Experimental Blog #83

Comments on "White Guard" by Mikhail Bulgakov

This relatively short Russian novel, around 249 pages, was written during 1923 and 1924, in the relatively "mild" soviet regime of those years; which, however, soon came to an end. The novel is somewhat autobiographical, and everything takes place in the Ukrainian city of Kiev, or nearby places, in several months of 1918 and 1919.

To the American "outsider" the history of this time is rather confusing.

Imperial Russia had collapsed in 1917 and, from the notes to this volume, in Kiev a soviet government had taken control and had proclaimed a "Ukrainian Peoples' Republic", but when that government announced its independence from Russia in January of 1918 they were invaded by the soviet army in February. However, in March of 1918 the German Army drove out the soviets and occupied Kiev. The occupying German Army supported a government of the "Hetman of All Ukraine", but they were defeated in December of 1918 by a larger Ukrainian Army. However, this army and its government lasted only until February of 1919 when the Red Army returned and again occupied Kiev. At this point "White Guard" ends, but there were more very violent changes in the years ahead.

The style of writing of "White Guard" is considered to be very "Tolstoyan" in its portrayal of people in the vast movements of history, and, perhaps sometimes, in the description of the most unpleasant details. It contains no noticable satire, or other humor, and its focus is on a rather limited number of people in a large city of hundreds of thousands of people. And these people all seem to be, not aristocratic or governing people, but from the same "officer" class. Of course, the story is about one family, and a few people associated with them, over about 2 months of time. It is also noticable that, in spite of a great deal of violence against people, there is little or no destruction in the city, and even the electricity never seems to go out.