Composition “The theme of the Civil War in Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard. Composition "The theme of the Civil War in Bulgakov's novel" The White Guard The theme of the revolution of the civil war in the work of white

The novel by M. A. Bulgakov "The White Guard" is dedicated to the events of the Civil War. “The year was great and terrible after the Nativity of Christ 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution ...” - this is how the novel begins, which tells about the fate of the Turbin family. They live in Kyiv, on Alekseevsky Spusk. Young people - Alexei, Elena, Nikolka - were left without parents. But they have a House that contains not just things - a tiled stove, a clock that plays a gavotte, beds with shiny knobs, a lamp under a lampshade - but the structure of life, traditions, inclusion in the national life.

The Turbin House was built not on sand, but on the "stone of faith" in Russia, Orthodoxy, the tsar, and culture. And so the House and the revolution became enemies. The Revolution came into conflict with the old House in order to leave children without faith, without a roof, without culture and destitute. How will the Turbins, Myshlaevsky, Talberg, Shervinsky, Lariosik behave - all those who are involved in the House on Alekseevsky Spusk? Serious danger hung over the City.

(Bulgakov does not call it Kiev, he is a model of the whole country and a mirror of the split.) Somewhere far away, beyond the Dnieper, is Moscow, and in it are the Bolsheviks. Ukraine declared independence by proclaiming a hetman, in connection with which nationalist sentiments intensified, and ordinary Ukrainians immediately "forgot how to speak Russian, and the hetman forbade the formation of a voluntary army of Russian officers." Petlyura played on the muzhik instincts of property and independence and went to war against Kyiv (an element that opposes culture). The Russian officers turned out to be betrayed by the High Command of Russia, who swore allegiance to the emperor. A heterogeneous riffraff flocks to the City, having fled from the Bolsheviks, and brings debauchery into it: shops, pate shops, restaurants, night brothels have opened. And in this noisy, convulsive world, a drama unfolds.

The plot of the main action can be considered two "phenomena" in the Turbins' house: at night, Myshlaevsky, frozen, half-dead, infested with lice, came and told about the horrors of trench life on the outskirts of the City and the betrayal of the headquarters. On the same night, Elena's husband, Talberg, showed up to, in disguise, cowardly leave his wife and the House, betray the honor of a Russian officer and escape in a saloon car to the Don through Romania and the Crimea to Denikin. The key problem of the novel will be the attitude of the characters towards Russia.

Bulgakov justifies those who were part of a single nation and fought for the ideals of officer honor, opposed the destruction of the Fatherland. He makes it clear to the reader that in a fratricidal war there are no right and wrong, everyone is responsible for the blood of a brother.

The writer united by the concept of "White Guard" those who defended the honor of a Russian officer and man, and changed our ideas about those who, until recently, were evilly and derogatoryly called "White Guards", "Counter". Bulgakov wrote not a historical novel, but a socio-psychological canvas with access to philosophical problems: what is the Fatherland, God, man, life, feat, goodness, truth.

The dramatic climax is followed by a development of action that is very important for the plot as a whole: whether the characters will recover from the shock; Will the House on Alekseevsky Spusk be preserved? Alexei Turbin, who was running away from the Petliurists, was wounded and, being in home, for a long time he was in a borderline state, in hallucinations or losing his memory. But not a physical illness "finished off" Alexei, but a moral one: "Unpleasant ...

oh, it's unpleasant... I shouldn't have shot him...

I take the blame, of course... I'm the killer!" (remember the heroes of Tolstoy, who also take the blame). Another thing was also tormenting: “There was a world, and now this world is killed *. Not about life, he remained alive, but Turbin thinks about the world, for the Turbin breed has always carried a conciliar consciousness.

What will happen after the end of Petliura? The Reds will come... The thought remains unfinished. The House of the Turbins withstood the trials sent by the revolution, and the proof of this is the inviolable ideals of Goodness and Beauty, Honor and Duty in their souls.

Fate sends them Lariosik from Zhytomyr, a sweet, kind, unprotected big baby, and their House becomes his House. Will he accept the new one, which was called the armored train "Proletary" with sentries exhausted from military labor? Accept, because they are also brothers, they are not to blame. The red sentry also saw in the half-asleep "an incomprehensible rider in chain mail" - Zhilin from Alexei's dream, for him, a fellow villager from the village of Malyye Chugury, the intellectual Turbin in 1916 bandaged Zhilin's wound as a brother and through him, according to the author, he already "fraternized ” with a sentry from the red “Proletary”.

All - white and red - are brothers, and in the war everyone was to blame for each other. And the blue-eyed librarian Rusakov (at the end of the novel), as if from the author, pronounces the words of the just read Gospel: “...

And I saw a new sky and new land for the former heaven and the former earth have passed away…”; “The world became in the soul, and in the world he reached the words: ...

tear from the eyes, and there will be no death, there will be no more crying, no crying, no sickness, for the former has passed ... "The last words of the novel are solemn, expressing the unbearable torment of the writer - a witness to the revolution and in his own way" funeral "of all - both white and red. “The last night has blossomed. In the second half of it, all the heavy blue - the curtain of God, enveloping the world, was covered with stars. It seemed that at an immeasurable height behind this blue canopy, at the royal gates, an all-night service was being served. Above the Dnieper, from the sinful and bloody and snowy land, the midnight cross of Vladimir rose into the black, gloomy heights.

10. "White Guard" M. Bulgakov: the theme of the revolution and civil war , philosophy of man and history, poetics of novel narration. In 1925, the magazine Rossiya published the first two parts of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov's novel The White Guard, which immediately attracted the attention of connoisseurs of Russian literature. According to the writer himself, “The White Guard” is “a stubborn image of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country ...”, “an image of an intelligentsia-noble family thrown into the camp of the White Guard during the Civil War.” It tells about a very difficult time, when it was impossible to understand everything at once, to understand everything, to reconcile conflicting feelings and thoughts within themselves. This novel captures the still burning, burning memories of the city of Kyiv during the Civil War. "The White Guard" (1925) and the play "Days of the Turbins" (1926) created on his material. These were highly artistic works showing the white army from the inside. These are warriors full of valor, honor, faithful to the duty of protecting Russia. They give their lives for Russia, its honor - as they understand it. Bulgakov appears as a tragic and romantic artist at the same time. The house of the Turbins, where there was so much warmth, tenderness, mutual understanding, is interpreted as a symbol of Russia. Bulgakov's heroes die defending their Russia. In 1926, during an interrogation at the OGPU, the writer courageously and frankly admitted that during the civil war his sympathies were entirely on the side of the whites. Bulgakov saw the revolution as the greatest catastrophe for Russia and its people. I think that in his work, Bulgakov wanted to affirm the idea that people, although they perceive events differently, treat them differently, strive for peace, for the settled, familiar, established. So the Turbins want all of them to live together as a family in their parents' apartment, where everything is familiar from childhood, where the house is a fortress, there are always flowers on a snow-white tablecloth, music, books, peaceful tea parties at a large table, and in the evenings, when the whole family together, reading aloud and playing the guitar. Their life developed normally, without any shocks and mysteries, nothing unexpected or accidental came to their house. Here everything was strictly organized, ordered, determined for many years to come. And if it were not for the war and the revolution, then their life would have passed in peace and comfort. But the terrible events taking place in the city violated their plans and assumptions. The time has come when it was necessary to determine one's life and civic positions. I think that it is not external events that convey the course of the revolution and the Civil War, not a change of power, but moral conflicts and contradictions that drive the plot of The White Guard. Historical events are the backdrop against which human destinies are revealed. Bulgakov is interested in the inner world of a person who has fallen into such a cycle of events when it is difficult to keep one's face, when it is difficult to remain oneself. If at the beginning of the novel the characters try to shrug off politics, then later the course of events is drawn into the thick of revolutionary clashes. Alexei Turbin, like his friends, is for the monarchy. Everything new that enters their life brings, it seems to him, only bad things. Completely politically undeveloped, he wanted only one thing - peace, the opportunity to joyfully live near his mother, his beloved brother and sister. And only at the end of the novel, the Turbins are disappointed in the old and understand that there is no return to it. The turning point for the Turbins and other heroes of the novel is December 14, 1918, the battle with the Petliura troops, which was supposed to be a test of strength before subsequent battles with the Red Army, but turned into a defeat, a rout. It seems to me that the description of this day of battle is the heart of the novel, its central part. In this catastrophe, the “white” movement and such heroes of the novel as Itman, Petliura and Talberg are revealed to the participants in the events in their true light - with humanity and betrayal, with cowardice and meanness of the “generals” and “staff”. A hunch flashes that everything is a chain of mistakes and delusions, that the duty is not to protect the collapsed monarchy and the traitor hetman, and honor is in something else. perishes royal Russia, but Russia is alive ... On the day of the battle, a decision arises on the surrender of the White Guard. Colonel Malyshev learns in time about the flight of the hetman and manages to withdraw his division without loss. But this act was not easy for him - perhaps the most decisive, most courageous act in his life. “I, a career officer who endured the war with the Germans ... I take responsibility on my conscience, everything!., everything!., I warn you! I'm sending you home! It's clear? ” Colonel Nai-Turs will have to make this decision several hours later, under enemy fire, in the middle of a fateful day: “Guys! Guys! .. Staff stegs! .. ” The last words that the colonel uttered in his life were addressed to Nikolka: “Unteg-tseg, please be a hero to the che-ty ...” But he, it seems, did not draw any conclusions. At night after the death of Nai, Nikolka hides - in case of Petliura searches - the revolvers of Nai-Turs and Alexei, shoulder straps, a chevron and a card of Alexei's heir. But the day of the battle and the month and a half of Petliurist domination that followed, I believe, is too short a time for the recent hatred of the Bolsheviks, “hot and direct hatred, that which can move into a fight,” turned into recognition of opponents. But this event made such recognition possible in the future. Bulgakov devotes much attention to clarifying Thalberg's position. This is the antipode of the Turbins. He is a careerist and opportunist, a coward, a person devoid of moral foundations and moral principles. It costs nothing for him to change his beliefs, as long as it is beneficial for his career. IN February Revolution he was the first to put on a red bow, took part in the arrest of General Petrov. But events quickly flickered, the authorities often changed in the city. And Thalberg did not have time to understand them. The position of the hetman, supported by German bayonets, seemed to him so solid, but even this, yesterday so unshakable, today fell apart like dust. And now he needs to run, to save himself, and he leaves his wife Elena, for whom he has tenderness, leaves the service and the hetman, whom he recently worshiped. He leaves his home, family, hearth and, in fear of danger, runs into the unknown... All the heroes of the “White Guard” have withstood the test of time and suffering. Only Thalberg, in pursuit of success and fame, lost the most valuable thing in life - friends, love, and his homeland. Turbines, on the other hand, were able to save their home, save life values, and most importantly, honor, managed to withstand the whirlpool of events that swept Russia. This family, following Bulgakov's thought, is the embodiment of the color of the Russian intelligentsia, that generation of young people who are trying to honestly understand what is happening. This is the guard that made its choice and stayed with its people, found its place in the new Russia. The novel by M. Bulgakov “The White Guard” is a book of path and choice, a book of insight. But the main idea of ​​the author, I think, is in the following words of the novel: “Everything will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain, when the shadow of our deeds and bodies will not remain on earth. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to turn our eyes to them? Why? "And the whole novel is the author's call for peace, justice, truth on earth.

46. ​​Depiction of revolution and civil war in M. Bulgakov's novel "White Guard"

The novel action ends in 1925, and the work tells about the revolutionary events in Kyiv in the winter of 1918-1919. It tells about a very difficult time, when it was impossible to understand everything at once, to understand everything, to reconcile conflicting feelings and thoughts within themselves. This novel captures the still burning, burning memories of the city of Kyiv during the Civil War.

The White Guard (1925) is a work of fiction showing the inside of the White Army. These are warriors full of valor, honor, faithful to the duty of protecting Russia. They give their lives for Russia, its honor - as they understand it. Bulgakov appears as a tragic and romantic artist at the same time. The house of the Turbins, where there was so much warmth, tenderness, mutual understanding, is interpreted as a symbol of Russia. Bulgakov's heroes die defending their Russia.

The social cataclysm exposes the characters - someone runs, someone prefers death in battle.

The narration is complex and multifaceted: there is an objective narration, a fantastic, fairy-tale manner, lyrical essays. The composition is complex: the montage of various pieces: the history of the Turbin family, the change of power, the rampage of the elements during the civil war, battle scenes, the fate of individual heroes. The ring composition begins and ends with a premonition of the apocalypse, the symbolism of which permeates the entire novel. The bloody events of civil war are depicted as Last Judgment. The "end of the world" has come, but the Turbines continue to live on - their salvation, this is their home, the hearth that Elena looks after, it is not in vain that the old life, the details (up to the mother's service) are emphasized.

Through the fate of the Turbins, B opens up the drama of the revolution and the civil war. The problem of moral choice in the play: Alexey - either to remain faithful to the oath, or to save the lives of people, he chooses lives: “Tear off your shoulder straps, throw your rifles and immediately go home!”. Human life is the highest value. B. took the revolution of 17 not only as a turning point in the history of Russia, but also in the fate of the Russian intelligentsia. In The White Guard, the largely autobiographical intelligent family of the Turbins is drawn into the events of the civil war. The main distinguishing feature of the novel is that the events of the revolution are maximally humanized in it. B's departure from the negative portrayal of the white movement brought accusations against the writer of trying to justify the white movement. For B, the house of the Turbins is the embodiment of that R, which is dear to him. G. Adamovich noted that the author showed his heroes in "misfortunes and defeats." The events of the revolution in the novel are "humanized to the maximum." “This was especially noticeable against the background of the familiar image of the “revolutionary masses” in the works of A. Serafimovich, B. Pilnyak, A. Bely and others,” Muromsky wrote.

The main theme is a historical catastrophe. B connects the personal with the socio-historical, puts the fate of an individual in connection with the fate of the country. Pushkin's principle of depiction is tradition - historical events through the fate of individuals. The death of the City is like the collapse of an entire civilization. The rejection of the methods of revolutionary violence in order to create a society of social harmony, the condemnation of the fratricidal war is expressed in the images of the prophetic dream of Alexei Turbin, in which the sergeant major Zhilin appears to him, who died in 1916 along with a squadron of hussars, and talks about paradise, in which he ended up and about the events of the civil war. The image of paradise, in a cat there is a place for everyone, they are “lonely killed” and white and red. It is no coincidence that in the prophetic dream of Alexei Turbin, the Lord says to the deceased Zhilin: "All of you, Zhilin, are the same - killed in the battlefield."

The turning point for the Turbins and other heroes of the novel is December 14, 1918, the battle with the Petliura troops, which was supposed to be a test of strength before subsequent battles with the Red Army, but turned into a defeat, a rout. This is the turning point and climax of the novel. A hunch flashes that everything is a chain of mistakes and delusions, that the duty is not to protect the collapsed monarchy and the traitor hetman, and honor is in something else. Tsarist Russia is dying, but Russia is alive...

One of the play's comical characters, Zhytomyr's cousin Larion, delivers an exalted monologue: “... My fragile ship was battered by the waves of the civil war for a long time... Until it was washed up in this harbor with cream curtains, among the people that I liked so much .. .". Bulgakov saw the ideal in preserving the "cream curtain harbor", even though time had turned. Bulgakov clearly saw the Bolsheviks as a better alternative to the Petliura freemen and believed that the intellectuals who had survived the fire of the civil war should, reluctantly, come to terms with the Soviet regime. However, at the same time, one should preserve the dignity and inviolability of the inner spiritual world,

"White Guard" lies entirely in line with the traditions of Russian classical realistic prose. The society is depicted on the eve of its death. The task of the artist is to depict the dramatic reality of the real world as authentically as possible. Artistic means were not needed here.

A novel about historical upheaval. Bulgakov succeeded in portraying what Blok once foresaw, only without romantic pathos. There is no distance between the author and his hero - one of the main features of the work (although the novel is written in 3rd person). Psychologically, it does not exist, because. depicted the death of that part of society to which the author belongs, and he merges with his hero.

The only depoliticized novel about revolution and civil war. In other works, the confrontation of the parties was depicted everywhere, there was always a problem of choice. Sometimes the psychological complexity of the choice was demonstrated, sometimes the right to make a mistake. Complexity was required, the right to make mistakes too. An exception - perhaps, "Quiet Don".

Bulgakov portrays what is happening as a universal tragedy, with no choice. The very fact of the revolution for the artist is an act of destruction of the social environment to which the author and the characters belong. The White Guard is a novel about the end of life. The destruction of the environment necessarily entails the destruction of the meaning of existence. Physically, a person can be saved, but it will be a different person. The attitude of the author to what is happening is open. The last episode is symbolic: a picture close to the apocalypse is what the city expects. Final scene: night, city, freezing sentinel, he sees a red star - Mars - this is an apocalyptic picture.

The novel begins with a quiet bell ringing, and ends with a funeral, universal thunder of bells. (sic!) which heralds the death of the city.

M. Bulgakov's novel The White Guard (1922-1924) reflects the events of the civil war of the period 1918-1919. in his hometown of Kyiv. Bulgakov considers these events not from class or political positions, but from purely human ones. Whoever seizes the city - the hetman, the Petliurists or the Bolsheviks - blood inevitably flows, hundreds of people die in agony, while others become even more terribly hardened. Violence breeds more violence. This is what worries the writer the most.

The central image is the House, a symbol of the native hearth. Having gathered the heroes in the house on the eve of Christmas, the author thinks about the possible fate of both the characters themselves and the whole of Russia. “The year was great and terrible after the Nativity of Christ 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution ...” - this is how the novel begins, which tells about the fate of the Turbin family. They live in Kyiv, on Alekseevsky Spusk. Young people - Alexei, Elena, Nikolka - were left without parents. But they have a Home that contains not just things, but a way of life, traditions, inclusion in the national life. The Turbin House was erected on the "stone of faith" in Russia, Orthodoxy, the tsar, and culture. And so the House and the revolution became enemies. The Revolution came into conflict with the old House in order to leave children without faith, without a roof, without culture and destitute.

The first chapters of the novel "White Guard" appeared on the pages of the magazine "Russia" in 1924. But due to the closure of the journal, the writer could not publish the novel in its entirety. In the center of the work are several episodes of the civil war in Ukraine.

The novel action ends in 1925, and the work tells about the revolutionary events in Kyiv in the winter of 1918-1919. It was a difficult, disturbing time when the Soviet government was hard to win its right to exist. M. Voloshin wrote that Bulgakov became the first writer "who captured the soul of Russian strife."

M.A. Bulgakov in his novel truthfully showed that confusion, turmoil, and then a bloody orgy that reigned in Kyiv at that time. But The White Guard is also a book about Russian history, its philosophy, and the fate of classical Russian culture. Bulgakov emphasized that his novel is about people tragically lost in the "iron blizzard of the revolution." In his work, the author reflects on the fate of Russia, the people, the intelligentsia.

Bulgakov's book is autobiographical. The writer's father was a teacher at the Kyiv Theological Academy. Mikhail himself graduated from the 1st Kyiv gymnasium, then the medical faculty of the university. During the First World War, the future writer worked as a zemstvo doctor in the countryside. Then he moved to Vyazma. Here he found the revolution. From here, in 1918, Mikhail Afanasyevich made his way to his native Kyiv. There he and his family had a chance to go through a difficult and instructive phase of the civil war, which was later described in the novel The White Guard.

In the center of the story is a friendly and intelligent, a little sentimental family. Alexei, Elena, Nikolka The turbines are drawn into the whirlpool of dramatic and fateful events of the winter of 1918-1919 in Kyiv.

Ukraine of that time becomes the scene of fierce battles between the Red Army, Germans, White Guards and Petliurists. It was difficult then to figure out who to follow, who to oppose, on whose side the truth was. And at the beginning of the novel, the writer shows how Aleksey, Nikolka, their close friends - Myshlaevsky, Karas, and just officers they know in the service - are trying to organize the defense of the city, to keep Petliura out. But, deceived by the General Staff and allies, they become hostages of their own oath and sense of honor.

We see the situation of the Turbins, army officers, ensigns, former students, "knocked off the screws of life by war and revolution." It is they who take upon themselves the most brutal blows of wartime. Sympathizing in their hearts with the peasants who are being robbed and shot by the Germans, they rally into the White Guard to fight for the monarchy.

When Shervinsky reports that the sovereign has not been killed, the Turbins are drunk for "the health of his imperial majesty." The author shows the white junkers not as villains, but as youths from their class environment. Turbines are not involved in politics.

Bulgakov deliberately departs from the emphatically negative image of the White Guards. The position of the writer brought on him accusations of justifying the white movement: after all, he makes his heroes victims of history, a tragic collision from which there is no way out.

G. Adamovich noted that the author showed his heroes in "misfortunes and defeats." The events of the revolution in the novel are "humanized to the maximum." “This was especially noticeable against the background of the familiar image of the “revolutionary masses” in the works of A. Serafimovich, B. Pilnyak, A. Bely and others,” Muromsky wrote.

The author constructs an original space using the annalistic style: “Great was the year and terrible year after the birth of Christ 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution ... Great was the year and terrible year after the birth of Christ 1918, but 1919 was even more terrible.” The phrases, as it were, cut the story, reinforcing the general idea of ​​the work and giving epic depth to specific facts.

The wise Bulgakov, a witness of the revolution and its consequences for the life of Russia, mourns equally for all those who died and suffered at the sharp turns of history - both the “reds” and the “whites”, because he does not see the guilty and the right in the civil war. It is no coincidence that in the prophetic dream of Alexei Turbin, the Lord says to the deceased Zhilin: "All of you, Zhilin, are the same - killed in the battlefield."

There are eternal values ​​that exist outside of time, and Bulgakov was able to talentedly and sincerely tell about them in his novel The White Guard. The author ends his story with prophetic words. His heroes on the eve of a new life. They believe that the worst is in the past. And together with the author, the characters, we believe in the good and we: “Everything will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain when even the shadow of our bodies does not remain on the earth. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to turn our eyes to them? Why?"

Chapter 2. Features of the image of the revolution and civil war in the novel "The White Guard"

The son of a professor at the Kiev Academy, who absorbed the best traditions of Russian culture and spirituality, M. A. Bulgakov graduated from the medical faculty in Kiev, from 1916 he worked as a zemstvo doctor in the village of Nikolskoye, Smolensk province, and then in Vyazma, where the revolution found him. From here, in 1918, Bulgakov finally moved through Moscow to his native Kiev, and there he and his relatives had a chance to go through a difficult phase of the civil war, which was later described in the novel The White Guard, the plays The Days of the Turbins, The Run, and numerous stories.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov revolution of October 1917. He perceived it as a turning point not only in the history of Russia, but also in the fate of the Russian intelligentsia, with whom he rightly considered himself to be related by blood. The post-revolutionary tragedy of the intelligentsia, which found itself in the maelstrom of the civil war, and after its end, in large part - in emigration, the writer captured in his first novel "The White Guard" and the play "Running".

There is a lot of autobiographical in the novel "The White Guard", but it is not only a description of one's life experience during the years of the revolution and the civil war, but also an insight into the problem of "Man and the epoch"; it is also the study of an artist who sees the inextricable link between Russian history and philosophy.

This is a book about the fate of classical culture in the formidable era of the scrap of age-old traditions. The problems of the novel are extremely close to Bulgakov, he loved The White Guard more than his other works. In an epigraph from Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter, Bulgakov emphasized that we are talking about people who were overtaken by the storm of revolution, but who were able to find the right path, maintain courage and a sober view of the world and their place in it.

The second epigraph is biblical. And with this, Bulgakov introduces us into the zone of eternal time, without introducing any historical comparisons into the novel. The motive of the epigraphs is developed by the epic beginning of the novel: “The year was great and terrible after the birth of Christ 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution. It was abundant in summer with sun, and in winter with snow, and two stars stood especially high in the sky: the shepherd's star Venus and red trembling Mars. The beginning style is almost biblical. The associations make us remember the eternal Book of Genesis, which in itself materializes the eternal in a peculiar way, just like the image of the stars in the heavens. The specific time of history is, as it were, soldered into the eternal time of being, framed by it. The confrontation of the stars, the natural series of images related to the eternal, at the same time symbolizes the collision of historical time.

In the beginning of the work, majestic, tragic and poetic, there is a grain of social and philosophical problems associated with the opposition of peace and war, life and death, death and immortality. The choice of stars (Venus and Mars) makes it possible for us, readers, to descend from the cosmic distance to the world of the Turbins, since it is this world that will resist enmity and madness.

In The White Guard, the sweet, quiet, intelligent Turbin family suddenly becomes involved in great events, becomes a witness and participant in terrible and amazing things. The days of the Turbins absorb the eternal charm of calendar time: “But the days in both peaceful and bloody years fly like an arrow, and the young Turbins did not notice how white, shaggy December came in a hard frost. Oh, Christmas grandfather, sparkling with snow and happiness! Mom, bright queen, where are you? Memories of mother and former life contrast with the real situation of the bloody eighteenth year. A great misfortune - the loss of a mother - merges into another terrible catastrophe - the collapse of the old, seemingly strong and beautiful world. Both catastrophes give rise to internal absent-mindedness, mental pain of the Turbins.

In Bulgakov's novel there are two spatial scales - small and large space, Home and World. These spaces are in opposition, like stars in the sky, each of them has its own correlation with time, contains a certain time. The small space of the Turbins’ house preserves the strength of everyday life: “The tablecloth, despite the guns and all this languor, anxiety and nonsense, is white and starchy ... The floors are shiny, and in December, now, on the table, in a matte, columnar vase, blue hydrangeas and two gloomy and sultry roses. Flowers in the house of the Turbins are the beauty and strength of life. Already in this detail, the small space of the house begins to absorb eternal time, the very interior of the Turbins’ house is “a bronze lamp under a shade, the best bookcases in the world with books smelling of mysterious old chocolate, with Natasha Rostova, the Captain’s daughter, gilded cups, silver, portraits, curtains” - all this small space enclosed by walls contains the eternal - the immortality of art, milestones of culture.

The House of the Turbins is opposed to the outside world, in which destruction, horror, inhumanity, and death reign. But the House cannot separate, leave the city, it is a part of it, like a city is a part of the earthly space. And at the same time, this earthly space of social passions and battles is included in the expanses of the World.

The city, according to Bulgakov's description, was "beautiful in the frost and in the fog on the mountains, above the Dnieper." But its appearance changed dramatically, “... industrialists, merchants, lawyers, public figures fled here. Journalists fled, Moscow and St. Petersburg, corrupt and greedy, cowardly. Cocottes, honest ladies from aristocratic families...” and many others. And the city began to live “a strange, unnatural life...”

The evolutionary course of history is suddenly and menacingly disrupted, and man finds himself at its breaking point. The image of a large and small space of life grows in Bulgakov in opposition to the destructive time of war and the eternal time of Peace.

You can’t sit out a hard time, shutting yourself off from him like the landlord Vasilisa is “an engineer and a coward, a bourgeois and unsympathetic”. This is how Lisovich is perceived by Turbines, who do not like petty-bourgeois isolation, narrow-mindedness, hoarding, isolation from life. Whatever happens, they will not count the coupons, hiding in a dark room, like Vasily Lisovich, who only dreams of surviving the storm and not losing the accumulated capital.

Turbines meet a formidable time differently. They do not change themselves in anything, they do not change their way of life. Every day, friends gather in their house, who are met by light, warmth, and a laid table. Nikolkin's guitar rings with brute force - despair and defiance even in the face of an impending catastrophe. Everything honest and pure, like a magnet, is attracted by the House.

Here, in this coziness of the House, Myshlaevsky, deadly frozen, comes from the terrible World. A man of honor, like Turbins, he did not leave his post near the city, where in a terrible frost forty people waited for a day in the snow, without fires, a shift that would never have come if Colonel Nai-Tours, also a man of honor and duty, could not, in spite of the disgrace happening at the headquarters, bring two hundred junkers, through the efforts of Nai-Turs, beautifully dressed and armed. Some time will pass, and Nai-Turs, realizing that he and his cadets have been treacherously abandoned by the command, that his guys are destined for the fate of cannon fodder, at the cost own life save his boys.

The lines of the Turbins and Nai-Tours will intertwine in the fate of Nikolka, who witnessed the last heroic minutes of the colonel's life. Admired by the feat and humanism of the colonel, Nikolka will do the impossible - he will be able to overcome the seemingly insurmountable in order to pay Nai-Turs his last duty - to bury him with dignity and become a close person for the mother and sister of the deceased hero.

The fates of all truly decent people are contained in the world of the Turbins, whether they are the courageous officers Myshlaevsky and Stepanov, or deeply civilian by nature, but not avoiding what befell him in the era of hard times, Alexei Turbin, or even the completely, it would seem, ridiculous Lariosik. But it was Lariosik who managed to quite accurately express the very essence of the House, opposing the era of cruelty and violence. Lariosik spoke about himself, but many could subscribe to these words, “that he suffered a drama, but here, at Elena Vasilyevna’s, his soul comes to life, because this is an absolutely exceptional person Elena Vasilyevna and their apartment is warm and comfortable, and especially wonderful cream curtains on all windows, thanks to which you feel cut off from the outside world ... And he, this outside world ... you will agree yourself, formidable, bloody and meaningless. There, outside the windows, is the merciless destruction of everything that was valuable in Russia. Here, behind the curtains, is an unshakable belief that everything beautiful must be protected and preserved, that it is necessary under any circumstances, that it is feasible. “... Hours, fortunately, are absolutely immortal, both the Saardam Carpenter and the Dutch tile are immortal, like a wise rock, life-giving and hot in the most difficult time.”

In The White Guard, in a largely autobiographical work, the intelligent Turbin family is drawn into the events of the civil war in an unnamed City, behind which Bulgakov's native Kiev is easily guessed. Main character novel, older brother Alexei Turbin, a military doctor who has seen a lot during the three years of World War II. He is one of the thousands of officers of the old Russian army who, after the revolution, have to make a choice between the opposing sides, to serve voluntarily or involuntarily in one of the warring armies.

The plot of the main action can be considered two "phenomena" in the Turbins' house: at night, Myshlaevsky, frozen, half-dead, infested with lice, came, who told about the horrors of trench life on the outskirts of the City and the betrayal of the headquarters. On the same night, Elena's husband, Talberg, showed up to, in disguise, cowardly leave his wife and the House, betray the honor of a Russian officer and escape in a saloon car to the Don through Romania and the Crimea to Denikin. “Oh damn doll, devoid of the slightest concept of honor! .., and this is an officer of the Russian military academy,” thought Alexei Turbin, he was tormented and read in the book with inflamed eyes: “... Holy Rus' is a country made of wood, impoverished and ... dangerous, and for a Russian person honor is only an extra burden.

The word honor, flashing for the first time in a conversation between Turbine and Elena, becomes the key one, moves the plot and grows into the main problem of the novel. The attitude of the heroes towards Russia, specific actions will divide them into two camps. We feel a growing tension in the pulsating rhythm of the novel: Petliura is already surrounded by the beautiful City. The youth of the Turbins decided to go to the headquarters of Malyshev and enroll in the Volunteer Army. But Bulgakov arranges a serious test for Alexei Turbin: he dreams prophetic dream which puts before the hero new problem: But what if the truth of the Bolsheviks has the same right to be as the truth of the defenders of the throne, fatherland, culture and Orthodoxy?

And Alexey saw Colonel Nai-Turs in a luminous helmet, in chain mail, with a long sword, and experienced a sweet thrill from the consciousness that he had seen paradise. Then a huge knight in chain mail appeared - the sergeant major Zhilin, who died in 1916 in the Vilna direction. Both eyes were "clear, bottomless, illuminated from within." Zhilin and told Alexei that the apostle Peter, in response to his question, “for whom are five huge buildings prepared in paradise?” - answered: "And this is for the Bolsheviks, who are from Perekop." And Turbin's soul was confused: “Bolsheviks? You are confusing something, Zhilin, this cannot be. They won't let them in." No, Zhilin did not confuse anything, because to his words that, they say, the Bolsheviks do not believe in God, and therefore must go to hell, the Lord replied: “Well, they don’t believe ... what can you do ... One believes, the other does not believes, but everyone has the same actions ... All of you, Zhilin, are the same - killed in the battlefield. Why this prophetic dream in the novel? And to express the author's position, coinciding with Voloshin's: "I pray for both," and for a possible revision of Turbin's decision to fight in the White Guard. He realized that in a fratricidal war there are no right and wrong, everyone is responsible for the blood of a brother.

In the "White Guard" two groups of officers are contrasted - those who "hated the Bolsheviks with a hot and direct hatred, one that could move into a fight", and "who returned from the war to their familiar nests with the same thought, like Alexei Turbin - rest and arrange anew not military, but ordinary human life. However, Alexei and his younger brother Nikolka cannot avoid participating in the fight. They, as part of officer squads, participate in the hopeless defense of the city, where the government of the unsupported operetta hetman sits against Petlyura's army, which enjoys the broad support of the Ukrainian peasantry. However, the Turbin brothers serve in the hetman's army for only a few hours. True, the elder manages to get wounded and shoot a man in a shootout with the Petliurists pursuing him. Alexei does not intend to participate in the civil war anymore. Nikolka is still going to fight the Reds as part of a volunteer army, and the finale contains a hint of his future death during the defense of the Wrangel Crimea at Perekop.

The writer himself is clearly on the side of Alexei Turbin, who is striving for a peaceful life, for preserving family foundations, for establishing a normal life, for organizing life, despite the domination of the Bolsheviks, who destroyed the old life and are trying to replace the old culture with a new, revolutionary one. Bulgakov embodied in the "White Guard" his idea of ​​\u200b\u200bpreserving the home, the native hearth after all the upheavals of the revolution and the civil war. The house that Aleksey is trying to preserve in the ocean of social storms is the house of the Turbins, in which one can guess Bulgakov's house on Andreevsky Spusk in Kyiv.

The play The Days of the Turbins grew out of the novel, where the same theme arose in the final scene, but in a somewhat reduced form. One of the play's comical characters, the Zhytomyr cousin Lariosik, delivers an exalted monologue: “... My fragile ship was rattled along the waves of the civil war for a long time ... Until it was washed up in this harbor with cream curtains, among the people that I liked so much .. However, I found a drama among them too... But let's not remember the sorrows... Time turned, and Petlyura disappeared. We are alive... yes... all together again... And more than that."

Elena Vasilievna, she also suffered a lot and deserves happiness, because she is a wonderful woman. And I want to tell her in the words of the writer: “We will rest, we will rest ...” Here Sonya’s words from the finale of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” are quoted, with which the famous one adjoins: “we will see the whole sky in diamonds.” Bulgakov saw the ideal in preserving the "cream curtain harbor", even though time had turned.

Bulgakov clearly saw the Bolsheviks as a better alternative to the Petliura freemen and believed that the intellectuals who had survived the fire of the civil war should, reluctantly, come to terms with the Soviet regime. However, at the same time, one should preserve the dignity and inviolability of the inner spiritual world, and not go for unprincipled surrender.

The white idea turned out to be weak before the red one, discredited by the cowardice and selfishness of the headquarters, the stupidity of the leaders. However, this does not mean that the ideas of the Bolsheviks who won the civil war in moral attitude in any way attractive to Bulgakov. There is also violence, also blood, for which no one will answer, as emphasized in the finale of the White Guard.

Historical events are the backdrop against which human destinies are revealed. Bulgakov is interested in the inner world of a person who has fallen into such a cycle of events when it is difficult to keep one's face, when it is difficult to remain oneself. If at the beginning of the novel the characters try to shrug off politics, then later the course of events is drawn into the thick of revolutionary clashes.

Alexei Turbin, like his friends, is for the monarchy. Everything new that enters their life brings, it seems to him, only bad things. Completely politically undeveloped, he wanted only one thing - peace, the opportunity to joyfully live near his mother, his beloved brother and sister. And only at the end of the novel, the Turbins are disappointed in the old and understand that there is no return to it.

The turning point for the Turbins and other heroes of the novel is December 14, 1918, the battle with the Petliura troops, which was supposed to be a test of strength before subsequent battles with the Red Army, but turned into a defeat, a rout. Perhaps the description of this day of battle is the heart of the novel, its central part.

December 14, 1918 Why did Bulgakov choose this particular date? For the sake of parallel: 1825 and 1918? But what do they have in common? There is one thing in common: “charming dandies”, Russian officers defended honor on Senate Square - one of the highly moral concepts. Bulgakov once again reminds us with the date that history is a surprisingly complex and inconsistent thing: in 1825, noble officers went against the tsar, voting for a republic, and in 1918 they came to their senses in the face of “fatherlessness” and terrible anarchy. God, the tsar, the head of the family - everything was united by the concept of "father", who keeps Russia forever and ever.

How did the heroes of the novel behave on December 14? They were dying in the snow under the pressure of the Petliura peasants. “But not a single person should break my word of honor, because it will be impossible to live in the world,” thought the youngest, Nikolka, expressing the position of those whom Bulgakov united with the concept of “white guard”, who defended the honor of a Russian officer and man and changed our ideas about those who, until recently, were evilly and derogatoryly called "White Guards", "counterparts".

In this catastrophe, the “white” movement and such heroes of the novel as Petlyura and Talberg are revealed to the participants in the events in their true light - with humanity and betrayal, with cowardice and meanness of the “generals” and “staff”. A hunch flashes that everything is a chain of mistakes and delusions, that the duty is not to protect the collapsed monarchy and the traitor hetman, and honor is in something else. Tsarist Russia is dying, but Russia is alive...

On the day of the battle, a decision arises on the surrender of the White Guard. Colonel Malyshev learns in time about the flight of the hetman and manages to withdraw his division without loss. But this act was not easy for him - perhaps the most resolute, most courageous act in his life. “I, a career officer who endured the war with the Germans ... I take responsibility on my conscience, everything!., everything!., I warn you! I'm sending you home! It's clear?" Colonel Nai-Turs will have to make this decision several hours later, under enemy fire, in the middle of a fateful day: “Guys! Guys! .. Staff stegs! .. ” The last words that the colonel uttered in his life were addressed to Nikolka: “Unteg-tseg, please be a hero to the che-ty ...” But he, it seems, did not draw any conclusions. On the night after Nai's death, Nikolka hides - in case of Petliura searches - the revolvers of Nai-Turs and Alexei, epaulettes, a chevron and a card of Alexei's heir.

But the day of the battle and the month and a half of Petliurist domination that followed, I believe, is too short a time for the recent hatred of the Bolsheviks, “hot and direct hatred, that which can move into a fight,” turned into recognition of opponents. But this event made such recognition possible in the future.

Bulgakov devotes much attention to clarifying Thalberg's position. This is the antipode of the Turbins. He is a careerist and opportunist, a coward, a person devoid of moral foundations and moral principles. It costs nothing for him to change his beliefs, as long as it is beneficial for his career. In the February Revolution, he was the first to put on a red bow, took part in the arrest of General Petrov. But events quickly flickered, the authorities often changed in the city. And Thalberg did not have time to understand them. The position of the hetman, supported by German bayonets, seemed to him so solid, but even this, yesterday so unshakable, today fell apart like dust. And now he needs to run, to save himself, and he leaves his wife Elena, for whom he has tenderness, leaves the service and the hetman, whom he recently worshiped. He leaves his home, his family, his hearth, and in fear of danger he runs into the unknown...

All the heroes of the "White Guard" have withstood the test of time and suffering. Only Thalberg, in pursuit of success and fame, lost the most valuable thing in life - friends, love, and his homeland. Turbines, on the other hand, were able to save their home, save life's values, and most importantly, honor, managed to withstand the whirlpool of events that swept Russia. This family, following Bulgakov's thought, is the embodiment of the flower of the Russian intelligentsia, that generation of young people who are trying to honestly understand what is happening. This is the guard that made its choice and stayed with its people, found its place in the new Russia.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov is a complex writer, but at the same time he clearly and simply sets out the highest philosophical questions in his works. His novel The White Guard tells about the dramatic events unfolding in Kyiv in the winter of 1918-1919. The writer speaks dialectically about the deeds of human hands: about war and peace, about human enmity and wonderful unity - “the family, where only you can hide from the horrors of the surrounding chaos.”

And outside the windows - "the eighteenth year is flying to an end and every day it looks more menacing, bristly." And Aleksey Turbin thinks with anxiety not about his possible death, but about the death of the House: “Walls will fall, an alarmed falcon will fly off from a white mitten, the fire will go out in a bronze lamp, and the Captain’s Daughter will be burned in the furnace.” But, perhaps, love and devotion are given the power to protect and save, and the House will be saved? There is no clear answer to this question in the novel. There is a confrontation between the center of peace and culture to the Petliura gangs, which are being replaced by the Bolsheviks.

Mikhail Bulgakov justifies those who were part of a single nation and fought for the ideals of officer honor, passionately opposing the destruction of a mighty fatherland.

The House of Turbins withstood the trials sent by the revolution, and this is evidenced by the inviolable ideals of Goodness and Beauty, Honor and Duty in their souls. Fate sends them Lariosik from Zhytomyr, a sweet, kind, unprotected big baby, and their House becomes his House. Will he accept the new one, which was called the armored train "Proletary" with sentries exhausted from military labor?

One of the last sketches in the novel is a description of the armored train “Proletary”. Horror and disgust emanates from this picture: “He hissed softly and angrily, something oozed in the side shots, his blunt snout was silent and squinted into the Dnieper forests. From the last platform, a wide muzzle in a deaf muzzle was aimed at the heights, black and blue, for twenty versts and straight at the midnight cross. Bulgakov knows that in old Russia there were many things that led to the tragedy of the country.

But the writer claims that the House will accept a Red Army sentry, because they are brothers, they are not guilty and at the same time guilty of having to participate in a fratricidal war. The red sentry also saw in the half-asleep "an incomprehensible rider in chain mail" - Zhilin from Alexei's dream, for him, a fellow villager from the village of Malyye Chugury, the intellectual Turbin in 1916 bandaged the wound of Zhilin as a brother and through him, according to the author, already " fraternized with a sentry from the Red Proletarian.

All - white and red - are brothers, and in the war everyone was to blame for each other. And the blue-eyed librarian Rusakov (at the end of the novel), as if from the author, pronounces the words of the just read Gospel: “... And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the former heaven and the former earth had passed ...”; “The world became in the soul, and in the world he reached the words: ... a tear from my eyes, and there will be no death, there will be no more crying, no crying, no sickness, for the former has passed ...”

Solemn are the last words of the novel, which expressed the unbearable torment of the writer - a witness to the revolution and, in his own way, "buried" everyone - both white and red.

“The last night has blossomed. In the second floorboard, all the heavy blue - the curtain of God, enveloping the world, was covered with stars. It seemed that at an immeasurable height behind this blue canopy, at the royal gates, an all-night service was being served. Above the Dnieper, from the sinful and bloody and snowy land, the midnight cross of Vladimir rose into the black, gloomy heights.

When the writer was finishing his novel in the first half of the 1920s, he still believed that with Soviet power it is possible to restore a normal life, without fear and violence.

In the finale of the White Guard, he predicted: “Everything will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, hunger and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain, when the shadow of our bodies and deeds will not remain on earth. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to turn our eyes to them? Why?"

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