SOCRATES AND THE GREEK TRAGEDY

Nietzsche’s attitude toward Socrates is certainly complex and contradictory to the point of inconsistency. It is lavishly laudatory in his 1872-1874 Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, yet unmistakably negative in the 1872 work The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. (Both works will be discussed later in this section.) Is Socrates the last of the magnificent Pre-Socratics, or a rude intruder in the delicate artistry of the Apollonian-Dionysian integrity of the Greeks, a destroyer of the old splendid culture, ushering in an entirely new rationalist culture, which the subsequent European civilization (including the modern era) had embraced at the expense of the good old days?

Socrates and the Greek Tragedy is Nietzsche’s early take on Socrates, later reprised and expanded by him in The Birth of Tragedy. In the latter work Nietzsche cites Socrates’ malignant influence on Euripides, the murderer of Greek Tragedy, as the root cause of the degeneration of Greek art, whose consequence was the morbid condition of subsequent Western spirituality.

Thus, from the cited later work, and from this 1871 Basel lecture, an impression may come, which is in fact a very common impression, that Nietzsche was an anti-Socratic, a Socrates-hater, and such. Let that wrong impression be dispelled with my reader by the antidote of the other, already mentioned work Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, from which comes this memorable excerpt which puts Nietzsche’s attitude to Socrates in proper perspective. This is by no means the only place where I am about to quote it, but in view of its critical importance, there is no harm in repeating it again and again:

“…Every nation is put to shame, if one points out such a wonderfully idealized company of philosophers as that of the early Greek masters, Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus and Socrates. All these men are integral, entire and self-contained and hewn out of one stone. Severe necessity exists between their thinking and their character. They are not bound by any convention, because at that time no professional class of philosophers and scholars existed.”

With this convincing vindication of Socrates, in Nietzsche’s perception of him, I see most fitting to end this entry.

THE GREEK MUSIC DRAMA

(This entry has become rather lengthy and perhaps unnecessarily so on account of Nietzsche’s long quotation. Yet I am reluctant to cut anything out of it, so the reader must bear with me, and hopefully suffer the ordeal of reading it all with gladness.)

Nietzsche’s Basel Lecture of January 18^th, 1870, under the title Das Griechische Musikdrama, is as always a highly valuable philological exercise, but it is definitely more than that. Its principal idea seems to be above all inspired not so much by the author’s scholarly pursuits in the aesthetics of Greek antiquity as by a direct influence on him by the towering figure of Richard Wagner. Although the name of Wagner isn’t mentioned once in the course of the lecture, the spirit of Wagner permeates it, and Wagner’s revolutionary work Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, written back in 1849, seems to be the proper inspiration of Nietzsche’s insight into the nature of Greek drama.

The opening lines of the lecture immediately contain clear references to Wagner, and Nietzsche’s deliberate use of the term “Grand Opera” makes it even more explicit, as he contrasts it to the common term “opera,” to identify it thus as non-Wagnerian opera. (…The following fairly large excerpt from the beginning of the lecture will give the reader some taste of it, which I am eager to do, despite the fact that it rather distorts the architecture of the present entry. The reader may read it independently from the rest of my entry, and skip it when reading the entry itself.)---

In our contemporary drama we do not find only memories and echoes of the dramatic arts of Greece: rather its basic forms are rooted in Hellenic soil, from which they grow naturally or to which they are more artificially related. Only their names have become subject to numerous shifts and changes…

We encounter similar confusions in the field of dramatic terminology: what the Athenians called tragedy is something which, if we had to find a term, we would call “Grand Opera”; at least, this is what Voltaire did in a letter to Cardinal Quirini.

By contrast, a Greek would recognize in our tragedy almost nothing corresponding to his tragedy; although he would certainly guess that the entire structure and fundamental character of Shakespeare’s tragedy was borrowed from what he would call New Comedy. In fact, it is from this source, after incredible stretches of time, that the Romanic-Germanic mystery- or morality-play, and finally Shakespearian tragedy, arises: in a similar way that in its external form the genealogical relationship of Shakespeare’s stage to that of the New Attic Comedy cannot be overlooked. Whilst we can recognize here a development that progresses naturally across the millennia, modern art has deliberately immunized itself against the real tragedy of antiquity, the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles. What, today, we call opera, the distorted image of the music drama of antiquity, has arisen through a direct mimicry of antiquity: without the unconscious force of a natural drive, but formed in accordance with an abstract theory, it has behaved like an artificially produced homunculus, as if it were the evil imp of our modern musical development. The noble and scholarly Florentines to whom opera owes its origin at the beginning of the seventeenth century had a clearly articulated intention of renewing precisely those musical effects which music, according to numerous eloquent testimonies, had had in antiquity. It’s quite remarkable! The first thought concerning opera already involved a striving for effect. Through such experiments the roots of an unconscious art nourished by the life of the people were cut off or at least severely mutilated. Thus, in France popular drama was displaced by so-called classical tragedy, in other words a genre that had arisen in a purely scholarly way and supposedly contained the quintessence of tragedy, without any admixture. In Germany too, the natural root of drama, the Shrovetide play, has been undermined since the Reformation; ever since, the new creation of national form has hardly ever been tried, instead the models of foreign nations govern our thinking and writing. The real obstacle to the development of modern art-forms is erudition, conscious knowledge, and an excess of knowledge: all growth and development in the realm of art has to take place in deepest night. The history of music teaches us that a healthy progressive development of Greek music in the early Middle Ages was suddenly blocked and hindered in an extreme way when one used scholarship in theory and practice to return to the age of antiquity. The result was an unbelievable impoverishment of taste: […]. This was “literary music,” music to be read. What seems to us like an obvious absurdity may well have immediately appeared as such only to a few in the field I wish to discuss. I maintain that such well-known writers as Aeschylus and Sophocles are known to us only as librettists, as writers of lyrics; in other words, that we do not know them at all. While in the sphere of music we have long gone beyond the scholarly shadow-play of music to be read, in the sphere of poetry the unnaturalness of writing accompanying texts is itself so dominant that it requires considerable effort to tell oneself just how unfair we must be to Pindar, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, which is the reason why we do not really know them. If we call them poets, we mean writers of lyrics: but for precisely that reason we lose the insight into their being that we can only have if we present the opera to our mind’s eye in a moment of imaginative power and in such an idealized way that we are granted an intuition into the music drama of antiquity. For, however distorted all its relations to so-called grand opera are, and however much it is a product of distraction, rather than composure, the slave of the poorest rhyming and unworthy music: however much everything connected with it is lies and shamelessness: nevertheless, there is no other means of understanding Sophocles than to try to discern the original image in this caricature, excluding from thought in moments of enthusiasm all its distortions and deformations. That fantasy image then has to be carefully examined and, in its individual parts, held up against the tradition of antiquity, so that we do not over-Hellenize the Hellenics and invent a work of art that has never existed anywhere in the world. This is no small danger. After all, until recently it was considered to be an unconditional axiom of art that all idealistic sculpture had to be uncolored and that sculpture in antiquity did not permit the use of color. Quite slowly and encountering the resistance of all those ultra-Hellenists it has gradually become possible to accept the polychrome view of ancient sculpture, according to which we should no longer imagine that statues were naked, but clothed in a colorful coating. Similarly, general approval is now given to the aesthetic principle that a union of two or more art forms cannot produce an intensification of aesthetic pleasure, but is rather a barbaric error of taste. But this principle proves above all the bad modern way we have become accustomed to the idea that we can no longer enjoy as complete human beings: we are, as it were, torn into little pieces by absolute art-forms, and hence enjoy as little pieces — in one moment as human beings who listen, in another as human beings who see, and so on.

Let us contrast this view with what the brilliant Anselm Feuerbach has to say about the drama of antiquity as a total work of art:

“It is not surprising,” he says, “that a profound elective affinity allows the individual art forms to blend together again into an inseparable whole, into a new art-form. The Olympic Games brought the separate Greek tribes together into a political and religious unity: the dramatic festival is like a festive reunification of the Greek art-forms. The model for this already existed in those temple festivals where the plastic appearance of the god was celebrated in front of a devout audience by means of dance and song. As there, so here architecture constituted the framework and the foundation, by means of which the higher poetic sphere is visibly separated from reality. We see the painter at work on the backdrop and all the charm of a bright display of color in the magnificence of the costumes. The art of poetry has taken over the soul of the whole; but it has done so, not as a single poetic form, as in the worship of the temple, for instance, as a hymn. The reports of the Angelos and the Exangelos, so important for the Greek drama, or of the actors themselves, lead us back to the epic. Lyric poetry has its place in the scenes of passion and in the chorus, in all its various degrees from the unmediated outbreak of feeling in exclamations, from the most delicate blossoming of song up to the hymn and the dithyramb. In recitation and song, in the playing of the flute and in the rhythmic steps of the dance, the circle is not entirely closed. For if poetry is the innermost basic element of the drama, it is in its new form that it meets together with sculpture.”

(End of the lengthy quotation. The following is the proper ending of my entry.)

Nietzsche’s basic idea about the Greek drama as an organic and perfectly harmonious unity of mainly word and music (plus dance and visual arts, such as costume and sets coloring, etc.) effectively bestows on Wagner the mantle of the heir to Aeschylus whom Nietzsche suspects of being not just the writer of the lyrics of his tragedies, but the music composer, the set decorator, etc.---

Tightly bound, yet possessing grace; a multiplicity, yet a unity; many arts working at their highest level, yet one single work of art — that is the ancient music drama.

And here at the very end of the lecture is the most direct reference to Wagner without mentioning his name, yet unmistakable:

Whoever looks at it and is reminded of the ideal espoused by a certain contemporary reformer of art, will at the same time say to himself that this art-work of the future is by no means a gleaming, yet deceptive mirage: what we hope for the future is something that was once reality — in a past that belongs two thousand years ago.

PRESOCRATICA SEMPERVIRENS

The subject of this section is a beautiful ever-blooming flower that abundantly merits its pseudo-botanical species designation which I have coined for it. It is not merely by coincidence that this section follows my Nietzsche section in an immediate structural sequence. My friend Nietzsche has indeed many features that can legitimately count him among the pre-Socratic philosophers, which fact is explicitly underscored in his personal preference for them, shining through his splendid work Philosophy During the Tragic Age of the Greeks, and, of course, practically through all his other great works.

Practically everything Nietzsche says about the pre-Socratics in the following paragraph from Philosophy can be equally applied to him as well:

“Any nation is put to shame when one points out such a wonderfully idealized company of philosophers as that of the early Greek masters, Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus and Socrates. All those men are integral, entire, and self-contained, and hewn out of one stone. Severe necessity exists between their thinking and their character. They are not bound by any convention, because at that time a professional class of philosophers and scholars did not exist. They all stand before us in magnificent solitude, as the only ones who then devoted their life exclusively to knowledge. They all possess the virtuous energy of the Ancients, whereby they excel all the later philosophers in finding their own form and perfecting it by metamorphosis in its most minute details and general aspect. For they were met by no helpful and facilitating fashion. Thus, together, they form what Schopenhauer, in opposition to the “Republic of Scholars,” has called a “Republic of Geniuses”;--- one giant calls to another across the arid intervals of ages, and, undisturbed by a wanton noisy race of dwarfs, creeping about beneath them,--- the sublime intercourse of spirits continues.”

Even those aspects of this paragraph which ostensibly do not apply, can be reconstituted in such a way that makes them exceptions which only prove the rule. Thus we can well say that Nietzsche, too, is not bound by any convention, even more remarkably, given that in his time a professional class of philosophers had long been established.

But returning to the “literal” pre-Socratics now, it is terribly unfortunate for all of us that their works have not been able to reach us, except in fragments and in references by later philosophers, particularly by Plato and Aristotle, whose accounts may not have been altogether objective, because of their immense egos, that may have been inserted into their interpretations. But here is what Lord Bertrand Russell has to say about this “second-hand” inconvenience, in the essay on Heraclitus in his History of Western Philosophy:

“(Heraclitus) works, like those of all philosophers before Plato, are only known through quotations, largely made by Plato or Aristotle for the sake of refutation. When one thinks what would become of any modern philosopher if he were only known through the polemics of his rivals, one can see how admirable the pre-Socratics must have been, since even through the mist of malice spread by their enemies they still appear great.”

Among other things that can be said about them, the pre-Socratics, more than anybody else, have deserved the epithet renaissance men, being all things in one, philosophers, poets, scientists, even religious leaders. We may scoff at their level of science as much as we like, but their perspicacity in working with what they had got, is second to no Dèscartes, Pascal, or Einstein. Besides, there is another peculiar factor here, which I cannot fail to point out.

The ancients talking about physics isn’t all nonsense. These were great men, and they can teach us a great deal. What they indeed show us in their desperately outdated, and often ridiculous, scientific opinions, are their thinking patterns which are of the greatest interest to our own thinking and hypothesizing about things which we do not know.

(I must make an interpolation here concerning the impressive scientific achievements of the pre-Socratics, whom I may have inadvertently offended, suggesting that their talk about physics may sound ludicrous to modern ears. In fact, their physics was quite sophisticated, even by our modern standards. Long before the earth was still represented in Christian cartography as a flat circular disk, long before the support system for it required either three whales or four elephants standing on a giant turtle, there used to be a spherical earth, attributed to Pythagoras, who was reasoning wisely that--- once we had learned that the sun and the moon were spherical,--- why would the earth be anything else?)

And lastly, let us remember my observation of the consistent monotheism, which can be accurately called philosophical monotheism, of the great Greeks, consistently referring to, or implying, one God, although themselves living in a distinctly polytheistic society. Without returning substantially to this subject, let me specify that this monotheism does not originate with Plato, but can be traced to its earliest manifestations, yes, in pre-Socratic philosophy, as I am going to convincingly demonstrate, when I am talking about each individual pre-Socratic. Therefore, the theological claim to original monotheism cannot be made on behalf of any of the great religions of our day, as PreSocratica Sempervirens is no less deserving of sharing that crown.

So, let us go back countless ages in time and enter their incomparably precious world of great wisdom and great learning with unavoidable admiration and awe.

THE MIRACLE OF GREECE

Being a Russian, I am very comfortable with Russia’s appropriation of the treasures of Western civilization. These treasures are by no means limited to the cultural gifts of Europe, but they naturally include the legacy of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, although with certain reservations, which we shall touch upon shortly. It is only the great cultural legacy of the East: China, Japan, India and such, that the Russians step away from, recognizing it as an entirely different matter, completely unknown, and even unknowable, that is alien, to the holder of the Russian soul. By a similar, if not quite the same token, the ancient Indian civilizations of the Americas are deemed no less alien, and they certainly are alien.

There is a somewhat disingenuous element, however, in holding on to the culture of ancient Middle East. In fact, although we are proudly claiming the ownership of it, spiritually it is by no means ours. Only with the Greeks does our true heritage begin. It is therefore astonishing how, out of a sudden, and seemingly without any historical continuity, and virtually ex nihilo, the ancient Greek culture was sprung upon the world.

We will be talking a lot about Homer here and elsewhere, but where does our Homer really come from, and what are his roots? Does he have any connection at all to the prehistoric Minoan civilization of Crete, and if this is true, why does our inquiry into the pre-Homeric past suddenly go dark? Why do we know Homer the Greek, but do not have any concrete name, even purely legendary, of “Homer” the Cretan?

There may be several different explanations of this, some of them even trivial; but none of them is satisfying enough to be accepted with relief. For my part, I am inclined to forgo all such desperate attempts to see clearly into the pre-Homeric mist, and welcome the humbling mystery of our limited knowledge. To me, the mystery of Homer’s appearance on the stage of world history, with everything which it has entailed, can be explained, very succinctly and painlessly, as simply: the miracle of Greece.

NEAREST TO DIVINITY

This is an excellent epigraph to my PreSocratica section, which would make Nietzsche proud. It comes out of hallowed antiquity, too, namely, from the great Cicero. Here it is:

“The nearer antiquity was to its divine origins, the more clearly it perceived what was true.” Cicero: Tusculanae Disputationes, i.

I could not have a better ornament for the present section!

CERTAMEN HOMERI ET HESIODI.

We mentioned the Certamen in the previous entry already, and also earlier among Nietzsches Werke, where it stands at #5 under the formal title Der Florentinische Tractat Über Homer und Hesiod. This philological essay, published like some of his earlier works in 1870 in the reputable Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, exhibits yet again Nietzsche’s eminent philological talent. For this reason, this work merits a separate entry, albeit a short one.

The poetic contest between Homer and Hesiod, in which the latter is declared the winner, and he receives a bronze tripod, which he dedicates to the Muses, is obviously a fictitious event described in an extant second century AD manuscript, yet claiming an earlier origin. In examining this document, as well as several other pertinent sources, Nietzsche comes to the conclusion that it must come from as early as fourth century BC, and attributes it to the Greek sophist Alcidamas, specifically to his work Mouseion.

Although it was merely an educated assertion on his part, twentieth century’s discoveries of certain ancient manuscripts have confirmed Nietzsche’s hypothesis beyond any doubt.

Bravo, Nietzsche the philologist!

THE GENIUS BEHIND HOMER

(This is a comment on young Nietzsche’s lecture Homer and Classical Philology.)

In an earlier section I have already expressed my opinion regarding the identity of Homer. It is curious how Nietzsche in his 1869 Inaugural lecture Homer and Classical Philology delivered at the University of Basel parallels some of my main points and concerns, but arrives at the opposite conclusion. This entry, therefore, focuses on the Homer Question in Nietzsche’s lecture, and reiterates my own position with his argument in mind.

The Iliad and the Odyssey are monumental works of genius, and making one step further they are the works of a genius. Such is Nietzsche’s well-argued point, and so far I am in full agreement with him. Furthermore he is passionately opposed to the unwarranted fancy of a number of classical scholars to ascribe Homer’s masterpieces to some sort of collective national genius, the soul of the people, thus de-personalizing them, and presenting them merely as a gradual and painstaking process of literary development, which may have amounted to a comprehensive effort in time spread over several centuries, on the part of scores of creative “retellers,” weaving diverse plots from different sources, and spicing them up with their own input, to produce a giant, and incredibly complex canvass, which has come down to us under the symbolic nametag of “Homer.”

No, not according to Nietzsche! Thankfully, he insists that the Iliad and the Odyssey do have an author. But there is a big snag here: that author is… not Homer!

According to Nietzsche’s argument,--- “the name of ‘Homer’ from the very beginning has no connection either with the conception of aesthetic perfection, or with the Iliad and the Odyssey. As the composer of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer is not a historical tradition, but an aesthetic judgment.

It is, however, by no means affirmed against the poet of these epics that he was merely the imaginary being of an aesthetic impossibility, which can be the opinion of only very few philologists, indeed. The majority say that a single individual was responsible for the general design of a poem such as the Iliad, and, further, that this individual was Homer. The first part of this contention may be admitted; but, in accordance with what I have said, the latter part must be denied.

We believe in a great poet, as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey,--- but not that Homer was this poet.

The decision on this point has already been given. The generation that invented those numerous Homeric fables, that poetized the myth of the contest between Homer and Hesiod [Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi] and looked upon all the poems of the epic cycle as Homeric, did not feel an aesthetic, but a material singularity, when pronouncing the name “Homer.” This period regards Homer as belonging to the ranks of artists like Orpheus, Eumolpus, Daedalus, and Olympus, the mythical discoverers of a new branch of art, to whom all the later fruits, which grew from the new branch, were, therefore, thankfully dedicated. And the wonderful genius to whom we owe the Iliad and the Odyssey belongs to this thankful posterity-- he, too, sacrificed his name on the altar of the primeval father of the Homeric epic: “Homeros.”

How old was Professor Nietzsche when he fathered this argument, twenty-five? Brilliant scholarship, but he would never have become my soul mate with this! I am quite sure that an older Nietzsche would never be so cocksure in playing the role of the conventional critical historian of world literature. He would, predictably, manage to brew some delicious controversy then and there, but not of the nature of his Homeric argument in the Basel lecture which we are now discussing.

But let me have my counterargument now. First, I repeat that the Homer lecture shows Nietzsche at twenty-five already a masterful thinker and an artist of literary expression. As such, he would certainly have very much impressed me, had this lecture been the first work of his that I had come across. But his argument is shallow and not controversial enough to stand on its own merit. Now, let us get into some detail.

We both agree that the Iliad and the Odyssey did have an author. I knew it, of course, since early childhood. It was part of my immersion into world culture, which had shaped my aesthetic taste, my thinking, and my whole being. The name Homer for me is an integral part of that culture and he has been known to me as the author of two monumental Greek masterpieces, the Iliad and the Odyssey. To deny this cultural fact will be an attack on the integrity of Western Civilization, and that, for the following reason:

We know that world culture is rooted in folklore, mythology, fable and, to use Nietzsche’s own term coined by him later, in monumental history, which itself consists mostly of legends and mythology, not to mention other forms of created fiction. The fictional element in culture is readily recognized and embraced. We are accustomed to the legend of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, having been raised by a lupa, but we do not want to kill the charm of the legend by questioning whether this lupa had come out of a jungle or she had been a prostitute from a lupanarium. We read Herodotus and Plutarch without wanting to question their veracity and factuality, because we realize that after thousands of years which have passed, everything must be a legend, and we are looking for more imposing perennial values in these legends, rather than their veracity and factuality.

Had it been possible to establish the actual name of the creator of the Iliad and the Odyssey, it would have been the duty of the philologists and historians to reveal it, and have it etched on the pedestal, where stands the statue of the old bearded man, whom we have always known as Homer. But, by now, this would be an impossible feat, and we owe it to the genius behind these great epics not to leave the author’s pedestal empty, without any figure on it, and the figure itself, without any name inscribed underneath. And so, in honor of that genius, let us have such an explicitly named figure of him, and for the lack of any other proper name to give him, let us call him by that consummately venerable name, sanctified by the millennia of the human civilization and tradition, which is the name of Homer.

THOROUGHNESS IS NOT A NAME FOR A FREE SPIRIT

In writing a glowing personal reference for me, to use with my prospective applications to Universities for a teaching job, State Senator Milton Marks of California chose to describe me professionally as “thorough.” I wonder where he got this idea from, but certainly not from a personal observation, I hope. Perhaps, he knew what he was doing. I guess that to describe a scholar as ‘thorough’ is as formulaic in America as describing an applicant as ‘ideologically seasoned and morally stable’ had been the formulaic requisite of all character references in the Soviet Union, of blessed memory.

But if I had a say in my own academic referencing, I would never have gone along with Senator Marks, but rather with Nietzsche, applying to myself what he says about himself in Ecce Homo: “I am always equal to accidents; I have to be unprepared to be the master of myself.” This applies to me almost perfectly, both in other scholars’ opinion of me (Permyakov, Smoke, and several others), and in my personal understanding of my own nature. (The big deal, however, is that, honestly, only the second part of it is a perfect fit, while the word “always” in the first part may not have always been true, unfortunately. I still have to learn a lot about how to be always prepared to be unprepared…

Coming back to the question of thoroughness, on some occasions a well-intentioned compliment may turn out worse than any disparagement, when it entails a false perception, and therefore a false identification. A bird misidentified as a fish will have its wings soaked in water by its well-wishers each time they want to do it a favor. In this regard, the word thoroughness may seem like a really nice word to use in describing “a gentleman and a scholar,” but it is in no way appropriate when it is applied to the other type.

Nietzsche’s Jenseits (253), quoted below, contains the idea of different types of scholar: philosopher versus scientist. Attributing to the English this mediocrity of the spirit that characterizes the scientific, rather than creative mind of the original thinker, I wonder if Nietzsche is objectively right. or, reflecting an anti-English bias, he is merely committing the sin of an intellectual “racial profiling.” In this connection, it is funny how I myself have been misdiagnosed by Senator Marks, who called me “thorough,” which in Nietzsche’s usage may represent the assiduousness of the English type, whereas my real disposition, fortified by my fondness for Nietzsche’s wild and random kindred spirit, makes me seriously suspect myself of belonging to that other, distinctly random type. In fact, here is what I can quite honestly say about myself.-- Being this so-called “thorough” comes to me with an effort, whereas being profusely creative, and intellectually random, comes with no effort at all. Appearances must be so deceptive, or perhaps they are not even appearances, but some preexistent stereotypes, used in lieu of these appearances!

Anyway, here is Nietzsche in Jenseits (253): “There are truths which are recognized best by mediocre minds because they are most congenial to them; there are truths which have charm and seductive power only for mediocre spirits: we come up against this, perhaps, disagreeable proposition just now, since the spirit of respectable but mediocre Englishmen: I name Darwin, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spenser, is beginning to predominate in the middle regions of European taste. Indeed, who would doubt that it is useful that such spirits should rule at times? It would be a mistake to suppose that the spirits of a higher type that soar on their own paths would be particularly skillful at determining and collecting many small and common facts and then drawing conclusions from them: on the contrary, being exceptions, they are from the start at a disadvantage when it comes to the “rule.” Finally, they have more to do than merely to gain knowledge--- namely, to be something new, to signify something new, to represent new values.

Perhaps, the chasm between know and can is greater, also uncannier, than people suppose: those who can do things in the grand style, the creative, may possibly have to be lacking in knowledge, while, on the other hand, for scientific discoveries of the Darwin type a certain narrowness, aridity, and industrious diligence, something English in short, may not be a bad disposition.”

In this connection, I repeat again that, in so far as the “unscholarly” form, and occasionally flighty substance of my most current writing is concerned, I have nothing to improve, nothing to apologize for, and nothing more “academic” to offer to potential students. In a way, what I am today is consistent with what I used to be in my luckier younger days, when I ridiculed in my mind the trodden path of the professor: “If you wish to offer me that doctorate, I could, perhaps, consider it, but I would not want to go through the tedious motions of the standard procedure just for the sake of obtaining a meaningless piece of paper.” Indeed, I must have been reckless and silly, as seen from my distance and in the context of subsequent events, but at least Permyakov could understand, if not approve of, my stubbornness (I guess, he was too critical of himself in this respect, being a world-renowned scientist without any academic certification or even an honorary PhD rank, and could not possibly advise me to tread that same path!), while today’s another Grigori, Perelman, would certainly be equally able to understand and appreciate my erstwhile stubbornness…

DASEIN AND BEWUßTSEIN AS A ZERO-SUM GAME?

Here is yet another variation on the old Marxian wisdom Dasein Bestimmt Bewußtsein. What happens, we may ask, when the original Dasein changes dramatically in one person’s life? How does this change affect the old Bewußtsein? As far as my understanding of this goes, the altered Dasein cannot suddenly result in a brand-new Bewußtsein. It rather expands the old one.

As the memory of the old Dasein cannot be erased by the new Dasein experience, there is no substitution of the one by the other, but only an accretion, that is, a dramatic enrichment of the aggregate Bewußtsein. In a certain sense, a multiplicity of Daseins is beneficial to the life of the philosophical mind, which alone, by the way, is capable of handling such a change without being devastated by the crushing blow that such a change entails.

Now, how does this relate to my personal experience? For some reason, I am of two minds about this. In one of them, the philosopher rejoices; in the other, the “normal man” weeps.

How often do I lament about the treasures of my new Bewußtsein being wasted within the new Dasein, as if it were possible to travel back in time into my old Dasein, carrying back with me my new Bewußtsein… And so, I wish “if only” I could have my new “me” in my old life, without enough sense to admit that this is a theoretical and logical impossibility, and, even worse, an outright nonsense. My old life had been that old Dasein, and it was inextricably tied to the old Bewußtsein, with all its silly, but logical limitations.

Now, the only serious question outside such senile-infantile fantasies would be, whether it may be possible to use the new-improved Bewußtsein to somehow affect that new and essentially alien and hostile Dasein, altering it sufficiently, so as to benefit from the new understanding within the confines of a new being?

Metaphysically speaking, this may also present itself as an impossibility. Remember the stories of Aristides and Themistocles?! There is, apparently, some kind of balance in the aggregate value of the Dasein and the Bewußtsein. It seems as though any increase in the one must be leading to a decrease in the other. In other words, having taken the original Dasein-Bewußtsein correlation as a given, the rest becomes the ultimate zero-sum game.

Let me illustrate this point by a few examples. A young person of eighteen abandons the sheltered life of a small town and plunges into the new college life in a big city. If that is a life of sacrifice and learning, the Dasein of our student goes down, while the Bewußtsein climbs up. But as soon as the student, with the help of the money from home, establishes a ‘better’ Dasein, the attention to the minutia of the better life reflects negatively on the student’s capacity to sponge up learning, and so, the Bewußtsein goes down accordingly. Incidentally, no wonder that in common parlance the capable student is always depicted as a poor student, whereas the money which the student obtains by various means has come to be closely associated with wild parties and a dissipated life in general, where there is no place left for learning.

In my own painful experience in America, had I at any time succumbed to the pressures on the responsible man with a wife and two small children and sought to improve my family’s pitiful Dasein by the available means of compromising my conscience for a ‘successful’ career, rest assured that my precious Bewußtsein would have collapsed as a result, not just because of the instant detriment to my intellectual independence, leading to a warped capacity to absorb my experience (malabsorption), resulting in its poor digestion, and assimilation as knowledge, but also because of an enduring sense of guilt at the compromise, resulting in a bad conscience and an inevitably handicapped Bewußtsein.

THE VALUE OF THE NEW?

(An exercise in sociopathy?.. Well, not really…)

Wagner tells us, in his Ring, through Siegmund, Siegfried, and Brunhilde, that Heldentod is more important than Heldenleben, and that the hero’s purpose in life is to die, so that old life dies with him, giving way to a new life. Being an admiring Wagnerian, I am ready to accept such a fate: dying as the absolutely necessary introduction to a more comprehensive Götterdämmerung. But deep down in my heart, as I look around me, I am not sure that the new life, with its new trash culture, giving Götterdämmerung a new literal meaning, and coupled with the millennia-old, yet “immer neu” religion of the golden calf, presumably coming to supplant us, the old generation, on an "upward spiral," is really worth a single Heldentod…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. VIII.

Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.

The Spy Novel Concludes.

 

…No longer is Bulgakov using the Aesopian language, when he writes that “Yalta police insists that they did receive barefoot Stepa, and that they did send cables concerning him to Moscow, but not a single copy of these cables could be found in their files.”

But in fact the police ought to have kept copies of the cables. On the other hand, state security organs had control of the police, and with it the authority to remove any kind of papers from the police, considered a threat to state security for any reason whatsoever.

And in this case the reason was certainly important: Margarita’s husband. The police could divulge the fact that they had indeed sent the telegrams, and that they did not know where the copies were, but they could not talk about those copies having been removed by state security officials. Due to the drastic shortage of real information, that is the truth about this matter, people started spreading rumors about the supernatural forces. Incredible tales of bullets killing no one, of people disappearing without a trace, of some mysterious hypnotists, etc.

With the help of the fantastic, Bulgakov shows how “parallel reality” is created, where the “Aesopian language” must be deciphered, and one’s own common sense must be used.

“But it does happen, doesn’t it, that one gets tired and sick of her husband?” [says Koroviev.]

“Yes,” hollowly replied Margarita…

This dialogue tells us that Margarita must have had such conversations with foreigners. During their very first meeting, Azazello tells her that he is an assassin. This was in fact the reason why the security organs were worried at the ball. (In reality this could be a party for friends and acquaintances in Moscow.) There Margarita saw a man whom she and her husband had frequently met in restaurants and theaters.

“Margarita froze.” It is clear to us that she is very uncomfortable seeing people who could, in turn, identify her as associating with foreigners. This was the former baron Meigel, who is now working for state security organs. Bulgakov certainly despises this personage, perhaps he even hates him so much that he kills him off and deals with him in a gruesome manner: he is shot, his blood is drunk, his body is then buried underneath the parquet floor, and even that is not enough: his corpse burns in a fire, and as a result only burnt bones are left of Baron Meigel. Here we are witnessing Bulgakov settling some personal score. Perhaps Meigel was a counterintelligence officer who may have at one time “hurt his feelings” in the line of duty. As a Moscow celebrity, Bulgakov was frequently invited to embassy receptions. It was probably not what Meigel actually did, but how he treated Bulgakov.

It would be tempting to suggest that Bulgakov’s Meigel turned out to be a double agent in fact working for the foreigner “Woland,” but because the Woland group were arrested, their activities were stopped, and the attempt to assassinate Margarita’s husband failed, this was not the case. Apparently, Meigel brought this whole operation entrusted to him to a successful end.

I familiarized myself on the Internet with the biographies of the persons alleged to be Meigel’s prototypes. Both were executed in 1939, which has no bearing on our story. Many people (including military officers) were shot in 1937-1939, not because they were foreign agents, but because they had certain flaws of character, on the basis of which such conclusions, including their unreliability on foreign-occupied territory, were consequently made.

General Vlasov apparently did not have such flaws of character, and he was approved by Stalin personally as a Soviet plant with the Germans.

In the cases of people executed in those years, the information they possessed could not be compromised. In other words, they knew too much and could cause great harm to the USSR by divulging it in the event of the imminent war, which the Soviet Union was preparing for and trying to postpone as much as it could. [A good example of this was the Hitler-Stalin Pact.]

To give Bulgakov his due, he had an intense aversion for the real-life agent ‘Meigel.’ He probably “guessed” him with his sixth sense…

…But let us get back to the way that Bulgakov described the arrest of Woland and “his gang” in the realistic Master and Margarita.

“Yes, evidence was plenty already, and it was known whom and where to catch. The apartment had been long under suspicion. Guarded was not only the way that led into the yard through the gateway, but also the back door; moreover there were watchers on the roof by the chimneys… Such was the situation until midnight from Friday to Saturday, when Baron Meigel solemnly marched into Apartment #50 in the capacity of a guest. The watchers could hear how the baron was let into the apartment. Precisely ten minutes after that, without ringing the bell, the apartment was visited, yet not only the hosts were not found inside, but, what was altogether strange, there were no signs of baron Meigel in it, either.”

You remember of course the conversation between Margarita and Koroviev about the watchers of the house, and how they are all going to be arrested? Well, then, as Woland said, “to each according to his faith.”

I believe in my hero of the realistic novel Master and Margarita: a very major specialist, who also made a most important discovery of national significance. (More about this in my chapter on Bulgakov.) There is nothing fantastic about him for me here, and I even have a strong hunch about the nature of his most-important discovery…

There was really “nothing interesting” in this, as Koroviev told Margarita. Security agents entered the apartment, meeting no resistance. Everybody inside was arrested. It was nighttime, when Moscow slept. The fate of the arrested is unknown. Some may have had diplomatic immunity, others received jail time, or worse. But what is of the utmost importance, nothing could be made public. The Soviet Union was getting ready for World War II.

(At this point we are making a short break in Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov, after which the essay will resume with the most enigmatic and so far utterly unexplained character of Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita, namely, The Dark-Violet Knight.)

 

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. VII.

Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.

 The Spy Novel Continues.

Stepa Likhodeev.

Stepa Likhodeev, Director of the Variety Theater, experiences a striking encounter with the supernatural in Bulgakov’s novel… But that part of it belongs to the fantastic dimension. Now, what about the spy novel, which we are presently reconstructing? Clearly, Berlioz being dead, Likhodeev was the last man occupying the apartment #50, needed by the gang for their spy business, and he was also the man whose signature was needed, and obtained, by the gang, for their cover story. In other words, he was a man whose direct function had been accomplished, and who now had to be taken out of the way…

What we have learned upfront is that Stepa Likhodeev was the man who signed the infamous contract with Woland, authorizing that most unconventional séance of black magic at Likhodeev’s theater.

Indeed, Stepa has to answer some questions in a hurry, but instead of showing up at Finance Director Rimsky’s office in Moscow, as promised, he unexpectedly turns up in the resort city of Yalta, on Black Sea. At his urgent request, Yalta police contact Rimsky in Moscow by telegraph, and a frantic exchange of telegrams ensues, trying to establish not just the identity of the lost and paperless man, but also the seemingly impossible discrepancy of Stepa Likhodeev being in two far-apart places at almost the same time.

Such a discrepancy can be easily explained by the involvement of the demonic force, but our insistence on separating the reality from the fantasy requires a more solid investigation. We need to examine the witnesses. Granted, Stepa is in no shape to serve as a credible witness, but then we have Rimsky, and he is a much more reliable source…

 

Stepa Likhodeev thought he was among his own crowd, people he could trust. Bulgakov names only one of them: “author of sketches Khustov.” Also involved were a certain “woman” and, also nameless, an “actor with a gramophone.”

During their two-year stay in Moscow [see the fantastic novel about this], Azazello with Koroviev and Begemot naturally recruited some people. Stepa Likhodeev is important because of the time discrepancy, of which we learn from a conversation between finance director Rimsky and Varenukha. Let us together trace this discrepancy. Mind you, Rimsky is a dry unemotional man [making an unimpeachable witness for us], and here he is, talking to himself:

“But maybe it wasn’t Stepa talking to him on the phone? From his own apartment? No, that was Stepa! Doesn’t he [Rimsky] know Stepa’s voice?”

…Aren’t we hearing doubt in this train of thought? And now, again:

“…And even if today it wasn’t Stepa talking, then what about just last night when it was Stepa himself who came out of his own office into this exact [Rimsky’s] office with this stupid Agreement [contract], and kept annoying the finance director with his flippancy…”

…Now, if we read carefully through the confused monologue of the finance director Rimsky, it becomes all too clear that he himself admits the possibility that it wasn’t Likhodeev calling him on the phone in the morning…

“…Even if he flew out last night [to Yalta], he couldn’t possibly have arrived there by noon today… Or could he?”

And yet again, if Rimsky admits that Stepa left for Yalta the night before, then “this morning” he could not possibly have talked to him out of his Moscow apartment.

Observe how, in this monologue of Rimsky, Bulgakov plays with his reader, deliberately confusing him by the questions, substituting some words by others [agreement instead of contract, etc.].

The problem with Stepa is that he remembers too little. He does not even remember signing the contract. We may conclude from this that in contrast to Rimsky, Stepa is a miserable witness, who may have been not just drunk, but pumped with narcotics.

Naturally, whatever is of importance to us in this matter, comes to us from Rimsky:

(1). Stepa did sign the contract with Woland.

(2). It was possible that he could have left Moscow for Yalta the night before.

(3). It may not have been Stepa’s voice on the phone this morning.

(4). If he indeed left Moscow the night before, he could well have found himself in Yalta’s police precinct at 12:30 pm on the following day.

Thus, Stepa’s story becomes fairly simple. He was not only made drunk, but also drugged, and brought by two persons (most probably, by a man and a woman) to Yalta, where he was abandoned by them on the beach, half-dressed, and where he woke up next morning, and started sending out cables to his own Variety Theater from the police precinct from 12:30 pm on.

 

(This is by no means the end of Stepa Likhodeev’s story: he is far too important a character to be dispensed with so easily.)

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. VI.

Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.

 

The Spy Novel Continues.

 

…The big prise? The life of “a very prominent specialist, who has besides made a most important discovery of State significance.”

“But it does happen, doesn’t it, that one gets tired and sick of her husband?” [Koroviev was whispering.]

“Yes,” hollowly replied Margarita…

What else can they be talking about here, other than about the killing of Margarita’s husband?

…How did Margarita get to this point? When she first meets a member of Woland’s gang, he is none other than the killer Azazello. He knows suspiciously too many details about Margarita. The dried rose, Master’s photograph, and that she recites passages of Master’s novel from memory. Azazello must have learned all of it from Natasha, as there can be no other explanation.

It is true that Margarita indeed kept Master’s picture, half-burned pages of Pontius Pilate, and a dried rose in her secret dark [that is, windowless] room at the mansion, wherefrom she had the habit of taking them to her bedroom, where she could well be talking aloud to Master’s photograph about her sufferings. And surely Natasha was spying and eavesdropping on her, and she was passing this information on, both to the security organs and to Azazello.

At first, Margarita is calling Azazello a “street pimp,” but everything changes with the fact that Azazello is knowledgeable about Master being alive.

Nevertheless, Margarita is providing us with very important information:

“I never meet any foreigners, and I have no desire to associate with them, and besides, my husband…”

At this point she falls silent, because she knows that she cannot talk about her husband. She shifts the conversation, saying that she does not love her husband, but that she finds it unbecoming  her decency to ruin his life.

Although she is ready for anything to learn something about Master, and maybe even to see him, Margarita still realizes that she is being drawn into “a very strange story, but I swear, only because you lured me into it with the words about him.”

Then, seeing that the ointment given to her by Azazello comes in a gold box, she reacts:

“I get it, here is a thing made of pure gold, I can tell it from its weight. I understand quite well that I am being bribed and drawn into some dark business, for which I am going to pay a lot.”

And indeed, Margarita paid for this with her life…

…With all his complicated relationship with Russian intelligence, Bulgakov was of a very high opinion of the security organs. He shows this in many of his works, such as Rok’s [Fateful] Eggs; Alexander Pushkin; the novel about Pontius Pilate, and others. (I will talk more about this in my chapter on Bulgakov.)

Russian intelligence thrives on the image of the underdog. It’s also loathe to boast of its successes. Genuine secrets remain secrets forever. Russian intelligence operations stay always behind the scenes, for which reason they produce an impression of incompetence.

In real life, Russian intelligence used the ideas of Master and Margarita and conducted the eminently successful operation of smuggling Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago to the West. The book became the basis of the superb eponymous movie, seen by millions of people around the world. Soviet intelligence was able to pass on its propaganda (in the better sense of the word) about the Bolshevik Revolution, the Civil war, etc. without taking any credit for it…

In our realistic novel there are also some very interesting aspects, worth dwelling upon.

“Here’s what is unclear to me,” said Margarita, “how is it possible that the music and the great noise of this ball could not be heard from the outside?”

“Surely couldn’t be heard,” explained Koroviev. “It has to be done so that it cannot be heard. It has to be done carefully.”

“Here’s the thing, though, that the man on the stairs… when we were passing him with Azazello… and one more by the porch… I think that he was watching your apartment.”

“True, true!” cried Koroviev. “This is true, dear Margarita Nikolaevna. You confirm my suspicions! Yes, he’s been watching this apartment! I myself almost mistook him for an absent-minded professor, or someone in love, pining away on the stairs. But no, no such thing! Something was bothering my heart! Ach, he was indeed watching the apartment! And the other one, by the porch, he too. And the one who was in the side alley, the same thing!”

Now, here is a 1930’s dialogue straight from a modern James Bond movie:

“But what if, I wonder, they come to arrest you?” asked Margarita.

“Sure thing they will, by all means they will,” replied Koroviev. “I feel it in my heart, they will. But I think that nothing interesting will happen.”

The only way it can be interpreted is that either Woland and his retinue have diplomatic immunity, or else that they do not worry about being arrested, confident of being swiftly exchanged.

And so, Margarita’s husband, our nameless hero, has been taken out of Moscow during the Easter week… out of harm’s way, so to speak. One should think this over: who goes on a business trip during a holiday weekend?

One more clue on this we have courtesy of the director of the Variety Theater Stepa Likhodeev, whom the Woland gang sends out of Moscow to the Black Sea resort of Yalta…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. V.

Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.

The Spy Novel Continues.

 

…Now, as long as we have reached the point where “decks of cards” get into the picture, it’s time for us to talk about the “séance of black magic” itself. The point is that the séance in question is an allegory for espionage.

How else can we interpret this scene, for instance:

“…and having twirled his knobby fingers in front of Rimsky’s eyes, he suddenly produced, from behind Kot’s ear, Rimsky’s own gold watch with a chain, which had previously been tucked in finance director’s vest pocket, under the buttoned-up jacket and with the chain neatly passed through the loop.”

Here is a first-class allegory of a safecracker at work.

Bulgakov liked it so much that he repeated this allegory in a different setting:

“…He hits the heart on demand, any which atrium or any which ventricle.” [Margarita:] “But they are all covered!” [Koroviev:] “That’s the whole thing that they are covered. Anybody can hit something exposed!”

The most interesting action at the “séance of black magic” occurs also not on the stage, “exposed,” but in the preparatory work before that, “covered” from our eyes, as Bulgakov doesn’t write about this openly, but only hints.

Comrade Parchevsky, sitting in the stalls, was what they call “a mark,” chosen by the only member of the gang who is conspicuously absent from the stage, namely, Azazello. Before he would become a killer, Azazello obviously went through the whole school, starting most probably as a pickpocket. Lifting Parchevsky’s wallet at an eatery, and putting a deck of cards into it (having first examined the contents of the wallet, in order to impress the public with its details, and in the process embarrassing Parchevsky), must have been child’s play for Azazello. Getting up into the gallery, grumbling that they all (Woland and company) were crooks, and that they had their planted people in the hall…--- there was nothing to it.

It’s a similar trick to the one of the “regent” [that is, Koroviev, now being called Fagot: his names change frequently, depending on the circumstances devised by Bulgakov], early in the novel, putting up Ivanushka to yell the two of them together: “Help!!!”

“Now let’s do it together! All at once!” And here the regent opened his jaws wide. Losing his wits, Ivan obeyed the trickster regent and yelled “Help!!!” The regent fooled him, though. He didn’t yell anything.

…In Azazello’s particular case, he knew human nature in the crowd so well that he was confident that an idiot of some sort would be found who would repeat his words, granted, in his own way, but with delight, in order to stand out. This is exactly what happened.

“Old trick,” came a voice from the gallery. “That one in the stalls is one of their company!”

But this citizen was in for a surprise. As soon as he started yelling, Azazello planted a bundle of money on him, 1,000 rubles, to be precise. It was all beautifully played, like from a conductor’s score. (In order to understand Bulgakov, I recommend reading his short story Tarakan [Cockroach], where he shows how a team of three crooks work together.) The attention of the crowd now shifted from Parchevsky to the money, and the buying-selling business got into full gear. This is how Bulgakov shows the work of spies: to snoop out, to dispirit, to cheat, to embarrass, to convince everybody around of their all-knowing genius, and to rain money all over the place.

How do we know that Azazello was in the audience? Bulgakov drops his business card. Who else could respond to the question of what to do with the annoying compere:

“Rip off his head!” sternly said someone from the gallery.

This suggestion is literally followed in the fantastic novel. Kot tears off the compere’s head...

 

The buying-selling business, a most important attribute of espionage, begins with Fagot setting up a women’s boutique right on the stage, where beginning with the women, and then, with their help, perhaps, passing on to their husbands, lovers, fathers and brothers, they will all exchange their “old” Russian clothes for “new” foreign attire, so to speak.

The exchange of clothes is thus also being used by Bulgakov as an allegory of spy recruitment. Showing women without clothes on the streets of Moscow, Bulgakov implies arrests, just like the cut-off buttons on Master’s coat shows the reader that he had been arrested.

…And what about “poker,” you ask? Pay attention to the following curious phrase, presumably addressed to Parchevsky:

“…It wasn’t without a reason that yesterday at supper you said that life in Moscow would have been intolerable without poker…”

Fagot’s phrase was addressed to a man who had no idea not just of poker, but of playing-cards in general. Now, can this be the face of a poker player?---

“All crimson in his face with bewilderment, Parchevsky pulled a pack of cards out of his wallet [compliments of Azazello] and started poking it into the air, not knowing what to do with it.”

Vintage Bulgakov. Everything upside down.

The word poker appears in Bulgakov just once, and in such context it ought to attract the reader’s attention. Conclusion: At their séance of black magic Woland and Company make it clear that they are in Moscow to play some high-stakes poker. The big prise? The life of “a very prominent specialist, who has, besides, made a most important discovery of State significance.”

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. IV.

Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.

 The Spy Novel Continues.

 

Well, I have no idea what Natasha’s apartment number is going to be, wherever she is going to, but as for the apartment number in Moscow where the espionage activity, depicted in the novel, is going on,--- we know it quite well. That’s the infamous apartment #50 in a large six-storey building on Sadovaya Street. Some time ago it belonged to the jeweler M. De Fouger, but, as everyone knows, this jewelry business is a dangerous one, and although we do not know what exactly happened to him, we may reasonably suppose something awful. No matter what, tenants from this apartment kept disappearing, while M. De Fouger’s widow, in all probability, went on with his business as usual, right until she “disappeared” herself.

All these “irregularities” started two years before, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that if not Woland in person, then at least his “retinue” appeared in Moscow also two years ago. (I will be writing about all this in my Fantasy Novel of Master and Margarita.)

As of the moment of interest to us, that is, on the eve of Russian Easter, Berlioz, resident of apartment #50, has just been killed, and his apartment neighbor Stepa Likhodeev has been dispatched to Yalta by Woland’s gang.

The apartment is finally empty, and Koroviev, “interpreter to the person of a foreigner” [Woland], who, as we already know has no need for a translator, rents the apartment #50 from Nikanor Ivanovich, and complains to him thus:

“‘Here’s where I have them, these foreign tourists!’ complained Koroviev, sticking his finger into his veiny neck. ‘Frazzled my soul out of me, if you can believe that. He comes… spies all over, like a sonuvabitch…’”

And here is how the “visiting artist” Woland confesses to the buffet vendor Andrei Fokich Sokin:

“I will reveal a secret to you: I am not an artist at all, but I just wanted to see the Muscovites in numbers, and the most convenient way of doing it is in the theater. I was just sitting there, looking at the Muscovites.”

That selfsame Koroviev tells Margarita:

“Not in the least will I misstate my case if I mention a whimsically shuffled deck of cards… There are cases where even frontiers between states have no validity.”

Woland echoes the tune:

“Yes, Koroviev is right. How whimsically has the deck been shuffled!”

So, what does this tell us?

Woland does confess that he is no artist. Everything is upside down. It wasn’t the Muscovites who came to see the “magus” and his tricks, but he, the “magus,” the “visiting artist,” gathered the Muscovites to have a chance to look at them himself. Koroviev confesses that foreigners come to “spy,” like some sonsuvbitches.

In Margarita’s case, everything is simple. She joins Woland’s gang as a very important member (honestly speaking, not so much because of who and what she is, but primarily because of who she is married to). The gang was missing a queen, to form a royal flush, and now there are five of them at last.

I will be writing about Margarita’s genealogy in the fantastic novel and also about how Bulgakov arrived at this idea, which, incidentally, has nothing to do with any French Queens, ancient or modern.

I shall be giving the most realistic view of who Margarita is in my chapter on Bulgakov. Until that time, let us make a pause in that discussion.

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. III.

Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.

The Spy Novel Continues.

NATASHA THE SPY.

Natasha, the housemaid, naturally gossiped in her circle about Margarita and Master, and occasionally shared some details about her boss, Margarita’s husband.

And imagine that circle closing. No matter how much secrecy existed around Margarita’s husband, who had made a nationally important discovery, something, somewhere, somehow seeped out, and a group of expert foreign spies was dispatched to Moscow [our trio of “Azazello,” “Koroviev,” and “Begemot.”]. Their mission was to pinpoint the whereabouts of the scientist and to eliminate him. All these efforts had been in vain until the hounding of Master started in full swing. Natasha obviously recognized Master from a photograph, and now there were suddenly two VIP’s in her life. The foreign spies were now actively interested in Master’s story, which was now all over the papers, making it safe to show such an interest, their cover story. The spies expected to spread their net so wide, thanks to Master, that some much bigger fish would get caught in it. Va banque! Through her circle of similarly employed people, Natasha gets caught in the net. State security officials are now worried even more, but their kind of work forces them to accept the challenge. And Natasha, thus “caught in the net,” is being used for counterintelligence. Everybody involved, without exception, is under suspicion, and that includes Master. That’s how he gets arrested. Masterfully, Bulgakov shows that in Soviet Russia nobody got arrested for no reason, and all of them were arrested for a reason.

In his own life, Bulgakov had been interrogated on account of his participation in the White movement. [He served in the White Army as a military surgeon.] Besides, two of his brothers had fled abroad. Yes, he had been interrogated, but never arrested or jailed.

It wasn’t on Pontius Pilate’s account that Master got himself arrested, although Pilate may have been an excuse. Master was just unlucky in his choice of the mistress.

  

If we remember Bulgakov’s “Aesopian language,” everything becomes clear from Margarita’s conversation with Azazello: “Natasha is also bribed, yes?”

…“‘Housemaids know everything,’ remarked Kot [he was part of the “foreigner’s” retinue, as Woland was originally introduced to Margarita], meaningfully raising his paw. ‘It’s a mistake to think that they are blind.’”

Natasha herself confesses: “She started nodding to Master and addressed Margarita: ‘Yes, I know everything about where you’ve been going.’”

And then this: “Natasha opened her fist and showed some gold coins.”

Had it not been a “cat,” but a foreigner in a foreigner’s retinue, wouldn’t the reader have suspected something, knowing who Margarita’s husband was?

…There is another side to Natasha, of course. Although she is indeed an uneducated woman working as a housemaid, we ought to realize that she is working in the house of a very important person for the Soviet state [that nameless husband of Margarita]. Such people are always protected by the state, and the help that works for them also works for the security organs. These people become the eyes and ears of the state, they report about everything that they see and hear. The fact that foreigners have access to Natasha and that she maintains her contact with them, and even accepts their money (M. Jacque) need not be found surprising. Everything is done with the knowledge and permission, and under the control of the proper organs. Thus, Natasha is officially allowed to remain true to herself: gossip-mongering, eavesdropping, spying, and reporting all that she has learned.

She is even allowed to procure “clients” to Woland and Company with “important papers.” Remember?---

“…I can lose important papers, Natalia Prokofievna, I protest!”

“Go to the devil with your papers!”--- impertinently cracking up with laughter, yelled Natasha.

“What are you up to, Natalia Prokofievna! Someone may hear us!”--- pleadingly yelled the hog.

Apparently, the papers were not “important” for the spies (for that’s who Woland and his company were, this story will be discussed later in this chapter), as they exhibited no interest in Nikanor Ivanovich (Margarita’s neighbor in the mansion).

“‘I won’t be marrying some engineer or some technician! Monsieur Jacque proposed to me at the ball last night.’ Natasha opened her fist and showed some gold coins.”

We already know quite enough about Monsieur Jacque. Koroviev at the ball introduced him to Margarita as “one of the most interesting men. Dedicated money counterfeiter, traitor to the state, but a very decent alchemist.”

Although Monsieur Jacque is not part of Woland’s immediate retinue, he is also a spy. Bulgakov uses the word counterfeiter for him. He bribes potential clients, serving, as we might say, as the banker of the company.

Well, Natasha has been quite successful in her role. She has not done any damage to her state, while earning trust and money of the spies.

When Margarita suddenly collapses with a fatal heart attack in her drawing room, she cries out: “Natasha! Somebody… come to me!”

But Natasha is not there, and no more will she appear in the novel Master and Margarita. Her subsequent fate remains unknown, but two suppositions can be made. One is that she may have been transferred with a new identity to a different location, such as, say, Leningrad. The other supposition is somewhat more complicated, but only because a situation like this does indeed occur in real life.

Natasha may have been “arrested,” together with the gang, and sent to “prison,” where in reality she would be groomed for her subsequent work in the West.

In this fashion, Russian intelligence gets itself yet another undercover agent working abroad.