OUT OF JOINT: REGARDING THE 70th SESSION OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

The current session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York has begun its work under dismal circumstances. Truly, our time is out of joint. Wars and rumors of wars, Apocalyptic suggestions of a Third World War, global crises causing unbelievable human tragedies, lack of coordination and outright enmity among the Great Powers of the World, indeed, a time when the living envy the dead.

International diplomacy has miserably failed. In a community of nations vital interests seldom clash, and when non-vital interests clash, there is always room for compromise. In today’s confrontation of the giants, the parties have painted themselves into corners with incompatible positions. The heated rhetoric is unreasonable, particularly over the question of Syria, where the necessary war against the extremist Islamic State is being preconditioned by a demanded collapse of the main bulwark of the world’s defense against international terrorism. Imagine in World War II Roosevelt and Churchill demanding Stalin’s dismissal in the midst of Russia’s war against Hitler as a precondition of defeating Nazi Germany!!!

No wonder diplomacy has failed. The world is filled with people in the position of power who seem to have lost their senses…

Nietzsche wrote that “power makes stupid.” Perhaps we might add that illusions of power make even stupider. But there is still hope, even in such utterly desperate situations. Let us all hope that there is “sanity in numbers.”

In this regard, no “coalition of the willing,” no “alliance for progress” makes the proper numbers. In fact, we may rightfully say that today only the much foul-mouthed and ridiculed United Nations is the numbers.

Six years ago almost to the day I wrote an entry, which I posted on this blog. I am now drawing the reader’s attention to it. The reader can find the post itself, dated September 27^th, 2009, or for the reader’s convenience find it here, below. It basically says the rest of what I want to say today, and here it is:

United Nations: To Be Or Not To Be?

This entry was published on my blog on September 27^th, 2009.

The ongoing 64^th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York has been, as now customary, rich on theater, but rather thin on substance, playing into the hand of the critics of the UN as an institution, and turning up the volume on such inane suggestions as the abolishment of the UN, and the establishment of something like a United Democratic Nations, which is, apparently, envisaged as a U.S.-sponsored club of a handful of Western-style democracies, plus all nations on good terms with the U.S. (Even if one is unsavory and grotesquely undemocratic, who would want to exclude a “friend” who will be voting on your side, when only the ballot numbers matter?)

In other words, the idea tossed around Washington these days is to create a mutual admiration society, with very little influence on or relevance to what is going on out there in the real world. For, needless to say, the idea of ostracizing all unpleasant characters from “my” world club is not only pathetically impractical, but it also makes the world a much more dangerous place to live in. UN membership is not a reward for good behavior, but a sober recognition of the state of world affairs.

This comment is meant to be serious and therefore I will say no more about the silly alternatives to the UN. Having worked as a UN official in my earlier career, I have more important things to say about the UN, and about other International Organizations, none of which latter, mind you, has been set to upstage the UN.

There are quite a few international organizations around the world today, all of which either were created or are currently maintained for the purpose of mutual convenience of its members. The old British Empire was fairly successfully converted into the post-imperial British Commonwealth. (Although its effectiveness is somewhat diluted these days, as a result of the world’s over-saturation with other organizations, designed for similar purposes). On the other hand, De Gaulle’s famous effort to convert the old French Empire into an analogous international body, La Communauté, did not quite get off the ground, undermined by strong centrifugal forces of local nationalism. Now, why were the British successful, where the French failed? In my view, the French, being the predominant power in their proposed Communauté, the others saw this as a threat to their own sovereignty, whereas the British Commonwealth of Nations included such powerhouses as Canada and Australia, not to mention the emerging (nuclear) giants India and Pakistan, and others, and with such balanced distribution of power, there was no threat that a single nation would be able to dictate its imperialistic rules to the fifty-three others.

There is little to say about such regional international organizations as the Arab League, ASEAN, African Union (formerly OAU) and OAS, except that their intended design to serve as regional meeting venues has been proven useful, and in the case of OAS, has resisted domination by the United States to the point where the American giant has found itself virtually ostracized by the Latin American community of nations.

There is a bit more than meets the eye in other such regional conglomerates, like the SCO, co-dominated by Russia and China, or the League of the Caspian Basin States, dominated by Russia, and several others, all of them made conspicuous by the absence of the United States in them, and all implicitly designed to provide a counterbalance to America’s imperial ambitions.

The CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) organization loosely binding twelve (currently—de facto—eleven) out of fifteen former Soviet Republics, used to be, and in some minds may still remain, a portkey (to use J. K. Rowling’s very clever invention) to the former Soviet glory. I do not think, however, that the CIS corresponds in any way to Russia’s present-day ambitions, and, in a way, may even be a hindrance to them, but it does offer a certain technical convenience to its members, and for such purely technical reasons it will continue to subsist, although it has little chance of potential expansion, due to the restrictive qualities of its charter.

The most recent attempt to form a new regional organization of the Mediterranean States, promoted by the French, has become more of a joke, thanks to the German umbrage at being excluded. Now that Germany, a non-Mediterranean state, is finally in, the organization becomes rather awkward, and even if it has a future of its own, it will never amount to much, because its raison d’être is now grotesquely obfuscated.

Now, where does the EU come into the picture? In its formal organization, it is currently the closest thing to approximate the old futile idea of a “world government,” and a close study of its history and functioning in this twenty-first century reveals why the idea was so appealing to so many, but also what’s terminally wrong with it. There is so much internal animosity within the European Union now, ironically directed in most part from the established great European nations toward the small sneaky rascals of Eastern Europe such as, say, Poland, whose double-dealing on the side, with their bilateral ties to the United States, defeats the purpose of the Union’s creation as an independent world power in the first place. It is my expectation that in a rather short “long run,” the EU will be facing a serious structural crisis whose outcome is still hard to predict, but among the alternative solutions are expulsions of undesirable members, angry cancellations of membership on the part of the members in good standing, and finally, a radical revision of the EU Charter. I do not think however that a complete dissolution of the European Union will ever be in the cards, as this is a very useful organization, and the only one to provide Europe with a clear road map to full “independence” from NATO and the United States. Thus for as long as the threat of an American domination of Western Europe remains, the nations of Europe will be willing to allow the EU Government to dictate some of the rules by which they have temporarily agreed to live and they will even accept a certain level of German economic and political domination within the EU, which has by now become an obvious reality.

And, finally, the so much maligned by some, yet so much praised by others, the United Nations is to me the most excellent organization of all, considering that its inclusion of practically all independent world nations guarantees to each a full representation, both in the General Assembly and in the Security Council (on the rotating basis), while no single superpower is able to dominate it. The never-ending griping about the UN, coming from the United States is caused by her incapacity to impose her will on the UN, but the constant calls to “kick the UN out of the USA” are patently silly, and extremely harmful to American interests, as the United Nations has the highest value in the eyes of the world’s smaller nations, and all efforts to diminish its worldwide prestige, and even effectiveness, in solving a variety of international problems (granted, quite limited), are viewed by all of them as a personal affront. (Having served with the UN Secretariat, I very well and personally know what I am talking about!)

Having always admired the Constitution of the United States of America as a lofty example of idealistic, yet practicable writing, I am here posting a few excerpts from the Preamble of the United Nations Charter, that was written undoubtedly under the influence of the former document, and expresses a similar idealism with no less fervor:

We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and…

To reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small (here is the projection of Hobbes’s homo sapiens beyond the nation-state Commonwealth to the whole community of world nations, which I have previously noted already!), and…

To establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and…

To promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and…

To practice tolerance and live together in peace and security, and…

To ensure, by the acceptance of principles and institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and…

To employ the international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples, have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims…

In other words, the United Nations Charter is an admirable example of Western-style writing, reflecting the best democratic values, and the task of Western Democracies is to appeal to the UN Charter’s authority in bringing the United Nations into harmony with its own principal document, rather than to trash the UN, thus rendering the UN Charter impotent and irrelevant.

My last comment in this entry concerns the establishment of a world government. In some of my earlier writings, I have referred to this idea as futile, and I obviously stand by my verdict. There is no way that the centrifugal forces of world nationalism would ever allow a central world government to set the rules of the “common game.” The bigger nations would never allow the small ones to use their superior number to gain the upper hand, and, conversely, the small nations will not allow the big nations to use their overwhelming economic, political and military power to establish a numerical minority rule over the disadvantaged, yet ever proud majority.

But the idea of world government does not lose its limited attraction, and even certain practical worth, just because of its admitted general impracticability. And to ensure that some limited benefits can still be gained from this idea, there is no other international organization in existence, or even existing in the minds of the best wishful thinkers of the world, better equipped for this purpose than the old, “incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial” United Nations.

The End.

UNIVERSAL ALGEBRA AND OTHER PHILOSOPHY

(The title of this entry refers to the book Treatise on Universal Algebra (1898), by the English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who is the subject of this entry.)

This entry honors the English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), teacher and collaborator of the great Bertrand Russell on the epic Principia Mathematica. Although his philosophical stature is universally recognized, he was to me a fairly minor philosopher, so that, but for his historic collaboration with his brilliant Cambridge student Russell, he would hardly have been given a place among the entries of this section, or elsewhere. (Obviously I have no distinctive personal experience of him or of his work in my subjective arsenal, to justify a special mention of him, either.)

A. N. Whitehead is one of those lucky figures in history whose fame is larger than their proper significance. There are several reasons for that, including his co-authorship of the supremely influential Principia Mathematica. To be fair, in the division of labor on this momentous project, the work was predominantly done by Russell, particularly, all of its properly philosophical parts, including the brilliant Introduction. It was a testimony to Russell’s own intellectual generosity to divide the resulting credit equally between the two of them, which under the circumstances he did not have to do. But perhaps the biggest reason for Whitehead’s good fortune was that he was himself a good man. As Britannica puts it, Whitehead’s habit of helpfulness made him universally beloved. In its additional general assessment Britannica adds: Whitehead has not had disciples (which is of course consistent with the fact that he was only a minor philosopher, one incapable of attracting notable intellectual disciples) though his admirers have included leaders in every field of thought. (The causes of such admiration lie in his character, rather than in his philosophical power, as we noted earlier...) …His educational and philosophical books have been translated into many languages. His metaphysics has been keenly studied, in the United States most of all. (From 1924 to the end of his life he resided mostly in the United States, teaching at Harvard, and retiring there.) What is now called Whitehead’s “process theology” is, easily, the most influential part of his system… Though his courtesy was perfect, there was nothing soft about him... Never contentious, he was astute, charitable, and quietly stubborn. He had a realistic, well-poised mind, and a fine irony, free of malice. Whitehead combined singular gifts of intuition, intellectual power, and goodness with firmness and wisdom.

In a very peculiar overreach (as it seems to me), Britannica makes the following comment, set in italics, on the start of Whitehead’s career in America:

In the early 1920s Whitehead was clearly the most distinguished philosopher of science writing in English. When a friend of Harvard University the historical scholar Henry Osborn Taylor pledged the money for his salary (rather humiliating to my Russian taste, I confess), Harvard, early in 1924, offered Whitehead a five-year appointment as professor of philosophy. He was sixty-three years old… The idea of teaching philosophy appealed to him, and his wife wholeheartedly concurred in the move. (Not a minor detail… But wait, now comes the clincher!) Harvard soon found out that it had acquired more than a philosopher of science; it had acquired a metaphysician comparable in stature to Leibniz and Hegel. (!!!)

In order to merit such a stupendous distinction, any philosopher must have something to show for it. Frankly, I am at a loss here, and for this reason, I shall return to the very first introductory paragraph of the Britannica article on Whitehead. The same entry author who compared him to Leibniz and Hegel introduces him thus: “English mathematician and philosopher, who collaborated with Bertrand Russell on Principia Mathematica (1910-1913) (we have touched upon this collaboration already, but at any rate, a Leibniz or a Hegel ought not to be primarily introduced through an association or a collaboration!), and from the mid-1920’s taught at Harvard University (Harvard has had many teachers throughout its history, and this distinction by itself is not sufficient for a Leibniz or a Hegel!) and developed a comprehensive metaphysical theory.” Now, this already is something to explore, and so let us do it. The following differently-colored segment is unapologetically appropriated from reference sources. ---

The genesis of Whitehead’s process philosophy may be attributed to his having witnessed the overthrow of Newtonian physics as a result of Einstein’s work; his metaphysical views emerged in his 1920 The Concept of Nature, and expanded in his 1925 Science and the Modern World, also an important study in the history of ideas, and the role of science and mathematics in the rise of Western civilization. Indebted as he was to Bergson’s philosophy of change, Whitehead was also a Platonist who “saw the definite character of events as due to the ingression of timeless entities.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica)… In 1927, Whitehead was asked to give the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh. These were published in 1929 as Process and Reality, the book that founded process philosophy, a major contribution to Western metaphysics.

Process and Reality is famous for its defense of theism, although Whitehead’s God differs essentially from the revealed God of Abrahamic religion. Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism originated process theology. Some Christians and Jews find process theology a fruitful way of understanding God and the universe. Just as the entire universe is in constant flow and change, God as the source of the universe is viewed as growing and changing. His rejection of the mind-body dualism is similar to elements in traditions such as Buddhism.

The main tenets of Whitehead’s metaphysic are summarized in his last and most readable work Adventures of Ideas (1933).

In Britannica’s general assessment, Adventures of Ideas offers penetrating, balanced reflections on the parts played by brute forces and by general ideas about humanity, God, and the universe, in shaping the course of Western civilization. Whitehead emphasized the impulse of life toward newness, and the absolute need for societies stable enough to nourish adventure which is fruitful, rather than anarchic. In this book, Whitehead summarized his metaphysics, and used it to elucidate the nature of beauty, truth, art, adventure, and peace. By “peace” he meant a religious attitude that is “primarily a trust in the efficacy of beauty.”

Aside from him being a good man and admittedly minor collaborator with Russell on Principia Mathematica, I have not been able to get a better feel for Whitehead’s philosophy. The concept of the aesthetical determining the ethical, which I have gleaned from it, is not an original concept by any stretch of imagination. (Although I can perfectly imagine to myself a hideous Quasimodo troll with a heart of gold and a scoundrel Prince Charming.) But any manifestation of goodness ought to be rewarded by at least a grateful honorable mention, and in this sense, Whitehead well deserves to be recommended to the readers of my blog.

PHENOMENOLOGY TRANSCENDING THE SPIRIT.

The title of this entry is unabashedly ironic. First in 1807 was Hegel’s groundbreaking Phänomenologie des Geistes. Then, a full century later, Edmund Husserl invented phenomenology. Is this supposed to mean that Husserl somehow transcended Hegel’s own phenomenology, or were they talking about different things? By asking this trick question, I am not entering a philosophical discussion about apples and oranges (comparing these two is by no means a meaningless endeavor, as long as it is properly done, from the philosophical point of view), but only launching the special entry on Husserl, who certainly deserves one, as the acknowledged inventor of a philosophical something.

The philosophical stature of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) can be argued about, but it is his invention of the new philosophical discipline called phenomenology, and notably his last major work The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, left unfinished at the time of his death in 1938, which make him a curious figure to comment about, and so we shall.

Husserl was a Jewish-born German philosopher who converted to Lutheranism in 1887, that is, long before it would become politically expedient. Yet in 1933 he was still dismissed from his university teaching position because of his Jewish roots.

His philosophy offers a peculiar combination of totally derivative concepts and his original arrangements of them, resulting in his creation of a new philosophical discipline, under the unoriginal title of phenomenology. (As a matter of fact, phenomenology can be considered a technical term. My Webster’s Dictionary has these two definitions: [1.] The science dealing with phenomena as distinct from the science of being [ontology]; [2.] The branch of a science that classifies and describes its phenomena without any attempt at explanation.)

(The following differently-colored note on Husserl’s contribution to the science of philosophy is derived from general reference sources, and it is presented here merely as an important element of reader’s edification on the matter at hand.)

Although previously employed by Hegel, it was Husserl’s adoption of this term (circa 1900) that propelled it into becoming the designation of a philosophical school. As a philosophical perspective, phenomenology is its method, though the specific meaning of the term varies according to how it is conceived by a given philosopher. As envisioned by Husserl, phenomenology is a method of philosophical inquiry that rejects the rationalist bias dominating Western thought since Plato, in favor of a method of reflective attentiveness that discloses the individual’s “lived experience.” Loosely rooted in an epistemological device, called epoché, rooted in Skepticism, Husserl’s method entails the suspension of judgment while relying on the intuitive grasp of knowledge, free of presuppositions and intellectualizing. Sometimes depicted as the “science of experience,” the phenomenological method is rooted in intentionality (originally Franz Brentano’s term), which is now Husserl’s theory of consciousness. Intentionality represents an alternative to the representational theory of consciousness, which holds that reality cannot be grasped directly, because it is available only through perceptions of reality, which are representations of it in the mind. Husserl countered that consciousness is not “in” the mind, but rather conscious of something other than itself (the intentional object), whether the object is a substance or a figment of imagination (i.e. the real processes associated with and underlying the figment). Hence, the phenomenological method relies on the description of phenomena as they are given to consciousness, in their immediacy.

And finally the above-mentioned last work of Husserl, his Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology is his contemplative answer to the deep crisis facing the intellectual world in the 1930’s, as a result of the “rise of barbarism.” Husserl connects it to what he sees as a pervasive misunderstanding of human reason, a misunderstanding that he tries to correct through his notion of the Lebenswelt, Life-world. The sciences, he says, can be given meaning only if they are founded on (his) phenomenology! Whether he is right or wrong is unimportant. At least he was successful in asking some useful questions, which is all that can be expected from a good philosopher.

(That last short paragraph would have been a proper conclusion to this entry, yet I cannot stop myself from making the following ironic observation. In my by now famous 1963 Webster’s Biographical Dictionary, there is a supershort article on Husserl, calling him “a German philosopher,” but giving no more details on him whatsoever. Why is that so? Frankly, my reader, I have no idea as to why! It is quite obvious that such a glaring neglect of an important philosopher has to mean something. Perhaps sometime in the future I may find it out…)

THE REFUGEE CRISIS: FROM TERRIBLE TO WORSE.

The unfolding gigantic refugee crisis in Europe seems to be going from terrible to worse, underscoring the profound political, economic, and social crisis in Europe, threatening to tear to shreds the fabric of Western Civilization with its historically developed system of values and even well-established legal procedures.

There is no way the present crisis can be reasonably resolved to anybody’s satisfaction for as long as it remains what it is: an irreconcilable clash of the extremes, for as long as its specific underlying causes have not been thoroughly examined and addressed.

Paraphrasing an old wisdom, this is a clash of heart versus head. Those who are against admitting the refugees seem to have no heart. Those who are ready to welcome all of them with open arms seem to have no head. The heart side has received a powerful boost from the appeal of Pope Franciscus to Christian humanistic sensibilities, a commendable emotional reaction to human tragedy.

The head side appeals to reason, to the sobering-up of the day after. To the inevitable political, economic, socio-cultural, and national security consequences in our age of global terrorism and resultant state-sponsored paranoia, in which the side effects of the medicine administered to societies may not be much better than the disease itself.

How can we bring together heart and head to a constructive dialogue, in which the mutual disdain and disparagement would not scuttle any mutually acceptable solution? Both sides are correct in their approach to the reality of the current crisis. What makes them incompatible are the numbers.

Stalin once famously said: One human death is a tragedy. A million dead is just a statistic. He has been severely condemned for saying this by his critics, but Stalin’s critics in this case are hypocrites. There is no better formulation than his, to put the current refugee problem into proper perspective. I see a dead child washed ashore on a Turkish beach, and my heart breaks with grief. I instantly want to open my house and my wallet to help prevent another such tragedy. The next instant I am not so eager about my house and my shrinking wallet, but now I want my government to do the helping. After all, I am paying them enough in taxes to do the right thing!

But mind you, we are talking about actual human tragedies. How many of them can our senses register and process before our emotional empathy gets numb? When we reach an exceptionally large number, isn’t it true that our response will become different? Isn’t a million human tragedies just a statistic, where our emotion finally steps back, and reason grabs the center stage?

A million refugees? What about ten million? Come on, where does it stop?

And then, suddenly, in the shadow of the heartless statistics, even one child’s death does not hurt anymore. Goodbye, human values, goodbye, our bleeding heart! From now on, let commonsense do the talking!..

Farewell, compassionate Europe, “and if forever, then forever fare thee well.” The time has come for new leaders to march their nations toward a new clash of civilizations, where one extreme must conquer the other, in order to survive, because they are so utterly incompatible…

But let us approach the current crisis from another angle. A million refugees, or maybe even two, coming to Europe? But why not a billion or two, or even more? How many unfortunate victims of the world, and they do count in billions, would not desperately want to leave their failed and failing countries and come in search of better lives in Europe, in America, in Canada or in other fortunate areas of the world, where they can escape misery and outright human tragedy? How many more little children’s corpses have in fact been washed out on a beach somewhere where we do not care about them, because we do not see their pictures, and, frankly, we do not want to care? Billions of victims somewhere too far away to matter? But that is just it: a statistic!

Indeed, Stalin was right. He was so right that I emphasized this quote in my erstwhile book Stalin and Other Family, written in 1999, and in my entry Tragedy and Statistics, posted on this blog on February 7^th, 2011, A billion or a million, or even a hundred thousand, --- these are just numbers. And to go even further, even one human tragedy is just a statistic, as long as it is reasonably far away from us, as long as it does not disturb our general sense of quiet complacency. Out of sight, out of mind!

But what if all those billions did start descending upon rich Western nations, like the current refugees are? Come to think of it, why are some refugees luckier than others? Who empowers their exodus and their arrival in Europe, and why? This “why” is a very important question, because having an answer to it, we may start understanding what is going on, why some refugees are coming in, whereas others, even in direr straits are precluded from coming. Where does the money come from to pay, quite handsomely at that, for the precarious journey? Why do some people have this money, while others don’t? Is the tragedy of Syria so much greater than the tragedies of Iraq, Libya, and of many other countries torn by civil war?..

With the unspeakable tragedy of the current refugee crisis in full swing, it may appear too cruel to raise all these “heartless” questions. But I also keep wondering why all these Syrian refugees are fleeing to Europe from a country where, under President Assad, before this terrible war had started, they had admittedly led fairly prosperous lives, had received very decent education, had access to medical help and numerous other amenities, and lived in peace with their neighbors…

Why did the war start, in the first place? Not the official version, quite blurry at that, but the real deal!

Perhaps, asking this question first may be the right start in addressing the current refugee crisis and, I am sorry to say, more of them to come, in the not so distant future.

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCXV.

Margarita and the Wolf.

The Bulgakov Multiplicities Continues.

 

“We are all homeless,

How much do we need?”

Sergei Yesenin.

 

In chapter 30 of Master and Margarita, It’s Time! It’s Time! Bulgakov seemingly tries to pass off master as the author of the entire novel, as if forgetting that master has presumably written only the sub-novel Pontius Pilate, although even that last presumption is questionable. After all, in his conversation with Ivanushka, master explicitly refuses to answer any of his questions about the novel, except to say: “Oh, how I guessed it right! Oh, how I guessed it all!”

“Tell me, what happened after that to Yeshua and Pilate?, asked Ivan, I am begging you, I want to know.

Ah no, no, replied the guest with a twitch of pain. I cannot remember my novel without a shudder. Your acquaintance from Patriarch Ponds would have done it better than I can. Thank you for the conversation. Good bye.”

It seems strange, doesn’t it, that especially with his loquacity, which he exhibits telling Ivan about his lover, which is something that a man should be reticent about, master cuts off the Pontius Pilate line so abruptly and resolutely, and immediately takes his leave.

But clearly, Bulgakov attributes the authorship of Pontius Pilate to Woland, that is, to Satan who, according to the Bible had been terribly interested in Jesus Christ all along, and kept testing him. According to Bulgakov, only having received proof that Christ had taken all his sufferings in his human form to the end, Satan, in the sub-novel Pontius Pilate, inspires the Roman Procurator of Judea to avenge the death of Yeshua. [See this line in my chapter Cats, posted segment CXXII.]

This is the reason, by the way, why Woland never opens the copy of the novel’s manuscript. Having written it himself, why would he? This is also the reason why Woland says his famous phrase: “Manuscripts do not burn!”

Everything that belongs to the devil is indestructible.

And yet, it is precisely the non-existent master, created by Ivan’s fancy out of his loneliness at the psychiatric clinic, who, during Azazello’s visit to the basement ---

“--- without taking his eyes off [Azazello], was surreptitiously slightly pinching the wrist of his left hand under the table. But these pinches were not helping him. Azazello was not dissolving in the air…”

In his turn, the non-existent master comes to the conclusion that Azazello (who is also a creature of Ivan’s imagination, his “evil side,” so to speak) is nothing more than an ordinary man, as, according to master’s description of Azazello’s appearance, he is none other than the historian Ivan Ponyrev, formerly known as the poet Ivan Bezdomny [meaning, “Ivan the Homeless,” under his own name. No fang, no claws there. Ironically, even the name “Bezdomny” is taken by Bulgakov from the 1925 Yesenin poem, in which the poet returns home to his old feeble mother.

“We are all homeless,

How much do we need?

What has been given me,

That I am singing about.

Here I’m again at my parents’ supper…”

Right away, Bulgakov crushes the reader with his next puzzle, cleverly masking it with master’s words:

“But wasn’t it I myself who, as recently as yesterday, was trying to convince Ivan that he had met none other than Satan on Patriarch Ponds that day, and now, for some reason, I have become scared of this thought… [and here it comes, “like three hundred tons of trotil,” as V. S. Vysotsky would say, and also here are Vysotsky’s “two lines”--] …and started blabbering something about hypnotizers and hallucinations. What the devil hypnotizers were those?!”

To begin with, master cannot really use this word “hypnotizers,” because this particular version of the events comes out of the offices of the twelve investigators and is spread around Moscow without master’s knowledge.

And secondly, according to Bulgakov, when we revisit Ivan for the very last time at the end of the novel, it becomes clear to us that it had been explained to Ivan, following that chain of events and in the course of his recuperatory treatment, that “in his younger years he had become a victim of certain criminal hypnotizers, that he had to undergo treatment after that and that he had since recovered.”

The only way we can explain all this is that Bulgakov here “pulls Gogol and smoke,” to use Yesenin’s phrase, in order to confuse the reader, but at the same time he draws the reader’s attention to the question of authorship of the novel, or at least to the question on whose behalf Bulgakov wrote it.

***

If anybody there is sitting in the basement writing a book, it has to be Ivan Ponyrev/Bezdomny, who has said:

“I am not going to write verses anymore. I am now interested in a different thing... I want to write something else…”

And to master’s suggestion that he should write a sequel about Yeshua, Ivan Bezdomny shows no reaction. It is impossible to imagine that Ivan wouldn’t have been eager to write the story of master himself, which in fact he would do, as it was none other than he with whom the novel ends.

It is perfectly clear that it is Ivan Ponyrev sitting in the basement apartment and writing about the meeting between master and Azazello, as both master and Azazello are fictitious (as opposed to fictional) characters in Bulgakov’s novel.

What supports such a supposition even further is that the character of Ivan Ponyrev is clearly split into two: the poet Ivan Bezdomny and his evil side Azazello. (We must keep in mind, of course, that Ivan Bezdomny and Ivan Ponyrev are explicitly the same person, roughly corresponding to Old Ivan and New Ivan, in Bulgakov’s own terminology. Consequently, there is a difference. Old Ivan is affected by thunderstorms, whereas New Ivan suffers from the effects of the moon.)

It is the historian Ivan Ponyrev who is deeply affected by the moon, especially during full moon, when his symptoms suffer an aggravation. (See my chapter Who R U, Margarita? posted segment C for the effects of different lunar phases on the human body and mind.) And, yes, there are different homoeopathic remedies addressing this condition, and split personality happens to be one of the condition descriptions.

So, it is Ivan Ponyrev, who has abandoned his “so-called verses,” and sits down to write Master and Margarita. Moreover, perhaps tangentially, Ivan’s prototype Sergei Yesenin has a connection of sorts to that basement, considering that in Bulgakov’s time a certain historian Popov happened to live in it. This historian Popov was incidentally married to a certain granddaughter of Leo N. Tolstoy… You may have guessed it already, that S. A. Yesenin was married three times in the course of his fairly short life, and his last marriage was to that selfsame granddaughter of Leo N. Tolstoy!

 

We will continue with Margarita and the Wolf at a later date…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCXIV.

Margarita and the Wolf.

The Bulgakov Multiplicities Continues.

 

“…And there are people walking along that road,

People in shackles.

All of them are murderers or thieves,

As fate determined for them…

But I will too cut up someone,

To the whistling of autumn.

And me too, I will be led

With a rope around my neck,

Perhaps along the same windy road and sand,

To fall in love with misery…”

S. Yesenin.

 

These were the lines from Sergei Yesenin’s 1915 poem In That Land, which prompted Bulgakov to show this side of him in Master and Margarita. ---

“…And there are people walking along that road,

People in shackles.

All of them are murderers or thieves,

As fate determined for them…

But I will too cut up someone,

To the whistling of autumn.

And me too, I will be led

With a rope around my neck,

Perhaps along the same windy road and sand,

To fall in love with misery…

As always, Bulgakov takes his ideas primarily from the poetry of his personages, but he also frequently supports them by other works of A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, and in this case Cervantes, whose second part of Don Quixote he turned into a play.

And also in S. A. Yesenin, in the dramatic long poem Land of Scoundrels, the poet presents the following description of his, granted, imaginary criminal activity, including a portrait of himself as the bandit Nomakh:

“They write that you have destroyed a train,

Killed a commandant and a Red Army soldier.

They went searching after you,

They say that they hope to catch you.

Ten thousand rubles have been promised,

Giving your description:

A blond guy, medium-height, 28 years of age.”

Naturally, when taken by itself, this quotation proves nothing except the fact that Sergey Yesenin pictures himself as a master criminal. The proof of the fact that Bulgakov in Master and Margarita makes use of the description of Cervantes’s fourth criminal Gines de Pasamonte is not only his squint, which turns into a cataract in Bulgakov, but also that this criminal has been sentenced to ten years of hard labor on the galleys.

Sergei Yesenin, presents the reader in his play in verse Pugachev with a portrait of Khlopusha, the smartest one in Pugachev’s entourage, as a “money counterfeiter.”

It was the excerpt about Khlopusha, that Yesenin famously recited in public in Berlin to an audience which included Maxim Gorky, who left us with a vivid description of that event.

“…I was in hard labor and a convict,

I was a murderer and counterfeiter…

Take, me, take me to him [to Pugachev],

I want to see this man!”

Bulgakov introduces S. Yesenin as Azazello’s prototype indirectly, like, for instance, in the trick with money at the séance of black magic, which, as I already mentioned before, was directed by Azazello, who was not on stage, but was sitting in the audience. (See my chapter The Spy Novel of Master and Margarita, posted segment V.)

The “counterfeit” trick with rubles turning into foreign currency is obviously his as well.

***

“The rowan-tree has flowers too…

They are like life, like our body,

Divided in primordial darkness...”

Precisely these words of Yesenin: “like our body, divided in primordial darkness...” support the proposition that Yesenin saw not only his own body “divided,” but bodies of other people as well. These were the words of Yesenin which led Bulgakov in his reading of Don Quixote to show Ivan Bezdomny as the four convicts, scattering allusions to Yesenin’s poetry throughout Master and Margarita.

Bulgakov very curiously introduces “ten years of hard labor” in Master and Margarita, through the third criminal in Don Quixote, who is told that he ought not to have fled from the law which was trailing him “like a greyhound.”

After the disappearance of the financial director of the Variety Theater Rimsky, Moscow police brings “a sharp-eared, muscular dog of cigarette-ash color, with immensely intelligent eyes… The news immediately spread among the Variety employees that the dog was none other than the famous Ace of Diamonds.”

In 1925, shortly before his death, S. A. Yesenin wrote in a poem:

“I gambled on the Queen of Spades,

But I played the Ace of Diamonds…”

Bulgakov writes:

“As soon as Ace of Diamonds ran into the office of the financial director, he growled, baring his monstrous yellowish fangs.”

Bulgakov’s dog is obviously some kind of hound, and its connection to Cervantes’s “greyhound” is through their common color. In Bulgakov’s case it is “cigarette-ash,” that is, grey.

Bulgakov goes on:

“Ace of Diamonds then lay down on his belly and with a certain expression of anguish and at the same time rage in his eyes, crawled toward the broken window. Overcoming his fear, he suddenly jumped onto the windowsill and, pointing his sharp muzzle upwards, howled wildly and angrily. He did not wish to leave the window, growled and trembled and attempted to jump down below.”

The connection of Ace of Diamonds to Cervantes’s convicts is twofold. Ace of Diamonds in Bulgakov is not only a personification of Cervantes’s greyhound (remember that Ace is grey!), but in the criminal jargon it signifies a ten-year sentence, thus corresponding to Cervantes’s 10 years on the galleys.

We are left with merely a trifle, looking at the other two convicts of Cervantes: #1 and #3. Everything is easy with the first one. “His offense was no other than being in love.” As the convict says himself: “I loved overmuch a basket stuffed with fine linen.”

Curiously, S. Yesenin in his autobiographical sequences points out his partiality to fine linen. In fact, he was a veritable dandy.

M. Bulgakov follows Cervantes like a faithful dog, describing Azazello’s appearance in his first meeting with Margarita on Red Square. ---

“Her neighbor happened to be of small height, with flaming red hair, with a fang, in starched linen (sic!), in a well-made striped suit, lacquered dress shoes, and with a bowler hat on his head.”

Let us note, lightheartedly perhaps, that a “striped suit” signifies, in most countries of the world, a convict’s dress.

And now we are left with the last Cervantes convict, a “canary bird” who must have ratted out his three comrades. Cervantes writes that “there is nothing worse than to sing in anguish,” that is, “to confess on the rack.”

It seems that we may be out of luck here. Sergei Yesenin has two poems about canaries. ---

“…I am not your canary --- I am a poet,

And not some kind of Demyan…”

And the other one:

“A canary, from another’s voice ---

A pitiful, ludicrous trinket.”

In other words, according to Yesenin, to be a canary in poetry means to sing other people’s songs. But this is precisely what Bulgakov accuses the poet Ivan Bezdomny of.

Having a considerable talent, Ivan has created a living Christ in one of his poems, but on Berlioz’ demand, and in order to be paid, he must rework his piece in such a manner as to show that Christ never existed.

In a poem written two years before his death, Yesenin himself confesses, albeit remorsefully, that he had given up on God.

“I am ashamed that I used to believe in God,

I bitterly regret that now I do not believe.

He thus explains his apostasy:

“A white rose and a black toad ---

I wanted to wed them on Earth…”

But he closes his poem with these words of religious reverence:

“I wish to be laid to die

In a Russian shirt under the icons.”

He explains that no matter what, he is not an entirely lost soul:

But if devils were nestling in my soul,

It means that angels were living there.”

***

Another proof in this matter is the conversation between Ivan and master at the psychiatric clinic, where Ivan agrees that he had been writing bad poetry.

And a third one is when Ivan tells the investigator that he will no longer write poems, and later, when master and Margarita visit him, Bulgakov gives the following words to Ivan:

“It’s good that you have flown in here. But, you know, I am going to keep my word. No more writing those so-called poems… I want to be writing other things. As I’ve been lying here, you know, I’ve understood a lot.”

Here master suggests to Ivan to write a sequel to Pontius Pilate, and, at the end of the novel, the poet Ivan Bezdomny is transformed in Bulgakov into the historian Ivan Ponyrev. Interestingly, it is unclear what kind of novel master had written, considering that he himself refuses to discuss it (except for his jubilant exclamation: “Oh, how I guessed it right! Oh, how I guessed it all!”), but as we said before [see my chapter Ivanushka Through the Looking Glass, Segment CXXVII], Bulgakov implicitly attributes the authorship of the novel to Ivanushka. And even though by the time Master and Margarita was finished Yesenin had been dead for well over a decade, Bulgakov keeps Ivan alive at the end, with only his evil side, Azazello, gone down with Woland.

Bulgakov takes the idea of keeping Ivan Ponyrev (Yesenin) alive from Yesenin’s 1924 poem Rus Departing. ---

“Trying to catch up with the steel guard,

I am stuck with one foot in the past,

While with the other foot I slip and fall…”

Which only proves that Bulgakov was of a very high opinion of S. A. Yesenin. Yesenin’s historical poem Pugachev is out of this world. And how brave Yesenin was to write historical material in verse. It was something that Pushkin, in whose steps Yesenin was walking, had not done, having written his History of the Pugachev Rebellion in prose, and also having introduced Pugachev, a historical personage, into his prosaic novella Captain’s Daughter.

Being an honest writer, Bulgakov did not adapt his works in order to get them published, nor did he write “to order,” following Pushkin in that and thus having the right to accuse others of being yes-men, which is what he does in this case.

 

To be continued…