The White Guard (TV series)

The film tells about the arduous years of the civil war in Russia, portraying the fate of the Turbin family who fell into a cycle of sad events of the 1918-1919 winter in Kiev. The basis for the film's plot is the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov: The White Guard. The historical background of the film is the fall of the Ukrainian power of Hetman Skoropadsky, the capture of Kiev by UNR troops and their subsequent flight under the blows of the Red Army.

The protagonist Alexei Turbin is a military physician who has seen and experienced a lot during the three years of the world war. He is one of those tens of thousands of Russian officers who after the revolution found themselves in a situation of complete uncertainty in political and private life. Many of them went to the service of Hetman Skoropadsky and his moderate regime under the German protectorate, considering it a lesser evil than the red terror already noted in Kiev against officers and intelligentsia by the Bolsheviks. However, the German Empire was defeated on the fronts of the First World War, the Hetman fled with the Germans, and a few Russian officers and cadets remained the only force able to stand in the way of the followers of Symon Petliura coming to Kiev.

The series has received unanimously negative comments from all sides, the alterations of Bulgakov's novel and the acting skills of the actors being particularly criticised[3]

The Ukrainian Culture Ministry decides not to issue distribution licenses for it as they "show contempt for the Ukrainian language, people and the state," and "some facts are distorted to benefit Russia." [4]

• The Days of the Turbins - a 1976 Soviet film