Why M. Bulgakov executed M.A.

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In the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita" there are many interesting moments: a session of black magic, the execution of Yeshua, a ball with Satan, catching the Behemoth cat, the flight of Woland and his retinue. All of them are unique in their own way: we laugh at one together with the author and his characters, the other is interesting from a historical point of view, the third makes you think seriously. But the description of the death of Berlioz makes the strongest impression. With this episode, Bulgakov draws the reader's attention to the novel: it is interesting to know what will happen next.

This episode is at the very beginning of The Master and Margarita. We can say that it is from him that the active action of the novel begins to develop, a series of rapid events following one after another. The death of Berlioz is preceded only by the direct plot of the work: the conversation of the "foreign specialist" Woland with Berlioz and the poet Ivan Bezdomny and the conversation between the procurator Pontius Pilate and Yeshua Ha-Notsri. The dispute between the characters about God and the devil, light and darkness is suddenly replaced by the events of the ancient world, which then again give way to the present. This rather unusual transition at first causes bewilderment, but then these jumps become even interesting, and Bulgakov will endure the entire novel in these two time plans. The death of Berlioz is the very first of all subsequent punishments carried out by Woland and his retinue. This is perhaps the most cruel punishment of evil spirits - all the rest will be much easier.

From the moment of Berlioz's death, the theme of fate in a person's life begins to sound in the novel. Berlioz does not recognize either God or the devil. But is he free? Can he lead his own life, plan future affairs, or does he still need the influence of some external force? At the very beginning of the novel, Woland answers this question: "... how can a person manage if he is not only deprived of the opportunity to draw up any plan even for a ridiculously short period, well, let's say a thousand years, but he cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow?". But no one, except Woland, knows about this yet, and this issue will be resolved throughout the rest of the action. Thus, Bulgakov highlighted a rather acute problem of modern society: people were given freedom, but they were not taught how to handle it.

The episode of Berlioz's death plays a big role in revealing the idea of ​​the whole work. Man always retains his inner freedom. Under any external circumstances, he can act as he sees fit, act according to his conscience. But when he begins to encroach on the freedom of other people, seeking to subjugate them to himself and extract a certain benefit, then external forces come into play, punishing evil. And justice prevails.

The central place in this episode is occupied by Berlioz, who died under a tram, and Woland as a punishing force. Woland "he was in an expensive gray suit, in foreign, the color of the suit, shoes ... He looked to be over forty years old. His mouth was kind of crooked. Shaved smoothly. Brunet. The right eye is black, the left one is green for some reason. Eyebrows are black, but one is higher than the other.

Such a comical appearance of the hero does not at all correspond to the role that he plays in people's lives. The whole essence of Woland Bulgakov expressed in the epigraph to the novel: "I am part of that force that always wants evil and always does good...". It seems that he only brings harm: he burns down a restaurant, smashes Massolit, people got into a madhouse because of him - but at the same time he cleans, corrects these people, makes them better, that is, does good. He knows that he will never be rewarded, everyone will only scold and condemn him. But he is sure that his work is important and serious, and, flying away from Moscow, he is happy with the gratitude of the Master and Margarita. Woland inspires confidence and calmness, the hope that evil will be punished.

Berlioz is a citizen "about forty years old, dressed in a gray summer pair, he was short, dark-haired, well-fed, bald, his neatly shaven face was decorated with supernaturally sized black horn-rimmed glasses". He is the chairman of Massolit. But he organized this association in such a way that there is not a single real literary talent there, its members are indifferent to their work and care only about personal well-being. It was precisely for this that Berlioz was punished. But be that as it may, the death of a person is always terrible, especially such a death, and, most likely, he did not deserve it.

Rereading this scene: "Cautious Berlioz, although he was standing safely, decided to return to the slingshot, put his hand on the turntable, took a step back". One gets the impression that it was Woland himself who pushed him, doomed him to death. The scene makes a strong impression on the reader. The swiftness of the developing events, their inevitability is emphasized by Bulgakov with the help of "sharp" verbs: "the tram immediately flew up", "suddenly illuminated", "immediately his hand slipped", "leg uncontrollably went", "pulled it up with a frantic motion", "rushing with unstoppable force The reader sees all this as if from the perspective of Berlioz himself.

Bulgakov immerses listeners in the world of sound and light. epithets ( "gilded moon") and metaphors ( "splashed red and white light", "the car sat with its nose on the ground") further enhance the tragedy of the situation, causing pity for Berlioz. The reader seems to be in his place, it seems that this is about him, the reader, the author says: "Once again, and for the last time, the moon flashed, but already falling apart, and then it became dark".

But Bulgakov does not stop there. It “beats the feelings” more and more: the face of the carriage driver is completely white with horror, the whole street screams desperately, Berlioz’s severed head jumps over the cobblestones. Depicting this scene, the writer sought not only to directly show the punishment of Berlioz in order to continue the action of the novel, but he wanted to warn the reader against similar and other mistakes. Indeed, just before his death, Berlioz realized that he was wrong, that a higher power exists, and this is Woland, but it was already too late.

The author himself does not openly express his position in this episode. But Bulgakov could describe the death of Berlioz in a completely different light, making the reader laugh at her. But he didn't. Why? Perhaps because, although he understands the correctness of Woland's decision, he knows with his mind that it is necessary, but in his heart he pities his hero as a person, as a lost life. If earlier, during a dispute, he allowed himself to joke, talk with the reader, then here he is absolutely serious.

It is probably Bulgakov's ability to describe the event so realistically that you immediately imagine it in all colors, but the simultaneous sense of proportion draws the reader's attention to this episode.

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Chairman of MASSOLIT.

MASSOLIT, located in the Griboyedov House, by analogy with the association MASTKOMDRAM (Workshop of communist dramaturgy), can be deciphered as the Workshop (or Masters) of socialist literature.

The organization, headed by M. A. B., parodies the literary and dramatic unions that actually existed in the 1920s and early 1930s. In addition to MASTKOMDRAM, these are RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers), MAPP (Moscow Association of Proletarian Writers) and others focused on supporting the postulates of communist ideology in literature and art.

In some features of the portrait, M.A.B. resembles the famous poet, the author of anti-religious poems, including the Gospel of Demyan, Demyan Bedny (Efim Alekseevich Pridvorov) (1883-1945). Like Poor, M.A.B. "was short, well-fed, bald, carried his decent hat with a pie in his hand, and on his well-shaven face were placed supernatural-sized black horn-rimmed glasses." Horn-rimmed glasses are added to the portrait of the author of the Gospel According to Demyan, and Poor's traditional winter hat with a pie is turned into a summer hat (although summer hats are usually not called that).

Horn glasses connect M.A.B. not only with an imaginary foreigner similar to him in Torgsin (see: "The Master and Margarita"), but also with another real prototype - the chairman of the RAPP, Leopold Leonidovich Averbakh (1903-1939). A hint of this surname in a veiled form is present in the episode when Woland treats M.A.B. In this regard, there is an association with the scene in Auerbach's cellar from Faust (1808-1832) by the great German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), where Mephistopheles instantly provides visitors with the kind of wine they desire. Here we must bear in mind the practical identity of the names Averbakh and Auerbakh.

In D. Bedny's "The New Testament Without Flaw" by the Evangelist Demyan, published in Pravda in April-May 1925, the finale was as follows:
Accurate judgment about the New Testament:
Jesus Christ never existed.
So there was no one to die and resurrect,
There was no one to write Gospels about.

In the same way, M.A.B. convinces Ivan Bezdomny that “the main thing is not what Jesus was like, whether he is bad or good, but that this Jesus, as a person, did not exist at all in the world and that all the stories about him are mere inventions, the most common myth." By the way, clippings from Pravda with feuilletons by D. Poor have been preserved in the Bulgakov archive.

Woland's prediction of the death of M.A.B. was made in full accordance with the canons of astrology (see: Demonology). Satan noted the presence of Mercury in the second house of the ecliptic. This meant that the chairman of MASSOLIT was happy in trading.
M. A. B. really introduced the merchants to the holy temple of literature and was successful in commerce - receiving material goods in exchange for beliefs and renouncing the freedom of creativity (his last moments are illuminated by a dream of going on vacation to Kislovodsk). This is followed by punishment.

In the 1929 edition, Woland, in relation to M.A.B., emphasized that "the moon has left the fifth house" (in the final text, the indefinite "moon has left ..."). This indicated that M.A.B. had no children, i.e. no direct heirs. Indeed, his uncle from Kiev, to whom Woland proposes to give a telegram, remains his only heir. Misfortune in the sixth house, which Satan speaks of, means failure in marriage, and indeed, as it turns out later, the wife of M.A.B. fled to Kharkov with a choreographer. The seventh house, where the luminary associated with M.A.B. moves this evening, is the house of death. Therefore, the chairman of MASSOLIT dies under the wheels of a tram immediately after talking with the devil.

The prediction of M.A.B.'s fate can be correlated with the novel by the German mystic novelist Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1775-1822) "The Elixir of Satan" (1815-1816), where the narrator invites the reader to share his company on a stone bench under the canopy of plane trees: "With an inexplicable longing we would look at the blue bizarre masses of the mountains." He claims that "our, as we usually call them, dreams and fantasies are, perhaps, only a symbolic revelation of the essence of the mysterious threads that stretch through our whole life and bind together all its manifestations; I thought that he was doomed to death, who will imagine that this knowledge gives him the right to forcibly break the secret threads and grapple with the gloomy power that rules over us.

Woland warns M.A.B. about these "mysterious threads" over which man has no power: , realizing that there is no longer any sense from the lying person, they burn him in the oven.And it happens even worse: just that a person is about to go to Kislovodsk ... a trifling matter, it would seem, but he cannot do this either, because it is not known why suddenly takes it - slips and falls under a tram! Can you really say that it was he who managed himself like that? Isn't it more correct to think that someone completely different managed him?

The chairman of MASSOLIT, who denies the existence of both God and the devil and is not accustomed to extraordinary phenomena, is doomed to death, because he presumptuously imagined that his superficial knowledge in the field of Christianity, gleaned from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron (see..

, Bolshaya Sadovaya street, house number 302-bis, apt. No. 50.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz- the protagonist of the novel The Master and Margarita by the outstanding Russian writer Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov.

Pierre, beside himself with fear, jumped up and ran back to the battery, as to the only refuge from all the horrors that surrounded him.
While Pierre was entering the trench, he noticed that no shots were heard on the battery, but some people were doing something there. Pierre did not have time to understand what kind of people they were. He saw a senior colonel lying with his back to him on the rampart, as if examining something below, and he saw one soldier he noticed, who, breaking forward from the people holding his hand, shouted: “Brothers!” - and saw something else strange.
But he had not yet had time to realize that the colonel had been killed, that shouting "brothers!" was a prisoner that in his eyes another soldier was bayoneted in the back. As soon as he ran into the trench, a thin, yellow man with a sweaty face in a blue uniform, with a sword in his hand, ran up to him, shouting something. Pierre, instinctively defending himself from a push, since they, without seeing them, ran up against each other, put out his hands and grabbed this man (it was a French officer) with one hand by the shoulder, with the other proudly. The officer, releasing his sword, grabbed Pierre by the collar.
For a few seconds they both looked with frightened eyes at the faces alien to each other, and both were at a loss about what they had done and what they should do. “Am I taken prisoner, or is he taken prisoner by me? thought each of them. But, obviously, the French officer was more inclined to think that he had been taken prisoner, because Pierre's strong hand, driven by involuntary fear, squeezed his throat tighter and tighter. The Frenchman was about to say something, when suddenly a cannonball whistled low and terribly over their heads, and it seemed to Pierre that the head of the French officer had been torn off: he bent it so quickly.
Pierre also bent his head and let go of his hands. No longer thinking about who captured whom, the Frenchman ran back to the battery, and Pierre downhill, stumbling over the dead and wounded, who, it seemed to him, were catching him by the legs. But before he had time to go down, dense crowds of fleeing Russian soldiers appeared to meet him, who, falling, stumbling and shouting, merrily and violently ran towards the battery. (This was the attack that Yermolov attributed to himself, saying that only his courage and happiness could accomplish this feat, and the attack in which he allegedly threw the St. George Crosses that he had in his pocket onto the mound.)
The French, who occupied the battery, ran. Our troops, shouting "Hurrah," drove the French so far behind the battery that it was difficult to stop them.
Prisoners were taken from the battery, including a wounded French general, who was surrounded by officers. Crowds of the wounded, familiar and unfamiliar to Pierre, Russians and French, with faces disfigured by suffering, walked, crawled and rushed from the battery on a stretcher. Pierre entered the mound, where he spent more than an hour, and from that family circle that took him in, he did not find anyone. There were many dead here, unknown to him. But he recognized some. A young officer sat, still curled up, at the edge of the rampart, in a pool of blood. The red-faced soldier was still twitching, but he was not removed.
Pierre ran downstairs.
"No, now they will leave it, now they will be horrified by what they have done!" thought Pierre, aimlessly following the crowds of stretchers moving from the battlefield.

Berlioz is one of the main characters in The Master and Margarita, although he does not appear on the pages of the work for long. He is active in the first chapter, but already in the third one he dies under the wheels of a tram. He has a quite ordinary appearance: he is short, well-fed, bald, dressed in a gray suit, with large black-rimmed glasses on his nose (1, 1). He is the chairman of MASSOLIT - a successful literary association - and the editor of a thick magazine. That is, it is he, along with other "literary generals", who determines the literary policy in Moscow, and perhaps in the Soviet Union.

It is remarkable that Berlioz himself is not a writer, but a functionary who takes care of young authors, for example, the illiterate poet Ivan Bezdomny, who has a natural talent. Evidence of just such a relationship is the conversation about the anti-religious poem, which the characters discuss while sitting on a bench at the Patriarch's Ponds. The editor did not like the image of Christ, although Homeless “Jesus turned out to be completely alive” (1, 1): at the same time, Bulgakov notes, not without irony, “it is difficult to say what exactly let Ivan Bezdomny down - the pictorial power of his talent or complete unfamiliarity with the question on which he was going to write” (ibid.). In talking about the poem, Berlioz demonstrates extensive erudition, talking about Christ, real and mythological. True, all this erudition is drawn from an article in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, but an ignorant proletarian poet is not able to understand that the bureaucratic chairman of MASSOLIT is not at all a storehouse of wisdom, but a clever rogue and idle talker.

The main social task of Berlioz is to subordinate the spiritual life of society to the new power, to drown out the independent thought and desire for truth that awakens in the head of the “virgin” (1, 13) Ivan Bezdomny, which are inherent in any thinking person. Berlioz himself does not believe in either God or the devil, he can adapt to any social conditions and, most importantly, strives to push his way "to the helm." The latter is very desirable for him, since it allows him to have many pleasant benefits: a dacha in Perelygin, trips to Kislovodsk, a place of honor in any presidium, etc. And so this “little ideological man” swells up from the consciousness of his own significance, mediocrity becomes the leader of the literary process, disposes of the fate of real writers. After all, it was Berlioz and similar "literary generals" who hounded the Master with the help of a rude shout and a "Marxist ideological club." In reviews of an excerpt from the Master's novel, they called the author an "enemy", a "bogomaz", who decided to smuggle "Pilatchina" into print, a "militant Old Believer" (1, 13). But this is not criticism, but almost a political denunciation. The mediocre theater manager Styopa Likhodeev, the house manager Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, who takes bribes, or the petty literary scammer Latunsky, are not as dangerous to society as the good-natured, well-intentioned "manufacturer of public opinion" Berlioz. It is not for nothing that Berlioz's double hero in the "antique" novel is the Jewish high priest Kaifa, the implacable enemy of Yeshua, the preacher of the idea of ​​"good will".

The chairman of MASSOLIT gets hit by a tram when he runs to a pay phone to signal the right place about a crazy foreigner. Regarding this act, the author again ironically remarks: “Berlioz’s life developed in such a way that he was not used to unusual phenomena” (1, 1), since he was sure that everything in life can be calculated and foreseen. After all, Berlioz explains to a foreign consultant that the person himself controls everything. But, according to Bulgakov’s deep conviction, reality is more complicated than any theories, and a few seconds before his death, the head of MASSOLIT received proof that anything can happen in life: quite unexpectedly and “without a plan”, Mikhail Aleksandrovich fell under a tram. For the same reason (life does not fit into logical schemes), Berlioz and other “literary generals” fail to “manage” the spiritual life of society in their own way: Ivan Bezdomny, under the supervision of Berlioz, writes an anti-religious poem about Christ, and at the same time in the basement of a small house “ in an alley near the Arbat” (1, 13), an unknown writer writes a novel about Pontius Pilate, in which he affirms the high value of Christian ideas.

Woland pronounces Berlioz's verdict at a ball with Satan: “...your theory is solid and witty. However, after all, all theories stand one another. There is also one among them, according to which each will be given according to his faith. May it come true! You are going into non-existence, and I will be happy to drink from the cup into which you turn into being” (2, 23). So, unlike the Master, the chairman of MASSOLIT does not receive “life in death” because he left behind “neither a fruitful thought, nor the genius of the work begun” (M.Yu. Lermontov). The master, being a man of ideas, is real, while Berlioz, a fan of things and comforts, is a ghost. For him, life is connected with material goods, so the existence of the soul does not make sense.

Summing up, we note that Berlioz in the novel "The Master and Margarita" represents those "engineers of human souls" (M. Gorky), who took up the organization of the spiritual life of Soviet society in accordance with party-ideological instructions from above. Several more similar characters are named in the novel: the critics Latunsky and Ariman, the writer Lavrovich, but only the image of Berlioz is more or less fully revealed. The main slogan of all these figures is the famous phrase "What do you want?" (M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin), their main task is to put an end to non-party (independent) writers like the Master and to educate trustworthy authors, in whose works the search for truth is replaced by peppy slogans suitable for all occasions of life and death (for example, poems by Berlioz’s pupil Ryukhina - “Fly up!” Yes “Fly up!”). But Bulgakov is sure that it is impossible to forbid people to think and create freely, therefore, according to the logic of history and life, Berlioz will inevitably go into oblivion, which, by the way, is stated in the epilogue: Berlioz has long been forgotten by everyone.

History, according to Bulgakov, denies Mikhail Alexandrovich, because his activities are vicious: a fair society will be only when everyone, without exception, will be given a real opportunity to think the way he finds right. Life denies Berlioz, despite the outward success of the "literary general": he is lonely, since his wife fled from him to Kharkov with a choreographer (1, 7); his only relative-heir is the mercenary Kiev uncle Maximilian Andreevich Poplavsky; the students who stay with him are opportunists and mediocrity like Alexander Ryukhin, and talented people leave him. Ivan Bezdomny, for example, thanks to his acquaintance with the Master and his own sober mind, managed to free himself from the spiritual guardianship of Berlioz and his ilk.

Such, according to Bulgakov, is the well-deserved outcome of Berlioz's life. For his earthly activities and convictions, the chairman of MASSOLIT receives "according to his faith" - "absolute non-existence": he is turned by Woland into a golden goblet, that is, Berlioz neither lives nor died.