The White Guard [Paperback]

Mikhail Bulgakov (Author), Michael Glenny (Translator), Lesley Milne (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 1979

Drawing closely on Bulgakov's personal experiences of the horrors of civil war as a young doctor, "The White Guard" takes place in Kiev, 1918, a time of turmoil and suffocating uncertainty as the Bolsheviks, Socialists and Germans fight for control of the city. It tells the story of the Turbins, a once-wealthy Russian family, as they are forced to come to terms with revolution and a new regime.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The White Guard is less famous than Mikhail Bulgakov's comic hit, The Master and Margarita, but it is a lovely book, though completely different in tone. It is set in Kiev during the Russian revolution and tells a story about the war's effect on a middle-class family (not workers). The story was not politically correct and thereby contributed to Bulgakov's lifelong troubles with the Soviet authorities. It was, however, well-loved, and the novel was turned into a successful play at the time of its publication in 1967. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

Another fine Bulgakov work, this is a compassionate and gently satirical novel about a likable, feckless White Russian family coping as best they can while all hell breaks loose in Kiev outside their parlor in 1918-19. The play derived from this novel, The Days of the Turbins, was a popular Moscow Art Theatre piece until, under Stalin, it was considered to be too compassionate toward these gentle stumblers in the march of progress. The Turbin family consists of doctor Alexei, sister Elena married to a disappearing opportunist, and young Nikolka. All are as anxious as whippets and cherish their safe harbors of familiar ideals, their home of books, music, conversation and whist. When the shooting flairs up and subsides in Kiev, the White forces are routed by advancing armies and their own impotent confusion. Assuming military postures Alexei and Nikolka attempt to help for they are brave, and they do perform touching acts of kindness amid the brutal mindlessness of mobs. There are marvellously theatrical moments: the Turbins and their White officer friends happily shouting songs and slogans while their timorous landlord is being terrorized by raiding hoodlums; the arrival of an orphan of the storm, an unstrung relative (with bird), whose first definitive act is to crash into the dinner china. An epilogue by Victor Nekrasov from Novy Mir sets forth an affectionate appreciation of the Turbins and the translation is by Michael Glenny. A Russian Heartbreak House in which the Turbins barely survive. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Methuen Publishing Ltd (May 3, 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 041346220X
• ISBN-13: 978-0413462206
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,857,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning novel about a world coming apart forever, March 10, 2003

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The White Guard (Paperback)

While we are, as Americans, familiar with the story of the Stalinist purges and know something of post-Revolutionary Russian history, the Russian Civil War between the White and the Red is not as well-known.

But this is the crux of the struggle that subsequently determined Russian history. Many authors tried to give a view of that turbulent period; Pasternak in "Doctor Zhivago", Solzhenitzen marginally in "Ivan Denisovitch" (Denisovitch was in a gulag because he was a returnee from the German front and thus viewed as a political traitor) and Ayn Rand "We the Living." Bulgakov's novel is one of the richest, most touching and well-written I have read on this historical time.

He takes the story from the personal standpoint of a single family affected by the German betrayal of Russia to the incomprehensible brutality of the Civil War. The use of "white" and "red" as symbols in describing everyday objects and landscape is novelistic, the action is pure stage drama as you'd find in a play or film.

This is a far better novel than "Doctor Zhivago", which dealt with essentially the same subject (families torn apart by the Civil War and their way of life forever altered.) If you are at all interested in Russian history, I can't recommend "The White Guard" enough to you. I just loved it.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superior novel., December 31, 2001

By 

Frank Gibbons (Seekonk, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Guard (Hardcover)

Jacques Barzun in "From Dawn to Decadence" says that those who live in the midst of a Revolution often do not perceive the tidal wave of historical forces sweeping by them. Nonetheless, they are acutely conscious of being caught up in a whirlwind. In "The White Guard", the characters do not expound in depth about the loss of the old order or imminent rise of the new one. But they are terribly aware of the pain and upheaval that marks their daily lives. Nikolka, Alexi, and Elena Turbin are members of a middle-class family in Kiev. The time is 1918 and the Socialist Petlyura's army is outside the city. Nikolka, Alexi, and their friends go out from the warmth of their apartment to do their part to thwart his advance. However, the Germans, who were their erstwhile protectors, leave the city and are accompanied by the military and political leaders of Kiev. The Turbins and their friends feel betrayed. After a brave but futile defense the `officers' (synonymous with upper middle class) rip off their identifying markings and attempt to blend in with the populous at large. Looming in the background are the dreaded Bolsheviks and one gets the strong sense that the present troubles are but a hint of what is to come. However, this imminence is not apparent to the Turbins. They can neither glean nor control the inexorable flow of history. However, they can "Go on living...and be kind to one another...". The White Guard is a challenging but rewarding novel that, like much of great literature, exhorts the human spirit to persevere through trials and suffering. It's exposition is simple but every incident is dense with meaning. A superior novel.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great and terrible was the year of Our Lord 1918, February 15, 2008

By 

P.K. Ryan "The Ryan Identity" (Albany, NY USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The White Guard (Paperback)

This was an excellent Russian novel set in 1918 Kiev. It follows the Turbins, a Tsarist middle class family in hiding. It is the end of WWI, and the Bolshevik Revolution is taking hold in Moscow. As loyalists to the Russian crown, the Turbins and friends are on the run from not only the Bolsheviks, but also the fierce Ukranian nationalist movement which is equally threatening. In fact, the Bolsheviks are still far away at Moscow, while the nationalists are much closer to home, and thus more of a direct threat. It is the story of a proud and pious people whose era is coming to an end. There is treachery around every corner, as the Turbins despairingly watch their beloved city of Kiev fall to the enemy. The prose is excellent, and the story is at once sad, humorous, and tragic. It is a pleasure to read and although fictional, I would consider it a good snapshot of the Russian Revolution, told from the perspective of the losing side.