Which Russian author wrote the novel 'The White Guard'?

Mikhail Bulgakov wrote the novel “The White Guard.” The Russian author began the work in 1923, drawing on his experiences and memories of Kyiv during the upheavals of the Russian Civil War.

The novel follows the Turbin family as competing forces—including the White Army, Red Army, German troops, and Ukrainian nationalists—struggle for control of Kyiv in late 1918. Its historical setting and focus on Russian-speaking intellectuals and officers give it a distinctive place in twentieth-century Russian literature.

The novel first appeared in serialized form in the Soviet journal Rossiya in 1925, but the publication was stopped before the story was complete. A full edition appeared in Paris in 1927. Soviet publication was later censored, and the complete text was not published in the Soviet Union until 1989.

Readers sometimes confuse the novel with Bulgakov’s play The Days of the Turbins. That 1926 play is a stage adaptation based on The White Guard, not a separate author or source.