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    Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita" Still Strikes A Chord In Putin's Russia

    In times of turmoil, Russians turn to their great writers for inspiration.

    One of those writers is Mikhail Bulgakov, who died 75 years ago. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin liked some of Bulgakov's work, but he considered most of it too dangerous to publish. A museum in Moscow shows that the work is just as relevant as ever.

    In the early 1920s, Bulgakov and his wife lived for several years in the rambling Art Nouveau building in central Moscow that now houses that museum. The couple made their home in Apartment 50, which the writer eventually turned into a key setting for his magical novel The Master and Margarita. The satire ridiculed much about Soviet life, and it wasn't published until 1967, 27 years after Bulgakov's death.

    Since then, it's been reprinted in countless editions and made into plays and movies. One of the most popular is the serialized version, made for Russian television in 2005.
    And its popularity endures.

    There seem to be parallels everywhere between Bulgakov's Soviet characters and the functionaries of today's Russia, says Edythe Haber, an expert on Bulgakov at Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

    It's a very complicated novel, and people get what they want out of it," Haber says. "One thing that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the people of present-day Russia support is the Christianity that was attacked during the communist period. Those people who are very pro-church pick that out, whereas most readers look at the anti-authoritarianism of it."

    Haber says that after all the years of repression, Bulgakov's work is now out in the world, and no amount of censorship can ever put it back.

    In the novel, the devil pays a visit to the officially atheist Soviet Union, appearing as a well-dressed but somehow foreign-looking gentleman who introduces himself as Wolland, professor of black magic.

    His first encounter is with a pair of writers who don't believe in him, and Wolland predicts — quite accurately — that one of them is about to lose his head in a freak encounter with a tram car.

    continued
    http://www.npr.org/sections/parallel...n-stalins-time

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    Anytime my brain is assailed by an unintelligible Drumpf tweets, or by the incoherent message board musings of your typical barely-educated wingnut, I have to remind myself that there actually are humans capable of using language in a compelling, beautiful, and engaging way.

    And such is the case with one of the books I am reading now. Nikolai Gogol’s “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”. A compilation of his early short stories centered around the folklore of Ukraine.

    One knows they are in the presence of a great writer, when the first sentence of the story starts out like this:

    “How intoxicating, how magnificent is a summer day in the Ukraine! How luxuriously warm it is when midday glitters in stillness and sultry heat, and the blue expanse of sky, arching like a voluptuous cupola, seems to be slumbering, bathed in languor, clasping the fair earth and holding it close in its ethereal embrace!”

    - Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, The Fair at Sorochintsi (1831)
    .

    The Ukrainian Mystery of Nikolai Gogol

    It is Christmas Eve and all sorts of mischief is afoot in Dikanka, a Ukrainian village made famous by Nikolai (Mykola) Gogol, the iconic 19th century writer reluctantly shared by Ukraine and Russia. As Dikanka’s cheerful denizens go caroling in the night, in one house a devil is cavorting with a local witch; in another, a sorcerer is magically sucking up dumplings. Enchanted, rowdy and mythical – this was Gogol’s Ukraine.

    Born in Ukraine, made famous in Russia, Gogol embodies both the ties that bind the two countries and the differences that set them apart. As their relations deteriorated, the question of Gogol’s national affiliation repeatedly appeared on a list of matters disputed by Ukraine and Russia.

    Reams of research have been dedicated to solving the puzzle of the writer, who straddled cultures and genres. A preeminent figure in Russian culture, the author of one of the masterpieces of Russian literature – Dead Souls – Gogol was also a dedicated panegyrist of his native Ukraine.

    When he moved from Ukraine to St Petersburg at the age of 20, Gogol took his homeland and its legends with him. Audiences in Russia were mesmerized with his stories about Ukraine – heroic, mythical odes to the Ukrainian history and culture. In Gogol’s tales, the characters he borrowed from Ukrainian folklore make Faustian pacts with devil (Ivan Kupala Eve, 1831) or spend a blood-curdling night locked in a church with a vengeful witch (Viy,1835).

    Yet, Gogol nevertheless became a quintessentially Russian writer, penning scathing satires of Imperial Russian society and casting a far-reaching influence on Russia’s literary tradition. “We all came out from Gogol’s ‘Overcoat,’” Fyodor Dostoyevsky reportedly one said.

    Perhaps incongruously, Ukraine’s struggle for self-determination also drew inspiration from Gogol’s works, especially Taras Bulba, his ode to romantic nationalism. The novel follows exploits of a legendary warrior, a Cossack from the Zaporozhian Host, who puts patriotic ideals before paternal feelings.

    “The Cossack history is the foundation of the Ukrainian national identity,” says Pavlo Mykhed, a doctor of philology at the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature. “When Maidan [2014 Ukrainian revolution] happened, the Cossack past was brought back to life. [Rebels] gathered in sotnias [hundreds] and kurinis [several hundreds], just as it used to be in the Zaporozhian Host, and just as Gogol described it in Taras Bulba.”

    The great writer himself had trouble answering the much-disputed question about his identity. “I don’t know whether my soul is Ukrainian or Russian. All I know is that I would never give preference to someone from Little Russia or to someone from Russia,” he wrote in 1844, with Little Russia being a term assigned to the Zaporozhian Host after its annexation by Muscovy.

    More
    http://www.eurasianet.org/node/81876

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    “It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.” ― Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn



    ruining education

    its been the republican plan for decades

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    By "patriotism" is really meant a love for one's own nation above other nations; just as by "egoism" is meant a love for oneself more than for others. It is hard to imagine how such preference for one nation above others can be deemed a good, and therefore a desirable, disposition. If you say that patriotism is more pardonable in the oppressed than in the oppressor, just as a manifestation of egoism is more pardonable in a man who is being strangled than in one who is left in peace, then it is impossible to disagree with you; nevertheless, patriotism cannot change its nature, whether it is displayed in oppressor or oppressed. This disposition of preference for one nation over all others, like egoism, can in nowise be good.

    But not only is patriotism a bad disposition, it is unreasonable in principle.

    By patriotism is meant, not only spontaneous, instinctive love for one's own nation, and preference for it above all other nations, but also the belief that such love and preference are good and useful. This belief is especially unreasonable in Christian nations.

    It is unreasonable, not only because it runs counter to the first principles of Christ's teachings, but also because Christianity gains, by its own method, everything for which patriotism seeks; thus making patriotism superfluous, unnecessary, and a hindrance, like a lamp by daylight.

    -- Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Patriotism and Christianity, 1896
    “I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them. ”

    -- Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago, 1957
    “Everything passes away - suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the Earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes toward the stars? Why?”

    -- Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov
    .

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    Long afterwards, in his gayest moments, there recurred to his mind the little official with the bald forehead, with his heart-rending words, "Leave me alone! Why do you insult me?" In these moving words, other words resounded --"I am thy brother." And the young man covered his face with his hand; and many a time afterwards, in the course of his life, shuddered at seeing how much inhumanity there is in man, how much savage coarseness is concealed beneath delicate, refined worldliness, and even, O God! in that man whom the world acknowledges as honourable and noble.
    --Nikolai Gogol, "The Overcoat"
    Hmm. Not a great translation...here is a much better one, by the husband-and-wife team of Pevear and Volokhonsky, perhaps the most capable translators of Russian literature into English:

    And long afterwards, in moments of the greatest merriment, there would rise before him the figure of the little clerk with the balding brow, uttering his penetrating words: "Let me be. Why do you offend me?"--and in these penetrating words rang other words: "I am your brother." And the poor young man would bury his face in his hands, and many a time in his life he shuddered to see how much inhumanity there is in man, how much savage coarseness is concealed in refined, cultivated manners, and God! even in a man the world regards as noble and honorable....
    Last edited by kflaux; 06-28-2017 at 10:58 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by kflaux View Post
    Hmm. Not a great translation...here is a much better one, by the husband-and-wife team of Pevear and Volokhonsky, perhaps the most capable translators of Russian literature into English:
    You are right, translation is everything. Prevear and Volokhonsky have proven themselves capable of excellent translations.

    Gogol's "The Overcoat" is one of my favorite short stories (or novella?) in Russian literature, and established him as one of my favorite Russian writers. I believe I have read that Overcoat was the first time that a working class rube was treated in literary form as a real human being, a person worthy of dignity, rather than portrayed as a rube worthy of ridicule or pity. Gogol's prose I find to be quirky, strangely insightful, funny, sarcastic, and beautifully written all at the same time. I have yet to read "Dead Souls" but have it on my bucket list -- I am hoping Prevear-Volokhonsky did a translation!

    As a testament to the monumental influence Gogol had on the legacy of Russian literature, Dostoyevsky is reputed to have said "We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    You are right, translation is everything. Prevear and Volokhonsky have proven themselves capable of excellent translations.

    Gogol's "The Overcoat" is one of my favorite short stories (or novella?) in Russian literature, and established him as one of my favorite Russian writers. I believe I have read that Overcoat was the first time that a working class rube was treated in literary form as a real human being, a person worthy of dignity, rather than portrayed as a rube worthy of ridicule or pity. Gogol's prose I find to be quirky, strangely insightful, funny, sarcastic, and beautifully written all at the same time. I have yet to read "Dead Souls" but have it on my bucket list -- I am hoping Prevear-Volokhonsky did a translation!

    As a testament to the monumental influence Gogol had on the legacy of Russian literature, Dostoyevsky is reputed to have said "We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'.
    Indeed. The Overcoat is sui generis.

    You know you really are in terra incognita, when you find yourself reading a ghost story in which the ghost is probably the most believable character......

    You might get hold of Vladimir Nabokov's Notes on Russian Literature, if you haven't already, and read what he writes about The Overcoat. Very illuminating.

    ...only, if you are a Dostoyevsky fan, as I am too, you might want to avoid what Nabokov has to say about FD....especially his The Idiot....which, however, is hilarious, but you will never be able to take that work seriously again...........

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    Quote Originally Posted by kflaux View Post
    Indeed. The Overcoat is sui generis.

    You know you really are in terra incognita, when you find yourself reading a ghost story in which the ghost is probably the most believable character......

    You might get hold of Vladimir Nabokov's Notes on Russian Literature, if you haven't already, and read what he writes about The Overcoat. Very illuminating.

    ...only, if you are a Dostoyevsky fan, as I am too, you might want to avoid what Nabokov has to say about FD....especially his The Idiot....which, however, is hilarious, but you will never be able to take that work seriously again...........

    Thanks for the insights.

    I really like Dostoyevksy, and it would be a bummer if somebody convinces me to hate him!


    “You are not Dostoevsky,' said the woman...
    'You never can tell...' he answered.
    'Dostoevsky is dead,' the woman said, a bit uncertainly.
    'I protest!' he said with heat, 'Dostoevsky is immortal!!”

    Mikhail Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita":

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    Thanks for the insights.

    I really like Dostoyevksy, and it would be a bummer if somebody convinces me to hate him!
    “You are not Dostoevsky,' said the woman...
    'You never can tell...' he answered.
    'Dostoevsky is dead,' the woman said, a bit uncertainly.
    'I protest!' he said with heat, 'Dostoevsky is immortal!!”

    Mikhail Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita"
    Well I'll be damned. I don't remember that passage.

    Russian language and literature is a hobby of mine, so to speak, and about three years ago I decided that I needed to read Bulgakov's classic, in the original.

    Took me six months IIRC....but if I forgot a passage like that, well......

    BTW and as you are probably aware, The Master and Margarita has been made into several movies and TV series.

    They all have their defenders, and I cannot say definitively which is best, but I own the DVDs of and thoroughly enjoy this version:

    https://www.amazon.com/Master-Margar...SXM/ref=sr_1_1

    The phrase "Manuscripts don't burn!" on the DVD sleeve is what any Russian will remember as the catch-phrase of the book....and it is especially significant given that Bulgakov's manuscript itself didn't burn....it was kept in total secrecy by his widow until Stalin was safely dead and buried, and the partial cultural thaw under Khrushchev allowed for most (but not all) of it to be published.

    Ironically, in the book and the movies, it is the Devil himself (Wolland) who utters the famous "Manuscripts don't burn"....referring of course to the manuscript of the Master....

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    Ah. I see I have been preaching to the choir. Mea Culpa. I just read your post #16 above.

    One really striking thing about TMaM in my opinion is the juxtaposition of scenes from...not the Bible, nothing in the Bible is anywhere near that explicit....from the last few days of Christ, up to and including his crucifixion...with scenes from 1930's Moscow, in which the latter necessarily come off as superficial, absurd, ludicrous.

    Anyways. A novel that is like no other.

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    Quote Originally Posted by kflaux View Post
    Ah. I see I have been preaching to the choir. Mea Culpa. I just read your post #16 above.

    One really striking thing about TMaM in my opinion is the juxtaposition of scenes from...not the Bible, nothing in the Bible is anywhere near that explicit....from the last few days of Christ, up to and including his crucifixion...with scenes from 1930's Moscow, in which the latter necessarily come off as superficial, absurd, ludicrous.

    Anyways. A novel that is like no other.
    I'm sure you could have had this pleasant exchange with the Ant, if only you'd taken the time to put it all in words of two syllables or less, elitist assholes.
    It's very hard not to be condescending, when you're explaining something to an idiot. - Bill Maher

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    Quote Originally Posted by kflaux View Post
    Well I'll be damned. I don't remember that passage.

    Russian language and literature is a hobby of mine, so to speak, and about three years ago I decided that I needed to read Bulgakov's classic, in the original.

    Took me six months IIRC....but if I forgot a passage like that, well......

    BTW and as you are probably aware, The Master and Margarita has been made into several movies and TV series.

    They all have their defenders, and I cannot say definitively which is best, but I own the DVDs of and thoroughly enjoy this version:

    https://www.amazon.com/Master-Margar...SXM/ref=sr_1_1

    The phrase "Manuscripts don't burn!" on the DVD sleeve is what any Russian will remember as the catch-phrase of the book....and it is especially significant given that Bulgakov's manuscript itself didn't burn....it was kept in total secrecy by his widow until Stalin was safely dead and buried, and the partial cultural thaw under Khrushchev allowed for most (but not all) of it to be published.

    Ironically, in the book and the movies, it is the Devil himself (Wolland) who utters the famous "Manuscripts don't burn"....referring of course to the manuscript of the Master....
    Much obliged for the recommendations.

    Reputedly, Rolling Stones classic "Sympathy for the Devil" was inspired by Jagger's reading of Master and Margarita (Although I personally attribute it more to acid and weed).

    Speaking of the body of work by translators Prevear and Volokonsky, I recently finished reading their "Selected Stories" by Anton Chekhov. If you have not given it a gander, you may want to consider! Personally love Chekhov's economical, impressionistic style of prose, which also tends to being strangely and beautifully poignant.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    Much obliged for the recommendations.

    Reputedly, Rolling Stones classic "Sympathy for the Devil" was inspired by Jagger's reading of Master and Margarita (Although I personally attribute it more to acid and weed).

    Speaking of the body of work by translators Prevear and Volokonsky, I recently finished reading their "Selected Stories" by Anton Chekhov. If you have not given it a gander, you may want to consider! Personally love Chekhov's economical, impressionistic style of prose, which also tends to being strangely and beautifully poignant.
    Thanks for the recommendation. I recently read an extended article on P&V, explaining that she, as a native Russian, renders a work in rough English, he goes through and makes it more natural and faithful in tone, idiom etc, she goes over his version, and they bounce it back and forth until they're both satisfied.

    Chekhov probably ranks as my favorite author, if "favorite" is measured by the amount of time actually spent reading the author. ...if by actual page count, it would prolly be Faulkner....

    ....I was an American studying physics in Tokyo when I learned that two papers directly related to my research were written in Russian, with no translations anywhere. So I began studying Russian, taking classes given in Japanese, which may not have been too smart.... Anyways, about a year into those classes, the Bolshoi Theater visited Tokyo, and so our teacher got us tickets for their performance of Uncle Vanya, and told us to read the play in advance of the performance. Which was absurd...we were nowhere near able to read at that level after just one year of study. IAC perhaps partly for that reason, it became my favorite play in the Chekhov canon, and I have on DVD the performance with Michael Redgrave, Lawrence Olivier, Joan Plowright, and a young, radiant and truly beautiful Rosemary Harris as Elena......

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    Quote Originally Posted by kflaux View Post
    Thanks for the recommendation. I recently read an extended article on P&V, explaining that she, as a native Russian, renders a work in rough English, he goes through and makes it more natural and faithful in tone, idiom etc, she goes over his version, and they bounce it back and forth until they're both satisfied.

    Chekhov probably ranks as my favorite author, if "favorite" is measured by the amount of time actually spent reading the author. ...if by actual page count, it would prolly be Faulkner....

    ....I was an American studying physics in Tokyo when I learned that two papers directly related to my research were written in Russian, with no translations anywhere. So I began studying Russian, taking classes given in Japanese, which may not have been too smart.... Anyways, about a year into those classes, the Bolshoi Theater visited Tokyo, and so our teacher got us tickets for their performance of Uncle Vanya, and told us to read the play in advance of the performance. Which was absurd...we were nowhere near able to read at that level after just one year of study. IAC perhaps partly for that reason, it became my favorite play in the Chekhov canon, and I have on DVD the performance with Michael Redgrave, Lawrence Olivier, Joan Plowright, and a young, radiant and truly beautiful Rosemary Harris as Elena......
    Great stuff. I salute you. I seemingly cannot get many native born Americans in my circle of influence interested in the great Russian works, although one lady at the office read Brothers Karamazov with me. Probably shouldn't have started with Dostoyevsky, who is as much a philosopher and a psychologist as he is a story teller.

    My "introduction" to Russian literature were Russian children's books. Which my father - a Russian immigrant - would read to us. I must have only been about three years old, but the residual memory of my father's voice and the pictures from "Mukha-Tsokotukha" are still burned onto the neurons of my mind.



    My Russian language skills have atrophied since childhood, but I remember my father's book collection; dusty old editions Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, Gogol, Paustovsky. Being far beyond my Russian linguistic abilities, these books forever lay beyond my reach. But, at the dawn of the second half of my life, I got a second wind and started tracking down good English translations of the Russian masters. Right now, I am finishing up some Gogol, with Bulgakov, Tolstoy, and Turgenev on deck. Wish me luck!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cypress View Post
    Great stuff. I salute you. I seemingly cannot get many native born Americans in my circle of influence interested in the great Russian works, although one lady at the office read Brothers Karamazov with me. Probably shouldn't have started with Dostoyevsky, who is as much a philosopher and a psychologist as he is a story teller.

    My "introduction" to Russian literature were Russian children's books. Which my father - a Russian immigrant - would read to us. I must have only been about three years old, but the residual memory of my father's voice and the pictures from "Mukha-Tsokotukha" are still burned onto the neurons of my mind.



    My Russian language skills have atrophied since childhood, but I remember my father's book collection; dusty old editions Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, Gogol, Paustovsky. Being far beyond my Russian linguistic abilities, these books forever lay beyond my reach. But, at the dawn of the second half of my life, I got a second wind and started tracking down good English translations of the Russian masters. Right now, I am finishing up some Gogol, with Bulgakov, Tolstoy, and Turgenev on deck. Wish me luck!
    Excellent. I salute you, and your father.

    It's never too late to learn, though. The great German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss took up Russian in his late 60's, IIRC, partly in order to be able to correspond with Nikolai Lobachevsky, a co-discoverer of non-Euclidean geometry.

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