MIKHAIL AFANASYEVICH BULGAKOV, THE WHITE GUARD (БЕЛАЯ ГВАРДИЯ): KIEV/KYIV 1918-1919...(2022?) „...no other city in the world is more beautiful…” said Bulgakov.
«Велик был год и страшен год по Раждестве Христовом 1918, от начала же революции второй. Был он обилен летом солнцем, а емою снегом, и особенно высоко в неве стояли две звезды: звезда пастушеская — вечернаяя Венера и красный, дрошаий Марс.»1
„Great and terrible was the thousand-nine-hundred-eighteen year after the Birth of Christ, the second though after the beginning of the revolution. Abundant was the sun in summer, abundant was the snow in winter, and two stars stood especially high in the sky: the shepherd’s star–the evening Venus–and the red, scintillating Mars.”2
A novel might indeed begin in such a way–perhaps it always ought to. More so if one intends to capture through literature an epoch when too many lives were hanging from a thin thread. Two chronologies, the one Christian, the other Atheist, two seasons, Summer and Winter, two elements, Sun and Snow, and two stars, the one representing (the possibility of) Love, the other representing (the inevitability of) War. What else can you need? Real men and women, caught between the implacable desire of those two stars.
Real men and women abound in The White Guard (Белая гвардия),(1925-1927-1966-1989), the novel written by the Russian writer Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков), (*1891-†1940). His opus, intended initially as the first part of a trilogy, was known during decades chiefly because of its stage off-spring, The Days of the Turbins (Дни Турбиных), first performed in Moscow on 5.10.1926.
Joseph Stalin (Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), (1878-1953), was fascinated by that piece, so much that he allowed its repeated performance in the Soviet Union, despite the marked Christian, „White-Russian” and liberal personality of Bulgakov, who was perhaps down at heart an amiable anarchist. Stalin was, no doubt, one of the most fearsome dictators of the 20th century, but he was also a “book-worm”, enjoying a personal library of more than 20,000 books.3 He is alleged to have seen the piece more than ten times, as it represented for him a “manual of how a civil-war unfolds”, and hence nursed a feeble but persistent sympathy for that most awkward of writers.
On the 18th of April 1930, Bulgakov received a phone-call from Stalin (the wife of the writer thought at first that it was a joke), who did not want Bulgakov to emigrate (he had asked permission to leave the USSR), and offered him his support to find a job in the Soviet capital. Parts of the novel began to be serialised in Moscow in 1925, yet the magazine was closed; a first complete version came out in Paris in 1927. Only in 1966 a censured version appeared in the Soviet Union, and the first uncensored, true to the last corrections, version saw the light in 1989.
Bulgakov was a well-trained physician. He was seriously injured during the First World War (1914-1918), an experience which left life-long traces and health problems, confronted during a period with the systematic use of morphine. Yet the strength to abandon the reliance on such a narcoticum did not weaken, and he would even write a booklet about that ominous chapter4. He continued writing all his life, despite his conviction that his major literary works would never be allowed to circulate freely in the USSR. In 1966, twenty-six years after his death, his widow (third wife) published The Master and Margarita (Мастер и Маргарита), considered nowadays as one of the masterpieces of 20th century world-literature.
I had the chance of being in Kiev (Киев (Rus) Київ (Ucr)) almost the whole of the year 2000. My knowledge of Russian and also Ukrainian having improved considerably, I took hence the decision to jump into the novel by acquiring the original Russian version5, and a translation into German6. By switching from the one to the other, and vice-versa, I expected to avoid a constant utilisation of the dictionaries. Both books were bought in the famous Andreiski (as I used to call it) street, the Andriyivskyy Descent (Ukrainian: Андріївський узвіз, Andriyivs’kyi uzviz), not far away from the house harbouring now the Bulgakov Museum, where the writer lived between 1906 and 1921, abode of the “Turbin” family in the novel.
.............................................................................................................................................................
Bulgakov’s museum in Kiev, abode of the “Turbin family” in the novel
The house, going "down" Andreiski.
The portrait of the writer, carved into the front-wall.
The house, going "up" Andreiski
Andreiski's descent as such.
The “Turbin” family constitutes the epicentre of the novel, as it is through the people inhabiting and visiting the abode in the Andreiski street that the waves of history reverberate. The main characters are Alexey Vasilyevich Turbin, a physician who resembles the author himself, Nikolai Turbin (Nikolka), his younger brother, Elena Vasilyevna Talberg, his sister:
“Like Lisa in “Pique-Dame“(a short-novel by Pushkin, 1834, transformed into an opera by Tchaikovsky in 1887) the golden-blond Elena, wearing a dressing-gown, sat on the covered bed, her hands on her lap.“7
Sergei Ivanovich Talberg, her husband, Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky, lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Myshlaevsky, lieutenant, Leonid Yuryevich Shervinsky, and others.
The incidents as such in the novel take place between 12.12.1918 and the first days of February 1919, registering the convulsions, and blood-spilling, in the city of Kiev, as the attempt to control power oscillates between the flight of the Hetman Pavlo Skoropadski, who was enthroned by the German Imperial army, the arrival of the Ukrainian nationalist Symon Petliura, and the defeat of the latter by the Red Army, commanded by Trotsky. Yet Bulgakov amalgamated those episodes into a parable to reflect, first of all, on the Russian civil-war‒with its foreign interventions‒between 1917 and 1920, through
“...am Rand des Abgrunds stehende Mutter der russischen Städte...“8 ...the City hovering at the edge of a cliff, that Mother of all Russian cities…”
“A photographic narrative of the life of Mikhail Bulgakov in Kiev, the city where he was born and where he grew up, which he always loved, and of a time of great and tragic convulsions affecting the writer and his city.” КИЕВ МИХАИЛА ВУЛГАКОВА. Анатолий КОНЧАКОВСКИЙ. Дмитрий МАЛАКОВ. КИЕВ, "МЫСТЭЦВО",1990.
...............................................................................................................................................................
and, above all, on whether Holy Mother Russia might survive, whether Dostoevsky’s God-bearers (Gottesträger, БОГОНОЦЫ ДОСТОЕВСКИЕ), the true Russian folk would first get rid of the Ukrainian nationalists, and then of the Red Army and the Communists.
The novel is deeply impregnated by the spirit, hopes and warnings of previous masters of the Russian literature. There is Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (Александр Сергеевич Пушкин), (*1799 –†1837, whose novel published in 1836 (Капитанская дочка), The Captain's Daughter, provides one of the two epigraphs. The second epigraph comes from St. John’s Gospel.
Above all though Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский (*1821 – †1881, sometimes transliterated as Dostoyevsky, and his novel Demons (Бесы), ocasionnaly also translated as The Possessed or The Devils, published first as a serial in the journal The Russian Messenger in 1871–72. Then Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Лев Николаевич Толстой) )*1828 – †1910), and his War and Peace (Война и мир), first published serially, then 1869 in its entirety. Considered by many (including the author of this blog) as perhaps the greatest novel ever in European literature, after Homer.
Both Pushkin and Tolstoy are among the books “smelling of a mysterious, old chocolate” deposited in “the best book-shelves”9 of the world-but not so Dostoyevsky. Throughout the whole novel there is going to be “Tolstoy-momentum” and a “Dostoevsky-momentum”, the former resounding around the word “Borodino” (the decisive battle against Napoleon, 1812, a “Pyrrhic victory” for the French) and the subsequent abandon of Moscow, which resulted at the end in the defeat of Napoleon and his troops. Hence–so hope Alexey Vasilyevich and other inmates and visitors of the house in the Andreiski–an initial defeat, and the transitory abandonment of Moscow, would generate in due course the “Russian Renaissance”.
“And not in vain the whole of Russia remembers the heroic day of Borodino.”10
Sometimes however, the “Dostoevsky-mood” will prevail, the unveiling of dark forces seeking the destruction of Russia, led by the “Anti-Christ”, whose face by the end of the novel will resemble that of Trotsky11. And the peasants, who were supposed to be a key component of the “God-bearers”, would first help the Ukrainian nationalists, and then the Red Army.
“...Я думаю, что это местные мужички-богоноцы достоевские...» «I believe, they are local peasants, Dostoevsky’s “God-bearers”...” 12
Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv, Собор святої Софії
“The heavy bell of the main tower of the Sophia’s Cathedral tolled…" German version S. 279.
The author of this blog wandering around „Sophiiski“, St. Sophia’s Cathedral, one his favourite places in the world to let the soul rejoice..." Kiev, 2001. © JCHK, 2001
..................................................................................................................................................................
It is thus that the Turbin family keeps swinging between “hope” and “desperation”. The thousands of inhabitants of Moscow who fled to Kiev would soon look for another refuge, inevitably abroad. Elena Vasilyevna’s husband abandons her, fleeing with the Germans.
„...but we have collected bitter experiences and we now know that only a monarchy can save Russia. Hence, when the Emperor is dead, long live the Emperor!”- .13
Rumours, crazy rumours, abound. “The Kaiser has reappeared in….”, “no, he is now in…”, “The Tzar has been seen in…”, “The German will help us…”, “No, the Germans will abandon us…”
That the dramatization of the novel found considerable success should not come as a surprise, as the unfolding of the story resembles a revolving-door. Characters are being constantly thrown into the house, mostly exhausted or injured, others being thrown out onto the streets, to look for food or money, or to embark into the fighting. Few remain seated or static for a long time, except those who fell seriously injured or ill.
Everyone seems to be on tenterhooks, and skating on thin ice. Dreams and nightmares irrupt into daily life, and vice-versa. The Bible is read, saints are invoked or begged to provide help. Sometimes it works, as when Elena, nursing his dying brother Alexey, the physician, implores:
“Holy Mother, intercede for us'“, Elena muttered fervently. „Pray for him. He is there, beside you. What would it cost you? Have mercy on us. Have mercy. Your day, your feast is approaching. If Alexey lives perhaps he will do good for others, and I will not cease to pray for forgiveness of our sins. Let Sergei (her husband) not come back‒take him away, if that is your will. But don't punish Alexei with death ...We are all guilty of this bloodshed, but do not punish him. Do not punish him. There He is, your Son.”14
And his brother will recover.
Yet notwithstanding Bulgakov’s obvious attempt to capture an historical moment from the inside, and to exorcise demons chanting and dancing around him, his family, and the whole of Russia, I happen to believe that he knew that this novel was in fact a love-song to the City. Perhaps also his “goodbye-I-love-so-much-song”. It was his City, and there many others who when visiting Kiev, or living there for a while, would not fail to fall in love with that wonder, almost a magician’s creation, sculptured on the hills and alongside the Dnieper, bloomed with churches almost everywhere, still alive, and very much “on her-own”, despite the many wars, the many tragedies.
“That city” is never mentioned by name in the novel, it is the “City”. Bulgakov used “C” upper-case in the Russian original (actually, there it is a “G” upper-case) to underline the role of his “house-in-the-soul”, “that mother of all Russian cities”. Such an underlying is kept in the other languages, yet the problem with the German version is that in the German language all nouns must carry, ad strictum, the first letter in “upper-case”. The translator came up with a cute solution: She “upper-cased” the whole word, “STADT”, hence in some pages of the German version one is surprised, and moved, by that constant flashing of the word, as if walking on a street, to be illuminated from time to time by tall, powerful street-lighters
"...Do finish your work, before you die...
The White Guard (2012) — Russian TV mini-series produced by Russia-1.15
This is a frenetic, “angstvoll” novel. There is electricity in Bulkgakov’s style, reflecting the tension, the unpredictability in the whole city, in the whole country, and how he viewed his beloved City:
„The coal-black gloom of the darkest night had descended on the terraces of the most beautiful spot on earth, St Vladimir's Hill, whose brick-paved paths and avenues were hidden beneath a thick layer of virgin snow. (…) Every evening, as soon as twilight begins to enfold the snowdrifts, the slopes and the terraces, the cross is lighted and it burns all night.“16
The City lives, despite wars and revolutions:
„Like a many-layered honeycomb steamed, hummed and lived the City. She floated beautifully amidst the frost and smog on the hills at the Dnieper. All day long smoke from the countless chimney-pots spiralled towards heaven. A haze floated over the streets, the packed snow creaked underfoot, houses towered to five, six and even seven storeys. By day their windows were black, at night they shone in rows against the deep, dark-blue sky. As far as the eye could see, the rows of electric globes hung suspended high from the elegant curlicues of tall lamp-posts, like strings of precious stones. By day the streetcars rolled by with a steady, comfortable rumble, with their soft, yellow straw-stuffed seats of foreign design. Shouting as they went. cabmen drove from hill to hill and their dark collars of black and silver-grey fur gave beauty and mystery to women's faces. The gardens lay silent and peaceful, weighed down with virgin white-snow. In the City there were more gardens than in any other city in the world. Like gigantic stains, they had spread out everywhere, with avenues, chestnuts, ravines, maples and limes.”17
“In no other city of the world quietness fell over the streets and alleyways of the two halves of the City‒the Upper City on the hilltops and the Lower City spread along the curve of the frozen Dnieper‒and the City's mechanical roar retreated inside the stone buildings, grew muffled and sank to a low hum. All the City's energy, stored up during a summer of sunshine and thunderstorms, was expended in light. From four o'clock in the afternoon light would start to burn in the windows of the houses, in the round electric globes, in the gas street-lamps, in the illuminated house-numbers and in the vast windows of electric power-stations, turning people's thoughts towards the terrifying prospect of man's electric-powered future, those great windows through which could be glimpsed the machines whose desperate, ceaselessly revolving wheels shook the earth to its very core. All night long the City shone, glittered and danced with light until morning, when the lights went out and the City cloaked itself once more in smoke and mist. But the brightest light of all was the white cross held by the gigantic statue of St Vladimir atop Vladimir Hill. It could be seen from far, far away and often in summer, in thick black mist, amid the osier-beds and tortuous meanders of the age-old river, the boatmen would see it and by its light would steer their way to the City and its wharves.”18
Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra or Kyivo-Pechers’ka Lavra (Ukrainian Києво-Печерська, Russian Киeво-Печерская лавра)
"...a terrible and ominous sound boomed out over the City (...) It was followed instantly by shocked and bloodstained people running howling and screaming down from Pechersk, the Upper City. And the sound was heard a third time, this time so violently that windows began shattering in the houses of Pechersk and the ground shook underfoot. Many people saw women running in nothing but their underclothes and shrieking in terrible voices. The source of the sound was soon discovered. It had come from Bare Mountain outside the City right above the Dnieper, where vast quantities of ammunition and gunpowder were stored. There had been an explosion on Bare Mountain." 19
..........................................................................................................................................................................................
All novels have to be read carefully. Particularly this one, taking care above all not to let the poisonous clouds suffocating the City and its surroundings-nowadays-blur the specificity of that moment, more than a century ago. Some comments on the Ukrainian language in the novel could be considered “offensive”, though I happen to think that there is no malice as such. Bulgakov is simply re-translating into literature the fiery and contradictory feelings and thoughts of people caught in a civil-war. There are also “offensive” comments on the Germans, the Communists, well, on almost everyone. But that is literature.
The “electricity” in the novel reflects the unpredictable and unstable consequences of a civil-war, but also the soul of the writer. This is manifested above all in one of the most beautiful passages of the novel, when the physician, Alexey Vasilyevich, is escaping from nationalist soldiers, receiving a bullet, but also firing his own revolver, with precision. He will be rescued by a mysterious woman, who will lead him through a labyrinth of gardens and alleys to her home, where she will save his life. Confronting death, the physician, that is, the author, still have time and energy to keep singing his love-song to his City.
„Turning the corner of Malo-Provalnaya Street like a hunted wolf, Alexei caught a glimpse of the black rifle-muzzle behind him suddenly blotted out by a pale ring of fire. Putting on a spurt he swerved into Malo-Provalnaya Street, making a life-and-death choice for the second time in the course of the last five minutes.“20“
(Malo-Provalnaya Street)”... the most marvellous street in the world“.21
There are only tree bullets left in is revolver:
„Keep the last one for myself. Think of the red-haired Elena and Nikolka. It is the end. They'll torture me, carve epaulettes on my shoulders with their knives. Keep the seventh bullet for myself.“22
Let me reproduce here a very important paragraph in the “Historical and Literary Notes” of Rolf Schröder:
“...At the same time, Bulgakov had evidently (at least temporarily) lay (nursed) some political hopes on Stalin’s turnaround. That is, from the revolutionary socialist “Internationalism” to the national “Socialism-in-one-land”, the extinction of the core of the old Bolsheviks, and to the incantation of the “Czarist” traditions. Bulgakov was convinced, primarily, that the “October-Revolution” was not a socialist revolution in the Marxist sense of the word, and that it could not have been otherwise. He believed rather that the “October-Revolution” was a specific Russian, national-historical event, and that its subsequent evolution, assuming there were to be no foreign-, colonialist interventions which would interrupt the process of national self-invention, would at the end bring about a new “Old-Russia”.”23
If the reader finds some resonance of that interpretation in the year 2022 I might add only that it is not entirely fortuitous. Yet the implications of such a resonance rely on the readers alone. Let us hope that peace, as well a fruitful and respectful coexistence, are attained, the sooner the better.
St Andrew's Church
“...how many times did I stop everywhere where I could see you, to wonder again at your way of just being-there...”
1 Белая гвардия, Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков. Издательство АСТ, москва 2000, pg. 50.
2Unless otherwise indicated, translations from Russian and German into English are responsibility of the author of this blog.
3To be read “Stalin’s library” by Geoffrey Roberts, 2022, just published, “An air-brushing of a book-loving monster”, by James Walton, The London Review of Books, 30.01.2022.
4 Morphium („Морфий“) Erzählung, 1927. Also Aufzeichnungen eines jungen Arztes („Записки юного врача“) Erzählungen, 1925/27
5 Белая гвардия, Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков. Издательство АСТ, москва 2000. We also used the version published in the first-volume of Михаил Булгаков, Том 1, БЕЛАЯ ГВАРДИЯ, Роман, Издательство художественной литературы «Дніпро”, Киев, 1989.
6Die Weiße Garde. Bulgakow, Michail. Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin, 1993. Aus dem Russischen von Larissa Robiné. It contains the „original version“ of chapters 19 to 21, published as an appendix to the usual version. “Literaturgeschichtliche Anmerkungen“, Ralf Schröder, Berlin 192.
7Russian, pg. 89, German S. 59
8Russian, pg. 62. German, S. 27.
9We follow, to some extent, the interpretation of the novel by Ralf Schröder, Berlin, 1992.
10German, S. 18. Russian, pg. 55.
11German S. 318, Russian, pg. 279.
12 German S. 29 , Russian, pg. 63
13German, S. 55
14 German S. 313, Russian, pg. 275.
15 The film was shot in Saint Petersburg and Kyiv and released to mostly negative reviews. In 2014 the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture banned the distribution of the film, claiming that it shows "contempt for the Ukrainian language, people and state". Wikipedia.
16The White-Guard. A novel by M. Bulgakov. Translated from the Russian by Michael Glenny, McGraw Hill, 1976, pg. 61.
17 German, S. 62, Russian, pg. 88.
18English, pg. 31. German, S. 63.
19English, pg. 36.
20English, pg. 117, German S. 232-33.
21Russian pp. 213-14.
22Russian, pg.213.
23 S. 419. Ralf Schröder „ ….Literaturgeschichtliche Anmerkungen...“
