GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. DCLXVIII

Alexander Blok’s

Mystical Play The Unknown.

Posting #4.

“…Here alive is the holy mystery of God,

And these antiquities know no decay…”

A. Blok. To Sergei Solovyev.

…The beautiful woman, the Unknown, goes away from the bridge with a gentleman passing by, who promises her: “All that you wish I will do.”

Stargazer and Poet appear on the bridge, and as it turns out, both are in angst.

Stargazer is the most enigmatic character in the play. He, Stargazer, is real, as after the disappearance of Unknown, the two of them, he and Poet, both lament their fate. Stargazer weeps:

“The beautiful Star is no more!

Today in my tower

With my grieving hand I shall write down

Into my long rolls

The news of the fall of the brightest Star…”

Calling the fallen star Maria, Blok shows that Stargazer is a Christian.

Poet laments:

“Like yourself, I am alone.

You are probably like myself a poet…”

And he asks Stargazer:

“Have you by chance

Seen Unknown in the blue snows?”

Stargazer is not interested in women. He mourns his star. And to Poet’s words: “Oh, had you seen Unknown, You would have forgotten your Star!” – Stargazer angrily retorts: “Who are you to talk about Stars? You are too light-minded for that. And may I ask you not to poke your nose into my professional business.”

The character of Stargazer is all the more mysterious considering that V. V. Mayakovsky wrote:

“Had I not been a poet, I would have become a stargazer.”

And, as we know, Bulgakov makes Pontius Pilate a stargazer’s son.

Poet is prepared to suffer all Stargazer’s insults only to be able to meet Unknown, for “such meetings happen only once in life.”

Hence, in Bulgakov, the meeting of master (himself a stranger with no name) with the woman stranger whose name he never reveals.

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Although Blok in his 1901 Verses About a Fair Lady writes about his optimistic assurance:

“The maiden in snowy hoarfrost – I’ll meet her when I am awake…” no matter that “the blizzard is effacing the tracks,” – in Blok’s play The Unknown, Poet, having learned from Stargazer that the Unknown, having been approached by a Blue gentleman… “and then they must have left…” – laments: “…Oh no!.. Blue gentleman… and snow effaced their tracks…” And then he exclaims: “Nevermore shall I meet her again!”

Both Stargazer and Poet “weep under the blue snow.” Both agree about one thing: to call the Unknown “Maria.”

Stargazer plays a large role in the play The Unknown. But for the phrase:

“I understand your grief. I am alone, like you are. You must be a poet, like myself?” – we might easily have imagined that Blok here splits himself into two characters. One is drawn toward the stars, the other is interested in earthly things.

As I already noted elsewhere, Blok frequently splits himself in his poems, like, for instance, in an early 1901 poem from the cycle Verses About a Fair Lady. –

“The Soul is silent. In the cold sky

The same stars are burning for it…

She’s silent – and responds to the cries,

And gazes into faraway worlds…”

It is the soul of Poet that creates Blue, leaving the body of the sleeping Poet and incarnating in a mystical being. From his conversation with the “beautiful woman” on the bridge, it becomes clear that she, who has just arrived, in asking her questions, is overly knowledgeable in earthly things, whereas he, who has been on earth for several centuries, is interested only in “mysteries.”

“The fallen maiden is a star. She wants earthly talk.”

And Blue responds to her:

“The only words I know are about mysteries.

Only solemn is my talk.”

What “mysteries” is Blok writing about here?

He often uses this word in his works, but as is often the case with me, I found the answer in his early poem from the 1901 cycle Verses About a Fair Lady. This poem is dedicated to the Russian poet and a friend of Blok Sergei Solovyev. –

“Enter all. Inside the inner chambers

There’s no Command, even though a mystery rests here,

You are discomfited by the frozen appearance

Of ancient books on the lecterns…”

Being a Christian, Blok believed that ancient books contain wisdom which needs to be studied. Being a Russian, Blok was interested in ancient cultures of other nations. Blok writes further:

“…Here [in these books] alive is the holy mystery of God,

And these antiquities know no decay…”

In other words, Blok is interested in the course of human thought throughout the centuries, as for him, a religious man, this thought is sacred. Otherwise, he would not have closed this poem with the following words:

“It is in vain that you have blasphemously spurted out

Loud-voiced calumnies against the Creator.

You are all slaves of an impossible freedom,

So, be humbled here before an endless mystery.”

What comes to mind again here is the personage of Berlioz in Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita. Berlioz cites several ancient religions, denying them together with Christianity and offering no replacement.

As for the Unknown, the “fallen maiden-star” who wants to hear “earthly talk,” Blok explains her knowledge of earthly words in the very first “vision,” as soon as Poet appears in the pub.

Ordering beer for himself, Poet explains to the barman:

“You just listen to this. Walking along the streets, catching fragments of unfamiliar words. Then coming right here and spilling your soul to a substitute person…”

This is how Blok himself explains the inexplicable in his play The Unknown.

And indeed, how could a fallen star, having turned herself into a beautiful woman in black with a surprised gaze of her widened eyes, know so many earthly words?

To put it in other words, here we have the extremely interesting and mysterious poet Blok inviting the reader into his workshop.

Bulgakov visited this workshop too and was so impressed that not only did he pick Blok for the role of master, but he also used his poetry to construct his other characters, as Blok had a large influence on other poets of his time, including V. V. Mayakovsky and S. A. Yesenin.

To be continued…

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