The White Guard

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891–1940) — a famous Soviet writer, playwright, director, and doctor. In Bulgakov's work, literary critics note a special ability to combine historical reality and artistic invention, thanks to which his texts are perceived as notes from an eyewitness. In the autobiographical novel "The White Guard," the writer presented the life of a family from the Russian intelligentsia, who found themselves in the midst of the events of the Civil War in Ukraine in 1918, when the Germans left the city and the troops of Petlyura came in their place. The prototypes for the characters were relatives, friends, and numerous acquaintances of the Bulgakov household, which, along with the streets of Kyiv, served as the backdrop for the events described in the novel.