MONSTROS, MÁQUINAS E OUTRAS CRIATURAS. A DISTOPIA E O SUBLIME EM DUAS FICÇÕES DE MIKHAIL BULGÁKOV

Partindo das estratégias narrativas que confluem em uma linguagem distópica, neste artigo analisar-se-á a interação do sublime como componente presente em dois romances breves do escritor russo Mikhail Bulgákov (1891-1940), Um coração de cachorro (Собачье сердце, 1925) e Os ovos fatais (Роковые яйца, 1925). O imaginário do escritor russo se serviu do monstruoso e do sinistro para denunciar a máquina burocrática soviética. Além de destacar a presença de elementos narrativos grotescos e satíricos, que interpretam, sui generis, a situação política da União Soviética dos anos 20 do século XX, observa-se uma pulsão extremamente moderna do sublime, pelo viés de ruptura de uma homogeneização utópica, que aponta para os signos de uma realidade reveladora de profundas aflições existenciais.

The great social experiment: when dreams did not turn into reality

The great social experiment in building socialism, which was supposed to develop into communism, was based on a number of attractive political myths, for the creation of which a special symbolic universe was created, a wide range of various sign systems were involved, among which language played the most important role: as a means of creating a political myth and the means of its constant feeding (the myth-making function of the language). This allowed (in conjunction with other means of subjugating the totalitarian state) for a long period to manipulate the consciousness of the masses, educating the younger generation in the given ideological framework. However, being the most important means of creating myths, language at the same time has enormous potential for its destruction. An analysis of texts criticizing the political ideology prevailing in the Soviet empire allowed us to single out two main types of myth-destroying texts: 1) texts criticizing the existing order (anecdotes, caricatures, parodies, political fables, etc.) and 2) texts that destroy the “information vacuum» (photographic documents, archival documents, autobiographies, etc.). The artistic works of dissidents of socialist ideology (Vladimir Vysotsky, Nikolai Guberman, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Mikhail Bulgakov, etc.), which often combined both functions, had a special appellative-influencing force. Analysis of the role of language in the creation of myth as a socio-cultural phenomenon on the example of the myths of the Soviet era in the context of modern globalization of knowledge and the interdisciplinary scientific paradigm demonstrated the semiotic mechanism of myth creation and the dynamics of their destruction.

Mystical Metaprose of the 20th Century: genesis and metamorphosis (Herman Hesse — Vladimir Nabokov — Mikhail Bulgakov)

The book by Doctor Philology Zlotchevskaya A. V. deals with the phenomenon of “mystical metaprose” of the 20th century. The study is built on the laws of logic: description of phenomenon and its genesis, aesthetic strategy of the three writers, genre model, poetics. The author points out the creative similarity of three writers in their approach to aesthetic and metaphysical problems, their tragic-comic view of the world. The book is addressed to a broad spectrum of intellectuals, primarily scholars and university students of philology, as well as all those interested in the works of Hesse, Nabokov and Bulgakov.

The Category of Deviation in the Novel The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

This research deals with revealing various linguistic units: lexemes and collocations within the framework of semantic fields of notional components of the category of deviation that are reflected in the works of professional translators, Michael Glenny, Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov in the English language. The author takes the method of conceptual analysis of the linguistic units of expressing different parts of semantic fields of components of the mental unit of deviation in English as the basic one here. Lexemes and collocations are also the focus of a contextual method of reviewing the translators’ approaches to the linguistic units of the work under analysis. Different semantic spheres based on personal and professional experience of Michael Glenny, Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky reflect the category of deviation in translations of the novel under study. This category includes the central part and periphery. The central part implies the lexemes and collocations of neutral-bookish style, and the periphery means lexical units of informal style. The author also distinguishes the interpretative field within the semantic fields of the category of deviation. The results given in this article can be a basis for comparative analysis of translations within one language or as a source of a contrastive analysis of literary works.

On the origins of the crowd scenes in the novel “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov

The article deals with the roots of the crowd scenes in “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov, focusing on such motifs of the novel as death's head hawkmoth and theatrical motifs. The origins of the crowd scenes in Mikhail Bulgakov’s literary work are all connected with the mentioned three motifs. The researcher uses information from the little-known literary, historical, and cultural sources. These include, firstly, the occult works of the Fin de siècle writers, such as novels “The Gloomy House Mystery” and “The New Power” written by the “Criminal Novel Master” Aleksandr Tsehanovich (1862-1896); the play “The Fair God” by David Aizman (who has been justly called “Chekhov of the Jews”) (1860-1922); the story “The Succubus” written by the Belgian writer Antoine Louis Camille Lemonnier. “A House in a Delirium” by a German prose writer W.Hollander. Second, these include literary work by a Soviet writer: story “The Condemned” by Mikhail Kozakov. Third, an important role belongs to sketches from the “The Red Panorama” journal: “The Footsteps Leading Westward” by Jānis Larri, “Travelling from Resort to Resort: Yalta” by D. Gorodinskiy. The plots and details of the named works had a great influence on Mikhail Bulgakov and inspired him while writing such chapters of the novel as “Never Talk with Strangers”, “The Seventh Proof”, “The Chase”, “Praise Be to the Rooster”, “News from Yalta”, “Black Magic and Its Exposure”, “Nikanor Ivanovich’s Dream”, “The Great Ball at Satan's” and some fragments of the auxiliary plot connected with the figure of Pontius Pilate.

A “ideia plana” e a repulsa ao Outro

Buscamos analisar a forma da ideia que move o discurso do presidente do Brasil, Jair Bolsonaro, e dos seus filhos. Incluímos os filhos do presidente por conta de uma característica peculiar do atual governo brasileiro: os filhos, Flávio, Carlos e Eduardo, participam ativamente dos negócios da República, sejam influenciando o pai em decisões administrativas, por exemplo, na nomeação e queda de ministros, ou atuando juntos nas redes sociais da família com mensagens aos seus seguidores. Partimos das noções de verdade e opinião dos filósofos Leszek Kolakowski, John Dewey e Hannah Arendt; construímos a noção de “ideia plana” a partir das obras de Roland Barthes e Anselm Strauss e incorporamos a visão de autoritarismo pela literatura de Vassili Grossman, Edwin A. Abbot e Mikhail Bulgákov. Nosso trabalho apresenta a forma “plana” da ideia tanto como uma visada do populismo bolsonarista, de fácil comunicação de sentidos, quanto do seu traço autoritário, posto ser forma fechada ao diálogo democrático. Ideia no singular porque remete à verdade única, não admitindo que outras “ideias” possam conviver no mundo da vida.

Classics and modernity in the creative consciousness of Mikhail Bulgakov

The article presents the experience of analytical reading of M.A. Bulgakovs novel The Master and Margarita. The purpose of the work is to clarify the authors attitude to modern literature and to the forms of its implementation in the modern ideological context. Based on the structural and typological relationships, the author reveals the architectonic scheme of the novel, which determines the plot features of the composition. Concepts and activators of the plot action are the images of Bezdomny, Berlioz and the Master. They associatively focus on other characters comparable to them (writers, ideologists, mystics, etc.), as well as numerous prototypes, including V. Mayakovsky, S. Yesenin, M. Gorky, V. Lenin, etc. The prototypes of the novel are organized in such a way that they denote not only the contextual contour of the work, but also its conceptual certainty. The cryptological reading of the novel, taking into account the ratio of contour and conceptual prototypes, clarifies the authors attitude to modern phenomena and to modernity itself as a holistic phenomenon. The authors criterion of historical, social and cultural manifestations of modernity is the classical measure.