GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. XII.

Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.

The Dark-Violet Knight Continues.
 

 

“Жил на свете рыцарь бедный,

Молчаливый и простой,
С виду сумрачный и бледный,
Духом смелый и прямой...”

 

“There lived once a poor knight,

A man of few words and humble,

Looking gloomy and pale,

But his spirit was valiant and direct…”

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.

Scenes from the Times of Knights.

So, who was that Bulgakovian trickster with so many names? What was his ancestry?

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was of African descent. His great-grandfather Ganibal had been presented as a gift to Peter the Great by the Sultan of Turkey. The boy was very intelligent, received a good education and rose to the military rank of general. Admitted to Russian nobility, he married a noblewoman. Thus was it to come to pass that the greatest Russian poet Pushkin, whose name is sacred to every Russian, descended on the maternal side from the dark-violet general Ganibal. (More on his ancestry will be said in the fantastic novel Master and Margarita.)

Dark-violet is not the only color Bulgakov uses in Master and Margarita to convey the black color of skin. As we know, there are different shades of it:

“This hall was empty... and near the columns stood naked negroes... Their faces turned dirty reddish-brown color, from anxiety... Margarita was swarmed by their swarthy, and white, and roasted-coffee-bean-colored, and altogether black bodies.”

Now, here is Margarita’s first impression on seeing Koroviev:

“It was dark, like in a dungeon, but then far and up, there appeared a blinking light coming from some kind of oil-lamp and started getting nearer… The light came close, and Margarita saw the lit (sic!) face of a man, long and black, holding that selfsame oil-lamp in hand… Those who already had the misfortune of crossing paths with him would even in that weak light coming from the tongue of the oil-lamp surely recognize him. That was Koroviev, alias Fagot, and his blackness could be easily explained: He was wearing a tuxedo outfit. Only his chest appeared white.”

Seeing other men in tuxedos, Margarita does not refer to them as “black.”

“Among those present, Margarita instantly recognized Azazello now attired in a tuxedo and standing by the headboard of the bed.”

Margarita does not call Azazello “black” on account of his wearing a black tuxedo. Koroviev’s face was lit by a lamp, and she could obviously best see his face, yet still she calls him “long and black” even though his chest was white, and the little lamp most likely lit not all of Koroviev, but only his face and chest.

And in another place at the same ball, Margarita “saw countless encapped fiery lights, and, in front of them, the white chests and black shoulders of tuxedoed men.”

The most unexpected use of the word “violet” can be found in Bulgakov’s sketch Skull Hunters: “Get away from me, you violet devil!”

It may be interesting to compare this to a remark once made by Pushkin’s great-grandmother German-born Christina-Regina von Scheberch, concerning her husband and Pushkin’s great-grandfather Ganibal, quoted in Pushkin’s Memoirs: “Schorn schort delat mne schorny repiat i dayet im schertovsk imya.” (“Black devil make me black shildren and give them devil name.”)

Pushkin the Knight.

One year before his death, when the intrusion of D’Anthes into his family life had already become clear, Pushkin wrote a sketch of his prospective play Scenes from the Times of Knights. (It would remain unfinished.) Its centerpiece is the sad poem about a poor knight who had a devastating experience in love, and a subsequent vision of Virgin Mary, after which he was through with women, and developed an obsession with her alone. With his blood, he wrote AMD (Ave Mater Dei) on his shield and joining the Crusades, always went into battle fiercely exclaiming: “Lumen Coeli, Sancta Rosa!” Later on, he returned to his castle, where he subsequently died, like a madman… It is quite possible that, in Bulgakov’s mind, Pushkin saw a bit of himself in that tragic, nevermore-smiling knight, and anyway, this is exactly how Bulgakov sees it in his play Alexander Pushkin.

Furthermore, in his Notes on Shirt Cuffs, in the chapter titled Footcloth and Black Mouse, Bulgakov makes use of that remarkable Pushkin poem:

“Hungry… drunk with despair, I mumble: ‘Alexander Pushkin. Lumen Coeli, Sancta Rosa, And like thunder is his threat…’ Am I going mad, or what?.. Despair.”

It was important for Bulgakov to point out that between Hell and Paradise there is such a thing as “Peace,” or “Rest,” which idea he took from Pushkin himself, in his poem which has become one of the epigraphs to this chapter.

No happiness in life, but there is rest and freedom.

I’ve long been dreaming of one enviable lot,

A tired slave, I’ve long been plotting my escape

To a faraway retreat of toils and purest pleasures.

For me, this poem somehow echoes the previously mentioned “Knight” poem:

Since that time, his soul burnt out,

He wouldn’t give women a single look;

To his death, to none among them

Would he utter a single word.

(To be continued…)