3.5
The White Guard
ByPublisher Description
Reds, Whites, German troops, and Ukrainian nationalists battle for control of the city of Kyiv as the war becomes more tumultuous in Mikhail Bulgakov's debut novel,
.
Drawing heavily from the author's own experiences in Ukraine during the period of the Russian Civil War—he witnessed ten changes of government himself—
is told from alternating points of view and takes an unusual angle in the conflict between Russian Whites (with whom the Turbin family identify) and Ukrainian nationalists. It elegantly portrays the chaos of a civil war in which there is no good or evil, only loyalty to one's friends, family, and convictions.
First appearing in partial form in a Soviet-era literary journal, the story was turned into a play under the title
—a long-running hit that Stalin himself attended twenty times—yet was not published widely until decades after Bulgakov's death.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe White Guard Reviews
3.5
“What struck me most in The White Guard is how little the characters truly understand about what is happening around them. Rumours of Petlyura’s forces spread through Kyiv the German presence disappears almost overnight and fear fills the city. Yet even as the Bolsheviks enter the city(Kiev) the characters themselves barely grasp who they are or what their arrival means. Myshlaevsky notices red stars but their significance is still unclear. Bulgakov captures the chaos and confusion experienced by anti-Bolsheviks during the revolution: people are arrested, accused and even killed on suspicion alone. Through these moments he hints at the kind of political future the Soviet regime will bring.
The final dream sequence really shows this. The main characters dream of their own deaths, yet the neighbour’s young boy only dreams happily. That strange reversal highlights the tragic innocence lost in the revolution. Bulgakov shows a world where ordinary people cannot yet see the reality that history is about to impose on them.”
“Een heel ander soort verhaal dan andere van zijn werken, notities van de Jonge Arts komen misschien in de buurt. In dit book staat de Stad centraal, Kyiv als mens van vlees. De taal is poëzie en de sfeer is paniekerig, Petljoera komt? Ja echt, Petljoera komt eraan. We volgen een familie, nationalisten, onderburen, verlaten vrouwen en aardige vreemden, die in deze staat van beleg allen hun heil zoeken bij de Stad. Haar muren dijen uit van alle nieuwe inwoners, terwijl de kanonnen op haar inbeuken.
van de 350 pagina's zijn de laatste 200 voorbij gevlogen, het verhaal speelt zich maar af of een paar enkele dagen en dat merk je aan alles. Als lezer worden wij doorelkaar geschud en mee gesleurd - vluchtend voor Petljoera - steegjes in en daken op.”
About Mikhail Bulgakov
is a prize-winning translator of Russian who recently received her second Translation Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts to translate Olga Slavnikova’s newest novel,
. She has translated classic literary works by Nina Berberova and Yuri Olesha, as well as Edvard Radzinsky’s
.
is professor in the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Sheffield. He is author, editor, or coeditor of more than fifteen books, including
Other books by Mikhail Bulgakov
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