Now that I wander through the angular sentences of Andrei Bely’s Petersburg, reading the novel in a GR group, I feel I have to jump in my mind to another city, to Kiev - The City for Bulgakov. From a city-novel to another city-novel and forwards in time – from 1905 to 1918. If in one I am feeling immersed in a kaleidoscopic representation in this one I felt more immersed in chaos. The history of this novel, and especially its theatrical version (Days of the Turbins), offers also an echo with Sho...

“And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.” Revelation 16:4A hellish pandemonium reigns all around… And the heroes of the book dwell in the land of delusions… And their story begins with the party… And this party is like a feast at the time of plague…‘Russia acknowledges only one Orthodox faith and one Tsar!’ shouted Myshlaevsky, swaying.‘Right!’‘Week ago... at the theater… went to see Paul the First’, Myshlaevsky mumbled thickly, ‘an...

After graduating from Kiev University, Mikhail Bulgakov would go on to decide his future lie in literature rather than practicing as a doctor, during which he witnessed the horrors of the Russian civil war. Bothered though by the censors and political unrest, Bulgakov would write to Stalin asking to be allowed to emigrate, if he couldn't make a living as a writer in the USSR. And the word goes Stalin actually phoned him up offering a job in the Moscow Arts Theatre instead. Similar to that of rev...

Белая гвардия = The White Guard, Mikhail BulgakovThe White Guard is a novel by 20th-century Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, famed for his critically acclaimed later work The Master and Margarita. Set in Ukraine, beginning in late 1918, the novel concerns the fate of the Turbin family as the various armies of the Ukrainian War of Independence – the Whites, the Reds, the Imperial German Army, and Ukrainian nationalists – fight over the city of Kiev. Historical figures such as Pyotr Wrangel, Symon...

This heavy volume included two works: The White Guard and Theatrical Novel (Notes of a Deceased).Bulgakov's fate seemed to be governed by the same mixture of satire, fantasy and tragedy that is the hallmark of his entire work. A trained doctor (aka Chekhov), after he abandoned his medicine career in 1920 to devote entirely to writing, he joined the theater world and his first play put on stage The Days of the Turbins, adaptation of the novel The White Guard, has received a great success, paradox...

Before Bulgakov wrote several of the most exquisite Russian satires known to woman, he toyed in the Tolstoyan mode with this wartime chronicle set during the Ukrainian War of Independence, featuring a cast of terror-pocked soldiers and wives. A mixture of poetic reflection on the changing face of Ukraine, action sequences, domestic turmoil, and dreamlike digressions, the novel is an overlooked historical étude, trumped by the arrival of masterpieces like Heart of a Dog and The Fatal Eggs, not de...

From BBC Radio 4 Extra:1/2: Kiev is protected by an uneasy alliance. Two brothers discover it's a bad time to be Tsarist. Stars Paul Hilton and James Loye.2/2: The Turbin brothers find their survival skills tested, and Elena is driven to intense prayer. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00761h8

Written in the 1920s, but this early Bulgakov novel touches on some topical issues like Ukrainian nationalism and the relationship between the Ukrainian and Russian languages. Plus ça change...? More than that though, it's a drama about a family caught up in the collapse of their society. The middle class Turbin family live in Kiev but are ethnic Russians, monarchists and generally firm adherents to the old social order. But the Tsarist Empire has collapsed and the family are swept up in a 3 way...

“Blood is cheap on those red fields...”It is 1918, and Kiev in the Ukraine is at the swirling centre of the forces unleashed by war and revolution. The three Turbin siblings live in the house of their recently deceased mother in the city. They are White Russians, still loyal to the Russian Tsar, hoping against hope that he may have escaped the Bolsheviks and be living still. But there are other factions too – the German Army have installed a puppet leader, the Hetman Skoropadsky, and the Ukrania...

As far as russian novels go, "The White Guard" is perfect, so why didn't I give it 5/5? I don't know. The characters are well written, the story is fascinating (for those interested in the subject), the prose and descriptions are great, everything is perfect. Perhaps I wanted a longer book and I'm taking it out on the rating? Okay, I'll give it a 4.5/5."Alexei, Elena, Talberg, Anyuta the maid who had grown up in the Turbins' house, and young Nikolka, stunned by the death, a lock of hair falling

Bulgakov's elegant first novel about the unfolding of the October revolution in Kiev--referred to as The City in the novel--has been rereleased by the wonderful independent publisher Melville House this year, in the Michael Glenny translation. Outstanding.Told through multiple points of view, the book centers upon two days in the Russian Civil war, December 13 and 14, 1918, when the city of Kiev, up to then controlled by the Ukrainian Hetman Skoropadsky, a German puppet and ally of the Monarchis...

I wasn't sure if Bulgakov's first novel, described as a historical novel about the fortunes of the city of Kiev in the year 1918, as the repercussions of the Russian revolution and the tail-end of the first world war play out, would be as good as his satirical masterpieces, The Master And Margarita and Black Snow. It certainly is. Bulgakov was a literary genius, that's the only conclusion I can draw. Not only does he maintain complete control over a narrative that segues constantly from the pano...

I've just finished The White Guard and I think it will stay with me for some time.I have the 2009 edition from Yale University Press which includes an introduction by the translator Marian Schwartz, as well as an introduction by Russian history professor Evgeny Dobrenko, who explains the historical and political context of the novel. I would encourage readers to seek out this edition, and to read the two introductions first.While The White Guard, Bulgakov's first novel, doesn't have the same sur...

Ukraine. Kiev. Times of turnmoil (1918). Revolution. German troops are leaving Kiev to Petlura, controversial leader of Ukranian nationalists, the one who tries to gain his power through stirring a conflict between Russians and Ukrainians and Jews. Pogroms are on their way. Bolsheviks are going in just in a few weeks. Big family of Turbins, Russian intelligent people and their friends. Whole world of their is collapsing right in front our eyes. Bulgakov is best-known for his "Master and Margarit...

This book does an excellent job portraying the confusion and chaos in Kiev in December 1918. The White Guard defending the city are woefully outnumbered by those who are going to attack the city-- the Bolsheviks.The leaders of the Whites flee the city, leaving few instructions to those left behind, mostly Cadets. Many of the Cadets and officers are killed but some are able to flee.The Turbin family, two brothers and their sister, show how this confusion and disaster affected the people of Kiev o...

A trip to Kiev cannot be complete without a little Bulgakov. A museum dedicated to the master lies just off of St. Andrew’s Descent, a cobblestone street passing from St. Sophia’s cathedral down to the Dneiper. The museum is contained in House No. 13 where, at one time, Mikhail Bulgakov and his family lived. While “The White Guard” is not as widely known as “The Master and Margarita” (which Salman Rushdie drew upon heavily for “Midnight’s Children”), it provides a better sense of Ukraine and, pa...

The year is 1919 and the Civil War has spread to Kiev, Bulgakov’s home town. Ukraine is under the control of the iron-fisted nationalist, Petliura,. He’s brutally securing Kiev in preparation for the invasion of the Reds (Bolsheviks) looming on the horizon. Central to the novel is the Turbin family who live in a cozy apartment in town. The furnishings and atmosphere of the dwelling have a 19th century feel as if they were still living under the Tsar, which is what they’d prefer. They’re trying t...

"But the sword is not fearful. Everything passes away—suffering, pain, blood, hunger, and pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There's no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes toward the stars? Why?" (300)

After I finished reading the first time I went to the Introductions and read them. The one by the translator, Marian Schwartz, is very nice, informative - she did this in 2009. But the one by Evgeny Dobrenko is totally marvelous, thoughtful and informative, giving background information on Bulgakov as well as the Ukranaian War of Independence (Russian Civil War). In fact, I was so taken by Dobrenko’s introduction I went back and reread the entire work - very carefully - and was stunned. This tim...

A truthful and frightening recount of an ordinary pre-revolution family transformed by successive events in Ukrainian history.This isn't a horror story, and it doesn't have any gore, but the functioning and the breakdown of society; life of a family in such a society with its hopes and fears in absence of clear outcome is a fearsome sight to behold. This is especially true when we look back to contemplate the uneasy history of UkrSSR that followed and hundreds of thousands of people's lives dest...