My Bulgakov
By Galina Sedova
Introduction.
Я хочу быть понят моей
страной,
А не буду понят,-- что ж?--
По родной стране пройду
стороной,
Как проходит косой дождь.
I want to be understood by
my country;
And if I am not, so be it.
Then
I shall pass my
country by the side,
Like passes a slanting
rain.
Vladimir Mayakovsky
I
read Bulgakov as a young student in Moscow and then returned to him in February
2012. I began with his short stories, sketches, feuilletons, and plays, and
then turned to reading the novels.
And
what a surprise was awaiting me on the last pages of Master and Margarita! As I was reading, a great many questions had
already been rising in my head. But at the end an utter disappointment settled
in, mixed with great excitement. One question was now paramount to me. Who was that “dark-violet knight”? Bulgakov
did not provide a ready answer. I had to find it for myself! In other words,
Bulgakov required multiple rereading and a dogged search for comprehension.
While
rereading the already familiar works, hear is what I discovered---
1).
In Bulgakov’s Diaries of a Young
Physician, he writes this:
“…I had seen all sorts of
trickeries and had learned to understand such womantalk which nobody could
understand. I am now as good in them as Sherlock Holmes in
deciphering mysterious documents…”
[Quoted
from the story of the Vanished Eye.]
2).
My second discovery comes from Bulgakov’s jocular introductory note to his
mini-novel Crimson Island:
“CRIMSON ISLAND
Novel of Comrade Jules
Verne
Translated from French
into Aesopian
by Mikhail A. Bulgakov”
3).
In Master and Margarita we find this:
“…I swear to you by your
life, by the astrologer’s son, guessed right by
you, --- all will be well …”
What
now does Bulgakov want to say by all of this? I have come to the conclusion
that one cannot just read his works from first page to last, and put the book
aside. One must decipher them like a
Sherlock Holmes. One must understand that Bulgakov uses Aesopian language, and what he wishes to say must be “guessed.”
…Armed
with these tools, I ventured reading Bulgakov all over again. While reading, I
jotted down everything unusual, everything which stood out of the ordinary. In
this fashion, I accumulated a lot of material, having read everything contained
in the three large volumes (some 2,700 pages in all) that I own…
After
which I went back to reading Master and
Margarita. In my eyes, Bulgakov is not just a writer, but an authentic master of Shakespearian scope. He picks
his words scrupulously, and oh, they are so easy to read! He invites the reader
into his workshop. And what a delight it is to “guess” his riddles! To think,
to argue with yourself, to ask yourself questions. I cannot think of a single
writer who trains your brain in a similar way. Even the greatest writers are
predominantly storytellers. They explain everything, oftentimes they are
chewing for you your food, and all you have to do is swallow. Bulgakov is a
genius, a giant, an enigma.. A writer-riddle. Not in everyday life, of course,
but in the world that he has created for himself, and whereto he invites his
reader. “Follow
me, reader!.. Follow me, my reader, and only me!”
…And
his lead is truly irresistible!
“…A magician, regent,
wizard, translator/interpreter, or the devil knows who he really is… in a word,
he is Koroviev.” But who is this
Koroviev indeed, suddenly transformed into a “…dark-violet knight with a most somber, never
smiling face”?
Why
does Master tell Kot/Cat: “For some reason, it seems to me that you are not quite a Cat”?
Who
is indeed Kot-Begemot, and what is the meaning of his name?
Who
was Margarita? What pedigree did Bulgakov give his heroine?
Who
is the overlooked nameless hero of Master
and Margarita?
Why
does the violet knight have so many names: Kletchatyi
[Checkered], Regent, Koroviev, Fagot, Knight, Chorister--- and what does
each name mean?
Why
do Koroviev and Kot-Begemot spend so much time together? Why are they such good
friends?
Had
Azazello, Kot-Begemot and Koroviev been to Moscow before… in some other works
of Bulgakov?
What
does Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita have
in common with Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago?
How
many novels-within-a-novel can you count in Master
and Margarita?
How did Woland and his retinue get their meals during their stay in
Moscow?
Who
is Margarita…really?
…Most
of these intriguing questions are treated on different levels on these pages,
and to each of them, as well as to many more, the reader can expect to find a
most satisfying answer on the pages of this essay, as it progresses…
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