White Guard retelling. "White Guard. The situation in the city

"The White Guard" - Bulgakov's very first novel!

The action of the work takes place in 1918-1919 in the unknown City N, which resembles Kiev. It is occupied by the German invaders, the power is concentrated in the hands of the hetman. Everyone is waiting for Petliura's fighters to enter the City. Life in the village proceeds strangely and unnaturally.

In the house of the Turbins, the hosts and guests of the family are talking about the fate of their beloved City. Aleksey Turbin is sure that the fault lies with the hetman, who did not form the Russian army in time. Then it would have been possible to defend the City, to save Russia, and there would have been no Petliura troops.

Elena's husband Sergei Talberg tells her that he is leaving with the Germans by train. He hopes that in a couple of months he will arrive with Denikin's army. The captain does not take his wife with him.

To defend against the Petliurist army, Russian divisions are formed. Karas, Myshlaevsky and senior Turbin go to serve to Malyshev. But the next night, the hetman, together with General Belorukov, leaves on a German train. The colonel disbands his army, as the city government is gone.

Colonel Nai-Tours forms the second department of the first squad by December. Under the threat of a colt, he forces the chief of supply to issue winter clothes for his fighters. The next morning, the Petliura army advances on the City, the colonel's soldiers desperately go into battle. Nai-Turs sends scouts to find out where the hetman's units are. It turns out that they are nowhere to be found. It becomes obvious to the Colonel that they have fallen into a trap.

Nikolai Turbin, on the orders of the commander, arrives at the indicated place. There, a terrible picture appears before him: Nai-Tours shouts to all the fighters to tear all documents, tear off shoulder straps and cockades, throw weapons and hide in shelters. In front of Turbin, the colonel dies from a gunshot wound. Kolya is trying to get to the house.

Senior Turbin, who did not know about the dissolution of the army, is at the headquarters. There he sees an abandoned weapon and Malyshev, who explains that the city was captured by the Petliura army. Aleksey rips off his shoulder straps and goes home, but along the way, Petliura's soldiers shoot at him. The wounded Turbine is sheltered by an unfamiliar lady, Julia Reiss, and the next day helps him get home. Larion, Sergei's brother, arrives at the Turbins and stays with them to stay.

Lisovich Vasily Ivanovich, the owner of the house in which the Turbins live, settles on the ground floor. The Turbin family is in second place. Before the Petliurists enter the City, Vasily hides jewelry and money in a cache. Someone is closely following him, and the next day armed guys come with a search. The contents of the cache, the owner's clothes and watch are taken away. The Lisovichs suspect that they were criminals and ask the Turbins for help. Karas is sent to help them.

Nikolay informs the relatives of Nai-Turs about his death. With the colonel's sister Ira, he finds the body of the deceased. At night he is buried.

After a couple of days from his wound, Alexei becomes seriously ill, the doctors are talking about an imminent death. His sister closes herself in her room and prays to the Mother of God for Lesha to survive. At the same time, she says that it would be better if her husband did not return, and his brother would remain alive. Suddenly, Turbin comes to his senses in front of the amazed doctor.

A month later, Alyosha, who has finally recovered, comes to Yulia Reiss and gives her the bracelet of his late mother as a token of gratitude for saving her. Turbin asks if he can visit. On the way, he meets a brother coming from Nai-Turs's sister.

Elena receives a letter from a close friend, informing her that her husband is marrying a completely different lady. The woman, crying, remembers that night prayer.

In February, the Petliurists leave. The Bolsheviks are hastily approaching the City.

A brief retelling of "The White Guard" in abbreviation was prepared by Oleg Nikov for the reader's diary.

M. A. Bulgakov "White Guard" Part 1.
The action of the work takes place in the cold winter of 1918-1919. in Kiev. The Turbin family lived in a two-story house on Alekseevsky Spusk on the 2nd floor. On the 1st floor lived the landlord V. I. Lisovich, nicknamed Basilisk. There were 3 adult children in the Turbin family: Alexey - 28 years old, a doctor, Elena - 24 years old, her husband, diplomat S.I. Talberg - 31 years old, Nikolai - 17 years old. The times were troubling. In Kiev - the Germans, and near the City stood a hundred thousandth Petliur's army. Confusion. And it is not clear who is fighting with whom. At dinner in the family, the conversation turned to military operations. Alexei explained that the Germans are vile. Many are fleeing the war. Meanwhile, Vasilisa locks the door and hides a package wrapped in newspaper in a hiding place. He did not notice how 2 pairs of eyes were carefully watching him from the street. They were bandits. Vasilisa had 3 hiding places where money, gold, securities were kept. Counting banknotes, Vasilisa found counterfeit banknotes among them. He put them aside, hoping to pay off at the market, or with the coachman.
Throughout 1918, Kiev lives an unnatural life. The houses are filled with guests. Financiers, entrepreneurs, merchants, and lawyers fled from Moscow and St. Petersburg. Shops are opening in Kiev selling food until midnight. The local press publishes novels and stories by famous Russian journalists that hate the Communists with cowardly, hissing malice. There were gold-chasing officers in the City who did not receive the necessary papers to travel abroad. The people, closed in the City, had no idea what was happening in the country. People pinned their aspirations on the German occupation troops. At first there were 2 opposing forces, until Petliura appeared. The first sign that announced Petliura was women rushing about in their shirts and screaming in a terrible voice. Ammunition depots were blown up on Lysa Gora. The second sign was the brutal murder of the German Field Marshal von Eichhorn. Food prices have gone up. For 400,000 Germans there were tens of thousands of Ukrainian villagers with hearts burning with anger. The German command could not withstand such a heat of passion. The Germans left the country. At the same time, the Ukrainian hetman was dressed in the clothes of a German major, and he became like hundreds of other German officers. He told his subordinates that the ruler had fled abroad. In addition, the commander-in-chief general escaped from the Belorukov cavalry. He added that the ataman had a 100,000-strong army near Kiev, so he did not want his soldiers to die.

Part 2.
From day to day, the Petliurist army may enter Kiev. Colonel Kozyr-Lyashko, working for many years as a teacher in the village, ends up on the front of the First World War. It turned out that it was his business. And in 1917 he became a corporal, and in 1918 - a lieutenant colonel at the ataman. The main forces of the defenders are drawn to Kiev. The frozen military moved closer to the city center. Lyashko orders the horses to be saddled. Soon the legion set out on a campaign.
Commander Toropets was also near Kiev, he came up with a scheme according to which the defending troops should retreat to the village of Kurenevka, then he himself would be able to strike directly on the forehead. From the flank the City attacked Lyashko. To his right, a battle broke out. Shetkin had not been at the General Staff since early morning, since the headquarters as such no longer existed. First, 2 assistants disappeared. Nobody knew anything in Kiev. Here was the ruler (no one had yet guessed about the mysterious disappearances of the commander), and his lordship Prince Belorukov, and General Kartuzov, who was forming an army to protect Kiev. The people were perplexed: “Why did the Petliura trains come close to the city fortifications? Maybe they made an agreement with the ataman? Then why are the White Guards firing at the advancing Petliura units? “Panic and chaos was present in Kiev on December 14th. Less and less calls were heard in the coordination center. Finally, Maxim scribbled right on the city streets. Bolbotun, tired of waiting for the order of the chief, gives the order to the cavalry to go to the railway. He stops the train carrying a new batch of refugees to Kiev. He was apparently not expected, so he easily entered Kiev, meeting resistance only at the school.
Part of Colonel Nai-Tours wandered through the snowdrifts near Kiev for 3 days until they returned to the city. He took care of his subordinates, so 150 cadets and 3 ensigns were shod in warm felt boots. On the night of the 14th, Nye was looking at a map of the City. The headquarters did not disturb, only in the afternoon the volunteer gave a written order to guard the strategic road. The rumble of shutters swept through the chains of the junkers: on the orders of the commander, they entered into an unequal battle. Finding himself in Brest-Litovsky Lane. He sends 3 volunteers for reconnaissance. They soon returned without finding any defending units. The commander turns to his subordinates and gives a loud order. In the hostel, 28 cadets under the command of Nikolai Turbin suffered. Commander Bezrukov and 2 warrant officers, having gone to the coordination center, did not return home. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon the phone rings. Alexei Turbin was sleeping. Suddenly the young man rushed about. In a hurry, forgetting the testimony and embracing with her sister. He hires a carriage and drives to the museum. Domchav to the meeting place, he sees the armed people. He got a little scared. Thinking I'm late. He ran to the store, where he found the boss. The colonel quickly explained to Alexei that the command had abandoned them to their fate. Petliura in Kiev. He advises him to take off his epaulettes as soon as possible. And leave here in good health. Turbin rips off the epaulettes and throws them into the stove. He leaves through the back door. Nikolai Turbin leads the fighters through Kiev. And suddenly he noticed that the cadets began to scatter to their homes. He meets a colonel who rips off his shoulder straps and orders him to drop his weapons. And he does not have time to ask, as the colonel is killed by a shell that exploded in the vicinity. The young man experienced a natural feeling of fear. He goes to his home through yards and lanes. The sister is concerned about the fate of the elder Turbine. And she did not let her younger brother go outside. Nikolai wants to climb onto the roof of the shed and see what's going on in Kiev. Returning home, the boy falls asleep like the dead. The sister waited for her older brother all night. He wakes up due to someone complaining about his wife. Larion arrived from Zhytomyr and informed Nikolai that the elder Turbin had come with him. Alex was lying on the couch. He is wounded in the arm. Nikolai ran after the medic. An hour later, scraps of bandages were scattered in the house, a basin full of red water stood on the floor. Alexey has already woken up from oblivion. The doctor assured his relatives that the bone and blood vessels were not affected, but he warned that the wound could fester due to fragments of the overcoat.

Part 3
A few hours later, Alexey came to his senses. Sitting next to him was his sister. The family was visited by 3 doctors who gave a disappointing conclusion: typhus and that it is hopeless. Alexei is in agony. Walking yards away from the store, he stumbles upon Petliura's soldiers. When the doctor turns around, they recognize him as a white officer and open fire to kill. The Medic flees from his pursuers. Petliurists did not lag behind, Alexei hides with an unfamiliar woman. He ran after a beautiful stranger. Having reached the 2 gates, they began to climb the stairs, the doctor falls on his left leg. She drags the injured doctor into her home. He tries to give himself first aid. Madame helped Alexei stop the bleeding. The doctor was very worried about the relatives, but could not tell them where he was. Alexey met Yu. Reise. He slept with her all night. In the morning, Madame gave her husband's clothes and took her in a carriage to the apartment of the Turbins. Late in the evening, Myshlevsky showed up at the Turbinnys. The housekeeper opens the door for him and immediately reports Turbin's health. Entering the room, Victor meets Larion. The colonel had a great fight with a friend, saying that it was necessary to destroy the General Staff in the toilet. Karas calmed down the skirmish that had begun. Nikolai asks the guests to speak more quietly, you can not disturb the patient. After 2 days, Nikolai goes to Nye's relatives to report the news of his heroic death. They find the body, and on the same day they bury Naya in the chapel.
A year later, Alexei walks to Julia Reisa, who once saved him from death. He asks the woman for permission to visit her often. Toward evening, Alexei had a fever. He was afraid for his hand. When a scratch bothered Alexei, he threw a cold compress on the floor, and he crawled under the covers. The temperature was getting higher, the tearing pain in the left side of the body became dull. Everyone listened attentively to Lieutenant Shervinsky's story. Who told the guests about the imminent arrival of the Communists. People were walking along the platform. A man in a long overcoat was pacing near the armored train. The inscription "Proletary" was visible on the armored train. Alexey was delirious.
The front door rang, and the frightened owner went to open it. The people who came announced to the landlord that they had come with a warrant to search his apartment. First of all, the bandits opened Vasilisa's hiding place. Further, with the same success, the thieves plundered the master bedroom. One of the uninvited guests liked Vasilisa's shoes, and he immediately puts them on. The guests were fully dressed in the master's clothes, not forgetting to threaten the Lisoviches with imminent punishment. When leaving, they are ordered to write Vasilisa a receipt that he gave them things. When the footsteps subside They order Vasilisa not to complain about them anywhere. They quickly leave the room. Wanda Mikhailovna immediately began to have a seizure, she sent her husband to the General Staff to complain about the robbers. He quickly rises to the Turbine. He says that the robbers threatened with 2 pistols, 1 of which was with a gold chain. They feed the guest with boiled veal, pickled mushrooms and delicious cherry jam. Sister unsteadily leaves Alexei's office. She peered at Alexei for a long time and realized that her brother would die. The patient had been unconscious for a long time and did not realize what was happening around him. Elena lights a lamp and silently bows to the ground. She looked unkindly at the Mother of God, reproaching her for the troubles that happened in the family. Then Elena could not stand it and began to passionately pray to higher powers for blessings of health to Alexei. Turbin was covered in sweat, his chest was heaving nervously. He suddenly opens his eyes and informs everyone that death has receded from him.
An anxious colleague injects medicine into the patient's hand. He has changed a lot, 2 folds remained at his mouth forever, his eyes became gloomy and sad. He thought about the ataman, family friends and Elena.
A young man enters the doctor's office and reports that he has syphilis. Alexei prescribes a drug and gave good advice to read the Apocalypse less.
Conclusion
The White Guard is one of Bulgakov's best works, which reveals the essence of the confrontation between the white and red armies.

"White Guard", Chapter 1 - Summary

The intelligent Turbin family living in Kiev - two brothers and a sister - find themselves in the middle of the cycle of revolution in 1918. Alexei Turbin, a young doctor, is twenty-eight years old, he has already managed to fight on World War I. Nikolka is seventeen and a half. Sister Elena is twenty-four, a year and a half ago she married staff captain Sergei Talberg.

This year, the Turbins buried a mother who, dying, said to the children: “Live!” But the year is ending, already December, and the terrible blizzard of revolutionary turmoil does not cease to avenge. How to live in such a time? Apparently you have to suffer and die!

White Guard. 1 series. Film based on the novel by M. Bulgakov (2012)

The priest who buried his mother, father Alexander, prophesies to Alexei Turbin that it will be even more difficult further. But he convinces me not to despair.

"White Guard", Chapter 2 - Summary

The power of the hetman planted by the Germans in Kiev Skoropadsky staggers. Socialist troops march towards the city from the White Church Petliura. He is just as much of a thief as Bolsheviks, differs from them only in Ukrainian nationalism.

On a December evening, the Turbins gather in the living room, hearing cannon shots through the windows, already close to Kiev.

A friend of the family, a young, courageous lieutenant Viktor Myshlaevsky, unexpectedly rings the doorbell. He is terribly cold, cannot reach the house, asks permission to spend the night. With swearing, he tells how he stood in the vicinity of the city on defense from the Petliurists. 40 officers were thrown in the evening into an open field, without even giving boots, and almost without cartridges. From a terrible frost, they began to burrow into the snow - and two froze to death, and two more would have to amputate their legs due to frostbite. The careless drunkard, Colonel Shchetkin, did not deliver the shift in the morning. She was brought only to dinner by the brave Colonel Nai-Tours.

Exhausted Myshlaevsky falls asleep. Elena's husband returns home, a dry and prudent opportunist Captain Talberg, born in Balts. He quickly explains to his wife: Hetman Skoropadsky is abandoned by the German troops, on which all his power rested. At one in the morning, General von Bussow's train leaves for Germany. Thalberg, thanks to his staff acquaintances, the Germans agree to take with them. He should be preparing to leave immediately, but “I can’t take you, Elena, on wanderings and the unknown.”

Elena is crying softly, but doesn't mind. Talberg promises that he will make his way from Germany through Romania to the Crimea and the Don, in order to come to Kiev with Denikin's troops. He busily packs his suitcase, hastily says goodbye to Elena's brothers, and leaves at one in the morning with the German train.

"White Guard", Chapter 3 - Summary

Turbines occupy the 2nd floor of a two-story house No. 13 on Alekseevsky Spusk, and on the first floor lives the owner of the house, engineer Vasily Lisovich, whose acquaintances call Vasilisa for cowardice and womanish vanity.

That night, Lisovich, having curtained the windows in the room with a sheet and a blanket, hides an envelope with money in a hiding place inside the wall. He does not notice that a white sheet on a green-painted window has attracted the attention of a passer-by. He climbed a tree and, through a gap above the upper edge of the curtain, saw everything that Vasilisa was doing.

Having calculated the rest of the Ukrainian money saved for current expenses, Lisovich goes to bed. He sees in a dream how thieves open his hiding place, but soon wakes up with curses: upstairs they play the guitar loudly and sing ...

Two more friends came to the Turbins: staff adjutant Leonid Shervinsky and artilleryman Fyodor Stepanov (gymnasium nickname - Karas). They brought wine and vodka. The whole company, together with the awakened Myshlaevsky, sits down at the table. Karas is campaigning for everyone who wants to defend Kiev from Petlyura, to enter the mortar division being formed, where an excellent commander is Colonel Malyshev. Shervinsky, obviously in love with Elena, is glad to hear about Thalberg's departure and begins to sing a passionate epithalame.

White Guard. 2 series. Film based on the novel by M. Bulgakov (2012)

Everyone is drinking for the Allies in the Entente to help Kiev fight off Petlyura. Aleksey Turbin scolds the hetman: he oppressed the Russian language, until the last days he did not allow the army to be formed from Russian officers - and at the decisive moment he found himself without an army. If from April the hetman had begun to create officer corps, we would now have driven the Bolsheviks out of Moscow! Alexey says that he will go to the division to Malyshev.

Shervinsky transmits rumors from the headquarters that Emperor Nicholas is not killed, but escaped from the hands of the communists. Everyone at the table understands: this is unlikely, but still they sing in delight “God save the Tsar!”

Myshlaevsky and Alexei get very drunk. Seeing this, Elena puts everyone to bed. She sits sadly on her bed alone in her room, thinking about her husband's departure and suddenly realizing clearly that in a year and a half of marriage she never had respect for this cold careerist. Aleksey Turbin thinks about Talberg with disgust.

"White Guard", Chapter 4 - summary

The entire last (1918) year, a stream of wealthy people fleeing from Bolshevik Russia is pouring into Kiev. It intensifies after the election of a hetman, when, with German help, it is possible to establish some order. Most visitors are an idle, depraved public. For her, countless cafes, theaters, clubs, cabarets are opened in the city, where there are a lot of drugged prostitutes.

A lot of officers are also coming to Kiev - with etched eyes after the collapse of the Russian army and the soldiers' arbitrariness in 1917. Lousy, unshaven, badly dressed officers do not find support from Skoropadsky. Only a few manage to enter the hetman's convoy, flaunting fantastic epaulettes. The rest are wandering around idle.

So the 4 cadet schools that were in Kiev before the revolution remain closed. Many of their pupils fail to complete the course. Among these is the ardent Nikolka Turbin.

The city is calm thanks to the Germans. But there is a feeling that peace is fragile. News is coming from the countryside that the revolutionary robberies of the peasants cannot be appeased in any way.

"White Guard", Chapter 5 - Summary

Signs of imminent trouble are multiplying in Kiev. In May there is a terrible explosion of armories in the suburbs on Lysa Gora. On July 30, Field Marshal Eichhorn, Commander-in-Chief of the German Army in Ukraine, is killed by a bomb in the street in broad daylight on the street. And then the troublemaker Symon Petlyura is released from the hetman's prison - a mysterious man who immediately goes to lead the peasants rioting in the villages.

A village riot is very dangerous because many men have recently returned from the war - with weapons, and having learned to shoot there. And by the end of the year, the Germans are defeated in the First World War. They themselves begin revolution overthrow the emperor Wilhelm. That is why they are now in a hurry to withdraw their troops from Ukraine.

White Guard. 3 series. Film based on the novel by M. Bulgakov (2012)

... Aleksey Turbin is sleeping, and he dreams that on the eve of Paradise he met captain Zhilin and with him his entire squadron of Belgrade hussars, who died in 1916 in the Vilna direction. For some reason, their commander also jumped here - the still living Colonel Nai-Tours in the armor of a crusader. Zhilin tells Alexei that the Apostle Peter let his entire detachment go to Paradise, although they took several cheerful women with them along the way. And Zhilin saw mansions in paradise, painted with red stars. Peter said that the Red Army soldiers would soon go there, who would be killed many under Perekop. Zhilin was surprised that the atheist Bolsheviks would be allowed into Paradise, but the Almighty himself explained to him: “Well, they don’t believe in me, what can you do. One believes, the other does not believe, but you all have the same actions: now each other's throat. All of you with me, Zhilin, are the same - killed in the battlefield.

Alexey Turbin also wanted to throw himself into the gates of heaven - but woke up ...

"White Guard", Chapter 6 - summary

Enrollment in the mortar division takes place in the former Parisian Chic store Madame Anjou, in the city center. In the morning after a drunken night, Karas, already in the division, leads Alexei Turbin and Myshlaevsky here. Elena baptizes them at home before leaving.

The division commander, Colonel Malyshev, is a young man of about 30, with lively and intelligent eyes. He is very happy about the arrival of Myshlaevsky, an artilleryman who fought on the German front. At first, Malyshev is wary of Dr. Turbin, but is very happy to learn that he is not a socialist, like most intellectuals, but an ardent hater of Kerensky.

Myshlaevsky and Turbina are recorded in the division. In an hour they should appear on the parade ground of the Alexander Gymnasium, where soldiers are being trained. Turbin runs home at this hour, and on the way back to the gymnasium he suddenly sees a crowd of people carrying coffins with the bodies of several ensigns. The Petliurists surrounded and slaughtered an officer detachment that night in the village of Popelyukha, gouged out their eyes, cut epaulettes on their shoulders ...

Turbin himself studied at the Alexander Gymnasium, and now fate after the front again threw him here. There are no gymnasium students now, the building is empty, and on the parade ground young volunteers, students and cadets, run around with terrible, blunt-faced mortars, learning how to handle them. Classes are led by the senior officer of the division Studzinsky, Myshlaevsky and Karas. The turbine is assigned to train two fighters in paramedical work.

Colonel Malyshev arrives. Studzinsky and Myshlaevsky quietly report to him their impressions of the recruits: “They will fight. But complete inexperience. For one hundred and twenty junkers, there are eighty students who do not know how to hold a rifle in their hands. Malyshev, with a frown, informs the officers that the headquarters will not give the division either horses or shells, so they will have to quit training with mortars and teach them how to shoot from a rifle. The colonel orders that most of the recruits be dismissed for the night, leaving only 60 of the best junkers in the gymnasium as a guard for weapons.

In the lobby of the gymnasium, officers remove the drape from the portrait of its founder, Emperor Alexander I, which has been hanging closed since the first days of the revolution. The sovereign points to the portrait with his hand at the Borodino regiments. Looking at the picture, Alexei Turbin recalls the happy pre-revolutionary days. “Emperor Alexander, save the dying house with the Borodino regiments! Revive, bring them off the canvas! They would have beaten Petlyura."

Malyshev orders the division to assemble again on the parade ground tomorrow morning, but he allows Turbin to arrive only at two o'clock in the afternoon. The remaining guard of the junkers under the command of Studzinsky and Myshlaevsky all night drowning the ovens in the gymnasium with “Domestic Notes” and “Library for Reading” for 1863 ...

"White Guard", Chapter 7 - summary

In the hetman's palace this night - indecent fuss. Skoropadsky, rushing about in front of the mirrors, changes into the uniform of a German major. The doctor who entered tightly bandaged his head, and the hetman was taken away in a car from the side entrance under the guise of German Major Schratt, who allegedly accidentally wounded himself in the head while unloading a revolver. No one in the city yet knows about Skoropadsky's flight, but the military informs Colonel Malyshev about this.

In the morning, Malyshev announces to the fighters of his division who gathered at the gymnasium: “During the night, sharp and sudden changes took place in the state situation in Ukraine. Therefore, the mortar division is disbanded! Here in the arsenal, take all the weapons that everyone wants, and go home! For those who want to continue the fight, I would advise you to make your way to Denikin on the Don.

Among the stunned, not understanding young men, a muffled murmur passes. Captain Studzinsky even makes an attempt to arrest Malyshev. However, he calms his excitement with a loud shout and continues: “Do you want to defend the hetman? But today, at about four o'clock in the morning, shamefully leaving us all to the mercy of fate, he fled like the last rascal and a coward, along with the commander of the army, General Belorukov! Petliura has more than a hundred thousand army on the outskirts of the city. In unequal battles with her today, handfuls of officers and cadets will die, standing in the field and abandoned by two scoundrels who should have been hanged. And I dismiss you in order to save you from certain death!”

Many junkers are weeping in despair. The division disperses, spoiling, as much as possible, thrown mortars and guns. Myshlaevsky and Karas, not seeing Alexei Turbin in the gymnasium and not knowing that Malyshev ordered him to come only at two o'clock in the afternoon, think that he has already been notified of the dissolution of the division.

Part 2

"White Guard", Chapter 8 - Summary

At dawn, December 14, 1918, in the village of Popelyukha near Kiev, where ensigns had recently been slaughtered, Petliura's colonel Kozyr-Leshko raises his cavalry detachment, a sabelyuk of 400. Singing a Ukrainian song, he leaves for a new position, on the other side of the city. This is how the cunning plan of Colonel Toropets, the commander of the oblog city of Kiev, is being carried out. Toropets thinks of distracting the city's defenders with artillery cannonade from the north, and making the main attack in the center and south.

Meanwhile, the pampered Colonel Shchetkin, who leads the detachments of these defenders in the snowy fields, secretly abandons his fighters and leaves for a rich Kiev apartment, to a full blonde, where he drinks coffee and goes to bed ...

The impatient Petliurist Colonel Bolbotun decides to speed up Toropets' plan - and without preparation rushes into the city with his cavalry. To his surprise, he encounters no resistance all the way to the Nikolaev Military School. Only there it is fired from the only machine gun they have, 30 cadets and four officers.

Bolbotun's reconnaissance with the centurion Galanba at the head rushes along the empty Millionnaya Street. Here Galanba slashes with a saber on the head of Yakov Feldman, a well-known Jew, a supplier of armored parts to Hetman Skoropadsky, who accidentally came out to meet them from the entrance.

"White Guard", Chapter 9 - Summary

An armored car approaches a handful of cadets near the school to help. After three shots from his gun, the movement of Bolbotun's regiment completely stops.

Not one armored car, but four had to approach the junkers - and then the Petliurists would have to flee. But recently, Mikhail Shpolyansky, a revolutionary warrant officer, personally awarded by Kerensky, was appointed commander of the second vehicle in the hetman's armored regiment, black, with velvet sideburns, similar to Eugene Onegin.

This reveler and lyricist, who came from Petrograd, littered Kiev with money, founded here the poetic order "Magnetic Triolet" under his chairmanship, kept two mistresses, played a piece of iron and orated in clubs. Recently, Shpolyansky treated the head of the Magnetic Triolet in a cafe in the evening, and after dinner, the novice, but already sick with syphilis, poet Rusakov wept drunk on his beaver cuffs. Shpolyansky went from the cafe to his mistress Yulia on Malaya Provalnaya Street, and Rusakov, having come home, looked at the red rash on his chest with tears and prayed on his knees for the forgiveness of the Lord, who punished him with a serious illness for writing godless verses.

The next day, Shpolyansky, to everyone's surprise, entered the armored division of Skoropadsky, where instead of beavers and a top hat he began to walk in a military sheepskin coat, all smeared with machine oil. Four hetman armored cars had great success in the battles with the Petliurists near the city. But three days before the fateful December 14, Shpolyansky, slowly gathering the gunners and drivers of the cars, began to convince them: it is stupid to defend the reactionary hetman. Soon both him and Petliura will be replaced by the third, the only correct historical force - the Bolsheviks.

On the eve of December 14, Shpolyansky, along with other drivers, poured sugar into the engines of armored cars. When the battle began with the cavalry that entered Kiev, only one of the four cars started up. He was brought to the aid of the junkers by the heroic ensign Strashkevich. He delayed the enemy, but could not drive him out of Kiev.

"White Guard", Chapter 10 - Summary

Hussar Colonel Nai-Tours is a heroic front-line soldier who speaks with a burr and turns his whole body, looking sideways, because after being wounded his neck is reduced. In the first days of December, he recruits up to 150 junkers to the second department of the city defense squad, but he demands dads and boots for all of them. Clean General Makushin in the supply department replies that he does not have so many uniforms. Nye then calls several of his junkers with loaded rifles: “Write a plea, your pge. Live. We have no time, it's time for us to go out. Nepgiyatel under the very best. If you don’t write, you stupid stagik, I’ll ring you in the head with a Colt, you’ll kick your legs. The general writes on paper with a jumping hand: "Issue."

All morning on December 14th, Nye's detachment sits in the barracks without receiving orders. Only in the afternoon does he receive an order to go to the guard of the Polytechnic Highway. Here, at three o'clock in the afternoon, Nye sees the approaching Petliura regiment of Kozyr-Leshko.

By order of Nye, his battalion fires several volleys at the enemy. But, seeing that the enemy appeared from the side, he orders his fighters to retreat. The junker sent to reconnaissance in the city, returning, reports that the Petliura cavalry is already on all sides. Nai loudly shouts to his chains: "Save yourself, whoever can!"

... And the first department of the squad - 28 cadets, among whom is Nikolka Turbin, languishes idle in the barracks until dinner. Only at three in the afternoon the phone suddenly rings: “Go outside along the route!” There is no commander - and Nikolka has to lead everyone, as a senior.

... Alexei Turbin sleeps late that day. Waking up, he hurriedly gets ready for the division at the gymnasium, knowing nothing about city events. On the street, he is surprised by the close sounds of machine-gun fire. Having reached the gymnasium in a cab, he sees that the division is not there. "Gone without me!" - Alexey thinks in despair, but notices with surprise: the mortars have remained in their original places, and they are without locks.

Guessing that a disaster has happened, Turbin runs to Madame Anjou's shop. There, disguised as a student, Colonel Malyshev burns lists of division fighters in the oven. “Don't you know anything yet? Malyshev shouts to Alexei. “Take off your shoulder straps and run, hide!” He talks about the flight of the hetman and that the division has been disbanded. Waving his fists, he curses the staff generals.

"Run! Only not to the street, but through the back door!” - Malyshev exclaims and hides in the back door. Stunned, Turbin rips off his shoulder straps and rushes to the same place where the colonel disappeared.

"White Guard", Chapter 11 - Summary

Nikolka leads 28 of his junkers through the whole of Kiev. At the last crossroads, the detachment lies down with rifles in the snow, they prepare a machine gun: the shooting is heard very close.

Suddenly, other junkers fly out to the crossroads. "Run with us! Save yourself who can!” they shout to the Nikolkins.

Colonel Nai-Tours is shown the last of the runners with a colt in his hand. "Yunkegga! Listen to my command! he shouts. - Get off your shoulder straps, kokagdy, bgosai oguzhie! Along the Fonagny Pegeulk - only along the Fonagny! - by two to Gazezzhuya, to Podol! The fight is over! Headquarters - stegs! .. "

The junkers scatter, and Nye rushes to the machine gun. Nikolka, who did not run with everyone else, also jumps up to him. Nye chases him away: "Get out, you stupid mother!", but Nikolka: "I don't want to, Mr. Colonel."

Horsemen jump out at the crossroads. Nye fires a machine-gun burst at them. Several riders fall, the rest immediately disappear. However, the Petliurists, who had lain down further along the street, opened hurricane fire in two at the machine gun. Nye falls, bleeding, and dies, having only time to say: “Unteg-tseg, God bless you ... Little-pgovalnaya ...” Nikolka, grabbing the Colonel’s Colt, miraculously crawls under heavy shelling around the corner, into Lantern Lane.

Jumping up, he rushes into the first courtyard. Here it is with a cry of “Hold it! Keep Junkerey!" - tries to grab the janitor. But Nikolka hits him in the teeth with the hilt of a Colt, and the janitor runs away with a bloody beard.

Nikolka climbs over two high walls on the run, bleeding his toes and breaking off his nails. Running out of breath on Razezzhaya Street, he tears his documents on the go. He rushes to Podol, as ordered by Nai-Turs. Having met a cadet with a rifle along the way, he pushes him into the entrance: “Hide. I am a junker. Catastrophe. Petliura took the city!”

Through Podil, Nikolka happily gets home. Elena is crying there: Alexei has not returned!

By nightfall, the exhausted Nikolka falls into an uneasy sleep. But a noise wakes him up. Sitting on the bed, he vaguely sees before him a strange, unfamiliar man in a jacket, riding breeches and boots with jockey cuffs. In his hand is a cage with a canary. The stranger says in a tragic voice: “She was with her lover on the very sofa on which I read poetry to her. And after the bills for seventy-five thousand I signed without hesitation, like a gentleman ... And, imagine, a coincidence: I arrived here at the same time as your brother.

Hearing about his brother, Nikolka rushes into the dining room like lightning. There, in someone else's coat and trousers, a bluish-pale Alexei lies on the sofa, near which Elena rushes about.

Alexey was wounded by a bullet in the arm. Nikolka rushes after the doctor. He treats the wound and explains: the bullet did not affect either the bone or the large vessels, but shreds of wool from the overcoat got into the wound, so inflammation begins. And you can’t take Alexei to the hospital - the Petliurists will find him there ...

Part 3

Chapter 12

The stranger who appeared at the Turbins is Sergei Talberg's nephew Larion Surzhansky (Lariosik), a strange and careless man, but kind and sympathetic. His wife cheated on him in his native Zhytomyr, and, mentally suffering in his city, he decided to go to visit the Turbins, whom he had never seen before. Lariosik's mother, warning of his arrival, gave a 63-word telegram to Kiev, but it did not reach war time.

On the same day, awkwardly turning in the kitchen, Lariosik smashes the Turbins' expensive service. He comically but sincerely apologizes, and then he takes out eight thousand hidden there from behind the lining of the jacket and gives it to Elena - for his maintenance.

Lariosik traveled from Zhytomyr to Kiev in 11 days. The train was stopped by the Petliurists, and Lariosik, mistaken by them for an officer, only miraculously escaped execution. In his eccentricity, he tells the Turbins about this as about an ordinary minor incident. Despite Lariosik's oddities, everyone in the family likes him.

The maid Anyuta tells how, right on the street, she saw the corpses of two officers killed by the Petliurists. Nikolka wonders if Karas and Myshlaevsky are alive. And why did Nai-Tours mention Malo-Provalnaya Street before his death? With the help of Lariosik, Nikolka hides the Nai-Turs Colts and his own Browning by hanging them in a box behind a window that opens onto a narrow, snowdrifted clearing on the blank wall of a neighboring house.

Alexei's temperature rises above forty the next day. He begins to rave and from time to time repeats a woman's name - Julia. In his daydreams, he sees Colonel Malyshev in front of him, burning documents, and remembers how he himself ran out through the back door from Madame Anjou's store...

Chapter 13

Having run out of the store then, Alexey hears the shooting very close. Through the yards, he gets out into the street, and, going around one turn, he sees Petliurists on foot with rifles right in front of him.

“Stop! they shout. - Yes, that's an officer! Keep an officer!” Turbin rushes to run, groping for a revolver in his pocket. He turns into Malo-Provalnaya Street. Shots are heard from behind, and Aleksey feels as if someone has pulled him by the left armpit with wooden tongs.

He takes a revolver out of his pocket, shoots six times at the Petliurists - "the seventh bullet for himself, otherwise they will torment, they will cut out epaulettes on their shoulders." Ahead is a blind alley. Turbin is waiting for certain death, but a young female figure emerges from the wall of the fence, shouting with outstretched arms: “Officer! Here! Here…"

She is at the gate. He rushes to her. The stranger closes the gate behind him on the latch and runs, leading him along a whole labyrinth of narrow passages, where there are several more gates. They run into the entrance, and there - into the apartment opened by the lady.

Exhausted from loss of blood, Alexei falls unconscious to the floor in the hallway. The woman brings him to life by splashing water, and then bandages him.

He kisses her hand. "Well, you are brave! she says admiringly. “One Petliurist fell from your shots.” Alexei introduces himself to the lady, and she gives her name: Yulia Alexandrovna Reiss.

Turbin sees pianos and ficuses in the apartment. A photo of a man with epaulettes hangs on the wall, but Yulia is at home alone. She helps Alexei to the sofa.

He lies down. He has a fever at night. Julia is sitting next to him. Alexei suddenly throws his hand around her neck, pulls her to him and kisses her on the lips. Julia lays down next to him and strokes his head until he falls asleep.

Early in the morning she takes him out into the street, sits down with him in a cab and brings him home to the Turbins.

Chapter 14

The next evening Viktor Myshlaevsky and Karas appear. They come to the Turbins in disguise, without an officer's uniform, learning the bad news: in addition to the wound, Alexei also has typhus: the temperature already reaches forty.

Shervinsky also comes. Hot Myshlaevsky curses the last words of the hetman, his commander-in-chief and the entire "staff horde".

The guests stay overnight. Late in the evening everyone sits down to play vint - Myshlaevsky paired with Lariosik. Learning that Lariosik sometimes writes poetry, Victor laughs at him, saying that he himself recognizes only “War and Peace” from all literature: “It was not written by some dumbass, but by an artillery officer».

Lariosik doesn't play cards well. Myshlaevsky yells at him for wrong moves. In the midst of a skirmish, suddenly the doorbell rings. Everyone freezes, assuming a Petliura night search? Myshlaevsky cautiously goes to open it. However, it turns out that this is the postman who brought the same 63-word telegram written by Lariosika's mother. Elena reads it: “A terrible misfortune befell my son, period Operetta actor Lipsky…”

There is a sudden and wild knock on the door. Everyone turns to stone again. But on the threshold - not those who came with a search, but a disheveled Vasilisa, who, as soon as he entered, falls into the hands of Myshlaevsky.

Chapter 15

That evening, Vasilisa and his wife Wanda hid money again: they pinned it with buttons to the underside of the table top (as many Kievans did then). But it was not for nothing that a passer-by watched from a tree through the window a few days ago how Vasilisa used his wall hiding place ...

Near midnight tonight, a call comes to his and Wanda's apartment. “Open up. Don’t go away, otherwise we’ll shoot through the door ... ”, a voice is heard from the other side. Vasilisa opens the door with trembling hands.

Three enter. One has a wolf-like face with small, deeply sunken eyes. The second is gigantic, young, with bare, stubble-free cheeks and womanish habits. The third - with a collapsed nose, eaten away from the side by a purulent scab. They poke Vasilisa's "mandate": "It is ordered to search the house of a resident Vasily Lisovich, along Alekseevsky Spusk, house number 13. For resistance, it is punishable by rosstril." The mandate was allegedly issued by some kind of "kuren" of the Petliurov army, but the seal is very illegible.

The wolf and the mangled take out a Colt and a Browning and aim at Vasilisa. That one's head is spinning. Those who came immediately begin to tap the walls - and by the sound they find a cache. “Oh, you bitch tail. Sealed pennies into the wall? You need to be killed!" They take money and valuables from the cache.

The giant beams with joy when he sees chevrolet boots with patent leather toes under Vasilisina's bed and begins to change into them, throwing off his own rags. “I accumulated things, ate my muzzle, pink, like a pig, and you are wondering what kind people go in? Wolf hisses angrily at Vasilisa. “His feet are frozen, he rotted in the trenches for you, and you played the gramophone.”

The mutilated man takes off his pants and, remaining in only tattered underpants, puts on Vasilisa's trousers hanging on a chair. The wolf changes his dirty tunic for Vasilisa's jacket, takes a watch from the table and demands that Vasilisa write a receipt that he gave everything he took from him voluntarily. Lisovich, almost crying, writes on paper under the dictation of the Wolf: “Things ... handed over intact during the search. And I have no complaints." - “And to whom did you hand it over?” - "Write: Nemolyak, Kirpaty and Otaman Hurricane received from the integrity."

All three leave, warning in the end: “If you drip on us, then our lads will beat you. Do not leave the apartment until the morning, you will be strictly required for it ... "

Wanda, after they leave, falls on the chest and sobs. "God. Vasya... Why, it wasn't a search. They were bandits! – “I understood it myself!” Having trampled on the spot, Vasilisa rushes to the apartment of the Turbins ...

From there, everyone descends to him. Myshlaevsky advises not to complain anywhere: no one will be caught anyway. And Nikolka, having learned that the bandits were armed with a Colt and Browning, rushes to the box that he and Lariosik hung outside his window. That one is empty! Both revolvers are stolen!

The Lisovichi beg for one of the officers to spend the rest of the night with them. Karas agrees to this. The stingy Wanda, involuntarily becoming generous, treats him at home with pickled mushrooms, veal and cognac. Satisfied Karas lays down on the couch, and Vasilisa sits next to him in an armchair and wails sadly: “Everything that was acquired by hard work, in one evening went into the pockets of some scoundrels ... I do not deny the revolution, I am a former cadet. But here in Russia the revolution has degenerated into Pugachevism. The main thing has disappeared - respect for property. And now I have an ominous certainty that only the autocracy can save us! Worst dictatorship!

Chapter 16

In Kiev's Hagia Sophia - a lot of people, not overcrowded. A prayer service is served here in honor of the occupation of the city by Petliura. The crowd marvels: “But the Petliurists are socialists. Why are the priests here? “Yes, give the priests a blue one, so they will serve the devil’s mass.”

In severe frost, the people's river flows in procession from the temple to the main square. Supporters of Petliura in the crowd, a small majority gathered only out of curiosity. The women scream: “Oh, I want to bang Petliura. It seems that Vin is an indescribable handsome man. But he is nowhere to be seen.

Petliur's troops parade through the streets to the square under yellow-black banners. The cavalry regiments of Bolbotun and Kozyr-Leshko are riding, the Sich Riflemen are marching (who fought in the First World War against Russia for Austria-Hungary). Cheers are heard from the sidewalks. Hearing the exclamation: “Trim them! Officers! I am their bachiv in uniform!” - several Petliurists grab two people indicated in the crowd and drag them into an alley. From there, a blast is heard. The bodies of the dead are thrown right on the sidewalk.

Having climbed into a niche on the wall of a house, Nikolka is watching the parade.

A small rally gathers near the frozen fountain. The speaker is raised to the fountain. Shouting: "Glory to the people!" and in the first words, rejoicing at the capture of the city, he suddenly calls the listeners “ comrades"and calls them:" Let's take an oath that we will not destroy weapons, docks red the ensign will not fly over the whole world of working people. Hai live Soviets of workers, peasants and Cossack deputies ... "

Nearby, in a thick beaver collar, the eyes and black Onegin sideburns of the ensign Shpolyansky flicker. One of the crowd screams heart-rendingly, rushing to the speaker: “Trim yoga! Tse provocation. Bolshevik! Moskal! But a man standing next to Shpolyansky grabs the screamer by the belt, and another yells: “Brothers, the clock has been cut!” The crowd rushes to beat, like a thief, someone who wanted to arrest a Bolshevik.

The speaker disappears at this time. Soon in the alley you can see how Shpolyansky treats him with a cigarette from a golden cigarette case.

The crowd drives the beaten “thief” in front of him, who sobs plaintively: “You are not right! I am a famous Ukrainian poet. My surname is Gorbolaz. I wrote an anthology of Ukrainian poetry!” In response, they hit him on the neck.

Myshlaevsky and Karas are looking at this scene from the sidewalk. “Well done Bolsheviks,” Myshlaevsky says to Karas. - Did you see how cleverly the orator was fused? For what I love - for courage, their mother by the leg.

Chapter 17

After a long search, Nikolka learns that the Nai-Tours family lives on Malo-Provalnaya, 21. Today, right from the procession, he runs there.

The door is opened by a gloomy lady in pince-nez, looking suspiciously. But after learning that Nikolka has information about Naya, he lets him into the room.

There are two more women, an old one and a young one. Both look like Nai. Nikolka understands: mother and sister.

“Well, tell me, well ...” - the eldest stubbornly achieves. Seeing Nikolka's silence, she shouts to the young one: "Irina, Felix is ​​killed!" - and falls back. Nikolka also begins to sob.

He tells his mother and sister how heroically Nai died - and volunteers to go to look for his body in the dead. Naya's sister, Irina, says she will go with him...

The morgue has a disgusting, terrible smell, so heavy that it seems sticky; it seems that you can even see it. Nikolka and Irina put the bill to the watchman. He reports them to the professor and receives permission to search for the body among the many brought in the last days.

Nikolka persuades Irina not to enter the room where naked human bodies, male and female, are stacked like firewood. Nikolka notices Nye's corpse from above. Together with the watchman they take him upstairs.

On the same night, Nai's body is washed in the chapel, dressed in a jacket, a crown is placed on his forehead, and a St. George ribbon on his chest. The old mother with a shaking head thanks Nikolka, and he cries again and leaves the chapel into the snow...

Chapter 18

On the morning of December 22, Alexey Turbin lies dying. The gray-haired doctor-professor tells Elena that there is almost no hope, and leaves, leaving, just in case, his assistant, Brodovich, with the patient.

Elena with a distorted face goes into her room, kneels before the icon of the Mother of God and begins to pray passionately. "Holy Virgin. Ask your son to send a miracle. Why are you ending our family in one year? Mother took from us, I don’t have a husband and never will, I already clearly understand this. And now you're taking away Alexei. How will we be alone with Nicol at a time like this?”

Her speech comes in a continuous stream, her eyes become insane. And it seems to her that next to the ruined tomb, Christ appeared, resurrected, blessed and barefoot. And Nikolka opens the door to the room: “Elena, go to Alexei soon!”

Consciousness returns to Alexei. He understands that he has just passed - and did not destroy him - the most dangerous crisis of the disease. Brodovitch, agitated and shocked, injects him with a syringe with a trembling hand.

Chapter 19

A month and a half passes. On February 2, 1919, Aleksey Turbin, who had lost weight, stood at the window and again listened to the sounds of cannons in the vicinity of the city. But now it is not Petlyura who goes to expel the hetman, but the Bolsheviks go to Petlyura. “Here comes the horror in the city with the Bolsheviks!” Alexey thinks.

He has already resumed medical practice at home, and now a patient is calling to see him. This is a thin young poet Rusakov, sick with syphilis.

Rusakov tells Turbin that he used to be a God-fighter and a sinner, and now he prays to the Almighty day and night. Alexei tells the poet that he is not allowed to cocaine, alcohol, or women. “I have already moved away from temptations and bad people,” Rusakov replies. - The evil genius of my life, the vile Mikhail Shpolyansky, who inclines wives to debauchery, and young men to vice, left for the city of the devil - Bolshevik Moscow, in order to lead hordes of Aggels to Kiev, as they once went to Sodom and Gomorrah. Satan - Trotsky will come for him. The poet predicts that the people of Kiev will soon face even more terrible trials.

When Rusakov leaves, Aleksey, despite the danger from the Bolsheviks, whose carts are already rumbling through the streets of the city, goes to Yulia Reiss to thank her for saving her and give her the bracelet of his deceased mother.

At home with Julia, he, unable to stand it, hugs and kisses her. Noticing again in the apartment a photo of a man with black sideburns, Alex asks Yulia who it is. “This is my cousin, Shpolyansky. He has now left for Moscow, ”Yulia answers, looking down. She is ashamed to admit that in fact Shpolyansky was her lover.

Turbin asks Yulia for permission to come again. She allows. Leaving Yulia on Malo-Provalnaya, Aleksey unexpectedly meets Nikolka: he was on the same street, but in a different house - at the sister of Nai-Turs, Irina ...

Elena Turbina receives a letter from Warsaw in the evening. Olya's friend, who left there, informs: "your ex-husband Talberg is not going from here to Denikin, but to Paris, with Lidochka Hertz, whom he is going to marry." Enter Alexei. Elena hands him a letter and cries on his chest...

Chapter 20

Great and terrible was the year 1918, but 1919 was even more terrible.

In the first days of February, the Haidamaks of Petliura flee Kiev from the advancing Bolsheviks. No more Petliura. But will anyone pay for the blood he shed? No. None. The snow will simply melt, the green Ukrainian grass will rise and hide everything under it...

At night, in a Kiev apartment, the syphilitic poet Rusakov reads Apocalypse, reverently freezing over the words: “... and there will be no more death; there will be no more mourning, no outcry, no sickness, for the former is past…”

And the house of the Turbins is asleep. On the ground floor, Vasilisa dreams that there was no revolution and that he grew a rich crop of vegetables in the garden, but round piglets ran up, tore up all the beds with their snouts, and then began to jump on him, baring sharp fangs.

Elena dreams that the frivolous Shervinsky, who is looking after her more and more insistently, joyfully sings in an operatic voice: “We will live, we will live !!” - “And death will come, we will die ...” - Nikolka, who entered with a guitar, answered him, his neck was covered in blood, and on his forehead there was a yellow halo with icons. Realizing that Nikolka will die, Elena wakes up screaming and sobbing for a long time...

And in the wing, smiling joyfully, he sees a happy dream about a large diamond ball on a green meadow, a little unintelligent boy Petka ...

The action of the novel takes place in the winter of 1918/19 in a certain City, in which Kiev is clearly guessed. The city is occupied by the German occupation troops, the hetman is in power. However, Petliura's army may enter the City from day to day - fighting is already going on twelve kilometers from the City. The city lives a strange, unnatural life: it is full of visitors from Moscow and St. Petersburg - bankers, businessmen, journalists, lawyers, poets - who rushed there from the moment the hetman was elected, from the spring of 1918.

In the dining room of the Turbins' house at dinner, Alexei Turbin, a doctor, his younger brother Nikolka, a non-commissioned officer, their sister Elena and family friends - lieutenant Myshlaevsky, second lieutenant Stepanov, nicknamed Karas and lieutenant Shervinsky, adjutant in the headquarters of Prince Belorukov, commander of all military forces of Ukraine - excitedly discussing the fate of their beloved City. Senior Turbin believes that the hetman is to blame for everything with his Ukrainization: until the very last moment he did not allow the formation of the Russian army, and if this happened on time, a select army of junkers, students, high school students and officers, of which there are thousands, would be formed, and not only would they have defended the City, but Petliura would not have had a spirit in Little Russia, moreover, they would have gone to Moscow and saved Russia.

Elena's husband, Captain of the General Staff Sergei Ivanovich Talberg, announces to his wife that the Germans are leaving the City and Talberg is being taken on the staff train departing tonight. Talberg is sure that in less than three months he will return to the City with Denikin's army, which is now being formed on the Don. Until then, he can't take Elena into the unknown and she'll have to stay in the City.

To protect against the advancing troops of Petlyura, the formation of Russian military formations begins in the City. Karas, Myshlaevsky and Alexei Turbin come to the commander of the emerging mortar division, Colonel Malyshev, and enter the service: Karas and Myshlaevsky - as officers, Turbin - as a divisional doctor. However, the next night - from December 13 to 14 - the hetman and General Belorukov flee from the City in a German train, and Colonel Malyshev disbands the newly formed division: he has no one to defend, there is no legal authority in the City.

Colonel Nai-Tours by December 10 completes the formation of the second department of the first squad. Considering the conduct of the war without winter equipment for soldiers impossible, Colonel Nai-Tours, threatening the head of the supply department with a colt, receives felt boots and hats for his one hundred and fifty junkers. On the morning of December 14, Petliura attacks the City; Nai-Tours receives an order to guard the Polytechnic Highway and, in the event of the appearance of the enemy, to take the fight. Nai-Turs, having entered into battle with the advanced detachments of the enemy, sends three cadets to find out where the hetman's units are. The sent ones return with a message that there are no units anywhere, machine-gun fire is in the rear, and the enemy cavalry is entering the City. Nye realizes that they are trapped.

An hour earlier, Nikolai Turbin, corporal of the third division of the first infantry squad, receives an order to lead the team along the route. Arriving at the appointed place, Nikolka sees with horror the running junkers and hears the command of Colonel Nai-Tours, ordering all the junkers - both his own and from Nikolka's team - to tear off shoulder straps, cockades, throw weapons, tear documents, run and hide. The colonel himself covers the withdrawal of the junkers. In front of Nikolka's eyes, the mortally wounded colonel dies. Shocked, Nikolka, leaving Nai-Turs, makes his way to the house through courtyards and lanes.

In the meantime, Alexei, who was not informed about the dissolution of the division, having appeared, as he was ordered, at two o'clock, finds an empty building with abandoned guns. Having found Colonel Malyshev, he gets an explanation of what is happening: the city is taken by Petliura's troops. Aleksey, tearing off his shoulder straps, goes home, but runs into Petliura's soldiers, who, recognizing him as an officer (in his haste he forgot to tear off the cockade from his hat), pursue him. Wounded in the arm, Alexei is sheltered in her house by a woman unknown to him named Yulia Reise. On the. the next day, having changed Alexei into a civilian dress, Yulia takes him home in a cab. Simultaneously with Aleksey, Larion, Talberg's cousin, comes from Zhytomyr to the Turbins, who has experienced a personal drama: his wife left him. Larion really likes being in the Turbins' house, and all the Turbins find him very nice.

Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich, nicknamed Vasilisa, the owner of the house in which the Turbins live, occupies the first floor in the same house, while the Turbins live in the second. On the eve of the day when Petlyura entered the City, Vasilisa builds a hiding place in which she hides money and jewelry. However, through a gap in a loosely curtained window, an unknown person is watching Vasilisa's actions. The next day, three armed men come to Vasilisa with a search warrant. First of all, they open the cache, and then they take Vasilisa's watch, suit and shoes. After Vasilisa and his wife leave, they guess that they were bandits. Vasilisa runs to the Turbins, and Karas is sent to protect them from a possible new attack. The usually stingy Vanda Mikhailovna, Vasilisa's wife, does not skimp here: there is cognac, veal, and pickled mushrooms on the table. Happy Karas is dozing, listening to Vasilisa's plaintive speeches.

Three days later, Nikolka, having learned the address of the Nai-Tours family, goes to the colonel's relatives. He tells Nye's mother and sister the details of his death. Together with the colonel's sister, Irina, Nikolka finds the body of Nai-Turs in the morgue, and on the same night, a funeral service is held in the chapel at the anatomical theater of Nai-Turs.

A few days later, Alexei's wound becomes inflamed, and in addition, he has typhus: high fever, delirium. According to the conclusion of the council, the patient is hopeless; On December 22, the agony begins. Elena locks herself in her bedroom and passionately prays to the Most Holy Theotokos, begging to save her brother from death. . To the amazement of the doctor on duty with him, Alexei regains consciousness - the crisis has passed.

A month and a half later, the finally recovered Alexei goes to Yulia Reisa, who saved him from death, and gives her the bracelet of his deceased mother. Alexei asks Yulia for permission to visit her. After leaving Yulia, he meets Nikolka, who is returning from Irina Nai-Tours.

Elena receives a letter from a friend from Warsaw, in which she informs her about Thalberg's upcoming marriage to their mutual friend. Elena, sobbing, remembers her prayer.

On the night of February 2-3, Petliura's troops begin to leave the City. The roar of the guns of the Bolsheviks approaching the City is heard.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891–1940) is a writer with a difficult, tragic fate that influenced his work. Coming from an intelligent family, he did not accept the revolutionary changes and the reaction that followed them. The ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity imposed by an authoritarian state did not inspire him, because for him, a man with an education and a high level of intelligence, the contrast between the demagoguery in the squares and the wave of red terror that swept over Russia was obvious. He deeply experienced the tragedy of the people and dedicated the novel "The White Guard" to it.

From the winter of 1923, Bulgakov began work on the novel The White Guard, which describes the events of the Ukrainian Civil War at the end of 1918, when Kiev was occupied by the troops of the Directory, who overthrew the power of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky. In December 1918, the power of the hetman was tried to be defended by officer squads, where he was either signed up as a volunteer, or, according to other sources, Bulgakov was mobilized. Thus, the novel contains autobiographical features - even the number of the house in which the Bulgakov family lived during the years of the capture of Kiev by Petliura is preserved - 13. In the novel, this figure acquires a symbolic meaning. Andreevsky Spusk, where the house is located, is called Alekseevsky in the novel, and Kiev is simply the City. The prototypes of the characters are the relatives, friends and acquaintances of the writer:

• Nikolka Turbin, for example, is Bulgakov's younger brother Nikolai
• Dr. Alexei Turbin is a writer himself,
• Elena Turbina-Talberg - Barbara's younger sister
• Sergey Ivanovich Talberg - officer Leonid Sergeevich Karum (1888 - 1968), who, however, did not go abroad like Talberg, but was eventually exiled to Novosibirsk.
• The prototype of Larion Surzhansky (Lariosik) is a distant relative of the Bulgakovs, Nikolai Vasilyevich Sudzilovsky.
• The prototype of Myshlaevsky, according to one version - a childhood friend of Bulgakov, Nikolai Nikolaevich Syngaevsky
• The prototype of lieutenant Shervinsky is another friend of Bulgakov, who served in the hetman's troops - Yuri Leonidovich Gladyrevsky (1898 - 1968).
• Colonel Felix Feliksovich Nai-Tours is a collective image. It consists of several prototypes - firstly, this is the white general Fyodor Arturovich Keller (1857 - 1918), who was killed by the Petliurists during the resistance and ordered the junkers to run and tear off their shoulder straps, realizing the senselessness of the battle, and secondly, this is Major General of the Volunteer Army Nikolai Vsevolodovich Shinkarenko (1890 - 1968).
• The cowardly engineer Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich (Vasilisa) also had a prototype, from whom the Turbins rented the second floor of the house - architect Vasily Pavlovich Listovnichiy (1876 - 1919).
• The prototype of the futurist Mikhail Shpolyansky is a major Soviet literary critic, critic Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (1893 - 1984).
• The surname Turbina is the maiden name of Bulgakov's grandmother.

However, it should be noted that The White Guard is not a completely autobiographical novel. Something fictional - for example, the fact that the mother of the Turbins died. In fact, at that time, Bulgakov's mother, who is the prototype of the heroine, lived in another house with her second husband. And there are fewer family members in the novel than Bulgakov actually had. The novel was first published in its entirety in 1927-1929. in France.

About what?

The novel "The White Guard" is about the tragic fate of the intelligentsia in the difficult times of the revolution, after the assassination of Emperor Nicholas II. The book also tells about the difficult situation of the officers, who are ready to fulfill their duty to the fatherland in the conditions of a shaky, unstable political situation in the country. The White Guard officers were ready to defend the hetman's power, but the author raises the question - is there any point in this if the hetman fled, leaving the country and its defenders to their fate?

Aleksey and Nikolka Turbins are officers who are ready to defend their homeland and the former government, but they (and people like them) are powerless before the cruel mechanism of the political system. Alexei is seriously wounded, and he is forced to fight not for his homeland and not for the occupied city, but for his life, in which he is helped by a woman who saved him from death. And Nikolka runs at the last moment, saved by Nai-Turs, who is killed. With all the desire to defend the fatherland, the heroes do not forget about the family and home, about the sister left by her husband. The antagonist image in the novel is Captain Talberg, who, unlike the Turbin brothers, leaves his homeland and wife in difficult times and leaves for Germany.

In addition, The White Guard is a novel about the horrors, lawlessness and devastation that are happening in the city occupied by Petlyura. Bandits break into the house of engineer Lisovich with forged documents and rob him, there is shooting in the streets, and the pan kurenny with his assistants - "lads", committed a cruel, bloody reprisal against a Jew, suspecting him of espionage.

In the finale, the city, captured by the Petliurists, is recaptured by the Bolsheviks. The "White Guard" clearly expresses a negative, negative attitude towards Bolshevism - as a destructive force that will eventually wipe out everything holy and human from the face of the earth, and a terrible time will come. With this thought, the novel ends.

Main characters and their characteristics

• Alexey Vasilievich Turbin- a twenty-eight-year-old doctor, a divisional doctor, who, paying tribute to the fatherland, enters into a fight with the Petliurists when his unit was disbanded, since the struggle was already meaningless, but gets seriously injured and is forced to save himself. He falls ill with typhus, is on the verge of life and death, but ultimately survives.
• Nikolai Vasilievich Turbin(Nikolka) - a seventeen-year-old non-commissioned officer, the younger brother of Alexei, ready to fight to the last with the Petliurists for the fatherland and the hetman's power, but at the colonel's insistence he runs away, tearing off his insignia, since the battle no longer makes sense (the Petliurists captured the City, and hetman escaped). Nikolka then helps her sister care for the wounded Alexei.
• Elena Vasilievna Turbina-Talberg(Red Elena) is a twenty-four-year-old married woman who was left by her husband. She worries and prays for both brothers who are participating in hostilities, she is waiting for her husband and secretly hopes that he will return.
• Sergei Ivanovich Talberg- the captain, the husband of Elena the redhead, unstable in political views, who changes them depending on the situation in the city (acts on the principle of a weather vane), for which the Turbins, who are true to their views, do not respect him. As a result, he leaves the house, his wife and leaves for Germany by night train.
• Leonid Yurievich Shervinsky- a lieutenant of the guard, a dapper lancer, an admirer of Elena the red, a friend of the Turbins, believes in the support of the allies and says that he himself saw the sovereign.
• Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky- lieutenant, another friend of the Turbins, loyal to the fatherland, honor and duty. In the novel, one of the first harbingers of the Petliura occupation, a participant in the battle a few kilometers from the City. When the Petliurists break into the City, Myshlaevsky takes the side of those who want to disband the mortar division so as not to ruin the lives of the junkers, and wants to set fire to the building of the cadet gymnasium so that it does not get to the enemy.
• carp- a friend of the Turbins, a restrained, honest officer, who, during the dissolution of the mortar division, joins those who dissolve the junkers, takes the side of Myshlaevsky and Colonel Malyshev, who proposed such a way out.
• Felix Feliksovich Nai-Tours- a colonel who is not afraid to be insolent to the general and dismisses the junkers at the time of the capture of the City by Petliura. He himself dies heroically in front of Nikolka Turbin. For him, more valuable than the power of the overthrown hetman, the life of the junkers - young people who were almost sent to the last senseless battle with the Petliurists, but he hastily dismisses them, forcing them to rip off their insignia and destroy documents. Nai-Tours in the novel is the image of an ideal officer, for whom not only the fighting qualities and honor of brothers in arms are valuable, but also their lives.
• Lariosik (Lario Surzhansky)- a distant relative of the Turbins, who came to them from the provinces, going through a divorce from his wife. Clumsy, bumbling, but good-natured, loves to be in the library and keeps a kenar in a cage.
• Julia Alexandrovna Reiss- a woman who saves the wounded Alexei Turbin, and he has an affair with her.
• Vasily Ivanovich Lisovich (Vasilisa)- a cowardly engineer, a householder, from whom the Turbines rent the second floor of the house. Hoarder, lives with his greedy wife Wanda, hides valuables in hiding places. As a result, he is robbed by bandits. He got his nickname - Vasilisa, due to the fact that, due to unrest in the city in 1918, he began to sign documents in a different handwriting, shortening his first and last name like this: “You. Fox."
• Petliurists in the novel - only gears in a global political upheaval, which entails irreversible consequences.

Subject

1. The theme of moral choice. The central theme is the situation of the White Guards, who are forced to choose whether to participate in the senseless battles for the power of the runaway hetman or still save their lives. The allies do not come to the rescue, and the city is captured by the Petliurists, and, in the end, the Bolsheviks - a real force that threatens the old way of life and the political system.
2. political instability. Events unfold after the events of the October Revolution and the execution of Nicholas II, when the Bolsheviks seized power in St. Petersburg and continued to strengthen their positions. The Petliurites, who captured Kiev (in the novel - the City), are weak in front of the Bolsheviks, as well as the White Guards. The White Guard is a tragic novel about how the intelligentsia and everything connected with it perishes.
3. There are biblical motifs in the novel, and in order to enhance their sound, the author introduces the image of a patient obsessed with the Christian religion, who comes to be treated by Dr. Alexei Turbin. The novel begins with a countdown from the Nativity of Christ, and just before the finale, lines from the Apocalypse of St. John the Evangelist. That is, the fate of the City, captured by the Petliurists and the Bolsheviks, is compared in the novel with the Apocalypse.

Christian symbols

• The mad patient, who came to Turbin for an appointment, calls the Bolsheviks "aggels", and Petliura was released from cell No. 666 (in the Revelation of John the Theologian - the number of the Beast, the Antichrist).
• The house on Alekseevsky Spusk is No. 13, and this number, as you know, in popular superstitions is “the devil's dozen”, the number is unlucky, and various misfortunes befall the Turbins’ house - parents die, the elder brother receives a mortal wound and barely survives, and Elena is abandoned and the husband betrays (and betrayal is a feature of Judas Iscariot).
• In the novel, there is an image of the Virgin, to whom Elena prays and asks to save Alexei from death. In the terrible time described in the novel, Elena experiences similar experiences as the Virgin Mary, but not for her son, but for her brother, who, in the end, overcomes death like Christ.
• Also in the novel there is a theme of equality before God's court. Before him, everyone is equal - both the White Guards and the soldiers of the Red Army. Aleksey Turbin sees a dream about paradise - how Colonel Nai-Tours, white officers and Red Army soldiers get there: they are all destined to go to paradise as those who fell on the battlefield, and God does not care if they believe in him or not. Justice, according to the novel, exists only in heaven, and godlessness, blood, and violence reign under the red five-pointed stars on the sinful earth.

Issues

The problematic of the novel "The White Guard" is in the hopeless, plight of the intelligentsia, as a class alien to the winners. Their tragedy is the drama of the whole country, because without the intellectual and cultural elite, Russia will not be able to develop harmoniously.

• Disgrace and cowardice. If the Turbins, Myshlaevsky, Shervinsky, Karas, Nai-Turs are unanimous and are going to defend the fatherland to the last drop of blood, then Talberg and the hetman prefer to flee like rats from a sinking ship, while individuals like Vasily Lisovich are cowardly, cunning and adapt to existing conditions.
• Also, one of the main problems of the novel is the choice between moral duty and life. The question is posed point-blank - is there any point in honorably defending such a government, which dishonorably leaves the fatherland in the most difficult times for it, and there is an answer to this very question: there is no point, in this case life comes first.
• The split of Russian society. In addition, the problem in the work "The White Guard" is the attitude of the people to what is happening. The people do not support the officers and the White Guards and, in general, take the side of the Petliurists, because on the other side there is lawlessness and permissiveness.
• Civil War. Three forces are opposed in the novel - the White Guards, the Petliurists and the Bolsheviks, and one of them is only an intermediate, temporary one - the Petliurists. The struggle against the Petliurists will not be able to have such a strong influence on the course of history as the struggle between the White Guards and the Bolsheviks - two real forces, one of which will lose and sink into oblivion forever - this is the White Guard.

Meaning

In general, the meaning of the novel "The White Guard" is a struggle. The struggle between courage and cowardice, honor and dishonor, good and evil, god and devil. Courage and honor are the Turbins and their friends, Nai-Tours, Colonel Malyshev, who dismissed the junkers and did not allow them to die. Cowardice and dishonor, opposed to them, is the hetman, Talberg, staff captain Studzinsky, who, fearing to violate the order, was about to arrest Colonel Malyshev because he wants to dissolve the junkers.

Ordinary citizens who do not participate in hostilities are also evaluated in the novel according to the same criteria: honor, courage - cowardice, dishonor. For example, female images - Elena, waiting for her husband who left her, Irina Nai-Tours, who was not afraid to go to the anatomical theater with Nikolka for the body of her murdered brother, Yulia Alexandrovna Reiss - is the personification of honor, courage, determination - and Wanda, the wife of engineer Lisovich, mean, greedy for things - personifies cowardice, baseness. Yes, and the engineer Lisovich himself is petty, cowardly and stingy. Lariosik, despite all his clumsiness and absurdity, is humane and gentle, this is a character who personifies, if not courage and determination, then simply good-naturedness and kindness - qualities that are so lacking in people at that cruel time described in the novel.

Another meaning of the novel "The White Guard" is that not those who officially serve him are close to God - not churchmen, but those who, even in a bloody and merciless time, when evil descended on earth, retained the grains of humanity, and even if they are Red Army soldiers. This is told by the dream of Alexei Turbin - the parable of the novel "The White Guard", in which God explains that the White Guards will go to their paradise, with church floors, and the Red Army soldiers will go to their own, with red stars, because both of them believed in the offensive good for the fatherland, albeit in different ways. But the essence of both is the same, despite the fact that they are on different sides. But churchmen, "servants of God", according to this parable, will not go to heaven, since many of them deviated from the truth. Thus, the essence of the novel "The White Guard" is that humanity (goodness, honor, god, courage) and inhumanity (evil, devil, dishonor, cowardice) will always fight for power over this world. And it does not matter under what banner this struggle will take place - white or red, but on the side of evil there will always be violence, cruelty and base qualities that goodness, mercy, honesty must resist. In this eternal struggle, it is important to choose not the convenient, but the right side.

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