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White Guard
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Product Description
White Guard, Mikhail Bulgakov’s semi-autobiographical first novel, is the story of the Turbin family in Kiev in 1918. Alexei, Elena, and Nikolka Turbin have just lost their mother—their father had died years before—and find themselves plunged into the chaotic civil war that erupted in the Ukraine in the wake of the Russian Revolution. In the context of this family’s personal loss and the social turmoil surrounding them, Bulgakov creates a brilliant picture of the existential crises brought about by the revolution and the loss of social, moral, and political certainties. He confronts the reader with the bewildering cruelty that ripped Russian life apart at the beginning of the last century as well as with the extraordinary ways in which the Turbins preserved their humanity.
In this volume Marian Schwartz, a leading translator, offers the first complete and accurate translation of the definitive original text of Bulgakov’s novel. She includes the famous dream sequence, omitted in previous translations, and beautifully solves the stylistic issues raised by Bulgakov’s ornamental prose. Readers with an interest in Russian literature, culture, or history will welcome this superb translation of Bulgakov’s important early work.
This edition also contains an informative historical essay by Evgeny Dobrenko.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #58225 in Books
- Published on: 2009-05-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
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.
Review
"'With this edition of The White Guard, translator Marian Schwartz has done a handsome job of matching Bulgakov's rich Russian vocabulary and attention to meticulous detail. In a thoughtful introduction, the scholar Evgeny Dobrenko observes that, with the Russian Civil war, 'history intruded, suddenly and menacingly'. Bulgakov's novel evokes the suffering of the conflict and the still greater horrors that lay ahead.' Joshua Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal"
Review
"Mikhail Bulgakov's White Guard is a classic modern novel by one of the greatest Russian avant-garde writers that vividly recreates the chaos of Revolutionary Kiev in 1918. Marian Schwartz's English translation brilliantly reproduces the author's aural and visual montage of a family caught in the deadly whirlpool of multiple warring adversaries."-Charlotte Douglas, New York University (Charlotte Douglas )
"Bulgakov's novel evokes the suffering of the conflict and the still greater horrors that lay ahead."-Joshua Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal (Joshua Rubenstein Wall Street Journal )
Customer Reviews
Stunning novel about a world coming apart forever
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.
A superior novel.
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.
Great and terrible was the year of Our Lord 1918
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.
