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[WHITE GUARD – FIRST PUBLICATION] Belaia gvardiia. Roman // Rossiia. Ezhemesiachnyi obshchestvennoliteraturnyi zhurnal [i.e. White Guard. Novel // Russia. Social and Literary Monthly Magazine] #4 for 1925

Bulgakov, M.

Item #2051

Moscow: Rossiia, 1925. P. 3–99. 23x16 cm. In original wrappers with letterpress design. Block weakened, fragments of spine lost, edges of covers faded, otherwise very good and clean internally.

First publication of chapters 1–7. One of 5000 copies.

This novel was conceived by the author as a large scale autobiographical trilogy covering the period of the Civil War but became the object of intrigue
and forgery. Mikhail Bulgakov completed ‘The White Guard’ in 1924, at the same time the first publication agreement was concluded with the magazine ‘Rossiia’. It was a successor of “the first non-party literary and social magazine” ‘Novaia Rossiia’. Both were edited by Isaia Lezhnev. In 1925 the magazine ‘Rossiia’ published 11 chapters of the novel (No. 4 and No. 5). The ending of the novel was planned for the sixth issue, but publication of the magazine was suspended; Lezhnev was arrested and forced to emigrate for 3 years. Bulgakov tried in vain to get the editor to return the unpublished manuscript of the last chapters. He addressed the publisher of the magazine Zakharii Kaganskii in 1925 and negotiated about a separate book edition. Bulgakov also adapted the novel for the MKHT production and composed the four-act play ‘The Days of the Turbins’.
In 1926, both Kaganskii and Lezhnev left the USSR. Most likely, the manuscript was taken out of the country alongside the agreement for the publication of the novel “The White Guard”. Abroad, Kaganskii declared that he had the right to publish books on behalf of Bulgakov. From this moment the intricate journey of the “White Guard” across Europe began, which ended with the publication of the novel in two countries in 1927.
Kaganskii settled in Paris where he opened a new publishing house, Concorde. In 1927, without Bulgakov’s approval, Concorde published the first 11 chapters (and the beginning of the 12th). The following year the company was closed. In 1927, soon after the Concorde volume, another pirate edition of the text appeared in Riga – using the same version of most chapters but with an additional counterfeit ending. Incensed by this forgery, Bulgakov decided to cooperate with a Paris publisher, E.A.Brenner and his company ‘Moskva’. The author sent him an amended version of remaining chapters of the novel, changing his original plan to develop “Belaia Gvardiia” into a trilogy. In 1929, the second volume of the novel was published in Paris. Together, two volumes were spread among emigre readers, and were used by Western publishers.

Worldcat shows paper copies located in Stanford and Harvard Universities.

Price: $2,500.00