The Mystical Power of the Master

Liza Veysikh HIS 274 111: 20th Century World History July 15, 2011

Manuscripts dont burn:they stay in the authors mind until death.1 All his life Mikhail Bulgakovs writing was considered dangerous by the Soviet government and banned. But Master and Margarita, Heart of a Dog, and many others will stay in the readers minds forever as masterpieces. This year Bulgakov would have been 120 years old, and the mystical power of the master is still felt today in his lasting works. Most of his life, Bulgakov faced serious obstacles to his talent: destruction during World War I, Russian Revolution and the separation of the Whites and the Reds during the Civil War; disease, extreme poverty, and oppression of the Stalinist regime during the last decade of his life. By explaining the major contributions Bulgakov made not only to the Soviet literature but in the world literature today, how his life was during the most important changes in Russia and how he lived through, this essay concludes that Bulgakovs satirical novels challenge the Soviet regime and therefore make him one of the best Russian authors in the 20th century: the master to this day. I was born on May 3rd 1891. I was a happy child living in Kiev, Ukraine immersed deeply in religion: my family included several priests, a famous theologian, and a professor of theology who was my father.2 I wrote my first short story when I was seven years old. I began school at age 10 and soon became one of the popular kids known for my famous tales combining magic and reality.3 I used this technique in my later works, like Master and Margarita. I started writing when I was fifteen: many forms including plays, stories, satires, and caricatures. In one story, The Fiery Serpent, 1912, an alcoholic is killed by his own hallucination.4 My inspirations for my earliest works were from Nikolai Gogol, who discussed fantasy, devils, and the evil. My father died in 1907 from sclerosis of the kidneys and my mother had to support all of us financially.5 Soon, my mother remarried to Ivan Pavlovich Voskresenksy who was a doctor. With my second father, I learned the importance of science. Even though I loved

literature, I decided to become a doctor. Brilliant work always attracted me.6 In 1909, I entered the medical school of Saint Vladimir Imperial University. During my first year in the University, I fell in love with Tasya or Tatiana Lappa. I have known her before: she came to our family during the summers. I was madly in love with her, excited to spend time with her every second, but it was youthful love. Tasya and I loved each other very much and soon she got pregnant. We planned to marry, but we couldnt because it was considered inappropriate to have children before marriage. And as a resultI aborted the child when Tasya was six months pregnant.7 It was something I never should have done Anyways, we married in 1913 and in 1916 I graduated with honors with a specialty in venereal diseases. I served in the reserves of World War I and volunteered for the Red Cross. I was assigned to a small village in Ukraine to be a village doctor and became the head of the hospital on infectious diseases.8 I was passionate about my work, but was so isolated, that writing was a means to escape the world. During this time I was also addicted to morphine because I suffered immense pain from my war wounds. Tasya became pregnant again, and again I aborted the child who was conceived on morphine. We would never have children again.9 In 1918, Tasya and I returned to Kiev to experience the horrible Civil War. I also quit on morphine once and for all. The Revolution scenes that I saw in Moscow exasperated me and the Civil War required me to choose between the Whites and the Reds. I served in the White Army with my brothers.10 During this time I wrote four short stories: The Fiery Serpent, Jottings of the Zemstvo Doctor (about my experiences),The Ailment and the First Bloom.11 My family was exiled to Paris and it was the last time I ever saw them again. In 1919, Tasya and I moved to Moscow and in the 1920s, I abandoned medicine and started to write about the civil war that had a large impact on me. The [Civil War] made first statement of moral questions of responsibility

and conscience12In 1924, I wrote The White Guard. It was about a White Army Officer in Civil War Kiev. Also, in 1924, I fell in love with Lyubov Belozerskaya and divorced Tasya. The setting of my proposal to Lyubov was at Patriarch Ponds where Master and Margarita opens up.13The short story Morphine (1926) described my state of mind during the time I was addicted to it. I started to fall in love with science fiction. I wrote The Fatal Eggs (1924), which was a satirical story of the Russian Revolution.14 It describes Professor Persikov who discovers a ray that makes animals mutate. Many chickens are dying on the farms, and the Soviet government starts using the ray technique. It goes differently and the ray strikes reptile eggs. The eggs start producing large monsters and panic occurs. This story was received badly of course because I described failures in the government. When my appendix was surgically taken out one time, the surgeon told me about one story about the Soviet governments attempts to experiment with transforming dogs into human beings. I was so intrigued in this that I decided to write The Heart of a Dog (1925). Again, I examined the moral responsibilities of science and tried to show how the appeal of Communism weakened in the Soviet Union. The Revolution wanted to transform us, working with eugenics, and they failed.15 In the story, Professor Preobrazhensky finds a stray dog named Sharik, who in turn is humanized and thinks will soon die. The Professor decides to experiment on Sharik and implants a human pituitary gland into him. Gradually, Sharik becomes a hairy human being named Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov. He is found raping, flooding the apartment, drinking, and working in the Soviet State killing cats. Sharikov wants to turn Professor into the secret police and finally the Professor does another surgery to turn Sharikov back into a dog. The experiment was a failure and Sharik resumes being a happy dog. This story was never published

becausePreobrazhensky, meaning transformation, is both god and devil who admits that experimentation of this sort is a failure.16 One day I was taken to the police to be interrogated about the story. Strangely enough, I wasnt imprisoned but the script was taken from me. My numerous plays were increasingly censored and by 1929, they were all banned.17My career was ruined and I was desperately poor, but when I saw Yelena Shilovskaya I fell in love at first sight. I divorced Lyubov and married Yelena in 1932. She later became the personage for Margarita in the famous novel. In the 1930s the desire to leave the Soviet Union intensified. I wrote a couple of letters to Stalin during this period describing how I cant live in extreme poverty. Stalin loved the story about the White Army,The Days of the Turbins, and one time I received a phone call from him appointing me as an assistant Director of the Moscow Art Theater and returning my manuscript of The Heart of a Dog.18 In 1928 I started writing my famous novel Master and Margarita, burned it in 1930, and started writing again in 1931. My new wife was very interested in the work and I continually revised it. The novel begins in a peaceful, but atheistic Soviet Russia, where a certain Professor Woland and his henchmen arrive to Moscow. They are of Devils origin and challenge the atheistic and Soviet ideals of writers and theater workers, who are part of the Soviet regime, and wreak havoc. Their magic is beyond the powers of the Police or the government. Woland is Satan, who has personally seen how Pontius Pilate persecutes Yeshua or Jesus, and insists that a society cannot be atheistic because Jesus did exist. The novel shifts in time to Pontius Pilate and Jesus being persecuted. The second part of the novel describes Master and Margarita, the main characters of the novel. The Master has fallen in love with Margarita who becomes his mistress but is married. The Master writes a novel about Pontius Pilate persecuting Jesus but the novel is

banned by the Soviet Government. He is full of despair, burns the manuscript, and turns himself into the mental asylum. His mistress Margarita is invited by Woland to a midnight, devilish Ball and survives it, becoming a witch. As a reward for her bravery, Woland lets Margarita have a wish. She wants to liberate the Master and live with him. Woland and Jesus meet, both agreeing that Master and Margarita cannot be for this world. They die in this world, but are granted peace in another world. Since Pontius Pilate was always conscious-stricken by what he did with Jesus, he is also released from his punishment. The novel weaves together satire and realism. I satirize the greed and corruption of Stalins Soviet Union, in which people were controlled, but I realistically portray Yeshuas story contrasting to the Bibles miraculous story. Woland was a monster and so was Stalin.19 Themes of good and evil, guilt and innocence and absurdity are all connected. I died in 1940 from an inherited kidney disorder from my father. I was very sick during this period but managed to finish the novel. Only in 1966, when Stalin was dead, was Master and Margarita published.20Just like the Master, plagued by fear and anxiety and feeling his creativity destroyed, I lived through the last of my decade in confinement. Religion was indeed important to me unlike atheism during the Soviet Regime, but I did not have many opportunities in life. Even more, I tried to hide the manuscript of Master and Margarita several times from the government. Master and Margarita is a complex novel where a hero appears only towards the end and actions are in three different time periods. The novel forces us to think more deeply about religion, freedom, justice, and love. The Christ figure is also interpreted very differently from a traditional Bible. Christ is a philosopher, and Woland is both God and Devil. He is helpful to those who deserve it and is shown as necessary in the world. Its a philosophical novel, but also

funny and unique. As one recent commentator of the novel remarked: Bulgakovs novel is indeed innovative to the highest degree: magical fairytales are intertwined with realism, historical accuracy, true love, and demonism21. It is a novel within a novel not only about the Soviet Government, but about life itself. Mikhail Bulgakov is most famously known for this novel, but his numerous plays and other stories have settled into peoples minds forever. The Civil War, poverty, and Stalins Purges forced Bulgakovs writing to be hidden for years, but now all around the world Bulgakov is an inspiration for singers and other writers. His museums in Moscow and Ukraine and the catchphrases left from his novels, make him one of the best authors known today: the power of the Master has not been recognized during his life, but today, he is indeed a Master.

Notes 1. Amy Singleton Adams, Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov, Master and Margarita, 2005, 7/15/11, http://www.masterandmargarita.eu/archieven/biography.pdf, 14. 2. Edythe C. Haber, Mikhail Bulgakov. The Early Years (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1998), 15. 3. Adams, Mikhail Bulgakov,3. 4. Ibid., 3. 5. Haber, The Early Years, 14. 6. Lesley Milne, Mikhail Bulgakov: A Critical Biography (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 11. 7. Sergei Medvedev, The Mystical Power of the Master, Sergei Bravermann (2011; Moscow, 2011), Video. 8. Adams, Mikhail Bulgakov, 3. 9. Medvedev, Power of the Master, video. 10. Haber, The Early Years, 22. 11. Adams, Mikhail Bulgakov, 4. 12. Haber, The Early Years, 28. 13. Adams, Mikhail Bulgakov, 12. 14. Ibid., 11. 15. Milne, A Critical Biography, 65. 16. Adams, Mikhail Bulgakov, 12. 17. J.A.E. Curtis, Bulgakovs Last Decade: The Writer as Hero (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1987), 11. 18. Adams, Mikhail Bulgakov, 13. 19. Aleksandra Kudelina, The Master and Margarita and Freedom of Censorship, Master and Margarita, 2006, 7/21/11,http://www.masterandmargarita.eu, 6. 20. Adams, Mikhail Bulgakov, 16. 21. Curtis, Bulgakovs Last Decade, 87.

Bibliography

Adams, Amy Singleton. Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov. Master and Margarita. 2005. 7/15/11. http://www.masterandmargarita.eu/archieven/biography.pdf. Curtis, J.A.E. Bulgakovs Last Decade: The Writer as Hero. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Haber, Edythe C.Mikhail Bulgakov The Early Years.Boston: Harvard University Press, 1998. Kudelina, Aleksandra. The Master and Margarita and Freedom of Censorship. Master and Margarita. 2006. 7/21/11.http://www.masterandmargarita.eu Milne, Lesley. Mikhail Bulgakov: A Critical Biography. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Medvedev, Sergei. The Mystical Power of the Master. AVI format.Sergei Bravermann. 2011. Moscow. 2011. Video.