White Guard

“Infused with a passion for the old city and for its people that catches the reader up in its sweeping intensity,” the classic novel newly translated (The New York Times Book Review).

White Guard, Mikhail Bulgakov’s semi-autobiographical first novel, is the story of the Turbin family in Kiev in 1918. Alexei, Elena, and Nikolka Turbin have just lost their mother and find themselves plunged into the civil war that erupted in the Ukraine in the wake of the Russian Revolution. In the context of this family’s personal loss and the social turmoil surrounding them, Bulgakov creates a brilliant picture of the existential crises brought about by the revolution and the loss of social, moral, and political certainties.In this volume Marian Schwartz offers the first complete translation of the definitive original text of Bulgakov’s novel, including the famous dream sequence omitted in previous translations. Readers with an interest in Russian literature, culture, or history will welcome this superb translation.This edition also contains an informative historical essay by Evgeny Dobrenko.

“Bulgakov’s love for Kiev burns in every chapter of The White Guard.” —The Guardian

“Bulgakov’s novel evokes the suffering of [the Russian Civil War] and the still greater horrors that lay ahead.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Bulgakov unfurls great fictional canvases conjuring up the atmosphere and beauty of his beloved Kiev like Pushkin… . . . But beneath the effulgent lyricism there sounds a chuckle of cynicism… . . . His irony is both broad and finely honed.” —Newsweek

“Bulgakov’s novel not only leads us into a majestic, more-than-one,000-year-old metropolis, but also gives us an understanding of how, in a single day, the world can change as radically as if decades had passed.” —Marci Shore, The Atlantic