Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T13:03:29.903Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feuilletons Don't Burn: Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and the Imagined “Soviet Reader“

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Maria Kisel
Maria Kisel*
Affiliation:
University of Victoria in British Columbia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Maria Kisel argues that Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita can be read as a persuasive novel, intended to educate Soviet readers who, like the character Ivan Bezdomnyi, are ignorant of history and culture beyond their insulated Soviet reality. Kisel demonstrates how Bulgakov's novel coopts the form and themes of the Soviet satirical feuilleton to explain the virtues of the prerevolutionary cultural realm rooted in the western European intellectual tradition. To render his own cultural perspective accessible, Bulgakov revisits his early feuilletons written for the newspaper Gudok, a category of writings he claimed to disdain. The Master and Margarita demonstrates a complex relationship with the imagined “Soviet reader,“ who is both an object of ridicule and a desired interlocutor. Examining the connection between the Master and Ivan as analogous to the teacher and disciple dynamic between Bulgakov and his own “Soviet readers,” this article offers a new interpretation of this well-loved and much-discussed masterpiece.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , Fall 2009 , pp. 582 - 600
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Bulgakov, M. A., “Zapiski na manzhetakh [1922-1923],” in Proffer, Ellendea, ed., Ranniaiaproza (Ann Arbor, 1982-1985), 3:227 Google Scholar. Unless otherwise indicated all translations are mine.

2. Proffer, Ellendea, Bulgakov: Life and Work (Ann Arbor, 1984), 62 Google Scholar.

3. Chudakova, Marietta, Poetika Mikhaila Zoshchenko (Moscow, 1979), 106 Google Scholar.

4. Milne, Lesley, Mikhail Bulgakov: A Critical Biography (Cambridge, Eng., 1990), 72 Google Scholar.

5. Haber, Edythe C., Mikhail Bulgakov: The Early Years (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), 174 Google Scholar.

6. See Avins, Carol, “Reaching a Reader: The Master's Audience in The Master and Margarita,” Slavic Review 45, no. 2 (Summer 1986): 272-85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barratt, Andrew, Between Two Worlds: A Critical Introduction to The Master and Margarita (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar.

7. Hoisington, Sona, “Fairy-Tale Elements in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,“ Slavic and East European Journal 25, no. 2 (Summer 1981): 47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Iser, Wolfgang, The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore, 1974), 42 Google Scholar.

9. Lovell, Stephen, Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras (New York, 2000), 31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Geldern, James von, “Introduction,” in Geldern, James von and Stites, Richard, eds., Mass Culture in Soviet Russia: Tales, Poems, Songs, Movies, Plays, and Folklore, 1917-1953 (Bloomington, 1995), xi–xvii Google Scholar.

11. For more on the myths of the Soviet mass reader, see Lovell, , Russian Reading Revolution, 25–44 Google Scholar; Carleton, Gregory, The Politics of Reception: Critical Constructions of Mikhail Zoshchenko (Evanston, 1998), 111-20Google Scholar.

12. Haber, , Mikhail Bulgakov, 140-50Google Scholar.

13. For more on Bulgakov's reading habits, see Chudakova, Marietta, Zhizneopisanie Mikhaila Bulgakova (Moscow, 1998), 167–214 Google Scholar; and Petrovskii, Miron, Master igorod: Kievskie konteksty Mikhaila Bulgakova (Kiev, 2001), 211-52Google Scholar.

14. For examples of light fiction on these themes in Niva, see Barinka, S., “Fokusnik,“ Niva 1909, no. 34: 593-96Google Scholar; Semenov, V. I., “Karabel'nyi zverinets,” Niva, 1909, no. 44: 761-66Google Scholar; and Severtsev-Polilov, G. T., “Videnie v ermitazhnom dvortse,” Niva, 1909, no. 51: 900–903 Google Scholar.

15. Some examples of 1920s feuilletons with supernatural themes are “Prizrak liubitel'” (1929) and “Dovesok k bukve ‘shch'” (1930) by Il'f and Petrov and “Nozhi“ (1926) by Kataev, Valentin, all in Ardov, V. and Glushchenko, Evgenii, eds., Sovetskii iumoristicheskii rasskaz 20kh-30kh godov (Moscow, 1987)Google Scholar.

16. See Brooks, Jeffrey, “Science and Superstition,” When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917 (Princeton, 1985)Google Scholar: “Tales in which people who claimed supernatural powers were unmasked, or in which the superstitious were shown to be fools, were common in Russian publications, and seeing such figures brought low was apparently a source of satisfaction and amusement for readers” (250).

17. Stephen Lovell, “Bulgakov as Soviet Culture,” Slavonic and East European Review

76, no. 1 (January 1998): 14.

18. For a reception history of The Master and Margarita before the fall of the Soviet Union, see Barratt, Andrew, Between Two Worlds, 11–38 Google Scholar.

19. For insightful discussions of theological, philosophical, and historical meanings in the novel, please refer to the following sources: Bethea, David, “History as Hippodrome: The Apocalyptic Horse and Rider in The Master and Margarita,” Russian Review 41, no. 4 (October 1982): 373-99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ericson, Edward E., The Apocalyptic Vision of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (Lewiston, 1991)Google Scholar; Haber, Edythe C., “The Lamp with the Green Shade: Mikhail Bulgakov and His Father,” Russian Review 44, no. 4 (October 1985): 333-50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Krugovoy, George, The Gnostic Novel of Mikhail Bulgakov: Sources and Exegesis (Lanham, Md., 1991)Google Scholar; Rosenshield, Gary, “ The Master and Margarita and the Poetics of Aporia: A Polemical Article,” Slavic Review 56, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 187–211 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weeks, Laura D., “In Defense of the Homeless: On the Uses of History and the Role of Bezdomnyi in The Master and Margarita,” Russian Review 48, no. 1 (January 1989): 45–65 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. Bushnell, John, “A Popular Reading of Bulgakov: Explication des Graffiti,” Slavic Review 47, no. 3 (Autumn 1988): 502-11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lovell, “Bulgakov as Soviet Culture.“

21. Lovell, , “Bulgakov as Soviet Culture,” 13 Google Scholar.

22. Barratt draws parallels between Nakanune feuilletons and episodes of The Master and Margarita. See Barratt, Between Two Worlds. Haber's comparisons are more thorough and include Gudok feuilletons as well. Some of the feuilletons in her study overlap with mine, but our interpretations differ. See Haber, Mikhail Bulgakov.

23. For more on the “double novel” approach, see Barratt's, Between Two Worlds, 104-16Google Scholar.

24. Bulgakov, M. A., “Govoriashchaia sobaka,” in Proffer, , ed., Ranniaia proza, 2:72 Google Scholar.

25. Bulgakov, Mikhail, The Master and Margarita, trans. Burgin, Diana and O'Connor, Katherine Tiernan (New York, 1996), 87 Google Scholar.

26. Bulgakov, , “Govoriashchaia sobaka,” 2:72 Google Scholar.

27. Bulgakov, , The Master and Margarita, 100 Google Scholar.

28. Bulgakov, , “Govoriashchaia sobaka,” 2:72 Google Scholar.

29. Bulgakov, , The Master and Margarita, 104 Google Scholar.

30. Ibid., 101.

31. Bulgakov, M. A., “Prikliuchenia pokoinika,” in Proffer, , ed., Ranniaia proza, 2:98 Google Scholar.

32. Bulgakov, , The Master and Margarita, 328 Google Scholar.

33. Bulgakov, M. A., “Zakoldovannoe mesto,” in Proffer, , ed., Ranniaia proza, 2:192 Google Scholar.

34. Bulgakov, , The Master and Margarita, 134 Google Scholar.

35. Haber argues that Bulgakov's notion of enlightenment changes from cultural to spiritual. See Haber, Mikhail Bulgakov. My view is that Bulgakov continues to preach culture, but a prerevolutionary culture distinct from the Soviet cultural ethos.

36. Haber, , “The Lamp with the Green Shade,” 333-50Google Scholar.

37. For more on theological elements in The Master and Margarita, see Davies, J. M. Q., “Bulgakov: Atheist or Militant Old Believer? The Master and Margarita Reconsidered,“ Australian Slavonic and East European Studies, no. 1 (1992): 125-33Google Scholar.

38. For more about the connection between Bulgakov and Goethe, see Barratt, Andrew, “Beyond Parody: The Goethe Connection,” in Weeks, Laura D., ed., The Master and Margarita: A Critical Companion (Evanston, 1996), 113-21Google Scholar.

39. Naiman, Eric, Sex in Public: The Incarnation of Early Soviet Ideology (Princeton, 1997), 148-80Google Scholar.

40. Bulgakov, Mikhail, The White Guard, trans. Glenny, Michael (Chicago, 1987), 216.Google Scholar

41. Numerous critics have commented on the thematic parallels between the Moscow and Jerusalem texts. While I acknowledge that the Jerusalem narrative mirrors the moral concerns of the present, I will not discuss this well-worn idea in detail as it has already been sufficiendy addressed by other critics. As early as 1972, Val Bolen noted that the same unresolved ediical and philosophical questions confront the characters in the historically disparate realities. Val Bolen, “Theme and Coherence in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita,” Slavic and East European Journal 16, no. 4 (Winter 1972): 427-37. See also Pope, Richard W. F., “Ambiguity and Meaning in The Master and Margarita: The Role of Afranius,” Slavic Review 36, no. 1 (March 1977): 1–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weeks, , “In Defense of the Homeless,” 45–65 Google Scholar.

42. The idea that the circus is a favorite pastime of the uncouth and uneducated appears in Bulgakov, Mikhail, The Heart of a Dog, trans. Glenny, Michael (New York, 1968)Google Scholar.

43. Bulgakov, , The Master and Margarita, 12 Google Scholar.

44. Ibid., 33.

45. Mills, Judith M., “Of Dreams, Devils, Irrationality and The Master and Margarita ,” in Rancour-Laferriere, Daniel, ed., Russian Literature and Psychoanalysis (Philadelphia, 1989), 303-28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46. Cornwell, Neil, The Literary Fantastic: From Gothic to Postmodernism (New York, 1990)Google Scholar.

47. One of Bulgakov's first pen names at Gudok was Ivan Bezdomnyi.

48. Bulgakov, , The Master and Margarita, 111 Google Scholar.

49. Ibid., 113.

50. Ibid., 185.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid., 291,189.

53. Ibid., 326.

54. Ibid., 333.

55. Ibid. A more accurate translation of this sentence is “But he also knows that there are certain things beyond his control.“

56. Avins, , “Reaching a Reader,” 284 Google Scholar.

57. Evidence exists that the author did have some hope of publishing his controversial novel. The play Batum (1939) about Iosif Stalin's youth was possibly a concession in an effort to publish The Master and Margarita. Milne notes that Bulgakov thought of Stalin “as the first reader” of his masterpiece. Milne, , Mikhail Bulgakov, 219-24Google Scholar. Marietta Chudakova writes that Bulgakov had read drafts of the novel to II ‘f and Petrov and the two authors told him that the work could be published if he were to “take out the ancient chapters.“ Chudakova, , Zhizneopisanie Mikhaila Bulgakova, 462 Google Scholar.