In that winter of 2018 the City lived a strange, unnatural life that is unlikely to be repeated in the twentieth century.  — Bulgakov’s The White Guard

Mikhail Bulgakov’s best-known novel, The Master and Margarita, is wickedly satirical and surreal. The characters include the Devil, a talking cat, Pontius Pilate, a witch, and a temporarily insane poet.  In the 1930s this political satire was  considered  unpublishable. In the mid-1960s, a censored version was serialized in a Russian journal.  In 1973, the  complete novel was published in Moscow. 

Compared to The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov’s early work has struck me as very slight. I changed my mind when I read The White Guard, set in 1918 in Kiev during the Civil War.  Tjis short, realistic first novel, published in 1925, balances scenes of everyday life with the horrors of war, like a miniature War and Peace, which influenced Bulgakov.

In smooth, understated, impersonal prose, Bulgakov portrays the life of the city as a single, living entity. It “steamed and hummed like a many-layered honeycomb. All day long smoke spiraled in ribbons up to the sky from innumerable chimneys.”  On all sides they are besieged by different armies: there are the Ukrainian nationalists, the Red Guard, the White Guard, and the Germans. The people are terrified. They especially hate the Bolsheviks.

Bulgakov contrasts the daily lives of civilians with the chaos of battle and army life.  Like Tolstoy, Bulgakov describes the ineptness of battle plans and the unpredictable pandemonium which skews all strategy and is the cause of victory or defeat. No one understands what is going on, or even which army is fighting which when.

Bulgakov’s focus is on a single Russian family, the Turbins, three siblings who share an apartment. Alexei, 28, is a doctor who despises the men lining up to fake illness to escape military service; his sister, Elena, 24, is left on her own when her husband, Talberg, flees the city middle of the night; and Nikolka, the idealistic adolescent, volunteers as a raw cadet for the White Guard. 

Life is grim, food is scarce, and the war rages on senselessly.  Yet Alexei’s friends socialize: they have card parties, discuss politics, and drink too much.  When Alexei volunteers as a military doctor for the White Guard, Elena is terrified.  And, indeed, the brothers are both in danger. They know so little about combat.

Bulgakov depicts cynical army officers and bewildered cadets.  Mikhail Shpolyansky, a poet-soldier who has velvety sideburns and “looks exactly like Eugene Onegin,” belongs to a poetry club.  When he gets bored, he says it is because he hasn’t been throwing enough bombs.lately.  And he goes off to reap chaos and death.

On the other hand, Nai-Turs is a canny, experienced colonel who recognizes the humanity of his platoon of 200 men.   When Nai-Turs demands felt boots for his men, the general  of the supply division refuses. Nai-Turs forces him to sign the requisition and calls in his platoon to load up the felt boots.  And later, in the city, when a battle is lost, Nai-Turs saves lives by ordering his men to run away and go home.  Nikolka is confused:  aren’t they supposed to be heroes?  But Nai-Turs repeatedly commands the “stupid boy” to run away through the back lots. Finally he obeys.

Alexei also is incredulous when an officer tells him to run out the back door of the house and run.  Both brothers want to be heroes, and are bewildered by the lost battles. Elena anxiously waits for them to come home. Survival is difficult on one’s own.

There are a few awkward scenes, but it is a remarkable war novel.  And the more I think about it, the more I admire it. I read Michael Glenny’s excellent translation.