The Bard.
Berlioz Is
Dead.
Kuzmin Is In
Leeches.
Long Live
Bosoy!
Posting #10.
“All this, Nikanor
Ivanovich, is shaky
and conditional. Today I am unofficial,
and tomorrow, look –I
am official! And
it also happens the other way, you bet
it does, mark my word!”
M. A. Bulgakov. Master and Margarita.
It is also very interesting that introducing V. Ya.
Bryusov into the character of M. A. Berlioz, Bulgakov keeps him in the same 20th
century, but following Pushkin’s advice, “coifs” Koroviev/Pushkin in his own
way.
Pushkin said: “I
am a poet of the reality.” By the same token, Bulgakov says that he is a
writer of the reality of his own time. Therefore, he has the right to “coif”
(using Pushkin’s language) his reality the way he likes, according to his time,
which is the first half of the 20th century.
Here we find the principal difficulty in understanding
the Koroviev personage. Like in Koroviev’s scenes with Berlioz, which I have
already touched upon, his scenes with Bosoy and Poplavsky, require the researcher
to keep the following two things in mind. –
1. To begin with, it is the peculiar connection between
Koroviev/Pushkin and the other personages of Master and Margarita. If a certain personage has some interaction
with Koroviev, it means that no matter in what time he was living, he is or was
also connected with A. S. Pushkin. For instance, Bulgakov’s character Rimsky
(alias the Russian composer N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov) has written three operas on
Pushkin’s subjects (The Golden Cockerel,
The Tale of Tsar Saltan, and Mozart
and Saglieri).
Stepa Likhodeev (alias the Russian composer M. P.
Mussorgsky) is the author of the out-of-this-world opera Boris Godunov.
Kot Begemot (alias the Russian poet M. Yu. Lermontov)
frequently wrote his works as though in response to Pushkin. Thus, the last
name of Lermontov’s Hero of Our Time is
Pechorin. The Pechora is the sister
river of the Onega in the Northwest
Russia. The direct connection between A. S. Pushkin’s Onegin and Lermontov’s
Pechorin has been universally acknowledged and never as much as questioned.
Another example is Pushkin’s famous poem Demon,
to which Lermontov is responding with three short Demons of his own, plus the long poem Demon, which has become perhaps the most celebrated “Demon” [sic!] in world literature. No
wonder that at the end of the novel, Bulgakov portrays M. Yu. Lermontov/Kot
Begemot as a “Youth-Demon.”
Margarita’s sole prototype is the Russian poetess
Marina Tsvetaeva who wrote poems and prose about herself and Pushkin, etc.
Do not forget, both reader and researcher, that it is
Pushkin who fills-in Margarita with all sorts of gossip about the guests at
Satan’s Great Ball. This can no longer be explained through Pushkin’s Plan for the Real Vyzhigin nor through
his article on Vidocq. The answer to the question about Koroviev’s particular
loquacity must be sought in Pushkin’s Diaries.
The same EKSMO volume I have been frequently referring to, contains Pushkin’s
diaries from 1815 through 1835. But they are very short, although some of the
entries contain very interesting information, which is however incomplete. In
his diaries Pushkin makes notes about his friends, like the poet Zhukovsky and
the writer-historian Karamzin, and about his relatives. He also describes his
chance 1827 meeting with the convicted Decembrist Kuhelbekker during the
latter’s transfer from the Shlisselburg Fortress prison to the place of his
lifelong exile. He also writes about the 1831 disturbances in some military
settlements. Tsar Nicholas I in person went there to pacify the trouble spots,
rebuking the mutinous troops and demanding that the instigators be handed over.
Pushkin also writes about literary recitals of N. V. Gogol and shares several
anecdotes he had heard which touch upon historical events, social gossip,
calembour, and life at the Royal Court.
Writing about a ball at the court, Pushkin dutifully
writes about the masquerade costumes worn by the guests, calling them by name
and making a personal note: “Observations
for Posterity.”
This diary entry was made on January 6, 1835. In
February of the same year Pushkin writes:
“Since January, I’ve been quite busy with
Peter [apparently, Pushkin’s unfinished historical work A History of Peter I, which has survived in manuscript fragments].
Attended the balls about three times, left all of them early. [And here it
comes!] Little involved in court gossip. A *** to posterity [sic!]!”
That’s why Bulgakov entrusts none other than Koroviev
with telling Margarita all sorts of gossip about the guests arriving for
Satan’s Great Ball. In other words, Bulgakov has his own “notes for posterity,”
skillfully masking the characters of his novel Master and Margarita under the guise of famous historical
personalities. [See my forthcoming chapter The
Guests at Satan’s Great Ball.]
Whatever I would be reading, be that Pushkin’s letters
to his wife Natalia Goncharova or diary entries, or his Articles and Notes, I was finding material used by Bulgakov in his
works.
And so, we are now turning to Bulgakov’s text proper,
starting with Chapter 9: Koroviev’s
Tricks.
The first condition is Koroviev/Pushkin’s connection
to other personages of Master and Margarita.
But I have shown it already in what I marked “to begin with.” Now we are turning to the second item.
2. Secondly, the next condition is very important. It is
Pushkin himself who assumes the position of “Vyzhigin” in Master and Margarita, rather than any other personage of Bulgakov’s
novel. M. A. Bulgakov traces the progress of his two personages – Bosoy and
Koroviev – in a very interesting fashion in the 9th chapter of Master and Margarita. Nikanor Ivanovich
Bosoy was and remains an extortionist. As for Koroviev, he was and remains a
trickster both with Berlioz in the 3rd chapter, when he sends him to
his death on tramway rails, and with Bosoy in the 9th chapter, when
he does not just play tricks, but serves as an informer against the man he
himself has set up.
Bosoy is frightened seeing a stranger in Berlioz’s
study. Meanwhile, the stranger for some reason knows Bosoy’s full name. “Nikanor Ivanovich!”
Bosoy is suspicious and hostile. “And kto [who!] exactly will you be?”
[And again Bryusov’s “Farman or Wright or whoever you are…”]
Bosoy continues to inquire: “Are you an official person?”
Koroviev:
“Eh, Nikanor Ivanovich! – intimately
exclaimed the stranger. – What
does it mean – an official person or unofficial? It all depends on the point of
view from which you are looking at things…”
Here, Bulgakov plays
upon the situation of Bulgarin himself who, in the aftermath of the Decembrist
Rebellion, instead of being arrested and sent into Siberian exile, like the
rest, started working for the Tsarist Okhrana. As a snitch, he must have proven
himself so useful that he had earned the patronage of the Chief of Secret
Police Count Benkendorf himself. This is the reason why continuing Koroviev’s
monologue Bulgakov writes:
“All this, Nikanor Ivanovich, is shaky and
conditional. Today I am unofficial, and tomorrow, look –I am official! And it
also happens the other way, you bet it does, mark my word!”
All this line of
reasoning ought to be interpreted as Bulgakov’s reenactment of the scene of Bulgarin’s
theft of Pushkin’s manuscript of Boris
Godunov from the office of Count Benkendorf, enabling the thief to
appropriate several scenes from it for his worthless novel False Dmitry. The man who questioned Bulgarin, having found him
alone in the study of the Head of Secret Police, may not have known who he was,
according to Bulgakov:
“So who would you be? What’s your name? –
with an increasing severity enquired the Chairman, pushing closer and closer
toward the stranger.”
The
subsequent text becomes even more interesting:
“My name – responded the
citizen unintimidated by the severity – well,
let us say Koroviev.”
Here it is becoming increasingly clear that the
“stranger” has to be none other than Pushkin performing the role of the “real Vyzhigin.”
To
be continued…
***
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