The White Guard

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This article is about the novel. For the 2012 TV series, see The White Guard (TV series). For the Canadian documentary film, see The White Guard (film).
The White Guard
1927 émigré edition published in Riga
AuthorMikhail Bulgakov
Original titleБелая гвардия
CountrySoviet Union
LanguageRussian
PublisherRossiya (serial)
Publication date
1925
Published in English
1971
Media typePrint

The White Guard (Russian: Белая гвардия) is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, first published in 1925 in literary journal Rossiya. It was not reprinted in the Soviet Union until 1966.

Background

The White Guard first appeared in serial form in the

Soviet-era literary journal Rossiya in 1925,[1] but it was closed down before the serial was completed. The complete book was published in Paris
in 1927. The censored version was published in the Soviet Union in 1966. The complete version was published in 1989.

After the first two parts of The White Guard had been published in Rossiya, Bulgakov was invited to write a version for the stage. He called the

Stalin saw it no fewer than 20 times.[1]

In fact, the play completely overshadowed the book, which was in any event virtually unobtainable in any form.

Plot

Set in

Pavlo Skoropadsky appear as the Turbin family is caught up in the turbulent effects of the October Revolution
.

The novel's characters belong to the sphere of Ukrainian and Russian intellectuals and officers in the army of Skoropadsky and participate in defending the city from the Ukrainian nationalist forces, led by Petliura, in December 1918. The character Mikhail Shpolyansky is modelled on Viktor Shklovsky.[2]

The novel contains many autobiographical elements. Bulgakov gave the younger Turbin brother some of the characteristics of his own younger brother. The description of the house of the Turbins is that of the house of the Bulgakov family in Kyiv. (It is now preserved and operated as the Mikhail Bulgakov Museum.)

Characters

  • Alexey Vasilyevich Turbin, a physician
  • Nikolai Turbin (Nikolka), his younger brother
  • Elena Vasilyevna Talberg, their sister
  • Sergei Ivanovich Talberg, her husband
  • Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky, lieutenant
  • Leonid Yuryevich Shervinsky, aide to Prince Belorukov
  • Fyodor Nikolaievich Stepanov, nicknamed Carp (Karas)
  • Father Alexander
  • Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich, nicknamed Vasilisa
  • Larion Larionovich Surzhansky (Lariosik)
  • Colonel Nai-Turs

English translations

Bulgakov's widow had The White Guard published in large part in the literary journal Moskva in 1966, at the end of the

Khrushchev era. It was the basis for the English translation by Michael Glenny, first published in 1971, which lacks the dream flashback sections. In 2008, Yale University Press
published a translation by Marian Schwartz of the complete novel, an edition that won an award.

Adaptations

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-300-15145-9
  2. ISBN 9780300148190. {{cite book}}: |last2= has generic name (help
    )

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The White Guard.
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