The Bard.
Barbarian at
the Gate.
Professor
Kuzmin.
Posting #3.
“...Who will sit on
those dark thrones?..”
Alexander Blok. The Violet West Oppresses.
The theme of the “armchair” is connected in Bulgakov
with A. S. Pushkin, who in his article My
Notes on the Russian Theater writes the following:
“...Before the start of an opera, a
tragedy, a ballet, the young man takes a walk between all ten rows of the
armchairs, steps on all feet, talks to all acquaintances and strangers... A
sizable part of our stalls (that is, of the armchairs) is too preoccupied with
the fate of Europe and Fatherland, too tired of travails, too deep in thought,
too self-important, too cautious in expressing the movements of the soul, to
participate in any way in the dignity of the dramatic art. And if at
half-past-six the same faces appear from military barracks or the Council to
occupy the front rows of the reserved chairs, this for them more a matter of conventional
etiquette than a pleasant respite...”
M. Bulgakov was a theater buff and dreamt of having
all of his works staged. He certainly read Pushkin’s articles about theater. In
Chapter 5 Extraordinary Events of his
Theatrical Novel, Bulgakov gives his
own take on Pushkin’s article quoted above:
“There are such young people, and you must
surely have met them in Moscow. These young people find themselves in the
editorial offices of journals and magazines at the exact moment when a new
issue is coming out, but they are not writers [sic!]. They are very visible at
all dress rehearsals and in all theaters, but they are not actors. They attend
artists’ exhibitions, but they do not draw or paint themselves. They call
operatic prima donnas not by their last names but by first names and
patronymics. Also by first name and patronymic they call persons occupying
positions of responsibility, even though they are not personally acquainted
with them. At a Bolshoi premiere they squeeze between the seventh and the
eighth row of the stalls, waving their hand amiably to someone in the
dress-circle; at the Metropol they
are sitting at a table by the fountain, and multicolored lamps throw their
lights on their bell-bottomed pants.”
And back to A. S. Pushkin:
“One more note. These great people of our
time wearing on their faces the monotonous seal of ennui, hubris,
preoccupation, and stupidity, inseparable from their kind of business,
these habitual front-row spectators, frowning through comedies, yawning
through tragedies, napping through operas, attentive perhaps only
in ballets – aren’t they supposed to necessarily cool down the acting of our
most ardent artistes and bring laziness and languor into their soul, if nature
has endowed them with a soul?”
Bulgakov’s attachment to the theater helped him write
sharply, carefully adhering to the minutest detail. I am always surprised by
Bulgakov’s style, which is precise and concise. Each word matters, each word
has a hidden meaning.
For instance, the word “armchair” is not as simple in
Bulgakov as it is in Pushkin. For me, an armchair is always an item of comfort.
I like to sit in an armchair when I am writing or reading. This reminds me of
Gumilev’s line:
“I’ll
drop my body into an armchair…”
But how can we understand Bulgakov writing something
like this:
“...The furnishings of [Financial Director
Rimsky’s] study, aside from the desk, included a number of old posters hanging
on the wall, a small table with a carafe of water on it, four armchairs...”
At first sight everything seems simple. As Financial
Director of the Variety Theater, Rimsky sits in one of the chairs, while the
three others are for his visitors. But, as the reader and researcher already
know from me, Bulgakov’s Rimsky represents the Russian music composer, a member
of the Mighty Bunch, Nikolai
Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov [See my chapter A
Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries: The Duets]. Also, before the séance of black
magic, Koroviev pulls from his little pocket underneath the buttoned-up vest, a
gold watch, pointing to the composer’s opera The Golden Cockerel, after Pushkin’s fairytale. Therefore we got to
think about something else.
Although in his novel Master and Margarita Bulgakov directly uses the names of three
famous composers: Berlioz, Stravinsky, and Rimsky [Korsakov] and also
indirectly points to them through their operas: Eugene Onegin by P. I. Tchaikovsky, Faust by Gounod, there are more complex associations there too.
In the 15th chapter Nikanor Ivanovich’s Dream Bosoy practically loses his mind in the
presence of the interrogators, portraying Pushkin’s/Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov.
Also indirectly, Bulgakov is giving his own version of
The Golden Cockerel in Chapter 14: Glory to the Cockerel! in the scene with
Rimsky, Varenukha, and Gella.
And so, we have Bulgakov’s Rimsky representing N. A.
Rimsky Korsakov. We also have M. P. Mussorgsky who is represented by Stepa
Likhodeev, where Stepa refers to Stenka Razin and Likhodeev to likhiye dela. As
we know, Pushkin has a Song of Stenka
Razin, written in 1826.
As for the characters of M. A. Berlioz and Professor
Stravinsky, they have no connection to music in M. A. Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita.
Now, what may the chairs in Rimsky’s office represent?
Considering that the word “kreslo” (armchair) in
Bulgakov is associated with Pushkin, signifying theater stalls, where is the
connection to Pushkin here? We can see it through the Pushkin-related operas of
two composers present in Bulgakov’s Master
and Margarita: M. P. Mussorgsky with his one Pushkin opera: Boris Godunov and N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov
with his three Pushkin operas: The Tale
of Tsar Saltan, The Golden Cockerel, and Mozart and Saglieri.
Bulgakov could not possibly seat four composers in
four chairs, which leaves us with the supposition that the mystical meaning he
is concealing here lies in the four Pushkin operas written by the two
composers, as I have just indicated.
I am tempted to remember the 1904 poem by Blok: The Violet West Opresses:
“There
are few of us, all in long cloaks;
Sparks are spurting and iron
mails are shining,
We are raising dust
[Pushkin] in the north,
And leaving azure in the
south.
Setting up thrones for other
ages…”
(That is, leaving their works for the posterity who
will read them.)
“...Who
will sit on those dark thrones?..”
(In
other words, who will prove worthy of such inheritance? Bulgakov chooses two
composers: Mussorgsky with his one Pushkin opera, placed above Rimsky-Korsakov
with his three Pushkin operas.)
Does
it coincide with the following lines of Blok? –
“…Each
has split his soul in half
And set up dual laws…”
Brilliantly done by Blok!
To be continued...
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