Kharitonova Olga Nikolaevna, teacher MBOU gymnasium named after. Bunin of the city of Voronezh
The standard of secondary (complete) general education in literature recommends that high school students read and study one of Mikhail Bulgakov’s works: “The Master and Margarita” or “The White Guard.” The name of Mikhail Bulgakov coexists in the program with the names of M.A. Sholokhova, A.P. Platonov, I. Babel. Having chosen the novel “The White Guard”, the literature writer will thereby create a thematic series: “The Quiet Don”, “The White Guard”, “The Hidden Man”, stories from the “Cavalry” cycle. Students will thus have the opportunity to compare different concepts of the historical era, different approaches to the topic “Man and War”.
LESSONS No. 1 – 2
“THE WAS A GREAT YEAR AND A TERRIBLE YEAR AFTER THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST 1918”
“The White Guard,” created in 1922–1924, is the first major work of M.A. Bulgakov. The novel first appeared in incomplete form in 1925 in the private Moscow magazine “Russia”, where two parts out of three were published. The publication was not completed due to the closure of the journal. Then “The White Guard” was published in Russian in Riga in 1927 and in Paris in 1929. The full text was published in Soviet publications in 1966.
“The White Guard” is a largely autobiographical work, which has been repeatedly noted by literary criticism. Thus, researcher of Bulgakov’s creativity V.G. Boborykin wrote in a monograph about the writer: “Turbines are none other than Bulgakov, although, of course, there are some differences. House No. 13 on Andreevsky (in the novel - Alekseevsky) descent to Podol in Kyiv, and the whole situation in it, and first of all the atmosphere about which it is said, is all Bulgakov's... And once you mentally visit the Turbins, you can firmly say, that I visited the very house where the future writer spent his childhood and student youth, and the year and a half that he spent in Kyiv at the height of the civil war.”
Brief message about the history of creation and publication of the work one of the students does at the beginning of the lesson. The main part of the lesson is conversation according to the text of the novel, analysis specific episodes and images.
The focus of this lesson is the novel's depiction of the era of the Revolution and Civil War. home task– to trace the dynamics of the images of the House and the City, to identify those artistic means with the help of which the writer managed to capture the destructive impact of the war on the peaceful existence of the House and the City.
Guiding questions for the conversation:
Read the first epigraph. What does the symbolic image of a snowstorm provide for understanding the era reflected in the novel?
What do you think explains the “biblical” origin of the work? From what position does the writer look at the events of the Civil War in Russia?
What symbols did the writer use to indicate the main conflict of the era? Why did he choose pagan symbols?
Let's move mentally to the Turbins' house. What in the atmosphere of their home is especially dear to Bulgakov? With the help of what significant details does the writer emphasize the stability of life and existence in this family? (Analysis of chapters 1 and 2, part 1.)
Compare the two “faces” of the City – the former, pre-war one, which Alexey Turbin saw in a dream, and the current one, which has experienced repeated changes of power. Is the tone of the author's narrative different in both accounts? (Chapter 4, part 1.)
What does the writer see as symptoms of the “disease” of the urban organism? Find signs of the death of beauty in the atmosphere of the City, engulfed in the storm of revolution. (Chapters 5, 6, part 1.)
What role do dreams play in the compositional structure of the novel?
Read Nikolka's dream about the web. How does the symbolism of a dream reflect the dynamics of the images of the House and the City? (Chapter 11, part 1.)
What forces are personified by the mortar that the wounded Alexei Turbin dreamed about? (Chapter 12, part 3.)
How does the content of Vasilisa’s dream about pigs relate to reality, to the reality of the Civil War? (Chapter 20, part 3.)
Consider the episode of the robbery of Vasilisa by the Petliurites. What is the tone of the author's narrative here? Is it possible to call Vasilisa’s apartment a Home? (Chapter 15, part 3.)
What significance do Borodin’s motives have in the novel?
Who is to blame for the fact that the House, the City, the Motherland are on the brink of destruction?
The novel opens with two epigraphs. The first one is from “The Captain’s Daughter” by A.S. Pushkin. This epigraph directly relates to the plot of the work: the action takes place in the frosty and blizzard winter of 1918. “Revenge from the north has long begun, and it sweeps and sweeps,” we read in the novel. It is clear, of course, that the meaning of the phrase is allegorical. Storm, wind, blizzard are immediately associated in the reader’s mind with social cataclysms. “Great was the year and terrible year after the Nativity of Christ 1918...” A terrible era with all the inevitability of stormy and majestic elements is approaching man. The beginning of the novel is truly biblical, if not apocalyptic. Bulgakov views everything that is happening in Russia not from class positions (as, for example, Fadeev in “Destruction”), from cosmic heights the writer looks at the agony of a dying era. “...And two stars stood especially high in the sky: the shepherd star - evening Venus and the red trembling Mars.” The confrontation between Venus and Mars: life and death, love, beauty and war, chaos and harmony – has accompanied the development of civilization from time immemorial. At the height of the Russian Civil War, this confrontation took on especially ominous forms. The writer's use of pagan symbols is intended to emphasize the tragedy of the people, thrown back by bloody horrors to the times of prehistoric barbarism.
Following this, the author’s attention switches to events in private life. The tragedy marked a “time of change” for the Turbin family: there is no longer “mother, the bright queen.” Included in the “general plan” of a dying era is a “close-up plan” of a human funeral. And the reader becomes an involuntary witness of how “the white coffin with the mother’s body was carried down the steep Alekseevsky descent to Podol”, how the deceased was buried in the small church of “Nicholas the Good, which is on Vzvoz”.
All the action in the novel centers around this family. Beauty and tranquility are the main components of the atmosphere of the Turbino house. This is probably why he is so attractive to others. Outside the windows the storm of revolution is raging, but here it is warm and cozy. Describing the unique “aura” of this house, V.G. Boborykin, in the book we have already quoted, very accurately spoke about the “commonwealth of people and things” that reigns here. Here is the black wall clock in the dining room, which has been chiming the minutes in its “native voice” for thirty years: tonk-tank. Here are “old red velvet furniture”, “beds with shiny pine cones”, “a bronze lamp with a lampshade”. You walk through the rooms following the characters and inhale the “mysterious” smell of “antique chocolate” that permeates “the cabinets with Natasha Rostova, the Captain’s Daughter.” Bulgakov writes with a capital letter without quotation marks - after all, it is not the works of famous writers that stand on the shelves of the bookcase; Natasha Rostova, the Captain’s Daughter, and the Queen of Spades live here, being full members of the family community. And the will of the dying mother, “Live... together,” seems to be addressed not only to the children, but also to the “seven dusty rooms,” and to the “bronze lamp,” and to the “gilded cups,” and to the curtains. And as if fulfilling this covenant, things in the Turbino house are sensitive to changes, even very minor ones, in the rhythm of life and in the mood of the residents. Thus, the guitar, called “Nikolka’s friend,” makes its “tink”, depending on the situation, either “gently and dully” or “vaguely.” “...Because, you see, nothing is really known yet...” the author comments on the instrument’s reaction. At the moment when the state of anxiety in the house reaches its climax, the guitar is “gloomily silent.” The samovar “sings ominously and spits,” as if warning its owners that “the beauty and strength of life” are under threat of destruction, that the “insidious enemy” “may perhaps break the beautiful snowy city and trample the fragments of peace with his heels.” When the conversation started in the living room about the allies, the samovar began to sing and “coals covered with gray ash fell onto the tray.” If we remember that the residents of the city called the German troops allied with Hetman Ukraine “gray” because of the color of the pile of “their gray-blue” uniforms, the detail with coals takes on the character of a political prediction: the Germans left the game, leaving the City to defend itself with its own forces. As if having understood the “hint” of the samovar, the Turbin brothers “looked at the stove” questioningly. “The answer is here. Please:
The allies are bastards,” - this inscription on the tile “echoes” the voice of the samovar.
Things treat different people differently. Thus, Myshlaevsky is always greeted by the “loud, thin ringing” of the doorbell. When the hand of Captain Talberg pressed the button, the bell “fluttered”, trying to protect “Yelena the Clear” from the experiences that this “Baltic man”, a stranger to their House, had brought and would still bring her. The black table clock “beat, ticked, and began to shake” at the moment of Elena and her husband’s explanation - and the clock was excited by what was happening: what would happen? When Thalberg hastily packs his things, hastily making excuses to his wife, the watch “chokes contemptuously.” But the “careerist of the general staff” does not check his life time with his family watch, he has another watch – a pocket watch, which he glances at every now and then, for fear of missing the train. He also has a pocket morality - the morality of a weather vane, thinking about immediate gain. In the scene of Thalberg’s farewell to Elena, the piano bared its white teeth-keys and “showed... the score of Faust...
I pray for your sister,
Have pity, oh, have pity on her!
You protect her,”
which almost moved Talberg, who was by no means prone to sentimentality, to pity.
As we see, things in the Turbino house are humanly worried, worried, interceding, begging, pitying, warning. They are able to listen and give advice. An example of this is Elena’s conversation with her hood after her husband’s departure. The heroine confided her innermost thoughts about her failed marriage to the hood, and the hood “listened with interest, and his cheeks lit up with a bold red light,” “asked: “What kind of person is your husband?” The detail is significant, because Talberg stands outside the “commonwealth of people and things,” although he spent more than a year in the Turbin House from the date of his marriage.
The center of the dwelling is, of course, the “Saardam Carpenter”. One cannot help but feel the heat of its tiles when entering a family abode. “The tiled stove in the dining room warmed and raised little Elenka, senior Alexei and very tiny Nikolka.” On its surface, the stove bears inscriptions and drawings made at different times by family members and Turbino friends. Here are captured humorous messages, declarations of love, and formidable prophecies - everything that was rich in the life of the family at different times.
The inhabitants of the house on Alekseevsky Spusk jealously protect the beauty and comfort of home, the warmth of the family hearth. Despite the anxiety that is increasingly being whipped up in the city atmosphere, “the tablecloth is white and starchy”, “there are cups with delicate flowers on the table”, “the floors are shiny, and in December, now on the table, in a matte, columnar, vase, there are blue hydrangeas and two dark, sultry roses, affirming the beauty and strength of life...” You visit, even for a short time, the Turbin family nest - and your soul becomes lighter, and you really begin to think that beauty is indestructible, like “the clock is immortal,” like “the Saardam carpenter is immortal.” , whose “Dutch tile, like a wise rock, is life-giving and hot in the most difficult times.”
So, the image of the House, which was practically absent in Soviet prose of those years, is given one of the main places in the novel “The White Guard”.
Another inanimate but living hero of the book is the City.
“Beautiful in frost and fog...” - this epithet opens the “word” about the City and, ultimately, is dominant in its image. The garden as a symbol of man-made beauty is placed at the center of the description. The image of the City radiates an extraordinary light. At dawn the City wakes up “shining like a pearl in turquoise.” And this divine light - the light of life - is truly unquenchable. “Like precious stones, the electric balls shone” of the street lamps at night. “The City played with light and shimmered, shone, and danced, and shimmered at night until the morning.” What is before us? Is this not the earthly analogue of the city of God, New Jerusalem, which was mentioned in the “Revelation of St. John the Theologian”? We open the Apocalypse and read: “... the city was pure gold, like pure glass. The foundations of the city wall are decorated with precious stones... And the city does not need either the sun or the moon to illuminate it, for the glory of God illuminated it..." The fact that Bulgakov's City is under the protection of God is emphasized by the final lines of the description: "But it shone best of all an electric white cross in the hands of the enormous Vladimir on Vladimirskaya Hill, and was visible far away, and often<…>found by its light<…>the way to the City...” However, let’s not forget that this is how the City was, albeit in the recent, but still past. Now the beautiful face of the former City, the City marked with the seal of heavenly grace, can only be seen in a nostalgic dream.
The New Jerusalem, the “eternal golden City” from Turbino’s dream is opposed to the City of 1918, the unhealthy existence of which makes us recall the biblical legend of Babylon. With the beginning of the war, a diverse crowd flocked to the shadow of the Vladimir Cross: aristocrats and bankers who fled from the capital, industrialists and merchants, poets and journalists, actresses and cocottes. The appearance of the City lost its integrity and became shapeless: “The City swelled, expanded, and climbed like sourdough from a pot.” The tone of the author's narration takes on an ironic and even sarcastic tone. The natural course of life was disrupted, the usual order of things fell apart. The townspeople were drawn into a dirty political show. The “operetta”, played around the “toy king” - the hetman, is depicted by Bulgakov with open mockery. The inhabitants of the “non-real kingdom” themselves are having fun making fun of themselves. When the “wooden king” “received checkmate,” no one can laugh: the “operetta” threatens to turn into a terrible mystery performance. “Monstrous” signs follow one after another. The writer talks about some “signs” with epic dispassion: “In broad daylight... they killed none other than the commander-in-chief of the German army in Ukraine...” About others - with undisguised pain: “... torn apart, bloody people ran from the upper City - Pechersk, howling and screaming...", "several houses collapsed..." The third "signs" cause slight ridicule, for example, the "omen" that fell on Vasilisa in the form of a beautiful milkmaid, who announced the rise in price of her goods.
And now the war is on the outskirts of the City, trying to sneak into its core. Deep sorrow can be heard in the author’s voice, telling how peaceful life is crumbling, how beauty is disappearing into oblivion. Everyday sketches receive symbolic meaning from the artist’s pen.
Madame Anjou's salon "Parisian chic", located in the very center of the City, until quite recently served as a center of beauty. Now Mars has invaded the territory of Venus with all the unceremoniousness of a rude warrior, and what constituted the guise of Beauty has been turned into “scraps of paper” and “red and green rags.” Next to boxes of ladies' hats are "hand bombs with wooden handles and several circles of machine-gun belts." Next to the sewing machine “a machine gun stuck out its snout.” Both are the creation of human hands, only the first is an instrument of creation, and the second brings destruction and death.
Bulgakov compares the city gymnasium to a giant ship. Once on this ship, “which carried tens of thousands of lives to the open sea,” there was a lot of excitement. Now there is “dead peace” here. The gymnasium garden was turned into an ammunition depot: “... terribly blunt-nosed mortars stick out under a line of chestnuts...” And a little later the “stone box” of the stronghold of enlightenment howls from the sounds of the “terrible march” of the platoon that entered there, and even the rats that “sat in the deep holes” of the basement , “they will be stunned with horror.” We see the garden, the gymnasium, and Madame Anjou’s store through the eyes of Alexei Turbin. The “chaos of the universe” creates confusion in the hero’s soul. Alexey, like many people around him, is unable to understand the reasons for what is happening: “... where did it all go?<…>Why is there a training center at the gymnasium?<…>where did Madame Anjou go and why did the bombs in her store lie next to empty cardboard boxes?” It begins to seem to him that “a black cloud has obscured the sky, that some kind of whirlwind has flown in and washed away all life, like a terrible wave washes away a pier.”
The stronghold of the Turbino House persists with all its might and does not want to surrender to the storm of revolutionary storms. Neither street shooting nor the news of the death of the royal family can at first make its old-timers believe in the reality of the formidable elements. The cold, deathly breath of the blizzard era, both in the literal, literal and figurative sense of the word, first touched the inhabitants of this island with warmth and comfort with the arrival of Myshlaevsky. After Thalberg's escape, the household felt the inevitability of an approaching catastrophe. Suddenly the realization came that the “crack in the vase of Turbino’s life” had formed not now, but much earlier, and all that time, while they stubbornly refused to face the truth, life-giving moisture, “good water” “was leaving through it unnoticed,” and now it turns out that the vessel is almost empty. The dying mother left her children a spiritual will: “Live together.” “And they will have to suffer and die.” “Their life was interrupted at dawn.” “It became more and more terrible all around. In the north the blizzard howls and howls, but here underfoot the disturbed womb of the earth muffles and grumbles dully.” Step by step, the “chaos of the universe” takes over the living space of the House, introducing discord into the “commonwealth of people and things.” The lamp shade is pulled off. There are no sultry roses visible on the table. Elenin’s faded bonnet, like a barometer, indicates that the past cannot be returned, and the present is bleak. Nikolka’s dream about a tight web entangling everything around is permeated with a premonition of trouble threatening the family. It seems so simple: move it away from your face and you will see “the purest snow, as much as you like, entire plains.” But the web entangles tighter and tighter. Will you manage not to suffocate?
With the arrival of Lariosik, a real “poltergeist” begins in the House: the hood is completely torn apart, dishes are falling off the sideboard, and mother’s favorite holiday service is broken. And of course, it’s not about Lariosik, not about this clumsy eccentric. Although to a certain extent Lariosik is a symbolic figure. In a concentrated, “condensed” form, he embodies a quality inherent to varying degrees in all Turbins and, ultimately, in the majority of representatives of the Russian intelligentsia: he lives “in himself,” outside of time and space, not taking into account wars and revolutions, interruptions in delivery of mail and economic troubles: for example, he is sincerely surprised to learn that the Turbins have not yet received a telegram notifying him of his arrival, and he seriously hopes to buy a new one in the store the next day to replace the broken set. But life makes you hear the sound of time, no matter how unpleasant it may be for human hearing, such as the clink of broken dishes. So the search for “peace behind the cream curtains” turned out to be in vain for Larion Larionovich Surzhansky.
And now war reigns in the House. Here are its “signs”: “the heavy smell of iodine, alcohol and ether”, “a military council in the living room”. And a Browning in a caramel box, suspended on a rope by the window - isn't that Death itself reaching for Home? The wounded Alexey Turbin rushes about in the heat of the fever. “That’s why the clock did not strike twelve times, the hands stood silently and looked like a sparkling sword wrapped in a mourning flag. The fault of mourning, the fault of the discord in the life hours of all persons, firmly tied to the dusty and old Turbino comfort, was a thin column of mercury. At three o’clock in Turbin’s bedroom he showed 39.6.” The image of the mortar that the wounded Alexey imagines, the mortar that filled the entire space of the apartment, is a symbol of the destruction to which the War exposes the House. The House did not die, but ceased to be a House in the highest sense of the word; it is now only a shelter, “like an inn.”
Vasilisa’s dream speaks about the same thing – about the destruction of life. The fanged pigs, which blew up the garden beds with their little snouts, personify the destructive forces whose activities undid the results of centuries of creative work of the people and brought the country to the brink of disaster. In addition to the fact that Vasilisa’s dream about pigs has a general allegorical meaning, it almost directly correlates with a specific episode from the hero’s life - his robbery by Petlyura’s bandits. The nightmare thus merges with reality. The horrifying picture of the destruction of garden vegetation in Vasilisa’s dream echoes real barbarity - with the desecration committed by the Petliurites against the home of the Lisovich couple: “The giant, in packs, easily, like a toy, threw row after row of books from the shelf<…>From the boxes<…>piles of papers, stamps, signets, cards, pens, cigarette cases jumped out.<…>The freak turned the basket over.<…>There was instant chaos in the bedroom: blankets, sheets were pulled out of the mirrored wardrobe, hunched over, the mattress was upside down...” But - a strange thing! – the writer doesn’t seem to sympathize with the character, the scene is described in frankly comic tones. Vasilisa succumbed to the passion of hoarding and turned the shrine of the House into a repository of acquired goods, literally stuffing the flesh of his fortress apartment with numerous hiding places - for this he suffered punishment. During the search, even the chandelier light bulb, which had previously emitted “a dim reddish light from partially heated filaments,” suddenly “flashed bright white and joyful.” “The electricity, flaring up towards night, scattered a cheerful light,” as if it were helping the newly minted property expropriators find hidden treasures.
This dream also serves as an indirect reminder that, in the words of F.M. Dostoevsky, “everyone is guilty before everyone else for everyone else,” that everyone is responsible for what happens around them. The hero of “The Brothers Karamazov” noted: “... only people don’t know this, but if they knew, now it would be paradise!” In order for Vasilisa to realize this truth, to understand that he too was among those who allowed the pink piglets to grow into fanged monsters, it was necessary to survive a bandit raid. Having just recently welcomed the forces that overthrew the autocracy, Vasilisa now unleashes a stream of abuse on the organizers of the so-called revolution: “That’s how the revolution is... a pretty revolution. They should have all been hanged, but now it’s too late...”
Behind the two main images of the novel - the House and the City - one can see another important concept, without which there is no person - the Motherland. We will not find crackling patriotic phrases in Bulgakov, but we cannot help but feel the writer’s pain for what is happening in his fatherland. That is why motifs that could be called “Borodinsky” sound so persistently in the work. Lermontov’s famous lines: “... after all, there were battles!? Yes, they say some more!!! Not yes-a-a-a-rum remembers all of Russia // About Borodin’s Day!!” - amplified by thundering bass under the arches of the gymnasium. Colonel Malyshev develops variations on Borodin's theme in his patriotic speech before the ranks of artillerymen. Bulgakov's hero is similar to Lermontov's in everything:
Our colonel was born with a grip,
Servant to the king, father to the soldiers...
Malyshev, however, did not have to show heroism on the battlefield, but he became a “father to soldiers” and officers in the full sense of the word. And more about this to come.
The glorious pages of Russian history are resurrected by the panorama of the Battle of Borodino on the canvas that hangs in the vestibule of the gymnasium, which was turned into a training camp during these troubled times. The cadets marching along the corridors imagine that the “sparkling Alexander” from the picture is showing them the way with the tip of a broadsword. Officers, warrant officers, cadets - still understand that the glory and valor of their ancestors cannot be put to shame now. But the writer emphasizes that these patriotic impulses are destined to go to waste. Soon the artillerymen of the mortar division, betrayed by their superiors and allies, will be disbanded by Malyshev and, in a panic, tearing off their shoulder straps and other signs of military distinction, they will scatter in all directions. “Oh, my God, my God! We need to protect now...But what? Emptiness? The sound of footsteps? Will you, Alexander, save a dying house with the Borodino regiments? Revive them, take them off the canvas! They would have beaten Petliura.” This plea of Alexey Turbin will also go in vain.
And the question involuntarily arises: who is to blame for the fact that, in the words of Anna Akhmatova, “everything was stolen, betrayed, sold”? People like the German Major von Schratt, playing a double game? People like Talberg or the hetman, in whose perverted, selfish consciousness the content of the concepts of “homeland” and “patriotism” has been emasculated to the limit? Yes they. But not only them. Bulgakov's heroes are not without a sense of responsibility, guilt for the chaos into which the House, the City, and the Fatherland as a whole have been plunged. “They made life sentimental,” Turbin Sr. sums up his thoughts about the fate of his homeland, about the fate of his family.
“AND WE WAS EACH JUDGED ACCORDING TO HIS WORKS”
The subject of consideration at this lesson-seminar The theme is “Man and War”. The main question to be answered:
- How does the moral essence of a person manifest itself in extreme situations of the Civil War and what is the meaning of the second epigraph in this regard - a quote from the Revelation of John the Theologian (Apocalypse)?
In preparation for the seminar, high school students analyze at home the episodes proposed by the teacher (the language teacher distributes material for self-preparation among the students in advance). Thus, the “core” of the lesson is the children’s performances. If necessary, the teacher supplements the students' messages. Of course, anyone can also make additions during the seminar. The results of the discussion of the central problem are summed up collectively.
Episodes offered for analysis during the seminar:
1. Thalberg's departure (Part 1, Chapter 2).
2. Myshlaevsky’s story about the events near the Red Tavern (Part 1, Chapter 2).
3. Two speeches by Colonel Malyshev before officers and cadets
(Part 1, Chapter 6,7).
4. The betrayal of Colonel Shchetkin (part 2, chapter 8).
5. The death of Nai-Tours (part 2, chapter 11).
6. Nikolka Turbin helps the Nai-Tours family (Part 3, Chapter 17).
7. Elena’s prayer (part 3, chapter 18).
8. Rusakov reads the Holy Scripture (Part 3, Chapter 20).
9. Alexey Turbin’s dream about God’s paradise (part 1, chapter 5).
War reveals the “wrong side” of human souls. The fundamentals of personality are being tested. According to the eternal laws of justice, everyone will be judged “according to their deeds,” the author states, placing lines from the apocalypse in the epigraph. The theme of retribution for what one has done, the theme of moral responsibility for one’s actions, for the choices that a person makes in life, is the leading theme of the novel.
And the actions of different people are different, as well as their life choices. “A careerist of the General Staff” and an opportunist with “double-layered eyes,” Captain Talberg, at the first danger, runs abroad “at a rat’s pace,” most unscrupulously abandoning his wife to the mercy of fate. “He’s a bastard. Nothing else!<…>Oh, damned doll, devoid of the slightest concept of honor! - this is the description Alexey Turbin gives to Elena’s husband. Alexey speaks with contempt and disgust about the “shifters” with a weathervane philosophy: “The day before yesterday I asked this channel, Doctor Kuritsky, he, if you please, has forgotten how to speak Russian since November last year. There was Kuritsky, and now Kuritsky became... Mobilization<…>, it’s a pity that you didn’t see what was happening in the police stations yesterday. All currency traders knew about the mobilization three days before the order. Great? And everyone has a hernia. Everyone has the apex of their right lung, and those who don’t have the apex simply vanished, as if they had fallen through the ground.”
There are quite a few people like Talberg, people who destroyed the beautiful City and betrayed their loved ones on the pages of the novel. This is the hetman, and Colonel Shchetkin, and other, as Myshlaevsky puts it, “staff bastard.” Colonel Shchetkin's behavior is characterized by particular cynicism. While the people entrusted to him are freezing in the chain under the Red Tavern, he is sipping cognac in a warm first-class carriage. The price of his “patriotic” speeches (“Gentlemen officers, all the city’s hope is in you. Justify the trust of the dying mother of Russian cities”) is clearly revealed when Petliura’s army approaches the City. In vain do the officers and cadets wait tensely for orders from headquarters; in vain do they disturb the “telephone bird.” “Colonel Shchetkin had not been at headquarters since the morning...” Secretly changing into a “civilian shaggy coat,” he hastily departed for Lipki, where in the alcove of a “well-furnished apartment” he was embraced by a “plump golden blonde.” The tone of the author’s narration becomes furious: “The cadets of the first squad knew nothing of this. It's a pity! If they had known, then perhaps inspiration would have struck them, and, instead of spinning under the shrapnel sky near Post-Volynsky, they would have gone to a cozy apartment in Lipki, taken the sleepy Colonel Shchetkin out of there and, having taken him out, would have hanged him on the lantern, just opposite the apartment with the golden lady.”
The figure of Mikhail Semenovich Shpolyansky, “a man with snake eyes and black sideburns,” attracts attention. Rusakov calls him the forerunner of the Antichrist. “He's young. But there are abominations in him, like in the thousand-year-old devil. He induces wives to debauchery, young men to vice...” - Rusakov explains the definition given to Shpolyansky. Onegin's appearance did not prevent the chairman of the Magnetic Triplet from selling his soul to the devil. “He left for the kingdom of the Antichrist in Moscow to give a signal and lead hordes of angels to this City,” says Rusakov, referring to Shpolyansky’s transition to Trotsky’s side.
But, thank God, the world does not rest on people like Talberg, Shchetkin or Shpolyansky. Bulgakov's favorite heroes, in extreme circumstances, act according to their conscience and courageously fulfill their duty. So, Myshlaevsky, protecting the City, freezes in a light overcoat and boots in the terrible frost with forty officers like him, framed by the “staff bastard.” Almost accused of treason, Colonel Malyshev acts the only honestly in the current situation - he dismisses the cadets to their homes, realizing the pointlessness of resisting the Petliurites. Nai-Tours, like a father, takes care of the corps entrusted to him. The reader cannot help but be touched by the episodes telling how he receives felt boots for the cadets, how he covers the retreat of his charges with machine-gun fire, how he rips off Nikolka’s shoulder straps and shouts in the voice of a “cavalry trumpet”: “Udigai, you stupid mavy!” Govogyu – udigai!” The last thing the commander managed to say was: “...God go to hell…” He dies with a sense of accomplishment, sacrificing himself to save seventeen-year-old boys, stuffed with false patriotic slogans, who dreamed, like Nikolka Turbin, of a high feat on the battlefield. Naya's death is a real feat, a feat in the name of life.
The Turbins themselves turn out to be people of duty, honor and considerable courage. They do not betray their friends or their beliefs. We see their readiness to defend their Motherland, City, Home. Alexey Turbin is now a civilian doctor and could not take part in hostilities, but he enlists in the Malyshev division along with comrades Shervinsky and Myshlaevsky: “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 private." Nikolka did not manage to show the heroism on the battlefield that he dreamed of, but he, in a completely adult way, copes with the duties of a non-commissioned officer superbly in the absence of Staff Captain Bezrukov and the department commander, who shamefully fled. Turbin Jr. led twenty-eight cadets across the entire City to the battle lines and was ready to give his life for his native City. And, probably, I really would have lost my life if it weren’t for Nai-Tours. Then Nikolka, risking herself, finds Nai-Tours’ relatives, steadfastly endures all the horrors of being in the anatomical clinic, helps bury the commander, and visits the mother and sister of the deceased.
In the end, Lariosik also became a worthy member of the Turbino “commonwealth”. An eccentric poultry farmer, he was initially greeted quite warily by the Turbins and was perceived as a nuisance. Having endured all the hardships with his family, he forgot about the Zhitomir drama and learned to look at other people's troubles as his own. Having recovered from his wound, Alexey thinks: “Lariosik is very cute. He doesn't interfere with the family. No, rather needed. We must thank him for leaving...”
Consider also the episode of Helen's prayer. The young woman displays amazing selflessness; she is ready to sacrifice personal happiness so that her brother is alive and well. “Mother Intercessor,” Elena addresses the blackened face of the Mother of God, kneeling in front of the old icon. -<…>Have pity on us.<…>Let Sergei not return... If you take it away, take it away, but don’t punish this with death... We are all guilty of blood. But don’t punish.”
The writer also gave moral insight to such a character as Rusakov. At the end of the novel we find him, in the recent past the author of blasphemous poems, reading the Holy Scriptures. The city dweller, who is a symbol of moral decay (“the star rash” of syphilitic on the poet’s chest is a symptom of not only physical illness, but also spiritual chaos), turned to God - this means the situation of “this City, which is rotting just like” Rusakov, is by no means not hopeless, which means the Road to the Temple has not yet been covered by the storms of the revolution. The path to salvation is not closed to anyone. Before the Almighty of the Universe there is no division into red and white. The Lord is equally merciful to all the orphans and the lost, whose souls are open to repentance. And we must remember that one day we will have to answer to eternity and that “everyone will be judged according to his deeds.”
LESSON #4
"BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD"
- With the victory of which side does the symbolic duel between Venus and Mars end in the novel?
The search for an answer to this question, fundamental to the artistic concept of the work, forms the “core” of the final lesson. When preparing for a lesson, you can divide students into two groups, relatively speaking, “Martians” and “Venusians”. Each group receives a preliminary task to select textual material and think through arguments in favor of “their” side.
The lesson takes place in the form dispute. Representatives of the disputing parties take turns taking the floor. The teacher, of course, guides the discussion.
Group of students No. 1
Mars: war, chaos, death
1. Funeral of the victims of the Popelyukha massacre (Part 1, Chapter 6).
Read the conversation heard in the crowd by Alexey Turbin. What do witnesses to the event see as symptoms of the end of the world?
Why was Alexei also overcome by a wave of hatred? When did he become ashamed of his actions?
2. Depiction of Jewish pogroms in the novel (Part 2, Chapter 8; Part 3, Chapter 20).
How did these episodes reflect the brutality of war?
With what details does Bulgakov show that human life is extremely devalued?
3. “Hunting” people on the streets of the City (using the example of the escape of Alexei Turbin) (Part 3, Chapter 13).
Read the passage, starting from the words: “Point-blank at him, along Proriznaya sloping street...” and ending with the phrase: “Seventh for yourself.” What comparison does the writer find in order to convey the inner state of a person “running under bullets”?
Why did man turn into a hunted beast?
4. Conversation between Vasilisa and Karas (part 3, chapter 15).
Is Vasilisa right in her assessment of the revolution? Do you think the author agrees with his hero?
5. Church service in St. Sophia Cathedral during the “reign” of Petliura (part 3, chapter 16).
How is the motive of devilry realized in this episode?
What other scenes in the novel depict the rampant “evil spirits” in the City?
6. Arrival of the armored train “Proletary” at the Darnitsa station (part 3, chapter 20).
Can the arrival of the Bolsheviks in the City be considered a victory for Mars?
What details are intended to emphasize the militant, “Martian” nature of proletarian power?
Material for preparing for the lesson
Group of students No. 2
Venus: peace, beauty, life
1. Alexey Turbin and Yulia Reis (part 3, chapter 13).
Tell us about the hero's miraculous rescue. What is the symbolic meaning of this episode?
2. Three meetings of Nikolka Turbin (part 2, chapter 11).
What feelings did the meeting with “Nero” stir up in the hero’s soul? How did Nikolka manage to suppress her hatred?
Retell the episode where Nikolka acts as a savior.
What struck Nikolka about the yard scene?
3. Lunch at the Turbins (part 3, chapter 19).
How has the situation in the Turbins’ house changed?
Did the “commonwealth of people and things” manage to survive?
4. Elena’s dream and Petka Shcheglov’s dream (part 3, chapter 20).
What does the future promise for Bulgakov's heroes?
What is the significance of dreams for identifying the author’s concept of life and era?
5. “Starry” landscape at the end of the novel.
Read the landscape sketch. How do you understand the author's final words about the stars?
The motif of the end of the world runs through the entire work. “- Lord... the last times. What is this, people are being slaughtered?..” Alexey Turbin hears on the street. Civil and property rights of a person are trampled upon, the inviolability of the home is forgotten, and human life itself is devalued to the limit. The episodes of Feldman's murder and the reprisal against an unknown street passer-by are horrifying. Why, for example, did they hit the head of “civilian” Yakov Feldman, who was running to the midwife, with a saber? For hastily presenting the “wrong” document to the new authorities? For supplying a strategically important product to the city garrison - lard? Or because the centurion Galanba wanted to “go wild” in reconnaissance? “Jewish…” was heard addressed to Yakov Grigorievich, as soon as his “cat pie” appeared on the deserted street. Bah, this is the beginning of the Jewish pogrom. Feldman never made it to the midwife. The reader will not know what happened to Feldman’s wife. The ways of the Lord are inscrutable, especially the paths swept away by the storm of “internecine warfare.” A man was in a hurry to help the birth of a new life, but he found death. The scene of the massacre of an unknown street passerby, which completes the depiction of Jewish pogroms, can cause nothing but horror and shudder. Unjustified cruelty. Under the writer's pen, this episode outgrows the framework of a private tragic incident and acquires a global symbolic meaning. Bulgakov forces the reader to look death itself in the face. And think about the cost of life. “Will anyone pay for the blood?” - asks the writer. The conclusion he draws is not very comforting: “No. Nobody... Blood is cheap on the fields of hearts, and no one will buy it back. Nobody". The formidable apocalyptic prophecy truly came true: “The third angel poured out his cup into the rivers and springs of water; and there was blood." Father Alexander read these words to Turbin Sr. and he turned out to be right a hundredfold. It is clear that Bulgakov does not see the revolution as a struggle for the lofty idea of people's happiness. Chaos and senseless bloodshed - that’s what revolution is, in the eyes of the writer. “The revolution has already degenerated into Pugachevism,” says engineer Lisovich Karasyu. It seems that Bulgakov himself could subscribe to these words. Here they are, the deeds of the newly-minted Pugachev: “Yes, sir, death did not slow down.<…>She herself was not visible, but, clearly visible, she was preceded by a certain clumsy peasant anger. He ran through the snowstorm and cold in holey bast shoes<…>and howled. In his hands he carried a great club, without which not a single undertaking in Rus' can do. Light red cockerels fluttered..." But Bulgakov’s Vasilisa sees the main danger of the revolution for society not so much in political turmoil, in the destruction of material values, as in spiritual turmoil, in the fact that the system of moral taboos has been destroyed: “But the point, my dear, is not one alarm! No signal can stop the collapse and decay that has made its nest in human souls.” However, only Pugachevism would be good, otherwise it’s demonism. Evil spirits are swaggering on the streets of the city. There is no more New Jerusalem. There is no Babylon either. Sodom, real Sodom. It is no coincidence that Turbines read “Demons” by F.M. Dostoevsky. Under the arches of the gymnasium, Alexei Turbin imagines squeaking and rustling, “as if demons have woken up.” The writer associates the apotheosis of demonism with the arrival of the Petliurists in the city. "Peturra", a former prisoner of the cell with the mystical number 666 - is this not Satan? During the period of his “reign”, even a festive church service turns into a cathedral sin: “Through all the aisles, in a rustle, a roar, a half-suffocated crowd, intoxicated with carbon dioxide, was carried. Painful cries of women broke out every now and then. Pickpockets with black mufflers worked hard and concentrated, moving scientific virtuoso hands through the clumped lumps of crushed human meat. Thousands of legs crunched...
And I'm not glad I went. What is this being done?
May you be crushed, you bastard...”
The church gospel does not bring enlightenment either: “The heavy Sofia bell on the main bell tower hummed, trying to cover up all this terrible chaos. The small bells yelped, blaring, out of tune and rhythm, at each other, as if Satan had climbed the bell tower, the devil himself in a cassock and, having fun, raised a hubbub... The small bells rushed and screamed, like furious dogs on a chain.” The religious procession turns into devilry as soon as Petliura’s forces stage a military “parade” on the old Sofia Square. The elders on the porch say nasally: “Oh, when the end of the century ends, // And then the Last Judgment approaches...” It is extremely important to note that both the religious procession and the parade of Petlyura’s gangs close in, finding a single conclusion in the roundup of those “who are in uniform” , in the shooting of white officers in the front garden of a church. The blood of the victims literally cries out... no, not even from the ground - from heaven, from the dome of the St. Sophia Cathedral: “Quite suddenly, the gray background burst in the slot between the domes, and a sudden sun appeared in the muddy darkness. It was... completely red, like pure blood. From the ball... streaks of dried blood and ichor stretched out. The sun stained the main dome of Sofia with blood, and a strange shadow fell on the square...” This bloody glow falls a little later on both the speaker agitating the councils gathered for power, and the crowd leading the “Bolshevik provocateur” to reprisal. The end of Petlyura does not, however, become the end of devilry. Next to Shpolyansky, who in the novel is called an agent of the devil-Trotsky, “Peturra” is just a minor demon. It was Shpolyansky who led the subversive operation to disable the military equipment of the Petliurists. Presumably, he did this on instructions from Moscow, where he left, according to Rusakov, to prepare for the offensive of the “kingdom of the Antichrist.” At the end of the novel, Shervinsky reports over dinner that a new army is moving towards the City:
“- Small, like cockades, five-pointed... on hats. They say they are coming like a cloud... In a word, they will be here at midnight...
Why such precision: at midnight..."
As you know, midnight is the favorite time for the “pranks” of evil spirits. Are these not the same “hordes of angels” sent at the signal of the satanic henchman Shpolyansky? Is it really the end of the world?
The final 20th chapter opens with the words: “Great was the year and terrible was the year after the Nativity of Christ, 1918, but 1919 was worse than it.” The scene of the murder of a passer-by by the Haidamak division is followed by a meaningful landscape sketch: “And at that moment, when the lying man gave up the ghost, the star Mars above the settlement near the City suddenly exploded in the frozen heights, sprayed fire and struck a deafening blow.” Mars celebrates victory. “Beyond the windows, the icy night blossomed more and more victoriously... The stars played, contracting and expanding, and the red and five-pointed star - Mars - was especially high.” Even the blue, beautiful Venus gets a reddish tint. “Five-pointed Mars” reigning in the starry firmament - is this not a hint of Bolshevik terror? And the Bolsheviks were not slow to appear: the armored train “Proletary” arrived at the Darnitsa station. And here is the proletarian himself: “And near the armored train... a man in a long overcoat, torn felt boots and a pointed doll-head walked like a pendulum.” The Bolshevik sentry feels a blood connection with the warlike planet: “An unprecedented firmament grew in a dream. All red, sparkling and all dressed by Mars in their living sparkle. The man’s soul was instantly filled with happiness... and from the blue moon of the lantern, from time to time a response star sparkled on the man’s chest. It was small and also five-pointed.” What did the servant come to the City of Mars with? He brought the peoples not peace, but a sword: “He tenderly cherished the rifle in his hand, like a tired mother of a child, and next to him walked between the rails, under a meager lantern, in the snow, a sharp sliver of black shadow and a shadowy silent bayonet.” He would probably have frozen to death at his post, this hungry, brutally tired sentry, if he had not been awakened by a shout. So did he really stay alive only to sow death around himself, fueled by the cruel energy of Mars?
And yet the author’s concept of life and the historical era does not end in pessimism. Neither wars nor revolutions can destroy beauty, for it forms the basis of universal human existence. Taking refuge in Madame Anjou's store, Alexey Turbin notes that, despite the chaos and bombs, there "still smells of perfume... faintly, but it smells."
Indicative in this regard are the pictures of the flight of both Turbins: the elder, Alexey, and the younger, Nikolka. There is a real “hunt” for people. The writer compares a man running “under gunfire” to a hunted animal. As he runs, Alexey Turbin squints his eyes “quite like a wolf” and bares his teeth as he shoots back. The mind, which is unnecessary in such cases, is replaced by, as the author puts it, “a wise animal instinct.” Nikolka, “fighting” with Nero (as the cadet silently dubbed the red-bearded janitor who locked the gate), Bulgakov compares either to a wolf cub or to a fighting cock. For a long time afterwards, the heroes will be haunted both in their dreams and in reality by cries: “Try! Try! However, these paintings mark a person’s breakthrough through chaos and death to life and love. Salvation appears to Alexei in the form of a woman of “extraordinary beauty” – Julia Reis. It’s as if Venus herself descended from heaven to shield the hero from death. True, based on the text, a comparison of Julia with Ariadne rather suggests itself, who leads Theseus-Turbin out of the corridor of city gateways, bypassing the numerous tiers of some “fairy-tale white garden” (“Look at the labyrinth... as if on purpose,” Turbin thought very vaguely...” ) to a “strange and quiet house”, where the howl of revolutionary whirlwinds is not heard.
Nikolka, having escaped from the clutches of the bloodthirsty Nero, not only saves himself, but also helps out the foolish young cadet. So Nikolka continued the relay of life, the relay of goodness. To top it all off, Nikolka witnesses a street scene: kids are playing peacefully in the courtyard of house No. 7 (lucky number!). Surely a day earlier the hero would not have found anything remarkable in this. But the fiery marathon through the city streets made him look at a similar backyard incident differently. “They ride peacefully like that,” Nikolka thought in surprise. Life is life, it goes on. And the kids slide down the slide on sleds, laughing merrily, in their childish naivety not understanding “why they’re shooting up there.” However, the war left its ugly mark on children's souls. The boy who stood aside from the kids and picked his nose answered Nikolka’s question with calm confidence: “They’re beating the officers.” The phrase sounded like a sentence, and Nikolka shuddered at what was said: at the crudely colloquial “officer” and especially at the word “ours” - evidence that even in children’s perceptions, reality was split by the revolution into “us” and “strangers.”
Having reached the house and waited for some time, Nikolka goes “on reconnaissance.” He, of course, did not learn anything new about what was happening in the City, but upon his return he saw through the window of the outbuilding adjacent to the house how neighbor Marya Petrovna was washing Petka. The mother squeezed the sponge on the boy’s head, “the soap got into his eyes,” and he whimpered. Nikolka, chilled in the cold, felt with all his being the peaceful warmth of this home. It also warms the reader’s soul, who, together with Bulgakov’s hero, thinks about how wonderful it is, in essence, when a child cries just because soap got into his eyes.
The Turbins had to endure a lot during the winter of 1918-1919. But, despite the adversity, at the end of the novel, everyone gathers again in their house for a common meal (except, of course, for the escaped Talberg). “And everything was as before, except for one thing - the gloomy, sultry roses did not stand on the table, for the Marquise’s destroyed candy bowl, which had gone into an unknown distance, apparently to where Madame Anjou also rests, no longer existed for a long time. There were no shoulder straps on any of those sitting at the table, and the shoulder straps floated away somewhere and disappeared into the snowstorm outside the windows.” In the warm House you can hear laughter and music. The piano belts out the “Double Headed Eagle” march. The “Commonwealth of People and Things” survived, and that’s the main thing.
The outcome of the novel’s action is summed up by a whole “cavalcade” of dreams. The writer sends a prophetic dream to Elena about the fate of her relatives and friends. In the compositional structure of the novel, this dream plays the role of a kind of epilogue. And Petka Shcheglov, who lives next door to the Turbins in the outbuilding, runs in his sleep across a green meadow, stretching out his arms towards the shining ball of the sun. And I would like to hope that the child’s future will be as “simple and joyful” as his dream, which affirms the indestructibility of the beauty of the earthly world. Petka “laughed with pleasure in his sleep.” And the cricket “chirped merrily behind the stove,” echoing the child’s laughter.
The novel is crowned with a picture of a starry night. Above the “sinful and bloody land” rises the “midnight cross of Vladimir,” which from a distance resembles a “threatening sharp sword.” “But he’s not scary,” the artist assures. - All will pass. Suffering, torment, blood, famine and pestilence. The sword will disappear, but the stars will remain.< >So why don't we want to turn our gaze to them? Why?" The writer calls on each of us to look at our earthly existence from a different perspective and, having felt the breath of eternity, to measure our behavior in life with its steps.
The result of studying the topic “Literature of the 20s” - paperwork.
Indicative essay topics
The image of the City as the semantic center of the novel “The White Guard”.
“Whoever has not built a house is not worthy of land.” (M. Tsvetaeva.)
The fate of the Russian intelligentsia in the era of revolution.
The symbolism of dreams in the novel "The White Guard".
A man in the whirlwind of war.
“Beauty will save the world” (F. Dostoevsky).
“...Only love holds and moves life.” (I. Turgenev.)
Boborykin V.G. Michael Bulgakov. A book for high school students. – M.: Education, 1991. – P. 6.
Boborykin V.G. Michael Bulgakov. A book for high school students. – M.: Education, 1991. – P. 68.
M.A. Bulgakov was born and raised in Kyiv. All his life he was devoted to this city. It is symbolic that the name of the future writer was given in honor of the guardian of the city of Kiev, Archangel Michael. The action of the novel by M.A. Bulgakov's "The White Guard" takes place in the same famous house No. 13 on Andreevsky Spusk (in the novel it is called Alekseevsky), where the writer himself once lived. In 1982, a memorial plaque was installed on this house, and since 1989 there has been a Literary and Memorial House-Museum named after M.A. Bulgakov.
It is no coincidence that the author chooses for the epigraph a fragment from “The Captain’s Daughter,” a novel that paints a picture of a peasant revolt. The image of a blizzard symbolizes the whirlwind of revolutionary changes unfolding in the country. The novel is dedicated to the writer’s second wife, Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya-Bulgakova, who also lived in Kiev for some time and remembered those terrible years of constant changes of power and bloody events.
At the very beginning of the novel, the Turbins’ mother dies, bequeathing her children to live. “And they will have to suffer and die,” exclaims M.A. Bulgakov. However, the answer to the question of what to do in difficult times is given by the priest in the novel: “Despondency cannot be allowed... A great sin is despondency...”. “The White Guard” is to a certain extent an autobiographical work. It is known, for example, that the reason for writing the novel was the sudden death of M.A.’s own mother. Bulgakov Varvara Mikhailovna from typhus. The writer was very worried about this event; it was doubly difficult for him because he could not even come from Moscow to the funeral and say goodbye to his mother.
From the numerous artistic details in the novel, the everyday realities of that time emerge. “Revolutionary driving” (you drive for an hour and stand for two), Myshlaevsky’s dirtiest cambric shirt, frostbitten feet - all this eloquently testifies to the complete everyday and economic confusion in people’s lives. The deep experiences of socio-political conflicts were also expressed in the portrait of the novel’s heroes: Elena and Talberg, before separation, even outwardly became haggard and aged.
The collapse of the established way of life of M.A. Bulgakov also shows the example of the interior of the Turbins’ house. Since childhood, the order familiar to the heroes with wall clocks, old red velvet furniture, a tiled stove, books, gold watches and silver - all this turns out to be in complete chaos when Talberg decides to run to Denikin. But still M.A. Bulgakov urges never to pull the lampshade off a lamp. He writes: “The lampshade is sacred. Never run like a rat into the unknown from danger. Read by the lampshade - let the blizzard howl - wait until they come to you.” However, Thalberg, a military man, tough and energetic, is not satisfied with the humble submission with which the author of the novel calls for approaching life's trials. Elena perceives Thalberg's flight as a betrayal. It is no coincidence that before leaving, he mentions that Elena has a passport in her maiden name. He seems to be renouncing his wife, although at the same time he is trying to convince her that he will return soon. As the plot develops further, we learn that Sergei went to Paris and got married again. Sister M.A. is considered the prototype of Elena. Bulgakova Varvara Afanasyevna (married to Karum). Thalberg is a famous name in the world of music: in the nineteenth century there was a pianist in Austria, Sigmund Thalberg. The writer loved to use the sonorous names of famous musicians in his work (Rubinstein in “Fatal Eggs”, Berlioz and Stravinsky in the novel “The Master and Margarita”).
Exhausted people in the whirlwind of revolutionary events do not know what to believe and where to go. With pain in their souls, the Kiev officer society greets the news of the death of the royal family and, despite caution, sings the forbidden royal anthem. Out of despair, the officers drink themselves half to death.
A terrifying story about life in Kyiv during the civil war is interspersed with memories of a past life that now look like an unaffordable luxury (for example, trips to the theater).
In 1918, Kyiv became a refuge for those who, fearing reprisals, left Moscow: bankers and homeowners, actors and artists, aristocrats and gendarmes. Describing the cultural life of Kiev, M.A. Bulgakov mentions the famous theater “Lilac Negro”, cafe “Maxim” and the decadent club “Prah” (in fact it was called “Trash” and was located in the basement of the Continental Hotel on Nikolaevskaya Street; many celebrities visited it: A. Averchenko , O. Mandelstam, K. Paustovsky, I. Ehrenburg and M. Bulgakov himself). “The city swelled, expanded, and rose like sourdough from a pot,” writes M.A. Bulgakov. The motive of escape outlined in the novel will become a cross-cutting motif for a number of the writer’s works. In “The White Guard,” as is clear from the title, for M.A. For Bulgakov, what is important, first of all, is the fate of the Russian officers during the years of the revolution and civil war, which for the most part lived with the concept of officer honor.
The author of the novel shows how people go berserk in the crucible of fierce trials. Having learned about the atrocities of the Petliurites, Alexei Turbin needlessly offends the newspaper boy and immediately feels the shame and absurdity of his action. However, most often the heroes of the novel remain true to their life values. It is no coincidence that Elena, when she learns that Alexei is hopeless and must die, lights a lamp in front of the old icon and prays. After this, the disease recedes. M.A. describes with admiration. Bulgakov is a noble act of Yulia Alexandrovna Reis, who, risking herself, saves the wounded Turbin.
The City can be considered a separate hero of the novel. The writer himself spent his best years in his native Kyiv. The city landscape in the novel amazes with its fabulous beauty (“All the energy of the city, accumulated during the sunny and pink summer, poured out in the light), is overgrown with hyperboles (“And there were so many gardens in the City as in no other city in the world”). M.A. Bulgakov widely uses ancient Kiev toponymy (Podol, Khreshchatyk), often mentions the city’s sights dear to every Kievite’s heart (Golden Gate, St. Sophia Cathedral, St. Michael’s Monastery), he calls Vladimirskaya Hill with the monument to Vladimir the best place in the world. so poetic that they resemble prose poems: “A sleepy slumber passed over the City, a cloudy white bird flew past Vladimir’s cross, fell across the Dnieper in the thick of the night and floated along an iron arc, and immediately this poetic picture is interrupted by a description of an armored train locomotive.” . And the writer encourages us to pay attention to the stars. Thus, the author moves from a specific historical perception of events to a generalized philosophical one.
The dream motif plays an important role in the novel. Dreams are seen in the work by Alexey, Elena, Vasilisa, the guard at the armored train and Petka Shcheglov. Dreams help expand the artistic space of the novel, characterize the era more deeply, and most importantly, they raise the theme of hope for the future, that after the bloody civil war the heroes will begin a new life.
M.A. Bulgakov was born and raised in Kyiv. All his life he was devoted to this city. It is symbolic that the name of the future writer was given in honor of the guardian of the city of Kiev, Archangel Michael. The action of the novel by M.A. Bulgakov's "The White Guard" takes place in the same famous house No. 13 on Andreevsky Spusk (in the novel it is called Alekseevsky), where the writer himself once lived. In 1982, a memorial plaque was installed on this house, and since 1989 there has been a Literary and Memorial House-Museum named after M.A. Bulgakov.
It is no coincidence that the author chooses for the epigraph a fragment from “The Captain’s Daughter,” a novel that paints a picture of a peasant revolt. The image of a blizzard symbolizes the whirlwind of revolutionary changes unfolding in the country. The novel is dedicated to the writer’s second wife, Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya-Bulgakova, who also lived in Kiev for some time and remembered those terrible years of constant changes of power and bloody events.
At the very beginning of the novel, the Turbins’ mother dies, bequeathing her children to live. “And they will have to suffer and die,” exclaims M.A. Bulgakov. However, the answer to the question of what to do in difficult times is given by the priest in the novel: “Despondency cannot be allowed... A great sin is despondency...”. “The White Guard” is to a certain extent an autobiographical work. It is known, for example, that the reason for writing the novel was the sudden death of M.A.’s own mother. Bulgakov Varvara Mikhailovna from typhus. The writer was very worried about this event; it was doubly difficult for him because he could not even come from Moscow to the funeral and say goodbye to his mother.
From the numerous artistic details in the novel, the everyday realities of that time emerge. “Revolutionary riding” (you drive for an hour and stand for two), Myshlaevsky’s dirtiest cambric shirt, frostbitten feet - all this eloquently testifies to the complete everyday 1 economic confusion in people’s lives. The deep experiences of socio-political conflicts were expressed in the portrait: 1 * the heroes of the novel: Elena and Talberg, before separation, even outwardly became haggard and aged.
The collapse of the established way of life of M.A. Bulgakov also shows the example of the interior of the Turbins’ house. Since childhood, the order familiar to the heroes with wall clocks, old red velvet furniture, a tiled stove, books, gold watches and silver - all this turns out to be in complete chaos when Talberg decides to run to Denikin. But still M.A. Bulgakov urges never to pull the lampshade off a lamp. He writes: “The lampshade is sacred. Never run like a rat into the unknown from danger. Read by the lampshade - let the blizzard howl - wait until they come to you.” However, Thalberg, a military man, tough and energetic, is not satisfied with the humble submission with which the author of the novel calls for approaching life's trials. Elena perceives Thalberg's flight as a betrayal. It is no coincidence that before leaving, he mentions that Elena has a passport in her maiden name. He seems to be renouncing his wife, although at the same time he is trying to convince her that he will return soon. As the plot develops further, we learn that Sergei went to Paris and got married again. Sister M.A. is considered the prototype of Elena. Bulgakova Varvara Afanasyevna (married to Karum). Thalberg is a famous name in the world of music: in the nineteenth century there was a pianist in Austria, Sigmund Thalberg. The writer loved to use the sonorous names of famous musicians in his work (Rubinstein in “Fatal Eggs”, Berlioz and Stravinsky in the novel “The Master and Margarita”).
Exhausted people in the whirlwind of revolutionary events do not know what to believe and where to go. With pain in their souls, the Kiev officer society greets the news of the death of the royal family and, despite caution, sings the forbidden royal anthem. Out of despair, the officers drink half to death.
A terrifying story about life in Kyiv during the civil war is interspersed with memories of a past life that now look like an unaffordable luxury (for example, trips to the theater).
In 1918, Kyiv became a refuge for those who, fearing reprisals, left Moscow: bankers and homeowners, actors and artists, aristocrats and gendarmes. Describing the cultural life of Kiev, M.A. Bulgakov mentions the famous theater “Lilac Negro”, cafe “Maxim” and the decadent club “Prah” (in fact it was called “Trash” and was located in the basement of the Continental Hotel on Nikolaevskaya Street; many celebrities visited it: A. Averchenko , O. Mandelstam, K. Paustovsky, I. Ehrenburg and M. Bulgakov himself). “The city swelled, expanded, and rose like sourdough from a pot,” writes M.A. Bulgakov. The motive of escape outlined in the novel will become a cross-cutting motif for a number of the writer’s works. In “The White Guard,” as is clear from the title, for M.A. For Bulgakov, what is important, first of all, is the fate of the Russian officers during the years of the revolution and civil war, which for the most part lived with the concept of officer honor.
The author of the novel shows how people go berserk in the crucible of fierce trials. Having learned about the atrocities of the Petliurites, Alexei Turbin needlessly offends the newspaper boy and immediately feels the shame and absurdity of his action. However, most often the heroes of the novel remain true to their life values. It is no coincidence that Elena, when she learns that Alexei is hopeless and must die, lights a lamp in front of the old icon and prays. After this, the disease recedes. M.A. describes with admiration. Bulgakov is a noble act of Yulia Alexandrovna Reis, who, risking herself, saves the wounded Turbin.
The City can be considered a separate hero of the novel. The writer himself spent his best years in his native Kyiv. The city landscape in the novel amazes with its fabulous beauty (“All the energy of the city, accumulated during the sunny and pink summer, poured out in the light), is overgrown with hyperboles (“And there were so many gardens in the City as in no other city in the world”). M.A. Bulgakov widely uses ancient Kiev toponymy (Podol, Khreshchatyk), often mentions the city’s sights dear to every Kievite’s heart (Golden Gate, St. Sophia Cathedral, St. Michael’s Monastery), he calls Vladimirskaya Hill with the monument to Vladimir the best place in the world. so poetic that they resemble prose poems: “A sleepy slumber passed over the City, a cloudy white bird flew past Vladimir’s cross, fell across the Dnieper in the thick of the night and floated along an iron arc, and immediately this poetic picture is interrupted by a description of an armored train locomotive.” , wheezing angrily, with a blunt snout. In this contrast of war and peace, the cross-cutting image is Vladimir's cross - a symbol of Orthodoxy. At the end of the work, the illuminated cross visually turns into a threatening sword. And the writer encourages us to pay attention to the stars. Thus, the author moves from a specific historical perception of events to a generalized philosophical one.
The dream motif plays an important role in the novel. Dreams are seen in the work by Alexey, Elena, Vasilisa, the guard at the armored train and Petka Shcheglov. Dreams help expand the artistic space of the novel, characterize the era more deeply, and most importantly, they raise the theme of hope for the future, that after the bloody civil war the heroes will begin a new life.
Optimistic in spirit and very categorical in content, the poem by B.C. Vysotsky’s “I Don’t Love” is programmatic in his work. Six of the eight stanzas begin...
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“Song about a Friend” is one of the most striking works in the work of B.C. Vysotsky, dedicated to the central theme for the author's song - the theme of friendship as the highest moral...
A work of art always resists analysis: you often don’t know which side to approach. And yet the author leaves us the opportunity to penetrate into the depth of the text. The main thing is to see the tip of the thread, pulling which will unwind the entire ball. One of these author’s “clues” is the title of the work.
In the 20th century, titles with a “complicated” meaning became widespread. They, according to the modern writer Umberte Eco, serve as a means for the author to “disorient” the reader. The White Guard was no exception. The traditional perception of the epithet “white” is associated with its political meaning. But let's think about it. In the city (it is clearly read: in Kyiv) we will see glimpses of German soldiers, the troops of Hetman Skoropadsky, Petliura’s detachments, Red Army soldiers... But no “White Guards”, i.e. officers of the Volunteer (“White”) Army, which was then just being formed in the distance from Kyiv, not in the novel. There are cadets and former officers of the tsarist army who know from whom to defend themselves, but do not know whom to defend. And yet the novel is called “The White Guard”.
Additional meanings of the word “white” are introduced by both epigraphs. The line of the Apocalypse (“And the dead were judged according to what was written in the books according to their deeds”) makes one read the title differently, as “Heavenly Host,” “the host of Christ in white robes,” seems to completely exclude political themes. It is enough to recall the words heard in the novel: “... all of you, Zhilin, are the same - killed in the battlefield.”
The meaning of the name "White Guard" will be further clarified if we turn to the second epigraph - Pushkin's. On the one hand, he actualizes the image of a historical catastrophe as a natural catastrophe (remember, by the way, Blok’s “The Twelve”), on the other hand, a similar situation is a blizzard, a desert plain, a lost traveler in Pushkin’s familiar poem “Demons.”
Once upon a time, color in art had an allegorical meaning. Evil was designated black, virtue and purity of thoughts - white, hope - blue, joy - scarlet. In the era of classicism, each color also had a special meaning: a certain quality, feeling, phenomenon. A unique and sophisticated “language of flowers” emerged. Powdered wigs were sophisticated in the names of each shade; Ippolit Kuragin from Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” was proud of the cloth the color of “the thighs of a frightened nymph.” The color scheme of the outfit or the bouquet in the lady’s hands contained a whole message that the gentleman could understand.
In the era of romanticism, color becomes an iconic phenomenon. Pale face and dark clothing are signs of a romantic hero. Dr. Werner from A Hero of Our Time is always dressed in black, and his limp and charming ugliness emphasize the character's attractive demonism. Refusal of bright or coarse cosmetics is typical for the appearance of a romantic young lady. The pompous variegation of the 18th century is replaced by simple, “natural” colors.
In realistic art, color conveys the richness of the palette of the world, the task of color detail is the accuracy of description. Bulgakov inherits the traditions of realism, but lives in an era when poetry has become “dark” and is built on distant associations, when painting began to depict not “as in life”, but as one sees it (a red horse bathes in a blue river). Color created a stable emotional motive, the melody of the image.
The color scheme of the novel “The White Guard” is white, black, red, gray, green, gold, blue. It is not at all necessary that each color has one specific meaning. For example, green is the color of the lampshade, the color of the schoolgirls’ aprons, and this color is the color of the door of the morgue in which Nikolka is looking for Nai-Tours’ body... And yet the main images of the novel have their own, unique flavor.
1. Introduction. M. A. Bulgakov was one of those few writers who, during the years of omnipotent Soviet censorship, continued to defend their rights to authorial independence.
Despite the fierce persecution and the ban on publishing, Bulgakov never followed the lead of the authorities and created sharp independent works. One of them is the novel "The White Guard".
2. History of creation. Bulgakov was a direct witness to all the horrors of the Civil War. The events of 1918-1919 made a huge impression on him. in Kyiv, when power passed several times to different political forces.
In 1922, the writer decided to write a novel, the main characters of which would be the people closest to him - white officers and the intelligentsia. Bulgakov worked on The White Guard during 1923-1924.
He read individual chapters in friendly companies. Listeners noted the undoubted merits of the novel, but agreed that it would be unrealistic to publish it in Soviet Russia. The first two parts of "The White Guard" were nevertheless published in 1925 in two issues of the magazine "Russia".
3. The meaning of the name. The name "White Guard" carries a partly tragic, partly ironic meaning. The Turbin family are staunch monarchists. They firmly believe that only the monarchy can save Russia. At the same time, the Turbins see that there is no longer any hope for restoration. The abdication of the Tsar became an irrevocable step in the history of Russia.
The problem lies not only in the strength of the opponents, but also in the fact that there are practically no real people devoted to the idea of the monarchy. The “White Guard” is a dead symbol, a mirage, a dream that will never come true.
Bulgakov's irony is most clearly manifested in the scene of a night drinking session in the Turbins' house with enthusiastic talk about the revival of the monarchy. This is the only strength of the “white guard”. Sobering up and hangover are exactly reminiscent of the state of the noble intelligentsia a year after the revolution.
4. Genre Novel
5. Theme. The main theme of the novel is the horror and helplessness of ordinary people in the face of enormous political and social upheavals.
6. Issues. The main problem of the novel is the feeling of uselessness and uselessness among white officers and the noble intelligentsia. There is no one to continue the fight, and it makes no sense. There are no more people like Turbins left. Betrayal and deception reign among the white movement. Another problem is the sharp division of the country into many political opponents.
The choice has to be made not only between monarchists and Bolsheviks. Hetman, Petlyura, bandits of all stripes - these are just the most significant forces that are tearing Ukraine and, in particular, Kyiv apart. Ordinary people who do not want to join any camp become defenseless victims of the next owners of the city. An important problem is the huge number of victims of the fratricidal war. Human life has become so devalued that murder has become commonplace.
7. Heroes. Alexey Turbin, Nikolay Turbin, Elena Vasilyevna Talberg, Vladimir Robertovich Talberg, Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Vasily Lisovich, Lariosik.
8. Plot and composition. The novel takes place at the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919. At the center of the story is the Turbin family - Elena Vasilievna with two brothers. Alexey Turbin recently returned from the front, where he worked as a military doctor. He dreamed of a simple and quiet life, of a private medical practice. Dreams are not destined to come true. Kyiv is becoming the scene of a fierce struggle, which in some ways is even worse than the situation on the front line.
Nikolai Turbin is still very young. The romantically inclined young man endures the Hetman’s power with pain. He sincerely and ardently believes in the monarchical idea, dreams of taking up arms in its defense. Reality roughly destroys all his idealistic ideas. The first military clash, the betrayal of the high command, and the death of Nai-Tours amaze Nikolai. He understands that he has until now harbored ethereal illusions, but cannot believe it.
Elena Vasilyevna is an example of the resilience of a Russian woman who will protect and care for her loved ones with all her might. The Turbins' friends admire her and, thanks to Elena's support, find the strength to live on. In this regard, Elena’s husband, Staff Captain Talberg, makes a sharp contrast.
Thalberg is the main negative character of the novel. This is a person who has no beliefs at all. He easily adapts to any authority for the sake of his career. Thalberg's flight before Petlyura's offensive was due only to his harsh statements against the latter. In addition, Thalberg learned that a new major political force was being formed on the Don, promising power and influence.
In the image of captain, Bulgakov showed the worst qualities of the white officers, which led to the defeat of the white movement. Careerism and lack of sense of homeland are deeply disgusting to the Turbin brothers. Thalberg betrays not only the defenders of the city, but also his wife. Elena Vasilyevna loves her husband, but even she is amazed by his actions and in the end is forced to admit that he is a scoundrel.
Vasilisa (Vasily Lisovich) personifies the worst type of everyman. He does not evoke pity, since he himself is ready to betray and inform, if he had the courage. Vasilisa’s main concern is to better hide her accumulated wealth. Before the love of money, the fear of death even recedes in him. A gangster search of the apartment is the best punishment for Vasilisa, especially since he still saved his miserable life.
Bulgakov's inclusion of the original character Lariosik in the novel looks a little strange. This is a clumsy young man who, by some miracle, remained alive after making his way to Kyiv. Critics believe that the author specifically introduced Lariosik to soften the tragedy of the novel.
As is known, Soviet criticism subjected the novel to merciless persecution, declaring the writer a defender of white officers and “philistines.” However, the novel does not at all defend the white movement. On the contrary, Bulgakov paints a picture of incredible decline and decay in this environment. The main supporters of the Turbine monarchy, in fact, no longer want to fight with anyone. They are ready to become ordinary people, isolating themselves from the surrounding hostile world in their warm and cozy apartment. The news their friends report is depressing. The white movement no longer exists.
The most honest and noble order, paradoxically, is the order to the cadets to throw down their weapons, tear off their shoulder straps and go home. Bulgakov himself subjected the “white guard” to sharp criticism. At the same time, the main thing for him becomes the tragedy of the Turbin family, who are unlikely to find their place in their new life.
9. What the author teaches. Bulgakov refrains from making any author's assessments of the novel. The reader's attitude towards what is happening arises only through the dialogues of the main characters. Of course, this is pity for the Turbin family, pain for the bloody events that shook Kyiv. "The White Guard" is the writer's protest against any political coups, which always bring death and humiliation for ordinary people.
