GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CXCVII.

Two Bears.

The Sun.

 

“All of a sudden, the gray background…burst open, and out of the murky gloom, a sudden sun showed itself. It was so large as never seen before in Ukraine, and it was all red, like pure blood.”

M. A. Bulgakov.

 

“I look in silence at the West, where burning out

And reddening goes down the proud luminary.

I want to follow it, perhaps it knows

How to resurrect all that is dear.

M. Yu. Lermontov.

 

From the famous Triangle of A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, and M. A. Bulgakov, we are now stepping over into the segment Two Bears: Mikhail Lermontov and Mikhail Bulgakov, the two namesakes, whose first name is traditionally associated with the Russian Bear.

From the rebellious proud Demon, his fall, his dreams, his unsuccessful attempt at love, we move on to the “proud luminary” of M. Yu. Lermontov.

The sun plays an interesting role in Bulgakov’s works. I already wrote that in Master and Margarita (see my Fantastic Novel of Master and Margarita), Margarita has a sunny constitution, and master has a lunar constitution. Bulgakov’s sun is pitiless, it burns and kills. We learn this from master’s tale to Ivanushka, “that he does not blame her who pushed him to fight for anything, oh, no, he does not blame” Margarita, on whose insistence he “went out into life, and… [his life] was finished.”

Bulgakov tries his ability to introduce the sun as one of the characters in his literary work already in 1922, in his novel White Guard, giving a poetic description of Petlura’s entry into Kiev, where the sun is already linked to blood and death.

“All of a sudden, the gray background in the cut between the cupolas burst open, and out of the murky gloom, a sudden sun showed itself. It was so large as never seen before in Ukraine, and it was all red, like pure blood. From the sphere making an effort to shine through the cover of the clouds, measuredly and far out there stretched the strips of dried blood and ichor. The sun painted red the main dome of Sophia, and a strange shadow was cast from it across the square, turning Bogdan [the giant statue of Bogdan Khmelnitzky, the erstwhile scourge of Ukrainian Jews] violet, while the restless crowd of people was made even darker, even thicker, even more restless.”

In the very first chapter of Master and Margarita, already on the third page of the novel, Bulgakov makes it clear to the reader that the life of M. A. Berlioz is rapidly coming to an end, with the ominous words: “the sun [was] leaving Berlioz forever.”

And before this, he draws the reader’s attention to a highly unusual phenomenon which he himself calls “an oddity”:

“At the hour when it seems that there was no more strength to breathe, when the sun, having sizzled up Moscow, was falling down, in a dry fog, somewhere behind the Garden Circle [Sadovoye Koltso],--- nobody came under the linden, nobody sat down on a bench, the alley was empty.”

But with an even greater intensity Bulgakov’s sun unleashes its stormy power in Pontius Pilate, for a very understandable reason: it is associated here with the death of some and the resurrection of others. In his poem There is an Ailment in my Breast, and there is no Cure for it, Lermontov writes:

“I look in silence at the West, where burning out

And reddening goes down the proud luminary.

I want to follow it, perhaps it knows

How to resurrect all that is dear.”

The first mention of the sun in Pontius Pilate is ominous already:

“Everybody felt that the balcony grew dark, when… Mark, nicknamed Krysoboy [Ratkiller, he was a cold and dedicated executioner, as Pontius Pilate himself calls him] completely shut off the still low-lying sun.”

Bulgakov continues to link the sun with death, the end of life:

“The Procurator looked at the prisoner, next at the sun, which was relentlessly rising up… And the thought of poison suddenly temptingly flashed inside the sick head of the Procurator.”

As for Yeshua, he “moved away from the sun”; “blocked the sun off with his hand” --- as though unwilling to die, and not for nothing did the Procurator “see that a pillar of dust caught fire at the side of the man [Yeshua]”--- a portent of his resurrection.

As M. Yu. Lermontov wrote,---

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

Ridiculous is immortality on earth.

How could I wish for loud fame,

When you are happy in the dust.”

Bulgakov continues this theme of immortality:

“The sun, burning out Yerushalaim with some uncommon fury these days, had not reached its highest point yet, when the Procurator [Pontius Pilate] and the Judean High Priest Josef Caiaphas had a meeting. In the course of this meeting, a different thought flashed through the head of Pontius Pilate: ‘Immortality has come, immortality…’ and the thought of this mysterious immortality made him freeze under the hot sun.”

Naturally, Bulgakov already writes about the immortality of Pontius Pilate here, which is inextricably connected to the immortality of Jesus Christ. As M. Yu. Lermontov wrote: “Along with mine, your name will be repeated…” If we take a fuller text of this poem, it relates to Master and Margarita, as I previously had a chance to write:

“…And you, my angel, you

Are not to die with me: my love

Will give you to immortal life again;

Along with mine, your name will be repeated:

Why separate the dead?”

M. Yu. Lermontov.

That is, in Bulgakov, master and Margarita are inseparable in death: they die together and together they set off into Rest. And surely, there is a third level here too: Bulgakov himself is immortal, with the “name” like “Master and Margarita,” his immortal novel about true love.

A portent of death is illustrated by another poem by Lermontov. In Three Palms, Lermontov writes:

“And the three palms started grumbling against God…

And as soon as they were done grumbling—in the blue faraway

A pillar of golden sand was already whirling…”

That pillar of sand is a portent of their imminent death. The people in the arriving caravan hacked down the three palms, to make a fire…

Pontius Pilate has several portents of death: he imagines a cup filled with poison, as well as the ugly head (sic!) of the Emperor Tiberius.---

“Pilate imagined that everything around him vanished altogether.
The city he hated so much died, and he alone was standing, scorched by the vertical rays of the sun, fixing his face into the sky… Here he imagined that the sun, with a ringing sound, burst over him, pouring fire into his ears…”

Already in Diaboliada, written in 1923, Bulgakov says this about the death of the Russian officer V. P. Korotkov: “And then the blood-filled sun with a ringing sound burst inside his head.”

Bulgakov associates the sun with death and the storm with the wrath of God.

“Darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city so much hated by the Procurator… The great city of Yerushalaim disappeared, as if it had not existed at all. Darkness devoured everything, scaring all living things in Yerushalaim and around it… The torrent came down all of a sudden, and then the storm turned into a hurricane…”

To be continued…