The White Guard

Summary

The White Guard is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the early 1920s. The book tells the story of the fate of the Turbin family, an intellectual family from Kyiv, during the Ukrainian Civil War in 1918. At the center of the plot are the brothers Alexei and Nikolai Turbin, and their sister Elena, who find themselves caught up in the whirlwind of military and political events. The narrative explores the conflict between the Ukrainian nationalist government and the advancing Bolshevik forces on Kyiv. The novel depicts the destruction of the characters' familiar world and their attempts to find meaning in a new reality.