GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DCCLXIII

Who is Professor Persikov in Reality?

Posting #2.

“Inside the red strip, and then all over the disc,

the place became overcrowded,

 and the inevitable struggle began.”

M. Bulgakov. Fateful Eggs.

On page 3 of the novella Fateful Eggs Bulgakov writes that Professor Persikov “was peering into the jaws of the fiery furnace.”

Using the word “fiery,” Bulgakov points to Valery Bryusov who, as the reader knows, had written the novel The Fiery Angel about his affair with a married woman, the Russian poetess Nina Petrovskaya, who was simultaneously a mistress of the Russian poet Andrei Bely.

In chapter 2 The Curl of Color we already have the appearance of the “misty pale crescent sickle,” pointing to the world of V. Ya. Bryusov. It is for a good reason that Bulgakov writes on the next page that in Professor Persikov’s microscope one can see a “curl of color that looks like a woman’s ringlet of hair.” Thus Bulgakov alludes to the “lunar femininity” of Bryusov’s verses.

However, the sly Bulgakov does not stop with the crescent, but also introduces “the sun” into his story, which leads us to the Russian poet K. D. Balmont, who, as the reader knows, wrote the poetry collection Let Us Be Like the Sun.

It is also Balmont who happens to be the prototype of the chief of secret police Afranius in Bulgakov’s subnovel Pontius Pilate, as well as of Archibald Archibaldovich, Professor Bure, and Dr. Stravinsky in the novel Master and Margarita.

Thinking that the life he saw under the microscope could be “from the sun, Professor Persikov opened the black heavy drapes on the windows of his study. The sun was now in evidence. Here it was pouring over the walls of the Institute. Before leaving he Institute for the day, he covered the microscope with a glass dome.”

We need to note here that Bulgakov had already tried his hand at what really happened in Russian literature in the post-Revolution period. Having come to live in Moscow, Bulgakov must have been acquainted with V. Ya. Bryusov, who was in charge of LITO (Literary Department), and was clearly adept in the literary kitchen of that time. The novella Fateful Eggs was written in 1925 when V. Bryusov was already dead.

In the 25^th chapter of Master and Margarita: How the Procurator Tried to Save Judas from Kyriath [see my chapter The Garden: Caiaphas], Bulgakov was extensively using material on the state of literature of the early post-Revolution time in Soviet Russia. The Russian poet Alexander Blok had already had strong suspicions of what to expect regarding his own future. His suspicions were justified. In 1921, Blok died in Petrograd at the age of 41. Several days later another great Russian poet N. S. Gumilev was executed by a firing squad.

Both in the subnovel Pontius Pilate and in the 1925 novella Fateful Eggs, Bulgakov shows how the literary and poetry vermin (in Marina Tsvetaeva’s words) hounded Russian poets, both dead (A. S. Pushkin) and alive (Blok, Gumilev, Bryusov, Mayakovsky, Yesenin).

In the 3^rd chapter Persikov Caught It, Bulgakov explains what it was exactly that was caught:

“In the multicolored curl, especially vivid and thick was one particular beam. This beam was of bright-red color and protruded out of the curl like a tiny blade, well, say, like a needle or something.

In it, in this beam, the professor was able to discern what was a thousand times more significant and important than the beam itself, an unstable infant born accidentally during the movement of the mirror and lens of the microscope. As a result of the assistant calling the professor away, the amoebae stayed under the effect of the beam for an hour and a half, and this is what happened. While in the disk outside the beam the grainy amoebae were lying feebly and helplessly, inside the area where the red sharpened sword was having its effect, strange phenomena were taking place. Life was seething within the red strip. Grayish amoebae were using every last effort to draw themselves toward the red strip, and in it (as though by magic) they were revived. Some kind of force breathed the spirit of life into them.”

You bet! This is how Bulgakov shows the effect of the Revolution on the literary scene in Soviet Russia, when talentless nonentities insisted on publishing their good-for-nothing illiterate products, at best stolen from the works of the preceding generations of writers and poets. Meanwhile, Bulgakov continues:

“…They advanced in numbers and fought each other for a place under the beam. Right there, a crazy, for want of another word, reproduction was underway breaking and overturning all laws known to Persikov.”

Here Bulgakov explains that at the Bryusov Institute, beginning poets were taught how to write verses in accordance with certain rules. Now all these rules were broken.

“…Within a few moments, these organisms were reaching the proper size and maturity just so that in their turn they could produce the next generation…”

What Bulgakov has in mind here is that every month new literary movements were popping up.

“Inside the red strip, and then all over the disc, the place became overcrowded, and the inevitable struggle began…”

These new literary movements were fighting each other.

“The newly-borns fiercely attacked each other, tore each other into pieces, and devoured them. The best and the strongest of them were the winners. And these best were horrid. To begin with, their size was approximately twice as large as that of the regular amoebae, and secondly, they were distinguished by some kind of special ferocity and agility.”

See also my chapter Fateful Eggs.

In this 3^rd chapter of Fateful Eggs, Bulgakov already uses the word “samokrutka” [rolly], once again confusing the researcher:

“On the second night, the professor, withdrawn and pale without food, was energizing himself only with thick rollies, studying the new generation of the amoebae…” (That is, the new generation of poets.)

This is how Bulgakov points out that Bryusov was an original poet bringing Symbolism into Russian poetry and exerting a major influence on Russian literature, “rolling his own cigarettes=verses.”

Bulgakov’s line “whether it was from the electricity or also from the sun” points to Mayakovsky (electricity) and Balmont (the sun).

It is also amazing that Bulgakov gives Professor Persikov’s assistant the name of Privatdozent Ivanov. While the prototype of Professor Persikov is V. Ya. Bryusov, the prototype of Professor Persikov’s assistant is the Russian poet Vyacheslav Ivanov, with his “sunny masculinity.”

Thus,  Bulgakov persists in confusing the researcher. Ironically, he had also confused me until I realized the presence of Gumilev in Bulgakov’s works, and had started reading him with far greater attention some time later, far later.

It is becoming increasingly clear, though, that it is not Vyacheslav Ivanov whom Bulgakov has in mind, but rather K. D. Balmont, who wrote the poetry collection Let Us Be Like the Sun.

Bulgakov gives Balmont away by means of his “sharp blond beard” and in the Theatrical Novel by means of the “French beard” of Gavrila Stepanovich No-Last-Name. There is also that “three-legged taburet,” of which I was writing in my chapter The Bard: Barbarian at the Gate: Professor Kuzmin, where I indicated that Professor Bure has Balmont as his prototype, together with Afranius in Pontius Pilate and Archibald Archibaldovich in Master and Margarita proper.

The “three-legged taburet” is a representation of Balmont’s three most famous poetry collections: Let Us Be Like the Sun, Only Love, and Burning Buildings.

The first letters of Professor Persikov’s first name, patronymic, and surname – Vladimir Ivanovich Persikov – VIP – show that their bearer, as well as his prototype Bryusov, must indeed be very important persons, which is true, of course. Bulgakov’s Bryusov is the prototype of several characters, be that M. A. Berlioz, Pontius Pilate, Professor Kuzmin, or Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy.

To be continued…

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