4
a metal man: This is the poet Pushkin, whose statue stands in Strastnaya (renamed Pushkin) Square. The snowstorm covers ...‘ is the beginning of Pushkin’s much-anthologized poem The Snowstorm’. The reference to ‘that white guard’ is anachronistic here. The White Guard opposed the Bolsheviks (’Reds‘) during the Russian civil war in the early twenties. Pushkin was fatally wounded in the stomach during a duel with Baron Georges D’ Anthès, an Alsatian who served in the Russian Imperial Horse Guard. Under the Soviet regime the term ’white guard’ was a pejorative accusation, which was levelled against Bulgakov himself after the publication of his novel, The White Guard, and the production of his play, Days of the Turbins, based on the novel. In having Riukhin talk with Pushkin’s statue, Bulgakov parodies the ‘revolutionary’ poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), whose poem Yubileinoe was written in 1924 on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of Pushkin’s birth.
Chapter 7: A Naughty Apartment
1
people began to disappear: Here, as throughout The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov treats the everyday Soviet phenomenon of ‘disappearances’ (arrests) and other activities of the secret police in the most vague, impersonal and hushed manner. The main example is the arrest of the master himself in Chapter 13, which passes almost without mention.
2
Here I am!: Bulgakov quotes the exact words (in Russian translation) of Mephistopheles’ first appearance to Faust in the opera Faust, by French composer Charles Gounod (1818 — 93).
3
Woland: A German name for Satan, which appears in several variants in the old Faust legends (Valand, Woland, Faland, Wieland). In his drama, Goethe once refers to the devil as ’Junket Woland‘.
4
findirector: Typical Soviet contraction for financial director.
5
an enormous wax seal: Styopa immediately assumes that Berlioz has been arrested, hence his ’disagreeable thoughts’ about whether he may have compromised himself with the editor and thus be in danger of arrest himself.
6
Azazello: Bulgakov adds an Italian ending to the Hebrew name Azazel (‘goat god’), to whom a goat (the scapegoat or ‘goat for Azazel’) bearing the sins of the people was sacrificed on Yom Kippur by being sent into the wilderness to die (Leviticus 16:7 — 10).
Chapter 9: Koroviev’s Stunts
1
chairman of the tenants’ association: This quasi-official position gave its occupant enormous power, considering the permanent shortage of living space, which led to all sorts of crookedness and bribe-taking. Bulgakov portrays knavish house chairmen in several works, having suffered a good deal from them in his search for quarters during the twenties and thirties. This chairman’s name, Bosoy, means ‘Barefoot’.
2
speculating in foreign currency: The Soviet rouble was not a convertible currency, and the government therefore had great need of foreign currency for trade purposes. Soviet citizens were forbidden to keep foreign currency, and there were also several ‘round-ups’ of gold and jewellery during the thirties. Speculating in currency could even be a capital offence. This situation plays a role in several later episodes of the novel.
Chapter 10: News from Yalta
1
Varenukha: His name is that of a drink made from honey, berries and spices boiled in vodka.
2 A super-lightning telegram: Bulgakov’s exaggeration of the ‘lightning telegram’, which did exist.
3
A false Dmitri: The notorious impostor Grigory (‘Grishka’) Otrepev, known as ‘the false Dmitri’, was a defrocked monk of the seventeenth century who claimed the Russian throne by pretending to be the prince Dmitri, murdered son of Ivan the Terrible.
4
rocks, my refuge ...: Words from the romance ‘Refuge’, with music by Franz Schubert (1797-1828), inspired by Goethe’s Faust.
5
take it there personalty: Another oblique reference to the secret police. By now the reader should recognize the manner.
Chapter 12: Black Magic and Its Exposure
1
Louisa: The character Louisa Miller, from Schiller’s play Intrigue and Love, a fixture in the repertories of Soviet theatres.
Chapter 13: The Hero Enters
1
A state bond: Soviet citizens were ‘asked’ to buy state bonds at their places of work. As an incentive, lotteries would be held every so often in which certain bond numbers would win a significant amount of money. Secure places being scarce in communal living conditions, the master evidently kept his bond in his laundry basket
