GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCXLIII.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita.

The Rise and Fall of the Golden Horde.

A Historical Note.

 

The birth and especially the collapse of the Golden Horde makes a fascinating political thriller. During the reign of Khan Uzbek [1313-1341], a direct descendant of Genghis-Khan, he was visited by a famous guest. He was the Arabic traveler and merchant Muhammad ibn Battuta (1304-1369). This man happened to visit all countries of the Islamic World from Spain to China, from the Volga to Sub-Saharan Africa, leaving extensive accounts of his travels, which constitute a priceless treasury of our knowledge of those times and those places.

Finding himself at the court of Uzbek-Khan, and apparently greatly impressed by its splendor, he called Uzbek’s Ulus (domain) for the very first time “Urdu-i Zarrin, The Golden Marquee.” Thus we owe the familiar historical name “The Golden Horde” meaning “The Golden Marquee,” to the fancy of the great traveler Muhammad ibn Battuta, and not to the way it was called by its owners and dwellers. To them, it was the most important “Ulus” of the Mongol Empire.

(It is probably from here that Bulgakov gets his “marquee” inside the study of K. S. Stanislavsky, for, in this study hangs his portrait, and it is probably Stanislavsky’s study that Bulgakov is fancifully describing in this part of the Theatrical Novel. Mind you, the contract with Maksudov is being drawn by the personal secretary of “Ivan Vasilievich,” that is, K. S. Stanislavsky.)

As for Uzbek-Khan, ibn Battuta called him “one of the seven greatest rulers of the world.” The name Uzbek is of Turkic origin, traced back to the 12^th century, that is, before the era of Genghis-Khan.

Uzbek-Khan adopted the religion of Islam in 1321. His reign is commonly recognized as the apogee of the “Golden Horde’s” power and splendor. Its birth goes back a hundred years, during the westward push of Genghis-Khan’s brilliant grandson Batu-Khan, its founder. We will be talking about that time shortly, in connection with the Russian prince and saint Alexander Nevsky.

The end of the Golden Horde is even more spectacular than its birth. The great Ulus was visited by the death of a thousand cuts.

The demise actually started in 1380. What happened had been long-awaited, and therefore inescapable. The Grand Prince of Moscow and Vladimir, Dmitry Ivanovich, a Rurikovich, that is, a direct heir of the first dynasty of Russia’s rulers, a “moskal,” as some will call him, routed the army of Khan Mamai of the Golden Horde in the historic battle of the Kulikovo Field on the river Don, for which he was dubbed Dmitry Donskoy and made a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church.

As a result of this battle, the Russians were eager to stop paying taxes to the Golden Horde, but it wasn’t quite the way it happened.

After Mamai’s rout and eventual demise, another descendent of Genghis-Khan, Tokhtamysh, was chosen by the Kurultai (the Council of Elders of the Golden Horde) as the new Khan. Unhappy with the turn of events, Tokhtamysh gathered a new army and marched against the Russian princes, determined to restore their taxes to the Horde by force. Moscow and other Russian cities were devastated. Dmitry Donskoy was not in Moscow at the time of this calamity, so he had an opportunity to engage in some clever diplomacy.

Prince Dmitry had an excellent example to emulate in the person of the Great Prince of Novgorod Alexander Yaroslavich, dubbed Nevsky for his triumph over the invading Swedes in the battle of the river Neva. Russia’s esteem for the military and political accomplishments of Alexander Nevsky has been so great that in a fairly recent national poll he was pronounced the greatest Russian of all time, before Stolypin (#2) and Stalin (#3).

The greatest achievement of Alexander Nevsky (1221-1263), which earned him Sainthood from the Russian Orthodox Church was a combination of great military victories with an amazing political acumen, which prevented quite a few military confrontations and basically saved Russia from ruin. Ironically, Alexander had to choose the worse of two evils: the threat from the West, which was manageable, and the threat from the East, which was apocalyptic. He therefore decided to turn the invaders from the East into his allies against the European threat. Accepting the supremacy of the Golden Horde, he made peace with the Mongols, and Sartak, the son of Batu-Khan, became his “anda,” that is, his sworn blood-brother, a great symbolic gesture, securing Alexander the Horde’s military help against the invaders from the West. With the promise of heavy tribute to the Golden Horde, Alexander made further ravaging of the Russian land by the Mongols senseless, and redirected the thrust of their military onslaught against Europe, causing great grief to the Europeans and making the English call the Tatar-Mongol invaders “Tartars,” alluding to Tartarus, Hell, as their fearsome origin. Eventually, though, the invasion stopped, but not due to any European military success. It was the death of the Great Khan of All Mongols Ugedei that compelled Batu to return to Karakorum to participate in the Kurultai gathering to choose his successor. Mind you, this did not prevent him from subjugating much of Eastern and Central Europe (including large parts of Austria, all Bulgaria, all Hungary, all Romania, the lands of the Southern Slavs, and even large chunks of Poland) by the time his attack force was ordered to retreat.

***

As we’ve seen, soon after the founding of the Golden Horde by Batu-Khan, its territory expanded quite dramatically to include large territories from east of the Volga to the Danube and beyond. Its domain covered the areas adjacent to the Black and the Caspian Seas. The power of the Mongol Empire seemed boundless, and its surge unstoppable.

Who knows what would have happened to all continental Europe, with the possible exception of Scandinavia, whose cold winters held no attraction for the Mongols (as for the British Isles, in spite of all the fears, the invaders had no fleet and were unlikely to build any, to cross the water divide), had it not been for the “Moskals,” that is, the enterprising Princes of Moscow.

Still, the Europeans refused to consider Russia as their allies against the threat from the East, and tried to take advantage of Russia’s plight no matter what.

In the year 1240, Swedish forces under the command of the celebrated hero of Sweden Jarl Birger, founder of Stockholm, attempted to annex some northern Russian lands, but were rebuffed at a great cost to them in the battle of the Neva.

Stories were told by the Russian historians that Prince Alexander crippled Jarl Birger in a one-on-one combat with a blow of his sword on the Swede’s head. Swedish historians were mum about this fact until a much later examination of Jarl Birger’s remains established that his skull had indeed exhibited a crack caused by a sword.

Alexander’s later incursion into Finland, to prevent its subjugation by the Swedish Crusaders, finished the job of showing Jarl Birger his true limitations. It was only half-a-millennium later that the Swedes clashed with Russia again in a major way. That was the battle of Poltava, with the Swedish wunderkind King Karl XII confronting Peter the Great of Russia, and of course we know what happened there. Karl’s fateful recklessness left him with a permanent limp, and, even worse, in a state of deep depression for the rest of his life.

***

Returning to Prince Alexander Nevsky, another decisive battle took place under his command in 1242 on the Russian Lake Chudskoye on the border with Estonia (where it is called Lake Peipus).

This time it was against the German Crusaders, Teutonic Knights, invading Russia from Livonia.

The original Teutonic knights were the remnants of the Crusader Armies ingloriously returning to Europe from the Middle East, where they had been no match to the military brilliance of Sultan Saladin. Finding themselves still armed and dangerous, but pitifully homeless, they set up their home in Prussia, giving their name Teuton, or Teutsch, to modern Deutschland.

Their eastern branch in Livonia was bent on Drang nach Osten, which meant a further expansion at Russia’s expense. This was obviously in conflict with Russia’s vital interest, and the outcome had to be predictable, except for the Knights, blinded and made stupid by their arrogance.

All they had to know was about the most recent rout of the Swedes by Alexander Nevsky. Yet it taught them no lesson. Woe to them who refuse to learn or for any reason are incapable of learning. Reinforced by experienced Mongol troops sent by Sartak to his anda, the Russian force destroyed the Germans on the ice of the lake, and when the ice broke under the weight of the heavily armed German cavalry, Alexander’s and Russia’s enemies were treated to a remarkable baptism in frozen water, which they would never recover from. The knights were utterly humbled, to which Sergei Eisenstein’s brilliant movie Alexander Nevsky powerfully testifies.

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCXLII.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.

 

“Gold gives the ugliest a pleasant charm.”

Jean Baptiste Moliere.

 

Having found himself in totally decadent, posh, by the measure of those times, surroundings, Maksudov contemplates:

“I wanted to say: Stage my play! As for myself, I want nothing, except that I can come here every day, lay down on this sofa for a couple of hours, breathing in the honeyed smell of tobacco, listening to the chiming of the clock, and fantasizing… Fortunately, I never said it.”

Why? Because Bombardov had warned him: “Be firm!”

Or perhaps because Bulgakov gives Maksudov certain traits of M. Yu. Lermontov, who wrote:

“I won’t debase myself before you…”

Even in the hardest times for him, Bulgakov cared above all about his human dignity. And he did pass on his own traits to his fictional hero Maksudov. At no time must anyone whosoever know how bad things are for you.

The opulence of the Independent Theater was indeed in sharp contrast with the life outside. I’ve been thinking all the time about the significance of the Golden Stallion and especially of the Marquee, inside the Theater, and I subconsciously came to the conclusion that Bulgakov decided to compare the Independent Theater not so much to a Catherinean Palace, with its incessant intrigues and such, as with the Golden Horde, where at stake had been the life and death of the arriving guests. (The birth and especially the collapse of the Golden Horde makes a fascinating political thriller. Being son of a history and theology professor, maybe it was this exciting and intriguing period of Russian history that captured the attention of Mikhail Bulgakov, hence his trail of clear references to this subject in the Theatrical Novel. Following the present posting there will be a historical excursion coming up, which is extremely current for today’s events.)

Hence, the word “semidarkness,” because when the Tatars and the Mongols upon their horses used to come on their raids, there were so many of them that “darkness fell.”

Bulgakov describes the opulence of the place which Maksudov found himself in, in the following manner:

“…A man opened a heavy curtain with a golden embroidered monogram IT on it. Here I found myself in a marquee. The ceiling was covered with green silk, which was spreading radially from the center, in which a crystal lantern was lit. The furniture inside was soft and silken. Another curtain and a door behind it, glazed with frosted glass…

[Bulgakov describes Maksudov’s journey through doors with heavy curtains like a journey inside Bluebeard’s castle.]

“…I knocked on the door softly, got hold of the doorknob, fashioned as the head of a silver eagle, and the door let me in. My face was buried in a curtain, I got tangled in it and pushed it aside…”

The opulence of the room Maksudov found himself in would be intimidating for anyone who got themselves in there.

Bulgakov describes a “desk” ---

“…that is, not a desk but a bureau, that is, not a bureau but some kind of very complicated construction with tens of drawers… with another lamp on a bendable silvery foot, with an electric lighter for cigars… Hellish red light from under a rosewood table with three telephones on it… A small table with a flat foreign-made typewriter and a fourth telephone and a pile of gilded-edged sheets of paper with the monogram NT. Fire reflected from the ceiling.

The floor of the room was covered with cloth, not the soldiers’ coat variety, but the kind used on billiard tables, and over it lay cherry-color rug nearly 2 in. thick. A colossal sofa with cushions and a Turkish hookah near it… Not a single ray of light, not a single sound penetrated the room from outside through the window heavily draped by three layers of curtains…”

Bulgakov’s description of the private office of Gavrila Stepanovich (in charge of the financial department of the Independent Theater) with its “hellish light,” paradoxically reminds me of the “hellish place for a living human being” in Master and Margarita, that is, the place of master’s exile, which Bulgakov shows through Margarita’s dream in the chapter Margarita of the second part of the novel.

Maksudov succeeds in rising above master, but his end is hardly better than master’s: Maksudov commits suicide.

It’s for a reason that there is a photographic portrait of Ivan Vasilievich hanging in the study. Although Maksudov was allegedly invited to sign a contract on his play, this is in fact only a pretext to take away his author’s rights. And also to force him to write a play on Ivan Vasilievich’s order, or else to rewrite the existing play to suit the taste of the theater company.

In other words, in the person of Maksudov the theater wants to obtain for itself a writer who will be tied to the theater by his contract and write plays-to-order for it, having no legal right to offer his plays to any other theater.

As we see, Maksudov’s position in the Theatrical Novel is no better than master’s in Master and Margarita. Neither one has his work published.

Like master, Maksudov is mentally and physically exhausted. Both knew a better life. Master is a historian by profession with the knowledge of six languages. Maksudov is son of a vice governor. The Revolution has turned their lives upside down.

What does Maksudov want? Nothing much. In addition to his plays being staged by the theater, he wishes to come to this particular study “daily, in order to lie down on this sofa for two hours.”

An answer to Maksudov’s strange wish can be found early on in the book, namely, on the second page.

When Maksudov is invited to the Independent Theater for the first time, he is received by another mysterious character: Xaveri Borisovich Ilchin.

It is already here, on the second page of the novel, that Bulgakov describes the Independent Theater as what amounts to a “hellish place for a human being.” He writes that, just like Margarita ascends an endless staircase, following Koroviev in Master and Margarita [we will be discussing where this idea is coming from in my chapter Margarita Beyond Good and Evil], Maksudov in the Theatrical Novel ---

“…ascending a cast-iron staircase, saw profiles of warriors in helmets and mighty swords under them on the bas-reliefs, and ancient Dutch ovens with exhausts, polished to golden glitter.”

Like Margarita, Maksudov is accompanied by a man, but, unlike Koroviev, this man is not leading the way. ---

“The man was lagging behind me, and turning my head back, I saw him showing me silent signs of attention, devotion, respect, love, joy…”

In reality, this was not on the occasion of Maksudov showing up, “but due to his coming on the invitation of a highly respected man known to the guide personally, the stage director Ilchin.”

This respect for Ilchin was thus rubbing off on Ilchin’s invitee Maksudov. And Maksudov understood that ---

“…although he was walking behind me, he was actually in charge of me, leading me to where the lonely mysterious Xaveri Borisovich Ilchin was…”

Koroviev, on the other hand, although taking Margarita to the “lonely” Woland, finds him in the company of associates and servants.

Bulgakov shows that Maksudov indeed gets into a “hellish place for a human being,” using the help of the forces of nature. ---

“And suddenly it grew dark… Darkness fell all at once --- a second thunderstorm clattered behind the windows.”

There are many thunderstorms in Master and Margarita, the most important of them starting in Yerushalaim during the execution of Yeshua.

In this way, Bulgakov shows that thunderstorm is the wrath of God.

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCXLI.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.

 

“I want to live! I want this sadness…”

M. Yu. Lermontov.

 

The plot of Chekhov’s novella The Duel somewhat resembles one of the storylines of Master and Margarita. A married woman has a lover. But the events develop rather differently.

A married woman runs away with her lover, but soon thereafter, the lover gets bored with her. Then her husband appears and challenges the lover to a duel. At the duel neither the duelers nor the seconds know how to proceed, and one of them recalls the duel from Lermontov’s Hero of Our Time…

This is not like it is in A. S. Pushkin’s A Shot, but Chekhov’s Duel has a happy ending. Nobody is killed, and not even wounded. Providence interferes in the person of the deacon. When the husband takes his aim dead set to kill his wife’s lover, the deacon makes such a wild shriek that the pistol in the husband’s hand trembles, and the bullet merely grazes the lover’s neck. At the end, everybody says farewell to one another, and they part peacefully.

The usually smooth and easy to read Chekhov is rather heavy-handed in this novella. A notable Russian literary critic of the time, who also happened to be a specialist on Chekhov, gave Chekhov a negative review on this particular novella.

Why am I writing all this?

For the reason that Chekhov’s Duel not only has some relevance to the Theatrical Novel, but also reveals one of the puzzles in Master and Margarita, namely, in the mystical scene of the appearance of two dead souls, A. S. Pushkin and M. Yu. Lermontov, at the restaurant of the Writers’ House. Having no ID to prove that they are both writers, Pushkin and Lermontov receive unexpected help from the Maître d’hôtel, who orders the receptionist to let them in.

“What is your name?

Panaev, politely responded [Koroviev].

The woman wrote down this name in her book and raised an inquiring glance at Begemot.

Skabichevsky, squeaked the other, for some reason pointing to his primus.

Sofia Pavlovna wrote that down too, and pushed the book of visitors for them to sign in.

Koroviev wrote Skabichevsky against the name Panaev, and Begemot put down Panaev…

Sofia Pavlovna, blinking from amazement, took a long time studying the scribbles made by the unexpected visitors in the guest book.”

After this trick with Skabichevsky and Panaev in Master and Margarita, it should become clearer to the reader that in the Theatrical Novel, in the play Black Snow, of whose plot we know nothing except for some bits and pieces, Bulgakov depicts, in reverse order, the suicides of two great Russian poets: Yesenin and Mayakovsky. He shows it by the gunshot, which is what Mayakovsky did five years after Yesenin’s suicide. It seems as though for Bulgakov the Civil War did not end in 1920, because Mayakovsky shot himself in 1930.

***

Introducing the word “duel” in his Theatrical Novel, Bulgakov puts everything in its place. The real-life critic who had criticized Chekhov’s novella The Duel had the name Skabichevsky. Considering that Chekhov made an explicit reference in his novella’s duel scene to Lermontov, in his Hero of Our Time, we need to take a closer look at the cause of the duel there.

(Incidentally, remember Kot Begemot ostensibly for no reason pointing to his primus? Apparently, there was a reason for that. Lermontov was pointing to his primacy in the matter of Chekhov’s Duel!)

The novel’s hero Pechorin, returning from a rendez-vous with Vera, a married woman, is spotted. Mistakenly, he is suspected of having an affair with an innocent young girl, Princess Mary, who is a guest at the same house as Vera. A duel takes place, in which Pechorin, having to defend Mary’s honor, but unable to reveal his real affair with a married woman, kills his accuser, whom he earlier had labeled a liar.

Chekhov shows a love triangle in his own way. The lover finds his married mistress, whom he is already tired of, with another man, which situation inflames his jealousy and re-inflames his love for her.

The plot is probably interesting enough, but it is written rather uninspiredly, as noted by the critic Skabichevsky, Chekhov’s contemporary.

As for Koroviev (the dead soul of A. S. Pushkin), he calls himself “Panaev” (another real-life figure, to be sure) due to the fact that being a literary critic and a minor writer in his own right, Panaev is best known for bringing back to life in 1847, that is, 10 years after Pushkin’s death, his celebrated literary magazine The Contemporary, which he reestablished together with the famous Russian poet N. A. Nekrasov.

Having signed himself as “Panaev” against the name “Skabichevsky,” Koroviev, with Bulgakov’s help, points out that these two men are linked by their profession. Both are literary critics.

***

Returning to the Theatrical Novel, why did Bulgakov write this bizarre phrase? ---

“…And how many times during the night I threatened myself to rip off my own arms, for having written the triply cursed phrase [I will challenge you to a duel!].”

The only thing that comes to mind is that the expression “triply cursed” points to S. A. Yesenin, as in his long poem Pugachev he frequently uses triple repetitions.

As for the desire to “rip off my own arms,” it points, in my opinion, to the manner of S. Yesenin’s suicide: he slashed his wrists. Another indication of it is the fact that Maksudov says this phrase right before his own suicide, and the Theatrical Novel unexpectedly breaks off on the very next page.

Yesenin had to plan his suicide very carefully, reacting to Lermontov’s ---

“…And you won’t wash away with all your black blood

The poet's sacred blood.”

To which Yesenin, shortly before his death, while visiting the Caucasus where Lermontov fought, wrote: “Poets are all of one blood.”

Yesenin wanted to be close to Pushkin and Lermontov.

In order to confuse the reader, Bulgakov brings forth his own interpretation of poets’ suicide. Their blood, the “righteous blood” of the poets, joins them all after death, as well as in the Theatrical Novel and in Master and Margarita.

Although already the 3^rd chapter of the Theatrical Novel is titled My Suicide [a suicide attempt which never materialized, for whose accomplishment Maksudov steals a handgun from his only friend, apparently an interrogator who had questioned Maksudov after the end of the Civil War], we find out how bad the situation is, in the 9^th chapter It’s Started!

If in the 3^rd chapter we learn that Maksudov’s decision to commit suicide came after a meeting with the so-called litterateurs, who unanimously panned his novel, saying that it could never be published, then in the 9^th chapter Maksudov does not seem to have a particular reason to kill himself, as he is on his way to get money for the play which is an adaptation of his already partially published novel, courtesy of the publisher Rudolfi, who had unwittingly saved Maksudov’s life on that dark evening when he was going to shoot himself.

…Rudolfi. Yet another mystical figure. But this belongs to my future chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries.

In the 9^th chapter It’s Started! Bulgakov clouds the atmosphere with the word “tikhy, soft,” as if preparing us, out of nowhere, for the following astounding phrase:

“There won’t be me, pretty soon there won’t be me! I am determined, but still this is a bit scary.”

In other words, there was a tiny flame of hope flickering in Maksudov nevertheless. How does it go in Lermontov? ---

“I want to live! I want this sadness…”

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCXL.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.

 

“I love you, my tempered dagger,

My comrade bright and cold…

I shall not change, and my soul will be firm,

Like you, like you, my iron friend.”

M. Yu. Lermontov. The Dagger.

 

Bulgakov writes:

“The bell rang again. Bombardov darted into the semidarkness…”

Bulgakov needs this in order to sustain the illusion in the reader that Bombardov exists as a real person, about which later.

“…From afar came his soft scream: Don’t read about the shot!”

And again, Bulgakov draws the reader’s attention to the fact that something is not right here, as Maksudov is “utterly overwhelmed by Bombardov’s puzzles.”

We are dealing here, of course, with the puzzles of Bulgakov himself, namely, about the puzzle of the “shot.”

The puzzle of the shot is elucidated in the same chapter of Bulgakov’s novel, during Maksudov’s meeting with Ivan Vasilievich. Maksudov is reading his script. ---

“Bakhtin (to Petrov). So, farewell! Very soon you will come after me…

Petrov. What are you doing?!

Bakhtin (shoots himself in the temple, falls down, sounds of harmonica in the distance…).”

A very interesting dialogue is taking place between Ivan Vasilievich (protesting against the use of a gunshot and suggesting that Bakhtin must stab himself with a dagger) and Maksudov. Bulgakov exhibits his gruesome sense of humor all through it.

Sergei Yesenin, whose features can be found in Bulgakov’s hero, committed suicide by slashing his wrists, not exactly a dagger, but not a bullet either. This is why Maksudov insists that nobody uses a dagger to commit suicide in the twentieth century.

It was V. V. Mayakovsky who shot himself, which is why Bombardov, who contains features of Mayakovsky, gives such an advice to Maksudov.

After the hero of the play Black Snow Bakhtin shoots himself from a pistol in the presence of Petrov, a “man with a rifle in hand” comes onto the bridge.

Bulgakov is extremely frugal on detail about this play. He needs this play only to focus our attention on two characters of the Theatrical Novel: Maksudov and Bombardov.

He is no less frugal on detail about another non-existent, like Black Snow, play Stenka Razin, obtained from who knows where by another mystical personage: Misha Panin.

All of this is to draw the reader’s attention to the words “gunshot” and “dagger,” thus making Maksudov’s play a cloak-and-dagger thriller. (As I promised, I am going to reconstruct the plot of the play in my future chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries.) Thus the question which Bulgakov raises here, using these two words is the one raised in M. Yu. Lermontov’s1838 (that is, written after A. S. Pushkin’s death) poem The Poet. The poem starts with the following words:

“My dagger sparkles with goldsmith’s workmanship.

The blade is reliable, without a blemish,

Its steel keeps the mysterious temper ---

A legacy of the belligerent Orient…”

Lermontov describes the glorious service rendered by this dagger, passing from hand to hand, till it falls into the hand of a “brave Cossack,” who, having no use for it, sells the dagger to an Armenian merchant.

“…Now the poor companion is deprived of its hero,

Like a golden toy, it glistens upon a wall,

Alas, harmless and without glory!..”

And now we approach the part of this poem which struck Bulgakov so much in his literary life, considering that Lermontov’s The Poet is a continuation of the earlier poem Death of the Poet.

“…In our effeminate age, aren’t you like that, poet?

You have lost your calling,

Having exchanged for gold the power which the world

Responded to, in silent veneration…”

It is for a reason that Bulgakov even here, in the Theatrical Novel, in a completely obscure, undetailed play, of which we can make very little sense from random words here and there, suddenly inserts this word “dagger” among pistols and rifles. He is talking here partly about the war, partly about the many destroyed lives.

“…There was a time when the rhythmical sound of your mighty words

Fired up the warrior to battles…

Your verse, like the Holy Spirit hovered over the crowd,

And the echo of noble thoughts

Sounded like a bell on the summoning tower,

In the days of popular festivities and woes.”

M. Yu. Lermontov accuses his contemporary society of being “gratified by glitter and deception,” of “being accustomed to hiding its wrinkles under rouge.” All this explains the argument between Maksudov and Ivan Vasilievich, who merely wishes that Maksudov write an altogether different play to suit his taste. (Ironically Ivan Vasilievich wants Maksudov as an independent writer to fall on his sword, so to speak. Ivan Vasilievich expects Maksudov to give up and turn into a commercial hack, writing whatever the theater director wishes him to write.) Lermontov’s poem The Poet explains the suicides of S. A. Yesenin and V. V. Mayakovsky, as it contains a passionate appeal to the subsequent generations of Russian poets. ---

“…Will you wake up again, you, Prophet ridiculed!

Or will you never to the voice of vengeance

Take out from the gilded sheath

Your blade, covered with contemptible rust?”

Lermontov inquires whether the spirit of Pushkin will ever be reborn in the Russian poets, and whether they will ever avenge Pushkin’s death through their truthful creations.

That’s why Bulgakov unites four poets in Master and Margarita. Of these four, A. S. Pushkin was killed in a duel at the age of 37, and M. Yu. Lermontov was killed in a duel at the age of 26. The other two, Yesenin and Mayakovsky, committed suicide greatly influenced by Lermontov’s last duel in which he was killed.

And how skillfully does Bulgakov throw in this word “duel” in his Theatrical Novel! ---

“The quarrel between two characters in Scene Four brought about the phrase:

I will challenge you to a duel!
…And how many times during the night I threatened myself to rip off my own arms, for having written the triply cursed phrase.”

The word “duel” is of course loaded, but the only work of literature I managed to find under this title was Chekhov’s novella The Duel. I confess that my first thought in connection with this word was about M. Yu. Lermontov with his famous duel in Princess Mary from the novel Hero of Our Time.

However, I definitely had to find a work of fiction with this word in its title. I did and wasn’t disappointed, because that allowed me to make a big discovery concerning both Bulgakov’s Theatrical Novel and Master and Margarita.

This discovery proved to me yet again that I was on the right track.

To be continued…

 

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCXXXIX.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.

“…Wrangel was walking in his black Circassian cloak.

The city [Sevastopol] has been abandoned...

Falling down as though from a bullet,

The Commander-in-Chief fell on his knees,

Thrice kissed the ground, Thrice crossed the city,

And jumped into the boat under fire…”

V. Mayakovsky. It Is Good.

 

…Why does Bulgakov draw such attention to the word “tikhy,” “soft”? (It is important to understand that the Russian word here is translated differently into English depending on the context. It can be translated as “quiet,” “soft-spoken,” “barely audible,” and even “Pacific,” as in the Pacific Ocean, etc. The point of this linguistic excursion is to make it clear to the reader that had it not been for the special significance of the Russian word, which stays the same in different contexts, it would have been translated differently in each case, losing the uniformity of the original.)

By the time of writing Theatrical Novel, Bulgakov had already written his play Beg [Run], and I remember how it struck me that Bulgakov had given one of Wrangel’s counterintelligence men in the play the last name Tikhy, Soft.

While working on the chapter Woland Identity, I was rereading Mayakovsky, as in the chapter Two Adversaries I had made an unexpected discovery for myself. Not only does Bulgakov split S. A. Yesenin into the poet Ivan Bezdomny and the demon Azazello, in Master and Margarita, but in the case of V. V. Mayakovsky, he does not stop at the poet Ryukhin alone, but makes him the honorary prototype of Woland himself!

In the 1927 Mayakovsky poem It Is Good! we find the following lines:

“I was told by the soft-spoken [tikhy] Jew

Pavel Ilyich Lavut:

‘Just as I came out of the door,

I see them [the American rescue ships] coming…”

In this passage Mayakovsky colorfully describes Wrangel’s flight from Sevastopol in Crimea to Turkey, being rescued by American military ships.

Commendably, the honorable qualities of Baron Wrangel are not being diminished:

“…Banging the door, dry as a report,

From empty headquarters he emerged.

Looking at his feet, with an exacting step,

Wrangel was walking in his black Circassian cloak.

The city [Sevastopol] has been abandoned.

A six-oar boat is waiting at the pier…”

Mayakovsky cannot stop himself from distinctly describing Wrangel’s feelings at the moment:

“…And over the white decay,

Falling down as though from a bullet,

The Commander-in-Chief fell on his knees,

Thrice kissed the ground,

Thrice crossed the city,

And jumped into the boat under fire…

Two American destroyers were waiting side by side out at sea.

The American admiral looked through his spyglass

Over the edges of the shooting hills,

‘All right!, and they left in the tail

Of the retreating packs, ---

Cannons facing the city,

Destination --- Bosporus…”

A very interesting picture is shaping up in Bulgakov with that keyword “tikhy,” isn’t it? Mayakovsky’s solemn sense of humor was very much to Bulgakov’s liking. ---

“…Wrangel’s [army] dumped into the sea,

No prisoners.”

What, better than this tale, so skillfully told by Mayakovsky in his long poem It Is Good!, could influence Bulgakov’s decision to write his celebrated play Run?

***

In his second meeting with Bombardov, which Maksudov wants to have at the theater, in order to get Bombardov’s advice on how to conduct himself with Ivan Vasilievich [that is, with Stanislavsky], the reader ought to be struck not so much by “Bombardov’s strange instructions” as by his last words:

“There you have a gunshot in the third act, you shouldn’t read it [to them].”

Maksudov is genuinely surprised:

“How can I not read it, when he [the main character] shoots himself?”

The reader obviously knows nothing about any kind of shot, like, generally speaking, the reader knows nothing about the play which Maksudov had written, except he had most probably written about people he knew, and who were “no longer in this world.” And also probably about the Civil War which he had lived through. (I am not leaving the subject of Maksudov’s play Black Snow at that. The reader will be gasping for air, having learned my reconstruction of the play’s plot and its source. But that will be a subject in my future chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries.)

Thus Bulgakov draws the reader’s attention to the word “gunshot.” This word is loaded.

1.      Firstly, Theatrical Novel starts with a shot, that is, with a shot that never came to be.

2.      Secondly, V. V. Mayakovsky ended his life in suicide in 1930 by shooting himself in the temple.

3.      Thirdly, A. S. Pushkin’s celebrated Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin [what a coincidence, as Bulgakov titles his novel Notes of a Dead Man, with Theatrical Novel being just a subtitle, selected as the main title by the publisher...] opens with the first novella --- you guessed it! --- A Shot.

Pushkin picks the following epigraph for his novella A Shot:

“I swore to shoot him dead by the right of the duel. (He owed me my shot.)”

To be continued…

GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. CCXXXVIII.

Dress Rehearsal for Master and Margarita Continues.

“Sly, envious, malicious and passionate,

Forswearing God and men,

He is cold, almost horrible to all,

Dangerous in his favors,

And to sum it all up, a monster.”

M. Yu. Lermontov. Portraits.

In the 5^th chapter of Master and Margarita, The Griboyedov Affair, Bulgakov introduces a mystical figure whose appearance somehow reminds me of the Theatrical Novel’s Rudolfi, but in Master and Margarita the mystical figure has the name of Archibald Archibaldovich, chief administrator of the restaurant at the Writers’ House. I will be writing about this complex character in my chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries. Here, however, Bulgakov as always poses a puzzle for the reader with the following passage, which does not fit at all the kind of prosaic position Archibald Archibaldovich holds. ---

“Talking and talking were the mystics that there had been a time when the handsome guy was not wearing a tuxedo, but was girded by a wide leather belt, with pistol grips sticking from under it, and his hair, of raven wing color, was tied together by scarlet silk, and there was a ship sailing under his command in the Caribbean Sea under a black coffin flag with the head of death on it…”

In such a manner Bulgakov indicates that the prototype of this character is dead.

***

Bombardov is also a mystical figure. He is directly connected to Maksudov and has no interaction with any other characters in the Theatrical Novel. But, for some reason, Bombardov seems to know everything about Maksudov, and he has even read Maksudov’s play Black Snow.

Bombardov appears when Maksudov is not just all alone, but when he is in great need of advice, help of some sort. He can be safely called Maksudov’s “fairy-godfather.” Their first meeting not only begins mysteriously, but it also ends mysteriously.

“In the semidarkness, I made yet another acquaintance. A man of about my age, lean and tall, approached me and introduced himself: Petr Bombardov.”

Through the character of Maksudov, Bulgakov paints for us a portrait of a well-meaning man.

“From the very first moment, I for some reason made friends with Bombardov. He produced an impression on me of a very smart, observant man.”

Bulgakov starts their friendship with Bombardov’s invitation to show Maksudov the portrait gallery of the Independent Theater. And the very first portrait which he shows Maksudov is a home run: it is a portrait of the actress Sarah Bernhardt.

Vladimir Mayakovsky committed suicide in the presence of the actress Veronica Polonskaya of the Moscow Arts Theater. (More about in in my chapter Strangers in the Night.)

Another interesting name in the portrait gallery is Emperor Nero, “the singer and the artist.”

It is impossible not to remember the yardman from Bulgakov’s White Guard:

“Nikolka ran into an echoing passage, coming out into a gloomy repulsive inner yard… and ran into a man in a heavy padded jacket… Red beard and small eyes oozing hatred. Pug-nosed, in a sheepskin hat, Nero…”

In other words, this shows that Bulgakov did not consider Nero either a singer or an artist. For Bulgakov, Nero was a thug, an enemy, that’s all.

(Interestingly, the Theatrical Novel has a bona fide Nero character, who is not a portrait. He is Gavrila Stepanovich No-Last-Name, head of the Financial Department of the Independent Theater, whom we will be meeting later on in this chapter.)

“...As if playing a merry game, the man grabbed Nikolka with his left arm, while with his right hand he took hold of his left arm and started twisting it behind his back… The red beard had no weapon on him, he wasn’t even a military man, he was just a yardman.

[Nikolka] scowled like a wolf cub… threw his hand with the Colt out of his pocket, thinking: I’ll kill the scumbag, hopefully, I have bullets in it… [But Nikolka] forgot how to shoot from it.

The yellowish-red yardman, seeing that Nikolka was armed… fell on his knees and howled. Not knowing what to do in order to shut these loud jaws… Nikolka attacked the yardman like a fight cockerel, and heavily hit him, risking to shoot himself in the process, with the grip of the gun… This Nero will sell me out… I’ve smashed his teeth… he won’t forgive me for that!”

At the end, having gone from portrait to portrait and stopping at the tenth [why is Bulgakov set on number ten?], he finally names one portrait of special interest to us, because it belongs to the time of Pugachev’s Rebellion. It is a portrait of Empress Catherine II, aka Catherine the Great.

And already in the first meeting with Bombardov, Bulgakov, who, like all Russian writers, saw A. S. Pushkin as his idol, endows this mystical image with certain Pushkin features.

Pointing to two portraits, first of the actress of the Independent Theater Lyudmila Silvestrovna Pryakhina (who certainly has her prototype in a particular actress of the Moscow Arts Theater whom Bulgakov clearly disliked), and also of Nero, Bombardov displays features of both A. S. Pushkin and the Emelyan Pugachev character in Pushkin’s novella Captain’s Daughter.

Talking about Pryakhina, the actress who happened to be very close to Ivan Vasilievich aka Stanislavsky himself, Bulgakov writes: “A certain little light sparked in [Bombardov’s] eyes.”

Talking about Nero, whom Bulgakov clearly identified with Stanislavsky, “and again his [Bombardov’s] eye sparked and went off.”

In the first case, Bulgakov gives “a certain little light” to Margarita, in Master and Margarita.

In the second case, the “sparking eye” belongs to Woland, whose prototype happens to be V. V. Mayakovsky.

Bombardov disappears when Maksudov receives a visit to take him to the office of the administrator in charge of the finances of the Independent Theater. But before Bombardov departs, he has the time to deliver his last piece of advice to Maksudov. Bulgakov tells it in a thoroughly mysterious manner. ---

“Bombardov interrupted himself in half-sentence, pressed my hand energetically and said the following mysterious words softly: Be firm!, after which he got washed away somewhere in semidarkness.”

So, as we find out, Bombardov arrives “in semidarkness,” and gets “washed away somewhere in semidarkness.”

But the most mysterious words by far here are not: “Be firm!” which are very easy to understand, because Maksudov is in the process of negotiating his play with the Independent Theater, but the barely noticeable word: “softly.”

To begin with, Bulgakov puts this phrase at the end, rather than where it would be more appropriately placed, like, for instance: “…softly said the following mysterious words.” In other words, Bulgakov makes a clear emphasis on these words by putting them where he does.

And even though Bulgakov explains that the action takes place in a theater where rehearsals are being conducted, and warnings are up: “Silence! Rehearsal nearby!,” it has not prevented Maksudov from talking in full voice and even from making exclamations in his conversation with P. P. Bombardov.

The man accompanying Maksudov “spurted out in a whisper: Best of health, pulled open a heavy curtain… but did not approach [the door], making a gesture instead, signifying: Knock!, and then immediately disappeared.”

And again Bulgakov writes: “softly”!

“I knocked softly.”

Why does Bulgakov draw such attention to this word?

To be continued…