The Writer’s Divided Self in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita PDF
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THE WRITER'S DIVIDED SELF IN BULGAKOV'S THE MASTER AND MARGARITA The Writer's Divided Self in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita Rii tta H. Pittman Research Fellow St Antony's College, Oxford Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-1-349-21735-9 ISBN 978-1-349-21733-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21733-5 co Riitta H. Pittman, 1991 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1991 978-0-333-46433-5 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 First publishd in the United States of America in 1991 ISBN 978-0-312-06148-7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pittman, Riitta H. The writer'S divided self in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita/ Riitta H. Pittman p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-06148-7 1. Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanas'evich, 1891-1940. Master i Margarita. 2. Schizophrenia in literature. I. Title PG3476.B78M3367 1991 891.73'42-dc20 91-2123 CIP To Nigel and Hanna 'Art is not a better, but an alternative existence; it is not an attempt to escape reality but the opposite, an attempt to animate it. It is a spirit seeking flesh but finding words.' Joseph Brodsky, The Child of Civilization' Contents Preface Vlll Notes on the text x 2 Intellectual Background 2 2 Woland's Genealogy 28 3 The Devil, the Irrational and the Rational 44 4 The Writer 81 5 The Devil's Domain 115 6 The Pontius Pilate Story 143 Conclusion 167 Notes 174 Bibliography 194 Index of Names and Titles 207 VB Preface Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) lived at a time when the Soviet Union was single-mindedly engaged in constructing a 'new socialist society'. This immense task called for heretical debris to be cleared out of the way of the momentous ideological levelling which would speed the nation's progress towards a communist future. In such circumstances Bulgakov's career as a 'mystical writer' was doomed to failure. It would be misconceived, however, to regard Bulgakov simply as a victim of the Stalinist repression. Firstly, his difficulties began well before this monstrous tyrant reached the height of his power and, in any case, Stalin's attitude towards him was exceptionally lenient. Secondly, Bulgakov's own nervous disposition, which was defined periodically by extreme anxiety and deep fear, added greatly to the burden of his misfortunes. The most tragic feature of Bulgakov's predicament was the eventual withdrawal of all his works from the public. Bulgakov has been celebrated as a writer 'out of his time' and as an alien, extra-terrestrial being in the Moscow literary world, which was dominated by the promulgators of the Socialist-Realist tradition. His apolitical stance and isolation from history have been emphasised. Most curious of all, in Bulgakov's case the familiarity with and love of his fiction have at times impelled his admirers to endow Bulgakov's personality and life with a legendary dimension. It is the purpose of this study of the writer's schizophrenia in The Master and Margarita to penetrate to the core of such misconceptions and to show that Bulgakov was, first and foremost, a writer of his time and society. Bulgakov's creative career is set here against the background of the spiritual barrenness which was characteristic of Russian radical thought at the beginning of the twentieth century. The writer's dilemma in a philistine, authoritarian society is examined through the phenomenon of 'split personality' and discussed with reference to Carl Jung's fascinating, albeit controversial, ideas. It must be stressed that the Jungian thought, like Pavel Florensky's theories and Ernest Renan's beliefs, is employed here simply as a tool or a frame of reference for the purpose of illustrating the arguments rehearsed in the course of this analysis. The inherent validity, or otherwise, of the pro- viii Prelims IX nouncements made by these erudite men, is not examined in the dis cussion conducted here. Serious scholars, both Soviet and Western, have produced admirable studies of Bulgakov's literary heritage. Colin Wright, Ellendea Proffer, Lesley Milne, Andrew Barrett and Julie Curtis must be singled out for their valuable, dedicated research, both in the field of biography and in the field of literary criticism. Marietta Chudakova, Lidiya Yanovskaya and Vladimir Lakshin emerge as the 'veterans' of Soviet Bulgakov scholarship, which expanded rapidly in the latter half of the 1980s. It is particularly thanks to the advances made by Soviet scholars that this work has come into being, our appetite has been newly wetted particularly by recent publications of original Bulgakov materials, and expectations of a sumptuous feast have been raised among scholars worldwide for the 1991 centenary celebrations of Bulgakov's birth. I should like to thank all the members of the Edinburgh University Russian Department who offered invaluable advice and support at different stages of my research. I am also grateful to St Antony's College, Oxford, for the Max Hayward Fellowship, which allowed me time to revise the wh~le of my previous research on Bulgakov, while pursuing my newly found interest in the literature and politics of the present-day Soviet Union. The two weeks which I spent in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, in summer 1989 participating in a workshop on 'Women in East European and Russian Culture' left me enough time for the preparation of the bibliography of recent Soviet publications by and on Bu1gakov. I wish to thank the friendly and highly efficient staff of the Slavonic Library of the University of Illinois, as well as the members and staff of the Russian and East European Center at the same university. Michael Nicholson, University of Oxford, and Andrew Barratt, University of Otago, New Zealand, deserve a medal for having helped me most generously at the early stages of this work. Marie Gilroy, Edinburgh University, and Hugh Croll, Edinburgh University Library, also gave valuable help and encouragement. My family and friends have not deserted me despite the acute attacks of monomania from which I have suffered from time to time while working on this project. I shall always value their patience and constancy. RIITTA H. PITTMAN Notes on the Text The transliteration scheme employed here is principally the same as used by the Slavonic and East European Review (before its adoption of the modified Library of Congress scheme). Exceptions to this scheme have been introduced only where they have been seen to ease the task of a reader who has little or no command of the Russian language. The translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated. I am grateful to Ardis for permission to quote from pp.211-13 of Neizdannyy Bulgakov. I have, however, kept the late Michael Glenny's translation of The Master and Margarita beside me at all times and would not like to deny its influence on my humble efforts. The references to The Master and Margarita are given within the text by page number only and they relate to the Soviet Romany edition (1973) of this work. Bibliographical and page references to all other publications appear in the notes. A useful table showing the comparative pagination of the standard editions, Russian and English, of The Master and Margarita can be found in Appendix A of Andrew Barratt's work, Between Two Worlds: A Critical Introduction to The Master and Margarita' (Oxford, 1987). The titles of Russian newspapers and journals have been transliterated and translated within the text, while the titles of Russian books and articles have been translated within the text, but transliterated in the notes. The purpose of this practice is also to assist the reader who has no Russian. x
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