The clinic in Bulgakov's The Master and
Margarita is actually a jail where the Master
converted talented poets into fools.

Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita:
the true content

by Alfred Barkov

Chapter III. Why the Master was not admitted to the Light

All positive about the Master in the Master and Margarita has been derived by the scholars from Master's own account. That only source of very critical information appears to be inconsistent and contradicting.

The 'infernal' number '13' of the chapter is being commented often, though superficially. Many cues important for the understanding of Bulgakov's idea have been unnoticed or rather neglected.

First of all, the title of the chapter is much more informative than it is traditionally considered. Its interpretation as The Appearance of the Hero does not represent specificity of the Russian word translated as appearance. Indeed, this chapter is the very first one from which the readers learn about the Master. Bulgakov intended to stress that the Master appears before Ivan Bezdomny rather than before readers, and that is performed with a word play. The thing is that of the many words employed in Russian for designating the act of arriving, Bulgakov choose the one possessing the sense attributed to designate an arrival of something superficial, in most cases infernal. The actual word Bulgakov employed is commonly used in colloquial Russian when Devil's arrival is meant. (According to the folk traditions, the Russians and the Ukrainians avoid mentioning the Devil directly. Instead, the words traditionally related to sinister are used.)

Besides mentioning the 'infernal' number of the chapter (13), nobody would ever deliberate the question of what is infernal in the chapter itself. Indeed, there are only two characters there, poet Ivan Bezdomny and the Master. Their conversation takes place in a tidy clinic ward. Everything looks clear and uncontaminated. And yet...

... The Master appears before the poet at midnight, against the background of the sinister moonlight. As any other diabolic creature, he leaves Bezdomny before sunrise. In the 1934-1936 version this same chapter describing the events in the clinic ward had the same number 13, and was titled slightly differently: The Midnight Appearance. That is, Bulgakov stressed the infernal character of the visit more expressly. The other different feature was that Bezdomny was visited not by the Master but by Woland the Devil. It is obvious that in the last versions of The Master and Margarita, the Master is endowed with the same diabolic functions as Devil Woland.

So, the hero did not just appear; he rather emerged from the inferno. This very important feature remains unnoticed by the scholars and translators.

Another important feature about the clinic is that it was mentioned by Bulgakov as not a clinic but as a jail. In one of the early variants of the chapter, the Master asked Bezdomny how he had got there. That phrase employs an ideomatic expression meaning 'being imprisoned' rather than 'being hospitalized' suggests that Bezdomny was placed not in a clinic ward but rather into a jail cell. Again, in an early version the premises where Bezdomny was detained were unequivocally designated with a word meaning only a jail cell, and in no case a clinic ward.

It is important also that the Master possessed the keys to the cells. He visited the prisoners and converted them into fools. Bulgakov demonstrates the sinister result of Master's visit with the case of poet Ivan Bezdomny.

I am afraid that irrespective of the quality of translations, the text should be supplemented with additional comments. The thing is that Bulgakov demonstrated the process of converting the poet into an idiot by employing specific elements of traditions of social communication among the Russians and the Ukrainians.

In Russia and in Ukraine, we refer to a person by his or her last name only on very official occasions, and only in cases when we are not going to demonstrate a least respect. When we tend to demonstrate some respect to a person we tend to use the combination of the first name and patronymic rather than the last name. In this very case, before getting a drug injection, poet Bezdomny is referred to with the most possible respect as Ivan Nikolayevich ('Ivan son of Nikolai').

After the injection, the situation considerably changes: in the narrative, the poet is referred to by his first name only, as Ivan. In the course of the Master's visit, the poet's status goes still more down to the lowest possible point: he is referred to as Ivanushka. This special form of the name Ivan denominates in Russian folklore a foolish person, an object of mockery. In daily communication, this form is used only when we sympathize with a lad deprived of wits.

This is the way in which Bulgakov demonstrates the results of the Soviet brainwashing. Bulgakov stresses that the Master is engaged by the Soviet system, and that he performs the same satanic functions as the satanic state system.

This feature remains unnoticed by the commentators, and the foreign readers are deprived of a possibility to grasp the gist of the 'infernal' 13th Chapter. For example, Mr. Kevin Moss the WEB-master of the Middlebury college beautiful The Master and Margarita WEB site comments this feature as follows:

Unfortunately, in this case the first and the most important usage in Chapter 13 of the name Ivanushka is disregarded.

The sobriquet Ivanushka is mentioned again in Chapter 19 in a construction aimed to remind the readers that the poet has become an Ivanushka the Fool in the course of the Master's visit.

Last updated: Nov. 06, 2002
© A. Barkov 2002

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