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 magazine, the writer was unable to publish the novel in its entirety. The work centers on several episodes. civil war in Ukraine.

The novel's action ends in 1925, and the work tells the story of the revolutionary events in Kyiv in the winter of 1918-1919. It was a difficult, alarming time, when the Soviet government was difficult 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 the confusion, turmoil, and then the 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 who tragically got lost in the “iron storm of the revolution.” In his work, the author reflects on the fate of Russia, the people, and the intelligentsia.

Bulgakov's book is autobiographical. The writer's father was a teacher at the Kyiv Theological Academy. Mikhail himself graduated from the First Kyiv Gymnasium, then from 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. This is where the revolution found him. From here, in 1918, Mikhail Afanasyevich made his way to his native Kyiv. There he and his relatives had the opportunity to experience a difficult and instructive period of the civil war, later described in the novel “The White Guard”.

At the center of the story is a friendly and intelligent, slightly sentimental family. Alexey, Elena, Nikolka Turbins are drawn into the whirlpool of dramatic and fateful events of the winter of 1918-1919 in Kyiv.

Ukraine at that time became 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, whose side is right. And at the beginning of the novel, the writer shows how Alexey, Nikolka, their close friends - Myshlaevsky, Karas and simply officers they knew from 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, warrant officers, former students, “knocked off the screws of life by war and revolution.” They are the ones who take the most brutal blows of wartime. Sympathizing in their hearts for the men who are robbed and shot by the Germans, they rally into the White Guard to fight for the monarchy.

When Shervinsky reports that the sovereign was not killed, the Turbins drink to “his health.” imperial majesty". The author shows white cadets not as villains, but as youths from their class environment. Turbines are not involved in politics.

Bulgakov consciously moves away from the emphatically negative image of the White Guards. The writer’s position brought upon 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 as much as possible.” “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,” wrote Muromsky.

The author constructs an original space using a chronicle style: “Great was the year and terrible after the birth of Christ, 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution... Great was the year and terrible after the birth of Christ, 1918, but 1919 was even more terrible.” Phrases seem to cut through the narrative, enhancing general idea works and giving specific facts epic depth.

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 “red” and “white”, for he does not see those who are guilty and those who are right in the civil war. It is no coincidence that in Alexei Turbin’s prophetic dream, the Lord says to the deceased Zhilin: “All of you, Zhilin, are the same with me - killed in the battlefield.”

There are eternal values ​​that exist outside of time, and Bulgakov was able to talentedly and sincerely talk about them in his novel “The White Guard.” The author ends his story with prophetic words. His heroes are on the eve of a new life. They believe that the worst is in the past. And together with the author and the characters, we believe in good things: “Everything will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, famine and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain when 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 gaze to them? Why?"

10. “The White Guard” by M. Bulgakov: the theme of revolution and civil war, philosophy of man and history, poetics of novel narrative. In 1925, the magazine “Russia” 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 persistent depiction of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country...”, “a depiction of an intellectual-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 immediately sort everything out, understand everything, and reconcile contradictory feelings and thoughts within ourselves. This novel captures the still-still, burning memories of the city of Kyiv during the Civil War. “The White Guard” (1925) and the play “Days of the Turbins” (1926), based 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 defending 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 Turbins' house, where there was so much warmth, tenderness, and mutual understanding, is interpreted as a symbol of Russia. Bulgakov's heroes die defending their Russia. In 1926, during 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. In the revolution that took place, Bulgakov saw 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, relate to them differently, strive for peace, for the established, familiar, established. So the Turbins want all of them to live together as a family in their parents’ apartment, where everything is familiar and familiar since childhood, where the house is a fortress, always flowers on a snow-white tablecloth, music, books, peaceful tea parties at a large table, and in the evenings, when the whole family gathered, reading aloud and playing the guitar. Their life developed normally, without any shocks or mysteries, nothing unexpected or random came into their home. Here everything was strictly organized, streamlined, and determined for many years to come. And if not for the war and revolution, their lives would have passed in peace and comfort. But the terrible events taking place in the city disrupted their plans and assumptions. The time had come when it was necessary to determine your life and civic position. I think that it is not external events that convey the course of the revolution and the Civil War, not a change in power, but moral conflicts and contradictions that drive the plot of “The White Guard.” Historical events - this is the background against which human destinies are revealed. Bulgakov is interested in the inner world of a person caught in such a cycle of events when it is difficult to maintain his face, when it is difficult to remain himself. If at the beginning of the novel the heroes try to brush aside politics, then later, in the course of events, they are drawn into the very thick of revolutionary clashes. Alexey Turbin, like his friends, is for the monarchy. Everything new that comes into their life brings, it seems to him, only bad things. Completely politically undeveloped, he wanted only one thing - peace, the opportunity to live joyfully near his mother and beloved brother and sister. And only at the end of the novel do the Turbins become disillusioned with the old and realize that there is no return to it. The turning point for the Turbins and the rest of the heroes of the novel is the fourteenth day of December 1918, the battle with Petliura’s troops, which was supposed to be a test of strength before subsequent battles with the Red Army, but turned out to be defeat, defeat. 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 the cowardice and meanness of the “generals” and “staff officers”. A guess flashes up that everything is a chain of mistakes and delusions, that duty is not in protecting 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 to capitulate the White Guard. Colonel Malyshev learns in time about the hetman’s escape and manages to withdraw his division without losses. But this act was not easy for him - perhaps the most decisive, most courageous act of his life. “I, a career officer who endured the war with the Germans... take responsibility on my conscience, everything!.., everything!.., I warn you! I'm sending you home! It's clear? “Colonel Nai-Tours will have to make this decision several hours later, under enemy fire, in the middle of the fateful day: “Guys! Boys! The night after Naya's death, Nikolka hides - in case of Petliura's searches - Nai-Tours and Alexei's revolvers, shoulder straps, a chevron and the card of Alexei's heir. But the day of the battle and the subsequent month and a half of Petliura’s rule, I believe, is too short a period for the recent hatred of the Bolsheviks, “hot and direct hatred, the kind that can lead to a fight,” to turn into recognition of the opponents. But this event made such recognition possible in the future. Bulgakov pays a lot of attention to clarifying Talberg's position. This is the antipode of the Turbins. He is a careerist and an opportunist, a coward, a person devoid of moral foundations and moral principles. It costs him nothing 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 and took part in the arrest of General Petrov. But events quickly flashed; authorities in the city often changed. And Talberg did not have time to understand them. The position of the hetman, supported by German bayonets, seemed to him to be strong, but even this, so unshakable yesterday, today fell apart like dust. And so he needs to run, to save himself, and he abandons his wife Elena, for whom he has tenderness, abandons his service and the hetman, whom he recently worshiped. He leaves home, family, hearth and, in fear of danger, runs into the unknown... All the heroes of “The White Guard” have stood the test of time and suffering. Only Talberg, in pursuit of success and fame, lost the most valuable thing in life - friends, love, homeland. The turbines were able to save their home, save life values, and most importantly - honor, managed to resist the whirlpool of events that engulfed 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 remained with its people, finding its place in the new Russia. M. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” is a book of path and choice, a book of insight. But the main idea the author’s, I think, in the following words of the novel: “Everything will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, famine and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain, when the shadow of our deeds and bodies will not remain on the earth. There is not a single person who does not know this. So why don't we want to turn our gaze to them? Why? “And the entire novel is the author’s call for peace, justice, truth on earth.

A lesson based on the novel “The White Guard” makes it possible to show the peculiarity of M. Bulgakov’s talent and his position in depicting the Civil War and Revolution, allows us to see artistic means, with the help of which the writer managed to capture the destructive impact of war on peaceful life.

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Revolution and Civil War in M. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”

Lesson format:

• portrait of M. Bulgakov;
• Civil War posters;
• photo chronicles;
• Romance by R. Gliere “Live, Let’s Live!”;
• video clip from feature film"Days of the Turbins";
• table “Venus or Mars?”

Epigraphs.

We will kill all the white-faced people and only the proletariat will remain.

Artem Vesely, 1923

White Guard, your path is high...

M. Tsvetaeva, 1918

We are all guilty of blood.

"White Guard", 1923-1924.

Almost a hundred years have passed since the Civil War, we are beginning to understand what a misfortune it was for all of Russia. Until recently, heroism came to the fore. Glory to the winners, shame to the vanquished! Behind the understandable, tempting slogans of the Bolsheviks is a national tragedy. “Whoever survives will die, whoever is dead will rise.” We need to see and understand the truth about Civil. To understand and mournfully bow our heads to those who died in the fratricidal war.

It’s time to renounce hatred (for in tragedy there is always something that is above all passions), to get rid of it, so that the bloody madness of discord will never happen again.

White Guard, your path is high: To the Black barrel - chest and temple.

God's white work is yours: your white body is in the sand.

This is not a flock of swans in the sky: The holy White Guard army is melting, melting in a white vision...

The old world - the last dream: Youth-Valor - Vendée - Don.

We need to look into the pages of resurrected books, as if into the gaping abyss of the Civil War, a senselessly cruel and bloody strife that swallowed up so many beautiful hearts, look into this abyss - be horrified and recoil, never again to approach even the edge of it. It is for this reason, we have the right to assume, that M. Bulgakov wrote his novel about the Civil War, “The White Guard,” making"great efforts to become dispassionately above the red and white."The past is felt in comprehension - without this life cannot happen and continue.

Write down the topic of today's conversation, epigraphs to it.

The novel is preceded by two quotes. The first is from “The Captain’s Daughter” by A. Pushkin. Read.

What does the symbolic image of a snowstorm provide for understanding the era reflected in the novel?

(The novel clearly develops Pushkin’s theme of people lost in a snowstorm. In “The White Guard” there is a storm of history. main topic- “We’ve lost our way, thatwhat should we do?" The kinship of ideas, assessments, and approach of Pushkin: “God forbid that we see a Russian rebellion, senseless and merciless”).

The first paragraph is written in the style of a chronicle.

Revolution is the frontier of a new, different world. What symbols did the writer use to indicate the main conflict of the era?

(The confrontation between Venus and Mars: life and death, love and hate, chaos and harmony - from time immemorial has accompanied the development of human civilization. At the height of the Civil War in Russia, this confrontation took on especially ominous forms).

Here, however, we should recall the second epigraph to The White Guard. It is taken from the Revelation of St. John the Theologian - a book known as the Apocalypse.

What is the moral meaning of the second epigraph?

(According to the eternal laws of justice, at the hour of inevitable reckoning, everyone will be judged “according to their deeds”; for the choices that a person makes in life, for the actions that he commits, he bears moral responsibility).

Alexey Turbin comes to the priest, Father Alexander, and seeks consolation after the death of his mother.(Chapter I)

What filled the angel's cup, the cup of the Lord's wrath?

(Mutual hatred, which embittered people, gave vent to accumulated anger: Chapter IV, Chapter V).

It seems that the author is peering into the sky and asking himself and the reader the task of understanding which of the two stars, Venus or Mars, will sparkle brighter. The search for this question, fundamental to the artistic concept of the work, was carried out by two groups. Each group selected appropriate textual material and thought through arguments in its favor.(In the notebook - a table, a page - in half).

"Shepherd Star" Venus

Beauty, light, faith, Home, warmth, family, love, peace, order

1) Amazing panorama of the City(Ch.1V)

How does the dream enter into the text of the novel?

(In the morning, Turbin began to dream of the pre-war City. It’s just a city, but with a capital letter, as something generalized, eternal. The description of the City in compositional terms is twofold: it opens the chapter and at the same time allows us to interpret the description as a dream that turns into reality.)

What impression does the City make?

(The image of the City radiates an extraordinary light of life. This is a holy land, a corner of paradise. The Vladimir Cross is the spiritual landmark of the City, which is under the protection of God).

2) House of the Turbins (chap. 1, 2)

What do Turbines value, what do they believe in, what do they worship?

(The Turbin house is, first of all, the people who inhabit it. Brothers, Alexey and Nikolka, live amicably with their sister. They are hospitable, generous, selfless.

Great Russian literature has taken its rightful place in this house, where the names of Pushkin and Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Bunin are heard. Perhaps this is why this poor house is so beautiful because its atmosphere is inspired by eternally living art.

In the Turbins' house they know and love music. Looking thoughtfully out the window, Alexey Turbin recalls Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Night Before Christmas,” and then, when the thought of Elena begins to disturb him, he recalls Valentin’s prayer (“...I pray for your sister”) from the opera “Faust” by Gounod . Turbines know how to love and are rewarded for it with love. Venus patronizes heroes. The turbines are warmed by the love of the Almighty.)

What did the elder Turbins bequeath to the children, what did the mother punish?(“Amicably... live”, i.e. save the House. At the beginning of the novel, the Turbins’ house is a symbol of ideas about beauty, the strength of life such as sounds in Gliere’s famous romance “To live, we will live!”, with the words of which Shervinsky encourages Elena .)

Gliere's romance to the words of G. Galina, performed by G. Nelepp, sounds.

What is most feared in the Turbins' house?

(Ch. 1. Most of all in the Turbins’ house they are afraid that this world of peace and happiness will be destroyed. The Turbins are trying to maintain the order established by their mother. The brothers become officers of the White Army, one thought is to protect.

The mother told the children: “Live.” “But how to live? How to live?” - this is the main question of the novel).

3) House of Julia Reiss (Ch. 13,19)

(For Alexei Turbin, salvation comes in the form of a woman of “extraordinary beauty” - Julia Reiss. It’s as if Venus herself descended from heaven to protect the hero from death. It was Julia Reiss’s house, by a lucky chance, that became for him a quiet haven, where he was helped not only to survive, but and were then accepted as a loved one.)

4) House of the Shcheglovs (chapter 11)

(The Shcheglovs are a simple working family. Their outbuilding was next to the entrance to the Turbins’ house, and Nikolka sometimes involuntarily looked into their window. Having reached the house and waited for some time, Nikolka goes “on reconnaissance.” Nothing new about what is happening in the city he didn’t recognize it, but on his way back, he saw through the window of the outbuilding adjacent to the house how neighbor Marya Petrovna was washing Petka. Shivered in the cold, Nikolka felt with his whole being the peaceful warmth of this dwelling.)

5) House of Nai-Turs (chapter 17)

(The Nai-Turs house is depicted briefly, through Nikolka’s perception, as a strict family that courageously accepted the news of the death of their beloved Felix.)

1. Elena's "hot" prayer before the icon of the Mother of God(chapter 18)

How does a person’s moral essence manifest itself in the difficult conditions of the Civil War?

(The young woman discovers amazing selflessness, the compassionate love of her sister for her brother. Elena is ready to sacrifice her personal happiness, if only her mortally wounded older brother is alive. And death recedes from Alexei, a miracle of healing occurs. Elena begged her brother. This is how love and life win in the novel , which means the star Venus.)

However, “revenge from the north has already begun for a long time, and it sweeps and sweeps, and does not stop, and the further it goes, the worse,<...>the alarmed womb of the earth grumbles. The eighteenth year... looks more and more menacing and bristly.”

"Red, trembling" Mars

Death of beauty, destruction, disorder, triumph of demonic forces, anger, murder, violence, robbery

1) City of 1918 (chap. 4.6)

Find examples of the death of beauty in the atmosphere of the City, engulfed in the storm of revolution. Pay attention to the tone of the author's narrative.

(The City, marked with the seal of heavenly grace, remained in a dream. Now it is opposed by the pride of the 18th year. The overcrowding of the City with aggressive hatred contradicts the beauty, light and peace, the symbol of which was the Vladimir Cross.

Deep sorrow can be heard in the author’s voice as he talks about how peaceful life and the usual order of things are collapsing. Everyday sketches acquire symbolic meaning. Madame Anjou's salon was until recently a center of beauty. Now Mars has invaded the territory of Venus with all the unceremoniousness of a rude warrior, and what was beauty has turned into scraps and shreds. “Hand bombs and machine gun belts” coexist with boxes of ladies’ hats. Next to the sewing machine is a machine gun. Both are the creation of human hands, only the first personifies creation, and the second - destruction.)

2) Confusion, rapid advance of Petliura’s troops(Ch. 2.11)

(From the cold, blizzard, blizzard, from the world ruled by red Mars, Myshlaevsky comes, bringing with him a breath of chaos. On the one hand, the selfless defense of the City by cadets and officers, their death at duty in the line of duty. On the other hand - “ tavern", "you won't understand anything", disorder, lack of weapons and conflicting orders. As a consequence - a decline in the spirit of the defenders, weakness of the defense.

Through blood and death came the understanding of the doom of the White movement. Bulgakov did not consider the question of moral superiority Bolsheviks. They are a historical force for him.)

3) The atrocities and atrocities of the Haidamak division(Ch. 6,8,20)

How did these episodes reflect the brutality of war?

(The motif of the end of the world runs through the entire work. “Peaceful Resident” Yakov Feldman was in a hurry to help the birth of a new life, and found his death. Human life is extremely devalued. The reprisal against an unknown passer-by cannot cause anything but horror and shudder. Unjustified cruelty, fanaticism for the sake of fanaticism.)

Bulgakov makes you look into the face of death itself. And think about the cost of life. “Will anyone pay for the blood?” - asks the author. The conclusion he draws is of little comfort: “No. Nobody... Blood is cheap on the fields of hearts, and no one will buy it back. Nobody. “Truly, a terrible apocalyptic prophecy has come true.

4) Celebration in honor of Petlyura ( ch. 16 )

How is the motive of rampant evil spirits in the City realized?(Murders, violence, robberies came to the City with Petliura’s troops. God turned away from the City, and it is no longer He, but Satan who rules the show there. An unimaginable sinful mess is happening in the St. Sophia Cathedral, incompatible with a holy place. The ringing of bells is perceived as blasphemy, an insult sacred rites: as God's mercy the beginning of a fratricidal war is proclaimed. The blood of the victims cries out to the sky, a bloody reflection overshadows everything around.)

5) The fate of the Turbin House in the whirlwind of war(chapter 2, 11, 12)

(War is invading the world of the Turbins. The inscriptions on the stove speak about this, showing the position of the household members, for which they will have to pay. War reigns in the House. The wounded Alexey Turbin is tossing around in a fever. The image of a mortar appears in Alexey’s delirium. The house is now just a refuge, an inn .)

6) Battleship "Proletary" ( chapter 20)

Can the arrival of the Bolsheviks in the City be considered a victory for Mars?(Mars triumphs, even the beautiful Venus turns reddish. “Living, five-pointed” Mars reigns in the sky. What is this? A hint of Bolshevik terror?)

What details are intended to emphasize the militant nature of proletarian power?

(Near the armored train “Proletary” there was a “brutally, inhumanly” frozen sentry, who “steadily strived with his gaze towards the stars.” The strength of the sentry, obviously, was given by the star sparkling on his chest and the blood connection with the warlike planet: “She [the planet] was small and also five-pointed").

Film fragment.

These people were comfortable under a new, unprecedented sky, dressed with “Mars in their living sparkle,” their souls were filled with happiness. And if the House of former times is roses and a snow-white tablecloth, then the house of the people from the armored train is a “cramped kennel” and a “narrow bed,” but they feel good in such a “house.” Which side ended the symbolic confrontation between the two planets with victory?(Victory to Mapca).

Conclusion below the table:The origins of the Civil War, according to Bulgakov, are psychological, moral and ethical. People's refusal of Christian moral laws, their hatred and intolerance towards each other lead to spiritual decline and war, and therefore to abundant sacrifices to the god Mars, who triumphs.

As if recalling his plan to “stand dispassionately above the Reds and Whites,” the author introduces Alexei Turbin’s dream, in which the words about the dead Bolsheviks, White Guards and the thoughts of the Apostle Peter sound prophetically: “All of you with me... are the same - killed on the battlefield . You need to understand this, and not everyone will understand.” For the Lord God, both red and white are all the same, all are unhappy.

How did Bulgakov evaluate his time?

(For Bulgakov, Russia, the Fatherland, the people are united. A civil war is always defeat, death, a violation of the national way of life. In Bulgakov’s view, a revolution, a civil war, is a tragedy, as a result of which what belongs to the world of eternity is destroyed. In the novel open ending (last paragraph).

How does Bulgakov answer Pushkin’s question: what should we do?(You need to look at distant stars more often and then the answer to the question of how to live will come)

The author affirms the value of human life, the ideals of goodness and humanity, he mourns the lost world and sees a new sky. The writer is impartial to the whites and reds; he regrets that people do not want to look at the stars. The cosmic motif of the final lines of the novel is still directed to the future.

Homework: find in chapter 11 of “The White Guard” similarities with the novel “War and Peace” (volume 1, part 3, chapters 14-17) and identify differences in the depiction of history (war) between Bulgakov and Tolstoy.

M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” is dedicated to the events of the Civil War. “The year 1918 was a great and terrible year since the birth of Christ, but the second since the beginning of the revolution...” - this is how the novel begins, which tells about the fate of the Turbin family. They live in Kyiv, on Alekseevsky Spusk. The youth - Alexey, Elena, Nikolka - were left without parents. But they have a House that contains not just things - a tiled stove, a clock playing a gavotte, beds with shiny cones, a lamp under a lampshade - but a structure of life, traditions, inclusion in national life. The Turbins' 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 Turbins, Myshlaevsky, Talberg, Shervinsky, Lariosik - everyone involved in the House on Alekseevsky Spusk - behave? A serious danger looms over the City. (Bulgakov does not name

his Kiev, he is a model for the whole country and a mirror of the split.) Somewhere far away, beyond the Dnieper, Moscow, and in it - 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 from Russian officers.” Petlyura played on the peasant instincts of property and independence and went to war against Kyiv (an element opposed to culture). The Russian officers turned out to be betrayed by the Russian High Command, who swore allegiance to the emperor. A heterogeneous riffraff, having escaped from the Bolsheviks, flocks to the City and introduces debauchery into it: shops, pate houses, restaurants, and night hangouts have opened. And in this noisy, convulsive world, a drama unfolds.

The plot of the main action can be considered two “appearances” in the Turbins’ house: at night, a frozen, half-dead, lice-infested Myshlaevsky came, talking about the horrors of trench life on the outskirts of the City and the betrayal of the headquarters. That same night, Elena’s husband, Talberg, showed up to change clothes, cowardly leave his wife and the House, betray the honor of the Russian officer and escape in a saloon car to the Don through Romania and Crimea to Denikin. The key problem of the novel will be the attitude of the heroes towards Russia. Bulgakov justifies those who were part of a single nation and fought for the ideals of officer honor and opposed the destruction of the Fatherland. He makes it clear to the reader that in a fratricidal war there is no right or wrong, everyone is responsible for the blood of their brother. The writer united with the concept “White Guard” those who defended the honor of the Russian officer and man, and changed our ideas about those who, until recently, were evilly and pejoratively called “White Guards”, “contra”.

Bulgakov wrote not a historical novel, but a socio-psychological canvas with access to philosophical issues: 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: will the heroes recover from the shock; Will the House on Alekseevsky Spusk be preserved?

Aleksey Turbin, who was running away from the Petliurists, was wounded and, once in his own home, remained in a borderline state for a long time, in hallucinations or losing his memory. But not a physical illness “finished off” Alexei, but a moral one: “Unpleasant ... oh, unpleasant ... I shot him in vain ... Of course, I take the blame on myself ... I'm a murderer!” (remember Tolstoy’s heroes, who also take the blame upon themselves). Another thing tormented me: “There was peace, and now this world was 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 Petlyura? The Reds will come... The thought remains unfinished.

The House of the Turbins withstood the trials sent by the revolution, and the evidence 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? He will accept it because they are brothers too, 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 "brothered "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 Gospel he had just read: “... And I saw a new heaven 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: ... 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 last words a novel that 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 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, an all-night vigil was being served at the royal gates. Above the Dnieper, from the sinful and bloody and snowy earth, the midnight cross of Vladimir rose into the black, gloomy heights.”

The Civil War through the eyes of Mikhail Bulgakov in “The White Guard”

It was a great year and a terrible year

after the Nativity of Christ 1918,

from the beginning of the revolution the second.

It was full of sun in summer and snow in winter,

and two stars stood especially high in the sky:

shepherd star - evening Venus

and red, trembling Mars. Bulgakov M. White Guard. - M.: AST, 2002. - P. 5.

The eyes of Mikhail Bulgakov in “The White Guard” are clearly open in the most realistic manner, there is no place for magical daydreaming, we are in a terrible time, where the history of our country is changing dramatically every day. From the first pages we find ourselves in the eventual hubs of the Civil War in Ukraine at the end of 1918, the territory is occupied by German troops, full of visitors of all kinds from Moscow and St. Petersburg, and on the way is Petlyura, whose surname has already become a curse among the residents of Kiev. People-people-people-people-people, a lot of people, like in Bruegel’s paintings...

“The cab drivers carried riders from restaurant to restaurant all day long, and at night string music played in the cabaret, and the faces of white, emaciated, drugged prostitutes shone with unearthly beauty in the tobacco smoke.”(BG, 84).

Turbines are placed at the center of the narrative, Mikhail Afanasyevich tells us the story of a noble (this is not a fact) family, terribly nervous and frighteningly real. All characters are prototypes of relatives and friends (not so: all characters have prototypes from among relatives and friends... I don’t know if everyone does?.. Bulgakov’s mother died later than the Turbins’ mother, etc.) of the writer, and the space is real streets Kiev and the house where the Bulgakov family lived in 1918. Alexey, Nikolka and Elena were left alone in this struggle, having buried their mother, hammering the last nail into the coffin of a happy past. One of the reasons for writing the novel was the death of the writer’s mother, Varvara Mikhailovna, from typhus. And all the motley, raspberry furnishings, the family tower clock, the tiled Saardam stove inscribed with the angry hand of Nikolka, the lampshade, the mother’s dying request to “live together” - everything that reminded of bright days gradually loses its function, giving way to dark emotions of the present. « Captain's daughter will be burned in the oven"...In the same way, traditional Russia, dear and understandable, left us.

But Bulgakov still leaves hope, because seventeen and a half years is not an age for total disappointments:

“The god flying away into the black, cracked sky did not give an answer, and Nikolka himself did not yet know thateverything that happens is always as it should be, and only for the better.” (BG, 6).

An overwhelming sense of uncertainty, vague pictures of the gloomy future of very young people meet with rays of light in the form of a colored bookmark of the priest and his words that "Despondency is a sin". Even in the darkest days there is a place for goodness, this is all Bulgakov. “Latent optimism”, visible only to the keen eye, but still existing.

Yes, the worst thing about revolutionary events is youth, sometimes even the youth of those participating in them. There were too many people like Nikolka for such bloody events to take place... (correct the style) Only those who graduated from the gymnasium, not “green”, but “lime” boys, who in a short period of time have to become 10 years older. Bulgakov's characters represent many people whose lives will never be the same, whose lives were forcibly placed on the revolutionary altar.

I must admit, I am most impressed by Viktor Myshlaevsky, especially after watching “Days of the Turbins” by Vladimir Basov, who plays him. Yes, Basov’s image is not entirely accurate, but still incredibly colorful, showing each lieutenant lost to the university, beaten by war and revolution, spending the night in other people’s families, hiding behind an overcoat and drinking vodka. Myshlaevsky hates the Bolsheviks with every fiber of his seething soul, however, he, in the end, understands and accepts their victory, because there is no other choice left for a patriot of this magnitude. He accepts anyone’s native Russia as a beloved woman who has committed a fall from grace.

And how Elena Talberg is depicted! Quiet, humble, beauty in inner suffering, waiting, devoted, but at the same time proud, with a clearly expressed sense of self-worth. The tragedy of a woman in one character. Elena tries with all her might to protect the family hearth, cares, worries, hopes... Sergei Ivanovich Talberg, her husband, her support, abandons the family at the most difficult moment, leaves for Berlin on a German train. Yes, he promises to return with Denikin’s army, but Elena immediately feels the emptiness after his departure and understands that she will not see him again. Family happiness was lost:

« And then... then it’s disgusting in the room, like in any room where the arrangement is chaotic, and it’s even worse when the lampshade is pulled off the lamp. Never. Never pull the lampshade off a lamp! The lampshade is sacred. Never run like a rat into the unknown from danger. Doze by the lampshade, read - let the blizzard howl,-wait for them to come to you"(BG, 38).

I think that in the third part, in the eighteenth chapter of the novel, Elena Talberg reveals herself most clearly. This is a scene of prayer for the health of Alexei Turbin, who was wounded. She asks the Mother of God not in church language, but in everyday language: “Protector Mother...What is it worth to you. Have pity on us. We are all guilty of blood, but you don’t punish”, “Let Sergei not return... If you take it away, take it away, but don’t punish it with death”(BG, 457). And then a real miracle happens: “...the one to whom Elena called through the intercession of the dark maiden came completely inaudible.”(BG, 456). Alexey began to recover, but Talberg never returned, announcing his engagement...

Alexey Turbin, “shaven, fair-haired, aged and gloomy since October 25, 1917, in a jacket with huge pockets, blue leggings and soft new shoes, in his favorite pose - in a chair with legs”(BG, 15) is the embodiment of Bulgakov himself in the novel, but not completely autobiographical. Bulgakov, as you know, devoted a lot of time to medicine, having worked in the front-line zone shortly after the start of the First World War, and during the Civil War as a military doctor in the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic, in the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, as well as in the ranks of the Red Cross. Senior Turbin is just a military medic, but at a more serious level than a writer. I think that Bulgakov embodied in him his own unrealized ambitions. (Why do you think so? Turbin is a venereologist, like Bulgakov, but M.A. also graduated with honors from the university with a specialization in childhood diseases, worked in zemstvo hospitals... - isn’t this experience!)

In addition, a clear connection between Alexei Turbin and Andrei Bolkonsky is visible, since after a miraculous recovery his eyes “became forever unsmiling and gloomy”, which indicates the onset of spiritual death, as in “War and Peace.” “The White Guard” was originally conceived as an epic in the spirit of L.N. Tolstoy, Bulgakov said that this novel “will make the sky hot.” However, years later he called the novel “a failure,” because the work turned out to be of a clearly different kind, but no less good.

Captain Thalberg has a special place in the novel. A careerist without any sense of morality, ready to do anything for his advancement. (to avoid mistakes, make one sentence) During the February Revolution, he was the first to put on a red bow and took part in the arrest of General Petrov. Constantly changing power forced him to quickly reform his beliefs. How static and unshakable the figure of the hetman seemed, supported by the Germans, and how brightly his cowardly heels sparkled in the night! In the same shameful way, Talberg left his family, his hearth, his beloved woman, as soon as the danger of appearing on the horizon. He represents the antipode of the Turbins, emphasizing the nobility of their family.

The city can easily be called the hero of a novel. The writer’s native Kyiv evokes warm feelings. Even in dark conditions, the cityscape in the novel looks beautiful: “All the energy of the city, accumulated over the sunny and stormy summer, poured out in the light,” “And there were so many gardens in the City as in no other city in the world.”(BG, 80-81). Moreover, some lines are written by the poet’s hand: “A sleepy drowsiness passed over the City, flew like a dull white bird, passing Vladimir’s cross, fell beyond the Dnieper in the thick of the night and floated along the iron arc.”(BG, 480). But then, in contrast to the beauty, we hear the roar of an armored train. Clash of Civilian Horrors there is a war going on coupled with admiration for nature. The novel often contains sights of the city that are loved by every Kievite: the Golden Gate, St. Sophia Cathedral, St. Michael's Monastery. Bulgakov considers Vladimir Hill with a monument to Vladimir the best place in the world. A special symbol is the cross of Vladimir, because it is a symbol of Orthodoxy. At the end of the novel, it visually turns into a sword...

I consider the climax of the novel to be December 14, 1918, the day of the battle with the Petliurists, which was supposed to become a stepping stone for subsequent battles with the Red Guards, but ended in defeat. Colonel Malyshev promptly learns of the hetman’s escape and manages to save his division, putting all his determination into these words:

“Listen, my children!-Colonel Malyshev suddenly shouted in a broken voice, whose age was in no way fit to be a father, but only an older brother to everyone standing under bayonets.-Listen! I, a career officer who endured the war with the Germans, as witnessed by Staff Captain Studzinsky, take responsibility on my own conscience, everything!! All!! I'm warning you! I'm sending you home! It's clear?-he shouted"(BG, 193).

Colonel Nai-Turs had to do the same in the midst of the battle...

But, despite the month and a half of Petlyura’s rule, hatred of the Bolsheviks remained the same, although there was already a small chance of their victory being recognized. After all, at this moment the heroes think that the fight for “yesterday”, the hetman’s betrayal and the confusion of their own thoughts are suspicious and, perhaps, this fight for “old” Russia is meaningless...

Although there is still a meaning. The honor and dignity of the Turbins, their cohesion and ability to preserve family values ​​in the most terrible days is worth a lot. Yes, the Bolsheviks won, but the intelligentsia was able to find its niche in the “new” Russia. Through suffering, tears, sacrifices... But at the same time we feel LOVE, love of all shades that conquers evil.

"All will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, famine and pestilence.

The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain, when the shadow of our deeds and bodies will not remain on the earth.” (BG, 488).