“WHITE GUARD”, novel. First published (incomplete): Russia, M., 1924, No. 4; 1925, No. 5. Completely: Bulgakov M. Days of the Turbins ( White Guard). Paris: Concorde, vol. 1 - 1927, vol. 2 - 1929. The 2nd volume in 1929 as “The End of the White Guard” was also published in Riga in “A Book for Everyone”. B.G. is a largely autobiographical novel, based on the writer’s personal impressions of Kyiv (in the novel - the City) at the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919. The Turbin family is to a large extent the Bulgakov family. Turbiny is the maiden name of Bulgakov’s grandmother on his mother’s side, Anfisa Ivanovna; in her marriage, Pokrovskaya. The book was started in 1922, after the death of the writer’s mother, V.M. Bulgakova, on February 1, 1922 (in the novel, the death of the mother of Alexei, Nikolka and Elena Turbins is attributed to May 1918 - the time of her marriage to a long-time friend, doctor Ivan Pavlovich Voskresensky (about 1879-1966), whom Bulgakov did not like). The manuscript of the novel has not survived. As Bulgakov told his friend P. S. Popov in the mid-20s, B. G. was conceived and written in 1922-1924. According to the testimony of the typist I. S. Raaben, who retyped the novel, B. G. was originally conceived as a trilogy, and in the third part, the action of which covered the entire 1919, Myshlaevsky found himself in the Red Army. It is characteristic that an excerpt from the early edition of B. G. “On the night of the 3rd” in December 1922 was published in the Berlin newspaper “Nakanune” with the subtitle “From the novel “The Scarlet Mach”. “Midnight Cross” and “White Cross” appeared as possible names for the novels of the proposed trilogy in the memoirs of contemporaries. In the feuilleton “Moonshine Lake” (1923), Bulgakov spoke about the novel, which he was then working on: “And I will finish the novel, and, I dare to assure you, it will be the kind of novel that will make the sky feel hot...” However, in in the second half of the 20s, in a conversation with P.S. Popov, he called B. G. a “failed” novel, although “he took the idea very seriously.” In his autobiography, written in October 1924, Bulgakov recorded: “It took a year to write the novel “The White Guard.” I love this novel more than all my other works.” But the writer was increasingly overcome by doubts. On January 5, 1925, he noted in his diary: “It would be a terrible pity if I am mistaken and the White Guard is not a strong thing.”
The prototypes of the heroes of Bulgakov were Kyiv friends and acquaintances of Bulgakov. So, Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky was copied from his childhood friend Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky. Bulgakov’s first wife T.N. Lappa described Syngaevsky in her memoirs as follows:
“He was very handsome... Tall, thin... his head was small... too small for his figure. I kept dreaming about ballet, I wanted to ballet school enroll. Before the arrival of the Petliurists, he joined the cadets.” Later, either after the occupation of Kyiv by the troops of A.I. Denikin (1872-1947), or the arrival of the Poles there in 1920, the Syngaevsky family emigrated to Poland. The portrait of the character largely repeats the portrait of the prototype: “...And the head of Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky appeared above the huge shoulders. This head was very beautiful, strange and sad and attractive with the beauty of an ancient true breed and degeneration. Beauty is in different colored, bold eyes, in long eyelashes. The nose was hooked, the lips were proud, the forehead was clean, without any special features. But one corner of the mouth is sadly lowered, and the chin is cut off obliquely, as if the sculptor, sculpting a noble face, had a wild fantasy of biting off a layer of clay and leaving the manly face with a small and irregular female chin.” Here Syngaevsky’s features are deliberately combined with the signs of Satan - different eyes, a Mephistophelian nose with a hump, an obliquely cut mouth and chin. Later, these same signs will be found in Woland in the novel “The Master and Margarita”.
The prototype for Lieutenant Shervinsky was another friend of Bulgakov’s youth, Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky, an amateur singer (this quality passed on to the character), who served in the troops of Hetman Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky (1873-1945), but not as an adjutant. Then he emigrated. It is interesting that in B.G. and the play “Days of the Turbins” Shervinsky’s name is Leonid Yuryevich, and in more early story“On the night of the 3rd” the corresponding character is called Yuri Leonidovich. In the same story, Elena Talberg (Turbina) is called Varvara Afanasyevna, like Bulgakov’s sister, who served as the prototype for Elena. Captain Talberg, her husband, was largely based on Varvara Afanasyevna Bulgakova’s husband, Leonid Sergeevich Karum (1888-1968), a German by birth, a career officer who served first Skoropadsky and then the Bolsheviks, for whom he taught at a rifle school. It is curious that in the version of the finale of B.G., in the magazine “Russia”, which was brought to proofreading, but was never published due to the closure of this printing organ, Shervinsky acquired the features of not only an opera demon, but also L.S. Karum: “I have the honor,” he said, clicking his heels, “the commander of the rifle school is Comrade Shervinsky.
He took a huge leaf star from his pocket and pinned it on his chest on the left side. The mists of sleep were creeping around him, his face from the club was bright and doll-like.
“This is a lie,” Elena cried in her sleep. - You should be hanged.
“Would you like,” answered the nightmare. - Take a risk, madam.
He whistled impudently and split into two. The left sleeve was covered with a rhombus, and a second star, a golden one, glowed in the diamond. Rays splashed from it, and on the right side of the shoulder a pale Uhlan shoulder strap appeared...
- Condottierre! Condottiere! – Elena shouted.
“Forgive me,” answered the two-color nightmare, “there are only two, I have two in total, but I have only one neck, and that one is not the official one, but my own.” We will live.
“And death will come, we will die...” Nikolka sang and went out.
He had a guitar in his hands, but there was blood all over his neck, and on his forehead there was a yellow aureole with icons. Elena instantly realized that he would die, and sobbed bitterly and woke up screaming in the night.”
Probably, the infernal traits of such heroes as Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky and Talberg are significant for Bulgakov. It is no coincidence that the latter resembles a rat (hetman’s gray-blue cockade, brushes of “black trimmed mustache,” sparsely spaced but large and white teeth,” “yellow sparkles” in his eyes - in “Days of the Turbins” he is directly compared to this unpleasant animal) . Rats are known to be traditionally associated with evil spirits. All three, obviously, in the subsequent parts of the trilogy (and before the closure of the magazine “Russia” in May 1926, Bulgakov, most likely, thought to continue B. g.) were to serve in the Red Army as a kind of mercenaries (condottieres), thus saving their neck from the loop. The head of the Red Army, Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council L.D. Trotsky, is directly likened to Satan in the novel. Bulgakov predicted two options for the fate of the participants at the end of the novel white movement- either service to the Reds for the purpose of self-preservation, or death, which is destined for Nikolka Turbin, like the narrator’s brother in “The Red Crown” (1922), who bears the same name.
As a result of the publication of B. g., Bulgakov’s relations with his sister Varya and L.S. Karum, as well as with his acquaintance poet Sergei Vasilyevich Shervinsky (1892-1991), whose surname was awarded to the not most attractive character of the novel (although in the play “Days” Turbins” he is already much prettier).
In Bulgakov, he strives to show the people and intelligentsia in the flames of the civil war in Ukraine. Main character, Alexey Turbin, although clearly autobiographical, but, unlike the writer, is not a zemstvo doctor who was only formally listed in military service, but a real military medic who has seen and experienced a lot during the three years of the World War. He's in much better to a greater extent, than Bulgakov, is one of those thousands and thousands of officers who have to make their choice after the revolution, to serve, willingly or unwillingly, in the ranks of the warring armies. In B. g., two groups of officers are contrasted - those who “hated the Bolsheviks with a hot and direct hatred, the kind that could lead to a fight,” and “those who returned from the war to their homes with the idea, like Alexei Turbin, to rest and to rest and rebuild not a military life, but an ordinary human life.” Knowing the results of the civil war, Bulgakov is on the side of the latter. The leitmotif of B. is the idea of preserving the House, the home, despite all the shocks of war and revolution, and the Turbins’ house is the real house of the Bulgakovs on Andreevsky Spusk, 13.
Bulgakov sociologically accurately shows the mass movements of the era. It demonstrates the centuries-old hatred of the peasants towards the landowners and officers and the newly emerged, but no less deep hatred towards the occupying Germans. All this fueled the uprising raised against the German hetman P. P. Skoropadsky by the leader of the Ukrainian national movement S. V. Petlyura. For Bulgakov, Petliura is “simply a myth generated in Ukraine in the fog of the terrible year of 1818,” and behind this myth stood “fierce hatred. There were four hundred thousand Germans, and around them four times forty times four hundred thousand men with hearts burning with unquenchable anger. Oh, much, much has accumulated in these hearts. And the blows of lieutenant stacks on the faces, shrapnel rapid fire on rebellious villages, and backs striped with ramrods of the Hetman Serdyuks, and receipts on pieces of paper in the handwriting of majors and lieutenants of the German army.
“Give the Russian pig 25 marks for the pig bought from her.”
Good-natured, contemptuous laughter at those who came with such a receipt to the German headquarters in the City.
And requisitioned horses, and confiscated grain, and fat-faced landowners who returned to their estates under the hetman - a tremor of hatred at the word “officer”... There were tens of thousands of people who returned from the war and knew how to shoot...
“But the officers themselves learned it on the orders of their superiors!”
In the finale of the B.G., “only the corpse testified that Pettura was not a myth, that he really was...” The corpse of a Jew tortured by Petliurists at the Chain Bridge, the corpses of hundreds, thousands of other victims - this is the reality of the civil war. And to the question “Will anyone pay for the blood?” Bulgakov gives a confident answer: “No. Nobody". In the text of the novel, which Bulgakov submitted to the Rossiya magazine, there were no words about the price of blood. But later, in connection with the work on the play “Running” and the emergence of the plan for the novel “The Master and Margarita,” the question of the price of blood became one of the main ones, and the corresponding words appeared in the second volume of the Paris edition of the novel.
In Bulgakov, Bulgakov uses the motif of the “turnover” of the Bolsheviks and Petliurists. Let us note that in reality, many figures of the Ukrainian national movement and parts of the Petliura army often went over to the side of the Bolsheviks during the civil war or after its end, or at least recognized Soviet power. Thus, one of the leaders of the Central Rada and Directory famous writer Vladimir Kirillovich Vinnichenko (1880-1951) in 1920 a short time was a member of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars (although he later emigrated). After the end of the civil war, the former chairman of the Central Rada, the famous historian Mikhail Sergeevich Grushevsky (1866-1934), returned to the USSR. One of Petlyura’s closest associates, Yuri Tyutyunnik, also went over to the Bolsheviks, who in 1924 in Kharkov published the memoirs “With the Poles against Ukraine” in Ukrainian, and later worked in Ukrainian cinematography. The prototype of one of the characters of B.G., the Petliura Colonel Bolbotun, who burst into the city, Colonel P. Bolbochan, who had previously commanded the 5th Zaporozhye Regiment in Skoropadsky’s army, in November 1918 sided with the Directory and participated in the capture of Kyiv, and six months later went over to the Bolsheviks and was shot on the orders of Petliura. Even in the 1920s there was no impassable gulf between the Ukrainian socialists, to whom Petliura, Vinnychenko, and Tyutyunnik belonged, and the Bolsheviks. Bulgakov in B. tried to make it clear to readers that violence came from the Bolsheviks no less than from their opponents. According to censorship conditions, he is forced to expose the Bolshevik myth allegorically, with hints of the complete similarity of the Reds with the Petliurists (it was not forbidden to scold the latter). This was manifested, in particular, in the following episode: “A ghost walked along the roads - a certain old man Degtyarenko, full of fragrant moonshine and terrible words, croaking, but folding in his dark lips into something extremely reminiscent of a declaration of human and civil rights. Then this same Degtyarenko the prophet lay and howled, and people with red bows on their chests flogged him with ramrods. And the most cunning brain would go crazy over this catch: if there are red bows, then ramrods are in no way acceptable, and if there are ramrods, then red bows are impossible...” This episode was copied in the Soviet editions of B.G. 60- x 80s, because it did not fit into the propaganda stereotype, according to which the color red and violence against a person, and even preaching civil rights, are incompatible. For Bulgakov, both the Bolsheviks and the Petliurists are in fact equivalent and perform the same function, since “it was necessary to lure this very peasant anger along one of some roads, because it is so magically arranged in this world that, no matter how much it fled, he always fatally ends up at the same crossroads.
It's very simple. There would be chaos, but people would still be there.”
Perhaps he was familiar with the quote from Pravda cited in S.P. Melgunov’s book “Red Terror in Russia” (1923): “The Cheka locked the peasants en masse in a cold barn, stripped them naked and beat them with ramrods.”
It is significant that in the version of the final part of B.G., which was never published in the Rossiya magazine, Alexei Turbin, who escaped from the Petliurists, awaits the arrival of the Reds and has a dream in which he is pursued by security officers: “And the worst thing is that among There is one security officer in gray and a hat. And this is the same one whom Turbin wounded in December on Malo-Provalnaya Street. Turbin is in wild horror. Turbin doesn’t understand anything. But he was a Petliurist, and these security officers were Bolsheviks?! After all, they are enemies? Enemies, damn them! Are they really united now? Oh, if so, Turbin is missing!
- Take him, comrades! - someone growls. They rush at Turbin.
- Grab him! Grab it! - yells the half-shot, bloody werewolf, - try yogo! Trimay!
Everything gets in the way. In the ring of events that replace each other, one thing is clear - Turbin is always at the peak of interest, Turbin is always the enemy of everyone. The turbine is getting colder.
Wakes up. Sweat. No! What a blessing. There is neither this half-shot man, nor the security officers, there is no one.”
According to Bulgakov, all the authorities that succeed each other in the civil war turn out to be hostile to the intelligentsia. In the Great Patriotic War he showed this using the example of the Petliurites, in the feuilletons “Future Prospects” (1919) and “In the Cafe” (1920) - using the example of the Reds, and, finally, in the play “Running” (1928) - using the example of the Whites .
In B. the reasons for the failure of the white movement were also revealed. The peasantry is hostile to him, and the city “coffee public,” branded in the feuilleton “In the Cafe,” does not want to defend the ideals of the whites: “All currency traders knew about the mobilization three days before the order. Great? And everyone has a hernia, everyone has the apex of the right lung, and those who don’t have the apex simply disappear, as if they have fallen through the ground. Well, this, brothers, is a terrible sign. If they’re whispering in coffee shops before mobilization and no one goes, it’s a mess!”
Alexey Turbin in B. is a monarchist, although his monarchism evaporates from the consciousness of his powerlessness to prevent the death of innocent people. T.N. Lappa testified that the episode of the Turbin brothers and their friends performing the forbidden tsar’s anthem was not a fiction. Bulgakov and his comrades actually sang “God Save the Tsar,” but not under the hetman, but under the Petliurists. This caused the dissatisfaction of the homeowner, Vasily Pavlovich Listovnichy (1876-1919, according to other sources - not earlier than 1920) - the prototype of the engineer Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich, Vasilisa, in B. However, during the creation of the novel, Bulgakov was no longer a monarchist. In the writer’s diary on April 15, 1924, the following commented on rumors that “as if a manifesto of Nikolai Nikolaevich” (the Younger) (1856-1929), uncle Nicholas II (1868-1918) and the head of the Romanov house was circulating in Moscow: “Damn it.” all the Romanovs! There weren't enough of them."
In B.G. there are clear parallels with S.N. Bulgakov’s article “At the Feast of the Gods” (1918). The Russian philosopher wrote that “someone in gray,” who is more cunning than Wilhelm, is now at war with Russia and seeks to bind and paralyze it.” In the novel, “someone in gray” is both Trotsky and Petliura, likened to the devil, and it is persistently emphasized grey colour from the Bolshevik, German and Petliura troops. The Reds are “gray scattered regiments that came from somewhere from the forests, from the plain leading to Moscow,” the Germans “came to the City in gray ranks,” and the Ukrainian soldiers do not have boots, but they have “wide trousers peeking out from under soldiers' gray overcoats." Myshlaevsky’s reasoning about Dostoevsky’s “God-bearing peasants” who cut up the officers near Kiev goes back to the following passage in the article “At the Feast of the Gods”: “Recently, they dreamily worshiped the God-bearing people, the liberator. And when the people stopped being afraid of the master, and shook with all their might, they remembered their Pugachev days - after all, the people’s memory is not as short as the master’s - then disappointment began...” Myshlaevsky in B.G. last words scolds Dostoevsky’s “God-bearing peasants,” who immediately become docile after the threat of execution. However, he and the other officers in the novel only make threats, but do not put their threats into action (the lord’s memory is really short), unlike the men who, at the first opportunity, return to Pugachev’s traditions and slaughter the gentlemen. When describing Myshlaevsky’s campaign under the Red Tavern and the death of the officers, the author B. G. used the memoirs of Roman Gul (1896-1986) “The Kiev Epic (November - December 1918)”, published in the second volume of the Berlin “Archive of the Russian Revolution” in 1922 From there the image of the “spurs-jangling, burbling adjutant guardsman” that materialized in Shervinsky, the poster “You may not be a hero, but you must be a volunteer!”, the confusion of the headquarters, which Bulgakov himself did not have time to encounter, and some other details.
As T.N. Lappa recalled, Bulgakov’s service with Skoropadsky boiled down to the following: “Syngaevsky and Misha’s other comrades came and they were talking that they should not let the Petliurites in and defend the city, that the Germans should help... and the Germans kept scurrying away. And the guys agreed to go the next day. They even stayed overnight with us... And in the morning Mikhail went. There was a first aid station there... And there should have been a battle, but it seems there was none. Mikhail arrived in a cab and said that it was all over and that the Petliurists would come.” The episode with the escape from the Petliurites and the wounding of Alexei Turbin on December 14, 1918 is a writer’s fiction; Bulgakov himself was not wounded. Much more dramatic was the escape of the mobilized Bulgakov from the Petliurists on the night of February 2 to 3, 1919, depicted in B. in the flight of Alexei Turbin, and in the story “On the Night of the 3rd” - in the flight Dr. Bakaleinikov. T. N. Lappa remembered her husband’s return on this dramatic night: “For some reason, he ran hard, trembled all over, and was in a terrible state - so nervous. They put him to bed, and after that he lay sick for a whole week. He later said that somehow he fell behind a little, then a little more, behind a pillar, behind another, and rushed to run into the alley.
I ran like that, my heart was pounding, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. He saw and remembered this scene of a man being killed at the bridge.” In the novel, Alexei Turbin’s illness is postponed in time to the period of his stay in the City of the Petliurists, and he observes the scene of the murder of a Jew at the Chain Bridge, as it happened with the writer, on the night of February 3rd. The arrival of the Petliurists in the City begins with the murder of the Jew Feldman (as one can judge from the Kyiv newspapers of that time, a man with that last name was actually killed on the day the Ukrainian troops entered Kyiv) and ends with the murder of a nameless Jew, which Bulgakov had a chance to see with his own eyes. Life itself suggested the tragic composition of B. G. The writer in the novel established human life as an absolute value, rising above any national and class ideology.
The finale of the B. g. makes us remember “the starry sky above us and the moral law within us” by I. Kant and the reasoning of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky inspired by him in the novel “War and Peace” (1863-1869) by Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910). In the text intended for publication in the Rossiya magazine, the final lines of the novel sounded like this: “Over the Dnieper, from the sinful, bloody, and snowy earth, Vladimir’s midnight cross rose into the black and gloomy heights. From a distance it seemed that the crossbar had disappeared - it had merged with the vertical, and from this the cross turned into a threatening sharp sword.
But he's not scary. All will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, famine and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain, when the shadow of our bodies and deeds will not remain on the earth. The stars will be just as unchanging, just as vibrant and beautiful. There is not a single person on earth who does not know this. So why don’t we want peace, don’t want to turn our attention to them? Why?"
In the 1929 edition of B., the “peace” disappeared in the finale, and it became less obvious that Bulgakov was polemicizing here with the famous words of the Gospel of Matthew: “I did not bring you peace, but a sword.” The author B.G. clearly prefers peace to the sword. Later, in the novel “The Master and Margarita,” a paraphrase of the Gospel saying was put into the mouth of the high priest Joseph Kaifa, convincing Pontius Pilate that Yeshua Ha-Nozri brought the Jewish people not peace and quiet, but confusion, which would bring them under the Roman swords. And here Bulgakov affirms peace and quiet as one of the highest ethical values. And in the finale of B. the author agrees with Kant and Leo Tolstoy: only an appeal to the supermundane absolute, which symbolizes the starry sky, can force people to follow a categorical moral imperative and forever renounce violence. However, taught by the experience of revolution and civil war, the author of B.G. is forced to admit that people do not want to look at the stars above them and follow the Kantian imperative. Unlike Tolstoy, he is not such a great fatalist in history. The popular masses in Belarus play an important role in the development historical process, however, they are not directed to some higher power, as stated in “War and Peace,” but with their own internal aspirations, in full accordance with the thought of S.N. Bulgakov, expressed in the article “At the Feast of the Gods”: “And now it suddenly turns out that for this people nothing is sacred, except the belly. Yes, he is right in his own way, hunger is not an issue.” The popular element, which supported Petlyura, turns out to be a powerful force in B., crushing the weak, in its own way also spontaneous, poorly organized army of Skoropadsky. It is precisely this lack of organization that Alexey Turbin accuses Hetman of. However, this same popular force turns out to be powerless against a well-organized force - the Bolsheviks. Myshlaevsky and other representatives of the White Guard involuntarily admire the organization of the Bolsheviks. But the condemnation of the “Napoleons” who bring suffering and death to people is completely shared by the author of B.G. and the author of “War and Peace”, only Petliura and Trotsky are not a myth for him, like Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) for Tolstoy, but real existing and, in their own way, outstanding personalities who, due to their dominant role, must bear a higher responsibility for the crimes of their subordinates (however, the future crimes of the Cheka are still only vaguely visible in the dreams of Alexei Turbin, and even then only in the unpublished version of the novel).
Let us note that besides Trotsky, another character close to the Bolsheviks, B. G., has demonic traits. If the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council is compared to the angel of the abyss Apollyon of the Revelation of John the Theologian and the Jewish fallen angel Abaddon (both words translated from ancient Greek and Hebrew mean destroyer), then Mikhail Semenovich Shpolyansky, receiving instructions from Moscow, is likened to Lermontov’s demon. The prototype of Shpolyansky was the famous writer and literary critic Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (1893-1984). In 1918, he was in Kyiv, served in the hetman’s armored division and, like Shpolyansky in B., “sugared” armored cars, describing all this in detail in the memoir book “Sentimental Journey,” published in Berlin in 1923. Pravda , Shklovsky was not a Bolshevik at that time, but a member of the militant Left Socialist Revolutionary group that was preparing an uprising against Skoropadsky. Bulgakov brought Shpolyansky closer to the Bolsheviks, also remembering that until mid-1918 the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries were allies, and then many of the latter joined the Communist Party.
Due to the fact that B.G. was not completed publication in the USSR, and foreign publications of the late 20s were inaccessible in the writer’s homeland, Bulgakov’s first novel was not awarded special attention press. True, the famous critic A.K. Voronsky (1884-1937) at the end of 1925 managed to call B. G., together with “Fatal Eggs,” works of “outstanding literary quality,” for which at the beginning of 1926 he received a sharp rebuke from the head of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) L. L. Averbakh (1903-1939) in the Rapp organ - the magazine “At the Literary Post”. Subsequently, the production of the play “Days of the Turbins” based on B. G. at the Moscow Art Theater in the fall of 1926 turned the attention of critics to this work, and the novel itself was forgotten. Bulgakov was tormented by doubts about the literary merits of B. G. In a diary entry on the night of December 28, 1924, he recorded them: “The novel seems to me either weak or very strong. I can no longer understand my feelings.” At the same time, there was also a high assessment of B. by an authoritative contemporary. The poet Maximilian Voloshin (Kirienko-Voloshin) (1877-1932) invited Bulgakov to his place in Koktebel and on July 5, 1926 presented him with a watercolor with a remarkable inscription: “To dear Mikhail Afanasyevich, the first who captured the soul of Russian strife, with deep love.. “The same Voloshin, in a letter to the publisher of the almanac “Nedra” N.S. Angarsky (Klestov) (1873-1941) in March 1925, stated that “as the debut of a beginning writer, “The White Guard” can only be compared with the debuts of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy " When reworking the text of the novel at the end of the 20s, Bulgakov removed some censorship-sensitive moments and somewhat ennobled a number of characters, in particular Myshlaevsky and Shervinsky, clearly taking into account the development of these images in “Days of the Turbins”. In general, in the play, the characters of the characters turned out to be psychologically deeper, not as loose as in the novel, and characters no longer duplicated each other.
In a letter to the government on March 28, 1930, Bulgakov called one of the main features of his work in B. “the persistent portrayal of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country. In particular, the depiction of an intellectual-noble family, by the will of an immutable historical fate, thrown into the camp of the White Guard during the Civil War, in the traditions of “War and Peace”. Such an image is quite natural for a writer who is closely connected with the intelligentsia.” In the same letter he emphasized “his great efforts to STAND PASSIONALLY OVER RED AND WHITE.” Let us note that Bulgakov actually managed to impartially look at all the warring sides of the civil war from a position close to the philosophy of non-violence (non-resistance to evil with violence), developed by L. N. Tolstoy mainly after the creation of “War and Peace” (in the novel this philosophy is expressed only by Platon Karataev). However, Bulgakov’s position here is not entirely identical to Tolstoy’s. Alexey Turbin in B. understands the inevitability and necessity of violence, but he himself turns out to be incapable of violence. At the end of the B.G., which was never published in the magazine “Russia”, he, observing the atrocities of the Petliurists, turns to heaven: “Lord, if you exist, make sure that the Bolsheviks appear in Slobodka this very minute. This minute. I am a monarchist by my convictions. But in this moment Bolsheviks are needed here... Oh, bastards! What scoundrels! Lord, let the Bolsheviks immediately, from there, from the black darkness behind Slobodka, fall on the bridge.
Turbin hissed voluptuously, imagining sailors in black pea coats. They fly in like a hurricane, and hospital gowns run in all directions. What remains is Master Kurenny and that vile monkey in the scarlet hat - Colonel Mashchenko. Both of them, of course, fall to their knees.
“Have mercy, goodness,” they cry.
But then Doctor Turbin steps forward and says:
- No, comrades, no. I am a monarch... No, this is unnecessary... And so: I am against the death penalty. Yes, against it. I must admit, I haven’t read Karl Marx and I don’t even quite understand why he’s here in this mess, but these two need to be killed like mad dogs. These are the scoundrels. Vile pogromists and robbers.
“Ah... so...” the sailors answer ominously.
- Y-yes, y-comrades. I'll shoot them myself. The doctor holds a sailor's revolver in his hands. He takes aim. To the head. Alone. To the head. To another.”
Bulgakov's intellectual is capable of killing only in his imagination, and in life he prefers to entrust this unpleasant duty to sailors. And even Turbin’s cry of protest: “Why are you beating him?!” is drowned out by the noise of the crowd on the bridge, which, by the way, saves the doctor from reprisals. In the conditions of general violence in Belarus, the intelligentsia is deprived of the opportunity to raise its voice against the murders, just as it was deprived of the opportunity to do this later, under the conditions of the communist regime established at the time of the creation of the novel.
Thalberg's prototype L.S. Karum left extensive memories “My life. A story without lies”, where he outlined many episodes of his biography, reflected in B.G., in his own interpretation. The memoirist testifies that he greatly angered Bulgakov and other relatives of his wife by appearing at the wedding in May 1917 (like Talberg’s wedding with Elena, it was a year and a half before the events described in the novel) in a uniform, with all the orders, but with red bandage on his sleeve. In B.G., the Turbin brothers condemn Talberg for the fact that in March 1917 he “was the first—understand, the first—to come to the military school with a wide red bandage on his sleeve. This was in the very first days, when all the officers in the City, at news from St. Petersburg, turned into bricks and went somewhere, into dark corridors, so as not to hear anything. Talberg, as a member of the revolutionary military committee, and no one else, arrested the famous General Petrov.” Karum was indeed a member of the executive committee of the Kyiv City Duma and participated in the arrest of Adjutant General N.I. Ivanov (1851 - 1919), who at the beginning of the First World War commanded the Southwestern Front, and in February 1917, who undertook an unsuccessful campaign by order of the emperor to Petrograd to suppress the revolution. Karum escorted the general to the capital. Bulgakov's sister's husband, like Talberg, graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University and the Military Law Academy in St. Petersburg. Under Skoropadsky, like the hero of B., he served in the legal department of the War Ministry. In December 1917, Karum left Kyiv and, together with Bulgakov’s brother Ivan, whom his mother, fearing Petliura’s mobilization, sent with his son-in-law, arrived in Odessa, and from there to Novorossiysk. Thalberg's prototype entered the White Astrakhan Army, previously supported by the Germans, became the chairman of the court here and was promoted to colonel. Perhaps this circumstance prompted Bulgakov to promote Talberg to colonel in the play “Days of the Turbins”. The former chief of staff of the Kyiv Military District, General N.E. Bredov, who knew Karum from his activities in the executive committee of the Kyiv Duma, when the Astrakhan Army transferred to the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, General A.I. Denikin, insisted on his dismissal. Only thanks to influential acquaintances did Karum manage to get a position as a law teacher in Feodosia, where he left in September 1919, taking his wife with him from Kyiv. Bulgakov’s brother Nikolai, who was wounded in October 1919, also went to his son-in-law in Feodosia. battles in Kyiv. Perhaps this circumstance prompted the writer to connect Nikolka’s future fate in B. with Perekop. After the arrival of the Reds, Karum, who did not want to evacuate with the Russian army of General P.N. Wrangel (1878-1928) in November 1920, remained to teach at the rifle school, which in 1921 was transferred to Kyiv. Unlike Elena Turbina in B. and especially in “Days of the Turbins,” Bulgakov’s sister Varya did not cheat on her husband. When Karum was arrested in 1931 and later exiled to Novosibirsk, his wife followed him. Her note, given to her husband after her arrest, has been preserved: “My beloved, remember that my whole life and love is for you. Your Varyusha.” The most curious manuscript of L. S. Karum “Woe from Talent” (1967) has been preserved. dedicated to analysis Bulgakov's creativity. Here the prototype characterized Talberg as follows: “Finally, the tenth and last of the White Guards is Captain Talberg of the General Staff. In fact, he’s not even in the White Guard, he serves under the hetman. When the “mess” begins, he boards the train and leaves, not wanting to take part in the struggle, the outcome of which is quite clear to him, but for this he incurs the hatred of the Turbins, Myshlaevsky and Sherviisky. – Why didn’t he take his wife with him? Why did he “walk like a rat” away from danger into the unknown? He is “a man without the slightest concept of honor.” For the White Guard, Thalberg is an episodic personality.” The author of “Woe from Talent” seeks, as it were, to justify Thalberg: he refused to participate in a hopeless struggle, did not take his wife with him, because he was going into the unknown. Karum characterized the writer himself with almost the same words as the Marxist criticism of the 20s, hostile to the author B.G.: “Yes, Bulgakov’s talent was not so much deep as it was brilliant, and the talent was great... And yet the works Bulgakov is not popular. There is nothing in them that affected the people as a whole.
In general, he has no people. There is a mysterious and cruel crowd. In Bulgakov's works there are well-known layers of the tsarist officers or employees, or the acting and writing environment. But the life of the people, their joys and sorrows cannot be learned from Bulgakov. His talent was not imbued with an interest in the people, a Marxist-Leninist worldview, or a strict political orientation. After a burst of interest in it, especially in the novel “The Master and Margarita,” attention may fade.” In a letter to the government on March 28, 1930, Bulgakov quoted a review similar to Karumov’s by critic R.V. Pikel, which appeared in Izvestia on September 15, 1929: “His talent is as obvious as the social reactionary nature of his work.”
In “A Novel Without Lies,” Karum described his reaction to the appearance of B. in the following way: “The novel describes the year 1918 in Kyiv. We didn’t subscribe to the magazine “Change of Milestones” (as Leonid Sergeevich mistakenly calls the magazine “Russia” from memory. - B.S.), so Varenka and Kostya (K.P. Bulgakov. - B.S.) bought it in the store. “Well, Mikhail doesn’t love you,” Kostya told me.
I knew that Mikhail did not love me, but I did not know the actual extent of this dislike, which grew into meanness. Finally, I read this ill-fated issue of the magazine and was horrified by it. There, among others, a man was described who in appearance and some facts was similar to me, so that not only relatives, but also acquaintances recognized me in him; in morals, this man stood very low. He (Thalberg), when the Petliurites attacked Kyiv, fled to Berlin, abandoned his family, the army in which he served, and acted like some kind of scoundrel.
The novel describes the Bulgakov family. He describes the case of my business trip to Lubny during the hetman’s power during the Petliura uprising. But then the lies begin. Varenka is made the heroine of the novel. There are no other sisters at all. There is no mother either. Then all his drinking companions are described in the novel. Firstly, Syngaevsky (under the surname Myshlaevsky), he was a student drafted into the army, handsome and slender, but no different in any way. An ordinary drinking buddy. He was not in military service in Kyiv, then he met the ballerina Nezhinskaya, who danced with Mordkin, and during a change, one of the changes in power in Kyiv, he went to Paris at her expense, where he successfully acted as her dance partner and husband, although he was 20 years younger than her.
The drinking buddies were described quite accurately, but only from the noble side, which is why Bulgakov subsequently had a lot of trouble.
Secondly, Yuri Gladyrevsky, my cousin, a wartime officer of the Life Guards Rifle Regiment (under the surname Shervinsky) was described. During the time of the hetman, he served in the city police, but in the novel he is shown as the hetman’s adjutant. He was an unintelligent 19-year-old young man who only knew how to drink and sing along with Mikhail Bulgakov. And his voice was small, not suitable for any stage. He left with his parents during the civil war for Bulgaria, and I have no more information about him.
Thirdly, Kolya Sudzilovsky is described, he can also be recognized by his external appearance, who was at the same time a Kyiv student, a slightly naive, slightly arrogant and stupid young man, also 20 years old. He was bred under the name Lariosika.”
The fate of the prototype “drinking buddies” was as follows. Yuri (George) Leonidovich Gladyrevsky (1898-1968) was born on January 26/February 7, 1898 in Libau (Liepaja) into a noble family. In the First World War he rose to the rank of second lieutenant in the 3rd His Majesty's Infantry Regiment. In the last weeks of the hetmanate, he was on the headquarters of the White Guard volunteer formations of Prince Dolgorukov (in Belarus - Belorukov). After the Reds arrived in Kyiv in early February 1919, Yu.L. Gladyrevsky worked in the white underground and, perhaps, served as a camouflage in the Red Army. Hence Shervinsky is the red commander in that version of the final of the B.G., which was supposed to appear in the magazine “Russia”. Later, obviously, Bulgakov learned about the true fate of Yu.L. Gladyrevsky and removed the Red Army attributes from the final image of Shervinsky. After the Volunteer Army entered the city on August 31, 1919, Yuri Leonidovich was immediately promoted to captain of his native Life Guards regiment. During the October battles in Kyiv, he was slightly wounded. Later, in 1920, he took part in battles in the Crimea and Northern Tavria, was again wounded and, together with the Russian army, P.N. Wrangel was evacuated to Gallipoli. In exile, he made a living by singing and playing the piano. He died on March 20, 1968 in the French city of Cannes.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky, Bulgakov’s childhood friend, unlike Lieutenant Viktor Myshlaevsky, was a civilian and never served in the army, except for a short period in the last weeks of the hetmanate. Then, according to T.N. Lapp, he entered the cadet school and, like Bulgakov, was going to take part in the battles with the Petliurists entering Kyiv. Syngaevsky lived on Malaya Podvalnaya Street (in the novel - Malo-Provalnaya) and in 1920 emigrated to Poland with his parents, and later ended up in France. While still in Kyiv, he graduated from a ballet school and worked as a dancer in exile.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Sudzilovsky, according to the memoirs of his uncle Karum, “was a very noisy and enthusiastic person.” He was born on August 7/19, 1896 in the village of Pavlovka, Chaussky district, Mogilev province, on the estate of his father, state councilor and district leader of the nobility. In 1916 he studied at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. At the end of the year, Sudzilovsky entered the 1st Peterhof Warrant Officer School, from where he was expelled for poor academic performance in February 1917 and sent as a volunteer to the 180th Reserve Infantry Regiment. From there he was sent to the Vladimir Military School in Petrograd, but already in May 1917 he was expelled from there. To get a reprieve from military service, Sudzilovsky got married, and in 1918 he and his wife moved to Zhitomir, where his parents were then located. In the summer of 1918, Lariosik's prototype unsuccessfully tried to enter Kiev University. Sudzilovsky appeared in the Bulgakovs' apartment on Andreevsky Spusk on December 14, 1918 - the day Skoropadsky fell. By that time, his wife had already left him. In 1919, Nikolai Vasilyevich joined the ranks of the Volunteer Army, and his further fate is unknown.
L.S. Karum in his memoirs tried to prove that he was much better than Talberg and was not devoid of the concept of honor, but involuntarily only confirmed Bulgakov’s rightness. Consider the episode with the attempt to kiss the hand of General N.I. Ivanov, who was arrested and transported to Petrograd, in order to “express to the old general all my sympathy for him and to show that not all of those around him are his enemies” (Karum clearly made this gesture in that case , if the power changes and Ivanov takes command again). Or the scene in Odessa: “I met on the street some officer I knew from the academy... He, having learned that I had to hang out alone in Odessa for five days, persuaded me to go see Colonel Vsevolzhsky, a very interesting man, supposedly, who has daily officer meetings. a society that in the future should form an officer squad or even lead a detachment that will go to battle with the Bolsheviks.
I had nothing to do. I agreed.
Vsevolzhsky occupied a large apartment... There are about 20 officers in the room... Everyone is silent, says Vsevolzhsky.
He speaks a lot and well about the upcoming tasks of the officers in the restoration of Russia. He persuades me to stay in Odessa and not go to the Don.
– But will I occupy some position here and receive a salary? - I ask.
“No,” the guards colonel smiles. – I can’t guarantee you anything.
“Well, then I have to go,” I say. I didn’t go see him again.” From the quoted passage it is clear that Karum, like the hero B. G. ascending to him, was concerned only with his career, rations and financial support, and not with any ideological considerations, and therefore changed armies with such ease during the years of the revolution and civil war.
The surname Thalberg, which Bulgakov awarded to the unsympathetic character B. G., was very odious in Ukraine. Lawyer Nikolai Dmitrievich Talberg, under Skoropadsky, served as vice-director of the police - Derzhavnaya Varta and was hated by both the Petliurites and the Bolsheviks. On the eve of the entry of the Ukrainian army into the city People's Republic he managed to escape. Perhaps he, like the hero B., managed to leave for Germany.
Thalberg in Bolsheviks is opposed by the Turbin brothers, who are ready to enter into a hopeless fight with the Petliurists and only after the collapse of resistance realize the doom of the white cause. Moreover, if the eldest, copied from the author B. G. himself, withdraws from the fight, then the younger one is clearly ready to continue it and will probably die at Perekop. Nikolka used Bulgakov’s younger brothers as his prototypes – mainly Nikolai, but partially also Ivan. Both of them took part in the white movement, were wounded, and fought to the end. Ivan, interned in Poland along with the troops of General N.E. Bredov (1883 - after 1944), later voluntarily returned to the Crimea to General Wrangel and from there went into exile. Nikolai, most likely evacuated to the Crimea due to injury, served together with L.S. Karum in Feodosia. However, he did not have a negative attitude towards his sister’s husband. In a letter to his mother from Zagreb on January 16, 1922, N.A. Bulgakov mentions meetings “at Varyusha and Lenya” with his cousin Konstantin Petrovich Bulgakov (1892-after 1950) while serving in the Volunteer Army (in the mid-20s K.P. .Bulgakov emigrated and became an oil engineer in Mexico). Obviously, the meeting between N.A. Bulgakov and L.S. Karum took place in Feodosia, where he lived with Varya.
With the image of the thrush Yavdokha, the author B. G. continues the tradition of depicting a healthy beginning in folk life, contrasting her with the money-grubbing Vasilisa, who secretly lusts after the young beauty. The influence of the famous story “Yavdokha” (1914) by the satirical writer Nadezhda Teffi (Lokhvitskaya) (1872-1952) is noticeable here. Later, in the preface to the collection “The Lifeless Beast” (1916), she outlined the content of the story as follows: “In the fall of 1914, I published the story “Yavdokha.” The story, very sad and bitter, spoke of a lonely village old woman, illiterate and stupid, and so hopelessly dark that when she received the news about the death of her son, she did not even understand what was the matter, and kept thinking that he would send her money or not. And so one angry newspaper devoted two feuilletons to this story, in which they were indignant at me for allegedly laughing at human grief.
“What does Mrs. Teffi find funny in this!” – the newspaper was indignant and, quoting the saddest parts of the story, repeated:
– And this, in her opinion, is funny?
- And this is funny too?
The newspaper would probably be very surprised if I told it that I didn't laugh for a single minute. But how could I tell?
Perhaps Bulgakov was attracted in this preface by the similarity with B. G., where, unlike feuilletons and satirical stories, he did not laugh for a minute and talked about tragic things. Bulgakov made his Yavdokha a blossoming young woman whom the stingy Vasilisa lusts after, and in his imagination she appears “naked, like a witch on the mountain.”
The only heroic character of B.G., Colonel Nai-Tours, apparently had a very specific and unexpected prototype. Bulgakov told his friend P.S. Popov in the second half of the 20s that “Nai-Tours is a distant, abstract image. The ideal of Russian officers. What would a Russian officer be like in my opinion? From this confession they usually conclude that Nai-Tours had no real prototypes, since there supposedly could not have been real heroes among the participants in the white movement. Meanwhile, the prototype may have existed, but it was unsafe to say its name out loud in the 20s and later.
Here is the biography of one of the prominent cavalry commanders of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, which has obvious parallels with the biography of the novel Nai-Tours. It was written by the Parisian emigrant historian Nikolai Nikolaevich Rutych (Rutchenko) (born in 1916) and placed in the “Biographical Directory of Higher Officials of the Volunteer Army and the Armed Forces of the South of Russia” compiled by him (1997): “Shinkarenko Nikolai Vsevolodovich (lit. pseudonym - Nikolai Belogorsky) (1890-1968). Major General... In 1912-1913. participated as a volunteer in the Bulgarian army in the war against Turkey... He was awarded the Order “For Bravery” - for his distinction during the siege of Adrianople. He went to the front of the First World War as part of the 12th Ulan Belgorod Regiment, commanding a squadron... Knight of St. George and lieutenant colonel at the end of the war. He was one of the first to arrive in the Volunteer Army in November 1917. In February 1918, he was seriously wounded (in the leg - B.S.), replacing a machine gunner in an armored train in the battle of Novocherkassk.”
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov gives female characters in the novel special meaning, although it is not so easy to notice. All the male heroes of “The White Guard” are in one way or another connected with the historical events unfolding in the City and in Ukraine as a whole; we perceive them as nothing other than active characters in the civil war. The men of the “White Guard” are endowed with the ability to reflect on political events, take decisive steps, and defend their beliefs with arms in hand. The writer assigns a completely different role to his heroines: Elena Turbina, Julia Reiss, Irina Nai-Tours. These women, despite the fact that death hovers around them, remain almost indifferent to events, and in the novel they are actually concerned only with their personal lives. The most interesting thing is that in The White Guard there is, in general, no love in the classical literary sense. Several windy novels unfold before us, worthy of descriptions in “tabloid” literature. Mikhail Afanasyevich portrays women as frivolous partners in these novels. The only exception, perhaps, is Anyuta, but her love with Myshlaevsky also ends quite “tabloid”: as evidenced by one of the options in the 19th chapter of the novel, Viktor Viktorovich takes his beloved away to have an abortion.
Some rather frank expressions that Mikhail Afanasyevich uses in general female characteristics clearly make us understand the writer’s somewhat disdainful attitude towards women as such. Bulgakov does not make a distinction even between representatives of the aristocracy and workers of the oldest profession in the world, reducing their qualities to one denominator. Here are some general phrases about them we can read: “Cocottes. Honest ladies from aristocratic families. Their gentle daughters, pale St. Petersburg libertines with painted carmine lips”; “Prostitutes walked past, in green, red, black and white caps, beautiful, like dolls, and cheerfully muttered to the screw: “Did you smell your mother?” Thus, the reader, inexperienced in “women’s” issues, having read the novel, may well conclude that aristocrats and prostitutes are one and the same.
Elena Turbina, Yulia Reiss and Irina Nai-Tours are completely different women in character and life experience. Irina Nai-Tours seems to us to be an 18-year-old young lady, the same age as Nikolka, who has not yet known all the delights and disappointments of love, but has a large supply of girlish flirtation capable of charming a young man. Elena Turbina, a 24-year-old married woman, is also endowed with charm, but she is more simple and accessible. In front of Shervinsky, she does not “break” comedies, but behaves honestly. Finally, the most complex woman in character, Julia Reiss, who managed to be married, is a flamboyant hypocrite and selfish person who lives for her own pleasure.
All three women mentioned not only have differences in life experience and age. They represent the three most common types of female psychology, which Mikhail Afanasyevich has probably encountered
Bulgakov. All three heroines have their own real prototypes, with whom the writer, apparently, not only communicated spiritually, but also had affairs or was related. Actually, we will talk about each of the women separately.
The sister of Alexei and Nikolai Turbins, “Golden” Elena, is depicted by the writer, as it seems to us, as the most trivial woman, the type of which is quite common. As can be seen from the novel, Elena Turbina belongs to the quiet and calm “homely” women who, with the appropriate attitude from a man, are capable of being faithful to him until the end of their lives. True, for such women, as a rule, the very fact of having a man is important, and not his moral or physical merits. In a man, they first of all see the father of their child, a certain support in life, and, finally, an integral attribute of the family of a patriarchal society. That is why such women, much less eccentric and emotional, more easily cope with betrayal or the loss of a man for whom they immediately try to find a replacement. Such women are very convenient for starting a family, since their actions are predictable, if not 100, then 90 percent. In addition, being a homebody and caring for offspring largely makes these women blind in life, which allows their husbands to go about their business and even have affairs without much fear. These women, as a rule, are naive, stupid, rather limited and of little interest to men who love thrills. At the same time, such women can be acquired quite easily, since they take any flirting at face value. Nowadays there are a lot of such women, they get married early, and to men older than them, give birth to children early and lead, in our opinion, a boring, tedious and uninteresting lifestyle. These women consider the main merit in life to be the creation of a family, “continuation of the family,” which is what they initially make their main goal.
There is plenty of evidence in the novel that Elena Turbina is exactly as we described. All her advantages, by and large, boil down to the fact that she knows how to create comfort in the Turbins’ house and perform household functions in a timely manner: “The tablecloth, despite the guns and all this languor, anxiety and nonsense, is white and starchy. This from Elena, who cannot do otherwise, this is from Anyuta, who grew up in the Turbins’ house, the floors are shiny, and in December, now, on the table, in a matte, columnar vase, there are blue hydrangeas and two dark and sultry roses, affirming the beauty and strength of life..." . Bulgakov did not have any exact characteristics in store for Elena - she is simple, and her simplicity is visible in everything. The action of the novel “The White Guard” actually begins with a scene of Thalberg’s waiting: “In Elena’s eyes there is melancholy (not anxiety and worries, not jealousy and resentment, but melancholy - T.Ya.’s note), and the strands, covered with a reddish fire, sadly drooped.” .
Even her husband’s rapid departure abroad did not bring Elena out of this state. She showed no emotions at all, she just listened sadly, “she grew old and ugly.” To drown out her melancholy, Elena did not go to her room to sob, fight in hysterics, take out her anger on relatives and guests, but began to drink wine with her brothers and listen to the admirer who appeared instead of her husband. Despite the fact that there were no quarrels between Elena and her husband Thalberg, she still began to respond gently to the attentions shown to her by her admirer Shervinsky. As it turned out at the end of The White Guard, Talberg left not for Germany, but for Warsaw, and not in order to continue the fight against the Bolsheviks, but to marry a certain mutual acquaintance, Lidochka Hertz. Thus, Thalberg had an affair that his wife did not even suspect. But even in this case, Elena Turbina, who seemed to love Talberg, did not make a tragedy, but completely switched to Shervinsky: “And Shervinsky? Oh, the devil knows... That’s punishment with women. Elena will definitely contact him, absolutely... And What’s good? Except the voice? The voice is excellent, but in the end, you can listen to the voice without getting married, isn’t it... However, it doesn’t matter.”
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov himself, although he objectively assessed the life credo of his wives, always focused on precisely this type of woman as the one described by Elena Turbina. Actually, in many ways this was the writer’s second wife, Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya, who considered her given “from the people.” Here are some characteristics dedicated to Belozerskaya that we can find in Bulgakov’s diary in December 1924: “My wife helps me a lot with these thoughts. I noticed that when she walks, she sways. This is terribly stupid given my plans, but it seems I’m in love with her. But one thought interests me: Would she adapt just as comfortably or is it selective, for me?” “It’s a terrible state, I’m falling more and more in love with my wife. It’s such a shame - I’ve been denying my own for ten years... Women are like women. And now I’m even humiliating myself to the point of slight jealousy. She’s somehow sweet and sweet. And fat.” By the way, as you know, Mikhail Bulgakov dedicated the novel “The White Guard” to his second wife, Lyubov Belozerskaya.
The debate about whether Elena Turbina has her historical prototypes has been going on for a very long time. By analogy with the parallel Talberg - Karum, a similar parallel Elena Turbina - Varvara Bulgakova is drawn. As you know, Mikhail Bulgakov’s sister Varvara Afanasyevna was indeed married to Leonid Karum, depicted in the novel as Talberg. The Bulgakov brothers did not like Karum, which explains the creation of such an unpleasant image of Thalberg. IN in this case Varvara Bulgakova is considered the prototype of Elena Turbina only because she was Karum’s wife. Of course, the argument is weighty, but Varvara Afanasyevna’s character was very different from Elena Turbina. Even before meeting Karum, Varvara Bulgakova could well have found a mate. Nor was it as accessible as the Turbine. As you know, there is a version that because of her, Mikhail Bulgakov’s close friend Boris Bogdanov, a very worthy young man, committed suicide at one time. In addition, Varvara Afanasyevna sincerely loved Leonid Sergeevich Karum, helped him even during the years of repression, when it was worth caring not about her arrested husband, but about her children, and followed him into exile. It is very difficult for us to imagine Varvara Bulgakova in the role of Turbina, who, out of boredom, does not know what to do with herself, and after her husband leaves, starts an affair with the first man she comes across.
There is also a version that all of Mikhail Afanasyevich’s sisters are in one way or another connected with the image of Elena Turbina. This version is based mainly on the similarity of the name of Bulgakov’s younger sister and the heroine of the novel, as well as some other external features. However, this version, in our opinion, is erroneous, since Bulgakov’s four sisters were all individuals who, unlike Elena Turbina, had their own oddities and quirks. Mikhail Afanasyevich’s sisters are in many ways similar to other types of women, but not like the one we are considering. All of them were very picky in choosing a mate, and their husbands were educated, purposeful and enthusiastic people. Moreover, all the husbands of Mikhail Afanasyevich’s sisters were associated with the humanities, which even in those days, in the gray environment of domestic scum, were considered the lot of women.
To be honest, it is very difficult to argue about the prototypes of Elena Turbina’s image. But if we compare the psychological portraits of literary images and women surrounding Bulgakov, we can say that Elena Turbina is very similar... to the writer’s mother, who devoted her entire life only to her family: men, everyday life and children.
Irina Nai-Tours also has a psychological portrait that is quite typical for 17-18-year-old representatives of the female half of society. In the developing novel between Irina and Nikolai Turbin, we can notice some personal details, taken by the writer, probably from the experience of his early love affairs. The rapprochement between Nikolai Turbin and Irina Nai-Tours occurs only in a little-known version of the 19th chapter of the novel and gives us reason to believe that Mikhail Bulgakov still intended to develop this theme in the future, planning to finalize The White Guard.
Nikolai Turbin met Irina Nai-Tours when Colonel Nai-Tours’ mother was notified of his death. Subsequently, Nikolai, together with Irina, made a rather unpleasant trip to the city morgue to search for the colonel’s body. During the New Year celebration, Irina Nai-Tours appeared at the Turbins’ house, and Nikolka then volunteered to accompany her, as a little-known version of the 19th chapter of the novel tells:
“Irina shrugged her shoulders chillily and buried her chin in the fur. Nikolka walked alongside, tormented by a terrible and insurmountable problem: how to offer her his hand. And he just couldn’t. It was as if a two-pound weight had been hung on his tongue. “You can’t walk like that.” Impossible. How can I say it?.. Let me... No, she might think of something. And maybe it’s unpleasant for her to walk with me on my arm?.. Eh!..”
“It’s so cold,” Nikolka said.
Irina looked up, where there were many stars in the sky and to the side on the slope of the dome the moon above the extinct seminary on the distant mountains, she answered:
Very. I'm afraid you'll freeze.
“On you. On,” Nikolka thought, “not only is there no question of taking her arm, but she’s even unpleasant that I went with her. Otherwise, there’s no way to interpret such a hint...”
Irina immediately slipped, shouted “ouch” and grabbed the sleeve of her overcoat. Nikolka choked. But I still didn’t miss such an opportunity. After all, you really have to be a fool. He said:
Let me take your hand...
Where are your pigtails?.. You will freeze... I don’t want to.
Nikolka turned pale and firmly swore to the star Venus: “I will come and immediately
I'll shoot myself. It's over. A shame".
I forgot my gloves under the mirror...
Then her eyes appeared closer to him, and he was convinced that in these eyes there was not only the blackness of a starry night and the already fading mourning for the burry colonel, but slyness and laughter. She herself took his right hand with her right hand, pulled it through her left, put his hand into her muff, laid it next to hers and added mysterious words that Nikolka thought about for twelve whole minutes until Malo-Provalnaya:
You need to be half-hearted.
“Princess... What do I hope for? My future is dark and hopeless. I’m awkward. And I haven’t even started university yet... Beauty...” thought Nikol. And Irina Nay was not a beauty at all. An ordinary pretty girl with black eyes. True, she is slender, and her mouth is not bad, it is correct, her hair is shiny, black.
At the outbuilding, in the first tier of the mysterious garden, they stopped at a dark door. The moon was cut out somewhere behind a tangle of trees, and the snow was patchy, sometimes black, sometimes purple, sometimes white. All the windows in the outbuilding were black, except for one, glowing with a cozy fire. Irina leaned against the black door, threw her head back and looked at Nikolka, as if she was waiting for something. Nikolka is in despair that he, “oh, stupid”, has not been able to tell her anything in twenty minutes, in despair that now she will leave him at the door, at this moment, just when some important words are forming in his mind in a useless head, he became emboldened to the point of despair, he himself put his hand into the muff and looked for a hand there, in great amazement he was convinced that this hand, which had been in a glove all the way, was now without a glove. There was complete silence all around. The city was sleeping.
Go,” Irina Nay said very quietly, “go, otherwise the Petlyugists will persecute you.”
Well, so be it,” Nikolka answered sincerely, “so be it.”
No, don't let it. Don't let it. - She paused. - I will be sorry...
What a pity?.. Eh?.. - And he squeezed his hand in the muff tighter.
Then Irina freed her hand along with the muff, and placed it on his shoulder with the muff. Her eyes became extremely large, like black flowers, as it seemed to Nikolka, she rocked Nikolka so that he touched the velvet of his fur coat with the buttons with eagles, sighed and kissed him right on the lips.
Maybe you are smart, but so slow...
Then Nikolka, feeling that he had become incredibly brave, desperate and very agile, grabbed Nai and kissed her on the lips. Irina Nay insidiously threw her right hand back and, without opening her eyes, managed to ring the bell. And that hour the mother’s steps and cough were heard in the outbuilding, and the door shook... Nikolka’s hands unclenched.
Go away tomorrow,” Nai whispered, “everyday.” Now leave, leave..."
As we see, the “insidious” Irina Nai-Tours, probably more experienced in life issues, rather than the naive Nikolka, takes full control of the emerging personal relationship between them. By and large, we see a young coquette who loves to please and make men dizzy. Such young ladies, as a rule, are able to quickly “inflame” with love, achieve the favor and love of a partner, and just as quickly cool down, leaving a man at the height of his feelings. When such women want to gain attention to themselves, they act as active partners, taking the first step towards meeting, as happened in the case of our heroine. We, of course, do not know how Mikhail Bulgakov planned to end the story with the naive Nikolka and the “insidious” Irina, but, logically, the younger Turbin should have fallen in love, and Colonel Nai-Tours’ sister, having achieved her goal, should have cooled down .
Literary image Irina Nai-Tours has its own prototype. The fact is that in the White Guard, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov indicated the exact address of the Nai-Tours: Malo-Provalnaya, 21. This street is actually called Malopodvalnaya. At the address Malopidvalnaya, 13, next to number 21, lived the Syngaevsky family, friendly to the Bulgakovs. The Syngaevsky children and the Bulgakov children were friends with each other long before the revolution. Mikhail Afanasyevich was a close friend of Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky, some of whose features were embodied in the image of Myshlaevsky. There were five daughters in the Syngaevsky family, who also attended Andreevsky Spusk, 13. It was with one of the Syngaevsky sisters, most likely, that one of the Bulgakov brothers had an affair at school age. Probably, this novel was the first of one of the Bulgakovs (who may have been Mikhail Afanasyevich himself), otherwise it is impossible to explain the naivety of Nikolka’s attitude towards Irina. This version is also confirmed by the phrase Myshlaevsky said to Nikolka before Irina Nai-Tours arrived:
"- No, I’m not offended, I’m just wondering why you were jumping up and down like that. You’re a little too cheerful. You put your cuffs out... you look like a groom.”
Nikolka blossomed with crimson fire, and his eyes drowned in a lake of embarrassment.
“You go to Malo-Provalnaya too often,” Myshlaevsky continued to finish off the enemy with six-inch shells, this, however, is good. You need to be a knight, support the Turbino traditions."
In this case, Myshlaevsky’s phrase could well have belonged to Nikolai Syngaevsky, who was hinting at the “Bulgakov traditions” of alternately courting the Syngaevsky sisters.
But perhaps the most interesting woman The novel "The White Guard" is Yulia Aleksandrovna Reiss (in some versions - Yulia Markovna). The real existence of which is not even in doubt. The characterization given by the writer to Yulia is so exhaustive that her psychological portrait is clear from the very beginning:
“Only in the hearth of peace, Julia, an egoist, a vicious, but seductive woman, agrees to appear. She appeared, her leg in a black stocking, the edge of a black fur-trimmed boot flashed on the light brick staircase, and the hasty knocking and rustling was answered by the gavotte splashing with bells from there, Where Louis XIV basked in a sky-blue garden by the lake, intoxicated by his fame and the presence of charming colored women."
Julia Reiss saved the life of the hero of the “White Guard” Alexei Turbin when he was running from Petliurists along Malo-provalnaya Street and was wounded. Julia led him through the gate and the garden and up the stairs to her house, where she hid him from his pursuers. As it turned out, Julia was divorced and lived alone at that time. Alexey Turbin fell in love with his savior, which is natural, and subsequently tried to achieve reciprocity. But Julia turned out to be too ambitious a woman. Having experience of marriage, she did not strive for a stable relationship, and in solving personal issues she saw only the fulfillment of her goals and desires. She did not love Alexei Turbin, which can be clearly seen in one of the little-known versions of the 19th chapter of the novel:
"Tell me, who do you love?
“No one,” answered Yulia Markovna and looked so that the devil himself could not tell whether it was true or not.
Marry me... come out,” Turbin said, squeezing his hand.
Yulia Markovna shook her head negatively and smiled.
Turbin grabbed her by the throat, choked her, hissed:
Tell me, whose card was this on the table when I was wounded with you?.. Black sideburns...
Yulia Markovna’s face became flushed with blood, she began to wheeze. It's a pity - the fingers unclench.
This is my second... second cousin.
Left for Moscow.
Bolshevik?
No, he's an engineer.
Why did you go to Moscow?
It's his business.
The blood drained, and Yulia Markovna’s eyes became crystalline. I wonder what can be read in crystal? Nothing is possible.
Why did your husband leave you?
I left him.
He's trash.
You are trash and a liar. I love you, you bastard.
Yulia Markovna smiled.
So are the evenings and so are the nights. Turbin left around midnight through the multi-tiered garden, his lips bitten. He looked at the holey, ossified network of trees and whispered something.
Need money…"
The above scene is completely complemented by another passage related to the relationship between Alexei Turbin and Yulia Reiss:
“Well, Yulenka,” said Turbin and took Myshlaevsky’s revolver, rented for one evening, from his back pocket, “tell me, please, what is your relationship with Mikhail Semenovich Shpolyansky?”
Yulia backed away, bumped into the table, the lampshade clinked... ding... For the first time, Yulia's face became genuinely pale.
Alexey... Alexey... what are you doing?
Tell me, Yulia, what is your relationship with Mikhail Semenovich? - Turbin repeated firmly, like a man who has finally decided to pull out the rotten tooth that has tormented him.
What do you want to know? - Yulia asked, her eyes moved, she covered the barrel with her hands.
Only one thing: is he your lover or not?
Yulia Markovna's face came to life a little. Some blood returned to the head. Her eyes sparkled strangely, as if Turbin’s question seemed to her an easy, not at all difficult question, as if she was expecting the worst. Her voice came to life.
You have no right to torment me... you, - she said, - well, okay... for the last time I’m telling you - he was not my lover. Was not. Was not.
Swear it.
I swear.
Yulia Markovna's eyes were as clear as crystal.
Late at night, Doctor Turbin knelt in front of Yulia Markovna, burying his head in his knees, and muttered:
You tortured me. Tormented me, and this month that I recognized you, I don’t live. I love you, I love you... - passionately, licking his lips, he muttered...
Yulia Markovna leaned towards him and stroked his hair.
Tell me why did you give yourself to me? Do you love me? Do you love? Or
“I love you,” answered Yulia Markovna and looked at the back pocket of the man on his knees.
We will not talk about Julia’s lover, Mikhail Semenovich Shpolyansky, since we will devote a separate section to him. But it would be quite appropriate to talk about a real-life girl with the last name Reis.
Since 1893, the family of Colonel of the General Staff of the Russian Army Vladimir Vladimirovich Reis lived in the city of Kyiv. Vladimir Reis was a participant Russian-Turkish War 1877–1878, honored and combat officer. He was born in 1857 and came from a Lutheran family of nobles in the Kovno province. His ancestors were of German-Baltic origin. Colonel Reis was married to the daughter of British citizen Peter Theakston, Elizabeth, with whom he came to Kyiv. Elizaveta Thixton's sister Sofia soon moved here too, and settled in the house on Malopodvalnaya, 14, apartment 1 - at the address where our mysterious Julia Reiss from the White Guard lived. The Reis family had a son and two daughters: Peter, born in 1886, Natalya, born in 1889, and Irina, born in 1895, who were raised under the supervision of their mother and aunt. Vladimir Reis did not take care of his family because he suffered from mental disorders. In 1899, he was admitted to the Psychiatric Department of a military hospital, where he remained almost all the time until 1903. The disease turned out to be incurable, and in 1900 the military department sent Vladimir Reis into retirement with the rank of major general. In 1903, General Reis died in the Kiev military hospital, leaving the children in the care of their mother.
The theme of Julia Reiss's father appears several times in the novel The White Guard. Even in his delirium, as soon as he gets into an unfamiliar house, Alexey Turbin notices a mourning portrait with epaulettes, indicating that the portrait depicts a lieutenant colonel, colonel or general.
After death, the entire Reis family moved to Malopodvalnaya Street, where Elizaveta and Sofia Thixton, Natalya and Irina Reis, as well as General Reis’ sister Anastasia Vasilievna Semigradova now lived. Pyotr Vladimirovich Reis was studying at the Kiev Military School by that time, and therefore a large group of women gathered at Malopodvalnaya. Peter Reis would later become a colleague of Leonid Karum, Varvara Bulgakova’s husband, at the Kyiv Konstantinovsky Military School. Together they will walk the roads of the civil war.
Irina Vladimirovna Reis, the youngest in the family, studied at the Kiev Institute of Noble Maidens and the Catherine Women's Gymnasium. According to Kyiv Bulgakov scholars, she was familiar with the Bulgakov sisters, who could even bring her to the house on Andreevsky Spusk, 13.
After the death of Elizaveta Thixton in 1908, Natalya Reis got married and settled with her husband at 14 Malopodvalnaya Street, and Yulia Reis came under the guardianship of Anastasia Semigradova, with whom she soon moved to 17 Trekhsvyatitelskaya Street. Soon Sofia Thixton left, and therefore to Malopodvalnaya Natalia was left alone with her husband.
We don’t know when exactly Natalya Vladimirovna Reis divorced her marriage, but after that she was left completely alone in the apartment. It was she who became the prototype for creating the image of Julia Reiss in the novel “The White Guard”.
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov saw his future wife Tatyana Lappa again only after a long break - in the summer of 1911. In 1910 - early 1911, the future writer, who was then 19 years old, probably had some novels. At the same time, Natalia Reis, 21 years old, had already divorced her husband. She lived opposite the Bulgakovs' friends - the Syngaevsky family, and therefore Mikhail Afanasyevich could actually meet her on Malopodvalnaya Street, where he often visited. Thus, we can safely say that the described romance between Alexei Turbin and Yulia Reiss actually took place between Mikhail Bulgakov and Natalia Reiss. Otherwise there is no way for us to explain detailed description Julia's address and the path that led to her house, the coincidence of the surname, the mention of a mourning portrait of a lieutenant colonel or colonel with epaulets from the 19th century, a hint of the existence of a brother.
So, in the novel “The White Guard,” Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, in our deep conviction, described the various types of women with whom he had to deal most in life, and also talked about his novels that he had before his marriage to Tatyana Lappa.
In the essay “Kyiv-Gorod” of 1923, Bulgakov wrote:
“When heavenly thunder (after all, there is a limit to heavenly patience) kills every single modern writer and 50 years later a new real Leo Tolstoy appears, an amazing book will be created about the great battles in Kyiv.”
Actually, great book Bulgakov wrote about the battles in Kyiv - this book is called “The White Guard”. And among those writers from whom he counts his tradition and whom he sees as his predecessors, Leo Tolstoy is first of all noticeable.
The works that preceded The White Guard can be called War and Peace, as well as The Captain's Daughter. All three of these works are usually called historical novels. But it's not easy, and maybe not at all historical novels, these are family chronicles. At the center of each of them is family. It is the house and family that Pugachev destroys in “The Captain’s Daughter”, where quite recently Grinev dines with Ivan Ignatievich, at the Mironovs he meets with Pugachev. It is Napoleon who destroys the house and family, and the French rule in Moscow, and Prince Andrei will say to Pierre: “The French ruined my house, killed my father, and are coming to ruin Moscow.” The same thing happens in the White Guard. Where the Turbins' friends gather at home, everything will be destroyed. As will be said at the beginning of the novel, they, the young Turbins, will have to suffer and suffer after the death of their mother.
And, of course, it is no coincidence that the sign of this collapsing life is cabinets with books, where the presence of Natasha Rostova and the captain’s daughter is emphasized. And the way Petliura is presented in The White Guard is very reminiscent of Napoleon in War and Peace. The number 666 is the number of the cell in which Petlyura was sitting, this is the number of the beast, and Pierre Bezukhov, in his calculations (not very accurate, by the way), fits the digital meanings of the letters of the words “Emperor Napoleon” and “Russian Bezukhov” to the number 666. Hence the theme of the beast of the apocalypse.
There are many small overlaps between Tolstoy’s book and Bulgakov’s novel. Nai-Tours in The White Guard burrs like Denisov in War and Peace. But this is not enough. Like Denisov, he violates the regulations in order to obtain supplies for his soldiers. Denisov repels a convoy with provisions intended for another Russian detachment - he becomes a criminal and receives punishment. Nai-Tours violates the regulations in order to get felt boots for his soldiers: he takes out a pistol and forces the quartermaster general to hand over the felt boots. Portrait of Captain Tushin from War and Peace: “a small man with weak, awkward movements.” Malyshev from the “White Guard”: “The captain was small, with a long sharp nose, wearing an overcoat with a large collar.” Both of them cannot tear themselves away from the pipe, which they continuously smoke. Both of them end up alone on the battery - they are forgotten.
Here is Prince Andrey in War and Peace:
“The very thought that he was afraid lifted him up: “I can’t be afraid,” he thought.<…>“This is it,” thought Prince Andrei, grabbing the flagpole.”
And here is Nikolka, the youngest of the Turbins:
“Nikolka was completely stupefied, but at that very second he controlled himself and, thinking with lightning speed: “This is the moment when you can be a hero,” he shouted in his piercing voice: “Don’t you dare get up!” Listen to the command!’”
But Nikolka, of course, has more in common with Nikolai Rostov than with Prince Andrei. Rostov, hearing Natasha’s singing, thinks: “All this, and misfortune, and money, and Dolokhov, and anger, and honor - all this is nonsense... but here it is - real.” And here are Nikolka Turbin’s thoughts: “Yes, perhaps everything in the world is nonsense, except for a voice like Shervinsky,” - this is Nikolka listening to Shervinsky, the Turbins’ guest, sing. I'm not even talking about such a passing, but also interesting detail, like the fact that both of them proclaim a toast to the health of the emperor (Nikolka Turbin clearly does this belatedly).
The similarities between Nikolka and Petya Rostov are obvious: both are younger brothers; naturalness, ardor, unreasonable courage, which destroys Petya Rostov; a crush in which both are involved.
The image of the younger Turbin has features of quite a few characters from War and Peace. But something else is much more important. Bulgakov, following Tolstoy, does not attach importance to the role historical figure. First, Tolstoy's phrase:
“In historical events, the so-called great people are labels that give a name to the event, which, like labels, have least of all any connection with the event itself.”
And now Bulgakov. Not to mention the insignificant Hetman Skoropadsky, here is what is said about Petlyura:
“Yes, he was not there. Did not have. So, nonsense, legend, mirage.<…>All this is nonsense. Not him - someone else. Not another, but a third.”
Or this, for example, is also an eloquent roll call. In War and Peace, at least three characters - Napoleon, Prince Andrew and Pierre - compare battle to a game of chess. And in “The White Guard” Bulgakov will talk about the Bolsheviks as the third force that appeared on the chessboard.
Let us remember the scene in the Alexander Gymnasium: Alexey Turbin mentally turns to Alexander I, depicted in the picture hanging in the gymnasium, for help. And Myshlaevsky proposes to burn the gymnasium, just as Moscow was burned in the time of Alexander, so that no one would get it. But the difference is that Tolstoy’s burned Moscow is a prologue to victory. And the Turbines are doomed to defeat - they will suffer and die.
Another quote, and a completely frank one. I think Bulgakov had a lot of fun when he wrote this. Actually, the war in Ukraine is preceded by “a certain clumsy peasant anger”:
“[Anger] ran through the snowstorm and cold in holey bast shoes, with hay in his bare, matted head and howled. In his hands he carried a great club, without which no undertaking in Rus' is complete.”
It is clear that this is a “club” people's war”, which Tolstoy sang in “War and Peace” and which Bulgakov is not inclined to glorify. But Bulgakov writes about this not with disgust, but as an inevitability: this peasant anger could not help but exist. Although Bulgakov does not have any idealization of the peasants, it is no coincidence that Myshlaevsky in the novel sarcastically speaks about the local “God-bearing peasants of Dostoevsky.” There is and cannot be any admiration for the people's truth, no Tolstoy's Karataev in The White Guard.
Even more interesting are artistic overlaps, when the key compositional moments of two books are connected with the common vision of the writers’ world. The episode from War and Peace is Pierre's dream. Pierre is in captivity, and he dreams of an old man, a geography teacher. He shows him a ball, similar to a globe, but consisting of drops. Some drops spill and capture others, then they themselves break and spill. The old teacher says: “This is life.” Then Pierre, reflecting on Karataev’s death, says: “Look, Karataev spilled over and disappeared.” Petya Rostov had a second dream that same night, a musical dream. Petya is sleeping in a partisan detachment, a Cossack is sharpening his saber, and all the sounds - the sound of a saber being sharpened, the neighing of horses - are mixed, and Petya thinks he hears a fugue. He hears the harmonious agreement of voices, and it seems to him that he can control. This is an image of harmony, just like the sphere that Pierre sees.
And at the end of the novel “The White Guard” another Petya, Petka Shcheglov, sees in a dream a ball splashing spray. And this is also the hope that history does not end with blood and death, does not end with the triumph of the star of Mars. And the last lines of “The White Guard” are about the fact that we do not look at the sky and do not see the stars. Why don't we detach ourselves from our earthly affairs and look at the stars? Maybe then the meaning of what is happening in the world will be revealed to us.
So, how important is the Tolstoyan tradition for Bulgakov? In a letter to the government, which he sent at the end of March 1930, Bulgakov wrote that in “The White Guard” he strove to portray an intellectual-noble family, abandoned by the will of fate in the years Civil War to the White Guard camp, in the traditions of War and Peace. Such an image is quite natural for a writer who is closely connected with the intelligentsia. For Bulgakov, Tolstoy was an indisputable writer all his life, absolutely authoritative, following whom Bulgakov considered the greatest honor and dignity.
M. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” was written in 1923-1925. At that time, the writer considered this book to be the main one in his destiny, he said that this novel “will make the sky hot.” Years later he called him "a failure." Perhaps the writer meant that that epic in the spirit of L.N. Tolstoy, which he wanted to create, did not work out.
Bulgakov witnessed the revolutionary events in Ukraine. He outlined his view of his experiences in the stories “The Red Crown” (1922), “The Extraordinary Adventures of the Doctor” (1922), “ Chinese history"(1923), "Raid" (1923). Bulgakov’s first novel with the bold title “The White Guard” became, perhaps, the only work at that time in which the writer was interested in the experiences of a person in a raging world, when the foundation of the world order is collapsing.
One of the most important motives of M. Bulgakov’s work is the value of home, family, and simple human affections. The heroes of The White Guard are losing the warmth of their home, although they are desperately trying to preserve it. In her prayer to the Mother of God, Elena says: “You are sending too much grief at once, intercessor mother. So in one year you end your family. For what?.. My mother took it from us, I don’t have a husband and never will, I understand that. Now I understand very clearly. And now you’re taking away the older one too. For what?.. How will we be together with Nikol?.. Look what is happening around, look... Intercessor Mother, won’t you have mercy?.. Maybe we are bad people, but why punish like that? -That?"
The novel begins with the words: “The year after the Nativity of Christ 1918 was a great and terrible year, the second from the beginning of the revolution.” Thus, as it were, two systems of counting time, chronology, two systems of values are proposed: traditional and new, revolutionary.
Remember how at the beginning of the 20th century A.I. Kuprin depicted the Russian army in the story “The Duel” - decayed, rotten. In 1918, the same people who made up the pre-revolutionary army found themselves on the battlefields of the Civil War, in general Russian society. But on the pages of Bulgakov’s novel we see not Kuprin’s heroes, but rather Chekhov’s ones. Intellectuals, who even before the revolution were yearning for a bygone world and understood that something needed to be changed, found themselves in the epicenter of the Civil War. They, like the author, are not politicized, they live their own lives. And now we find ourselves in a world in which there is no place for neutral people. The Turbins and their friends desperately defend what is dear to them, singing “God Save the Tsar,” tearing off the fabric hiding the portrait of Alexander I. Like Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, they do not adapt. But, like him, they are doomed. Only Chekhov's intellectuals were doomed to vegetation, and Bulgakov's intellectuals were doomed to defeat.
Bulgakov likes the cozy Turbino apartment, but everyday life is not valuable for a writer in itself. Life in the “White Guard” is a symbol of the strength of existence. Bulgakov leaves the reader no illusions about the future of the Turbin family. Inscriptions from the tiled stove are washed away, cups are broken, and the inviolability of everyday life and, therefore, existence is slowly but irreversibly destroyed. The Turbins' house behind the cream curtains is their fortress, a refuge from the blizzard, blizzard raging outside, but it is still impossible to protect yourself from it.
Bulgakov's novel includes the symbol of a blizzard as a sign of the times. For the author of The White Guard, the blizzard is a symbol not of the transformation of the world, not of the sweeping away of everything that has become obsolete, but of the evil principle, violence. “Well, I think it will stop, the life that is written about in chocolate books will begin, but not only does it not begin, but all around it becomes more and more terrible. In the north the blizzard howls and howls, but here underfoot the disturbed womb of the earth muffles and grumbles dully.” The blizzard force destroys the life of the Turbin family, the life of the City. Bulgakov's white snow does not become a symbol of purification.
“The provocative novelty of Bulgakov’s novel was that five years after the end of the Civil War, when the pain and heat of mutual hatred had not yet subsided, he dared to show the officers of the White Guard not in the poster guise of the “enemy,” but as ordinary, good and bad, suffering and misguided, intelligent and limited people, showed them from the inside, and the best in this environment - with obvious sympathy. What does Bulgakov like about these stepsons of history who lost their battle? And in Alexey, and in Malyshev, and in Nai-Turs, and in Nikolka, he most of all values courageous straightforwardness, loyalty to honor,” notes literary critic V.Ya. Lakshin. The concept of honor is the starting point that determines Bulgakov’s attitude towards his heroes and which can be taken as a basis in a conversation about the system of images.
But despite all the sympathy of the author of “The White Guard” for his heroes, his task is not to decide who is right and who is wrong. Even Petliura and his henchmen, in his opinion, are not the culprits of the horrors taking place. This is a product of the elements of rebellion, doomed to quickly disappear from the historical arena. Trump who was bad school teacher, would never have become an executioner and would not have known about himself that his calling was war, if this war had not begun. Many of the heroes’ actions were brought to life by the Civil War. “War is a native mother” for Kozyr, Bolbotun and other Petliurists, who take pleasure in killing defenseless people. The horror of war is that it creates a situation of permissiveness and undermines the foundations of human life.
Therefore, for Bulgakov it does not matter whose side his heroes are on. In Alexey Turbin’s dream, the Lord says to Zhilin: “One believes, the other doesn’t believe, but you all have the same actions: now each other is at each other’s throats, and as for the barracks, Zhilin, then you have to understand this, I have you all, Zhilin, identical - killed on the battlefield. This, Zhilin, must be understood, and not everyone will understand it.” And it seems that this view is very close to the writer.
V. Lakshin noted: “Artistic vision, the mindset of the creative mind always embraces a broader spiritual reality than can be verified by evidence of simple class interest. There is a biased class truth that has its own right. But there is a universal, classless morality and humanism, smelted by the experience of mankind.” M. Bulgakov stood in the position of such universal humanism.
Exists in three editions.
History of creation
On April 3, 1925, Bulgakov was offered at the Moscow Art Theater to write a play based on the novel “The White Guard.” Bulgakov began work on the first edition in July 1925. In the play, as in the novel, Bulgakov based his own memories of Kyiv during the Civil War. The author read the first edition in the theater at the beginning of September of the same year; on September 25, 1926, the play was allowed to be staged.
Subsequently, it was edited several times. Currently, three editions of the play are known; the first two have the same title as the novel, but due to censorship problems it had to be changed. The title “Days of the Turbins” was also used for the novel. In particular, its first edition (1927 and 1929, Concorde publishing house, Paris) was entitled “Days of the Turbins (White Guard)”. There is no consensus among researchers as to which edition is considered the latest. Some point out that the third appeared as a result of the ban on the second and therefore cannot be considered the final manifestation of the author's will. Others argue that “Days of the Turbins” should be recognized as the main text, since performances based on it have been performed for many decades. No manuscripts of the play have survived. The third edition was first published by E. S. Bulgakova in 1955. The second edition was first published in Munich.
In 1927, the rogue Z. L. Kagansky declared himself the copyright holder for translations and production of the play abroad. In this regard, M. A. Bulgakov on February 21, 1928 turned to the Moscow Soviet with a request for permission to travel abroad to negotiate the production of the play. [ ]
Characters
- Turbin Alexey Vasilievich - artillery colonel, 30 years old.
- Turbin Nikolay - his brother, 18 years old.
- Talberg Elena Vasilievna - their sister, 24 years old.
- Talberg Vladimir Robertovich - General Staff Colonel, her husband, 38 years old.
- Myshlaevsky Viktor Viktorovich - staff captain, artilleryman, 38 years old.
- Shervinsky Leonid Yurievich - lieutenant, personal adjutant of the hetman.
- Studzinsky Alexander Bronislavovich - captain, 29 years old.
- Lariosik - cousin from Zhitomir, 21 years old.
- Hetman of All Ukraine (Pavel Skoropadsky).
- Bolbotun - commander of the 1st Petliura Cavalry Division (prototype - Bolbochan).
- Galanba is a Petliurist centurion, a former Uhlan captain.
- Hurricane.
- Kirpaty.
- Von Schratt - German general.
- Von Doust - German major.
- German army doctor.
- Sich deserter.
- Man with a basket.
- Chamber footman.
- Maxim - former gymnasium teacher, 60 years old.
- Gaydamak the telephone operator.
- First officer.
- Second officer.
- Third officer.
- The first cadet.
- Second cadet.
- Third cadet.
- Junkers and Haidamaks.
Plot
The events described in the play take place at the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919 in Kyiv and cover the fall of the regime of Hetman Skoropadsky, the arrival of Petliura and his expulsion from the city by the Bolsheviks. Against the backdrop of a constant change of power, a personal tragedy occurs for the Turbin family, and the foundations of the old life are broken.
The first edition had 5 acts, while the second and third editions had only 4.
Criticism
Modern critics consider “Days of the Turbins” to be the pinnacle of Bulgakov’s theatrical success, but it stage fate was difficult. First staged at the Moscow Art Theater, the play enjoyed great audience success, but received devastating reviews in the then Soviet press. In an article in the magazine “New Spectator” dated February 2, 1927, Bulgakov emphasized the following:
We are ready to agree with some of our friends that “Days of the Turbins” is a cynical attempt to idealize the White Guard, but we have no doubt that “Days of the Turbins” is an aspen stake in its coffin. Why? Because for a healthy Soviet viewer, the most ideal slush cannot present a temptation, and for dying active enemies and for passive, flabby, indifferent ordinary people, the same slush cannot provide either emphasis or charge against us. Just as a funeral hymn cannot serve as a military march.
Stalin himself, in a letter to the playwright V. Bill-Belotserkovsky, indicated that he liked the play, on the contrary, because it showed the defeat of the whites. The letter was subsequently published by Stalin himself in his collected works after Bulgakov’s death, in 1949:
Why are Bulgakov's plays staged so often? Because it must be that there are not enough plays of our own suitable for production. Without fish, even “Days of the Turbins” is a fish. (...) As for the play “Days of the Turbins” itself, it is not so bad, because it does more good than harm. Do not forget that the main impression that remains with the viewer from this play is an impression favorable to the Bolsheviks: “if even people like the Turbins are forced to lay down their arms and submit to the will of the people, recognizing their cause as completely lost, it means that the Bolsheviks are invincible, “Nothing can be done with them, the Bolsheviks,” “Days of the Turbins” is a demonstration of the all-crushing power of Bolshevism.
Well, we watched “Days of the Turbins”<…>Tiny ones, from officers’ meetings, with the smell of “drink and snacks,” passions, love affairs, affairs. Melodramatic patterns, a little bit of Russian feelings, a little bit of music. I hear: What the hell!<…>What have you achieved? The fact that everyone watches the play, shaking their heads and remembering the Ramzin affair...
- “When I will soon die...” Correspondence between M. A. Bulgakov and P. S. Popov (1928-1940). - M.: EKSMO, 2003. - P. 123-125
For Mikhail Bulgakov, who did odd jobs, a production at the Moscow Art Theater was perhaps the only opportunity to support his family.
Productions
- - Moscow Art Theater. Director Ilya Sudakov, artist Nikolai Ulyanov, artistic director of the production K. S. Stanislavsky. Roles performed by: Alexey Turbin- Nikolay Khmelev, Nikolka- Ivan Kudryavtsev, Elena- Vera Sokolova, Shervinsky- Mark Prudkin, Studzinski- Evgeny Kaluzhsky, Myshlaevsky- Boris Dobronravov, Thalberg- Vsevolod Verbitsky, Lariosik- Mikhail Yanshin, Von Schratt- Victor Stanitsyn, von Doust- Robert Schilling, Hetman- Vladimir Ershov, deserter- Nikolai Titushin, Bolbotun- Alexander Anders, Maksim- Mikhail Kedrov, also Sergei Blinnikov, Vladimir Istrin, Boris Maloletkov, Vasily Novikov. The premiere took place on October 5, 1926.
In the excluded scenes (with the Jew captured by the Petliurists, Vasilisa and Wanda) Joseph Raevsky and Mikhail Tarkhanov with Anastasia Zueva were supposed to play, respectively.
Typist I. S. Raaben (daughter of General Kamensky), who typed the novel “The White Guard” and whom Bulgakov invited to the performance, recalled: “The performance was amazing, because everything was vivid in people’s memory. There were hysterics, fainting, seven people were taken away by ambulance, because among the spectators there were people who survived Petliura, these horrors in Kyiv, and the difficulties of the civil war in general...”
Publicist I. L. Solonevich subsequently described the extraordinary events associated with the production:
... It seems that in 1929 the Moscow Art Theater staged Bulgakov’s then-famous play “Days of the Turbins.” It was a story about deceived White Guard officers stuck in Kyiv. The audience at the Moscow Art Theater was not an average audience. It was "selection". Theater tickets were distributed by trade unions, and the top of the intelligentsia, bureaucracy and party received, of course, best places and in the best theaters. I was among this bureaucracy: I worked in the very department of the trade union that distributed these tickets. As the play progresses, the White Guard officers drink vodka and sing “God Save the Tsar! " It was best theater in the world, and the best artists in the world performed on its stage. And so it begins - a little chaotic, as befits a drunken company: “God Save the Tsar”...
And then the inexplicable comes: the hall begins get up. The artists' voices are growing stronger. The artists sing standing and the audience listens standing: sitting next to me was my boss for cultural and educational activities - a communist from the workers. He also stood up. People stood, listened and cried. Then my communist, confused and nervous, tried to explain something to me, something completely helpless. I helped him: this is mass suggestion. But this was not only a suggestion.
For this demonstration, the play was removed from the repertoire. Then they tried to stage it again - and they demanded from the director that “God Save the Tsar” be sung like a drunken mockery. Nothing came of it - I don’t know why exactly - and the play was finally removed. “All of Moscow” knew about this incident at one time.
- Solonevich I. L. The mystery and solution of Russia. M.: Publishing house "FondIV", 2008. P.451
After being removed from the repertoire in 1929, the performance was resumed on February 18, 1932 and remained on stage Art Theater until June 1941. In total, the play was performed 987 times between 1926 and 1941.
M. A. Bulgakov wrote in a letter to P. S. Popov on April 24, 1932 about the resumption of the performance:
From Tverskaya to the Theater, male figures stood and muttered mechanically: “Is there an extra ticket?” The same thing happened on the Dmitrovka side.
I was not in the hall. I was backstage, and the actors were so worried that they infected me. I began to move from place to place, my arms and legs became empty. There are ringing calls in all directions, then the light will hit the spotlights, then suddenly, as in a mine, darkness, and<…>it seems that the performance is going on with head-turning speed... Toporkov plays Myshlaevsky first-class... The actors were so worried that they turned pale under the makeup,<…>and the eyes were tormented, wary, questioning...
The curtain was given 20 times.- “When I will soon die...” Correspondence between M. A. Bulgakov and P. S. Popov (1928-1940). - M.: EKSMO, 2003. - P. 117-118
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