Background for The White Guard Read-along

Setting the scene in Kiev, December 1918.

Sep 19, 2025

Introduction to The White Guard Read-Along

This month I’m preparing to lead a read-along of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The White Guard in October. To set the stage, I’ve been turning not only to Bulgakov’s novel but also to history books for context—most notably Orlando Figes’ A People’s Tragedy. In Part Four, Chapter 12, Figes calls The White Guard Bulgakov’s “wonderful novel,” underscoring its value as both literature and a vivid historical witness.

As I began reading the first two chapters, three immediate questions arose:

Who was Symon Petlyura?
What is a Hetman?
Why are there Germans in Kiev?

Since many of us will likely wonder the same, I thought it best to prepare the ground with a little background before diving into the Turbins’ world.

Background: Revolution and Civil War

In October 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, sweeping away the Provisional Government that had been in power for only eight months following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. Their revolution was both precarious and brutal. To imagine the upheaval, think of your own life—secure, familiar, full of books, possessions and routines—and then picture a coup that overturns everything overnight. That was the shock experienced by millions across the former Russian Empire.

Ukraine, long under Russian rule, declared autonomy in 1917 as the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UPR). Its parliament, the Central Rada, was led by historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, with Volodymyr Vynnychenko as prime minister and Symon Petlyura as military secretary. Yet this fledgling republic was caught between two great forces: the advancing Bolsheviks to the north and the Central Powers of Germany and Austro-Hungary, locked in the Great War to the west.

In March 1918, desperate to end Russia’s involvement in the war, the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany and Austro-Hungary. Under its terms, German troops entered Ukraine—not just to drive out Bolsheviks, but to secure grain, coal and raw materials for their war effort. Backed by this foreign presence, General Pavlo Skoropadsky staged a coup, overthrew the Rada, and proclaimed himself Hetman of Ukraine.

December 1918: The Moment of the Novel

The Hetmanate, however, was fragile. Once Germany was defeated in November 1918, Skoropadsky lost his support. Within weeks, the Directory of Ukraine, a revolutionary committee led in practice by Petlyura, seized power. By December, German forces were withdrawing from Kiev just as Petlyura’s troops were advancing.

At the same time, the White armies—the anti-Bolshevik forces—were regrouping to the south on the Don and in the Kuban under Generals Denikin and Kornilov. Their goal was to defeat the Reds and restore a “united and indivisible Russia,” rejecting both Bolshevik revolution and Ukrainian separatism. Though far from Kiev, the Whites loomed large in the imagination of young officers and students, many of whom dreamed of slipping away to join the Volunteer Army. For Bulgakov’s Kiev, the Whites represented a distant hope of order, even as the city itself was left exposed to Petlyura’s advance.

This is precisely where The White Guard begins—December 1918, in medias res, with the Turbin family caught at the center of collapsing regimes and shifting armies.

Petlyura, Hetmans and Germans

Symon Petlyura: Once a socialist journalist and member of the Central Rada, Petlyura emerged as the Directory’s most forceful leader. In 1919 he became Chief Otaman, effectively head of state of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and to Bulgakov’s Kiev he represented turbulent Ukrainian nationalism sweeping into the city after the Hetmanate’s fall.
Hetman: The title (Ukrainian: гетьман) harkens back to the 15th–18th centuries, when it denoted the supreme military leader in Poland-Lithuania and Cossack Ukraine. In 1918 Skoropadsky revived this archaic title as he sought to cloak his German-backed regime in national tradition. Bulgakov himself wryly remarks in Chapter 4 that it was “a title more appropriate for the seventeenth century than the twentieth.”
The Germans in Kiev: Their presence was the direct result of the Brest-Litovsk treaty. While they kept order for much of 1918, they were resented as occupiers. Their sudden withdrawal at the end of the year left a dangerous vacuum—one that Petlyura’s Directory forces rushed to fill.

Literature and History Intertwined

Figes describes the dispossessed young officers who roamed cities like Kiev after the front collapsed: penniless, homeless, seething with anger, and ready to fight in the civil war. Bulgakov, writing from his own memories of Kiev in those days, captures this same dispossession and desperation. His characters are not just fictional creations—they echo real figures, like Roman Gul’, who fled Bolshevik terror, saw their family estates destroyed, and resolved to join the Whites in vengeance.

Others, by contrast, fled Bolshevik lands with their wealth intact and found relative safety in Kiev under German and Hetmanate protection. Bulgakov portrays both groups: those hardened into fighters and those resigned to wait and see. Even Yelena Turbin’s husband, Captain Talberg, reflects this divide—choosing to leave Kiev with the Germans in Chapter 2.

Why This Matters for Our Read-Along

All of this is the backdrop to The White Guard. Bulgakov’s novel is not a broad history of the Russian Civil War but a deeply personal account of how one family—and by extension, an entire city—endured this brief, chaotic moment in December 1918. Knowing the shifting factions helps us appreciate the disorientation of Bulgakov’s characters, who find themselves stranded between German occupiers, a collapsing Hetmanate, advancing Petlyurists and the looming Bolshevik threat. Meanwhile, the Whites hover offstage—an uncertain salvation, never quite arriving in Kiev.

That is the stage on which the Turbins’ story unfolds, and it is what makes The White Guard such a unique literary window into history.

Timeline of Events

Join the Read-along

The read-along begins on 1 October and runs through to the end of the month. The novel has twenty chapters and the Roger Cockrell translation has 265 pages. To keep it simple, we’ll read five chapters a week:

1–7 October - Chapters 1–5
8–14 October - Chapters 6–10
15–21 October - Chapters 11–15
22–28 October - Chapters 16–20

Cockrell’s translation also has 29 pages of extra bibliographical material at the back of the book which is well worth reading.

If there is enough interest, I would love to host an online conference call for paid subscribers on Tuesday, 4 November at 8 p.m. UK time to chat about the novel. Please let me know in the comments if this is of interest to you.

Support the Channel

The translation I recommend is the Roger Cockrell translation, published by Alma Classics. Please support the channel by using this affiliate link. I use a localisation service and the link offers a choice of five online stores: Amazon, Blackwell’s, Waterstones, Bookshop.org UK and Bookshop.org USA.

Actually, Alma Classics doesn’t seem to be available on Bookshop.org in the USA.☹️

Audible also has the Cockrell translation, narrated by Nicholas Boulton.