Alpha And Omega.
Posting #40.
“…I see a radiance on
the river,
It is approaching our house…”
A. S. Pushkin. Songs
of Western Slavs.
Why
do I think that Colonel F. F. Nai-Turs has the Russian poet N. S. Gumilev as
his prototype? Because Gumilev was the only Russian poet-volunteer in the First
World War.
Also,
Nai-Turs had a sister Irina whom Nikolka Turbin fell in love with. The name
Irina is Greek. It was the name of a Macedonian Christian martyr in the year
100 AD. Gumilev had a half-sister on his mother’s side, whose name was
Alexandra. This is also a Greek name.
Macedonia
was actually part of Greece, although its Northern part became a part of
Yugoslavia in 1918. And of course everybody knows Alexander of Macedon (356-323
BC).
A
rather complicated picture emerges. In order to unravel it, I might remind the
reader that I have already written about A. S. Pushkin’s cycle of poems Songs of the Western Slavs originally collected
by the French writer Prosper Merimee and published in 1827 in Paris.
Bulgakov
was obviously familiar with Pushkin’s translation of the Songs. The very first of them, titled The Vision of the King, tells the story of the two sons of King
Thomas I conspiring against their father and killing him. Radivoy changed sides
in the war against the advancing Turks, taking the Sultan’s side. To reward
Radivoy for his treachery the Sultan ordered:
“Give
Radivoy a caftan!
Not of velvet, not of
brocade.
To make a caftan for Radivoy,
Take the skin off his own
brother.”
Bulgakov
alludes to that in the 30th chapter of Master and Margarita: It’s
Time! It’s Time! when Azazello tells Margarita not to be concerned about
her nakedness. Not only had Azazello seen women without clothes, but those
whose whole skin had been flayed.
In
the second poem Yanko Marnavich,
Yanko asks his wife what she sees through the window.
The
first time the wife answers:
“It’s
midnight outside, dense fogs over the river,
I can see nothing behind the
fogs…”
The second time:
“There,
I see a small light
Barely flickering in the
darkness
Beyond the river…
Saying a prayer, he spoke again to his wife:
Look, what else can you see
there?
His wife looked and replied:
I see a radiance on the
river,
It is approaching our house…”
And
in the 5th chapter of Bulgakov’s White
Guard: “A Heavenly radiance was following Nai like
a cloud.”
In
both cases, the radiance is a sign of death.
Pushkin’s
influence on Bulgakov’s creative work is unquestionable. Just one aspect
remains to be noted. For some reason, Bulgakov compares Colonel Felix Nai-Turs
to Felix Dzerzhinsky:
“Nai had a face of iron, simple and manly.”
In
the USSR Dzerzhinsky had a nickname “Iron
Felix.” I can’t help but compare these two men: N. S. Gumilev and F. E.
Dzerzhinsky. But this is as always a feint on Bulgakov’s part. While G. P.
Struve underscores Gumilev’s “bravery, fearlessness, attraction to risk and an
urge for action,” the Russian painter S. K. Makovsky notes the following:
“He was flawed by a speech deficiency. N. S. poorly articulated
certain letters [sic!], he had this peculiar lisp.”
As the researcher has
noticed, Colonel Nai-Turs was burring his “r’s.”
***
As
for Colonel Shchetkin, this Bulgakovian puzzle wasn’t leaving my head for a
long time, until I realized that its solution was ludicrously easy. The answer
to the Alpha [Bulgakov’s first novel White Guard] is in Omega [Bulgakov’s last novel Master
and Margarita].
Colonel
Shchetkin appears already in the 2nd chapter of White Guard together with the appearance of Lieutenant V. V.
Myshlayevsky, whose prototype is the Russian Revolutionary poet V. V.
Mayakovsky, about whom I have already written in this chapter Alpha and Omega.
Having
already proven that in the personage of Myshlayevsky Bulgakov portrays
Mayakovsky, I am now getting down to business. At an earlier time I missed a
certain clue, namely, the fact that V. V. Myshlayevsky got to Kiev from the
vicinity of Red Pub. What I did not
realize then is that Bulgakov may have taken this place name from A. S.
Pushkin, thus pointing to V. V. Mayakovsky, who was obsessed with Pushkin.
Pushkin
has an 1827 poem titled To the Russian
Gessner, which also hides a puzzle in itself, as we do not know who this “Russian Gessner” really is. Pushkin
himself is making fun of this poet:
“How
stiff and pale is your style!
How poor are you in
inventiveness!
How tiresome are you to my
ear!
Your shepherdess, your
shepherd
Ought to wear sheepskin
overcoats:
You are freezing them lightly
dressed.
Where did you find them, at
the Schuster-Club?
[A famous club of ethnic
Germans in St. Petersburg]
Or at Red Pub?”
This
is why Bulgakov puts an emphasis on Red
Pub. Pointing to this poem by Pushkin is the kind of humor displayed by
Bulgakov, as we remember Myshlayevsky’s frozen limbs and definitely in need of
a sheepskin coat from Pushkin’s poem, plus valenki boots provided by Colonel
Nai-Turs to his cadets. Bulgakov writes:
“…Nasty obscenities started jumping in the room like hail on the
windowsill. His eyes skewed to the nose, [Myshlayevsky] was scolding with
raunchy words the headquarters staff, riding in first-class railroad cars, some
Colonel Shchetkin, the frost, Petlura and the Germans, and the blizzard, ending
with the Hetman of all Ukraine, whom he cussed out with the vilest ruffian
swearing. Now this whore colonel
Shchetkin comes and says… (Here Myshlayevsky screwed up his face, trying to
portray the abominable Colonel Shchetkin, and started talking in a disgusting
thin and artificial voice.): Gentlemen
Officers! Justify the trust of the perishing mother of the Russian cities –
Kiev. Launch an offensive! God is with us! – And then he just fled in his car
with his aide. And it was as dark as up the ass!..”
To
be continued…
***
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