The Garden.
Posting #11.
“...The Son of Man
does not know
Where he can repose his head.”
Alexander Blok. Motherland.
In
the sub-novel Pontius Pilate of
Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, the
sun appears twenty-six times, whereas in the main novel about master and Margarita,
the sun appears eleven times directly and seven times tangentially, while the
moon is mentioned sixty-eight times! (Taken from the publisher’s notes in the
BVL edition.)
N.
S. Gumilev believed that “sunniness” is a purely “masculine strength,” his own
strength, while “moon-like femininity” rested with V. Ya. Bryusov.
In
his poetry collection Motherland,
Blok writes in an uncanny but profound allusion to Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina (look him up in my Duets in the chapter Swallow’s nest of Luminaries):
“Once-upon-a-time,
there, at a height,
Our forefathers were building
a flammable blockhouse,
While singing songs about
their Christ.
And the rusty forest drops,
Having been born in the
forest thick and darkness,
Are bringing to the
frightened Russia
The news about the scorching
Christ [sic!].”
Hence,
perhaps, Bulgakov’s idea of depicting his own Christ, using the features of the
three great Russian poets Andrei Bely, Alexander Blok, and Nikolai Gumilev. Not
without a perfectly good reason, Blok writes in a 1914 poem:
“We –
the children of Russia’s frightful years –
Having no strength to forget
anything,
The incinerating years…
Is it insanity in you or a
message of hope?..
There is a bloody reflection
in the faces…
In the hearts once exalted,
There is fateful emptiness.”
A
feeble hope for a revolution has already been overcast by a “dark,” as Blok
would say, imprint of the first World War. The poem closes with an appeal to
the next generation:
“…And
let there, over our [sic!] deathbed,
Whirl up a flock of screaming
crows, --
Those who are worthier, Oh
God, Oh, God,
May they see Your Kingdom!”
So,
why does Bulgakov send master to “Rest”? Why doesn’t he show us the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ?
There
is only one answer, knowing that Bulgakov is a mystical writer, who has shown
in the person of Yeshua – real people, namely, Russian poets. Which is
supported by the words of A. Blok himself in the opening 1907 poem of the
poetry collection Motherland. –
“You
walked away, and I am in a desert,
Clinging to the hot sand.
But the tongue can no longer
Utter the proud word.”
That’s
why Bulgakov’s Margarita walks on sand. She is talking to master, but master is
silent.
“Having
no sorrow about what had been,
I understood your [Russia’s]
loftiness:
Yes, you are native Galilee
To me – the unrisen [sic!]
Christ.”
This
is how Blok writes about his Motherland – Russia, calling Russia his Galilee.
This Russia is the native land to him, a German.
Using
Blok’s manner, Bulgakov substitutes the country by a woman, which I have
already noted in my chapter Strangers in
the Night. Et voilà – Margarita!
In
that same cycle Motherland, Bulgakov
picks the idea of making his Margarita a “Frenchwoman,” thus intertwining his
own humor with Blok’s, in his 1914 poem Parting
Words:
“…Our
Russian road,
Our Russian fogs,
Our rustlings in the oats…”
And
Blok closes with:
“…And
when everything passes by,
All that the Earth troubled
you with…
[that is, when you die]
…She whom you loved so much
Will lead you with her
beloved hand
Into the Fields of Elysium…”
In
this poem Blok is more optimistic than in the previously discussed 1907 poem
which opens the poetry collection Motherland,
which closes with the following words:
“...And
let another one embrace you,
Let him multiply the wild
rumor:
The Son of Man does not know
Where he can repose his head.”
Which
instantly transports us into another life of another Russian poet, a friend and
comrade in arms of Alexander Blok – Andrei Bely.
Bulgakov
is set to present a Russian Christ, unrisen in the Russian Galilee.
To
be continued…
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