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.)