Many researchers consider the novel 'The Master and Margarita' to be one of the best works by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940), who gained fame in the late 20th century with its publication. However, his first novel, 'The White Guard,' is no less significant. It paved the way for the author's entry into narrative creativity in the early 1920s after the 1917 Bolshevik October Revolution granted freedom to all creators—writers, poets, artists, musicians, and playwrights—to find new means of expression. The revolution's slogan was change and the overthrow of bourgeois culture, with proletarian culture yet to be defined. This era of freedom was short-lived, as the 1930s ushered in a period of authoritarian rule and suppressed freedoms under Stalin. The first decade after the revolution yielded many great works, including 'And Quiet Flows the Don' by Mikhail Sholokhov, 'The White Guard' by Mikhail Bulgakov, 'The Sea of Youth' by Andrei Platonov, and the poetry of Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, and Vladimir Mayakovsky, among others.

• Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
• Translator: Abdullah Habba
• Publisher: National Center for Translation – Cairo
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Binding: Paperback