GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. LXVII.

Rooster.

“Not knowing what to do, to shut this loud trap inside the copper beard, Nikolka, despairing of his non-shooting revolver, attacked the yardman like a fighting cock, and heavily hit him, risking shooting himself, with the revolver’s handle in the teeth…”

M. A. Bulgakov. White Guard.

The theme of rooster is very important to Bulgakov. We find it in many of his works, and having acquainted myself with his other roosters (outside Master and Margarita) I’ve come to the only possible conclusion that it must be an allegory. All his roosters are somehow connected to God and the nation. Rooster obviously plays an important role in Master and Margarita, specifically in the story of Rimsky and his colleague Varenukha. This story will beat any horror tale in its intensity and sheer horror of the situation. (See Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov: XLI-XLIII.)

The time has come for us to get acquainted with the other roosters in the works of Bulgakov:

The very first short story The Towel with Rooster from his collection of short stories under the title Notes of a Young Physician, which opens the reader’s eyes to Bulgakov’s special interest in the theme of Rooster;

the novella Fateful Eggs (dealing with Russian history);

the play Adam and Eve (dealing with the aftermath of an all-out world war which uses weapons of mass destruction);

the semi-biographical sketch The Moonshine Lake, using a peculiar twist;

the novel White Guard (dealing with the takeover of Kiev by Petlura and the ensuing pogroms).

All these works are somehow connected with each other via the rooster.

The novel White Guard, in its historical background deals with the German presence in Ukraine in the waning days of World War I. Germany loses the war, humiliated by the French, and it hastily retreats from Ukraine, taking the puppet hetman of Ukraine with them. Before leaving though, they decide to unleash the ultra-radical Ukrainian nationalist, Russophobe and anti-Semite (these three characteristics go inseparably together on the historical Ukrainian scene) Simon Petlura to wreak havoc in the land. For this destructive purpose they give the order through the hetman to release Petlura from prison, where he is serving time for banditry and other such crimes. The end of this historical tale is well-known: Petlura and his ilk are no match for the Bolsheviks, aided by Ukrainian Jews and the wealthy class, for whom the Reds are a far lesser evil than the ruthless pogromshchiks and robbers all gathered under Petlura’s nationalist Ukrainian banner. (For more on the Petlura episode in Ukrainian history as depicted by Bulgakov see Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov: LXV-LXVI.)

Returning to the role of rooster in White Guard, there are two remarkable occurrences of this bird here, first relating to German defeat in World War I, and the second relating to the popular fear of Petlura among the people of Kiev, which quickly leads to Petlura’s defeat by the Russian Bolsheviks, popularly welcomed as heroes and liberators.

In White Guard Bulgakov clearly shows, using the allegory of the Gallic rooster, that he always associates roosters with people. Here is that German defeat at the hands of the French.---

“…Gallic roosters in red pants, in the distant European West, pecked the fat iron-cast Germans to near-death. This was a horrifying spectacle: the roosters in Frigian caps, with a burry scream assaulted the armored Teutons and tore chunks of flesh mingled with armor out of them. The Germans fought desperately, driving broad-bladed bayonets into the feathered breasts, gnawed them with their teeth, but could not take it--- and the Germans! Germans!--- asked for mercy.”

The allegorical role of rooster in Kiev being taken over by the Ukrainian nationalists is shown in a highly dramatic fashion.---

“Along the opposite sidewalk, some lady was running, and a hat with a black wing on it was sitting sideways on her head; from her arms hung a gray shopping bag, from which a desperate rooster was trying to tear out, screaming so that the whole street could hear: ‘Pettura, Pettura!’ The lady was screaming and weeping, throwing herself into the wall.”

A thirst for life is the rooster’s cry. A warning of imminent death is the rooster’s cry, as opposed to the nightingale: “The nightingale whistles with a steely whistle, men are beaten to death with ramrods…” (Incidentally, the name of Petlura [Pettura was the German pronunciation of his name according to Bulgakov, who jestingly attributes the same pronunciation to the rooster] is infamously familiar to every Jew…)

 

The rooster in a shopping bag in White Guard, who even though uninjured, is greatly distraught and warns the whole city of Kiev of the imminent danger about to fall upon it echoes Bulgakov’s another rooster, in a basket and with a broken leg, in the play Adam and Eve.

In the play Adam and Eve (1931), the population of a whole city perishes as a result of a chemical attack. Alive are left four men and a woman, whose name is Eve. They have all been saved by the scientist-chemist Yefrosimov, who has invented a device that looks like an ordinary photo camera that neutralizes the effect of the chemical weapon.

Having been present during the cure of an already infected Russian pilot, Eve, a married woman, cannot help falling in love with Yefrosimov. The scientist fails to notice Eve’s love for him, even though she is a very attractive woman, and all other men in their company were already in love with her before the chemical attack.

Yefrosimov is deeply affected by the death of his dog, whom he had failed to immunize before he left home. Some time ago the scientist had bought this dog as a puppy from a group of malicious boys intent on killing it, and had raised it at his home. Now he considers himself by far the most wretched one among the survivors:

“My soul has been crushed… the worst thing is the loss of Jacque.”

Eve reproaches Yefrosimov for mourning the dog while ignoring the only woman left there, who is passionately in love with him:

“Is it possible, or natural, to be attached to a dog so much?”

Her reproaches bear fruit: Yefrosimov suddenly realizes that he, too, has “long been in love” with Eve, who suggests that he “take her away.” She makes sure that Yefrosimov will have another pet to “nurse,” and thus to let go of the dead dog’s memory: there is a wounded rooster in her basket.

Eve’s husband Adam overhears their conversation and reproaches them both:

“You assume that you are the only human beings here, just because he [Yefrosimov] fusses over a rooster. But, you see, our thoughts have a broader scope than a rooster!”

/Eve leads Yefrosimov by the arm. Yefrosimov carries the basket with the rooster in his hand./

Another character in love with Eve, Markizov, provides somewhat more elucidation to the story of the rooster. He is busy writing a “book” about Rooster and Eve:

“The rooster with a broken leg—a rooster with an uncommon intelligence—did not show anxiety and did not look at the sky. The theory was that the war was over... And so now, each day, he [Markizov] came to see the rooster with the broken leg to talk about Eve, because there was nobody else to talk to.”

The war was ended by an atomic bomb explosion, and this is why the rooster is calm and does not look at the sky. (More about this in my chapter Nature, where I write about chemical, biological, nuclear, and psychological warfare in Bulgakov’s works. It is to be posted right after the Rooster chapter.)

The rooster in Adam and Eve symbolizes life. No matter who Bulgakov’s characters in the play are, all the words they say have been written by Bulgakov. We learn about the rooster’s injury: his leg is broken, but a thing like this can be mended. And, most importantly, in spite of the fact that the rooster himself is silent, it is he who epitomizes the end of the war…

(The play Adam and Eve has much in common with Master and Margarita, and we shall return to it later, in the chapter Preparation for Master and Margarita.)

In order to understand Bulgakov’s special interest in roosters, we must understand the allegory contained in his earlier short story A Towel with Rooster. This will be the subject of our next posting tomorrow.