Ivan Vladimirov is considered a Soviet artist. He had government awards, among his works there is a portrait of the "leader". But his main legacy is the illustrations of the Civil War. They are given "ideologically correct" names, the cycle includes several anti-white drawings (by the way, noticeably inferior to the rest - the author obviously did not draw them from the heart), but everything else is such a denunciation of Bolshevism that it is even surprising how blind the "comrades" were. And the denunciation is that Vladimirov, a documentary artist, simply displayed what he saw, and the Bolsheviks in his drawings turned out to be who they were - gopniks who mocked people. "A real artist must be truthful." In these drawings, Vladimirov was truthful and, thanks to him, we have an exceptional pictorial chronicle of the era.

Russia: the realities of revolution and civil war through the eyes of the artist Ivan Vladimirov (part 1)

Capture of White Guard spies

Peasant uprising on the estate of Prince Shakhovsky

Execution of peasants by White Cossacks

Capture of Wrangel tanks by the Red Army near Kakhovka

The flight of the bourgeoisie from Novorossiysk in 1920

"Cavalry" by I. E. Babel is a collection of short stories related to the theme of the civil war and the narrator in a single way. The stories from this book began to be published in 1923. Different in material, they painted a new and unexpected world. Fate decreed that, having accepted the revolution with its bewitching passion and gone into it, Babel begins to publish his stories and correspondence in the St. Petersburg newspaper Novaya Zhizn, which is facilitated by M. Gorky. But then, perhaps one of the first, he saw in the revolution a break in life, a break in history. Babel was aware of all this as a fracture of being. This sense of truth led Babel to the paths of war. In July 1920, he voluntarily went to the front, to the First Cavalry Army.

Babel came to the front as a correspondent for the newspaper "Red Cavalryman" Kirill Vasilyevich Lyutov. Moving with parts, he kept a diary. Reading it, one cannot fail to notice that Babel was stunned: new impressions came into sharp conflict with his life experience. He saw something that he could not even think about: the troops and the Cossacks were serving with their equipment, with their horses and edged weapons. Separated from the army, the Cossacks were forced to feed themselves and provide themselves with horses at the expense of the local population, which often led to bloody incidents. They gave vent to their fatigue, anarchism, arrogance, disregard for the dignity of other people. Violence has become commonplace.

Babel saw in the soldiers their immaturity, lack of culture, rudeness, and it was hard for him to imagine how the ideas of revolution would germinate in the minds of these people. And, judging by the diary, a painful question arose in Babel’s soul: “Why do I have an unending longing?” And the answer was: “Because we are far from home, because we are destroying, we are going like a whirlwind, like lava ... life is flying apart, I am at a big ongoing memorial service.” The stories of Cavalry were based on the entries made by Babel in his diary. V The collection opens with the story "Crossing the Zbruch". The joy of victory from the capture of Novgorod-Volynsk is, as it were, emphasized by the joy of nature itself: “Fields of purple poppy bloom around us, the midday wind plays in the yellowing rye, virgin buckwheat rises on the horizon ...” And then: “the orange sun rolls across the sky, like a chopped off head", and the "gentle light", which "lights up in the gorges of the clouds", can no longer remove the disturbing anxiety. Pictures of victory acquire unusual cruelty. And then: "The smell of yesterday's blood of the killed horses drips into the evening coolness" - this phrase will "overturn" the whole triumphant chant of the story.

All this prepared the finale of the story: the sleeping Jewish neighbor was brutally stabbed to death. In the story “Letter”, Vasily Kurdyukov, a fighter of the First Cavalry, almost a boy, dictates a letter to his mother, in which he tells how his brother Senka “finished” the “dad” of the White Guard, who in turn “finished” his own son Fedya. And this is the truth of the civil war, when fathers and children become sworn enemies and without.

In the story “Salt”, Balmashev Nikita, in a letter to the editor, describes how he let a woman with a child into the car with the cavalrymen going to the front, and protected her from violence from her comrades, and when he found out that instead of a child she was carrying salt, he threw it away from the car and shot: "... I washed this shame from the face of the working land and the republic."

Babel describes heroism, just as spontaneous, but necessary in these conditions. The squadron commander Trunov, violating the charter, arbitrarily and cruelly cracked down on prisoners of war and immediately, together with a soldier, remains behind a machine gun in order to distract enemy aircraft from the squadron hiding in the forest.

On the grave of the “world hero Pasha Trunov”, the regiment commander Pugachev “shouted a speech about the dead soldiers from the First Cavalry, about this proud phalanx, hammering history on the anvil of future centuries” (“Squadron Trunov”). Focusing on the ordinary participants in the events, Babel says very little about the true leaders of the First Cavalry, who tamed this elemental freemen and turned it into an organized force. However, Babel does not hide his admiration for the commander Savitsky, whose prototype was the legendary Tymoshenko.

In all the stories of Cavalry there is the presence of the author himself, who, together with its heroes, went through a difficult path to comprehend the meaning of this bloody struggle. In the descriptions of events there is a cruel truth of the mighty bloody stream of life.

For an attempt to truthfully describe the events of the civil war, Babel was accused of "anti-Soviet conspiratorial terrorist activities ..." and in 1939 he was arrested, and in 1940 he was shot.

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 harbor with cream curtains, among the people that 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 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.

A Fiat light machine-gun armored car built by the Izhora plant and a Garford heavy machine-gun armored car built by the Putilov plant on Theater Square in Moscow. The picture was taken in July 1918 during the suppression of the uprising of the Left SRs. On the right side of the frame, on the building of the Shelaputinsky Theater (in 1918 it housed the K. Nezlobin Theater, and now the Russian Academic Youth Theater) you can read a poster with the title of the play "The King of the Jews", the author of which was Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov , cousin uncle of Nicholas II.

A soldier or commander of the Red Army with a badge of the 1918 model on his overcoat. The caption on the back of the photo: Filmed on December 26th of the new style of 1918. HELL. Tarasov. active army.

Members of one of the armed groups during the Civil War, presumably the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine under the command of Nestor Makhno. The soldier on the far right has a belt with a spin of the Russian Imperial Army turned upside down on his belt.