Photos of the Civil War. The White Guard and the Civil War in the paintings of Russian artists. "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge"

In fiction

Babel I. Cavalry (1926)

· Bulgakov. M. "White Guard" (1924)

Ostrovsky N. "How the steel was tempered" (1934)

Sholokhov. M. Quiet Don (1926-1940)

Serafimovich A. "Iron Stream" (1924)

Tolstoy A. "The Adventure of Nevzorov, or Ibicus" (1924)

Tolstoy A. "Walking through the agony" (1922-1941)

Fadeev A. "Defeat" (1927)

Furmanov D. "Chapaev" (1923)

The book consists of 38 short stories, which are sketches of the life and life of the First Cavalry Army, united by single heroes and the time of the story. The book in a rather harsh and unsightly form shows the characters of Russian revolutionaries, their lack of education and cruelty, which contrasts sharply with the character of the main character, the educated correspondent Kirill Lyutov, whose image is quite closely connected with the image of Babel himself. Some episodes of the work are autobiographical. A striking feature of the story is that the main character has Jewish roots (although he bears the Russian surname Lyutov). The issue of the persecution of Jews before and during the civil war is given a special place in the book.

"White Guard"- Mikhail Bulgakov's first novel. The events of the Civil War at the end of 1918 are described; The action takes place in Ukraine. The action of the novel takes place in 1918, when the Germans who occupied Ukraine leave the City, and Petliura's troops capture it. The heroes - Aleksey Turbin (28 years old), Elena Turbina - Talberg (24 years old) and Nikolka (17 years old) - are involved in the cycle of military and political events. The city (in which Kyiv is easily guessed) is occupied by the German army. As a result of the signing of the Brest Peace, it does not fall under the rule of the Bolsheviks and becomes a refuge for many Russian intellectuals and military men who flee the RSFSR. Officer combat organizations are being created in the city under the auspices of the hetman - an ally of the Germans, recent enemies. Petliura's army advances on the City. By the time of the events of the novel, the Compiègne truce has been concluded and the Germans are preparing to leave the City. In fact, only volunteers defend him from Petliura. Realizing the complexity of their situation, they console themselves with rumors about the approach of French troops, who allegedly landed in Odessa (in accordance with the terms of the armistice, they had the right to occupy the occupied territories of Russia up to the Vistula in the west). Residents of the city - Alexei (front-line soldier, military doctor) and Nikolka Turbina volunteer to join the city's defenders, and Elena protects the house, which becomes a refuge for officers of the Russian army. Since it is impossible to defend the city on its own, the hetman's command and administration leave it to its fate and leave with the Germans (the hetman himself disguises himself as a wounded German officer). Volunteers - Russian officers and cadets unsuccessfully defend the City without command against superior enemy forces (the author created a brilliant heroic image of Colonel Nai-Tours). Some commanders, realizing the futility of resistance, send their fighters home, others actively organize resistance and perish along with their subordinates. Petlyura occupies the City, arranges a magnificent parade, but after a few months he is forced to surrender it to the Bolsheviks. The main character, Aleksey Turbin, faithful to his duty, tries to join his unit (not knowing that it has been disbanded), enters into battle with the Petliurists, gets wounded and, by chance, finds love in the person of a woman who saves him from the persecution of enemies. The social cataclysm exposes the characters - someone runs, someone prefers death in battle. The people as a whole accept the new government (Petlyura) and, after her arrival, demonstrate hostility towards the officers.

"As the Steel Was Tempered"- an autobiographical novel by the Soviet writer Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovsky (1932). The book is written in the style of socialist realism. The novel tells about the fate of the young revolutionary Pavka (Paul) Korchagin, who defended the gains of Soviet power in the Civil War. Ostrovsky Nikolai Alekseevich. Born into a working class family. In July 1919 he joined the Komsomol and went to the front as a volunteer. He fought in parts of the cavalry brigade of G. I. Kotovsky and the 1st Cavalry Army. In August 1920 he was seriously wounded. Since 1927, O. was bedridden by a severe progressive illness; in 1928 he lost his sight. Mobilizing all mental strength, O. fought for life, engaged in self-education. Blind, motionless, he created the book "How the steel was tempered." The image of the protagonist of the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered" - Pavel Korchagin - is autobiographical. Using the right to fiction, the writer talentedly rethought personal impressions, documents, creating paintings and images of wide artistic significance. The novel conveys the revolutionary impulse of the people, a particle of which Korchagin feels himself to be. For many generations of Soviet youth, for advanced youth circles abroad, Korchagin became a moral model. The novel played a mobilizing role during the years of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 and during the days of peaceful construction.

Quiet Don" - epic novel by Mikhail Sholokhov in 4 volumes. Volumes 1-3 were written from 1926 to 1928, volume 4 was completed in 1940. One of the most significant works of Russian literature of the 20th century, depicting a broad panorama of the life of the Don Cossacks during the First World War, the revolutionary events of 1917 and the civil war in Russia. Most of the action of the novel takes place in the village of Tatarsky in the village of Vyoshenskaya approximately between 1912 and 1922. In the center of the plot is the life of the Cossack Melekhov family, which went through the First World War and the Civil War. The Melekhovs experienced a lot with the farmers and with all the Don Cossacks in these troubled years. From a strong and prosperous family, by the end of the novel, Grigory Melekhov, his son Misha and sister Dunya remain alive. The protagonist of the book, Grigory Melekhov, is a peasant, a Cossack, an officer who has risen from the ranks. The historical turning point, which completely changed the ancient way of the Don Cossacks, coincided with a tragic turning point in his personal life. Grigory cannot understand with whom he should stay: with the Reds, or with the Whites. Melekhov, by virtue of his natural abilities, first rises from ordinary Cossacks to the rank of officer, and then to the position of general (commanders an insurgent division in the Civil War), but his military career was not destined to take shape. Melekhov also rushes between two women: his initially unloved wife Natalya, feelings for whom woke up only after the birth of the children of Polyushka and Mishatka, and Aksinya Astakhova, Grigory's first and strongest love. And he couldn't keep both women. At the end of the book, Gregory abandons everything and returns home to the only son left of the entire Melekhov family and to his native land. The novel contains a description of the life and way of life of the peasants at the beginning of the 20th century: rituals and traditions characteristic of the Don Cossacks. The role of the Cossacks in hostilities, anti-Soviet uprisings and their suppression, the formation of Soviet power in the village of Vyoshenskaya are described in detail. Sholokhov worked on the novel Quiet Flows the Don for 15 years, work on the novel Virgin Soil Upturned lasted for 30 years (the first book was published in 1932, the second in 1960). In The Quiet Don (1928-40), Sholokhov explores the theme of personality in history, creates pictures of a national tragedy that destroyed the entire way of people's life. The Quiet Flows the Don is a large-scale work with more than 600 characters. The action of the novel covers ten years (from May 1912 to March 1922), these are the years of the imperialist war, the February and October revolutions and the Civil War. The events of history, a holistic image of the era Sholokhov traces through the fate of the heroes: Cossacks, farmers, workers and warriors living on the Tatar farm, on the high bank of the Don. The fates of these people reflected social changes, changes in consciousness, life, psychology. The core of the book is the history of the Melekhov family. Portraying the truth-seeker Grigory Melekhov, Sholokhov reveals the confrontation between the natural person and social cataclysms. Gregory appears as a natural person, an uncompromising personality who does not accept half-truths. The civil war, the revolution, the split world in two throw it into a bloody mess, turn it into a meat grinder of civil strife, atrocities both on the part of the Reds and on the part of the Whites. The innate sense of freedom, honor, dignity will not allow him to bend his back either before the white generals or before the red commissars. The tragedy of Grigory Melekhov is the tragedy of an honest man in a tragically torn world. The finale of the novel is Grigory's departure from the deserters hiding in anticipation of an amnesty, returning to his native kuren. On the banks of the Don, Grigory will throw a rifle, a revolver into the water; it is a symbolic gesture. The novel organically includes the old Cossack songs “How are you, father, the glorious quiet Don” and “Oh you, our father the quiet Don”, taken epigraphs to the 1st and 3rd books of the novel, they appeal to the moral ideas of the people. The Quiet Don contains about 250 descriptions of nature, emphasizing the eternal triumph of life itself, the priority of natural values.
During the years of the “thaw”, Sholokhov published the story “The Fate of a Man” (1956), which became a turning point in prose about the war. With this story, Sholokhov managed to reverse the barbaric cruelty of the system in relation to many thousands of soldiers who, against their will, found themselves in fascist captivity. In a small work, Sholokhov managed to achieve the image of a separate human fate as the fate of the people in the era of the most severe disasters, to see in this life a huge universal content and meaning. The hero of the story, Andrei Sokolov, is an ordinary person who has survived innumerable torments, captivity. “A military hurricane of unprecedented strength” blew the house, the Sokolov family off the face of the earth, but he did not break. Having met a child, whom the war also deprived of all relatives and friends, he assumed responsibility for his life and upbringing. Through the whole story runs the thought of the anti-human nature of fascism, war, distorting fate, destroying homes. The story about irreparable losses, about terrible grief is permeated with faith in a person, his kindness, mercy, fortitude and prudence. Reflections of the author-narrator, sensitive to someone else's misfortune, endowed with great power of empathy, increase the emotional intensity of the story.

rout- a novel by the Soviet writer Alexander. A. Fadeeva. The novel tells about the history of the partisan red detachment. The events take place in the 1920s during the Civil War in the Ussuri region. The inner world of the main characters of the novel is shown: the commander of the detachment Levinson and the fighters of the detachment Mechik, Morozka, his wife Varya. The partisan detachment (like other detachments) stands in the village and does not conduct combat operations for a long time. People get used to a deceptive calmness. But soon the enemy launches a large-scale offensive, crushing partisan detachments one by one, and a ring of enemies closes around the detachment. The squad leader is doing everything possible to save people and continue the fight. The detachment, pressed against the bog, makes a path and goes along it into the taiga. In the finale, the detachment falls into a Cossack ambush, but, having suffered monstrous losses, breaks through the ring. The novel was written in 1924-1926 by the then little-known writer Alexander Fadeev. The novel "The Rout" is about human relationships, about the difficult conditions in which one must survive, about loyalty to the cause. It is no coincidence that Fadeev chooses to describe in the novel the time when the detachment was already defeated. He wants to show not only the successes of the Red Army, but also its failures. One of the main positive characters of the novel is a man named Levinson. Fadeev made the positive hero of his work a Jew by nationality, in accordance with the internationalism of the 20s.

"Chapaev"- Dmitry Furmanov's novel of 1923 about the life and death of the hero of the civil war division commander Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. The action takes place in 1919, mainly during the stay of Commissar Fyodor Klychkov in the 25th Chapaev division (the novel directly reflects Furmanov's personal experience as a commissar in Chapaev's division). The battles for Slomikhinskaya, Pilyugino, Ufa, as well as the death of Chapaev in the battle near Lbischensk are described.

15 July 2013, 15:31

Dmitry Shmarin

"Self-portrait against the background of the painting "Decossackization"

Dmitry Alexandrovich Shmarin was born in Moscow in 1967, his father is a native Muscovite, his mother comes from a family of Kuban Cossacks. After graduating from the children's art school and the Moscow Art School at the Surikov Institute, in 1985 Dmitry entered the Moscow State Academic Art Institute. IN AND. Surikov. The theme of the tragedy of the Cossacks permeated all his work.

"Decossackization"

By order of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of January 24, 1919, on the total destruction of the Cossacks, the Bolsheviks began to exterminate the Cossack class in cold blood, starting with the Don villages. Unable to withstand the abuse, the Cossacks rebelled, but the uprising was crushed with monstrous cruelty. In the early spring of 1919, executions were carried out in the villages of Veshenskaya and Kazanskaya. Cossacks were beaten out by families, from men capable of holding weapons to unintelligent children. Together with the Cossacks, the stanitsa priests were also killed. To carry out the bloody order, detachments of Chinese and Latvians were called in as executioners of the Russian people, and criminals did not disdain the authorities. Dmitry Shmarin chose the terrible moment of the Cossacks in the face of death as the plot for his painting "Decossackization". Worthy humility before the will of God is no less striking than the stern courage in standing up for the truth of the people represented on the canvas. Against the background of the ghostly gray undead - the Bolshevik executioners, the white shirts of the condemned martyrs shine brightly, the cornflower blue skirt of the Cossack woman, sobbing on her husband's shoulder, burns blue. In the distance, in a transparent haze, emphasizing the tragic and solemn peace, the domes of the stanitsa church quietly glow, bright huts doze peacefully, the Don steppe spreads widely. Everything is frozen ... In work

"For Holy Rus'" the image of the "white knights" hurts the heart - Russian children, teenagers, along with adults who have joined the battle ranks.

"Prayer before the road"

"Ice Camp"

"The Whites Came"

"Shooting of Whites in Crimea"

"Farewell. Autumn"

Dmitry Belyukin

Dmitry Belyukin was born in Moscow in 1962, the son of the famous artist, book illustrator Anatoly Ivanovich Belyukin. After graduating from the Moscow Art School. Surikov in 1980, entered the Moscow State Art Institute. V. I. Surikov at the Faculty of Painting, a portrait workshop (supervisor - Professor I. S. Glazunov). Art historians call Dmitry Belyukin an artist of big themes. Perhaps it would not be an exaggeration to say - the main topics. After all, in his works he reflects on the meaning of life and history, tries to look into the future of Russia through its past ... At 50, Dmitry Belyukin was awarded the highest regalia for a Russian artist, his exhibitions are a success, reproductions from paintings are published on book covers, in history textbooks . A permanent gallery of his works has been opened in Moscow. And most importantly - no one can reproach him for the fact that for all the years of his work he has at least somewhat changed his original creed.

Excerpt from the interview:

- Your father in the 1990s wrote the series “Gallery of Ancestors”, it also contains a portrait of his grandfather, your great-grandfather Sergei Kuzmich Belyukin from the village of Korablinka, Serebryanoprudsky district, Ryazan (now Moscow) region. It seems to me that this stern old man with delicate features reflects the characteristic features of your family ...

- Maybe. There was a large family, educated peasants, who, probably, Pyotr Arkadevich Stolypin would have been happy with ... They subscribed to agricultural magazines, bought equipment. My father often reminisced about his rural childhood. He could easily cut out a pipe or towns for me. In order to drink water from a spring in the forest, we made a ladle from birch bark, which we then left on the nearest tree for others.

And now there is not only our house in the village of Korablinka, there is no village itself. The 20th century wiped it off the face of the earth ...

Some works of Dmitry Belyukin:

Cossack Dry

"Esaul Kostrykin and Biplane"

"Evacuation of the Kornilovites from the Crimea"

"Exodus"

Fragment of the painting "Exodus"

"Shards"

Artist Ivan Vladimirov (1869 - 1947) the author of the famous painting “Lenin and Stalin in Razliv” is also known for his watercolor sketches of the socialist revolution. He made them in 1917 from nature, what he saw with his own eyes.
Here it is shown how the revolutionary masses organize a pogrom in the Winter Palace:

And here - the proletarians are robbing a wine warehouse:

Local priest and landowner in front of a revolutionary court. Soon they will be executed:

The Bolsheviks seize bread from the peasants:

February 1917, the arrest of the White Guard generals:

An agitator in the village with a portrait of Trotsky in his hands, this is how the masses were fooled:

Pavel Ryzhenko

Pavel Ryzhenko (born in 1970) is a graduate and teacher of the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He writes in the style of "classical Russian realism". His teacher Ilya Glazunov says that "Pavel Ryzhenko is a talented artist passionate in his work, he has a great future." About his work, Ryzhenko himself says: “I invite people to take another look at our ambiguous past, full of tragic events, in which the great spirit of our people was fully manifested. To understand that we are not a gray mass, not the so-called "electorate", but a people with a rich history and self-consciousness. I want to believe that I offer people an alternative to mass, "tinsel" culture, which makes us forget about the main issues of life.

"Farewell to shoulder straps"

Ryzhenko's painting is not just talentedly painted pictures. These are armor-piercing shells that destroy the indifference to the great history of Russia that is now being implanted. These are heavy bells, awakening in us the desire to make ourselves better. Ryzhenko's paintings are an expression of his inner powerful spirit, an ardent and uncompromising desire, as he himself says, "to see Russia strong and free from sin."

"Farewell of the Sovereign with the troops"

One of the most famous works of Pavel Ryzhenko is a triptych dedicated to the tragic fate of Emperor Nicholas II and his family, which includes the paintings “Farewell of the Sovereign to the troops”, “Imprisonment in Tsarskoye Selo” and “Ipatiev House after the murder of the royal family”. In "Farewell of the Sovereign ..." the artist with amazing psychologism managed to convey all the tragedy of the moment. Headquarters in Mogilev. Here, a few days ago, Nikolai Romanov was the autocrat of all Russia, the ruler of the great Empire. And, now, he returned here, having abdicated the throne, he returned not as an Emperor already, but as a colonel Romanov, he returned to say goodbye to the troops dear to his heart. Bent down, he walks along their silent row, looking into the eyes of everyone, looking for either support or forgiveness in them ... And for the last time they salute their Tsar, whom they are not destined to see again. A terrible, irreparable disaster is moving towards Russia. Rolling along it, according to Solzhenitsyn's definition, is a fatal red wheel ... Moloch is launched, and it cannot be stopped already. Russia has stepped into the abyss, and soon it will engulf it, and the Sovereign, and the troops loyal to him ... And this atmosphere of an impending, accelerating catastrophe is conveyed by the February blizzard depicted in the picture. Like smoke, the sky is shrouded in mist, the wind bends the trees, rinses the banners, lifts snow flakes and throws them into the faces of Russian soldiers and the Russian Tsar, sweeps them away, blinds the eyes ... With his abdication, the Sovereign finally opened the doors of the Empire for the frantic February winds that now roamed on her open spaces. And these winds will soon blow Great Russia off the face of the earth...

"Imprisonment in Tsarskoye Selo"

"Ipatiev House after the regicide"

Approximately the same fatal years for the Russian land include the painting by Pavel Ryzhenko “Wreath”, striking in its deep, inescapable sadness, penetrating into the very soul and causing in it a strange, inexplicable longing and bitterness of loss ...

The picture shows early spring. The snow has hardly melted, and that is why the whole earth resembles a swamp. The trees are shrouded in a light greenish haze. Behind their branches looms a gray, rainy sky, dull and mournful. It seems that all nature is crying at this moment, sympathizing with the soldier who came from the front. He survived in a terrible war, reached home, wounded, and there was no one here. No one is waiting for a hero... And a soldier came to the churchyard, bowed to his native grave, shed a stingy tear... He remembered the past peaceful years, remembered how he left here to defend his native land, how he said goodbye to the one that now rests in this swampy cemetery. The soldier remembered a lot. He thought to say “hello” to his dear person, but he has to say goodbye again, now forever ... Who is resting under this gray wooden cross with a wreath of yellow flowers? Is the mother of a soldier? Or a wife? We will not know this... We can only see the endless sorrow of the hero who came from the war, and mourn with him...

The plot of the painting "Umbrella" is dramatic and touching to tears:

"Umbrella"

What else can touch the soul of a sinner-killer, yesterday's sailor from the battleship "Gangut"? Perhaps the absurdity of the situation and the poignant insecurity of the girl who opened her umbrella over her murdered mother? Why should he shoot the girl? But the brave sailor slid down the wall and sank into the snow. He did not have the strength to raise his rifle, and a powerful hand hung from his knee. He is confused. Will he come to realize what he has done? And what will become of him then?

And a few more works but by different artists dedicated to this topic.

Oleg Ozhogin "Officer"

Y. Repin "Portrait of Vasily Mikhailovich Maksimov"

V. Miroshnichenko. Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel

R.V. Bylinskaya. Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak

D. Trofimov. Anton Ivanovich Denikin

Ilya Glazunov "The destruction of the temple on Easter night"

Civil war in the image of M. A. Sholokhov

In 1917, the war turned into a bloody turmoil. This is no longer a national war requiring sacrificial duties from everyone, but a fratricidal war. With the onset of the revolutionary era, relations between classes and estates change dramatically, moral foundations and traditional culture are rapidly destroyed, and with them the state. The disintegration that was generated by the morality of war embraces all social and spiritual ties, brings society into a state of struggle of all against all, to the loss of the Fatherland and faith by people.

If we compare the face of the war depicted by the writer before this milestone and after it, then an increase in tragedy becomes noticeable, starting from the moment the world war turned into a civil one. The Cossacks, tired of the bloodshed, hope for its quick end, because the authorities "must end the war, because the people, and we do not want war."

The First World War is portrayed by Sholokhov as a national disaster,

Sholokhov with great skill describes the horrors of war, crippling people both physically and morally. Death, suffering awaken sympathy and unite soldiers: people cannot get used to war. Sholokhov writes in the second book that the news of the overthrow of the autocracy did not evoke joyful feelings among the Cossacks, they reacted to it with restrained anxiety and expectation. The Cossacks are tired of the war. They dream of finishing it. How many of them have already died: not one Cossack widow voted for the dead. The Cossacks did not immediately understand the historical events. Having returned from the fronts of the world war, the Cossacks did not yet know what tragedy of the fratricidal war they would have to endure in the near future. The Upper Don uprising appears in the image of Sholokhov as one of the central events of the civil war on the Don.

There were many reasons. The Red Terror, the unjustified cruelty of the representatives of the Soviet authorities on the Don in the novel are shown with great artistic power. Sholokhov showed in the novel that the Upper Don uprising reflected a popular protest against the destruction of the foundations of peasant life and the age-old traditions of the Cossacks, traditions that became the basis of peasant morality and morality, which developed over the centuries, and passed down from generation to generation. The writer also showed the doom of the uprising. Already in the course of events, the people understood and felt their fratricidal character. One of the leaders of the uprising, Grigory Melekhov, declares: “But I think that we got lost when we went to the uprising.”

The epic covers a period of great upheavals in Russia. These upheavals had a strong impact on the fate of the Don Cossacks described in the novel. Eternal values ​​determine the life of the Cossacks as clearly as possible in that difficult historical period that Sholokhov reflected in the novel. Love for the native land, respect for the older generation, love for a woman, the need for freedom - these are the basic values ​​without which a free Cossack cannot imagine himself.

Depiction of the civil war as a tragedy of the people

Not only civil, any war for Sholokhov is a disaster. The writer convincingly shows that the cruelties of the civil war were prepared by the four years of the First World War.

Dark symbolism contributes to the perception of the war as a nationwide tragedy. On the eve of the declaration of war in Tatarsky, “at night, an owl roared in the bell tower. Unsteady and terrible cries hung over the farm, and the owl flew from the bell tower to the cemetery, soiled by calves, groaned over the brown, haunted graves.

“To be thin,” the old people prophesied, hearing owl voices from the cemetery.

“The war will come.”

The war broke into the Cossack kurens like a fiery whirlwind just at the time of harvesting, when the people cherished every minute. The orderly rushed in, raising a cloud of dust behind him. The fateful...

Sholokhov demonstrates how just one month of war changes people beyond recognition, cripples their souls, devastates them to the very bottom, makes them look at the world around them in a new way.

Here the writer describes the situation after one of the battles. In the middle of the forest, corpses are completely scattered. “They lay flat. Shoulder to shoulder, in various poses, often obscene and scary.

A plane flies by, drops a bomb. Next, Yegorka Zharkov crawls out from under the rubble: “The released intestines smoked, shimmering with pale pink and blue.”

This is the merciless truth of war. And what blasphemy over morality, reason, betrayal of humanism became under these conditions the glorification of the feat. The generals needed a "hero". And he was quickly “invented”: Kuzma Kryuchkov, who allegedly killed more than a dozen Germans. They even began to produce cigarettes with a portrait of the "hero". The press wrote about him excitedly.

Sholokhov tells about the feat in a different way: “But it was like this: people who collided on the field of death, who had not yet had time to break their hands in the destruction of their own kind, in the animal horror that declared them, stumbled, knocked down, inflicted blind blows, mutilated themselves and horses and fled, frightened by a shot, killed a man, departed morally crippled.

They called it a feat."

People at the front are cutting each other in a primitive way. Russian soldiers hang like corpses on wire fences. German artillery destroys entire regiments to the last soldier. The ground is thickly stained with human blood. Everywhere settled hills of graves. Sholokhov created a mournful cry for the dead, cursed the war with irresistible words.

But even more terrible in the image of Sholokhov is the civil war. Because she is fratricidal. People of the same culture, one faith, one blood engaged in an unheard-of extermination of each other. This "conveyor belt" of senseless, terrible in terms of cruelty, murders, shown by Sholokhov, shocks to the core.

... Punisher Mitka Korshunov spares neither the old nor the young. Mikhail Koshevoy, satisfying his need for class hatred, kills his centenary grandfather Grishaka. Daria shoots the prisoner. Even Gregory, succumbing to the psychosis of the senseless destruction of people in the war, becomes a murderer and a monster.

There are many amazing scenes in the novel. One of them is the massacre of the podtelkovites over forty captured officers. “The shots were fired feverishly. The officers, colliding, rushed in all directions. A lieutenant with beautiful female eyes, in a red officer's hood, ran, clutching his head with his hands. The bullet made him jump high, as if through a barrier. He fell and didn't get up. The tall, brave Yesaul was cut down by two. He clutched at the blades of the checkers, blood poured from his cut palms onto his sleeves; he screamed like a child, fell on his knees, on his back, rolled his head in the snow; his face showed only bloodshot eyes and a black mouth drilled with a continuous scream. His flying checkers slashed across his face, along his black mouth, and he was still screaming in a voice thin with horror and pain. Having squatted over him, the Cossack, in an overcoat with a torn off strap, finished him off with a shot. The curly-haired cadet almost broke through the chain - he was overtaken and killed by some ataman with a blow to the back of the head. The same chieftain drove a bullet between the shoulder blades of the centurion, who was running in his overcoat, which had opened from the wind. The centurion sat down and scratched his chest with his fingers until he died. The gray-haired podsaul was killed on the spot; parting with his life, he kicked a deep hole in the snow and would have beaten like a good horse on a leash, if the pitying Cossacks had not finished it. These mournful lines are extremely expressive, filled with horror before what is being done. They are read with unbearable pain, with spiritual trepidation and carry the most desperate curse of a fratricidal war.

No less scary are the pages devoted to the execution of the "podtelkovtsy". People who at first “willingly” went to the execution “as if to a rare merry spectacle” and dressed up “as if for a holiday”, faced with the realities of a cruel and inhuman execution, are in a hurry to disperse, so that by the time the massacre of the leaders - Podtelkov and Krivoshlykov - there were completely few people.

However, Podtelkov is mistaken, presumptuously believing that people dispersed because of the recognition of his innocence. They could not endure the inhuman, unnatural spectacle of their violent death. Only God created man, and only God can take his life.

Two “truths” collide on the pages of the novel: the “truth” of the Whites, Chernetsov and other killed officers, thrown in the face of Podtelkov: “A traitor to the Cossacks! Traitor!" and the “truth” opposing it, Podtelkov, who thinks that he is defending the interests of the “working people.”

Blinded by their "truths", both sides mercilessly and senselessly, in some kind of demonic frenzy, exterminate each other, not noticing that there are fewer and fewer of those for whom they are trying to approve their ideas. Talking about the war, about the military life of the most combative tribe among the entire Russian people, Sholokhov, however, nowhere, not in a single line, praised the war. No wonder his book, as the well-known Sholokhov expert V. Litvinov notes, was banned by the Maoists, who considered war the best way to socially improve life on Earth. Quiet Don is a passionate denial of any such cannibalism. Love for people is incompatible with love for war. War is always a people's misfortune.

Death in the perception of Sholokhov is what opposes life, its unconditional principles, especially violent death. In this sense, the creator of The Quiet Flows the Don is a faithful successor to the best humanistic traditions of both Russian and world literature.

Despising the extermination of man by man in war, knowing what tests the moral sense undergoes in front-line conditions, Sholokhov, at the same time, on the pages of his novel, painted the classic pictures of mental stamina, endurance and humanism that took place in the war. A humane attitude towards one's neighbor, humanity cannot be completely destroyed. This is evidenced, in particular, by many of the actions of Grigory Melekhov: his contempt for looting, the protection of the Pole Frani, the salvation of Stepan Astakhov.

The concepts of “war” and “humanity” are irreconcilably hostile to each other, and at the same time, against the backdrop of bloody civil strife, the moral possibilities of a person, how beautiful he can be, are especially clearly drawn. War severely examines the moral fortress, unknown to peaceful days.

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The October Revolution of 1917 split Russia into pieces, turned the minds of millions of people, crippled destinies, destroyed families, claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. For many years, the view of this revolution was shrouded in a halo of heroism. But any revolution, and even more so, a civil war, brings only death and destruction. I.Babel wrote about this in the twenties of the last century in the novel "Cavalry" and E. Zamyatin in the story "Dragon".

Both works begin with a description of the external situation: "Petersburg was on fire and delirious." The world is divided into two parts: where you can see the columns, the gray lattices of the Summer Garden, the spiers of magnificent monuments - there are the remains of the real world, and here, in the frozen cold world, dragon-people reign. And there is no place for feelings: “Hot, unprecedented, icy sun in the fog - left, right, above, below - a dove over a burning house,” the movement of a dove in the sky symbolizes an inverted cross. The reign of Antichrist has come.

With Babel, nature, filled with bright colors, seems to be a symbol of harmony. But a man breaks into this harmony: the highway along which the army moves was built “on the bones of men by Nicholas the First.” Against the background of pearly fog, yellowing rye, an image of an orange sun appears, which rolls like a severed head, and the smell of yesterday's blood and dead horses “drops” into the cool evening air.

Both worlds are poisoned by the premonition of death and madness. Everything is unfavorable in a world where war and antagonism reign. Human life is devalued. The people who create the revolution are impersonal. The hero of Yevgeny Zamyatin is rushing on a tram into the unknown: “temporarily there was a dragon with a rifle, rushing into the unknown. The cap fit on the nose and, of course, would have swallowed the dragon's head if it weren't for the ears: the cap sat on protruding ears, "there is no person, he was completely swallowed up by the essence, the hypostasis of a guide to the kingdom of God. The famous overcoat, sung by Russian writers, here is the embodiment of the brutal essence of the leader of the revolution. Babel has started six - he also has no name, he is ruthless and determined. In a delusional state, he dreams of the hero, who planted both eyes of the brigade commander with one shot.

At Zamyatin, the dragon suddenly meets a frozen sparrow, and saves him from death. At this moment, even from under the cap, eyes appear on the face, and hands peep out of the sleeves. The dragon that killed a man for an intelligent muzzle brings a small creature back to life. The hero of Babel falls asleep, but sees a terrible dream in which everything is mixed up. It is difficult to find meaning and peace in a house where in the room there are "scraps of women's fur coats on the floor, human feces and shards of sacred dishes used by Jews once a year - at Easter." Dream - reality - death - everything is mixed up, where the boundaries of the human world and where the delusional one is unknown. The question of a pregnant woman helps to return to reality: "... the Poles slaughtered him, and he prayed to them: kill me in the black yard so that my daughter does not see how I die ... I want to know where else on earth you will find such a father, like my father...” The horror of death is also terrible because those who are able to think about a future life, about a pregnant daughter, die.

The inhumanity and bloody slaughter that revolution and war bring with it are shown with all clarity. The call not to make such mistakes is heard in each of these works. It is necessary to remember this. Both writers tried to prevent future wars, knowing that they would not become more humane.

46. ​​Depiction of revolution and civil war in M. Bulgakov's novel "White Guard"

The novel action ends in 1925, and the work tells about the revolutionary events in Kyiv in the winter of 1918-1919. It tells about a very difficult time, when it was impossible to understand everything at once, to understand everything, to reconcile conflicting feelings and thoughts within themselves. This novel captures the still burning, burning memories of the city of Kyiv during the Civil War.

The White Guard (1925) is a work of fiction showing the inside of the White Army. These are warriors full of valor, honor, faithful to the duty of protecting Russia. They give their lives for Russia, its honor - as they understand it. Bulgakov appears as a tragic and romantic artist at the same time. The house of the Turbins, where there was so much warmth, tenderness, mutual understanding, is interpreted as a symbol of Russia. Bulgakov's heroes die defending their Russia.

The social cataclysm exposes the characters - someone runs, someone prefers death in battle.

The narration is complex and multifaceted: there is an objective narration, a fantastic, fairy-tale manner, lyrical essays. The composition is complex: the montage of various pieces: the history of the Turbin family, the change of power, the rampage of the elements during the civil war, battle scenes, the fate of individual heroes. The ring composition begins and ends with a premonition of the apocalypse, the symbolism of which permeates the entire novel. The bloody events of the civil war are depicted as the Last Judgment. The "end of the world" has come, but the Turbines continue to live on - their salvation, this is their home, the hearth that Elena looks after, it is not in vain that the old life, the details (up to the mother's service) are emphasized.

Through the fate of the Turbins, B opens up the drama of the revolution and the civil war. The problem of moral choice in the play: Alexey - either to remain faithful to the oath, or to save the lives of people, he chooses lives: “Tear off your shoulder straps, throw your rifles and immediately go home!”. Human life is the highest value. B. took the revolution of 17 not only as a turning point in the history of Russia, but also in the fate of the Russian intelligentsia. In The White Guard, the largely autobiographical intelligent family of the Turbins is drawn into the events of the civil war. The main distinguishing feature of the novel is that the events of the revolution are maximally humanized in it. B's departure from the negative portrayal of the white movement brought accusations against the writer of trying to justify the white movement. For B, the house of the Turbins is the embodiment of that R, which is dear to him. G. Adamovich noted that the author showed his heroes in "misfortunes and defeats." The events of the revolution in the novel are "humanized to the maximum." “This was especially noticeable against the background of the familiar image of the “revolutionary masses” in the works of A. Serafimovich, B. Pilnyak, A. Bely and others,” Muromsky wrote.

The main theme is a historical catastrophe. B connects the personal with the socio-historical, puts the fate of an individual in connection with the fate of the country. Pushkin's principle of depiction is tradition - historical events through the fate of individuals. The death of the City is like the collapse of an entire civilization. The rejection of the methods of revolutionary violence in order to create a society of social harmony, the condemnation of the fratricidal war is expressed in the images of the prophetic dream of Alexei Turbin, in which the sergeant major Zhilin appears to him, who died in 1916 along with a squadron of hussars, and talks about paradise, in which he ended up and about the events of the civil war. The image of paradise, in a cat there is a place for everyone, they are “lonely killed” and white and red. It is no coincidence that in the prophetic dream of Alexei Turbin, the Lord says to the deceased Zhilin: "All of you, Zhilin, are the same - killed in the battlefield."

The turning point for the Turbins and other heroes of the novel is December 14, 1918, the battle with the Petliura troops, which was supposed to be a test of strength before subsequent battles with the Red Army, but turned into a defeat, a rout. This is the turning point and climax of the novel. A hunch flashes that everything is a chain of mistakes and delusions, that the duty is not to protect the collapsed monarchy and the traitor hetman, and honor is in something else. Tsarist Russia is dying, but Russia is alive...

One of the play's comical characters, Zhytomyr's cousin Larion, delivers an exalted monologue: "... My fragile ship was battered by the waves of the civil war for a long time... Until it was washed up in this cream-curtained harbor, among the people I liked so much.. .". Bulgakov saw the ideal in preserving the "cream curtain harbor", even though time had turned. Bulgakov clearly saw the Bolsheviks as a better alternative compared to the Petliura freemen and believed that the intellectuals who had survived the fire of the civil war should, reluctantly, come to terms with the Soviet regime. However, at the same time, one should preserve the dignity and inviolability of the inner spiritual world,

"White Guard" lies entirely in line with the traditions of Russian classical realistic prose. The society is depicted on the eve of its death. The task of the artist is to depict the dramatic reality of the real world as authentically as possible. Artistic means were not needed here.

A novel about historical upheaval. Bulgakov succeeded in portraying what Blok once foresaw, only without romantic pathos. There is no distance between the author and his hero - one of the main features of the work (although the novel is written in 3rd person). Psychologically, it does not exist, because. depicted the death of that part of society to which the author belongs, and he merges with his hero.

The only depoliticized novel about revolution and civil war. In other works, the confrontation of the parties was depicted everywhere, there was always a problem of choice. Sometimes the psychological complexity of the choice was demonstrated, sometimes the right to make a mistake. Complexity was required, the right to make mistakes too. An exception - perhaps, "Quiet Don".

Bulgakov portrays what is happening as a universal tragedy, with no choice. The very fact of the revolution for the artist is an act of destruction of the social environment to which the author and the characters belong. The White Guard is a novel about the end of life. The destruction of the environment necessarily entails the destruction of the meaning of existence. Physically, a person can be saved, but it will be a different person. The attitude of the author to what is happening is open. The last episode is symbolic: a picture close to the apocalypse is what the city expects. Final scene: night, city, freezing sentinel, he sees a red star - Mars - this is an apocalyptic picture.

The novel begins with a quiet bell ringing, and ends with a funeral, universal thunder of bells. (sic!) which heralds the death of the city.

M. Bulgakov's novel The White Guard (1922-1924) reflects the events of the civil war of the period 1918-1919. in his hometown of Kyiv. Bulgakov considers these events not from class or political positions, but from purely human ones. Whoever seizes the city - the hetman, the Petliurists or the Bolsheviks - blood inevitably flows, hundreds of people die in agony, while others become even more terribly hardened. Violence breeds more violence. This is what worries the writer the most.

The central image is the House, a symbol of the native hearth. Having gathered the heroes in the house on the eve of Christmas, the author thinks about the possible fate of both the characters themselves and the whole of Russia. “The year was great and terrible after the Nativity of Christ 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution ...” - this is how the novel begins, which tells about the fate of the Turbin family. They live in Kyiv, on Alekseevsky Spusk. Young people - Alexei, Elena, Nikolka - were left without parents. But they have a Home that contains not just things, but a way of life, traditions, inclusion in the national life. The Turbin House was erected on the "stone of faith" in Russia, Orthodoxy, the tsar, and culture. And so the House and the revolution became enemies. The Revolution came into conflict with the old House in order to leave children without faith, without a roof, without culture and destitute.