Alpha And Omega.
Posting #17.
“What is it? The end?
– hollowly asked Turbin.
It’s over, – laconically replied the colonel.”
M. Bulgakov. White
Guard.
Returning
to the “Colonel,” in Bulgakov’s White
Guard, instead of becoming upset, –
“...The colonel’s little
eyes buoyed up for a moment, flashing a spark and glitter [sic!], but what the
colonel said was quite the opposite:
This is sad. Very sad. The
accomplishments of the Revolution, etc. I have an order from above: to avoid
staffing with monarchist elements… sad… sad…
The voice of the colonel meanwhile not only was expressing no
sorrow whatsoever, but sounded on the contrary very happy, and the little eyes
found themselves in a complete opposition to what he was saying.”
Although
Dr. Turbin thought that the colonel was probably “some kind of careerist,
judging by his physiognomy,” that proved to be wrong. One should not put the
cart before the horse. I’ll explain this situation in good time.
An
interesting picture is forming with regard to this colonel, considering that
for a long time the reader has not been given his name. When the researcher
next time meets the “colonel-lieutenant-colonel,” he appears already in the
company of a “staff-captain.” Unlike the colonel, this one has a name:
Studzinsky, whom Alexei Turbin mistakes for a Pole:
“I hear you, Mr. Colonel, – replied the officer, with wrong
syllables stressed, and saluted.
A Pole! – thought
Turbin.”
Here
already, Bulgakov offers three puzzles to the reader. I start with the first
one: Staff-Captain! In the already
quoted reminiscences of Staff-Captain V. A. Karamzin about “Lieutenant Gumilev” he is asking the
poet:
“Now, if we are talking
military-speak, it seems to me that there are no ‘generals’ among the poets of
our time.
I wouldn’t put it this way,
why so? – drawled Gumilev.
– Blok is good enough for major-general.
And what would be Balmont’s
rank, according to you? [asked
Karamzin…]
Because of his great labors,
he can be a staff-captain. [said Gumilev…]”
And
so, here is our first puzzle solved.
The
second puzzle can be solved equally easily. Bulgakov writes about officer
Studzinsky that he may be a Pole, but not on the basis of his last name which
can well be Russian, as much as on the basis of his irregular speech:
“I hear you, Mr. Colonel, – replied the officer, with wrong
syllables stressed, and saluted.
A Pole! – thought
Turbin.”
To
begin with, Staff-Captain V. A. Karamzin’s Reminiscences
about Gumilev have three names besides Gumilev, and two of them are of
Polish origin: General P. Skoropadsky and Lieutenant-Colonel A. E. von
Radetzky. The latter had received the German ‘von’ particle, indicating nobility,
at some time in the history of his heredity, but was now fighting against the
Germans in World War I on the Russian side.
There
was also Captain Melik-Shahnazarov, of Armenian and originally Iranian descent.
And, of course, the historical name of Karamzin himself is of clear Tatar
origin.
And
so all these names are found in the same Reminiscences
about Gumilev where Gumilev gives the Russian poet K. D. Balmont the rank
of Staff-Captain of Russian literature.
Secondly,
there is an even better indication that Staff-Captain Studzinsky in M.
Bulgakov’s White Guard is none other
than Balmont. The poet himself suggested that his last name be pronounced with
the last syllable stressed. (Testimony of Marina Tsvetaeva.)
Bulgakov
naturally turns this around in his own inimitable way in the same chapter 6 of
the novel White Guard. –
“Mr. Colonel! – All
Studzinsky’s stresses, because of his agitation, climbed onto the penultimate
syllable [sic!] – allow me to report…
”
Having
figured out that Staff-Captain Studzinsky is Balmont in Bulgakov, what remains
is to dissect his last name. I remember that when the “colonel” was lecturing
Dr. Alexei Turbin on “social theories” for “intelligent people,” he explained
that the “mortar division” was in fact a “student” outfit, meaning that it
consisted of students. Hence, the last name Studzinsky, meaning that he is also
one of the students. That’s one thing.
But
the picture becomes clearer and clearer, as all roads lead to Rome, in other
words, to Bryusov who, having dipped himself in Symbolism and having acquainted
Russia with it, had become the teacher of various Symbolist movements. Among
Bryusov’s students were A. Blok, Andrei Bely, and N. Gumilev, as well as
Mayakovsky and Yesenin. All of them dedicated poems to Bryusov, who created the
so-called Bryusov Institute, where he taught students.
According
to Marina Tsvetaeva, Balmont and Bryusov – a name pair, like Pushkin and Lermontov,
Goethe and Schiller.
“Balmont, Bryusov. in those years Russia never called one of the
two without calling the other, at least mentally. There were other poets, no
lesser ones, they were called individually. But these two – as if in collusion,
these names were circulated as a pair.
Where’s the secret? In the commensurateness of these two names –
giftedness – temperaments – in their mutual exclusiveness. All that is
not Balmont – Bryusov. All that is not Bryusov – Balmont. Not two names – two
camps, two species, two races.”
And
although M. A. Bulgakov combines Staff-Captain Studzinsky (Balmont) with the
“Colonel” (Bryusov) on the same side, he does it because in their student years
both men had revolutionary leanings. Bulgakov presents this in a very
interesting fashion. He rejuvenates these two personages to fit the picture of
the events of that time.
The
portrait of Staff-Captain Studzinsky points to that:
“Someone’s head fell through the pit, and then before the colonel appeared
a young officer, dark, animated, and persistent.”
And
in chapter 10 of White Guard we have
a description of the “colonel”:
“What is it? The end? – hollowly asked Turbin.
It’s over, – laconically replied the colonel. Turbin was
peering into him as they spoke. He did not look anything like a colonel
anymore. Before Turbin stood a rather pudgy student [sic!], an amateur actor
with swollen raspberry-colored lips.”
In
other words, Bulgakov deliberately makes both poets younger so that they would
be harder to recognize. In 1918 Bryusov was 45 and Balmont 51. Bulgakov’s own
age at the time was 27. Yet another reason to make the others younger.
Bulgakov
gives another portrait of the “colonel” in chapter 6 right before the arrival
of Karas with Myshlayevsky and Turbin. –
“Monsieur Colonel was a little older than Turbin himself. He was
about 30, at most 32. His face, well-fed and smoothly-shaven, was adorned with
black American-style moustache. Highly animated and intelligent eyes clearly
had a tired look, yet were attentive.”
Another
one of Bulgakov’s puzzles about “American-style moustache” will be solved in
another chapter.
To
be continued…
***
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