THE IMAGE OF THE CITY IN “THE WHITE GUARD” BY MIKHAIL BULGAKOV AND IN “THE CITY” BY VALERYAN PIDMOGILNY
Authors: Бортновски А. 
Published: July 2024

В статье сопоставлены образы Киева в романах Михаила Булгакова «Белая гвардия» и Валерьяна Пидмогильного «Город». Оба произведения были написаны в 1920-е гг. и отражают специфику киевской действительности в момент исторических перемен. Цель исследования — указание ключевых различий в изображении города русским и украинским писателями, которые обусловлены как национальным, так и социальным происхождением авторов. В статье также рассматривается вопрос, являются образы Киева в анализируемых романах комплементарными или взаимоисключающими.

The article compares the images of the city in the novels of Mikhail Bulgakov “The White Guard” (1925) and Valerian Pidmogilny “The City” (1928). The aim of the study is to reveal the peculiarities of the perception of the Kiev space in the works written in the 1920s, and reflecting the specifics of their time. At the same time, the authors are representatives of Russian and Ukrainian cultures, which is reflected in their views on Kiev. The analysis of the Kiev space is carried out in a geopoetic key, aimed at revealing the deep meaning of individual elements of urban reality. In the context of the analysis of the literary image of Kiev as an ethnoculturally heterogeneous space, the comparative analysis of the “White Guard” and the “City” corresponds to the principles of internal comparative studies, comparing the perception of a given territory from the point of view of national environments coexisting in it. Images of the Kiev space and its components (urban nature, monuments, linguistic space, city residents, etc.) in the “White Guard” and “City” represent two perspectives — the view of the defenders of the fortified city from external forces threatening it and the position of people aspiring to conquer and rebuild the city of representatives of the new era. For both the former and the latter, the city is of key importance. The look from within determines the attitude towards the city in Bulgakov’s novel — this is a native space filled with positive emotions, which becomes dangerous only at the moment of invasion of hostile external forces. However, even then, the characters can find shelter among family and friends, behind the “cream curtains” of their home. In Pidmogilny’s novel, Kiev is initially a space alien to the protagonist, he conquers the city, but does not cease to feel the loneliness and hostility of the surrounding reality. Bulgakov’s city relies on the legacy of the past, which should help to withstand historical turmoil, while Pidmogilny’s Kiev rejects its history and traditions. This is due not only to the specifics of the Soviet era — the article provides arguments in favor of the assertion that the Ukrainian context of the novel “City” is by no means secondary. Therefore, Kiev at Pidmogilny’s novel should become not so much Soviet as Ukrainian, thereby ensuring the final conquest of the urban space by Ukrainian culture, previously traditionally associated with the life of the province. Thus, the “White Guard” Русская и зарубежная литературы: сопоставительные планы 73 and “The City” present two national environments that for centuries played a dominant role in the formation of the specificity of the Kiev cultural space and perceived the importance of the city in different ways. Comparison of its images in the analyzed novels reveals the key differences in the perception of the city in the Russian and Ukrainian ethnocultural key, proving the importance of both angles for the holistic characterization of the image of Kiev in fictional writing.