GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DCXXXVII

Alpha And Omega.

Posting #24.

“You do not joke around with the Germans, not
 yet. Whatever  you say, they are a serious thing.
They look like dung beetles.”

M. Bulgakov. White Guard.

And so, the identity of the mysterious colonel has been established through the association of N. S. Gumilev with the artillery colonel under the command of Alexander Nikolayevich Dolgorukov in World War I, and also with the mystical figure from Alexei Turbin’s dream.

Although Bulgakov dates his work on White Guard from 1923 to 1924, he could well update his text by inserting Gumilev into it, as the years of the Russian Civil War are officially recognized as 1917-1923. Gumilev returned to Russia in April 1918 and immediately involved himself in the literary life of Petrograd. He did not participate in the Russian Civil War apparently out of conviction: He objected to spilling fellow-Russian’s blood.

...Continuing reading and rereading N. S. Gumilev’s Notes of a Cavalryman, I understood that not only had Bulgakov read them, but also used this material both in White Guard and in Master and Margarita. Introducing this material into his, Bulgakov honored the memory of the guiltless poet-martyr. He also indirectly brought N. S. Gumilev into his novel, giving Gumilev’s features to one of the personages of White Guard, namely Junior Lieutenant Fedor Nikolayevich Stepanov, nicknamed Karas.

But as always Bulgakov is not all that simple, because he brings Gumilev into the character of the mysterious “man in the uniform of an artillery colonel.” The Cavalry Division, in which Gumilev served, was directly linked to artillery. Gumilev writes:

“It is all too easy for a cavalryman to get inside the flank of a moving enemy, or even to find himself in the enemy rear. He cannot be encircled, or his retreat routes cut off. As always, a lifesaving path will be found, along which a whole cavalry division in a light gallop will escape from under the nose of the fooled enemy.

Each morning, still dark outside, we were getting out of our position, finding our way with some difficulty among spikes and fences. We spent the whole day behind some hillock or other, or covering our artillery [sic!], or else engaging the enemy. [In other words, distracting the enemy from our artillery.] Our [scouting] goal was to make the [enemy] artillery talk [and thus give away its location]. For this purpose we crossed the river to the other side and moved across the plain toward the distant forest. [The purpose here was to move out of the range of small firearms in order to provoke the concealed enemy artillery to get into action.] And indeed, the enemy artillery came alive. A hollow [sic!] shot, prolonged howling, and, in about a hundred paces from us, shrapnel popping in a white cloud. Another burst already 50 paces away. A third one in 20 paces… We turned and galloped away.”

Apparently, judging by the location of enemy artillery, one can determine the right time to attack. And indeed, the next day the enemy retreated, and once again this fact was verified by cavalry scouts.

In the next excerpt I find proof that not only has Bulgakov read this material, but used it as well. When several days later a major offensive against the enemy started at last on enemy territory, Gumilev describes what exactly has drawn his greatest attention. –

“I especially remembered an important-looking old gentleman sitting before an open window of a large manor house. He was smoking a cigar, but his eyebrows were frowning, fingers were nervously picking his mustache, and the eyes were showing sorrowful amazement. The soldiers passing him by were talking in whisper: A serious gentleman, must be a general, and probably a pest when dressing-down.”

The Russian offensive was going well. Gumilev writes:

“From the advance teams, prisoners were being brought to us. They were frowning [sic!], apparently shaken by their retreat. They must have been thinking they had been advancing straight toward Petrograd. However they saluted properly not only the officers but the sergeants as well. When interrogated, they stood at attention like tightly stretched strings.”

Bulgakov used this last paragraph to the fullest in the 7^th chapter of White Guard, as always in his own Bulgakovian way:

“You do not joke around with the Germans, not yet. Whatever you say, they are a serious thing. They look like dung beetles.

Document!

Halt!

A cone from the flashlight. Ehey, there!

And now a heavy black lacquered automobile, four headlights. Not a regular car… eight guards on horseback. But it does not matter for the Germans. They are shouting at the car:

Halt! Where? Who? Why?

It’s the Commanding Officer, Cavalry General Belorukov.

[At last Prince A. N. Dolgorukov, Belorukov in Bulgakov, makes a brief appearance.]

Well, this is a different matter. Go ahead, then. Behind the coach’s glass, deep inside, the pale mustached face. A dim glitter on the shoulders of the general’s overcoat. And the German basins saluted. To tell the truth, it’s all the same to them, whether he is Belorukov or Petlura, or the Zulu commander in this wretched country [Ukraine]. Still, when among Zulus, you howl like a Zulu. The basins saluted. International politeness, as they say.”

On the basis of these two excerpts – one from Gumilev’s Notes of a Cavalryman, the other from Bulgakov’s White Guard – it can be suggested that introducing Gumilev into his first novel, Bulgakov decided to use Gumilev’s text in order in order to make the researcher realize that this poet is present in his novel, thus honoring his tragic and utterly inexcusable death.

This is why I am again returning to the very scant description by Bulgakov of the mysterious man “in the uniform of an artillery colonel.” Saying that the man “warily” closed the door shows that this man was in the palace illegally. Apparently, he was there on some kind of secret mission as a scout or spy. We find a confirmation of that in the words “discomposedly pinched his eyebrows,” which has the same meaning as “frowned,” as Bulgakov has it in the following excerpt from the novel White Guard about Colonel Malyshev:

“He, too, anxiously and sternly in combat-frowning thought, pinched his eyebrows like that colonel at the palace who was calling the mortar division from the apparatus room.”

And so, Bulgakov takes the word “frowning” from the previously quoted passages in Gumilev’s Notes of a Cavalryman:

“I especially remembered an important-looking old gentleman sitting before an open window of a large manor house. He was smoking a cigar, but his eyebrows were frowning, fingers were nervously picking his mustache, and the eyes were showing sorrowful amazement. The soldiers passing him by were talking in whisper: A serious gentleman, must be a general, and probably a pest when dressing-down.”

The second passage is about some German POW’s: “They were frowning, apparently, in shock of their retreat.”

A third example: “A frowning face of the company commander appeared to us.”

Which leads us to the phrase apparently used by Bulgakov in the subnovel Pontius Pilate: The phrase itself is from the 3^rd chapter of Gumilev’s Notes of a Cavalryman:

To be continued…

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