The White Guard

This painting is named after Michail Bulgakov’s homonymous novel. Kiev, after the fall of the Empire, after the uprising and the October Revolution. Russia, the Great Civil War. Warlords, illusions, the defeated Germans still holding Ukraine. Petliura’s short lived government. The Bolsheviks around. Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi, his Cavalry Division and Free Cossacks. His provisional government. The Colors of the fallen Empire. The horse, the Cossack. White of the winter snow, blue of the endless sky, red of the blood to shed. The colors beneath, rainbow-like yet chaotic. Like a snowstorm. A revolution itself. Covering the whole immense lands we all came from.