GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. XI.

Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.

The Dark-Violet Knight Continues.

 

“Погиб — и дан ему покой!..”

 “He perished --- and received his rest!”

Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov. The Bark.

Now, let us put together what we know about the transformed Koroviev.

1.      Dark-violet knight.

2.      Composed a calembour about light and darkness.

3.      Got himself into Hell for that.

4.      The devil closes his account specifically on Russian Orthodox Easter, which means that this character has to be Russian.

 

1. Everything is simple with the word “knight.” The man is a warrior. On the more poetic side, he is one who defends a lady’s honor. But “dark-violet” requires a more intricate guess. What comes to our head first is the color of his dress. But here let’s remember Bulgakov’s White Guard, about the opening of “the celebrated theater Purple Negro.” Bulgakov has borrowed this fictitious name of a nonexistent theater from the famous song of Alexander Vertinsky, written by the latter during his stay in San Francisco. “Purple” here obviously refers not to the color of the dress, but to the color of the skin. By the same token, “dark-violet,” like “purple negro,” should refer more to the color of the skin than to anything else.

Thus, the dark-violet knight is a dark-skinned Russian “knight,” apparently a poet, who once composed a calembour which offended both God and the devil…

…No, no, how can this possibly be? I am trying to chase this thought away, but it just sticks inside my mind.

…Gavriiliada? Pushkin?..

Now, with the name of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, I am coming back to Bulgakov, and his play Alexander Pushkin… By now, the reader must surely have put two and two together…

 

The Last Nail.

 

In his play Alexander Pushkin, Bulgakov puts the following words in the mouth of Tsar Nicholas I:

 

Nicholas I:

A man of shameful life. Nothing and never shall have these stains be washed off him. But Time will take revenge on him for these verses [Gavriiliada], for turning his talent not to the glorification but to the debasement of national honor. And he will die an un-Christian death, too!

 

Bulgakov was very angry at Nicholas I for allowing Pushkin to be killed, instead of simply stopping the duel, which he had known about all along, before it happened, by arresting its participants, namely, D’Anthes and Pushkin. Duels were officially forbidden in Russia. Thus Bulgakov could not forgive the Tsar for Pushkin’s death, and depicted him as a murderer. Historically, this accusation is wrong, but morally Bulgakov surely has a right to it.

Pushkin wrote Gavriiliada at the age of sixteen, as a boyish prank. It did not contain a single word of profanity. But the theme, to the effect that God, the devil, and Archangel Gavriil all shared in the paternity of Virgin Mary’s son, was outrageously blasphemous.

In a letter of penitence and regret, Pushkin confessed the authorship of the poem to the Tsar, and received forgiveness. But Master and Margarita is a work of literary fiction, and Bulgakov shows that the devil has not forgiven Pushkin one particular grievous offense against his person (I will specify this offense later on), and took him to Hell, where not only was Pushkin, like Frieda, subjected to mockery, and had no rest, but he was also obligated to procure souls on earth for the devil. (I will be writing about this in my Bulgakov chapter.)

***
 

…From Pushkin the dark-violet knight to Pushkin the regent. How come he is the regent?

In his play Alexander Pushkin, Bulgakov describes the death of the poet:

(Behind the closed doors, very subdued, a soft harmonious choir can be heard.)

Zhukovsky:

What have you done?!! (Listens to the choir with attention.)

Dubelt:

Ach, dark people, dark people.

(The choir behind the doors is gradually getting louder… And then out of the alley flowed soft sad singing. The singing gradually turns into the whistling noise of the snowstorm.)

Thus Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was the regent of the largest choir possible to the reader’s imagination: Russia as a whole! Pushkin the regent, the Russian people the choir.
 

 ***

In Master and Margarita, Bulgakov shows this from the comical side.

“The speechless visitors were struck by how harmoniously together the choir members were singing, scattered in different places as they were, as if the whole choir was standing, all eyes fixed on an invisible conductor… As soon as the first verse ended, the singing suddenly died down, as if again obeying the baton of the conductor…”

It turns out that they had just been visited by the “notable specialist on the organization of choir clubs” Koroviev. The boss of their organization was obsessed with the mania of organizing all sorts of clubs. So, here comes Koroviev and finds out that there is a Lermontov club in that place, but there is no Pushkin club in it. He takes it as a personal affront, and by way of his revenge he organizes them a choir… And then he disappears.

“A joy overtook the employees: he ran off. So they went back to their workplaces, but before they settled back in them, they all suddenly started singing against their will. Stop singing? There was the trick! They just couldn’t stop. A three-minute break, and then they would burst out again.”

Thus, Koroviev, the irresistible charmer, never fails to stir things up anywhere he appears. Such is Bulgakov’s supremely unconventional way of stressing Pushkin’s great power over the Russian people.

 

(To be continued…)