Through a harsh winter, Ukraine is caught in a massive crisis. Chaos reigns in the capital as one government follows another, each unable to fully exercise its powers and enforce stability. In the east, various Russian forces are moving to control the territory. In the west and the center of the country, Ukrainian nationalist armies and self-defense units are vying among each other and fighting to expel the invading forces in order to establish an independent state. Russia and the Western powers are trying to influence events in order to gain influence and control of land, resources and population. The economy is near the brink of collapse.
That probably sounds familiar, yet these facts are not contemporary - in fact, they were described in 1925-1927 by the famous novelist Mikhail Bulgakov, as he wrote of the events of 1918-1919. Ukraine in these years plunged into civil war as the Russian Empire collapsed following the Bolshevik revolution, and numerous forces competed to shape the destiny of the short-lived and independent Ukrainian Republic.
Belaya Gvardiya (The White Guard) centers around the Turbin family as they try to make sense out of the chaotic winter of 1918-1919. By the end of 1918, Ukraine, an inseparable part of the Russian Empire for several centuries, suddenly found itself at the epicenter of a struggle among numerous competing interests. As the occupying German and Austrian armies withdrew from what became Ukraine following their defeat in World War I, various Ukrainian nationalist forces, anti-Bolshevik "White" armies, and Bolshevik-Communist forces all fought to gain the upper hand and bring all of Ukraine under their control. In Kiev itself, an independent Ukrainian Republic suddenly found itself without crucial international patronage and support.
A multifaceted fight
The struggle went back and forth for more than a year. In the east, "White" monarchist forces under Russian Gen. Anton Denikin were advancing on Kiev, battling with the firm belief that all Russian imperial territories must be brought back into the fold. From the northeast, Bolshevik armies, bolstered by great numbers and using military equipment left over from the war, were also marching on Kiev, while simultaneously fighting Denikin and whatever Ukrainian forces stood in their way. In the west, center, and south of Ukraine, various nationalist forces tried to expel the Whites and the Reds, while at the same time seeking to come to an agreement over who might rule an independent Ukraine once the fighting ended. At the same time, recently victorious Western powers Britain and France were trying to decide who to support in order to further their interests and hedge against the eventual winner.
Belaya Gvardiya concentrates on the Turbin family because their predicament exemplifies the identity crisis gripping Ukraine - they are ethnically Russian military officers living in Kiev, the capital of the suddenly independent and chaotic Ukraine. They believe in and fight for the Russian imperial cause, while in and around the city, Ukrainian nationalism whips up militant, anti-Russian forces. The Turbins and their friends - also former imperial military officers - believe that the White forces will prevail. As the pages turn, their hope gives way to despair and confusion. In Bulgakov's words, "no one in the city knew what was happening in the rest of the country - a land where tens of millions of people lived and worked." The author masterfully relayed the chaos of the civil war in his writing - like James Joyce's "Ulysses," many pages are written in the stream-of-consciousness style, with paragraphs and sentences breaking off, single words filling entire pages, while the narrative jumps back and forth among various characters trying to hold on to small bits of information that may somehow tell them what is really taking place.
Bulgakov's Kiev is filled with rumors and hearsay, gunshots and far-off cannon fire ringing through the night, confusion over who really is in control and may be approaching the characters' town on a quest for liberation - that of Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petlyura, or that of Denikin or the Reds. Personal loyalties are tested as Turbin's friends, former military colleagues, and neighbors try to decide which force will emerge victorious, so that they may properly pledge their loyalty. Kiev seems to be split between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian factions, each wishing for their side to end the conflict and the uncertainty. The Turbins begin to realize that their positions, and their beliefs, are getting weaker and weaker as the months drag on. Being an ethnic Russian officer trying to keep Kiev for the the yet-to-be-restored Russian Empire becomes impossible as all manner of supplies - including manpower - grow scarce. At one point, Petlyura's nationalist forces enter Kiev and proceed to extract revenge on the losing side by hunting down and executing ethnic Russians suspected of being officers or of having connections to the previous government. Fear and chaos weigh heavy on the pages as the Turbins' fate hangs in the balance and the life they knew slips ever further under the fog of war and destruction.
Pondering the nature of Ukraine
Bulgakov's genius was in masterfully portraying just that fog of war, while at the same time speaking both through the Turbins' deeds and the broken, unconnected and indefinite actions of others in a city with no real law or government. He argues not just over the "Russian versus Ukrainian" aspect - he poses the question of what an independent Ukraine is supposed to be, and whose homeland it should become. While Bulgakov's work was critiqued in the Soviet Union for its sympathetic portrayal of the anti-Communist forces, the novel was nonetheless well received by the public, becoming a full-feature 1976 film that focused on the Turbin family (embedded above), rather than fully incorporating the developments of the civil war that plunged Kiev, and Ukraine, into chaos. Action takes a backseat to the arguments in Turbin's home as the war rages outside. In 2012, a Russian mini-series (embedded below) was released that put a more accurate spin on the novel. That version portrays heroic Russian officers trying to fight for the cause of the Russian Empire against Ukrainian nationalists. A big-budget production, its not-so-subtle anti-Ukrainian sentiment was not met well by many in modern Ukraine.
One hundred years ago, Ukraine was torn apart. Ukrainian and Russian nationalism eventually lost out to the unstoppable Communist ideology that would subsume and destroy all who rose in dissent. "Belaya Gvardiya" is an incredible glance through time at the worst effects of civil and nationalist wars. That Bulgakov's book would find a contemporary echo in today's fighting is a sad testament to the permanence of geopolitical completion over Ukraine. How this new round of fighting ends depends not just on the internal actors, but on the outside forces that seem to hold the fate of Ukraine in the balance.
