GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DXLVIII

The Bard. Genesis.

Posting #31.

“…Generally speaking, I don’t understand

how he got himself to become a director.

He is as much a director as I am a bishop!”

M. A. Bulgakov. Master and Margarita.

One can easily imagine that, considering that certain features of Andrei Bely come out in the personage of Woland on Patriarch Ponds in the first part of Master and Margarita, due to his hyperactive nature, and even though Bely’s features also come out in other characters, such as master and even Yeshua, the most prominently they are present in the personage of Matthew Levi. We may say with certainty that Matthew Levi’s prototype is indeed Andrei Bely.

Most interesting happens to be the scene on the stone terrace of the Lenin Library in Moscow and particularly the meeting between Matthew Levi and Woland. We can imagine that one and the same person is talking to himself here, if we remember how masterfully Andrei Bely represents himself in his poems as a madman.

This can be true in the psychological thriller, but even in this case a question arises about the role of Azazello, who is present at the conversation, but is not a participant in it.

This scene demonstrates that the role of Woland still belongs to Vladimir Mayakovsky, as Sergei Yesenin (who happens to be Azazello’s prototype) was Mayakovsky’s contemporary. And also because, unlike other Russian poets and Agrippa, having summoned the demon, Mayakovsky had successfully subdued him in his play in verse Mysteria Bouffe [see my posted chapter Woland Identity], with the help of some “unclean” Russian industrial workers.

Azazello’s presence on the stone terrace of the State Library in Moscow can be explained just as easily. To begin with, he is Sergei Yesenin, the Russian “people’s poet.” Besides, there is a common aspect between Matthew Levi’s appearance out of the wall of the round turret on the roof behind Woland’s back. This is no longer the Pontius Pilate sub-novel, but the Master and Margarita novel proper. This appearance alerts us to the fact that Matthew Levi’s prototype in the novel is also a notable Russian poet or writer. In this case, both.

And also, such an appearance “from the wall” points to the execution of N. S. Gumilev by a firing squad. The Russian expression “to put against the wall” (or “to put to the wall”), unlike the similar English expression, where it means merely to be put in a difficult situation, has no such connotation, but directly indicates death by a firing squad.

But there is also a third meaning, connected to Azazello in Master and Margarita, namely, to his first appearance in Chapter 7: The No-Good Apartment. In this chapter the genius of M. A. Bulgakov brilliantly depicts the great Russian composer M. P. Mussorgsky in a fit of Delirium Tremens.

And it is right here that Azazello first appears in human form, and not as a sparrow, as he does in the 3^rd chapter of Master and Margarita. (See my chapter Birds.) –

“…And next happened the fourth and last phenomenon in the apartment, when Stepa [Likhodeev, whose prototype is the great Russian composer M. P. Mussorgsky] who had already slipped down onto the floor, started scratching the lintel with a weak hand. Right out of the console mirror stepped in a short but exceptionally broad-shouldered fellow, wearing a bowler hat on his head and with a fang protruding from his mouth, disfiguring his already uncommonly despicable physiognomy. His hair being flaming red, at that.”

The following words ought to have told the researchers of Bulgakov that the prototypes of the two characters, both of Azazello and of Stepa Likhodeev, are indeed stellar celebrities for all time.

“Generally speaking, – this new one said, entering the conversation, – I don’t understand how he got himself to become a director. – The redhead was increasingly speaking through his nose. – He is as much a director as I am a bishop!”

Bulgakov makes M. P. Mussorgsky (Stepa Likhodeev) Director of the Variety Theater, superior over both L. N. Tolstoy (Varenukha) and N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov (Rimsky).

Bulgakov calls himself a “mystical writer” with a good reason. The scene on the roof of the State Library in Moscow is loaded. Matthew Levi comes out of the wall just like earlier Azazello emerged straight out of the mirror.

To be continued…

***