Discussion on M & M – Chapter 1
Friends,
Let us start discussion on the novel ‘Master and Margarita’ in all seriousness.
We shall go chapter wise and, of course, slowly.
I am slowly feeding the novel in its Hindi version on the blog . http://masteraurmargaritahindi.blogspot.com/ and so far I have posted 13 chapters. Now the time has come that we think about them
I am sure you have gone through Chapter 1 (in any language!).
The action takes place in Moscow, in the Park Patriarshi Prudy. The time is….a warm evening of May. Which day of the week? That becomes clear in later chapters.
There are two persons discussing whether The Christ existed or not…sorry, it was not discussion but a sort of sermon. Berlioz, who was an influential editor of a fat journal, was asking the young poet Bezdomnyi to write a poem suggesting that Christ never existed.
Pay attention to the name of the poet. His true name was Ivan Nikolaevicha Ponyrev, and Bezdomnyi was used by him as Pseudonym.
Interesting!
Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov, who was too worried about the housing problem in Moscow at that time, (20’s of the last century…he himself had suffered a lot before getting a place to live in a community flat!)
Berlioz was editor of a journal and being editor of a fat journal makes you an influential person. He was also President of a literary organisation…MASSOLIT. The time, 20’s of XX century, is known as the Silver Age of Russian Literature. Especially in 20’s there was a big number of literary groups – formalist and non formalist; socialistically oriented literature was emerging. There was a love for abbreviations, specially known for this were PROLETKULT, LEF, RAPP etc MASSOLIT could be deciphered as Moscow Association of Literature, it was of course proletarian in nature and enjoyed patronage from the government.
The discussion shows that Berlioz was a well read person. He was trying to propagate the government line of thinking that there is no GOD.
Then appears a third, mysterious person.
Pay attention to his appearance. He says he was a consultant and was invited by the government to explain some archaic documents on black magic.
The stranger gets involved in this discussion.
We observe a few things: whether any one is listening to us? We should not go closer to foreigners; we are all non believers and we can say this openly.
This throws light on the atmosphere of suspicion that was prevailing in the country. Bulgakov started writing this novel in 1928…things in Soviet Union were already precipitating towards a certain cult by this time.
And when the mysterious Professor declares that Berlioz is going to be killed by a woman…he mutters something about the position of planets. All those positions really indicate misfortune, death…
One must appreciate that Bulgakov had done a lot of research before writing the novel. Nothing, nothing mentioned therein is baseless.
Please think about these points and I shall get back with something more about the same chapter!
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