scholarly journals The Motive of Peace in the Works of B. Pasternak and M. Bulgakov

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 761-770
Author(s):  
Li Fei ◽  
Maria S. Rudenko

The concept of peace entered into Russian culture from the Bible and became its important spiritual tradition. With the development of secular literature, peace has gradually come out of the sacred field and become the significant aesthetic concept rich in connotation. In their works, Pasternak and Bulgakov reflect on the peace in the field of existence and art, especially the ontological value of family and love, thoughts about history, death and creativity. The concept of memory plays an important role in the artistic world of the two writers. Bulgakovs and Pasternaks books are testimony to rebirth and immortality, which is the way they participate in the sacred cause. The paper analyzes the place and role of the motive of peace in the novels of B. Pasternak Doctor Zhivago and M. Bulgakov The Master and Margarita in their similarities and differences. In this regard, the images of the house, music, creativity as the focus of the artists world are compared, the typological related figures of the beloved muse and the savior are considered, the specificity of the disclosure of the theme of immortality in creativity is noted.

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-220
Author(s):  
John Ranieri

A major theme in René Girard’s work involves the role of the Bible in exposing the scapegoating practices at the basis of culture. The God of the Bible is understood to be a God who takes the side of victims. The God of the Qur’an is also a defender of victims, an idea that recurs throughout the text in the stories of messengers and prophets. In a number of ways, Jesus is unique among the prophets mentioned in the Qur’an. It is argued here that while the Quranic Jesus is distinctly Islamic, and not a Christian derivative, he functions in the Qur’an in a way analogous to the role Jesus plays in the gospels. In its depiction of Jesus, the Qur’an is acutely aware of mimetic rivalry, scapegoating, and the God who comes to the aid of the persecuted. Despite the significant differences between the Christian understanding of Jesus as savior and the way he is understood in the Qur’an, a Girardian interpretation of the Qur’anic Jesus will suggest ways in which Jesus can be a bridge rather than an obstacle in Christian/Muslim dialogue.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (33A) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Veronica Razumovskaya

The paper deals with the original inexhaustibility and translation multiplicity as new literary translation categories. Particular attention is paid to the information ambiguity of “strong” literary texts, which directly results in the generation of numerous centres of translation attraction. A “strong” text of Russian culture The Master and Margarita and its secondary texts resulting from the performed interlingual and intersemiotic translations served as the material for the present study. The centre of translation attraction, which is formed from the Bulgakov’s text, is considered from the standpoint of translation theory and literary criticism, which corresponds to the universal scientific principle of complementarity and provides a complementary approach to the “strong” text as a research object. The formation and further functioning of the centres of translation attraction is of particular interest in the case of using a “strong” literary text of Russian culture as an attractor of literary translation due to the traditional literocentrism of the Russian culture. Numerous translations of the novel provides “expendability” of a culturally significant text in the temporal and cultural spaces and serve as a guarantee of its “preservation” and survival.


2010 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Pink

AbstractThis paper analyses the genre of contemporary tafsīr, focussing on the attitude of modern Sunnite exegetes towards Jews and Christians, on the role of different strands of tradition and of ideological bias for their interpretion of the Qur'ān, and on the similarities and differences between Qur'ānic commentaries from different regions of the Muslim word. It is based on the study of seventeen Qur'ānic commentaries from the Arab World, Indonesia and Turkey that have been published since 1967. The analysis of the authors' background reveals that in recent times, Qur'ānic commentaries tend to be written by professional male 'ulamā' from a provincial background, usually holding a faculty position in Islamic theology. As most exegetes' aim is to stress the timeless relevance of the Qur'ān, few of the commentaries make direct reference to contemporary events. Still, many of them are, in a very modern way, more concerned with providing religious guidance than with explaining the Qur'ān's meaning. However, the “traditional” explanatory approach is still alive, predominantly in commentators who are affiliated with Egypt's Azhar University. Besides the tradition of premodern Sunnite tafsīr, which all commentaries build on to a certain extent, Salafī exegesis is clearly influential in the way in which several commentaries strive at disassociating themselves from Christians and Jews and at building up a dichotomy between “us” and “them” in their exegesis of Q 5:51, which contains an interdiction against taking Christians and Jews as awliyā' (a term that is variably understood as meaning friends, allies, intimates, confidants, helpers, or leaders). It is striking that Arab commentators, for the most part, show a much more hostile attitude towards Christians and Jews than their Indonesian and Turkish counterparts.


Slavic Review ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 766-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Rann

This article examines Vladimir Maiakovskii's frequent references to statues and monuments in his poetry in relation to traditions of iconoclasm in Russian culture in order not only to shed light on the poet's attitude toward the role of the past in the creation of a new culture but also to investigate the way in which the destruction, relocation, and transformation of monuments, both in the urban landscape and in art, reflects political change in Russia. James Rann demonstrates that, while Maiakovskii often invoked a binary iconoclastic discourse in which creation necessitates destruction, his poetry also articulated a more nuanced vision of cultural change through the symbol of the moving monument: the statue is preserved but also transformed and liberated. Finally, an analysis of “Vo ves' golos” shows how Maiakovskii's myth of the statue helped him articulate his relationship to Soviet power and to his own poetic legacy.


Slavic Review ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. F. Pope

Perhaps the most mysterious and elusive figure in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is Afranius, a man who has been in Judea for fifteen years working in the Roman imperial service as chief of the procurator of Judea's secret police. He is present in all four Judean chapters of the novel (chapters 2, 16, 25, 26) as one of the myriad connecting links, though we really do not know who he is for certain until near the end of the third of these chapters, “How the Procurator Tried to Save Judas of Karioth.” We first meet him in chapter 2 (which is related by Woland and entitled “Pontius Pilate”) simply as “some man” (kakoi-to chelovek), face half-covered by a hood, in a darkened room in the palace of Herod the Great, having a brief whispered conversation with Pilate, who has just finished his fateful talk with Caiaphas (E, p. 39; R, pp. 50-51). Fourteen chapters later, in the chapter dreamed by Ivan Bezdomnyi and entitled “The Execution” (chapter 16), we meet him for the second time, now bringing up the rear of the convoy escorting the prisoners to Golgotha and identified only as “that same hooded man with whom Pilate had briefly conferred in a darkened room of the palace” (E, p. 170; R, p. 218). “The hooded man” attends the entire execution sitting in calm immobility on a three-legged stool, “occasionally out of boredom poking the sand with a stick” (E, p. 172; R, p. 220). When the Tribune of the Cohort arrives, presumably bearing Pilate's orders to terminate the execution, he (the Tribune) speaks first to Krysoboi (Muribellum), who goes to pass on the orders to the executioners, and then to “the man on the three-legged stool,” according to whose gestures the executioners arouse Yeshua from his stupor, offer him a drink which he avidly accepts, and then kill him by piercing him “gently” (tikhon'ko) through his heart with a spear.


Author(s):  
James P. Byrd

This chapter narrates the role of the Bible in the secession crisis that erupted after Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860. While Benjamin Morgan Palmer and other southerners saw slavery as “a divine trust,” many northerners agreed with Lincoln’s quotation of scripture—“A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand,” meaning the nation could not endure if it remained divided over slavery. In response, southerners scoured the scriptures for arguments to support white supremacy, fearing that many non-slaveholding whites in the South would refuse to support secession. In all, the Bible contributed to the righteous indignation on both sides, helping to pave the way for war.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (XXIII) ◽  
pp. 107-117
Author(s):  
Monika Sadowska

The first edition of one of the most important and mysterious novels of the 20th century appeared more than fifty years ago. Despite the passage of time The Master and Margarita still enjoys popularity; it also intrigues and inspires. Until now five Polish translations of Bulgakov’s novel have appeared. It is known that the interpretation of the original might be expressed in the form of many potential texts that are communicatively equivalent. There is no doubt that it is the translator who plays a vital role in any translation; her/his personality, life experience, knowledge, skills, and also the times s/he lives in regulate the target text. That is why, no matter how many times a text is translated, the final product will always be different. Taking this into consideration, the author will compare the three Polish translations of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, paying attention to the diachronic perspective as far as linguistic norms are concerned, the modernity of language, and the way the anthroponyms are expressed.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-201
Author(s):  
Markus Ekkehard Locker

Speaking of truth inescapably confronts us with paradoxes, i.e., correct deductive propositions like a Cretan claiming that all Cretans lie which (due to negative systemic self-reference) end up as circular contradictions, indeterminable questions, or dilemmas. Faced with the numerous paradoxical statements (apparently 82) found in the Bible, the German Protestant reformer Sebastian Franck (14991542), for example, conceded that any truth of God cannot be found in language but only in the immediate silent experience of God. Likewise, believers in an uncompromising search for true facts about this world would certainly agree with (though arguably misappropriate) Wittgenstein in claiming that Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Paradoxes this article claims must neither be feared, nor avoided, nor become subject to hopeless attempts in searching for logic solutions. Paradoxes lead the way to truth in demonstrating that questions of truth, or truth claims, cannot be adequately addressed within the same system of communication (ortho-system) in which they are raised. The encounter with paradoxes (e.g., a God who creates but is uncreated) elevates language and communication onto a meta-level (or system) of communication in which new means (like for instance Gdel's numbering) are needed to speak of what is real but apparently cannot be true. These means, however, will turn out to be likewise paradoxes that furthermore call for new and creative ways of speaking of such truths that previously could not be communicated. The creative admission of paradoxes into communication philosophy will not solve age-old problems or dilemmas; however, it will playfully open up the conversation of science with religion to the creative means of the arts were truth is not argued but performed in paradoxes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-424
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Martinon

AbstractAs is well known, the biblical sixth commandment, “Thou shall not kill”, is intimately linked to the First Commandment, “I am the Lord”. By linking the two at the top of Moses's two-column table, language is given priority: the name of God can be uttered only when the possibility of death has been set aside. In this way, the linking of these two commandments marks not only the birth of language, but also, more importantly, the start of ethics. As such, commandments one and six form the basis of practically all Western ethics from Kant's categorical imperative (the unconditional maxim needs a First Word to enter into force) to Lyotard's language games (for which all utterances are charged with the moral imperative to respond), for example. But how on earth does this famous linguistic and ethical structure fare in a context whereby the written text is not given priority, in a situation where prohibitions are inherited orally? This paper will attempt to expose the thorny issue of the role of the sixth commandment in the context of Rwanda. This will imply neither the exposition of the history of the arrival of the Bible in Rwanda nor the way it helped to consolidate the colonial regime. This paper will also not examine the neglect of the prohibition against murder during the genocide of 1994. Instead, the essay will examine the linguistic and cultural problems one faces when determining the birth of ethics in two radically different contexts.


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