The White Guard

The White Guard
First complete English edition
Author(s)	Mikhail Bulgakov
Original title	Белая гвардия
Translator	Marian Schwartz
Country	Russia
Language	Russian
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Художественная литература (Russian) Yale University Press (English)
Publication date	1926
Published in English	2008
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	336 pp

The White Guard (Russian: Белая гвардия) is a novel by 20th century Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, famed for his critically acclaimed later work The Master and Margarita.

History

The White Guard first appeared in serial form in the Soviet-era literary journal Rossiya in 1926, but was never fully published, as the magazine was closed by the Soviet government. When Bulgakov could not publish The White Guard before the death of Stalin, he adapted it as a play called The Days of the Turbins. This was produced at the Moscow Art Theatre until eventually it was temporarily withdrawn from circulation.

Bulgakov pleaded with Stalin to be allowed to leave the country, as his work was not permitted. Stalin personally arranged for a job for him at the Moscow Arts Theatre. Bulgakov was still working while writing his uncompleted novel, "The Master And Margarita", before he died in 1940. His widow had The White Guard partially published in the literary journal Moskva in 1966. It was published in part in 1973 in the English translation by Michael Glenny; this is missing the dream flashback sections. This edition was published August 30, 2005 by Academy Chicago Publishers. In 2008 Yale University Press published a translation by Marian Schwartz of the complete novel, an edition which won an award.

The novel: settings, themes and narrative style

Set in Ukraine, beginning in late 1918, the novel concerns the fate of the Turbin family as the various armies of the Russian Civil War - the Whites, the Reds, the Imperial German Army, and Ukrainian nationalists - fight over the city of Kiev. Historical figures such as Petlyura and Pavlo Skoropadsky appear as the Turbin family is caught up in the turbulent effects of the October Revolution.

Autobiographical elements

The novel contains many autobiographical elements. Bulgakov gave the younger Turbin brother some of the characteristics of his own younger brother. The description of the house of the Turbins is that of the house of the Bulgakov family in Kiev. (Today it is preserved and operated as the Mikhail Bulgakov Museum).

External links

• (English) Bulgakov museum in Moscow
• (Russian) Bulgakov museum in Moscow. The Odd Flat
• (Russian) Diary of Bulgakov museum in Moscow
• (Russian) Bulgakov museum in Russian Wikipedia
• http://www.sovlit.net/whiteguard/ - an overview of the novel, also with information on the author.