Mikhail Bulgakov and the many faces of Kyiv

Mikhail Bulgakov and Kyiv, the city in White Guard and Sergei Maksudov’s homeland in Black Snow: A Theatrical Novel; portrayals of the Dnipro spring flood, with the water “merging with the horizon” in The Master and Margarita; and “Kyiv, this gem of a city! A restless place” in the sketch Kiev City.

Depending on conjuncture, researchers investigating the author’s life alternated between making it “worse” — stressing Bulgakov’s attitude toward the White Guard, respectful and with a nostalgic touch, in his Flight and White Guard, [subsequently remade as the play] The Days of the Turbins — or “better.” Meanwhile the author seemed to soar above reality. Outwardly aloof from public life, he closely followed its vicissitudes and responded by producing one masterpiece after the next. In them he emerged as a competent, meticulous scholar, and all the while he kept his private life out of the public eye. Marietta Chudakova, probably the most penetrating researcher of all, wrote that “the range of opportunities, given this aloofness, was broad enough, one being a private lifestyle, protecting his independence and never even trying to counterpoise or impose that way of life on those living and acting differently.”

Suppose we try to see what the atmosphere was like in Kyiv at the beginning of the twentieth century, what a young resident could have by way of outlook, to whom the City meant a great deal more than just a place of birth. On May 3, 1891, Varvara Bulgakova, nee Pokrovskaya, wife of Afanasy Bulgakov, a docent at the Kyiv Theological Seminary, was delivered of a boy Christened Mikhail for St. Michael, the guardian angel of Kyiv. The infant was baptized on May 18 at the Church of the Holy Cross in Podil. In 1901, Mikhail was enrolled in No. 1 Aleksandrovsky High School on Bibikov Boulevard (currently Taras Shevchenko Boulevard and the high school’s yellow building is on the university campus). The high school cultivated a rather liberal atmosphere (something to be expected, considering St. Volodymyr [now Shevchenko] University close by, then the venue of all sorts of free ideas). And the teaching staff really measured up, as the city’s leading instructors were honored to read lectures at the Number One High School. Mikhail’s classmate, Yevgeny Bukreyev, recalled later, “He would take part in every fight and avoid any social events.” Another reason democratic moods prevailed at Number One was that quite a few students were on public scholarship. In The Days of the Turbins, Aleksei blurts out that he’s a proud monarchist, and continues, “I can’t even bear the very word `Socialist’...” Yevgeny Bukreyev claims Bulgakov was like that, too, that he was “a totally uncompromising monarchist, a crack monarchist at that.” Indeed, his persuasions were shared by a minority of the high school students, and it could not have happened otherwise. A. I. Bulgakov, docent and censor at the theological seminary, must have certainly inculcated in Mikhail an unquestioning respect for the three pillars supporting the Russian crown: Faith, Tsar, and Fatherland. The fact that his father was an Orthodox clergyman played its role in the young man’s coolness toward Jews and Poles (the family friends were people of the same creed as they). Such a restrained attitude toward people professing different religions was not characteristic only of the Bulgakovs. In the early twentieth century Kyiv was one of the least cosmopolitan cities of the Russian Empire (recall the Beilis trial of 1913 when a Jewish tinker was accused of the ritual murder of a Christian boy, immortalized by the late Bernard Malamud in The Fixer — Ed.), in contrast to Odesa, also multilingual and harboring different faiths but far more democratic.

People of different ethnic groups in Kyiv and the suburbs lived in closeted communities, largely because of mutual grievances dating back hundreds of years. Mikhail Bulgakov identified himself with the Russian community, although he would repeatedly stress the Turkic origin of his last name. Recall Sergei Maksudov in the Theatrical Novel? Everything in the Master’s creations, every proper or place name had its special meaning.

Vladimir Shulgin, reputed journalist and political figure, chief editor of the Kievlianin [The Kyivan, a paper dedicated to fighting the Jews and “Ukrainian separatism” — Ed.], offers an interesting “exploded view” of the multifaceted city: “Peasants formed numerically the strongest group (mainly Ukrainian — Author). The second largest group consisted of Polish landlords; the third of their Russian counterparts; the fourth of burghers, almost entirely Jewish; the fifth of Russian clergymen, and finally the sixth was made up of Czech and German colonists.” And there were also Tatars, Armenians, Karaites, Belarusians, Hungarians... By the end of the nineteenth century the city boasted over a hundred Orthodox churches, ten convents, two Polish Catholic cathedrals, a Lutheran church, two Jewish synagogues (including a choral one), and two Old Believers’ churches. By 1917, the population was 430,488.

Located in the heart of Ukraine, Kyiv was a natural venue of the melodious languages heard in the street markets, public places, and many Dnipro quays. Polish and Yiddish were also widespread. Russian, however, had the domineering official status as the language of the metropolis. Characteristically, Shulgin’s description of the peasantry living in the suburbs is aristocratically condescending: “...they were Russian by ethnic origin, or Little Russian as they were called at the time; Ukrainians to use the modern appellation.” Apparently, both Shulgin and Bulgakov displayed that inherently stagnant Russian, more precisely Muscovite, nationalism. They were only interested in the common past of the Eastern Slavs, precisely Kyiv Rus’. In The Days of the Turbins, Shervinsky speaks of Ukraine and of some elements wishing to speak their vernacular, and there is no mistaking his contempt. Yet the author also mentions “the real Ukraine,” which is larger than France and is inhabited by tens of millions. No one among the Turbins’ friends really knew what Ukraine was like. Theirs was a typical narrow caste attitude whereby a peasant from Fastiv or Vyshhorod was alien to the Russian-speaking refined intellectuals living in their small crystalline world (Aleksei Turbin shouts that there are only five percent of them and that 95% are Russians) which began to fall apart after February and October 1917.

To say that Bulgakov did not know or took no interest in the Ukrainian language would be a gross error, although most likely he regarded it as a dialect of the Great Russian language. He uses Ukrainisms in the White Guard with a remarkable precision and they are by no means supplementary means of expression. They compliment the story, lending it a bright and singular coloration. Afanasy Bulgakov’s favorite professor and senior colleague at the theological seminary was Nikolai Petrov, a distinguished critic specializing in Ukrainian literature, author of fundamental works on its history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Incidentally, he was Mikhail’s godfather. There were the Prosvita Ukrainian Club and a Ukrainian drama group at the academy, albeit functioning semiofficially (the powers that be kept a sharp eye on things like that), and reports were delivered on historical and literary subjects... the senior Bulgakov constantly acted as an intermediary between the conflicting extreme Russian great- power and Ukrainian patriotic parties. In fact, there was no unanimity on the subject among the Bulgakovs. Mikhail’s sister Nadezhda Zemskaya recalled, “M. F. Knypovych was my fianc О at the time, he was one of those dyed-in- the-wool Ukrainians, as they were called. In other words, he had a definite frame of mind; I also supported the idea that Ukraine had a right to have its own language. Mikhail was against Ukrainization, but of course received Knypovych as a friend of the family.”

The Bulgakovs made their home at 13 Andriyivsky uzviz since 1906 (the name of the street is Alekseyevsky in the White Guard). Theirs was a large, friendly, and hospitable family. They constantly played host to countless friends, close and distant relatives (one is immediately reminded of the Turbins). But then World War I came in August 1914, followed three years later by two revolutions, and the Bulgakov home felt their formidable approach. Once there is trouble, there always will be people to keep it going, Mikhail Bulgakov wrote. Generations of readers have been and will continue to be amazed at the endless chain of associations in the works of the great Kyivan.

(To be completed in the next issue)