Two Adversaries Continues.
“Insane,
rabid, bloody mire!
What are
you? Death? Or healing to the cripples?
Lead me,
lead me to him,
I want to behold
this man.”
S. Yesenin. Pugachev.
The prototype of Ivan Bezdomny [aka Azazello] is a contemporary of
Bulgakov, a very strong figure in Master
and Margarita, as with him the novel starts and with him it ends.
And although it is V. V. Mayakovsky whom Bulgakov chooses as his
adversary, it is to V. V. Mayakovsky that I am leaving the honor to spell out
his name:
“You are
gone to what they call another world.
Emptiness,
you are flying colliding with the stars…
No, Yesenin,
this is not mockery!
There’s a
lump of grief in my throat. This is not funny…
Stop it!
Stop it! Have you lost your mind? ...
You could do
such wonders,
Which no one
else in the world could do…
Perhaps, had
[the hotel] Angleterre ink,
There would
have been no reason for you to slash your veins…”
It is precisely because of the manner of suicide chosen by Sergei Yesenin,
that Bulgakov gives one of his personifications (Yesenin is split in Master and Margarita) the Italianized
name Azazello. Also, remember the following exchange on a stone terrace
overlooking Moscow:
…“At sunset, high above the city on the stone terrace of one of the
most beautiful buildings in Moscow (in this passage Bulgakov refers to the most eminent building of the
State Lenin Library, where I used to work, as a research fellow and also
teaching German to the staff, in my younger years), built around a hundred and fifty years
ago, there stood two individuals. They were Woland and Azazello. Like Woland,
Azazello’s eyes were fixed on the city. Woland spoke.---
‘What an interesting city,
isn’t it?’‘Messire, I prefer Rome.’
‘Yes, it is a matter of taste,’ replied Woland.
Thus the great Russian writer of the twentieth century M. A. Bulgakov
honors the great Russian poet of the twentieth century S. A. Yesenin, a son of
peasants who chose the manner of suicide of a Roman nobleman, underscoring the
fact that Russia is the Third Rome.
And so, Bulgakov chooses Sergei Yesenin, a precious nugget of the Russian
people, as the prototype of both Ivan Bezdomny and Azazello, the demon of the
waterless desert, because of his out of this world associations in his poetry,
serving as Bulgakov’s inspiration in the writing of Master and Margarita and beyond.
In his Confession of a Hooligan,
Yesenin writes to his peasant parents:
“Oh, if you
could only understand
That your
son is the very best poet in Russia.”
We have the testimony of Maxim Gorky, whom Sergei Yesenin “touched to the point
of a spasm in my throat… I wanted to weep,” writes Gorky in his
sketch Sergei Yesenin.
“Yesenin recites
terrifically, and it became hard, to the point of tears, to listen to him… The
poet’s voice sounded somewhat croakily, stridently, brokenly. With an amazing
sincerity, with an incredible power...”
Maxim Gorky writes this about Yesenin’s recital of his very powerful poem
Pugachev, where he follows in the
footsteps of A. S. Pushkin, who was so interested in this part of Russian
history that he traveled to the Urals to do research for his work History of the Pugachev Rebellion.
Yesenin’s Pugachev is an
amazing work. “It
was even hard to believe that this little man possessed such a great power of
feeling, such perfect power of expression.”
Here is your first proof that Sergei Yesenin was of small height, like
Azazello, and consequently, like Ivanushka. Yesenin says about himself: “lean and short-height.”
Oh, and did I forget to mention that, like V. V. Mayakovsky and Maxim
Gorky, Sergei Yesenin, too, happened to visit America? Ivanushka’s “cowboy
shirt” points to this fact.
As for Yesenin himself, “curly-haired and merry, such a rogue,” he compares
himself to the wind:
“But be not
afraid, insane wind,
Spit quietly
the leaves across the dales.
The nickname
‘poet’ won’t wipe me off,
Even in my
songs, I am, like you, a hooligan.”
“My banditry is of a
special brand,” writes
Yesenin about himself in his play in verse Land
of Scoundrels. “It is my consciousness, not a profession.”
Considering that Sergei Yesenin saw himself as a “robber,” “bandit,”
“hooligan,” Bulgakov not only equips him with a “cowboy shirt,” but he turns
him into Azazello.
“I am
reading poetry to prostitutes,
And frying
[drinking] alcohol with bandits.”
In Bulgakov, it is Begemot, however, not Azazello, who offers pure
alcohol to Margarita.
“Noblesse oblige, remarked
the Cat, and poured some colorless liquid into a faceted glass for Margarita.
Is this vodka?--- asked Margarita weakly.
The cat jumped up on his stool, taking offense.Have mercy, Queen, he croaked. Would I allow myself to serve vodka to a lady? This is pure alcohol!”
Bulgakov exercises caution here. Alongside “frying alcohol with bandits,” everybody is familiar with Yesenin’s
famous line:
“I put my
money on the Queen of Spades,
But played
the Ace of Diamonds.”
It was for a good reason that Yesenin wrote about himself:
“Had I not
been a poet,
I would
surely have been a rascal and a thief.”
And in this poem:
“Only I
myself am a robber and a brute,
And by blood
a horse-thief of the steppes.”
What Bulgakov also understands very well is that Sergei Yesenin, by
transposing letters in the name of the famous anarchist Batka Makhno, portrays himself in the Land of Scoundrels in the character of the hero Nomakh.
The following description of Sergei Yesenin is provided by a waitress in
the play:
“They write
that you have destroyed a train…
They went
searching after you,
They say
that they hope to catch you.
A thousand
gold coins have been promised,
Giving your
description:
A blond guy,
medium-height, 28 years of age.”
Interestingly, Yesenin describes himself here, and even gives his own age
at the writing of this poem. On the other hand, Makhno was dark-haired. Besides,
it would have been unbecoming for Yesenin to disguise Makhno’s name so cheaply,
had it indeed been Makhno. After all, in Pugachev
all historical figures are called by their real names. But making himself “Nomakh,” Yesenin indulges in a
good joke.
In his long poem Anna Snegina,
Yesenin calls himself a “blond” not just once, but twice.---
“Anna
[Snegina] asked:
---Isn’t he
that poet?
---Oh yes, I
say, that same one.
---The
blond?
---But of
course the blond!
---With
curly hair?
---Such an
amusing gentleman!
---When did
he arrive?
---Recently.
---Ah, mama
dear, that’s him!
You know,
this is funny,
But at one
time he was in love with me…”
To be continued…
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