GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CLI.

Oil, Wine, and Blood Concludes.

“...there stretched an unremoved red pool, as though of blood, and fragments of the shattered jug were scattered there…

…two white roses drowned in the red pool…”

M. A. Bulgakov. Master and Margarita.

The most intriguing scene on the theme of wine is written by Bulgakov in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate. The execution of Yeshua is accompanied by a powerful storm turning into a hurricane. Bulgakov paints the Wrath of God in an amazingly poetic manner, calling the punishment of Yerushalaim “heavenly fire.”

During all this thundering of the hurricane with torrents of rain and hail tormenting Yerushalaim, Bulgakov shows us only one man, namely, the Roman procurator of Judea Pontius Pilate, lying on his couch by a low small-sized table.

“At the Procurator’s feet, there stretched an unremoved red pool, as though of blood, and fragments of the shattered jug were scattered there.”

Even though Bulgakov writes that the procurator had broken this jug of wine himself, having become angry with the servant, we know that the procurator is nervous waiting for the arrival of the same man with whom he had had “a tête-à-tête in a room shaded from the sun by dark curtains… The face [of this man] was half-covered by a hood… The meeting had been very brief. The procurator had told the man a few words in a low voice, after which the man had left…”

This man was the head of the secret service, whose name was Aphranius, as we already know from my chapter Cats (posted segments CXXI-CXXII).

“But for the roar of water, but for the bursts of thunder… one might have heard the Procurator mumble something, talking to himself, … that the procurator is expressing his impatience, that the procurator not only stares at the two white roses drowned in the red pool, but that he is waiting for someone, impatiently waiting…”

The procurator was waiting for the arrival of his head of the secret service Aphranius in order to receive a full report on the execution of Yeshua (of which in the upcoming chapter The Garden), but also to give him an order about an assassination, the “formula” of which had already been planted in his head by none other than Woland. Once again, but in a different way, Bulgakov is showing Woland’s communication with Pontius Pilate. This becomes clear from the following Chapter 26 The Burial.

Having received Aphranius’ report, Bulgakov writes that “there was a sharp change in the appearance of the procurator. As though he aged a lot in this short span of time; his back bent, and besides, he became disquieted. At one point he glanced back and for some reason shuddered, glancing at the empty armchair, with its back covered by the cloak. The holiday night was approaching, the evening shadows were playing their game, and most probably the procurator had a mere hallucination when he imagined that someone was sitting in that empty armchair. Having allowed himself a measure of faintheartedness, by touching and moving the cloak, the procurator let go of it and walked fast back and forth on the balcony, now rubbing his hands, now running up to the table and grabbing the chalice, now coming to a stop and beginning to stare mindlessly at the floor mosaic, as if trying to read in it some hidden letters.”

Once again Bulgakov shows Woland’s influence on the procurator. Already in the second chapter of the book, titled Pontius Pilate, Bulgakov shows how easy it is for Woland to turn a polished Roman diplomat, who Pontius Pilate was in Judea, into a passionate revolutionary. In the words of Caiaphas, “we have been accustomed to the Roman procurator choosing his words carefully before speaking…”

But in this case nothing stops the procurator. He is fearless in throwing his accusations and his threats at Caiaphas. And then suddenly and unexpectedly everything changes. Lucifer releases the procurator, departing from inside his head. Bulgakov shows this in the following words:

With the back of his hand, the procurator wiped his wet cold forehead, looked down at the ground and said quietly and indifferently: “The time is approaching midday. We have been caught up in our conversation, but in the meantime we need to keep going [with other things].” Having excused himself to the High Priest in most exquisite expressions, he asked him to sit down on the bench in the shade of magnolia, and wait.

Thus, when in chapter 25, How the Procurator Tried to Save Judas from Kyriath, Pontius Pilate keeps mumbling something, talking to himself, this is by no means normal behavior to be expected from the procurator of Judea. All this nervousness can be explained by the fact that the devil stays in his immediate proximity, invisible and untouchable. And yet the procurator feels his presence. There is a good reason why Aphranius felt that two pairs of eyes had been staring at him: one belonging to a dog (Banga), and the other to a wolf (the procurator).

It is very clear that it is the devil who makes the procurator break that jug with wine. Pontius Pilate is merely an instrument of the devil bent on avenging the death of Yeshua, as despite all the temptations, Yeshua dies on the cross, convincing the devil in his superiority. That is how inside Pontius Pilate’s head, another “formula” comes to fruition: the formula of vengeance. A death for a death. The traitor Judas must pay with his life for the life of Yeshua. A majority of Christians do not know the names of Pilate and Caiaphas, but the name of Judas, because of his betrayal has become commonplace.

“The red pool, as though of blood,” symbolizes in Bulgakov the blood of Judas. According to Aphranius,---

“He was killed most artfully. Would you kindly observe this purse. I can assure you that Judas’s blood poured out like a wave.”

In this case Bulgakov makes use of M. Yu. Lermontov’s poem Waves and People.----

“Waves are rolling one after another,

Splashing and with a dull noise;

People are passing in a wretched throng,

Also one after another.

The waves treasure their will and coolness

More than the warmth of the sunrays at noon;

People want to have souls… and what? ---

The souls in them are colder than the waves!”

And indeed, Judas’s soul was cold, which is the reason why such souls go to Hell, where the devil’s heat is equal to the devil’s wrath.

Thus the God-seeker Bulgakov wishes to show what humanity can expect having renounced God.

Judas bled to death, that is the whole symbolism of the “red pool, as though of blood.” As for the broken wine jug, that is his body, bloodless, like the devil’s.

It is amazing how Bulgakov paints another story of betrayal, which he also takes from a poem by M. Yu. Lermontov.---

“…Inadvertently recognizing everywhere

In every man a stupid flatterer,

And in every woman a Judas.”

Judas, the “hook-nosed handsome,” had an affair with a married Greek woman, making money on the side. Apparently, Aphranius was using the services of this sort of Mata Hari quite frequently. Having recognized her in a crowd, Judas “immediately started chasing her, in the process, nearly knocking some passerby with a jug in his hands off his feet.”

Here Bulgakov clearly goes further than Lermontov. His devil --- Woland --- is strikingly more active, whereas M. Yu. Lermontov’s Asmodeus only likes to hear stories about stupid people.

Unlike the broken jug of Pontius Pilate, Woland’s jug was naturally full of wine. Here I am offering the reader to solve this riddle, the answer to which will be given in my chapter Two Bears.

Returning to the second allegory, that of the “two white roses drowned in a red pool,” we need to draw our attention to Bulgakov pointing out that Pontius Pilate “was always turning his face toward the garden, toward the flying water dust and sand.” (In the English language, it is more natural to use the words “water mist,” but in Russian it is “water dust,” which is what Bulgakov uses here, hence the connection to “dust” elsewhere.) Here Bulgakov once again makes use of a Lermontov poem.---

“I am a madman! You are right, you’re right!

Ridiculous is immortality on earth.

How could I wish for loud glory,

When you are happy in the dust.”

Everything becomes particularly clear if we remember the lines from the chapter Pontius Pilate in Master and Margarita, which is being told on Patriarch Ponds by Woland himself:

“The procurator raised his eyes to the prisoner and saw a burning pillar of dust near him.”

Thus Bulgakov shows the frailty of human life in general. Dust to dust. And indeed, a majority of Christians may not know the names Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas, but there is no name better known to the whole world than that of Jesus Christ.

In so far as the two white roses drowned in a red pool are concerned, this allegory takes us back to the white rose of Dante.

These two white roses have apparently been brought in from the garden by the hurricane, but Bulgakov draws our attention to them because of Pontius Pilate’s attention to them. The two roses must represent Yeshua Ha-Nozri and his disciple Matthew Levi.

Yeshua, because of his divine hypostasis, was able to resist all the temptations of the devil to the end. Specifically, he even refused to accept the desensitizing drink (wine with spices) afforded to the condemned by the Roman law. According to Pontius Pilate, “Madman! He preferred to die being burned by the sun!”

Here Bulgakov uses the exact word of M. Yu. Lermontov:

“I am a madman, you are right,

Laughable is immortality on earth.”

In such a way Bulgakov shows that Yeshua remained faithful to his teachings to the end. By his example, he taught people courage, considering “cowardice to be the greatest vice.” Dying a martyr’s human death on the cross, Yeshua “said that he did not blame anyone for taking his life away from him.”

And so, one of the two white roses drowned in the red pool is Yeshua Ha-Nozri. As for the other white rose, that must be Matthew Levi, whose life was finished with the death of his teacher. This explains why Bulgakov compares Margarita to Matthew Levi in Master and Margarita.

“Why then did I leave him there, at night? Why? But that was sheer insanity! And I returned the following day, honestly, just as I had promised, but it was already too late. Yes, I returned like the poor Matthew Levi, too late…”

In this way Bulgakov himself compares his Margarita, for whom all her life was in master’s novel, to Matthew Levi.

“Why are you tormenting me? Don’t you know that I put all my life into this work of yours!”

And so, we have two pairs of people: Yeshua and Matthew Levi, and master and Margarita. We know that three of them die in the course of the novel. The subsequent life of Matthew Levi is not shown. He refuses to accept anything from Pontius Pilate, except clean parchment, on which he would write his account of the life of Yeshua.

Next time we meet him on the roof of the Lenin State Library in Moscow. [See my chapter The Fantastic Novel of Master and Margarita, posted segment XXXIV.] As a reward for his absolute loyalty to Christ, Matthew Levi is taken into the Light, which is how Bulgakov, after M. Yu. Lermontov, calls Paradise.

Yeshua and Matthew Levi… The idea of the two white roses is taken by Bulgakov from the Lermontov poem To P…n.

“Although our life is a minute in a dream,

Although our death is the sound of a torn string…

And hardly any of us will see the country

Where friendship would not deceive friendship,

Where love would not betray love…

There are roses, friend, even on the earthly path!

Not all of them will be mowed down by the malicious Time!..”

This is the end of the chapter Oil, Wine, and Blood. We will return with the next chapter The Triangle…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CL.

Oil, Wine, and Blood Continues.

 

“…slippery, as though rolled with oil, the blue road before the procurator collapsed. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he remembered was that the execution had taken place.”

M. A. Bulgakov. Master and Margarita.

 

The theme of oil in Bulgakov is just as dramatic as the theme of wine. It starts already in his immortal White Guard.

“Oh, only he who was defeated himself knows how this word looks! It looks like an evening in a house with broken electricity. It looks like a room, in which green mold creeps down the wall paper, full of sickly life. It looks like rickets-struck demon-children, like spoiled sunflower oil, like obscenity-laden talk in the dark in women’s voices. In a word, it much resembles death.”

Many years later, in the incomparable Master and Margarita, it is the aged orphan Anyuta, brought up in the home of the Turbins, and transformed by Bulgakov into Annushka-the-Plague, who spills that notorious sunflower oil, bringing Woland’s plan (formula) to fruition, causing the shameful death of M. A. Berlioz. As M. Yu. Lermontov wrote,---

“And [he] was executed… by a death both horrible and shameful,

And the hapless bloodied head… rolled…”

I have already written in other places that Bulgakov doesn’t part with his characters, but he walks surrounded by them from one work of his to another.

Anyuta is not the only woman taken by Bulgakov from White Guard to Master and Margarita.

“Like stacks of firewood, one upon another, laid there were naked human corpses, emitting an unbearable, stifling to any human being… stench… He grabbed a woman’s corpse by the foot, and she, slippery, slid down like over oil with a thud to the floor. To Nikolka she appeared terrifyingly beautiful, like a witch, and sticky. Nikolka could not take his eyes away from the scar, winding around her like a red ribbon…”

The reader must already have recognized this “beautiful like a witch” woman, transported from the storehouse of the makeshift morgue in White Guard to Master and Margarita.---

“…A red-haired vixen, appearing devil knows from where, dressed in an evening attire, splendid in every way, except being spoiled by a peculiar scar around her neck.”

In Master and Margarita, the “beautiful like a witch” woman becomes Woland’s maidservant Gella. [The reader will be impressed by the prototype of the maidservant, revealed in the chapter Woland Identity.] According to Woland, Gella is “quick, smart, and there is no such service that she would not be able to perform.”

Gella appears in Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita throughout the book.---

“The naked witch, that selfsame witch who had caused so much dismay in the respectable buffet vendor [Andrei Fokich Sokov] of the Variety Theater, and the very same who, most fortunately, had been surprised by a rooster during the night of the famous séance…”

If Bulgakov’s rooster symbolizes life, the idea of oil, which he takes from his Towel with Rooster [see my posted segment LXVIII], signifies death. As he writes there, the maiden brought on the verge of death to the hospital, had her “light cotton skirt all torn up, with blood spots on it showing different colors: a reddish-brown splotch, then another one of oily crimson color…” Bulgakov explains here where the oil is coming from, and this is why oil in Bulgakov signifies death, as proceeding from the “oily splotch” of spilled blood.

Hence in Cockroach two characters, Voice and Cap, have “oily faces,” suggesting that these are both “dead souls.” [See my segments CIV through CXIII.]

***

The most unusual example of Bulgakov’s use of oil in his works comes from his novella Fateful Eggs [see my posted segment LXIX, etc.].---

“…when suddenly the rustle in the greenery repeated itself, joined by short hissing, as though oil and steam were escaping from a locomotive engine…”

Bulgakov makes it clear to the reader that something terrible is about to happen, and happen it does! A. S. Rokk witnesses the gruesome death of his wife, crushed and swallowed alive right before his eyes by a giant anaconda.

“High above the ground shot up Manya’s head, tenderly pressed to the cheek of the snake… Blood splashed out of Manya’s mouth…”

Same as in the case with Annushka-the Plague and Gella, the woman called Manya, swallowed by the anaconda, has her precursor in Diaboliada, written in 1923, that is, before Fateful Eggs. When we meet her in Diaboliada, she is not yet Manya, but Manechka, “a young woman with dreamy eyes and diamond earrings in her ears.” She happens to be Kalsoner’s secretary.

In Fateful Eggs, this Manechka turns into “an enormous-sized wife of A. S. Rokk,” head of the state farm Red Beam, of special distinction [more on this in my chapter Nature, posted segment LXXV]. The farmers on that farm call Rokk “Antichrist,” to his utmost displeasure.

Manya-Manechka symbolizes in Bulgakov corruptibility in a woman, as both of them are connected to the NEP (New Economic Policy) in Russia in the nineteen-twenties. Killing a woman so uncharitably in Fateful Eggs, Bulgakov shows his disgust for the NEP and for all that it represents.

It appears that the “evolution” of the Russian woman during the NEP was so abhorrent to Bulgakov that in Master and Margarita, master does not even remember the name of his wife (“That one… Varenka… Manechka… she had that striped dress…”), who had apparently left him on account of his poverty.

***

The theme of oil is so important to Bulgakov that in his crowning masterpiece Master and Margarita the very first chapter already ends with the notorious sunflower oil, spilled by Annushka-the-Plague, while the next, second chapter of Master and Margarita, Pontius Pilate, opens with rose oil.

But as we remember it all starts in White Guard.---

“This stench, which Nikolka was so much afraid of, was everywhere. The floors smelled of it, the walls smelled of it, and the wooden hangers smelled of it too. The stench was so terrible that one could even see it. It seemed that the walls were oily and sticky, that the hangers were oily, that the floors were oily, and the air, thick and saturated, smelled of rotten flesh.”

How happily would Pontius Pilate, Equestrian Golden Spear, have traded places with Nikolka!

“More than anything else in the world, the procurator hated the smell of rose oil; and everything now promised a bad day, because this smell had been haunting the procurator since dawn. The procurator imagined that the cypresses and palms in the garden were oozing the rose-oil odor, that a cursed rose-oil streak mingled with the smell of leather harnesses and sweat coming from the convoy, and the bitterish smoke, indicating that the cooks in the centurias had started preparing dinner, was mingling with that same oily rose odor.”

The persistent smell of rose oil culminates in the death of an innocent man: Yeshua Ha-Nozri. Why does it have to be rose oil at all? In this manner Bulgakov plays with Pushkin’s “Sancta Rosa.” We can see it even better in the chapter The Grand Ball at Satan’s:

“The blood mantle gave way to another, which was thick, transparent, kind of rosy in color, and Margarita became dizzy from the rose oil… Margarita did not remember who sowed her slippers from the petals of a pale rose…”

Rose oil is closely connected in Bulgakov to blood and death. Once again Bulgakov shows us that Margarita must die!

The two showers of blood, one before the ball---

“…Margarita was doused with some hot, thick and red liquid. Margarita felt a salty taste on her lips and realized that she was being showered with blood… ”

---and the other one during the ball---

“…and again they drew her under a shower of blood…”

---allegorize Russia swimming in blood during the Civil War with the participation of foreigners of the Entente.

 

Concludes tomorrow…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CXLIX.

Oil, Wine, and Blood Continues.

 

“And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood...”

Revelation 16: 4. As quoted by Bulgakov in White Guard.

 

This is by no means the end of Bulgakov’s paybacks.

“No one will say. Will anyone pay for the blood? No. No one. It’s just that the snow will melt, green Ukrainian grass will spring forth, covering the earth... rich harvests will rise... summer heat will quiver over the fields, and no trace of blood will be left. Cheap is blood on the golden fields, and there will be no one there to ransom it. No one…”

How well does this resonate with the words of Koroviev and Begemot in Master and Margarita!

“Be not afraid, Queen, the blood has long passed into the soil, and where it was spilled, grapes are already growing.” Without opening her eyes, Margarita took a gulp, and a sweet stream ran through her veins, a ringing started in her ears. It seemed to her that ear-splitting roosters were crowing, that somewhere someone was playing a march. The groups of guests were now changing their appearance. Both the tuxedoed men and the women were crumbling into dust. The rotting of the flesh started all around the hall in front of Margarita’s eyes, and the smell of sarcophagus flowed over it...”

Had Margarita failed to drink from Woland’s cup she would just as well have crumbled into dust. That was the blood of a man killed in front of Margarita’s eyes, a man whom she knew, who may well have been spying on her. It was his blood that Woland suggested she had to drink. How very interestingly does Bulgakov turn the tables here. If in Pontius Pilate Judas invites Yeshua into his house to set him up, thus breaking all human norms of hospitality, then in Master and Margarita the devil himself invites the Judas Meigel, “the snitch and the spy,” to set him up to be murdered, so that he could drink the blood of one scoundrel (Meigel) from the skull of another (Berlioz).

Bulgakov describes this murder with his characteristic sense of humor, substituting the word someone by the word something.

“…The baron became whiter than Abadonna... who took off his glasses for a second... At that very moment something sparked with fire in the hands of Azazello, something softly clapped, like a clap of hands; the baron started falling down backwards, scarlet blood gushed from his chest, splashing over his starched shirt and the vest. Koroviev put the chalice under the gushing stream and passed the filled chalice to Woland. In the meantime, the lifeless body of the baron was already on the floor.”

(In this passage we may find one of the most curious puzzles posed by Bulgakov. I suggest that the reader take a crack at it. My answer will be spelled out in the chapter Two Bears.)

A more traditional look at this scene suggests that blood is associated with wine. The grapevine in Bulgakov symbolizes life. Margarita remains alive after the ball. Gestas, in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate, laments the loss of his life with a reference to grapes, as he dies:

“…From the nearest pole one could hear a hoarse senseless song. Gestas, hanging on it, lost his mind by the third hour of the execution, from the flies and the sun, and was now softly singing something about grapes…”

It is also interesting, in connection with the “sarcophagus,” the “dusts,” and the “rotting,” that when Azazello brings the bottle of Falerni wine, Woland’s gift to master and Margarita in their basement apartment, he pulls it “out of a piece of dark coffin brocade.”

The “dark coffin brocade” already shows the reader that master and Margarita have to die. And indeed---

“All three of them partook from the glasses, taking a large gulp. All at once the pre-storm light started dimming in master’s eyes, his breath was failing him, he felt that the end was coming…”

Here is Bulgakov’s illustration of “to conquer death you only have to die.” Here also Bulgakov is rather flippantly exhibiting his knowledge of homoeopathy.---

“Then Azazello unclenched her white teeth and poured into her mouth several drops of that same wine which he used to poison her.”

The dosage is of utmost importance in homoeopathy. Generally speaking, it depends on the person’s constitution. A drop of remedy can save where a gulp of it may kill. This does not mean of course that a drop of a poison can antidote the same poison. Bulgakov obviously uses his literary license here…

***

From the “dark coffin brocade” of Azazello to the “church brocade” on Woland’s table… What a contrast it makes in the scene of the buffet vendor Andrei Fokich’s visit to Woland:

“Entering there, where he was invited to, the vendor virtually forgot all about his business, being struck by the decor of the room.” Through the colored glass of the large windows poured an unusual light, like in a church… [Naturally, Woland is Lucifer, the creator of light, according to the Christian tradition.] There was a table there, having looked at which, the God-fearing buffet vendor [it is not by accident that Bulgakov has chosen the name Andrei Fokich for him] shuddered: the table was laid with church brocade. On the brocade table cover a multitude of bottles could be seen --- rotund, moldy, and covered with dust… Among the bottles glistened a plate which left no doubt about having been made of pure gold. The smell was not only from the roast, it smelled of strongest perfume and frankincense…” (If the reader is curious as to whose perfume it was, please refer to my chapter Birds, posted segment LI.)

However, Andrei Fokich was mistaken; this was not a wake for the dead.---

“By the fireplace, a short, red-haired man with a knife tucked behind his belt was roasting pieces of meat…”

No, that happened to be a sacrificial meal. Azazello was roasting pieces of the second deputy to Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy -- Pyatnazhko, having just slaughtered him. It was his meat “of the first freshness” that Woland treated Andrei Fokich to, having first doused him --- oops! ---with a full cup of wine.

Here Bulgakov follows two lines. One, involving Andrei Fokich and seemingly bordering on sacrilege, shows in fact that the devil is just a poor imitator of God, and also happens to be the only place in Master and Margarita where he shows a person’s transformation into a demonic creature without that person’s knowledge. (Much more on the subject of transformation can be found in the chapter The Transformation of Master and Margarita.)

The second line is the transformation of master and Margarita proper, which occurs as a result of a direct order from God. The devil in Bulgakov acts as a subsidiary of God. Bulgakov evokes the following words from the Russian Paschal Troparion:

Christ is risen from the dead,

Conquering death by death,

And granting life to those in coffins…

For this reason, Bulgakov shows the coffin brocade, used to wrap the ignominious bottle of Falerni wine. Had Yeshua not interfered in the fate of the real master and Margarita, the two creatures in the basement, created by Woland, would have crumbled to dust on his departure from Moscow, and that would have been the end of it.---

“She was suddenly overcome with the terrifying thought that it had all been sorcery, that presently the notebooks were going to vanish from her eyes, that she was about to find herself back to her bedroom in the mansion, and that on waking up she would have to go and drown herself…”

And indeed it was all sorcery. Bulgakov shows that the devil cannot be trusted in anything: all his promises are deception. The only real deal he can offer, according to Bulgakov, is suicide by drinking a cup of poison, following a dissipated self-wake orgy (“with tipsy beauties and reckless buddies”), that same deal that he offered to Andrei Fokich, and before him, we can safely assume, to Pontius Pilate.

That first line, that is, the story of Andrei Fokich, is also very interesting, seeing the buffet vendor being transformed into a demonic creature. Bulgakov shows this in three steps. First, the vendor is classically set up:

“...The back leg of the bench [conveniently supplied by Azazello] broke... as he was falling down, his foot caught another bench... and he overturned a full cup of red wine upon himself…”

Next, that selfsame Azazello feeds him human flesh, followed by the third step: having put on his hat, Andrei Fokich “for some reason felt too warm and uncomfortable… he took it off… in his hands was a velvet beret with a worn-out rooster feather in it.” In this way, Bulgakov shows us that having been doused with wine and having eaten human flesh, the buffet vendor has been transformed into a demonic creature. As an indication of this, Gella serves him “his hat and a sword with a dark hilt.” The transformation of the hat into the beret points to the transformation of Andrei Fokich himself, as the sword and the beret are the attire of the demonic force.---

“Three swords with silver hilts were standing in the corner, and on the stag antlers hung berets adorned with eagle feathers.”

What is here to be surprised at? All his life, Andrei Fokich wholeheartedly had been serving the demonic force, sending innocent people to the next world by feeding them rotten food. Bulgakov goes even further, showing us what happened to the vendor after he got frightened and crossed himself out of sheer fear.---

“At that very moment, the beret meowed, turned into a black kitten, and jumping back on Andrei Fokich’s head, stuck all his claws into his bald top…”

He now had cuts all over his head --- Azazello’s signature. Bulgakov also shows here that having thus covered his head with cuts, Azazello had given Andrei Fokich the power of transformation.

(As the reader may remember, in his gory short story Cockroach, written back in 1925, Bulgakov shows the demonic transformation of the baker Vasili Rogov into a demonic creature by a mere breath on the skin of his neck by the demon Littleman. See Cockroach, posted segments CVIII-CIX.)

“The buffet vendor took out thirty rubles and laid them on the desk, and then unexpectedly softly, as if operating with a cat’s paw, laid over the banknotes a clinking roll [of gold coins], wrapped in a piece of newspaper…”

(More on this see in the Cats segment of the chapter Demonic Transformations.)

Winding down our cat’s tale, as a wise old French proverb goes,---

“A bad cat deserves a bad rat.”

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CXLVIII.

Oil, Wine, and Blood.

“Long was I in a foreign land,

White-haired singer of the Dnieper’s troops…

In the deserted place, where the enemy appeared,

Was I carrying my old head,

And each of my steps was trampling

Upon the bloody grass.

Packs of beasts and flocks of forest birds

Were gathering toward the abandoned bones,

Because the number of the dead

Was greater than of those alive.”

M. Yu. Lermontov. Bard’s Song.

 

The theme of wine is very interesting in Bulgakov’s works.

“The wine was sniffed, poured into glasses, peered through, against the light from the window, fading away before the storm. They saw how everything seen through it was receiving the color of blood.”

And indeed, in the novel Master and Margarita, which everybody seems to see as a fantastic love story, blood flows in torrents. Starting with the third chapter, The Seventh Proof, where it pours from the severed head of M. A. Berlioz, continuing in chapter twenty-three, The Great Ball at Satan’s, where it comes from the chest of Meigel, shot through by Azazello, as well as in chapter twenty-six in the Pontius Pilate sub-novel, titled The Burial, where blood poured like a wave from the heart of Judas.

...Already in White Guard, Bulgakov writes about the human blood of the slain, seeping into the soil, asking this provocative question:

“No one will say. Will anyone pay for the blood? No. No one. It’s just that the snow will melt, green Ukrainian grass will spring forth, covering the earth... rich harvests will rise... summer heat will quiver over the fields, and no trace of blood will be left. Cheap is blood on the golden fields, and there will be no one there to ransom it. No one…”

Here we are interested in two themes. The first is contained in the word no one, frequently repeated by Bulgakov for a reason. And the second one is linked to the word blood. Both these themes travel from White Guard to Master and Margarita. Bulgakov plays with the words no one [nikto] and one [kto] throughout the novel Master and Margarita.

Let us start with the first death, with which Master and Margarita opens: the death of the brainwasher Berlioz. In the third chapter The Seventh Proof Berlioz tells Woland:

“No one can prove… that what you told us was taking place in reality.”

“Oh, no! One can prove it…” the professor responded with great assurance.

Considering that Berlioz has his head cut off by the tram because he is guilty of brainwashing millions of people, not just Ivan, who have the misfortune of reading his magazine, someone (kto-to, that is, Woland!) makes Berlioz pay for his crime. The question asked by Bulgakov in White Guard (Who will pay?) receives its answer in Master and Margarita.

Seeing brainwashing as a heinous crime, Bulgakov returns to the death of Berlioz several times. The first time the detail is scarce.---

“…and under the grid a round-shaped dark object was thrown… it was the severed head of Berlioz.”

Bulgakov can afford to be so charitable this time, because he unleashes his mockery of the dead man already in the fifth chapter It Happened at Griboyedov’s.---

“There on three zinc tables lay what used to be quite recently Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz.

On the first table was the naked, covered in dry blood body with a broken arm and collapsed rib cage; on another, the head with missing front teeth, with dimmed open eyes, impervious to the bright lights; and on the third table, a pile of blood-soaked rags.”

Here is Bulgakov’s “vengeance under the sun” for you, and, oh boy, is he having a good time doing it!

Take that scene alone at the Griboyedov’s restaurant, where Woland amuses himself among the litterateurs.---

“And suddenly from one of the tables there flew up the word ‘Berlioz!’ All of a sudden the jazz fell apart and went silent, as if one had brought a fist down on it. What, what, what, what? --- Berlioz!!! And the place started jumping up, started screaming… One was making a fuss and shouted… Must make up a telegram! And why would he need a telegram, he whose squashed back of the head was presently residing in the rubber hands of the dissector, whose neck was being pierced with hooked needles by the professor?”

I already wrote in my chapter A Beardo with a Rolly (posted segment LVIII) that having left Ivan in his predicament, swimming in the Moskva River, Woland was waiting for him at Griboyedov’s to make sure that Ivan’s next stop would be at Professor Stravinsky’s psychiatric clinic. While waiting for Ivan’s arrival, Woland had unleashed all that havoc, in order to prepare a “proper ground” for his arrival.

Bulgakov reveals this to the reader through the use of the key word kto-to, one. I come to such a conclusion on the basis of the word jazz in connection to the word one. As I am writing in my chapter Woland in Disguise [posted segment LV], Woland appears as the jazz band conductor twice in The Great Ball at Satan’s, chapter twenty-three of Master and Margarita.

My next proof is in conjunction with Woland’s suggestion to Berlioz moments before his death:

“Would you want me to order a telegram to be sent to your uncle in Kiev?”

I omit Bulgakov’s use of the word “professor” at the morgue, in the passage quoted earlier, as too obvious for Bulgakov.

The direct references to the horrible death of Berlioz are apparently not enough for Bulgakov. In order to show that Berlioz’s blood was flowing in a torrent during his beheading, Bulgakov, in the twelfth chapter Black Magic and its Exposure has another beheading shown, that of the lying-lips compere Bengalsky. Here, very skillfully, Bulgakov shows that Begemot did indeed have a hand in stealing the head of Berlioz prior to the funeral.

Using his professional knowledge of anatomy, Bulgakov presents a thoroughly gruesome picture of an actual beheading.

Rip off his head? Here’s an idea! Begemot!--- he shouted to the cat. Do it! Ein, Zwei…Drei!! And then an unseen thing happened. The fur on the black cat stood up, and he meowed ear-piercingly. Then he contracted into a lump, and, like a panther, jumped straight onto Bengalsky’s chest, and from there shifted to his head. Growling, with his puffy paws, the cat tore into the compere’s receding hair, and howling savagely, in two twists ripped this head from the thick neck…

Blood gushed upwards from the torn neck arteries…

There is a good reason why in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate Yeshua says the following signature words to the procurator of Judea:

“It is so easy and pleasant to speak the truth.”

Clearly, Bulgakov did not like brainwashers and liars…

To be continued tomorrow…

THANKSGIVING 2014

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers!

Alas, there are too many things in the world to be appalled by. But still there are also things in each person’s life to be thankful for.

Let us remember to be thankful for them.

THE REVEREND FRANCIS HUTCHESON

 

After Christian Wolff, here is still another “insignificant” philosopher whose importance to philosophy far exceeds his share of recognition. The philosopher in question has never been acknowledged as an authentic member of the philosophical elite. Having said that, the good reason for writing such an entry on him at all is the important remark of Lord Bertrand Russell in his History of Western Philosophy, in the chapter on the Utilitarians and on Jeremy Bentham (!!!) in particular.---

“…There is nothing new in this (Bentham’s) doctrine, which came to be called utilitarianism. It had been advocated by Hutcheson as early as 1725. Bentham attributes it to Priestley (a much later arrival!), who, however, had no special claim to it... Bentham’s merit consisted not in the doctrine, but in his vigorous application of it to various practical problems.” (Thus, theoretically, Bentham was not original… nota bene!)

My Webster’s Biographical Dictionary is hardly generous to Hutcheson, affording him a mere three short lines:

“Hutcheson, Francis. 1694-1746. Scottish philosopher; professor, Glasgow (1729-1746); author of System of Moral Philosophy (pub. 1755).”

And finally, a little more recognition, courtesy of the Wikipedia.---

“The Rev. Francis Hutcheson… was an Irish philosopher born in Ireland to a family of Scottish Presbyterians, who became one of the founding fathers of the Scottish Enlightenment. Hutcheson was an important influence on the works of several significant Enlightenment thinkers, including David Hume and Adam Smith.”

Here is a far more generous acknowledgment of Hutcheson’s importance to the history of philosophy, and a still greater reason for me to include him as a separate entry in this section…

THE FATHER OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY

My general weakness for history unknown, ignored, or misunderstood is well known to the reader by now. The largely forgotten figure of Christian Wolff fits well into the pattern of my rehabilitations of historical personalities and events that have fallen victim to such historical unfairness, which I have dubbed No way to treat a Lady.

***

There is, in Lenin, an acknowledgment of the three roots of Marxism and Scientific Communism, namely, German Philosophy, British Political Economy, and French Utopian Socialism. Without getting into any unnecessary arguments about Lenin and Karl Marx, we may all agree that, in the modern era of Western philosophy, German philosophy, from Kant to Nietzsche (and, arguably, beyond the latter), occupies the foremost position of distinction and excellence. It is therefore quite important to ascertain, or just to remind the reader, how this preeminent position of specifically German philosophy had come about.

We have already written about a host of German-born philosophers, from St. Albertus Magnus to Leibniz, in the chronological, to date, series of entries in both the Shadows and this section. But all of them can be counted as citizens of a supranational commonwealth of European geniuses, and thus, assigning a national tag to any of them would be almost incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial. In fact, national identification becomes significant only since the eighteenth century, whereas, prior to that time, it can be seen as purely incidental.

Even with Leibniz, the use of the German language in philosophical writings is virtually embryonic. If he wished to be understood by his fellow philosophers, he resorted to Latin, but most of his writings were not even in the “lingua franca” of scholars, Latin, but in what can be called “lingua Franca” only with the greatest of reservations: the French language! In this sense we cannot call either him, or any other German-born philosopher before him, a “German” philosopher per se.

All modern readers of post-Kantian philosophy in the native German cannot help marveling at the special responsiveness of the German language to expressing various highly sophisticated and intricately nuanced philosophical notions for which Hegel in particular has taken some credit. Nietzsche’s linguistic innovations are, of course, legendary, but one must not forget that the most excellent German philosophical vocabulary had preexisted him and Schopenhauer; and even the old Kant was by no means its bona fide creator, but only a lucky beneficiary.

The glory of creating the renowned German philosophical vocabulary belongs to the little remembered, by now, German mathematician and philosopher Christian Wolff (1679-1754), who, at one time, was the ruler of the German philosophical classroom, but was doomed to fade away even in his own lifetime, but with a much greater speed in the Kantian era. Kant was sort of generous to him, calling him the greatest German dogmatic philosopher, if we accept the word dogma in its technical non-pejorative sense. Hegel, in lectures on German philosophy, demolished Wolff as a philosopher, but at least paid him tribute in the sense which I am employing now.

In short, we might have easily ignored Wolff as a philosopher in our sketches of great philosophers, but as a man who occupies a special place of great distinction in the history of German philosophy, Wolff cannot be ignored, and the title of father of German philosophy befits him fair and square.

…Three cheers for Herr Christian Wolff!!!

 

SCIENZA NUOVA

The Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) is surprisingly little-known, considering that he is credited as the greatest Italian philosopher of the Enlightenment, the creator of modern philosophy of history and a builder of the foundations of cultural anthropology and ethnology. In his philosophical outlook he is anti-Cartesian, but he is by no means derivative on those grounds. In fact, much of what he says is all new, and he has been praised for his originality by several major subsequent thinkers, such as Goethe and Hegel, and particularly, Karl Marx. On the other hand, he appears to have been an outsider to his own age, and despite the freshness of his approach and the greatly challenging and interesting nature of his theories, it is really astounding that his name had never spawned a mighty European tornado of far-reaching controversy and debate.

Two particular examples of this unusual situation around Vico will suffice here. Montesquieu was known to have a copy of Vico’s magnum opus (its full title that has lent itself in an abbreviated form to this entry’s title is Principi di Scienza Nuova d’intorno alla Comune Natura delli Nazioni. I must also mention the fact that the phrase New Science had already been in prior use by Galileo but in reverse order as Nuova Scienza) and in the philosophy of history, which he is claimed to have inaugurated) and to have studied it assiduously, but he never mentions Vico or his book in any of his writings. Another example is that Vico was reportedly a major influence on Bertrand Russell, but for some reason his name is not in the name index to his History of Western Philosophy, although he does make extensive comments about Vico in his other books.

Before coming up with his Scienza Nuova (first edition: 1725, revised in 1730, revised again in1744), Vico had developed his main underlying principle, known as verum factum, in his 1710 De Italorum Sapientia. It says that Verum esse ipsum factum. This means that truth can only be verified through creation or invention and not through observation, as Dèscartes had thought: The criterion and rule of the true is to have made it. Accordingly, our clear and distinct idea of the mind cannot be a criterion of the mind itself, and still less of other truths. For while the mind perceives itself, it does not make itself. This criterion for truth would shape the history of civilization in Scienza Nuova, since he would argue that civil life, like mathematics, is wholly constructed.

The book attempts a compromise between Christian teaching and secular historical knowledge. Humanity as God’s Creation was good, but then, through its improper exercise of free will, became sinful, was punished by the Flood and was nearly wiped out. The survivors were divided into the chosen people, namely the Jews who received God’s Revelation and started a life under Divine guidance, and giganti, forefathers of pagans, who subsisted in virtually beastly states, gradually climbing out of them through the power of religion. Even pagan religions, Vico says, become the means of re-humanizing the giganti, giving rise to social institutions and communities of people. “Only religion compels peoples to commit heroic acts, driven by emotions.”

There are several major themes in Vico’s philosophical teaching. One, taken from Polybius, in opposition to the Cartesian rationalism and the prevailing natural-legal theories of his time is the cyclical development of society (corso e ricorso). The recurring cycle of three ages: the divine, the heroic, and the human, constitutes, in his words, la storia ideale eterna.

Another  major theme is that of God’s Providence. God governs the world according to His design, and He seals the destinies of nations according to His Will. Vico does not believe, however, in the idea that God’s punishing anger or mercy can be directly felt either as national misery or as national happiness. God reveals Himself in history only through human nature. The latter is inclined to think only of its personal advantage; however, the Spirit of God, while allowing human passions free play, makes man contemplate, and wisely directs this free play, in order that civil institutions, the overcoming of barbarism, and eventually humanity might evolve out of it. As Vico puts it, “He turned their limited designs to the service of His higher purposes, in order to assure the preservation of the human race on this earth.”

Vico’s peculiar ideas about language and myth are also of great interest. He says that man’s thinking and his language were completely poetic at an early historical stage, born out of his fantasy. The myths are poetic tales of history, told employing some fantastic tribal notions, made comprehensible owing to people’s unbounded imagination. Thus, Hercules, for instance, although not a historical personality, reflects real life, as a “heroic character of the nation founders, from the viewpoint of their efforts.” Thus, for Vico, languages and myths, the most authentic relics of ancient times, become the authentic source of historical knowledge, whereas whatever has been reported by the historians and philosophers of later times, has been corrupted by their contemporary biases, and therefore is of no value.

And finally, his concept of class struggle. Vico realized the peculiar connection between formalistic cruelty and primeval colorfulness, underlying the legal principles of antiquity; the significance of the class struggle between the patricians and the plebeians, transforming the state, and thus, the significance of class struggle as such. Karl Marx was particularly appreciative of Vico’s idea of the innate ineradicable hostility among the social classes.

Once again this reminder: the subject matter here is extremely interesting to me from several perspectives: philosophically, historically, and linguistically, and I am looking forward to digging up much more of the original Vico, which will enable me to analyze his contribution to posterity, by my own standards. This will be done at the earliest opportunity, but, unfortunately, now is not the time for it. Meantime, the purpose of posting this entry now is primarily my reader’s edification.