pyotr Vladimirovich Reis was studying at the Kiev Military School by that time, and therefore a large group of women gathered at Malopodvalnaya. Peter Reis would later become a colleague of Leonid Karum, Varvara Bulgakova’s husband, at the Kyiv Konstantinovsky Military School. Together they will walk the roads of the civil war.

Irina Vladimirovna Reis, the youngest in the family, studied at the Kiev Institute of Noble Maidens and the Catherine Women's Gymnasium. According to Kyiv Bulgakov scholars, she was familiar with the Bulgakov sisters, who could even bring her to the house on Andreevsky Spusk, 13.

After the death of Elizaveta Thixton in 1908, Natalya Reis got married and settled with her husband at 14 Malopodvalnaya Street, and Yulia Reis came under the guardianship of Anastasia Semigradova, with whom she soon moved to 17 Trekhsvyatitelskaya Street. Soon Sofia Thixton left, and therefore to Malopodvalnaya Natalia was left alone with her husband.

We don’t know when exactly Natalya Vladimirovna Reis divorced her marriage, but after that she was left completely alone in the apartment. It was she who became the prototype for creating the image of Julia Reiss in the novel “The White Guard”.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov saw his future wife Tatyana Lappa again only after a long break - in the summer of 1911. In 1910 - early 1911, the future writer, who was then 19 years old, probably had some novels. At the same time, Natalia Reis, 21 years old, had already divorced her husband. She lived opposite the Bulgakovs' friends - the Syngaevsky family, and therefore Mikhail Afanasyevich could actually meet her on Malopodvalnaya Street, where he often visited. Thus, we can safely say that the described romance between Alexei Turbin and Yulia Reiss actually took place between Mikhail Bulgakov and Natalia Reiss. Otherwise there is no way for us to explain detailed description Yulia's address and the path that led to her house, the coincidence of the last name, the mention of a mourning portrait of a lieutenant colonel or colonel with epaulets from the 19th century, a hint of the existence of a brother.

So, in the novel "The White Guard" Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, in our deep conviction, described Various types the women he had to deal with most in his life, and also talked about his novels that he had before his marriage to Tatyana Lappa.

In the novel “The White Guard,” the writer addresses many serious and eternal themes. From the very first pages of the novel, the themes of family, home, faith, moral duty - as the beginning of all beginnings, the source of life and culture, the key to preserving the best traditions and moral values ​​- sound at all times.

Bulgakov happened to live in difficult times for Russia. The revolution, and then the Civil War, forced people to rethink all previously acquired values. The writer had a hard time experiencing the events taking place and tried with all his soul to understand the reality around him. And he realized that the main trouble in Russia was the decline in the level of morality, lack of culture and ignorance, which, in his opinion, was associated with the destruction of the intelligentsia, which for a long time acted as the main bearer of moral values.

The heroes of the novel “The White Guard,” like the writer himself, are representatives of the intelligentsia. Not all of the Russian intelligentsia accepted and understood the great achievements of October. Fears for the fate of the country's culture played an important role in the rejection of these achievements, the path to achieving which was difficult and often contradictory. The main theme of the novel, which is usually associated with the tragic motive of disappointment of the heroes, with the need they feel to break with their past, is revealed in a new way. The past that remains happy childhood heroes, not only does not disappoint them, but is preserved by them in every possible way in an environment where it seems that “everything is destroyed, betrayed, sold.”

The entire novel is permeated with a sense of disaster. The heroes still sing the hymn “God Save the Tsar” and make a toast to the health of the now non-existent monarch, but this shows their despair. Everything that happens to them appears as a tragedy of people who faithfully and truly served this system, which suddenly revealed all its inconsistency, hypocrisy, and falsehood. The position of Bulgakov's heroes could not be different, because the writer himself did not feel nostalgia for the old, bourgeois Russia, its monarchical past.

House and City are the two main characters of the novel. The Turbins' house on Alekseevsky Spusk, depicted with all the features of a family idyll crossed out by the war, breathes and suffers like a living being. When it’s frosty outside, anxious and scary, there is an intimate conversation in the house, warmth emanates from the tiles of the stove, you can hear the tower clock striking in the dining room, the strumming of a guitar and the familiar voices of Alexei, Elena, Nikolka and their cheerful guests. And the City, tormented by endless battles and shelling, filled with crowds of soldiers, also lives its own life. “Beautiful in frost and fog...” - this epithet opens the narrative about the City and becomes dominant in its depiction. The image of the City emits an extraordinary light - the light of life, which is truly unquenchable. Bulgakov’s City is under God’s protection: “But the electric white cross sparkled best of all in the hands of the enormous Vladimir on Vladimirskaya Hill, and it was visible far away, and often... they found by its light... the way to the City...”

In the morning Turbin began to dream about the City. It is not called Kiev anywhere, although its signs are clear, it is just a City, but with a capital C, as something generalized, eternal. It is described in detail in the dreams of Alexei Turbin: “Like a multi-tiered honeycomb, the City smoked and made noise and lived. Beautiful in the frost and fog on the mountains, above the Dnieper. The streets were smoking with haze, the downed giant snow creaked... The gardens stood silent and calm, weighed down by white, untouched snow. And there were so many gardens in the City as in no other city in the world... In winter, like in no other city in the world, peace fell on the streets and alleys of both the upper City, on the mountains, and the lower City, spread out in the bend of the frozen Dnieper.. The City played with light and shimmered, glowed and danced and shimmered at night until the morning, and in the morning it faded away, covered in smoke and fog.” This symbolic picture combines the memories of youth, the beauty of the City and anxiety for its future, for the fate of everyone.

The “Eternal Golden City” is contrasted with the City of 1918, the existence of which brings to mind the biblical legend of Babylon. Confusion and turmoil reign in the city, which the writer often emphasizes by repeating the words: “Germans!! Germans!! Germans!!,” “Petlyura. Petliura. Petliura. Petliura”, “Patrols, patrols, patrols”. The author cannot remain indifferent to what is happening in the City (mobilization, rumors, the hetman, the proximity of Petliura, theft, murder, stupid orders of the bosses, deception, mysterious Moscow in the northeast, the Bolsheviks, close shooting and constant anxiety). Thanks to the expressive author's characteristics, the reader finds himself at the mercy of a unique effect of presence: he breathes the air of the City, absorbs its anxieties, hears the voices of the cadets, feels Elena's fear for her brothers.

With the beginning of the war, a diverse audience flocked under the shadow of the Vladimir Cross: aristocrats and bankers who fled from the capital, industrialists and merchants, poets and journalists, actresses and cocottes. Gradually, the appearance of the City loses its integrity and becomes shapeless: “The City swelled, expanded, and climbed like sourdough from a pot.” The natural course of life is disrupted, the usual order of things disintegrates. Almost all the townspeople find themselves drawn into a dirty political show.

The theme of preserving spiritual, moral and cultural traditions runs through the entire novel, but it is most clearly embodied in the image of the house. Life in this house goes against the surrounding unrest, bloodshed, destruction, and cruelty. The mistress and soul of the house is Elena Turbina-Talberg - “beautiful Elena”, the personification of beauty, kindness, and Eternal Femininity. The two-faced opportunist Talberg leaves this house. And the Turbins’ friends find shelter here, healing their wounded bodies and souls in it. And even the opportunist and coward Lisovich seeks protection here from robbers.

The Turbins' house is depicted in the novel as a fortress that is under siege, but does not surrender. The author gives his image a tall, almost philosophical meaning. According to Alexey Turbin, home is the highest value of existence, for the sake of which a person “fights and, in essence, should not fight for anything else.” The only purpose that allows one to take up arms, in his opinion, is to protect “human peace and hearth.”

Everything in the Turbins’ house is beautiful: old red velvet furniture, beds with shiny cones, cream curtains, a bronze lamp with a lampshade, books in chocolate bindings, a piano, flowers, an icon in an ancient setting, a tiled stove, a clock with a gavotte; “the tablecloth, despite the guns and all this languor, anxiety and nonsense, is white and starchy... The floors are shiny, and in December on the table in a matte vase there are blue hydrangeas and two gloomy and sultry roses, affirming the beauty and strength of life.” The atmosphere of the house is inspired by music and ever-living art. Cousin Lariosik from Zhitomir, who has found shelter in the Turbins’ house, blesses the family comfort with a simple-minded confession: “Lord, cream curtains... you can rest your soul behind them... But our wounded souls are so thirsty for peace...” The Turbins and their friends read from in the evenings and sing with a guitar, play cards, love and worry, and sacredly preserve family traditions.

For each of the novel's heroes, the war becomes a test, a test moral principles personality. It is no coincidence that in the epigraph to the novel Bulgakov places the famous lines from the Apocalypse: “and everyone will be judged in accordance with their deeds.” The main topic The novel becomes the theme of retribution for one’s actions, the theme of moral responsibility for the choices that every person makes.

Among the defenders of the monarchy were different people. Bulgakov hates high-ranking officials who think not about saving the Fatherland, but about saving their own skin. He does not hide his attitude towards the opportunist Talberg with “double-layer eyes”, the cowardly and greedy engineer Lisovich, and the unprincipled Mikhail Semenovich Shpolyansky.

But if Thalberg is a “damn doll, deprived the slightest idea about honor,” running away from a sinking ship, abandoning his brothers and wife, then the main characters of the novel are the embodiment of the best knightly qualities. Ordinary participants in the white movement, according to the author, are the heirs of the military glory of the Fatherland. When the Mortar Regiment, formed to protect the City, marched along the corridors of the Alexander Gymnasium, in the vestibule right in front of it, it was as if “the sparkling Alexander flew out,” pointing to the Borodino field. The song that was played to the words of Lermontov's "Borodino", according to the author, is a symbol of valor, courage, honor, that is, everything that distinguishes the Turbins, Myshlaevsky, Malyshev from other "gentlemen officers".

Officer's honor required the protection of the white banner, loyalty to the oath, the fatherland and the tsar. In a situation where it seems “everything is destroyed, betrayed, sold,” Alexey Turbin asks himself with bewilderment and pain: “We need to protect now... But what? Emptiness? The sound of footsteps? And yet he is not able to stay away from terrible events, to violate his duty as an officer, and rushes to those who are trying to save the Fatherland without giving its fate into the unclean hands of Petliura or Hetman Skoropadsky. Nai-Tours also follows the laws of honor and nobility. Covering the cadets, he entered into an unequal duel, left alone with his machine gun in front of the advancing cavalrymen. Colonel Malyshev is also a man of honor. Realizing the futility of resistance, he makes the only correct decision in the current situation - he dismisses the cadets to their homes. These people are ready to be with Russia in its troubles and trials, ready to defend the Fatherland, City and Home. Meeting new guests of the City, each of them sacrifices his life. The Almighty Himself takes them under His protection. With slight irony, Bulgakov depicted in the novel the kingdom of God, where the Apostle Peter receives the dead. Among them is Colonel Nai-Tours in a luminous helmet, chain mail, and a knight’s sword from the times of the Crusades. Next to him are Sergeant Zhilin, who died in the First World War, and the Bolsheviks from Perekop, and many others who grabbed “each other by the throat” and have now calmed down, having fought for their faith. The Lord God utters prophetic words: “All of you with me... are the same - killed in the battlefield.” Rising above the battle, the author sincerely mourns for all those who died: “Will anyone pay for the blood? No. Nobody. The snow will simply melt, the green Ukrainian grass will sprout, weave the ground... lush shoots will come out... the heat will tremble under the fields and there will be no traces of blood left. Cheap blood is on the fields of hearts, and no one will buy it back. Nobody".

Bulgakov believed in the natural human order on earth: “Everything will be right, the world is built on this.” In the novel “The White Guard,” the writer showed how terrible and irreversible the consequences of deviation from the accepted norms of good and bad, consecrated by more than one millennium of human culture. In this retreat the writer saw the greatest danger to humanity. He calls on his readers to remain faithful to the main principles of humanity, devotion to the ideals of Justice, Goodness and Beauty.