Mikhail (Afanas'evich) Bulgakov: Criticism
SOURCE:
Ellendea Proffer, in Bulgakov: Life and Work, Ardis, 1984, 670 p.
SYNOPSIS:
[In the following excerpt, Proffer provides a comprehensive analysis of the themes, motifs, and character types appearing throughout Bulgakov's works.]
ARTICLE:
At first glance Bulgakov's literary world appears extremely diverse, encompassing as it does Jerusalem at the time of Pilate, Louis XIV's France, and Stalin's Moscow. However the same characters and themes persist from the earliest works to the last, although they undergo various transformations....
Bulgakov's literary world is interesting for what it lacks. There are few detailed descriptions of a given character's background, of nature, or of love; and those seeking examples of the "Russian soul" style of self-revelation would be greatly disappointed. Traditionally Russian literature is known for a certain lethargy of plot, usually more than made up for by descriptive and psychological intensity. Bulgakov, however, is by nature inclined toward action, suspense, and an economy of means, things more typical of Pushkin than any other Russian prose writer. Bulgakov's irony often leads to ambiguity and deliberate mystery--qualities not typical of Russian writing in general. Bulgakov's world is complex, but an overview of his body of work reveals many unexpected points of intersection.
In this world weather is an active plot element--commenting, destroying, changing the outcome of events. Weather extends across time and space: the heat that torments Pilate in Jerusalem also torments Khludov in Constantinople 2000 years later. The sudden, unseasonal frost which destroys the reptiles in The Fatal Eggs also allows the Bolsheviks to cross the frozen river in Flight, thus destroying the White army....
Like weather, time of year is significant. White Guard is set around Christmas time, as are so many of the Civil War stories; many of the comedies take place in the spring, especially the month of May, which is also the time of The Master and Margarita, which is simultaneously set during Easter, Passover and the Ball of the Spring Full Moon. Numbers and dates are often fatidic: "apartment 50" and "the night of the third" come up with regularity. The best example, however, is the number of Petliura's cell--999, the number of the beast, the anti-Christ.
Physically, Bulgakov's world is crowded. The only major character who does not live in an apartment is Margarita, an indication of how the housing shortage influences art. The location for most of the action in Bulgakov's plays and prose is an apartment, laboratory or, less often, a theater. The characters are not especially drawn to nature, and neither is their creator--a relatively rare thing among Russian writers. Bulgakov was a lover of cities, and the evocations of Kiev, Moscow and Jerusalem are his equivalent of the typical Russian nature description. However, his descriptions are functional, and rarely reflect a simple desire to describe....
Bulgakov's motifs are structured musically, rather than logically. This ostinato effect is used most interestingly in The Master and Margarita, but it is present in the earliest works. While one may profitably trace a particular motif, such as roses, colors or poison through one novel, one may also trace the evolution of a motif through the works as a whole. An example of this sort is the mention of the cavalryman brother in "The Red Crown." In White Guard we find the Brockhaus-Efron Encyclopedia compared to a row of black and gold cavalryman, and Nai-Turs is described as a black cavalryman in a dream. In The Life of Moliere the writer dies and sees a cavalier in black, wiping blood from his head, just like the brother in "The Red Crown." In The Master and Margarita we find a number of cavalrymen: there is Pilate himself, often described and with the epithet "cavalryman" ( vsadnik), as well as Woland and his band, all of whom, significantly, ride away to the abyss. The black rider (and the word is always the same in Russian) is Bulgakov's equivalent of Chekhov's Black Monk: he is death itself....
Violence and disease are present in his writing to a greater degree than one would expect. Hospitals and operating tables wind through many works: all the bloody details are provided in Notes of a Young Doctor, Heart of a Dog, and The Master and Margarita. The disease most often mentioned is syphilis. Rusakov is treated for it in White Guard; Pushkin's letter accuses his rival of having it; Moliere dies playing in Le Malade imaginaire to lines about venereologists--lines written by Bulgakov, a former venereologist.
However, physical disease is not as important as mental disease. The narrator of "The Red Crown," Rusakov in The White Guard, Dymogatsky in The Crimson Island, Maxudov in Theatrical Novel--all of these characters have nervous breakdowns. In The Master and Margarita the illnesses multiply. The Master has a breakdown, Pilate has terrible migraines, and almost everyone else in the work ends up in Stravinsky's clinic, driven insane by the tricks of Woland's band.
Violence is also a prominent feature of this world. The most purely terrifying violence is the first scene of the giant reptiles eating the characters in The Fatal Eggs. In White Guard, Elight and the Civil War stories there are many horrible tortures and deaths, but the effect is less shocking since these are works about war. The violent moments in The Master and Margarita, however, are more cruel. No rhetoric softens the death of Berlioz, and the description of his body lying on three tables is worse than Nikolka's visit to the morgue in White Guard, because it is so unexpected in what at first seems to be a comic novel. The violent acts are scattered through the novel and have the effect of preventing the reader from taking the material too lightly. The use of violence here cannot be explained as merely a former doctor's inclination to naturalistic detail. It is possible to explain it as an expression of implacable anger, anger that the world is a cruel place. Woland's globe shows the dark side of existence, a mother and child burning to death. But, oddly, there are only two real moments of violent revenge in the novel, one the murder of Iuda, the other the execution of the spy, Baron Maigel. A form execution is reserved for informers....
Bulgakov's world is inhabited by literally thousands of minor characters, ranging from the Syrian cavalry commander who leads his men to Golgotha to the milk-maid Yavdokha of White Guard. These minor characters are individualized briefly, but with great skill, and are varied. When one examines the major characters, however, it becomes evident that, like most writers, Bulgakov was drawn to a limited number of basic characters, his own archetypes. Bulgakov changed the characters from work to work more than many writers did, but the archetype is still visible.
In some cases the change is a physical one which is misleading: the Figaro-like Shervinsky of Days of the Turbins has much in common with the cat Begemot. The Shervinsky line is a prolific one: Ametistov, Miloslavsky and Kiri-Kuki are his direct descendants, and Charnota and Koroviev have some of his traits as well. These characters share Shervinsky's exuberance and some of his linguistic habits. When Shervinsky lies, he likes to add that someone "shed tears." His rascal relations preface lies with lines such as "You're just going to sob." Begemot's vanity, as well as his lies, link him to Shervinsky; both of them are inflamed by perfectly true implications that they are lying or cheating. Bulgakov liked contrasting the vulgar with the refined--there are many such pairs: Persikov/Rokk, Preobrazhensky/Sharikov, Radamanov/Miloslavsky.
Where there is a rascal figure there is also the officious Building Manager. He is ubiquitous, and is often connected with the theme of money, which he usually takes in the form of bribes and then hoards. He is present in the early feuilletons and is featured prominently in Zoya's Apartment, Lvan Vasilievich and Bliss. His name changes, but his personality remains the same--obnoxious. The last in this line is the ill-fated Nikanor Ivanovich in The Master and Margarita who gets caught for taking a bribe, just as his predecessor in Zoya's Apartment did. This character is always comic, but he is far from negligible. Bulgakov's letters and early feuilletons portray this figure as an unbearable combination of the spy and concierge. The building managers made it their business to monitor both the political and private lives of the inhabitants of their buildings. For Bulgakov the building manager was the start of the police state on the lowest level. A character like the building manager appears more comic and less realistic as he progresses through the works. The further away Bulgakov got in time and geography from that first "cursed apartment" in Moscow, the more comic the memory became. A far more appealing archetype is the pert maid, a line which starts with Anyuta in White Guard and ends with Margarita's Natasha. The maids are always repulsing unwanted advances with sarcastic comments reminiscent of Moliere's characters. There is little development of these characters from work to work, although they may reveal slightly different facets. It is otherwise with the serious characters.
Grading from the comic to the serious are the characters who may be grouped under the label "naif." These characters start out as naive observers or reflectors, but they are often educated by events. The naif is funny and he engages our sympathy. His main characteristic is his youthful idealism, often accompanied by immaturity, Lariosik and Nikolka of White Guard and Days of the Turbins are good examples of this type. His next appearance is in Flight, in the person of Golubkov, who has many traits of the naif type, but is also related, as we shall see, to the weak intellectual line. Other main characters who share the characteristics of the naif are Dymogatsky of The Crimson Island and Maxudov of Theatrical Novel, both inexperienced beginners who are initiated into the world of the theater. Another good example of this type is Bitkov, the minor spy in Last Days. This line ends with the Master's disciple, Ivan Bezdomny, a naif who is thoroughly changed by his experiences. The naif changed from work to work much more than any of the purely comic figures did, probably because the comic characters are portrayed externally, while the naif is given more dimensions.
The naif is usually found admiring a man of action. Lariosik admires Myshalevsky, just as Golubkov admires General Charnota. Other men of action are Shpolyansky of White Guard and Tokhonga of The Crimson Island. Sometimes the man of action is caught in a disastrous situation: Khludov and Pilate began as men of action, but events transform them into guilt-ridden sufferers. Charnota, however, is a more typical example. In general, the men of action are not introspective intellectuals--they are romantic figures who, if they fail, fail gallantly.
Equally gallant are the main female characters. The differences among the female characters are more subtle than those among the masculine ones. Elena of White Guard is the first important female figure. She is both home-maker and love object (something that often goes together in this world). She prays for a miracle to save Alexei, and her prayer is answered. Although Elena takes care of everyone, she is not a dominating woman. The feminine characters are often easily persuaded: Elena's resolve to resist Shervinsky quickly fades, as does Armande's resolve to resist Moirron in Moliere and Natasha's to resist d'Anthes in Last Days. But the similarities among these women are superficial. Natasha and Armande belong to the category of beautiful women who are betrayers. Serafima of Flight is at first a victim, weak from her sickness, but she does summon up enough strength to castigate Khludov, and it is she, not Golubkov, who resists interrogation and breaks a window to get help. Most of Bulgakov's major women characters are strong and decisive, as opposed to the men, a typical situation for Russian literature. There is a feminine side to Bulgakov's writing, a kind of delicacy and subtlety, and there is no doubt that throughout his life his main confidantes were women rather than men. The energy of the female characters is sometimes misused; a sub-category is the adventuress, as exemplified by Zoya of Zoya's Apartment and Lyuska of Flight. They both do what must be done to survive, whether it is managing a bordello or becoming a prostitute. The men in their lives, however, show weakness when subjected to pressure. Later in Bulgakov's works these two types, the gallant good woman and the adventuress, are merged. Aurora of Bliss is far nicer than Zoya, but has the same sort of wild streak, and is close to the character of Margarita herself. Margarita is the ultimate combination: home-maker, mistress, and, like Zoya, a witch. Like Aurora, Margarita wants to taste danger, and her passion for anyone who does things in a "first-rate" way is one which both Aurora and Lyuska share. These two types, unlike the beautiful betrayers, often save their men, like the first woman-saviour to appear in Bulgakov's world, the mysterious Julia Reiss of White Guard. Finally, there is Margarita, who makes a pact with the devil to save her lover.
Men who lack the love of women are seen to lack humanity. Here the archetype is that of the brilliant scientist--Persikov, Preobrazhensky, and Efrosimov, of The Fatal Eggs, Heart of a Dog and Adam and Eve, respectively--who are absorbed only in their work. Interestingly, Efrosimov develops beyond his predecessors and finally falls in love, which, of course, saves him.
At first glance, one might assume that the doctors who people this world are related to the scientist archetype, but this is only true at times. The doctors are more interesting than the scientists, as well as more human. The insecure young doctor of Notes of a Young Doctor is an early relative of the venereologist Alexei Turbin. Preobrazhensky, a far more developed character than Persikov, shares much with The Master and Margarita's Stravinsky. The doctor line is naturally interviewed with the themes of death and disease, but an interesting evolution occurs over time in these works. At first, in Notes of a Young Doctor, doctors are deeply respected, and their belief that death is the enemy to be conquered at all costs is shown favorably. But by the time of The Master and Margarita doctors are no longer such glamorous, powerful figures. Stravinsky is intelligent, but he is wrong in all of his diagnoses. As for death, it is no longer an enemy--it is a longed-for release.
One of the most important archetypes in Bulgakov's works is the weak intellectual, the character who is called a "rag" of a man (triapka). These characters may be essentially pitiful, like Korotkov in "Diaboliad," or intelligent, like Alexei in White Guard; but they are unable to deal effectively with their problems, and despise themselves for their weakness, whatever form it may take. Alexei hates Talberg, but he kisses him goodbye anyway. In Flight, Golubkov is completely unable to protect the woman he loves. Dymogatsky, one of many neurotic artist characters, has a breakdown when he can no longer bear the situation he is in, just as Theatrical Novel's Maxudov is so weak he is driven to suicide. The aging Moliere is too weak to fight any more, and despises himself for having grovelled before the king. These characters may have other, stronger sides, but what matters is how they perceive themselves. The intellectual heroes of Bulgakov's Civil War stories are horrified by their own impotence in the face of violence, but an objective analysis shows that they could have done nothing to help anyway. This, however, does not matter to the characters: they curse themselves for having failed to live up to their own expectations. This type begins as the doctors of the early works, and is gradually transformed into an artist. The last example of this type is the Master, who combines characteristics of the early impotent intellectuals with those of the writers, especially Dymogatsky and Maxudov.
Most of Bulgakov's heroes (whether artists or the analogue of the artist, the scientist) do not triumph. In certain ways Yeshua himself fits into this category--he is an artist in that his words influence Matvei, and a doctor in that he heals Pilate. Like the Jews of the early stories, he is a victim, first beaten by the centurion, then executed; and, like the intellectuals, he shows no defiance in the face of force. After Krysoboi beats him he is very careful about how he addresses Pilate: he is afraid.