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20 December 2017

Mikhail Bulgakov

(Encyclopedia Britannica)

Mikhail Bulgakov, in full Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, (born May 15 [May 3, Old Style], 1891, Kiev, Ukraine, Russian Empire—died March 10, 1940, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.), Soviet playwright, novelist, and short-story writer best known for his humour and penetrating satire.

Beginning his adult life as a doctor, Bulgakov gave up medicine for writing. His first major work was the novel Belaya gvardiya (The White Guard), serialized in 1925 but never published in book form. A realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the motives and ehavior of a group of anti-Bolshevik White officers during the civil war, it was met by a storm of official criticism for its lack of a communist hero. Bulgakov reworked it into a play, Dni Turbinykh (“The Days of the Turbins”), which was staged with great success in 1926 but was subsequently banned. In 1925 he published a book of satirical fantasies, Dyavoliada (“Deviltries”; Diaboliad), implicitly critical of Soviet communist society. This work, too, was officially denounced. In the same year he wrote Sobachye serdtse (Heart of a Dog), a scathing comic satire on pseudoscience.

Because of their realism and humour, Bulgakov’s works enjoyed great popularity, but their trenchant criticism of Soviet mores was increasingly unacceptable to the authorities. By 1930 he was, in effect, prohibited from publishing. His plea for permission to emigrate was rejected by Joseph Stalin. During the subsequent period of literary ostracism, which continued until his death, Bulgakov created his masterpieces. In 1932, as literary consultant to the Moscow Art Theatre staff, he wrote a tragedy on the death of Molière, Molière. A revised version was finally staged in 1936 and had a run of seven nights before it was banned because of its thinly disguised attack on Stalin and the Communist Party.

Bulgakov produced two more masterpieces during the 1930s. The first was his unfinished Teatralny roman (Black Snow: A Theatrical Novel, originally titled Zapiski pokoynika [“Notes of a Dead Man”]), an autobiographical novel, which includes a merciless satire on Konstantin Stanislavsky and the backstage life of the Moscow Art Theatre. The second was his dazzling Gogolesque fantasy, Master I Margarita (The Master and Margarita). Witty and ribald, and at the same time a penetrating philosophical novel wrestling with profound and eternal problems of good and evil, it juxtaposes two planes of action—one set in contemporary Moscow and the other in Pontius Pilate’s Judea. The central character is the Devil—disguised as Professor Woland—who descends upon Moscow with his purgative pranks that expose the corruption and hypocrisy of the Soviet cultural elite. His counterpart is the “Master,” a repressed novelist who goes into a psychiatric ward for seeking to present the story of Jesus. The work oscillates between grotesque and often ribald scenes of trenchant satiric humour and powerful and moving moments of pathos and tragedy. It was published in the Soviet Union only in 1966–67, and then in an egregiously censored form. The publication came more than 25 years after Bulgakov’s death from a kidney disease.

Bulgakov’s works were slow to benefit from the limited “thaw” that characterized the Soviet literary milieu following the death of Stalin. His posthumous rehabilitation began slowly in the late 1950s, and starting in 1962 several volumes of his works, including plays, novels, short stories, and his biography of Molière, were published. The three culminating masterpieces of this artist, however, were not published in the Soviet Union during his lifetime.

The Master and Margarita

(Wikipedia)

The Master and Margarita is a novel by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940 during Stalin’s regime. A censored version was published in Moscow magazine in 1966-1967. The manuscript was not published as a book until 1967, and then first in Paris, France. A samizdat version circulated that included parts cut out by official censors, and these were incorporated in a 1969 version published in Frankfurt. The novel has since been published in several languages and editions.

The story concerns a visit by the devil to the officially atheistic Soviet Union. Many critics consider it to be one of the best novels of the 20th century, as well as the foremost of Soviet satires.

Plot Summary

The novel alternates between two settings. The first is 1930s Moscow, where Satan appears at the Patriarch Ponds in the guise of „Professor“ Woland, a mysterious gentleman „magician“ of uncertain origin. He arrives with a retinue that includes the grotesquely dressed valet Koroviev; the mischievous, gun-happy, fast-talking black cat Behemoth; the fanged hitman Azazello and the witch Hella. They wreak havoc targeting the literary elite and its trade union MASSOLIT.  Its privileged HQ is Griboyedov’s house. The association is made up of corrupt social climbers and their women (wives and mistresses alike), bureaucrats, profiteers, and, more generally, skeptics of the human spirit.

The second setting is the Jerusalem of Pontius Pilate, described by Woland 3929 in his conversations with Berlioz and later reflected in the Master’s novel. This part of the novel concerns Pontius Pilate’s trial of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, his recognition of an affinity with, and spiritual need for, Yeshua, and his reluctant but resigned submission to Yeshua’s execution.

Part one of the novel opens with a direct confrontation between Berlioz, the atheistic head of the literary bureaucracy, and an urbane foreign gentleman (Woland), who defends belief and reveals his prophetic powers. Berlioz brushes off the prophecy of his death, but dies pages later in the novel. The fulfillment of the death prophecy is witnessed by Ivan Ponyrev, a young and enthusiastically modern poet. He writes poems under the alias Bezdomny („homeless“). His futile attempt to chase and capture the „gang“ and warn of their evil and mysterious nature lands Ponyrev in a lunatic asylum. There, he is introduced to the Master, an embittered author. The rejection of his historical novel about Pontius Pilate and Christ had led the Master to such despair that he burned his manuscript and turned his back on the world, including his devoted lover, Margarita.

Major episodes in the first part of the novel include a satirical portrait of the Massolit and their Griboyedov house; Satan’s magic show at the Variety Theatre, satirizing the vanity, greed and gullibility of the new rich; and Woland and his retinue taking over the late Berlioz’s apartment for their own use. (Apartments were at a premium in Moscow and were controlled by the state’s elite. Bulgakov referred to his own apartment as one of the settings in the Moscow section of the novel.)

Part two of the novel introduces Margarita, the Master’s mistress. She refuses to despair over her lover or his work. She is invited to the Devil’s midnight ball, where Woland offers her the chance to become a witch with supernatural powers. This takes place the night of Good Friday. This is the time of the spring full moon, as it was traditionally when Christ’s fate was affirmed by Pontius Pilate, sending him to be crucified in Jerusalem. The Master’s novel also covers this event. All three events in the novel are linked by this.

Margarita enters naked into the realm of night after she learns to fly and control her unleashed passions. (She takes violent retribution on the literary bureaucrats who had condemned her beloved to despair.) She takes her enthusiastic maid Natasha with her, to fly over the deep forests and rivers of the USSR. She bathes and returns to Moscow with Azazello, her escort, as the anointed hostess for Satan’s great Spring Ball. Standing by his side, she welcomes the dark celebrities of human history as they arrive from Hell.

She survives this ordeal and, for her pains, Satan offers to grant Margarita her deepest wish. She chooses to liberate a woman whom she met at the ball from the woman’s eternal punishment. The woman had been raped and killed her resulting infant. Her punishment was to wake each morning and find the same handkerchief by which she had killed the child lying on her nightstand. Satan grants her first wish and offers her another, saying that Margarita’s first wish was unrelated to her own desires. For her second wish, she chooses to liberate the Master and live in poverty-stricken love with him.

Neither Woland nor Yeshua appreciates her chosen way of life, and Azazello is sent to retrieve them. The three drink Pontius Pilate’s poisoned wine in the Master’s basement. The Master and Margarita die, metaphorically, as Azazello watches their physical manifestations die. Azazello reawakens them, and they leave civilization with the Devil, while Moscow’s cupolas and windows burn in the setting Easter sun. Because the Master and Margarita did not lose their faith in humanity, they are granted „peace“ but are denied „light“ — that is, they will spend eternity together in a shadowy yet pleasant region similar to Dante’s depiction of Limbo. They have not earned the glories of Heaven, but do not deserve the punishments of Hell. As a parallel, the Master releases Pontius Pilate from eternal punishment, telling him he’s free to walk up the moonbeam path in his dreams to Yeshua, where another eternity awaits.

Interpretations

There are several interpretations of the novel:

Response to aggressive atheistic propaganda

Some critics suggest that Bulgakov was responding to poets and writers who he believed were spreading atheist propaganda in the Soviet Russia, and denying Jesus Christ as a historical person. He particularly objected to the anti-religious poems of Demyan Bedny. The novel can be seen as a rebuke to the aggressively „godless people“. There is justification in both the Moscow and Judea sections of the novel for the entire image of the devil. Bulgakov uses Jewish demonology characters as a retort to the denial of God in the USSR.

Occlusive interpretation

Bulgakov portrays evil as inseparable from our world as light is from the darkness. Both Satan and Jesus Christ dwell mostly inside people. Jesus was unable to see Judas’ treachery, despite Pilate’s hints, because he saw only good in people. He could not protect himself, because he did not know how, nor from whom. This interpretation presumes that Bulgakov had his own vision of Tolstoy’s idea of resistance to evil through non-violence, by giving this image of Yeshua.

Freemason interpretation

Academics have noted that the novel abounds with Freemason symbols. It shows Freemason rituals, which this theory suggests originate from the mystery plays of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. Such writers suggest that Bulgakov had knowledge of Freemasonry. Bulgakov may have obtained this knowledge from his father, Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov, who had written an article on „Modern Freemasonry and its Relation to the Church and the State“ in The Acts of the Kiev Theological Academy in 1903.

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Saga Cipher Key

Interpretations

I.

Pontius Pilate‘s Question:

What is Truth?

8583 = What is Truth?

1000 = Light of the world

-2487 = Anus – Free from Seat of Lower Emotions

  888 = IESOUS – Greek gematria value

 7984

Master i Margarita

7984

       1 = Monad

3983 = My Dumb Man

4000 = Flaming Sword – Cosmic Creative Power – Coming of Christ

7984

II.

Bulgakov & Margarita

16123

4025 = Bulgakov

3394 = Jesus

4076 = Margarita

4628 = Mary Magdalene

16123

William Shakespeare

16123

2801 = Penis

9322 = Will I Am, Shake Speare!

4000 = Flaming Speare – Cosmic Creative Power – Christ‘s Coming

16123

III.

Et tu, Brute ____ Then fall, Cæsar

12062

6627 = Jesting Pilate (Francis Bacon’s term)

2487 = Anus – Seat of Man’s Lower Emotions

2947 = Yeshua (Benjamin = 2947 = Israel)

       1 = Monad

12062

IV.

The Dark Celebrities of Human History

on Arrival from Hell

12289

Margarita enters naked into the realm of night after she learns to fly and control her unleashed passions. (She takes violent retribution on the literary bureaucrats who had condemned her beloved to despair.) She takes her enthusiastic maid Natasha with her, to fly over the deep forests and rivers of the USSR. She bathes and returns to Moscow with Azazello, her escort, as the anointed hostess for Satan’s great Spring Ball. Standing by his side, she welcomes the dark celebrities of human history as they arrive from Hell.

Anointed Hostess

12289

1000 = Light of the World

4076 = Margarita

2983 = Natasha

4230 = Azazello

12289

Erstwhile Whore(s)

4628 = Mary Magdalene

345 = Soul‘s Foundation

216 = Soul‘s Resurrection

7000 = Microcosmos – Man/Woman in God‘s Image

  100 = Happy Ending!

12289

Novel‘s First Setting

V.

Satan and “Professor“ Woland

6463

Inward

2534 = Satan

3929 = Woland

6463

Outward

       1 = Monad

2604 = Páfinn

3858 = The Devil

6463

VI.

Havoc-Wreaking Crew

14505

5141 = Koroviev

4230 = Azazello

1685 = Hella

3449 = Behemoth

14505

Marlovian Diabolical

 Man-Beast

      1 = Monad

666 = Man-Beast

9838 = Christopher Morley – Name in “official inquest“ 1593 A.D

4000 = Flaming Sword – Morley “slain“ by “own dagger“

14505

VII.  House of Prayer

9753

1000 = Light of the World

8753 = Jesus Kristus – Danish

9753

Become A Den of Thieves

4919 = MASSOLIT – Literary elite

4834 = Griboyedov [House]

9753

Novel’s Second Setting

VIII.

Jesting Pilate

15467

3929 = Woland

3848 = Berlioz

2947 = Yeshua

4743 = Ha-Nostri

15467

Sol Invictus

  1000 = Light of the World

10467 = Osiris-Isis-Horus – Paganism

  4000 = Flaming Sword – Cosmic Creative Power – Christ‘s Coming

15467

VIII.

What is Truth, said Jesting Pilate

(Francis Bacon, Of Truth, Alpha)

33294

16829 = What is Truth, said Jesting Pilate,

16465 = and would not stay for an answer.

33294

Answer

15467 = Sol Invictus – VII.

Strife

  3394 =Jesus

3858 = The Devil

The Devil Decapitated

Head Speaks Ten

      10 = Father

10565 = JHWH – 10-5-6-5, Hebrew gematria

33294

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

http://www.light-of-truth.com/ciphersaga.htm