The White Guard

The White Guard is the first large work by Bulgakov and the only novel published during the author's lifetime. It was first published in the magazine Russia in 1925, and the complete novel was published in France between 1927 and 1929. This is a story of the Civil War of 1918, a story of the collapse of foundations and traditions as told by an eyewitness and participant in those events. But at the same time, it is an intriguing, largely autobiographical family saga. Almost all the characters have prototypes - relatives, friends, acquaintances of the Bulgakov family. The Turbins are a lost generation. The old homeland is no more... Moral guidelines have been shaken but have stood firm. And now, in the madness of the time that has come, the heroes are trying to preserve even a small fraction of what they believed in, what they cherished... The work has been repeatedly adapted into films: the feature film The Running 1970 by Alexander Alov and Vladimir Naumov, based on the works of Bulgakov, Days of the Turbins 1976 by Vladimir Basov, and the multi-part film The White Guard 2012 by Sergey Snezhkin.