But if he had started forming officer corps in April, we would have taken Moscow now. Understand that here, in the City, he would have recruited an army of fifty thousand, and what an army! Selected, the best, because all the cadets, all the students, high school students, officers, and there are thousands of them in the City, would all go with dear souls.

What do we know about the White Guard? Much and little at the same time. Not enough, since the name of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov is associated with another work that has become a classic - “The Master and Margarita”. Not enough, because often the novel itself remains in the shadows theatrical productions and films, the play “Days of the Turbins” (and these are two completely different works, I dare to assure you). Not enough, because we, in principle, do not have a large empirical stock of knowledge about the Civil War.

But why at the same time do we know so much? Firstly, all the real prototypes of the novel’s heroes have been established for certain. Doctor Alexey Turbin is Bulgakov himself, who lived during the White Guard in Kyiv, a doctor. Lieutenant Viktor Myshlaevsky was written off from a combat officer, staff captain Pyotr Aleksandrovich Brzhezitsky, who fought during Great War and after her in the ranks of the 70th Kyiv Division. “Careerist of the General Staff,” Talberg was modeled after the husband of Mikhail Afanasyevich’s sister, Leonid Sergeevich Kraum. A negative hero, Bulgakov purposefully denigrated this image. However, I have no goal to justify Kraum and get involved in the Bulgakov family affairs. But I’ll try to do this with Sergei Ivanovich Talberg a little later.

Another fact that we know so much about the Turbins and their circle is the fact that, despite the ban, it was possible to read the novel in the USSR. Yes, even if it's late Soviet Union, this is a rare rarity and a terrible shortage for book lovers, but there was an opportunity to read The White Guard. In particular, the famous journalist Oles Buzina recalls this (link to the post with this text in the public). That is, the very essence of the work could have been known to the interested public since the late 1980s.

Well, and probably the most important thing. Bulgakov is now perhaps the most popular classical Russian writer. Bulgakov is the legacy of the “Silver Age” of Russian literature. And for this reason, enormous attention has been focused on him. He is the object of study, his life and creative path- a subject of controversy. In this regard, the “White Guard” occupies no last place. Moreover, an extremely positive trend has emerged in the post-Soviet state. More and more societies are being created that restore the history of the White movement. And through the restoration of such memory there is a revival of the national self-awareness of Russians.

So what is this article about? That's right, about the "White Guard". About her heroes. I advise you to carefully read the epigraph. It is not accidental, and its last lines are the most expressive. Junkers, students, high school students, officers... Mikhail Afanasyevich quite clearly indicates that his heroes belong to different strata of society. In this quote, taken from the fiery speech of Dr. Turbin, we can not find all the characters. If, for example, Nikolka is a cadet, a number of his friends are students, Myshlaevsky and Karas are officers, and a platoon of high school students (albeit mixed with the same cadets and students) is completely slaughtered by the Petliurists, then representatives of the intelligentsia are not mentioned here. This does not mean that Bulgakov neglects them, no. The intelligentsia simply does not have the task of fighting. And she did this throughout her civilian life. And even in The White Guard. There are also a lot of ordinary people, desperate, “God-bearing”, ready to grab hold of anything as long as it brings peace and stability (this applies equally to Russians and Ukrainians).

The purpose of this article is to identify in the images of heroes the traits that Bulgakov assigned to them, characteristic of the layer of society to which this or that hero belongs. Of course, the following can be objected here. Like, the majority characters- officers belong to the same part of Russian society, have common moral values ​​and identical views. The remark is quite reasonable, especially on the last two points. However, even within the officers, I am inclined to see some kind of differentiation.

DOCTOR ALEXEY TURBIN

As already mentioned, Bulgakov portrayed himself in the image of Turbin. Everything fits: participation in the Great War, private medical practice after it, mobilization into the hetman’s army. Of course, Turbin is an officer and considers himself to be in this class: “ Tomorrow, I have already decided, I am going to this very division, and if your Malyshev does not take me as a doctor, I will go as a simple private" Purely officer's worldview. As is known, the rank and file in the Ice Campaign were lieutenants and captains, and the company commanders were colonels. It is quite appropriate to say that Bulgakov, himself a medical serviceman in the All-Russian Socialist Republic, makes a reference to this episode. Alexey Turbin - colonel, junior doctor of the Belgrade Hussars (the prototype was the 12th Belgorod Uhlan) regiment, and then the head of the hospital. In the plot of "The White Guard" he was recently demobilized. Does it matter that the Russian army essentially did not exist since February 197? It probably did. The officers, the military class as a whole, felt that someone had betrayed them. But not their Emperor; they still cherish the hope of restoring legal order in the country. In a country that is not limited to Kiev, Ukraine.

And yet, Alexey Vasilyevich belongs to the stratum of the intelligentsia. How different its representatives are will be illustrated below. Why an intellectual and not an officer? And this is simple: by profession. A doctor is traditionally an intelligent profession. They, and especially the district doctors somewhere in the outback, enjoyed enormous respect both in high society and among ordinary people. It's no joke, but the most common profession among deputies of the first State Duma It turned out that they were not lawyers, barristers or representatives of the profession, but doctors.

Turbin is a representative of the passionate part of it. His ideals are monarchism, faith and freedom. He perfectly understands where the roots of all Russia’s troubles come from: at the feast, there is more than once a call to hang Leiba Bronstein (the so-called “Trotsky”) on the nearest pole. In general, such a worldview is not typical for an intellectual. I’ll explain in the words of Colonel Malyshev:

He [Malyshev] suddenly stopped, slightly narrowed his eyes and spoke, lowering his voice: “Only... how can I put this... Here, you see, doctor, there’s one question... Social theories and... um... are you a socialist? Is not it? How are all intelligent people?

This gives every reason to say that Turbin corresponds to the marker, a characteristic layer of officers. Not all officers, of course, were monarchists. I'm not even sure what the majority are. But I won’t be mistaken if I say that there are many like Turbin, you just have to look. Therefore, the case of this character is unique.

LIEUTENANT VIKTOR MYSHLAEVSKY, SECOND LIEUTENANT FEDOR STEPANOV (CRUCCIAN)

These types are somewhat different from each other. Viktor Viktorovich is hot, life is seething in him, he could easily pass for a dashing hussar from Denis Davydov’s unit. A sort of lieutenant (funny, isn’t it?) Rzhevsky. Women love him, he is not averse to drinking, but he also fights desperately. He knows that if he betrays his service, he will betray himself. Remember the episode at the very beginning of the novel. Frozen to hell, Myshlaevsky was somehow warmed up, ground, and given vodka to drink. And why? He just didn’t leave his post under the Red Tavern. Steppe, snowstorm, frost, but even after the end of combat duty he remains in place, so the position was not replaced. The willingness to sacrifice oneself is a characteristic feature of the Russian army at all times.

What about Karas-Stepanov? Don't think that these are two antagonists. Fyodor Nikolaevich is also desperately brave, he serves in these troubled times, he knows that the Hetman’s palace has sunk into the ground, the inhabitants of the City still need to be protected. And he does this until the moment when even the top (and this happened much earlier) realizes the futility of resistance. True, Stepanov is more reasonable. Perhaps a little more intelligent than Myshlaevsky. It’s not for nothing that he is trying to graduate from university and combine it with military service. That’s right, and he’s a good commander at the same time.

The identification of these characters is based on two things. First of all, they are both childhood friends. They know each other, to put it in colloquial language (by the way, Bulgakov’s technique from “The White Guard”), like peeling people. They have a similar fate. And how could it be otherwise? The officer's task is to fight, which they did with honor. This is their duty, they did not compromise on it. Secondly, as follows from the first, both Myshlaevsky and Karas belong to the stratum of fairly young officers. If Turbin, their peer, is already a colonel, then they are in the lower ranks. They are all young, not even thirty. What does this mean? The fact that they were raised by war. They have a winning mentality and are warriors. But they lack a certain charm. Like, say, Tolstoy's Prince Bolkonsky from War and Peace possessed. There is not enough education and manners for high society. These are not shortcomings. It just happened that way. Well, in terms of class, they did not come from aristocratic families. Although the concept of “estate” by the beginning of the twentieth century was of a very conditional nature. Social elevators in Russian Empire allowed to move freely from one state to another if there was an opportunity and desire. The concept of “nobility” was blurred. However, this topic is not new and has been covered in detail by professional historians.

As for our heroes. They can't help but be cute. Myshlaevsky with his masculinity and inner strength, Karas with his ability to combine courage and calculation. This is probably the most typical image of a Russian officer as he is perceived today by people of the 21st century.

COLONEL FELIX NAY-TOURS, COLONEL ALEXEY MALYSHEV

But this is exactly the type of senior officer. Not by rank, but by age. But here one important difference is just as strictly present as in the previous case. Nai-Tours is an aristocrat. This is evident from the descriptions of his family’s life, his habits and manners. The war made him tougher and callous. Remember this incident when he orders (!) and threatens (!!!) one of the highest ranks of the Hetman’s army - General Makushin. Remembered this episode? Tell me, Nye wasn’t so wrong, was he?

But in contrast, there is another case. That same failed battle between the cadets and the vanguard of the Petliura army that entered the City. Nai-Tours understood everything instantly as soon as he heard the report of the “picket” sent for reconnaissance:

Mister Colonel, there are no units of ours not only on Shulyavka, but also nowhere,” he took a breath. - There is machine-gun fire in our rear, and the enemy cavalry has now passed in the distance along Shulyavka, as if entering the City...

He saves his cadets, let's face it. There is a widespread stereotype that the love of father and son is a stingy, unemotional, almost silent, but very strong substance. It is this feeling that guides the combat officer. He is not afraid to die, he is afraid not to save the lives of these young boys.

Nai-Tours is my favorite Bulgakov character. Not only in the White Guard, but in general. He is called the textbook image of an officer in the Russian army. Well, it’s impossible to disagree with this.

This is approximately what Colonel Malyshev is like. The only thing is that he is less aristocratic, but the character’s image even benefits from this. The specificity of his work during the hard times of the Civil War was the same cadets and students. The colonel himself (the only character who retained the real surname of his prototype - pilot Alexei Fedorovich Malyshev) is well aware of this. Surprisingly, the characters’ self-characteristics almost always evoke sympathy. Probably because they are true. Or overly self-critical.

“I won’t waste words, I don’t know how to speak, because I haven’t spoken at rallies,” this is the absence of that very aristocracy. But can it cause rejection? No. It’s immediately clear: the colonel is a man of action and word. Words in the sense that he will fulfill an order, promise or oath. The episode with Nai-Tours' dispersal of the cadet squad is characteristic and key for this character. In the life of Malyshev, captured in the novel, this is the passage:

Mister Lieutenant, in three hours Petlyura will lose hundreds of living lives, and the only thing I regret is that at the cost of my life and even yours, even more dear, of course, I cannot stop their deaths. I ask you not to talk to me anymore about portraits, cannons and rifles.

[At Myshlaevsky’s proposal to burn down the gymnasium building where the division was based]. Sometimes you don’t understand the fine line of this image of a Russian officer roughly carved into granite rock. The same as Turbin, Myshlaevsky, Nai-Tours. The same as the real heroes of the Russian movement were: Kolchak, Kornilov, Markov, Yudenich. You don’t understand, because there is always a doubt hovering somewhere nearby: “isn’t this irony in Malyshev’s words?” Almost all of his phrases evoke similar feelings. Either he is really cynical (if so, then let's forgive a military officer for such a character trait), or he is really taciturn and reserved. I don’t want to draw a conclusion, I’ll leave it to you.

The only thing I'll add. I like this character in both cases. In Bulgakov's version, Malyshev destroys his documents and disappears when Petlyura entered the city. In the most recent film adaptation of the novel (with Khabensky in the role of Alexei Turbin), the colonel shoots himself out of despair. You know, this is exactly the right outcome for life path this image, no matter how blasphemous it may sound.

NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER NIKOLKA TURBIN, JUNKER

Here we can absolutely say that in the person of one character the entire layer of youth is reflected. And what young people have to do with it! And, really, which one? Ready to fight for an idea from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok? Eternally living in her ideals and dreams? Too brave and fearless? Yes, exactly like that.

Nikolka Turbin wants to be like her older brother in many ways. Of course, a combat officer would have achieved success in his profession. I will not exaggerate if I say that for Nikolka Alexey Turbin is a source of personal pride. Hence there is so much copying by the younger brother of the older one. Turbin Jr. is hot. And brave. He did not abandon Nai-Tours, despite orders from him. And the two of them stood with one machine gun against an entire platoon of Kozyr-Leshko. In principle, if we remember the beginning of the Russian Troubles, then the Winter Palace, during its widespread “assault,” was defended by the cadets. This is probably where the self-sacrifice of Russian youth comes from. The best part of it, again. After all, who are the cadets? These are future officers; this is the only way they realized and infected themselves. These are people who received an education, combining it with understanding the basics of combat service. Education, by the way, is not yet higher. But such “secondary specialized educational institutions” cannot compare in level with Soviet higher education, much less with the current one. They are several orders of magnitude stronger.

Nikolka Turbin is smart and quick-witted. But naive. What can be considered characteristic feature his age, his social class. But he is naive in a good way: he believes in the best. He never stops believing, even when everything has fallen to pieces. But this does not prevent him from objectively assessing reality.

CAPTAIN SERGEY TALBERG

According to Bulgakov, the most unsympathetic character on “this” side of the war. “This side” is the “White Guard”. Thalberg is presented as callous, selfish and materialistic. He is dry even with his wife, disdains the friends of the family where he was accepted, and is arrogant. This is exactly how the author draws him. This is probably what Thalberg is. But remember, at the very beginning, I promised that I would try to justify him? Now is the time to do it.

Let's look at Sergei Ivanovich from a slightly different perspective. He, unlike many officers, is on duty. Yes, he is a staff member, and in “Days of the Turbins” one of the officers in a hut somewhere near Kiev, before shooting himself, exclaims: “Staff bastard! How I understand the Bolsheviks!”, and Bulgakov himself simply could not stand all this brethren. But, nevertheless, Thalberg is in the service. By the way, he occupies not the last position under the hetman, which, without a doubt, requires certain abilities.

Now let's remember the second episode. Thalberg's return is much later than promised and his immediate departure. He is going to Denikin. He served under the command of Anton Ivanovich. Thalberg is guided by careerist considerations. However, he rushes into the thick of it, to the South, into the most combat-ready White Army. At a time when all is not lost for Russia. Sorry, there's no time for motives here. The dry fact remains: Captain Talberg is going to fight, going to places where even the headquarters are deprived of comfort. Going into the unknown, essentially. The officer is doing his duty. From this angle, it seems to me that few people looked at this figure.

VASILY LISOVICH, ENGINEER

If Doctor Turbin impresses the reader as a representative of the intelligentsia, then Lisovich, or Vasilisa, is his antagonist. He is stingy (in the literal sense of the word) and lives a dull life. Excessively thrifty. Remember what he and his wife, Wanda, usually had for dinner. The quality of this food. Lisovich is a mixture of Korobochka from Gogol’s “Dead Souls” and Pavlusha Chichikov from the same place. Perhaps the circumstances of the Civil War made him so. But apparently, this is his life credo. Turbines always treated him with some aversion, as can be concluded from Bulgakov’s description of this man. Unfortunately, the majority of the Russian intelligentsia in those years turned out to be Lisovichs. Not in terms of everyday life or stinginess. And in terms of fighting. They preferred to sit back and wait out the storm. They saw their salvation in adaptation. The same officers from the Turbin family and their friends do not find a response in the hearts of the Lisovich couple. They are afraid that they will “get caught.” Simply because they were neighbors. This reality will appear fifteen to twenty years later, during Stalin’s repressions. But now, or rather, then, in 1918, 1919, there were Russian units defending Kyiv, there was Petlyura with his Ukrainian identity.

Remember, when Vasilisa was robbed, everything was immediately found. Both materially and spiritually. In the material there is a rich table for defenders, which were Karas, Turbins and Myshlaevsky, whom Lisovich did not trust. In the spiritual there is a certain openness to the same officers, the sweetly dormant Karas. Vasilisa, in a heart-to-heart conversation, reveals to Second Lieutenant Stepanov that she is a cadet by conviction. This conversation is a confession to yourself. It is quite possible that Lisovich realized the mistake of his existence, his refusal to fight. He realized it late when he was robbed. The Russian intelligentsia will realize exactly the same thing when they start killing them.

There remains one layer that was not touched upon in the narrative. This is the layer of ordinary people. There is no point in talking much about him. Mikhail Afanasyevich describes the masses quite critically. Intimidated, no longer ready for anything, unsympathetic to anyone. Capable only of holding on to the fact of her existence on this Earth. I completely agree with this interpretation. A typical episode: a passerby, a man of about forty or forty-five, decently dressed, walking down the street, makes a remark to the cadets who are going into battle tomorrow and who have already seen the terrible death of their comrades. They say that you, cadets, are sitting there, you need to defend your Motherland. Again. This is what a man says to boys who are not even twenty. Dear, has the idea occurred to you to take a rifle yourself and get into formation? Did not come. Here it is, unpreparedness for the fight. Not even for some abstract and distant ideals. Unwillingness to fight for your freedom and honor, shifting it to others. Without sympathy for these others. Isn't it hypocrisy? Unfortunately, this is Bulgakov's society.

What does The White Guard teach us? Much. We already know such pompous words as “self-sacrifice”, “bravery”, “honor”. We know that this is good and beautiful. On paper. But that's not the main thing. The only important thing is that it is in the people themselves. In real people. It is important to remember that ideals exist, they are not illusory. They are not in the air, they are here nearby. The White Guard teaches us that people are the embodiment of these ideals. Remember the smart and courageous Doctor Turbin, when it seems to you that your thoughts have reached a dead end and cannot get out of there. Remember the image of a Russian officer when you lack the mental strength to fight on. Such a passionate and daring officer as Myshlaevsky, such a sensible Karas, such a professional as Malyshev and such a principled one as Nai-Tours.

"White Guard" M.A. Bulgakov - a novel about the fate of the Russian intelligentsia during the years of the revolution and civil war.
At the center of the story is the Turbin family of White Guards. Their apartment is a warm, cozy home where friends gather. In the person of these heroes, Bulgakov portrays representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, which the author himself considered the main force of Russia.
Turbines are very confused in the atmosphere new era. They still remain loyal to Nicholas II and readily accept the rumor that the sovereign is still alive.
All Turbins are very educated people, bearers of high culture and traditions. We see that Alexey and Nikolka Turbins are true representatives of the intelligentsia, continuers of the centuries-old traditions of the Russian nobility. They have special decency, a sense of duty, and responsibility. These people do not accept betrayal and meanness; for them, concepts such as honor and dignity are above all. That is why the Turbins and their friends find everything that is happening in Russia wild and incomprehensible.
Alexei Turbin is one of the officers of the old Russian army, who, after the revolution, have to make a choice between the warring parties, willingly or unwillingly to serve in one of the warring armies.
Turbin is not eager to fight. However, he and his younger brother Nikolka cannot avoid war. They, as part of scattered officer squads, participate in the hopeless defense of the city from Petliura. Yes, none of them would dare to evade their duty. This is not in the rules of Russian officers. Honor and dignity guide the behavior of heroes.
Elena's husband Sergei Talberg is contrasted with the honest and decent Turbin. At the first opportunity, this man flees with the Germans from Russia, leaving his wife to the mercy of fate. It is not for nothing that Bulgakov himself says the following about this hero: “Oh, a damn doll, devoid of the slightest concept of honor!”
The Turbin family is also opposed to their neighbors, the Lisovichs. These are opportunists to whom the concepts of honor and dignity are alien. The only thing they care about is their own peace of mind and prosperity. The Lisovichs will betray anyone without a twinge of conscience, just to protect themselves. Vasily Lisovich and his wife Wanda never faced a problem moral choice, they can adapt to any conditions.
In his work, Bulgakov is clearly on the side of Alexei Turbin, who strives to preserve family foundations and establish a normal, peaceful life. But the hero doesn’t succeed. The Turbin family could not stand by during the civil war. After all, the duty of every white officer is to fight to the last for his country, for his king. Alexey and Nikolka obey this sense of duty. The younger Turbin perhaps showed particular courage and bravery. He remained with his commander Nai-Turs to the last, was not afraid for his life, and fulfilled his duty as an officer.
We can say that the Turbin family practically did not face the problem of moral choice. These people were raised in such a way that they could not act differently. The concepts of honor, duty, and dignity were embedded in their blood from birth. No danger, even mortal, could force them to change their moral principles.
But the tragedy of the Russian intelligentsia and their moral choice is that these people could not see the doom of the monarchical system in Russia. They fought, worried, suffered for the old, former Rus', which can no longer be returned. And there is no need to return what has become obsolete, life must move forward. Bulgakov, of course, is far from enthusiastic about Bolshevik ideas. But I think the writer saw in the Bolsheviks a better alternative compared to the Petlyura freemen. In his opinion, intellectuals who survived the fire of the civil war need to reconcile with Soviet power. However, at the same time, it is important to preserve the dignity and integrity of the inner spiritual world, and not go for unprincipled capitulation. The desire to live in their homeland, in Russia, is inherent in the overwhelming majority of Russian intellectuals. But Turbines and others best representatives The intelligentsia regarded this reconciliation as a disregard for their moral principles. So they fought to the end and lost. But what were they fighting for?
In Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard" the problem of moral choice is very acute and painful. Each of the heroes of the work makes a decision within himself, according to which he will live and act in the future. Someone sacrifices their conscience for the sake of life, and someone sacrifices their life for the sake of conscience. In my opinion, Bulgakov stands on the side of the best representatives of the White Guard. He notes with bitterness that these people are becoming a thing of the past, along with former Russia. In their place come new people, with their own philosophy and a different view of the world.

Why is the Turbins' house so attractive? (Based on the novel “The White Guard” by M.A. Bulgakov)

The fate of the Turbin family is at the center of the narrative of two works by M. A. Bulgakov - the novel “The White Guard” and the play “Days of the Turbins”. These works were written in the twenties of the 20th century and reflected the recent events of the Civil War. The author depicts Kyiv, torn apart by the struggle for power, with shootouts and killed in the streets, with the atrocities of the Reds and Petliurists. Bulgakov describes Kyiv, awaiting a solution to the main question at that time about the future fate of Russia.
And among all these disasters, worries, troubles, there is an unshakable island of comfort, to which everyone around is drawn. This is the home of the Turbin family. In their person, Bulgakov portrays representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, which the author himself considered the main force of Russia.
All Turbins are very educated people, bearers of high culture and traditions passed on from generation to generation. And their home is a continuation of the Turbins themselves, an expression of their essence and their soul. We can say that their house is the personification of a peaceful life that has gone and it is unknown whether it will return at all.
The first chapters of the novel are devoted to a description of the house. He stood along Alekseevsky Spusk, completely surrounded by greenery. The center and soul of the house was a large tiled stove, which raised and protected the whole family. She was a special witness to the events taking place throughout the country in general and in this house in particular. The stove was covered with “historical” notes made in 1918. These were not only political remarks, such as “Beat Petliura!”, but also personal correspondence: “1918, May 12, I fell in love,” “You are fat and ugly.”
The full-fledged tenant in the house was antique clock with tower battle: “Everyone is so used to them that if they somehow miraculously disappeared from the wall, it would be sad, as if one’s own voice had died and nothing could fill the empty space.”
All the furniture in the house is upholstered in warm red velvet. Worn carpets symbolize a cozy atmosphere that has been established for a long time. The furnishings of the house indicated that its inhabitants loved books: “... a bronze lamp under a lampshade, the best cabinets in the world with books that smelled of mysterious ancient chocolate, with Natasha Rostova, the Captain’s daughter, gilded cups, silver, portraits, curtains - all seven dusty and full rooms that raised the young Turbins, all this the mother left to the children in the most difficult time ... "
But the mother also left the children a covenant to live together. And they fulfilled it with all readiness, holding tightly to each other. Therefore, we can say with all confidence that the Turbins’ decor is not only furniture, books, warmth from a tiled stove, but, first of all, it is people. This is the elder brother Alexey, a man of weak will, but a broad soul, a white officer who fulfills his duty with all responsibility. At the end of the novel he experiences moral tragedy. His whole world, his worldview collapsed. But, despite everything, he remains true to himself and his homeland. Just like a close friend of the Myshlaevsky family.
Elena Turbina was the keeper of the hearth and family comfort. She was a pleasant, gentle woman of twenty-four years old. Researchers say that Bulgakov copied her image from his sister. Elena replaced Nikolka's mother. She is devoted, but unhappy in her marriage, does not respect her husband Sergei Talberg, who, in fact, is a traitor and opportunist. It is not for nothing that the Turbins’ house does not accept him; all family members somewhat avoid Talberg, feeling that he is a stranger. And for good reason. As a result, Talberg betrays the Turbins’ house, Kyiv, and his homeland.
If Elena Turbina can be called the keeper of the house, then Nikolka is its soul. In many ways, it is he who holds all family members together. It is caring about younger brother doesn't let you forget the old ones family traditions, does not allow the house to fall apart in such difficult times. It is very symbolic that at the end of the work Nikolka dies. This means the collapse of the Turbins’ house, and with it the whole of white Russia with its traditions, culture and history.
In order to more clearly emphasize the nobility, integrity and firmness of the Turbins’ views, we are shown their antipodean neighbor Vasilisa. He is an opportunist; the most important thing in the world for him is to save his own skin at any cost. He is a coward, according to the Turbins, “bourgeois and unsympathetic,” and will not stop at direct betrayal, and perhaps even murder. Vasilisa is the nickname of the owner of the house Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich, in which the Turbins lived. The Lisovich house is the complete opposite of the main characters of The White Guard. Their life is miserable, the house smells musty, “mice and mold.” This home’s furnishings hides the meager life of its inhabitants.
Emphasizing the beauty of the Turbins' house and the beauty of human relationships in this family, Bulgakov depicts the City. His beloved Kyiv, “beautiful in frost and fog,” depicts “blooming gardens over the Dnieper,” “a monument to Vladimir.” We can say that Kyiv for Bulgakov is a whole poetic theme that connects him with his youth. This is “a beautiful city, a happy city. Mother of Russian cities."
Thus, it seems to me that the Turbins’ house symbolizes for Bulgakov old Russia, Russia before the revolution, close to the writer. The Turbins' house resembles a warm living being, filled with love, laughter, joy and happiness. At the end of the work, this house perishes and becomes a thing of the past. Family ties are being destroyed, Kyiv is changing, as is the whole of Russia. The Turbins' house is being replaced by something else that will correspond to the ideals of the new time and new government.

Reflection of the Civil War in Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”

The novel “The White Guard” reflects the events of the civil war of 1918-1919. in his hometown Kyiv. Bulgakov views these events not from class or political positions, but from purely human ones. No matter who captures the city - the hetman, the Petliurists or the Bolsheviks - blood inevitably flows, hundreds of people die in agony, while others become even more terribly cruel. Violence begets more violence. This is what worries the writer most of all. He observes the monarchical enthusiasm of his favorite heroes with a sympathetic and ironic smile. Not without a smile, albeit a sad one, the author describes in the finale the Bolshevik sentry who, falling into sleep, sees a red sparkling sky, and his soul “instantly filled with happiness.” And he ridicules the loyal sentiments in the crowd during the parade of Petliura’s army with direct mockery. Any politics, no matter what ideas it is implicated in, remains deeply alien to Bulgakov. He understood the officers of the “finished and collapsed regiments” of the old army, “ensigns and second lieutenants, former students... knocked off the screws of life by war and revolution.” He could not condemn them for their hatred of the Bolsheviks - “direct and ardent.” He understood no less the peasants, with their anger against the Germans who mocked them, against the hetman, under whom the landowners attacked them, and he understood their “tremor of hatred when catching officers.”
Today we all realize that the civil war was one of the most tragic pages in the history of the country, that the enormous losses that both the Reds and the Whites suffered in it are our common losses. Bulgakov viewed the events of this war in exactly this way, striving to “become dispassionately above the reds and whites.” For the sake of those truths and values ​​that are called eternal, and first of all for the sake of human life itself, which in the heat of the civil war almost ceased to be considered a value at all.
“A persistent portrayal of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country” is how Bulgakov himself defines his literary credo. With what sympathy Bulgakov describes the Turbins, Myshlaevsky, Malyshev, Nai-Tours! Each of them is not without sin, but these are people of true decency, honor, and courage. And for the sake of these merits, the writer easily forgives them for minor sins. And most of all he values ​​everything that makes up the beauty and joy of human existence. In the Turbins' house, despite the terrible and bloody deeds of 1918, there is comfort, peace, flowers. With particular tenderness, the author describes human spiritual beauty, the very one that encourages his heroes to forget about themselves when they need to take care of others, and even quite naturally, as a matter of course, to expose themselves to bullets in order to save others, as Nai-Tours does and Turbines, Myshlaevsky, and Karas are ready to make at any moment.
And one more eternal value, perhaps the greatest, constantly nurtured in the novel is love. “They will have to suffer and die, but in spite of everything, love overtakes almost every one of them: Alexei, Nikolka, Elena, Myshlaevsky and Lariosik - Shervinsky’s unlucky rivals. And this is wonderful, because without love life itself is impossible,” the writer seems to claim. The author invites the reader, as if from eternity, from the depths, to look at events, at people, at their entire lives in this terrible 1918.

The main images of the novel “The White Guard” by M. Bulgakov.

The civil war began on October 25, 1917, when Russia split into two camps: “white” and “red.” The bloody tragedy changed people's ideas about morality, honor, dignity, and justice. Each of the warring parties proved its understanding of the truth. For many people, choosing a goal has become a vital necessity. The “painful search” is depicted in M. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”. The leading theme of this work was the fate of the intelligentsia in the context of civil war and surrounding chaos.
The Turbin family is a representative of the Russian intelligentsia, which is connected with monarchical Russia by thousands of threads (family, service, education, oath). The Turbin family is a military family, where the elder brother Alexey is a colonel, the younger Nikolai is a cadet, and his sister Elena is married to Colonel Talberg. Turbines are men of honor. They despise lies and self-interest. For them it is true that “not a single person should break his word of honor, because otherwise it will be impossible to live in the world.” So said sixteen-year-old cadet Nikolai Turbin. And it was most difficult for people with such convictions to enter times of deception and dishonor. Turbines are forced to decide: how to live, who to go with, who and what to protect. At the Turbins' party they talk about the same thing. In the Turbins' house we can find a high culture of life, traditions, and human relations. The inhabitants of this house are completely devoid of arrogance and stiffness, hypocrisy and vulgarity. They are hospitable and cordial, condescending to the weaknesses of people, but irreconcilable to everything that is beyond the threshold of decency, honor, and justice. Turbines and part of the intelligentsia, about whom the novel says: army officers, “hundreds of warrant officers and second lieutenants, former students,” were swept out of both capitals by the blizzard of revolution. But it is they who bear the most severe blows of this blizzard; it is they who “will have to suffer and die.” Over time, they will understand what a thankless role they have taken on. But that will happen over time. In the meantime, we are convinced that there is no other way out, that a mortal danger hangs over the entire culture, over that eternal thing that has been growing for centuries, over Russia itself. The Turbins are taught a history lesson, and, making their choice, they remain with the people and accept the new Russia, they flock to the white banners to fight to the death.
Bulgakov paid great attention to the issue of honor and duty in the novel. Why did Alexey and Nikol-ka Turbins, Nai-Tours, Myshlaevsky, Karas, Shervinsky and other White Guards, cadets, officers, knowing that all their actions would lead to nothing, went to defend Kyiv from Petliura’s troops, which were several times larger in number? They were forced to do this by officers' honor. And honor, according to Bulgakov, is something without which it would be impossible to live on earth. Myshlaevsky, with forty officers and cadets, in light overcoats and boots, protected the city in the cold. The question of honor and duty is connected with the problem of betrayal and cowardice. At the most critical moments of the position of the whites in Kyiv, these terrible vices manifested themselves in many military men who were at the head of the white army. Bulgakov calls them staff bastards. This is the hetman of Ukraine, and those numerous military men who, at the first danger, “rat-run” from the city, including Talberg, and those because of whom the soldiers froze in the snow near Post. Thalberg is a white officer. Graduated from the university and military academy. “This is the best thing that should have happened in Russia.” Yes, “it should have been...” But “double-layered eyes”, “rat run”, when he takes his feet away from Petlyura, leaving his wife and her brothers. “A damn doll, devoid of the slightest concept of honor!” - that's what this Thalberg is. Bulgakov’s white cadets are ordinary youths from a certain class environment who are collapsing with their noble-officer “ideals.”
In “The White Guard,” events rage around the Turbino house, which, in spite of everything, remains an island of beauty, comfort and peace. In the novel “The White Guard,” the Turbins’ house is compared to a vase that broke unnoticed and from which all the water slowly flowed out. Home for the writer is Russia, and therefore the process of the death of old Russia during the civil war and the death of the Turbin house as a consequence of the death of Russia. The young Turbins, although they are caught in the whirlpool of these events, retain to the end what is especially dear to the writer: an ineradicable love of life and love for the beautiful and eternal.

The main images in the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The White Guard"

“The White Guard” is a largely autobiographical novel based on Bulgakov’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. Turbine - maiden name Bulgakov's maternal grandmother, Anfisa Ivanovna, in marriage - Pokrovskaya.
The image of the main character of the novel, Alexei Turbin, is largely autobiographical, but not completely. Bulgakov was only formally listed on military service, and Turbin was a real military medic who saw and experienced a lot during the three years of the World War. He's in much better to a greater extent, than the writer, is one of those thousands and thousands of officers who had to make their choice after the revolution, to serve, willingly or unwillingly, in the ranks of the warring armies.
In my opinion, the connection between the image of Alexei Turbin and the image of Andrei Bolkonsky is obvious. It is especially evident in the scene of Turbin’s “resurrection” - the hero’s miraculous recovery, after which his eyes “became unsmiling and gloomy forever.” As we remember, the spiritual death of Prince Bolkonsky also occurred long before his real death.
Alexey Turbin is a real intellectual. He understands the inevitability and necessity of violence, but he himself turns out to be incapable of violence. This is evidenced by his attitude towards Thalberg, whom he hated. “With what pleasure... I would hit him in the face,” says Turbin. But instead, when I said goodbye, I kissed her. In this gesture of Turbin, it seems to me, there is no hypocrisy, as in all his behavior. He just can't hold a grudge for long.
Prototype main character Elena's novel became the writer's sister Varvara. Red-haired Elena rightfully bears the name Turbina. She is proud, but not with sinful pride. This heroine is rather full of self-esteem. That is why she so outwardly calmly sees off her husband Talberg. It is Elena, after the death of her mother, who creates in the house that atmosphere of warmth and comfort that attracts all Alexei’s friends, as well as the eccentric Lariosik.
The image of Elena is most fully revealed at the head of the eighteenth third part of the novel. Turbine prays to the Most Holy Theotokos for the salvation of her brother. I think this scene is one of the most powerful in the work. Elena’s prayer is not a church prayer, the heroine turns to the Virgin Mary in simple language: “Protector Mother...What is it worth to you. Have pity on us. We are all guilty of blood, but you do not punish.” Finally, Helen decides to make a covenant between herself and the Mother of God. In the name of saving her brother, she agrees to sacrifice her love for her husband: “Let Sergei not return... If you take it away, take it away, but don’t punish this with death.” Turbina’s faith is so sincere that a miracle happened: “... the one to whom Elena called through the intercession of a dark maiden came completely inaudibly.” Alexey recovered. But Talberg never returned. His letter just arrived from abroad saying that he was going to get married.
Another central image of the novel is the younger Turbin, Nikolka. This seventeen-year-old boy with a brave heart refers us to another image from Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” - the image of Nikolai Rostov. The similarity of these heroes is manifested in their romantic attitude towards war and excessive idealization of what is happening. The scene in chapter eleven of the second part, in which Nikolka talks about the fear of death, is reminiscent of scenes from War and Peace: “Pride turned into the thought that if he, Nikolka, was killed, they would be buried with music. ... Turbin has a noble waxen face, and it’s a pity that they don’t give crosses anymore, otherwise they will certainly have a cross on his chest and a St. George’s ribbon.”
But Nikolka showed true courage when he remained with Nai-Tours on the Brest-Litovsk Arrow, alone with the enemy. Later, Turbin will inform the colonel’s relatives about his death, find the body of his commander in the morgue, and only then will he consider his duty fulfilled.
Three main images compositionally form the core of the entire system of images of the work. And around them other images of the novel are already grouped: the Turbins’ friends – Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky and Stepanov-Karas, their neighbors – the Lisovichs.
Thus, with the help of his leading characters, Bulgakov creates a unique atmosphere of home and family. It is the theme of the house that will be contrasted with the theme of destructive war and revolution. Thus, the main conflict of the novel is tied to the lives of the three Turbins. But the author does not see a way out of the conflict for these heroes. The ending of the novel clearly shows that the future of the Turbin family is as vague and incomprehensible as the future of their City and the whole country.

Images of white officers in the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The White Guard"

The images of white officers in Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” are drawn clearly and truthfully. “Real people and heroes” - such an interpretation of the enemies of the Bolshevik movement, of course, could not satisfy the official censorship. The novel was banned from publication.
The work contrasts two groups of white officers. Firstly, these are those who “hated the Bolsheviks with hot and direct hatred, the kind that could lead to a fight.” And secondly, these are “those who returned from the war to their homes with the same idea, like Alexei Turbin, to rest and relax and rebuild not a military, but an ordinary human life.” Knowing the results of the civil war, Bulgakov was, it seems to me, on the side of the latter.
In addition, in the novel the officers are contrasted based on purely human qualities. Some remain people to the end who have not lost officer honor and dignity. Others give in to circumstances and break down.
The latter includes, in particular, Captain Sergei Talberg, who escaped even before the outbreak of hostilities and abandoned his wife. Thalberg is running away like a rat from a sinking ship. It is no coincidence that he looks like a rat: the hetman’s gray-blue cockade, brushes of “black trimmed mustache,” sparsely spaced but large and white teeth,” “yellow sparkles” in his eyes.
The Hetman of Ukraine shamefully leaves the city under the guise of Major von Schratt, and Army General Belorukov and Colonel Shchetkin flee.
The figure of Lieutenant Colonel Malyshev, who assembled a mortar division of cadets, is ambiguous in this regard. He showed himself to be an extremely humane person and disbanded the garrison, foreseeing the outcome: “... the defeated units of the unfortunate officers and cadets, abandoned by the staff scoundrels and these two scoundrels who should have been hanged, will meet with Petlyura’s perfectly armed and twenty times larger troops.” . At the same time, having realized the outcome, Malyshev became faint-hearted and fled shamefully, persuading himself that “he saved everyone of his own” and now nothing concerns him.
The Turbinny's friends remain faithful to the officer's honor in the novel: Myshlaevsky, Stepanov-Karas and Shervinsky, as well as Colonel Nai-Tours.
The prototype of Lieutenant Myshlaevsky was Bulgakov’s childhood friend Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky. Myshlaevsky'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 revealed in Woland in Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”: “...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.” Some details of the portrait of this hero indicate his inner weakness, some kind of “wormhole” that will not allow him to live happily (small, feminine chin).
Myshlaevsky is a real officer, in the classical meaning of the word, largely forgotten today. The need to defend his fatherland is in his blood. That is why the lieutenant enlists in the mortar division, where he turns out to be the most trained and tough officer.
Myshlaevsky is devoid of unnecessary sentimentality. After the dissolution of the division, he wants to set fire to the old building of his native and so dear gymnasium just so that the enemy does not get weapons. Thus, this hero proves himself to be a first-class military man.
Colonel Nai-Tours is also a true patriot. This burry military man, in the complete confusion that is happening in the minds of people, understands that he is obliged to fulfill his duty and defend the fatherland to the end. He literally forces the head of the supply department at gunpoint to give the cadets felt boots. Nai-Tours takes care of them as if they were their own children. Realizing the horror of the current situation, realizing that he is exposing the youths to bullets, that there is no army, that the headquarters have fled, Nai-Tours gives an unheard-of order. He tells you to run, hide, retreat, tear off your shoulder straps and run. But such an order, it seems to me, is not cowardice at all. After all, the colonel himself died covering the retreating cadets. No, his order is a desire to save at least one of the young, unshot students.
At the end of the novel, in Elena Turbina’s dream, Bulgakov predicted two options for the fate of the participants in the white movement: either service to the Reds for the purpose of self-preservation (Elena sees Shervinsky hanging a red star on his chest), or the death that is destined for Nikolka Turbin.
It is obvious that Bulgakov remains on the side of those who did not run away from danger, who did not tarnish the honor of the officer and forever remained an honest person for themselves and for history.

The image of the house and the city in the novel by M.A. Bulgakov “The White Guard” - option 2

When heavenly thunder (after all, there is a limit to heavenly patience) will kill every single one modern writers and in fifty years a new real Leo Tolstoy will appear, an amazing book will be created about the great battles in Kyiv.
M.A. Bulgakov.

"The White Guard" is a novel about a civil war in which there are no winners. In this work there is an attempt to go beyond the limits of one’s (or close to one’s) experience and to draw scenes with a historical pen (for example, the parade of Petliura’s troops at St. Sophia or the flight of the hetman from the palace). But what gives the novel its special charm is its general romantic lyrical tone, the tone of reminiscence and nostalgia for the past.
House and City are the two main inanimate characters of the book. However, why inanimate?
The Turbins' house is a dear, close being for the whole family. Home is not just things, but a way of life, spirit, traditions, inclusion in national life. At Christmas, lamps are lit in front of the icon, and the whole family gathers at the bedside of the dying person. The House has a constant circle of friends yearning for a warm hearth.
The Turbins' house was built not “on sand,” but on the “stone of faith” in Russia, Orthodoxy, the Tsar, and culture. It is noteworthy that the Turbin family appreciates and loves Russian culture in the person of such a representative of Russian literature as Pushkin.
The city is also a living being. The name of the city in which the novel takes place is not indicated by the author, but behind this nameless hero, the Giant City, one can guess the real city - Kyiv.
Bulgakov points out that this is a Ukrainian city. The novel also mentions Khreshchatyk, a well-known and still existing, most beautiful street in the Ukrainian capital: “Like a multi-tiered honeycomb, the City smoked and made noise and lived. Beautiful in the frost and fog on the mountains, above the Dnieper,” “No one knows who shot whom. This is at night. And during the day they calmed down, they saw how from time to time a regiment of German hussars passed along Khreshchatyk, the main street, or along Vladimirskaya.”
A serious danger looms over the City. This Bulgakov City is a model for the whole country and a mirror of the split. Red, trembling Mars over the city is a sign of blood that is being shed in Kyiv and throughout the country. Thus, Bulgakov’s City is a kind of microcosm of all of Russia, mired in cruelty and violence.
The city in the “White Guard” is immensely beautiful on its hills even in winter, snow-covered and flooded with bright electric light in the evenings.
The author gives us a description of peaceful Kyiv, serene, calm, majestic. The abundance of gardens is its feature: “The gardens stood silent and calm, weighed down by white, untouched snow. And there were as many gardens in the City as in any other city in the world. They are spread out everywhere in huge spots, with alleys, chestnut trees, ravines, maples and linden trees.”
And how painful it is for Bulgakov to see another Kyiv, populated by strangers, occupiers. “And so, in the winter of 1918, the City lived a strange, unnatural life...” notes the author. It was flooded with “newcomers”, a stranger-hetman “reigned” in it, and with him debauchery and robbery triumphed in beautiful Kyiv.
It is not for nothing that the real Kyiv is only a prototype of the novel City: this name reads “Urbs” - one of the names ancient Rome. The decline of Roman civilization is a period of transition from paganism to Christianity, a time of coexistence of two cultures. Kyiv, as the center of the baptism of Rus', in this respect is similar to the “eternal city” - Rome, the capital of the early Christian world.
“But the electric white cross sparkled best of all in the hands of the enormous Vladimir on Vladimirskaya Hill, and it was visible far away. And often in the summer, in the black darkness, in the tangled creeks and bends of the old man-river, from the willow trees, boats saw him and, by his light, found a waterway to the City, to its piers. In winter, the cross shone in the black thicket of the sky and reigned coldly and calmly over the dark, gently sloping distances of the Moscow coast, from which two huge bridges were thrown.”
The image of the cross in Vladimir’s hands is very symbolic. The huge cross shining above the city is the personification of Christian Rus'. God protects Kyiv, Bulgakov’s hometown, which he sang with such warmth in his novel. Despite the robberies and cruelty reigning in the City, faith in God still burns in the hearts of people.
But what ideas does Christianity bring to people? Ideas of Goodness, Mercy, Forgiveness, Understanding, Love. Is there really a place for these concepts in a world where blood is shed, power is divided, and betrayal occurs every day?
Kyiv is dear to Bulgakov’s heart also because it is his hometown. His homeland.

The image of the house and the city in the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The White Guard"

The years of revolution and civil war thundered throughout Russia. At this turning point, thousands of destinies were broken, people died great amount of people. M.A. Bulgakov was a direct witness to the events of the early 20th century. He, as a representative of the intelligentsia, experienced the period of revolution and civil war very acutely. This was clearly reflected in his work.
"The White Guard" is a novel about the fate of the intelligentsia in the revolutionary and post-revolutionary years. This work is largely autobiographical in nature. In the Turbin family, which can be called the main character of the novel, the family of Bulgakov himself is easily guessed. It is not for nothing that the description of the Turbins’ way of life, family life, and traditions is imbued with such love. Their apartment is a warm, cozy home where friends gather. All Turbins are very educated people, bearers of high culture and traditions passed on from generation to generation. And their home is a continuation of the Turbins themselves, an expression of their essence and their soul. We can say that the Turbins’ house is the personification of peaceful life, a calm City, the former Russia.
The city is one of the important and significant heroes novel. It is noteworthy that Bulgakov does not say its name. This is definitely Kyiv. However, on the other hand, it’s not exactly Kyiv. A slight change in their names that does not prevent the streets of Kyiv from remaining recognizable is adjacent to the real names of both some central streets (Khreshchatyk and Vladimirskaya) and nearby ones settlements(Darnitsa, Pushcha-Voditsa, Svyatoshin, Bobrovitsy, etc.).
In the fact that the author calls his native Kyiv the City, one sees both respect and love for small homeland, as well as imitation of the ancient Romans, who called Rome “Urbis” - City.
Bulgakov describes the events taking place in Kyiv in 1918–1919 first-hand. The author himself was in the city at that time and served as a doctor in the Volunteer Army. This is why all the incidents unfolding on the pages of the novel seem so vivid and realistic to us.
The writer’s love for his native Kyiv is transmitted to his heroes. From the very beginning of the work, the reader easily understands that the fate of the Turbins is closely connected with the fate of the City. They will never leave their small homeland, they will not leave the City and Russia itself as a whole in these difficult years. This is how the Turbins differ from other heroes of the novel: Elena’s husband Sergei Talberg, neighbors Lisovich, and so on.

In the first part of the novel, Bulgakov gives us a description of peaceful Kyiv, serene, calm, majestic. The abundance of gardens is its feature: “The gardens stood silent and calm, weighed down by white, untouched snow. And there were as many gardens in the City as in any other city in the world. They are spread out everywhere in huge spots, with alleys, chestnut trees, ravines, maples and linden trees.”
The writer notes that various people came to Kyiv every day, looking for salvation in this city, wanting to hide in it from the Bolsheviks. The original inhabitants were forced to crowd together. The city was flooded with streams of bankers, industrialists, merchants, journalists, actresses and cocottes.
In the second and third parts of the novel, we see an already empty, abandoned city, which has practically no one to defend. Only truly devoted people remained in it: Turbins, Myshlaevsky, Nai-Tours and other best representatives of the white officers.
Bulgakov describes the City very accurately. Notable in this regard is the moment when Turbin is not found at the division gymnasium and goes to Madame Anjou’s shop. It seems that Bulgakov is taking us through these Kyiv streets, squares and alleys.
Reflecting on the fate of his native Kyiv, the writer turns to the image of the Vladimir Cross: “Over the Dnieper, from the sinful and bloody and snowy land, the midnight cross of Vladimir rose into the black, 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. Everything will pass... The sword will disappear..."
The image of the City is a full-fledged hero of Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”. It is covered in lyricism, poeticized by a writer who adored his small homeland - Kyiv. And, at the same time, the City is not only Kyiv. This collective image the past, departed Russia, which can no longer be returned, and Russia in general, which will have to adapt to life in new conditions, under new orders, new power...

The image of a house in M.A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”

Civil war... Chaos... Shots... Bad weather...
City. A feeling of anxiety that everyone experiences. Fear is in the souls of people. Where can I find peace?
M. Bulgakov brings his heroes into the family. It is she, the Turbin family, who resists the nightmare and horror that reigns in the City. The city is fear. Home is cream curtains and a starched tablecloth. These are the Turbines themselves. Only here, where there are roses on the table, where the woman is a demigod, do people warm up from the cold of the City and find peace and peace of mind.
For Bulgakov, both in life and in books, family is sacred, it is a place where a person finds peace, which he so lacks outside the home. The law of this family is honor. Honor lies not only in loyalty to the fatherland and oath, but also in loyalty and devotion to all family members. And in this Family there is a cult of decency. Decency in everything: both in relation to each other and in relation to those who come to the Turbins’ house.
“The White Guard” is a novel about a terrible storm of civil war that shakes the Turbins’ house, where “the best cabinets in the world are filled with books that smell of mysterious, ancient chocolate, with Natasha Rostova, “The Captain’s Daughter.” Books that raised the young Turbins. Comfort, poetry of home, warmth of family... The tiled stove in the dining room becomes almost a symbol of the stability and indestructibility of this family.
At the beginning of the novel, the Turbins suffered grief - their mother died: “Why such an insult? Injustice?" This death is terrible for children, but it is not related to war. Life is death, there’s no escape. But it’s insulting and unfair when the death is absurd and violent. The Turbins’ house survived, although it cracked: “For many years before his death, in house No. 13 on Aleksandrovsky Spusk, the tiled stove in the dining room warmed and raised little Elenka, Alexey the elder and very tiny Nikolka. ... But the clock, fortunately, is completely immortal, the Saardam Carpenter is immortal, and the Dutch tile, like a wise rock, is life-giving and hot in the most difficult times.”
Talberg, Elena's husband, a man alien to the Turbins (just as Berg and Vera herself are alien to the Rostovs), flees the City. Talberg left home and family, but childhood friends came to the house - Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Karas. They love this house, they live up to the spirit of this house, they are defenders of the City.
Bulgakov's "White Guard" is full of everyday details, objects that surround the heroes. These are the same “talking” objects as the “shelf of books” in the Larins’ village house for Tatiana, the “portrait of Lord Byron” in Onegin’s office, the nanny’s chest, on which the girls of the Rostov family confided their secrets to each other. These things are included in spiritual world heroes, but things seemed to have absorbed their mysterious and poetic world. Everyday details are especially important, because any home, any family contains trinkets beloved by each family member, some dear to his heart.
Young Turbin’s life “was interrupted at dawn.” And yet they resisted, withstood internally, preserving what they absorbed into themselves in this house, the house that became Noah’s Ark during the flood.
The dying mother of the Turbins, Anna Vladimirovna, bequeathed: “Amicably... live.” And they lived together. They loved each other, loved their home and took care of it. When Elena finally decided to leave the city with her husband (he’s a husband!), she, “thinner and strict,” instantly began packing her suitcase, and the room became “disgusting, like in any room, where packing is chaos, and even worse, when the shade is pulled off the lamp!” The lampshade becomes in the novel a symbol not only of the House, but also of the Soul, human decency, conscience, and honor. Bulgakov writes: “Never run like a rat into the unknown from danger. Doze by the lampshade, read - let the blizzard howl, wait until they come to you.”
What was cursed for decades, ridiculed as philistinism, was contemptuously called “everyday life”, for Bulgakov - the foundation of life, something that cannot be destroyed. Therefore, in the Turbins’ house, “the tablecloth, despite the guns and nonsense, is white and starchy.” This is from Elena, who cannot do otherwise, this is from Anyuta, who grew up in the Turbins’ house... In the vase there are blue hydrangeas and two gloomy and sultry roses, “affirming the beauty and strength of life, despite the fact that on the approaches to the City there is an insidious enemy who , perhaps, can break the snowy, beautiful City and trample the fragments of peace with his heels.”
House. Family. "The beauty and strength of life." Behind the cream curtains the world is "dirty, bloody and meaningless." But here they know how to live: dream, read, have fun, make jokes. This House is contrasted with the apartment of engineer Lisovich, in which a mouse disturbed the silence of the night. She “gnawed and gnawed, annoyingly and busily, an old rind of cheese in the buffet, cursing the stinginess of the engineer’s wife, Vanda Mikhailovna.” The cursed Wanda was fast asleep in her cool and damp apartment. Lisovich himself was hiding money in secret places at that time.
In the description of this “house” everything has a minus sign, everything from the apartment to its owners. The bedroom “smelled of mice, mold, and grumpy, sleepy boredom.” This silence of “sleepy boredom” is broken from above from the Turbins’ apartment by “laughter and vague voices” and the sounds of a guitar. The Lisovichs have duplicity and cowardice, cowardice and readiness to betray... But also a readiness to seek salvation from “these” who are from the apartment on the floor above, which means the conviction that “these” will not sell.
It is no coincidence that it was to the Turbins, who personified family peace and comfort, that Lariosik, this slightly funny man, almost a boy, joined.
There, beyond the threshold of the House, the Family is “alarming.” The author constantly uses this word: “it’s alarming in the City.” Elena’s gaze is alarmed, and Thalberg’s favor is alarming. And this anxiety goes away only when a person comes home. This is why childhood friends Myshlaevsky and Shervinsky appear so often in the Turbins’ house.
Why are heroes so drawn to the Turbin family? Yes, because the basis of family is love. Love for each other, from which grew love for each person. Beneficial family love that made a house a Home, a family a Family. This is the most important idea in Bulgakov's novel The White Guard.

The image of the City in M.A. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” - option 2

In 1923, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov’s essay “Kyiv-city” was published, in which the writer recalled the events of the civil war. In it he wrote: “When heavenly thunder kills every single modern writer and in 50 years a new real Leo Tolstoy appears, an amazing book will be written about the great battles in Kyiv.” These words turned out to be prophetic: in just a few years, Bulgakov would write the novel “The White Guard.”
In the work, the writer’s native Kyiv is called with a capital letter – the City. This is seen as respect and love for the small homeland, as well as imitation of the ancient Romans, who called Rome “Urbis” - City.
The author himself witnessed the events that took place in Kyiv in 1918-1919. At this time, Mikhail Afanasyevich lived in Kyiv and, like his hero Alexey Turbin, served as a doctor in the Volunteer Army.
The image of the City appears on the very first page of the novel. Despite the fact that its name is not mentioned anywhere in the text, the author does not strive for complete veiling. He openly names very famous places in Kyiv - Khreshchatyk, Vladimirskaya Gorka, Pechersk. All this makes it easy to understand and determine the location of the action.
From the very beginning of the work, it becomes clear: the fate of the City is inextricably linked with the fate of the Turbins. This City is their Home and Motherland.
The image of the City is the core of the plot of The White Guard. It is he who is the cause and goal of hostilities between various forces. It is surprising that for both the white officers and the Petliurist men the City is their home. Only for the Bolsheviks, who came “from where the mysterious Moscow sat very, very far away, spreading its motley cap,” the City was alien.
In the first part of the novel, we have before us a City that “swelled, expanded, and climbed like sourdough from a pot.” Bulgakov writes that Kyiv was filled every day with a huge amount of completely different people, "new aliens". The original inhabitants were forced to crowd together. The city was flooded with streams of bankers, industrialists, merchants, journalists, actresses and cocottes. They all fled from the Bolsheviks, expecting to find their salvation in the City.
On the contrary, in the second and third parts of the novel we see completely empty streets, which there was no one to protect. The place where so many people wanted turned out to be of no use to anyone. Only the most devoted and patriotic people, like Colonel Nai-Tours, the Turbins and their friends, remained in the City to share his fate with him.
Any description of the City, be it a story about a gymnasium or Vladimirskaya Gorka, is imbued with the author’s extraordinary love, which is passed on to us. Bulgakov's Kyiv - “beautiful in the frost and fog on the mountains.” There were “as many gardens in the City as in any other city in the world.”
The topography of the City is very precise. When describing battles and retreats, during any movement (for example, when Turbin is not found at the division gymnasium and goes to Madame Anjou’s shop), it seems that Bulgakov is taking us through these Kyiv streets, squares and alleys. It’s as if he makes us feel the same aching feeling that lived in Turbin’s heart when he realized that the City, his hometown, had been overthrown, defeated, crucified.
Most often, in relation to the image of the City, Bulgakov uses such an artistic device as personification: “The city lived,” “smoked,” “noised.” The expression “best in the world”, “like no other city in the world” is very common.
An interesting image appears periodically in the novel. This is an image of a white electric cross “in the hands of the enormous Vladimir on Vladimir Hill.” This cross also symbolizes the difficult fate (“heavy cross”) of defeated, torn Kyiv, and is the main attraction of the City, its distinctive sign.
Answering the question about the fate of the City, about what awaits it ahead, Bulgakov again turns, already at the very end of the novel, to the Vladimir Cross: “Over the Dnieper, from the sinful and bloody and snowy land, the midnight cross of Vladimir rose into the black, 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. Everything will pass... The sword will disappear..."
A little higher, the author said that all “towers, alarms and weapons were erected by man, without knowing it, for one purpose - to protect human peace and hearth. He is fighting because of him, and, in essence, he should not be fighting because of anything else.” But war itself is a destroyer of both peace and hearth, which means that one day, when people get tired of it, it will end. War cannot last forever. And when it ends, peace and life will reign again. And the gardens will bloom again in their hometown. And over the gardens of beautiful Kyiv will stretch “heavy blue, the curtain of God, enveloping the world,” all covered with endless and eternal stars.

Bulgakov is a militant archaic in his passions, and patriarchy, warm and peaceful, served as his support. What gives the novel its special charm is its romantic personal tone, the tone of memory and at the same time presence, as happens in a happy and anxious dream. The book is like the groan of a man tired of war, its senselessness, cold and hungry, exhausted by homelessness.

The leading theme of the work was the fate of the intelligentsia in the context of the Civil War and general savagery. The surrounding chaos here, in this play, was contrasted with a persistent desire to preserve normal life, “a bronze lamp under the lampshade,” “the whiteness of the tablecloth,” “cream curtains.”

Let us dwell in more detail on the heroes of this immortal play. The Turbin family is a typical intelligent military family, where the older brother is a colonel, the younger is a cadet, and the sister is married to Colonel Talberg. And all my friends are military.

Alexey Turbin, in our current opinion, is very young: at thirty he is already a colonel. The war with Germany has just ended behind him, and in war talented officers are promoted quickly.

K. Khabensky as Alexey Turbin.

He is a smart, thinking commander. Bulgakov managed in his person to give a generalized image of a Russian officer, continuing the line of Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Kuprin officers. He serves his Motherland and wants to serve it, but a moment comes when it seems to him that Russia is perishing - and then there is no point in his existence. There are two scenes in the play when Alexey Turbin appears as a character. The first is in the circle of your friends and loved ones, behind the “cream curtains” that cannot hide from wars and revolutions. Turbin talks about what worries him; Despite the “sediment” of his speeches, Turbin regrets that earlier he could not have foreseen “what Petlyura is?” He says that this is a “myth”, a “fog”. In Russia, according to Turbin, there are two forces: the Bolsheviks and the former tsarist military. The Bolsheviks will come soon, and Turbin is inclined to think that victory will be theirs. In the second climactic scene, Turbin is already acting.

He is in command. Turbin disbands the division, orders everyone to remove their insignia and immediately go home. Turbin cannot pit one Russian person against another. The conclusion is this: the white movement is over, the people are not with it, they are against it. But how often in literature and cinema the White Guards were portrayed as sadists, with a morbid inclination towards villainy. Alexey Turbin, having demanded that everyone remove their shoulder straps, remains in the division until the end. Nikolai, his brother, correctly understands that the commander “expects death from shame.” And the commander waited for her - he dies under the bullets of Petliurists.

Alexey Turbin - tragic image, whole, strong-willed, strong, brave, proud and dying as a victim of deception, betrayal of those for whom he fought. The system collapsed and killed many of those who served it. But, dying, Turbin realized that he had been deceived, that those who are with the people have power. Bulgakov had a great historical sense and correctly understood the balance of power. For a long time they could not forgive Bulgakov for his love for his heroes.

In the last act, Myshlaevsky shouts: “Bolsheviks? .. .Fabulous! I'm tired of portraying manure in an ice hole... Let them mobilize. By at least I will know that I will serve in the Russian army. The people are not with us. The people are against us." Rough, loud, but honest and direct, a good comrade and a good soldier, Myshlaevsky continues in literature the well-known type of Russian military man - from Denis Davydov to the present day, but he is shown in a new, unprecedented war - the civil war. He continues and finishes the elder Turbin’s thought about the end, the death of the white movement, an important thought leading in the play.

There is a “rat running from the ship” in the house - Colonel Thalberg. At first he gets scared, lies about a “business trip” to Berlin, then about a business trip to the Don, makes hypocritical promises to his wife, followed by a cowardly flight.

We are so accustomed to the name “Days of the Turbins” that we don’t think about why the play is called that. The word “Days” means time, those few days in which the fate of the Turbins, the entire way of life of this Russian intelligent family, was decided. This was the end, but not a life cut short, ruined, destroyed, but a transition to a new existence in new revolutionary conditions, the beginning of life and work with the Bolsheviks. People like Myshlaevsky will serve well in the Red Army, the singer Shervinsky will find a grateful audience, and Nikolka will probably study. The ending of the play sounds in major key. We want to believe that everything wonderful heroes Bulgakov's play will really become happy that they will escape the fate of the intellectuals of the terrible thirties, forties and fifties of our difficult century.

Source .

Mikhail Bulgakov Kalmykova Vera

"White Guard" and "Days of the Turbins"

In the first months of 1923, Bulgakov began working on the novel “The White Guard,” and on April 20 he joined the All-Russian Writers Union.

“The White Guard” is Bulgakov’s first major work, very important for him. This is “a novel about the tragedy of people of duty and honor in moments of social cataclysms and about the fact that the most valuable thing in the world is not ideas, but life.”

Of course, this work is autobiographical. The friendly Turbin family is, of course, the family of Afanasy Ivanovich and Varvara Mikhailovna Bulgakov. Neither the father nor the mother was alive at the time of the events, but the grown children survive only because they are supported by the atmosphere of the family, the spirit of the clan. As if wanting to forever capture in words the favorite details of everyday life, the mere memory of which evokes a feeling of happiness and pain, Bulgakov describes the apartment of his heroes:

“Many years before [her mother’s] death, in house number 13 on Alekseevsky Spusk, the tiled stove in the dining room warmed and raised little Elena, Alexey the elder and very tiny Nikolka. As I often read “The Carpenter of Saardam” near the blazing hot tiled square, the clock played the gavotte, and always at the end of December there was the smell of pine needles, and multi-colored paraffin burned on the green branches. In response, the bronze ones, with gavotte, which stand in the bedroom of the mother, and now Elenka, beat the black wall towers in the dining room. ...The clock, fortunately, is completely immortal, the “Carpenter of Saardam” is immortal, and the Dutch tile, like a wise rock, is life-giving and hot in the most difficult times.

Here is this tile, and the furniture of old red velvet, and beds with shiny knobs, worn carpets, variegated and crimson, with a falcon on the hand of Alexei Mikhailovich, with Louis XIV basking on the shore of a silk lake in the Garden of Eden, Turkish carpets with wonderful curls in the oriental field... a bronze lamp under a lampshade, the best cabinets in the world with books that smell of mysterious ancient chocolate, with Natasha Rostova, the Captain's Daughter, gilded cups, silver, portraits, curtains - all seven dusty and full rooms that raised the young Turbins, all this is the mother at the most difficult time she left it to the children and, already out of breath and weakening, clinging to Elena’s crying hand, she said:

- Together... live together.”

Researchers have found prototypes for each of the White Guard heroes. Bulgakov captured all the friends of his youth on the pages of his novel, without forgetting anyone, he gave immortality to everyone - not physical, of course, but literary and artistic. And, fortunately, the events of that winter had not yet receded into the distant past by 1923, the author again posed the questions that tormented him then. And the first among them: is politics, are global changes in the lives of nations worth at least one human life? Happiness of one family?

“The walls will fall, the alarmed falcon will fly away from the white mitten, the fire in the bronze lamp will go out, and Captain's Daughter will be burned in the oven. The mother said to the children:

- Live.

And they will have to suffer and die."

What price did each of the Turbins, each of the Kiev residents pay in 1918 for the ambitions of Skoropadsky, Petlyura, Denikin? What can an educated, cultured person oppose to chaos and destruction?.. And in Nepman Russia, which was rising after the famine, cold and mortal melancholy of the Civil War, which, as it seemed then, was striving to firmly forget what it had experienced, the author’s emotions found a lively response.

“The White Guard” was published in the magazine “Russia” (No. 4 and 5 for 1925). Alas, the magazine was closed because ideologically it did not correspond to the policies of the Soviet regime. The magazine's employees were searched, in particular, Bulgakov's manuscript was confiscated. Heart of a Dog"and a diary.

“But the unprinted novel also attracted the attention of eagle-eyed readers. The Moscow Art Theater invited the author to remake his “White Guard” into a play. This is how Bulgakov’s famous “Days of the Turbins” were born. The play, staged at the Moscow Art Theater, brought Bulgakov noisy and very difficult fame. The performance enjoyed unprecedented success with the audience. But the press met him, as they say, with hostility. Almost every day, indignant articles appeared in one or another newspaper. Cartoonists portrayed Bulgakov as nothing less than a White Guard officer. The Moscow Art Theater was also scolded for daring to perform a play about “kind and sweet White Guards.” There were demands to ban the performance. Dozens of debates were dedicated to the “Days of the Turbins” at the Moscow Art Theater. At the debates, the production of “Days of the Turbins” was treated almost as a sabotage at the theater. I remember one such debate at the Press House on Nikitsky Boulevard. At it they scolded not so much Bulgakov (they supposedly weren’t even worth talking about!), but rather the Moscow Art Theater. The well-known newspaper worker Grandov at that time said from the podium: “The Moscow Art Theater is a snake that the Soviet government in vain warmed up on its broad chest!”

The theater did not immediately accept the text of the drama brought by Bulgakov. In the first version, the action seemed blurry. Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky, the permanent director of the Moscow Art Theater, who listened to the author's reading, did not show any positive emotions and suggested that the author radically remake the play. To which Bulgakov, of course, did not agree, although he did not refuse modifications. The result was stunning: by removing several main characters and changing the characters and destinies of the remaining ones, the playwright achieved unprecedented expressiveness of each character. And the most important thing, perhaps, is this. In the latest stage version, Alexey Turbin, main character drama, he knew for sure: the monarchy was doomed, and any attempts to restore the previous government would lead to new disasters. That is, essentially speaking, the play met all possible requirements Soviet theater– ideological in the first place. The premiere, which took place on October 5, 1926, promised success.

One should not think that Bulgakov focused his attention only on the above-mentioned works - no, a huge number of his stories and feuilletons appeared in magazines and newspapers throughout the country. It should also not be assumed that his plays were staged only in the capital's theaters - they acquired wide popularity throughout the country. And of course, Bulgakov and his wife traveled a lot. The writer became more and more in demand.

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Composition

The civil war began on October 25, 1917, when Russia split into two camps: “white” and “red.” The bloody tragedy changed people's ideas about morality, honor, dignity, and justice. Each of the warring parties proved its understanding of the truth. For many people, choosing a goal has become a vital necessity. The “painful search” is depicted in M. Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard”. The leading theme of this work was the fate of the intelligentsia in the context of civil war and surrounding chaos. The Turbin family is a representative of the Russian intelligentsia, which is connected with monarchical Russia by thousands of threads (family, service, education, oath). The Turbin family is a military family, where the elder brother Alexey is a colonel, the younger Nikolai is a cadet, and his sister Elena is married to Colonel Talberg. Turbines are men of honor. They despise lies and self-interest. For them it is true that “not a single person should break his word of honor, because otherwise it will be impossible to live in the world.” So said sixteen-year-old cadet Nikolai Turbin. And it was most difficult for people with such convictions to enter times of deception and dishonor.

Turbines are forced to decide: how to live, who to go with, who and what to protect. At the Turbins' party they talk about the same thing. In the Turbins' house we can find a high culture of life, traditions, and human relations. The inhabitants of this house are completely devoid of arrogance and stiffness, hypocrisy and vulgarity. They are hospitable and cordial, condescending to the weaknesses of people, but irreconcilable to everything that is beyond the threshold of decency, honor, and justice. Turbines and part of the intelligentsia, about whom the novel says: army officers, “hundreds of warrant officers and second lieutenants, former students,” were swept out of both capitals by the blizzard of the revolution. But it is they who bear the most severe blows of this blizzard, it is they who “will have to suffer and die.” Over time, they will understand what a thankless role they have taken on. But that will happen over time. In the meantime, we are convinced that there is no other way out, that a mortal danger hangs over the entire culture, over that eternal thing that has been growing for centuries, over Russia itself. The Turbins are taught a history lesson, and, making their choice, they remain with the people and accept the new Russia, they flock to the white banners to fight to the death.

Bulgakov paid great attention to the issue of honor and duty in the novel. Why did Alexey and Nikol-ka Turbins, Nai-Tours, Myshlaevsky, Karas, Shervinsky and other White Guards, cadets, officers, knowing that all their actions would lead to nothing, went to defend Kyiv from troops that were several times superior in number Petlyura? They were forced to do this by officers' honor. And honor, according to Bulgakov, is something without which it would be impossible to live on earth. Myshlaevsky, with forty officers and cadets, in light overcoats and boots, protected the city in the cold. The question of honor and duty is connected with the problem of betrayal and cowardice. At the most critical moments of the position of the whites in Kyiv, these terrible vices manifested themselves in many military men who were at the head of the white army. Bulgakov calls them staff bastards. This is the hetman of Ukraine, and those numerous military men who, at the first danger, “rat-run” from the city, including Talberg, and those because of whom the soldiers froze in the snow near Post. Thalberg is a white officer. Graduated from the university and military academy. “This is the best thing that should have happened in Russia.” Yes, “it should have been...” But “double-layered eyes”, “rat run”, when he takes his feet away from Petlyura, leaving his wife and her brothers. “A damn doll, devoid of the slightest concept of honor!” - that's what this Thalberg is. Bulgakov's white cadets are ordinary youths from a certain class environment who are collapsing with their noble-officer “ideals.”

In The White Guard, events rage around the Turbinsk house, which, in spite of everything, remains an island of beauty, comfort and peace. In the novel “The White Guard,” the Turbins’ house is compared to a vase that broke unnoticed and from which all the water slowly flowed out. Home for the writer is Russia, and therefore the process of the death of old Russia during the civil war and the death of the Turbin house as a consequence of the death of Russia. The young Turbins, although they are caught in the whirlpool of these events, retain to the end what is especially dear to the writer: an ineradicable love of life and love for the beautiful and eternal.

The novel “The White Guard” reflects the events of the civil war of 1918-1919. in his hometown of Kyiv. Bulgakov views these events not from class or political positions, but from purely human ones. No matter who captures the city - the hetman, the Petliurists or the Bolsheviks - blood inevitably flows, hundreds of people die in agony, while others become even more terribly cruel. Violence begets more violence. This is what worries the writer most of all. He observes the monarchical enthusiasm of his favorite heroes with a sympathetic and ironic smile. Not without a smile, albeit a sad one, the author describes in the finale the Bolshevik sentry who, falling into sleep, sees a red sparkling sky, and his soul “instantly filled with happiness.” And he ridicules the loyal sentiments in the crowd during the parade of Petliura’s army with direct mockery. Any politics, no matter what ideas it is implicated in, remains deeply alien to Bulgakov. He understood the officers of the “finished and collapsed regiments” of the old army, “ensigns and second lieutenants, former students... knocked off the screws of life by war and revolution.” He could not condemn them for their hatred of the Bolsheviks - “direct and ardent.” He understood no less the peasants, with their anger against the Germans who mocked them, against the hetman, under whom the landowners attacked them, and he understood their “tremor of hatred when catching officers.”

Today we all realize that the civil war was one of the most tragic pages in the history of the country, that the enormous losses that both the Reds and the Whites suffered in it are our common losses. Bulgakov viewed the events of this war in exactly this way, striving to “become dispassionately above the reds and whites.” For the sake of those truths and values ​​that are called eternal, and first of all for the sake of human life itself, which in the heat of the civil war almost ceased to be considered a value at all.

“A persistent portrayal of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country” is how Bulgakov himself defines his literary credo. With what sympathy Bulgakov describes the Turbins, Myshla-evsky, Malyshev, Nai-Tours! Each of them is not without sin, but these are people of true decency, honor, and courage. And for the sake of these merits, the writer easily forgives them for minor sins. And most of all he values ​​everything that makes up the beauty and joy of human existence. In the Turbins' house, despite the terrible and bloody deeds of 1918, there is comfort, peace, flowers. With particular tenderness, the author describes human spiritual beauty, the very one that encourages his heroes to forget about themselves when they need to take care of others, and even quite naturally, as a matter of course, to expose themselves to bullets in order to save others, as Nai-Tours does and Turbines, Myshlaevsky, and Karas are ready to make at any moment.

And one more eternal value, perhaps the greatest, constantly nurtured in the novel is love. “They will have to suffer and die, but in spite of everything, love overtakes almost every one of them: Alexei, Nikolka, Elena, Myshlaevsky and Lariosik - Shervinsky’s unlucky rivals. And this is wonderful, because without love life itself is impossible,” the writer seems to claim. The author invites the reader, as if from eternity, from the depths, to look at events, at people, at their entire lives in this terrible 1918.

Other works on this work

“Days of the Turbins” a play about the intelligentsia and revolution “Days of the Turbins” by M. Bulgakov is a play about the intelligentsia and the revolution. "Days of the Turbins" by M. Bulgakov - a play about the intelligentsia and revolution Struggle or surrender: The theme of the intelligentsia and revolution in the works of M.A. Bulgakov (novel “The White Guard” and plays “Days of the Turbins” and “Run”)