Fatal Eggs (1924) is a story written by Mikhail Bulgakov in a special period of the country's cultural life. Then many works were created only in order to motivate a wide range of the population to perform the tasks necessary for the country's survival in critical conditions. Therefore, many different one-day authors appeared, whose creations did not linger in the memory of readers. Not only art, but also science was put on stream. Then all the advanced inventions went to the service of industry and agriculture, increasing their efficiency. But scientific thought on the part of the Soviet government was subjected to ideological control, which (among other things) makes fun of Bulgakov in Fatal Eggs.
The story was created in 1924, and the events in it unfold in 1928. The first publication took place in the Nedra magazine (No. 6, 1925). The work had different names - at first "Ray of Life", in addition, there was one more - "Professor Persikov's Eggs" (the meaning of this name was to preserve the satirical tone of the story), but for ethical reasons this name had to be changed.
The central figure of the story - Professor Persikov, distantly contains some features of real prototypes - the doctors-brothers of the Pokrovsky, Bulgakov's relatives, one of whom lived and worked on Prechistenka.
In addition, the text does not just mention the Smolensk province, in which the events of the "Fatal Eggs" unfold: Bulgakov worked there as a doctor and came to the Pokrovskys' Moscow apartment for a short time. The situation of the Soviet country during the period of War Communism also comes from real life: then there were food interruptions due to the unstable socio-political situation, unrest occurred in management structures due to lack of professionalism, and the new government was not yet fully able to control social life. ...
Bulgakov in "Fatal Eggs" ridicules both the cultural and socio-political situation of the country after the revolutionary coup.
Genre and direction
The genre of the work "Fatal Eggs" is a story. It is characterized by a minimal number of plot lines and, as a rule, a relatively small amount of narration (relative to the novel).
Direction - modernism. Although the events outlined by Bulgakov are fantastic, the action takes place in a real place, the characters (not only Professor Persikov, but everyone else) are also quite viable citizens of the new country. And a scientific discovery is not fabulous, it only has fantastic consequences. But on the whole, the story is realistic, although some of its elements are painted grotesquely, satirically.
This combination of fantasy, realism and satire is characteristic of modernism, when the author sets up bold experiments on a literary work, bypassing the established classical norms and canons.
The modernist trend itself appeared in the special conditions of social and cultural life, when the old genres and trends began to become obsolete, and art required new forms, new ideas and ways of expression. "Fatal Eggs" was just such a work that met modernist requirements.
About what?
"Fatal Eggs" is a story about a brilliant discovery of a scientist - professor of zoology Persikov, which ended in tears, both for those around him and for the scientist himself. The hero opens a beam in his laboratory, which can only be obtained with a special combination of mirrored glasses with beams of light. This ray affects living organisms so that they increase and begin to multiply at an uncanny rate. Professor Persikov and his assistant Ivanov are in no hurry to release their discovery "into the light" and believe that it is still necessary to work on it and conduct additional experiments, since the consequences can be unexpected and even dangerous. However, sensational information about the "ray of life" quickly penetrates the press, recorded by the semi-literate but lively journalist Bronsky, and, filled with false, unverified facts, spreads in society.
The discovery against the will of the scientist becomes known. Persikov is harassed by journalists on Moscow streets, demanding to tell about the invention. It becomes impossible to work in the laboratory because of the barrage of press workers, even a spy comes, who for five thousand rubles tries to find out the secret of the beam from the professor.
After that, the NKVD guards the house and laboratory of Persikov, not letting in the journalists and thus providing the professor with a calm working environment. But soon an epidemic of chicken infection occurs in the country, because of which people are categorically forbidden to eat chickens, eggs, sell live chickens and chicken meat. An extraordinary commission has even been set up to combat chicken plague. But bypassing the law, someone still sells chicken and eggs, and soon an ambulance arrives for buyers of these products.
The country is agitated. On the occasion of the epidemic, topical works are created that meet the momentary mood of the public. When it begins to subside, Professor Persikov, with a special document from the Kremlin, is visited by the head of an exemplary state farm by the name of Rokk, who, with the help of the "ray of life", intends to resume chicken breeding.
The document from the Kremlin turns out to be an order to advise Rocca on the use of the "ray of life", and a call from the Kremlin immediately rings. Persikov is categorically opposed to using the beam, which has not yet been fully studied, in chicken breeding, but he has to give Rokk cameras with which he can get the desired effect. The hero takes the cameras to a state farm in the Smolensk province and orders chicken eggs.
Soon, three boxes of eggs, unusual in appearance, spotted, come in overseas packaging. Rokk puts the resulting eggs under the beam and tells the guard to watch them so that no one steals the hatched chickens. The next day, eggshells are found, but no chickens. The caretaker blames the watchman for everything, although he swears that he closely watched the process.
In the last chamber, the eggs are still intact, and Rocke hopes that at least they will hatch into chickens. He decided to take a break and goes with his wife Manya to swim in the pond. On the shore of the pond, he notices a strange calm, and then a huge snake rushes at Manya and devours it right in front of her husband. From this he turns gray and almost falls into madness.
A strange news reaches the GPU that something strange is going on in the Smolensk province. Two agents of the GPU - Shchukin and Polaitis go to the state farm and find there a distraught Rock, who cannot really explain anything.
Agents inspect the state farm building - the former estate of Sheremetev, and find chambers with a reddish ray and hordes of huge snakes, reptiles and ostriches in the greenhouse. Shchukin and Polaitis die in a battle with monsters.
The editorial offices of newspapers receive strange reports from the Smolensk province about strange birds the size of a horse, huge reptiles and snakes, and Professor Persikov receives boxes of chicken eggs. At the same time, the scientist and his assistant see a sheet with an emergency message about anacondas in the Smolensk province. It immediately turns out that the orders of Rokka and Persikov were mixed up: the caretaker received snake and ostrich, and the inventor received chicken.
Persikov by that time invents a special poison for killing toads, which then comes in handy for fighting huge snakes and ostriches.
Red Army units armed with gas are fighting this scourge, but Moscow is still alarmed and many are about to flee the city.
Distraught people rush into the institute where the professor works, destroy his laboratory, blaming him for all the troubles and thinking that it was he who released huge snakes, they kill his watchman Pankrat, the housekeeper Marya Stepanovna and himself. Then they set the institute on fire.
In August 1928, a frost suddenly sets in, which kills the last snakes and crocodiles that were not finished off by special detachments. After the epidemics that were caused by the rotting of the corpses of snakes and people affected by the invasion of reptiles, the usual spring comes by 1929.
The beam opened by the late Persikov can no longer be received by anyone, not even his former assistant Ivanov, now an ordinary professor.
The main characters and their characteristics
- Vladimir Ipatievich Persikov- a genius scientist, professor of zoology, who discovered a unique ray. The hero opposes the use of the beam, because its discovery has not yet been verified and investigated. He is cautious, does not like unnecessary fuss and believes that any invention requires many years of testing before the time comes for its exploitation. Because of interference in his activities, the work of his entire life perishes with him. The image of Persikov symbolizes humanism and the ethics of scientific thinking, which are destined to perish under the conditions of the Soviet dictatorship. A lonely talent is opposed to an unenlightened and led crowd that has no opinion of its own, drawing it from the newspapers. According to Bulgakov, it is impossible to build a developed and just state without an intellectual and cultural elite, who were expelled from the USSR by stupid and cruel people who have neither the knowledge nor the talent to build the country on their own.
- Pyotr Stepanovich Ivanov- Assistant Professor Persikov, who helps him in his experiments and admires his new discovery. However, he is not such a talented scientist, so he does not manage to get a "ray of life" after the death of the professor. This is the image of an opportunist who is always ready to appropriate the achievements of a truly significant person, even if he has to step over his corpse.
- Alfred Arkadievich Bronsky- an ubiquitous, fast, dexterous journalist, semi-literate employee of many Soviet magazines and newspapers. He was the first to enter Persikov's apartment and learn about his unusual discovery, then spread this news everywhere against the will of the professor, embellishing and distorting the facts.
- Alexander Semyonovich Rokk- a former revolutionary, and now the head of the state farm "Krasny Luch". Uneducated, rude, but cunning person. He attends the report of Professor Persikov, where he talks about the "ray of life" he discovered, and he comes up with the idea to restore the chicken population after the epidemic with the help of this invention. Rock, due to illiteracy, does not realize the full danger of such an innovation. This is a symbol of a new type of people, tailored according to the standards of the new government. A dependent, stupid, cowardly, but, as they say, "punchy" citizen who plays only according to the rules of the Soviet state: he runs around the authorities, seeks permission, by hook or by crook tries to adapt to the new requirements.
Themes
- The central theme is the carelessness of people in handling new scientific inventions and a lack of understanding of the danger of the consequences of such treatment. People like Rocca are narrow minded and want to get things done by any means. They do not care what will happen after, they are only interested in the momentary benefit from what may turn into a collapse tomorrow.
- The second theme is social: the confusion in governance structures that can cause any disaster. After all, if the uneducated Rokk was not allowed to manage the state farm, the catastrophe would not have happened.
- The third theme is impunity and the huge influence of the media, the irresponsible pursuit of sensations.
- The fourth topic is ignorance, which resulted in many people not understanding the cause-and-effect relationship and unwillingness to understand it (they blame Professor Persikov for the disaster that has come, although in fact Rock and the authorities who helped him are to blame).
Problematic
- The problem of authoritarian power and its destructive influence on all spheres of society. Science should be separated from the state, but this was impossible under the conditions of Soviet power: distorted and simplified science, suppressed by ideology, was demonstrated to all people with the help of newspapers, magazines and other media.
- In addition, the "Fatal Eggs" discusses a social problem, which consists in the unsuccessful attempt of the Soviet system to combine the scientific intelligentsia and the rest of the population, far from science in general. It is not for nothing that the story shows how an NKVD officer (in fact, a representative of the authorities), protecting Persikov from journalists and spies, finds a common language with a simple and illiterate guard Pankrat. The author implies that they are on the same intellectual level with him: the only difference is that one has a special badge under the collar of his jacket, while the other does not. The author hints at how imperfect such a government is, where insufficiently educated people try to control what they themselves do not really understand.
- An important problem of the story is the irresponsibility of the totalitarian government to society, which is symbolized by Rocca's careless handling of the "ray of life", where Rocco himself is power, "ray of life" is the state's means of influencing people (ideology, propaganda, control), and reptiles, reptiles and ostriches hatched from eggs - society itself, whose consciousness is distorted and damaged. A completely different, more reasonable and rational way of managing society is symbolized by Professor Persikov and his scientific experiments, which require caution, taking into account all the subtleties and attentiveness. However, it is this method that is eradicated and disappears altogether, because the crowd is aware and does not want to independently understand the intricacies of politics.
Meaning
"Fatal eggs" is a kind of satire on the Soviet regime, on its imperfection due to its novelty. The USSR is like one big invention, not tested by experience, and therefore dangerous for society, an invention that no one knows how to handle so far, due to which various malfunctions, failures and catastrophes occur. Society in "Fatal Eggs" is experimental animals in the laboratory, subjected to irresponsible and unscrupulous experiments, which clearly serve not to benefit, but to harm. Uneducated people are allowed to manage this laboratory, they are entrusted with serious tasks, which they cannot perform due to their inability to navigate in social, scientific and other spheres of life. As a result, from the experimental citizens, moral monsters can turn out, which will lead to irreversible catastrophic consequences for the country. At the same time, the unenlightened crowd ruthlessly attacks those who can really help them overcome difficulties, who know how to use an invention of a national scale. The intellectual elite is being exterminated, but there is no one to replace it. It is very symbolic that after the death of Persikov, no one can restore the invention that was lost with him.
Criticism
A. A. Platonov (Klimentov), considered this work as a symbol of the implementation of revolutionary processes. According to Platonov, Persikov is the creator of the revolutionary idea, his assistant Ivanov is the one who implements this idea, and Rokk is the one who decided for his own benefit to use the idea of revolution in a distorted form, and not as it should be (for the general benefit) - as a result, everyone suffered. The characters in the Fatal Eggs behave as Otto von Bismarck (1871 - 1898) once described: "The revolution is prepared by geniuses, carried out by fanatics, and the fruits of it are used by crooks." Some critics believed that "Fatal Eggs" were written by Bulgakov for fun, but members of the RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers) reacted negatively to the book, quickly considering the political background in this work.
The philologist Boris Sokolov (b. 1957) tried to find out what prototypes Professor Persikov had: it could be the Soviet biologist Alexander Gurvich, but if we proceed from the political meaning of the story, then this is Vladimir Lenin.
Interesting? Keep it on your wall!The story "Fatal Eggs" was written by Bulgakov in 1924. Already publishing the story in an abridged form in four issues of the magazine "Krasnaya Panorama" (1925), Bulgakov changed the name from "Ray of Life" to "Fatal Eggs". Completely the story was published in the magazine "Nedra" No. 6 for 1925, in the same year it was included in the collection "Devil's Day".
Literary direction and genre
The story belongs to the modernist direction in literature. Bulgakov transfers the fantastic events taking place in it to the near future (1928). Thanks to this, the story acquires the features of a dystopia, in which the events of Soviet life and the achievements of Soviet science are satirically interpreted.
Problematic
In the satirical story, the main social problem is the future of the country. Bulgakov casts doubt on the viability of the new state, nevertheless hoping that after the "invasion of reptiles", epidemics and diseases, the country can recover.
Philosophical problems are also raised: the role of chance in human life and history, personality in history.
Plot and composition
The events of the story have a clear chronological framework and accuracy characteristic of the chronicles. The beginning of the events falls on April 16 (the day after Easter in 1928), and the invasion ends on the night of August 19-20 (the day after the Transfiguration). Such hints of the resurrection (in this case, something diabolical) and the transformation of the world, its return to its former imperfect, but normal state, embody Bulgakov's hope for a possible return to the former "normal" pre-revolutionary life.
The age of the professor is precisely indicated (58 years old), the year when his wife ran away from Persikov, unable to bear his frogs.
Professor of zoology Persikov, who specializes in amphibians, accidentally discovers a ray generated by refraction in the lenses of a microscope, under the influence of which living organisms grow to unusual sizes and multiply intensively. Soon, an epidemic of chicken disease is wiping out all chickens in the country. The chairman of the Krasny Luch state farm, who wants to quickly restore poultry farming in the republic, having secured paper from the Kremlin, temporarily takes away from the professor three cameras that generate the beam.
The animals at the institute have a premonition of unkindness: the toads are raising a concert, chirping "ominously and warningly." When Rokk begins to illuminate the eggs with a red beam, dogs howl on the state farm and frogs tear, then the birds fly away from the surrounding groves, and the frogs disappear from the pond. They seem to know about an error that Rokk does not know about, having received a parcel from abroad intended for Persikov. The eggs first hatch into two anacondas 15 arshins in length and width from a person. One of them swallows Rokk's fat wife Manya, after which Rokk turns gray and runs to the Dugino station with a request to send him to Moscow.
An agent of the state political administration perishes in a fight with snakes and crocodiles crawling out of the greenhouse. Reptiles threaten Smolensk, which burns in a fire from stoves left in panic. Animals move to Moscow, laying a huge number of eggs along the way. Gold reserves and works of art are hastily removed from Moscow, which has declared martial law. A cavalry army was sent to fight the animals, three-quarters of which died near Mozhaisk, and gas detachments, which poisoned a huge number of people.
An angry mob kills Persikov and destroys his cell, while three cells at the Krasny Luch state farm die in the fire.
Chicken plague, and then an invasion of reptiles are presented in the story as a fatal disaster, a punishment for an entire country. Evidence of this is the boundaries of the chicken pestilence. In the north and east, the pestilence was stopped by the sea, and in the south by the steppe. But surprising is the fact that the plague stopped at the border of Poland and Romania. Words about the different climate of these places hint at the real reason - a different political system, over which the diseases of the Soviet state have no control.
The invasion of reptiles (a word that speaks and, undoubtedly, Bulgakov associated with the events of the revolution and civil war) was stopped by severe frosts, which cannot be in nature at that time. This is a symbol of help from above, only God can stop the Soviet danger creeping into the country like huge reptiles. No wonder the frost struck on the night after the religious holiday of the Transfiguration of the Lord (among the people of the Savior).
It was not possible to restore the cameras without Persikov, apparently because they were made on the devil's instigation.
Heroes of the story
Professor Vladimir Ipatievich Persikov- a genius focused on science. He is a professor of zoology at the university and director of the zoological institute on Herzen Street.
The professor's appearance is unsympathetic, even repulsive or funny. Bulgakov ironically calls the head wonderful: "bald, pusher." Bulgakov draws attention to details such as the protruding lower lip, which gave the face a capricious shade, a red nose, old-fashioned glasses, and a squeaky croaking voice. Persikov had a habit of twisting his index finger to explain something.
Detachment from the outside world, as well as the faithful housekeeper Marya Stepanovna, allow the professor to survive the most difficult, hungry and coldest years. But this same detachment makes him a misanthrope. Even the death of his own wife, who left Persikov 15 years ago, seems to leave him indifferent.
Ordinary people are frightened by Persikov, they talk to him "with respect and horror", or with a smile, as with a small, albeit large, child. Persikov is dual in nature, he only partly refers to the world of people, and partly to the other world. In a word, Persikov is an almost demonic creature, therefore he is far from life and is not interested in it.
Persikov loses his human appearance when he learns that two batches of eggs are mixed up. He becomes multi-colored, bluish-white, with multi-colored eyes. On the other hand, there is something mechanical in Persikov: he acts and speaks automatically and monotonously, calling Pankrat in case of danger.
Alexander Semyonovich Rokk- Head of the demonstration state farm "Krasny Luch", located in Nikolsk, Smolensk province.
This hero has a speaking surname. When Pankrat informs Persikov that Rock has come to him with a paper from the Kremlin, Persikov is surprised that rock can come and bring the paper from the Kremlin. Rock is dressed old-fashioned, with an old-fashioned Mauser on his side in a yellow holster.
Rocca's face makes an extremely unpleasant impression on everyone. Small eyes look amazed and confident, the face is bluish-shaven.
Rokk until 17 served as a flutist in the concert ensemble of maestro Petukhov, performed in the cinema "Magic Dreams" in the city of Yekaterinoslavl. The revolution showed that "this man is positively great."
Persikov immediately guesses that Rokk with the eggs "the devil knows what he will do." The guys in the End call Rocca the Antichrist, and the eggs are devilish, they even want to kill him. At the end of the story, Rock disappeared into an unknown place, which once again proves its devilish nature.
Stylistic features
There are many hidden meanings in the story. The subtext is in the title itself. The original name "Ray of Life" is ironic, because the red ray invented by the professor turns out to be just the ray of death that threatens the whole country. This name has something in common with the name of the state farm, from where all the misfortunes began - "Red Ray". The name "Fatal eggs" is symbolic, the egg as the beginning and symbol of life turns out to be fatal as a result of an error and turns the life (reptiles) born in it into death for people.
The egg and chicken become the subject of ridicule of the heroes and irony of the author. The inscription "Burning chicken corpses on Khodynka" evokes the reader's memory of the Khodyn tragedy with a huge number of victims, which happened through the fault of the authorities (this is how chickens become innocent victims for people).
People laugh at death, turning the chicken pestilence into the subject of jokes, carnival. The coupletists sing a vulgar song: "Oh, Mom, what am I going to do Without eggs? ..", a slogan appears addressed to foreign capitalists: "Do not bury yourself on our eggs - you have your own." Grammatical and stylistic mistakes neutralize the tragic nature of the play "Chicken Dokh" and the inscription on the egg store "For quality guarantee". The literary work "Chicken children" is immediately associated with the rude "sons of bitches".
Rocca's question, asked by phone to Persikov, is also ambiguous: "Should I wash the eggs, professor?"
To create a comic effect, Bulgakov actively uses cliches and clichés of the official business style, creating unimaginable names for emergency commissions (Dobrokur). Bulgakov gives his characters speaking surnames. The head of the livestock department under the Supreme Commission is called Ptakha-Porosyuk (a hint of the food program).
The main techniques for creating a comic in a story are irony and grotesque.
"FATAL EGGS"
The story. Published: Nedra, Moscow, 1925, No. 6. Included in collections: M. Bulgakov Diavoliada. Moscow: Nedra, 1925 (2nd ed. - 1926); and Bulgakov M. Fatal eggs. Riga: Literature, 1928. In an abbreviated form under the title "Ray of Life" the story of R. Ya. published: Krasnaya Panorama, 1925, No. 19-22 (in No. 22 - under the title "Fatal Eggs"). One of the sources of R. i. served as the novel by the English writer Herbert Wells (1866-1946) "Food of the Gods" (1904), which deals with wonderful food that accelerates the growth of living organisms and the development of intellectual abilities in giant people, and the growth of the spiritual and physical capabilities of mankind leads in the novel to a more perfect world order and the collision of the world of the future and the world of the past - the world of giants with the world of pygmies. For Bulgakov, however, giants are not intellectually advanced human individuals, but especially aggressive reptiles. In R. i. also reflected another novel by Wells - "The Struggle of the Worlds" (1898), where the Martians who conquered the Earth were suddenly killed by the earth's microbes. In Bulgakov's work, reptiles approaching Moscow fall prey to the fantastic August frosts.
Among the sources of R. I. there are also more exotic ones. Thus, the poet Maximilian Voloshin (Kiriyenko-Voloshin) (1877-1932), who lived in Koktebel in the Crimea, sent Bulgakov a clipping from a Feodosia newspaper in 1921, which said “about the appearance of a huge reptile in the region of Mount Kara-Dag, to capture which he was sent company of the Red Army ". The writer and literary critic Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (1893-1984), who served as a prototype for Shpolyansky in the White Guard, in his book Sentimental Journey (1923), cites rumors that circulated in Kiev at the beginning of 1919 and, possibly, fed Bulgakov's fantasy:
“It was said that the French have a violet ray with which they can blind all Bolsheviks, and Boris Mirsky wrote about this ray a feuilleton“ Sick Beauty ”. Beauty is an old world to be healed with a violet ray. And never before were they so afraid of the Bolsheviks as they were at that time. It was said that the British - they were not sick people - said that the British had already planted herds of monkeys in Baku, trained in all the rules of the military system. It was said that these monkeys could not be propagandized, that they were going to attack without fear that they would defeat the Bolsheviks.
They showed the height of these monkeys by a hand a yard from the floor. It was said that when one such monkey was killed during the capture of Baku, it was buried with an orchestra of Scottish military music and the Scots cried.
Because the instructors of the monkey legions were the Scots.
A black wind blew from Russia, the black spot of Russia was growing, the "sick beauty" was delirious. "
In R. i. the terrible violet ray was parodically transformed into a red ray of life, which also caused a lot of troubles. Instead of marching on the Bolsheviks with wonderful fighting monkeys, supposedly brought from abroad, at Bulgakov's, hordes of gigantic, ferocious reptiles, hatched from eggs sent from abroad, approach Moscow.
In the text of R. i. the time and place of writing the story are indicated: "Moscow, 1924, October". The story existed in its original edition, different from the published one. December 27, 1924 Bulgakov read R. Ya. at a meeting of writers at the cooperative publishing house "Nikitinskie Subbotniki". On January 6, 1925, the Berlin newspaper Days, under the heading Russian Literary News, responded to this event: “The young writer Bulgakov recently read the adventurous story“ Fatal Eggs ”. Although it is literary insignificant, it is worth getting acquainted with its plot in order to get an idea of this side of Russian literary creativity.
The action takes place in the future. The professor invents a method of unusually fast reproduction of eggs with the help of red sun rays ... A Soviet worker, Semyon Borisovich Rokk, steals his secret from the professor and subscribes boxes of chicken eggs from abroad. And so it happened that at the border they confused the eggs of reptiles and chickens, and Rokk received eggs of bare-legged reptiles. He bred them in his Smolensk province (where all the action takes place), and boundless hordes of reptiles moved to Moscow, laid siege to it and devoured it. The final picture is a dead Moscow and a huge serpent entwined around the bell tower of Ivan the Great.
The theme is fun! Wells' influence ("Food of the Gods") is noticeable, however. The end Bulgakov decided to rework in a more optimistic spirit. The frost came, and the bastards died out ... ".
Bulgakov himself, in his diary entry on the night of December 28, 1924, described his impressions "of reading R. Ya. on “Nikitinskiye Subbotniks” as follows: “When I went there - a childish desire to excel and shine, and from there - a difficult feeling. What is it? Feuilleton? Or audacity? Or maybe serious? Then not baked. In any case, there were about 30 people sitting there, and not one of them is not only a writer, but does not even understand what Russian literature is.
I am afraid that they wouldn’t hurt me for all these feats “to places not so distant” ... These “Nikitinskie Subbotniks” are musty, Soviet slave rags, with a thick admixture of Jews. ” It is unlikely that the reviews of visitors to "Nikitinskiye Subbotniks", which Bulgakov rated so low, could force the writer to change the ending of R. i. There is no doubt that the first, "pessimistic" end of the story existed. Former Bulgakov's neighbor in a Bad apartment, writer Vladimir Levshin (Manasevich) (1904-1984) cites the same version of the ending, allegedly improvised by Bulgakov in a telephone conversation with the Nedra publishing house, when the text was not yet ready: “... The story ended with a grandiose a picture of the evacuation of Moscow, to which hordes of giant boas are approaching. " Note that according to the recollections of the secretary of the editorial board of the almanac "Nedra" PN Zaitsev (1889-1970) Bulgakov immediately transferred R. Ya. in finished form, and most likely V. Lyovshin's recollections of the "telephone improvisation" of the finale are a memory error. On the existence of R. I. with another ending, an anonymous correspondent informed Bulgakov in a letter on March 9, 1936 in connection with the inevitable withdrawal from the repertoire of the play "Kabala the Sanctified", naming among what "is written by you, but m. and attributed and transmitted ”,“ ending option ”R. i. and the story "Heart of a Dog" (it is possible that the version of the ending of R. Ya. was written down by someone who was present at the reading on December 27, 1924 and later got into samizdat).
It is interesting that the really existing "pessimistic" ending almost literally coincided with the one that was proposed by the writer Maxim Gorky (Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov) (1865-1936) after the publication of the story, which was published in February 1925 on May 8 of the same year. wrote to the writer Mikhail Leonidovich Slonimsky (1897-1972): “I liked Bulgakov very much, very much, but he did not finish the story. The reptile trip to Moscow has not been used, but think what a monstrously interesting picture it is! " Obviously, Gorky did not know the note in Days on January 6, 1925, and he did not know that the end he proposed existed in the first edition of R. i. Bulgakov never recognized Gorky's opinion, just as Gorky did not suspect that in Bulgakov's diary entry on November 6, 1923, the author R. Ya. spoke of him very highly as a writer and very low as a person: “I am reading Gorky's masterful book“ My Universities ”... I do not like Gorky as a person, but what a huge, strong writer he is and what terrible and important things he says about the writer ”.
Obviously, the author of "My Universities" (1922) from his Western European "beautiful far away" did not imagine the absolute obscenity of the version of the finale with the occupation of Moscow by hordes of giant reptiles. Bulgakov, however, most likely realized this and, either under the pressure of the censorship, or anticipating its objections in advance, changed the ending of R. i.
There is no doubt that, fortunately for the writer, the censorship saw in the march of reptiles to Moscow in R. I. only a parody of the intervention of 14 states against Soviet Russia during the civil war (foreign bastards, once hatched from foreign eggs). Therefore, the seizure of the capital of the world proletariat by hordes of reptiles was perceived by the censors only as a dangerous allusion to the possible defeat of the USSR in a future war with the imperialists and the destruction of Moscow in this war. For the same reason, the play "Adam and Eve" was not released later, in 1931, when one of the leaders of the Soviet aviation, Ya. I. Alksnis (1897-1938), declared that the play could not be staged, since Leningrad was dying in the course of the action. ... In the same context in R. I. could be perceived curia pestilence, against which neighboring states establish cordons. It meant the revolutionary ideas of the USSR, against which the Entente proclaimed the policy of a cordon sanitaire. However, in fact, Bulgakov's “audacity” in R. Ya., For which he feared to get to “places not so distant,” was different, and the system of images in the story first of all parodied somewhat different facts and ideas.
The protagonist of R. i. - Professor Vladimir Ipatievich Persikov, inventor of the red "ray of life". It is with the help of this ray that monstrous reptiles are brought into the world, posing a threat to the death of the country. The red ray is a symbol of the socialist revolution in Russia, carried out under the slogan of building a better future, but bringing terror and dictatorship. The death of Persikov during a spontaneous riot of the crowd, excited by the threat of an invasion of Moscow by invincible gigantic reptiles, personifies the danger that the experiment begun by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, begun by V.I. ...
Vladimir Ipatievich Persikov was born on April 16, 1870, because on the day when R. I. in an imaginary future of 1928, he turns 58 on April 16. Thus, the main character is the same age as Lenin. April 16 is also not a coincidence date. On this day (according to n. Art.) In 1917, the leader of the Bolsheviks returned to Petrograd from emigration. It is significant that exactly eleven years later, Professor Persikov discovered a wonderful red ray. For Russia, such a ray was in 1917 the arrival of Lenin, who the next day promulgated the famous April Theses calling for the development of the "bourgeois-democratic" revolution into a socialist one. The portrait of Persikov is also very reminiscent of the portrait of Lenin: “The head is remarkable, a pusher, with bunches of yellowish hair sticking out at the sides ... Persikov's face always bore a somewhat capricious imprint on itself. On a red nose there are old-fashioned small glasses in silver frames, shiny eyes, small, tall, stooped. He spoke in a squeaky, thin, croaking voice and, among other oddities, had this: when he said something weighty and confident, the index finger of his right hand turned into a hook and screwed up his eyes. And since he always spoke confidently, for his erudition in his field was absolutely phenomenal, the hook very often appeared before the eyes of Professor Persikov's interlocutors. " From Lenin here - a characteristic bald head with reddish hair, an oratorical gesture, a manner of speaking, finally, the famous squint of the eyes that entered the Lenin myth. Extensive erudition, which, of course, Lenin had, and even foreign languages, Lenin and Persikov speak the same languages, speak fluently in French and German. In the first newspaper report about the discovery of the red ray, the name of the professor was misinterpreted by the reporter from hearing to Pevsikov, which clearly indicates that Vladimir Ipatievich was burr, like Vladimir Ilyich. By the way, Persikov was named Vladimir Ipatievich only on the first page of R. I., And then everyone around him called him Vladimir Ipatyich - almost Vladimir Ilyich.
A hidden allusion to the February and October revolutions is also contained in that episode of R. Ya., Where Professor Persikov "in the 25th, in the spring, became famous for cutting off 76 students at the exams, and all of them on naked bastards:" Why, you are not Do you know how naked reptiles differ from reptiles? Persikov asked ... Be ashamed. You are probably a Marxist? "-" Marxist, - the stabbed one answered, fading away. "-" So, please, in the fall. " ... And the similarity of "naked reptiles" and "reptiles" is seen by the writer in the fact that the poorest strata of the peasantry and the working class who supported the October Revolution, and the intelligentsia ("rabble"), later easily began to grovel before the new government.
In the Leninist context of Persikov's image, a foreign, and specifically German, explanation finds its explanation - judging by the inscriptions on the boxes, the origin of the eggs of reptiles, which then, under the influence of a red ray, almost captured (and even captured in the first edition of R. Ya.) Moscow. It is known that after the February Revolution, Lenin and his comrades were transported from Switzerland to Russia through Germany in a sealed carriage (it is not without reason that it is emphasized that the eggs that arrived at Rocky's, which he takes for chicken, are pasted over with labels all around). It is curious that the likening of the Bolsheviks to gigantic bastards marching on Moscow was made in a letter from an unnamed, discerning Bulgakov reader in a letter on March 9, 1936: “Dear Bulgakov! You yourself predicted the sad end of your Moliere: among other reptiles, undoubtedly, a non-free seal hatched from the fatal egg. "
Among the prototypes of Persikov was also the famous biologist and pathologist Aleksey Ivanovich Abrikosov (1875-1955), whose surname is parodied in the surname of the protagonist R. i. And it is no coincidence that it was parodied, for it was Abrikosov who dissected Lenin's corpse and removed his brain. In R. i. this brain is, as it were, transferred to the scientist who extracted it, in contrast to the Bolsheviks, a soft person, not cruel, and carried away to self-forgetfulness by zoology, and not by the socialist revolution.
It is possible that the idea of a ray of life in R. I. Bulgakov was prompted by his acquaintance with the discovery in 1921 by the biologist Alexander Gavrilovich Gurvich (1874-1954) of mitogenetic radiation, under the influence of which mitosis (cell division) occurs. In fact, mitogenetic radiation is the same thing that is now called the fashionable term "biofield". In 1922 or 1923. A.G. Gurvich moved from Simferopol to Moscow, and Bulgakov could even meet with him.
Depicted in R. i. chicken plague is, in particular, a parody of the tragic famine of 1921 in the Volga region. Persikov is the assistant to the chairman of Dobrokur, an organization designed to help eliminate the consequences of the death of chicken in the USSR. Dobrokur clearly had the Famine Aid Committee as its prototype, created in July 1921 by a group of public figures and scientists opposed to the Bolsheviks. The Committee was headed by former Ministers of the Provisional Government S.N. Prokopovich (1871-1955), N.M. Kishkin (1864-1930) and a prominent member of the Menshevik Party E.D. Kuskova (1869-1958). The Soviet government used the names of the members of this organization to receive foreign aid, which, however, was often used not at all to help the starving, but for the needs of the party elite and the world revolution. Already at the end of August 1921, the Committee was abolished, and its leaders and many ordinary members were arrested. It is indicative that in R. I. Persikov also dies in August. His death symbolizes, among other things, the collapse of the attempts of the non-partisan intelligentsia to establish civilized cooperation with the totalitarian government. An intellectual standing outside politics is one of Persikov's hypostases, all the more shading the other - the parody of this image in relation to Lenin. As such an intellectual, Bulgakov's acquaintances and relatives could serve as prototypes for Persikov. In her memoirs, the second wife of the writer L. Ye. Belozerskaya expressed the opinion that “describing the appearance and some of the habits of Professor Persikov, M. A. started from the image of a living person, my relative, Yevgeny Nikitich Tarnovsky,” had to live. It is possible that in the figure of the protagonist R. I. some features of Uncle Bulgakov were also reflected on the part of the mother of the surgeon Nikolai Mikhailovich Pokrovsky (1868-1941), the indisputable prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky in The Heart of a Dog.
There is also a third hypostasis of Persikov's image - this is a genius scientist-creator who opens a gallery of such heroes as the same Preobrazhensky, Moliere in The Cabal of the Sanctifier and Moliere, Efrosimov in Adam and Eve, the Master in The Master and Margarita. In R. i. Bulgakov, for the first time in his work, posed the problem of the responsibility of the scientist and the state for the use of a discovery that could harm humanity. The writer showed the danger that the fruits of discovery will be appropriated by people who are unenlightened and self-confident, and even have unlimited power. Under such circumstances, catastrophe can happen much sooner than general prosperity, as shown by the example of Rocca. This surname itself, perhaps, was born from the abbreviation ROKK - the Russian Red Cross Society, in whose hospitals Bulgakov worked as a doctor in 1916 on the Southwestern Front of the First World War - the first catastrophe that humanity experienced in the 20th century before his eyes. And, of course, the surname of the unlucky director of the Krasny Luch state farm indicated fate, an evil fate.
Criticism after the release of R. i. quickly saw through the political hints hidden in the story. Bulgakov's archive contains a typewritten copy of an excerpt from an article by critic M. Lirov (MI Litvakov) (1880-1937) about Bulgakov's work, published in 1925 in No. 5-6 of the journal "Printing and Revolution". This excerpt dealt with R. i. Bulgakov emphasized here the most dangerous places for himself:
“But the real record was broken by M. Bulgakov with his“ story ”“ Fatal eggs ”. This is already something really remarkable for a "Soviet" almanac.
Professor Vladimir Ipatievich Persikov made an extraordinary discovery - he discovered a red sunbeam, under the influence of which the eggs of, say, frogs instantly turn into tadpoles, the tadpoles quickly grow into huge frogs, which immediately reproduce and immediately begin to exterminate each other. And the same applies to all living creatures. Such were the amazing properties of the red ray discovered by Vladimir Ipatievich.
This discovery was quickly learned in Moscow, despite the conspiracy of Vladimir Ipatievich. The brisk Soviet press became very agitated (here is a picture of the customs of the Soviet press, lovingly copied from nature ... of the worst tabloid press in Paris, London and New York) (I doubt that Lirov ever visited these cities, and even more so was familiar with the customs local press. - B.S.). Now the "gentle voices" from the Kremlin have rang on the phone, and the Soviet ... confusion has begun.
And then a disaster broke out over the Soviet country: a destructive epidemic of chickens swept through it. How to get out of a difficult situation? But who usually brings the USSR out of all disasters? Of course, the agents of the GPU. And then there was one Chekist Rokk (Rok), who had a state farm at his disposal, and this Rokk decided to restore chicken breeding in his state farm with the help of Vladimir Ipatievich's discovery.
From the Kremlin, an order was issued to Professor Persikov, so that he lent his sophisticated scientific apparatus for temporary use to Rokk for the needs of restoring chicken breeding. Persikov and his assistant, of course, are indignant, indignant. And indeed, how can such complex apparatus be provided to laymen? After all, Rock can do disasters. But the "gentle voices" from the Kremlin are relentless. Nothing, the Chekist - he knows how to do everything.
Rokk received apparatus operating with the help of a red beam and began to operate on his state farm. But a disaster came out - and here's why: Vladimir Ipatievich wrote out reptile eggs for his experiments, and Rokk for his work - chicken eggs.
The Soviet transport, naturally, confused everything, and instead of chicken eggs Rokk got “fatal eggs” of reptiles. Instead of chickens, Rokk raised huge reptiles that ate him, his employees, the surrounding population and in huge masses rushed to the whole country, mainly to Moscow, destroying everything in their path. The country was declared martial law, the Red Army was mobilized, whose units perished in heroic but fruitless battles. Danger was already threatening Moscow, but then a miracle happened: in August, terrible frosts suddenly hit, and all the reptiles died. Only this miracle saved Moscow and the entire USSR.
But on the other hand, a terrible riot took place in Moscow, during which the "inventor" of the red ray, Vladimir Ipatievich, was also killed. Crowds of people rushed into his laboratory and exclaimed: “Beat him! World villain! You have dismissed the bastards! " - tore him to pieces.
Everything went into its own rut. The assistant to the late Vladimir Ipatievich, although he continued his experiments, he failed to open the red ray again. "
The critic M. Lirov persistently called Professor Persikov Vladimir Ipatievich, emphasizing also that he was the inventor of the red ray, i.e. as if the architect of the October Socialist Revolution. It was made clear to the powers that be that behind Vladimir Ipatievich Persikov was the figure of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and R. I. - a libelous satire on the deceased leader and the communist idea in general. M. Lirov drew the attention of possible biased readers of the story to the fact that Vladimir Ipatievich died during a popular riot, that they were killing him with the words "a world villain" and "you dismissed the bastards." Here one could see an allusion to Lenin as the proclaimed leader of the world revolution, as well as an association with the famous "hydra of revolution", as the opponents of Soviet power expressed it (the Bolsheviks, in turn, spoke of the "hydra of counterrevolution"). It is interesting that in the play "The Run" (1928), completed in the year when the action takes place in the imaginary future of R. Ya., The "eloquent" messenger Krapilin calls Khludov's hangman a "world beast." The picture of the death of the protagonist R. Ya., Parodying the already mythologized Lenin, from indignant "crowds of the people" (this sublimely pathetic expression is an invention of the critic, it is not in Bulgakov's story) could hardly please those who were in power in the Kremlin. And neither Wells nor Lirov, nor any other vigilant readers could deceive. Elsewhere in his article about Bulgakov, the critic argued that “from the mention of the name of his progenitor Wells, as many are now inclined to do, Bulgakov's literary face does not in the least become clear. And what, in fact, is Wells, when here the same boldness of fiction is accompanied by completely different attributes? The similarity is purely external ... "Note that in fact the connection here can be even more direct: H. Wells visited our country and wrote the book" Russia in the Dark "(1921), where, in particular, he spoke about his meetings with Lenin and called the Bolshevik leader, who spoke with inspiration about the future fruits of the GOELRO plan, "the Kremlin dreamer" - a phrase that was widely used in English-speaking countries, and later played up and refuted in the play by Nikolai Pogodin (Stukalov) (1900-1962) "Kremlin chimes" (1942) ... In R. i. Persikov is depicted as such a "Kremlin dreamer", detached from the world and immersed in his scientific plans. True, he does not sit in the Kremlin, but he constantly communicates with the Kremlin leaders during the action.
M. Lirov, who had become skilled in literary denunciations (only literary?), Incidentally, and himself happily perished in another wave of repressions in the 30s, tried to read and show "who should" even what is in R. I. was not, without stopping at direct rigging. The critic claimed that Rockk, who played the main role in the unfolding tragedy, was a Chekist, an employee of the GPU. Thus, a hint was made that in R. I. parodied real episodes of the struggle for power, which unfolded in the last years of Lenin's life and in the year of his death, where the Chekist Rock (or his prototype F.E.Dzerzhinsky (1877-1926), the head of the The Kremlin is leading the country to disaster with its inept actions. In fact, in R. I. Rokk is not at all a Chekist, although he conducts his experiments in the "Red Ray" under the protection of agents of the GPU. He is a participant in the civil war and revolution, into the abyss of which he throws himself, “changing the flute for a destructive Mauser,” and after the war “he edits a“ huge newspaper ”in Turkestan, having managed to become famous as a member of the“ Supreme Economic Commission ”for“ his amazing work on irrigating the Turkestan the edges". Rocca's obvious prototype is the editor of the Kommunist newspaper and poet GS Astakhov, one of Bulgakov's main persecutors in Vladikavkaz in 1920-1921. and his opponent in the dispute about Pushkin (although the similarity with F.E.Dzerzhinsky, who since 1924 headed the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the country, can also be seen if desired). In "Notes on the Cuffs" is a portrait of Astakhov: "brave with an eagle face and a huge revolver on his belt." Rokk, like Astakhov, has as his attribute a huge revolver - a Mauser, and edits a newspaper, only not in the indigenous marginal Caucasus, but in the indigenous marginal Turkestan. Instead of the art of poetry, in which Astakhov considered himself to be involved, who reviled Pushkin and considered himself clearly above the "sun of Russian poetry," Rokk was committed to the art of music. Before the revolution he was a professional flutist, and then the flute remains his main hobby. That is why he tries at the end, like an Indian fakir, to enchant the giant anaconda by playing the flute, but without any success. Note also that in the novel by Bulgakov's friend in Vladikavkaz Yuri Slezkin (1885-1947) "Girl from the Mountains" (1925) GS Astakhov is depicted in the guise of the poet Avalov, a member of the Revolutionary Committee and editor of the main city newspaper of the Ossetian Revolutionary Committee, a young man with a beard , in a burqa and with a revolver.
If we accept that one of the prototypes of Rocca could have been L. D. Trotsky, who really lost the struggle for power in 1923-1924. (Bulgakov noted this in his diary as early as January 8, 1924), one cannot but marvel at the completely mystical coincidences. Trotsky, like Rokk, played the most active role in the revolution and civil war, being the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council. At the same time, he was engaged in economic affairs, in particular, the restoration of transport, but completely switched to economic work after leaving the military department in January 1925. In particular, Trotsky briefly headed the main committee on concessions. Rokk arrived in Moscow and received a well-deserved rest in 1928. With Trotsky, a similar thing happened almost at the same time. In the fall of 1927 he was expelled from the Central Committee and expelled from the party, at the beginning of 1928 he was exiled to Alma-Ata, and literally a year later he was forced to leave the USSR forever, disappear from the country. Needless to say, all these events took place after the creation of R. i. M. Lirov wrote his article in mid-1925, during a period of further exacerbation of the internal party struggle and, it seems, in the expectation that readers would not notice, tried to ascribe to Bulgakov its reflection in R. Ya., Written almost a year earlier.
Bulgakov's story did not go unnoticed by the OGPU informants. On February 22, 1928, one of them reported: “The irreconcilable enemy of Soviet power is the author of Days of the Turbins and Zoyka's Apartment, Mikh. Afanasevich Bulgakov, former Smenovekhovets. One can simply be amazed at the patience and tolerance of the Soviet regime, which still does not prevent the distribution of Bulgakov's book (Nedra Publishing House) “Fatal Eggs”. This book is a blatant and outrageous slander against the Red government. She vividly describes how, under the influence of a red ray, reptiles gnawing at each other were born, which went to Moscow. There is a vile place, an angry nod towards the late Comrade LENIN, that there is a dead toad, which even after death has left an evil expression on its face (here we mean a giant frog, raised by Persikov using a red ray and her aggressiveness, and "even after death there was an evil expression on her face" - a hint of Lenin's body, preserved in the mausoleum. - BS). How this book of his walks freely - it is impossible to understand. It is read voraciously. Bulgakov is loved by young people, he is popular. His earnings reach 30,000 rubles. in year. He paid one tax 4,000 rubles.
Because he paid that he was going to go abroad.
On these days he was met by Lerner (we are talking about the famous Pushkinist N.O. Lerner (1877-1934). - BS). Bulgakov is very offended by the Soviet regime and is very dissatisfied with the current situation. You can't work at all. Nothing is definite. What is needed is either war communism or complete freedom again. The coup, says Bulgakov, must be done by a peasant who has finally begun to speak his native language. In the end, there are not so many communists (and there are "such" among them), but there are tens of millions of peasants who are offended and indignant. Naturally, at the very first war, communism will be swept out of Russia, etc. Here they are, the thoughts and hopes that are swarming in the head of the author of Fatal Eggs, who is now going to take a walk abroad. To release such a "bird" abroad would be completely unpleasant ... By the way, in a conversation with Lerner Bulgakov touched upon the contradictions in the policy of the Soviets: - On the one hand, they shout - save. On the other hand, if you start saving, you will be considered a bourgeois. Where is the logic. "
Of course, one cannot vouch for the literal accuracy of the transmission by an unknown agent of Bulgakov's conversation with Lerner. However, it is quite possible that it was precisely the tendentious interpretation of R. Ya. contributed to the fact that Bulgakov was never released abroad. On the whole, what the writer said to the Pushkin scholar is in good agreement with the thoughts captured in his diary "Under the Heel". There, in particular, there are arguments about the likelihood of a new war and the inability of the Soviet government to withstand it. In a recording of October 26, 1923, Bulgakov gave his conversation on this topic with a neighbor, a baker: “The actions of the authorities are considered fraudulent (bonds, etc.). He said that two Jewish commissars in the Krasnopresnensk Soviet were beaten by those who came to the mobilization for their insolence and threats with a revolver. I don’t know if it’s true. According to the baker, the mobilization was in a very unpleasant mood. He, the baker, complained that hooliganism among young people was developing in the villages. The little guy has the same in his head as everyone else - on his own mind, he understands perfectly well that the Bolsheviks are swindlers, he does not want to go to war, there is no idea about the international situation. We are wild, dark, unhappy people. " Obviously, in the first edition of R. i. the seizure of Moscow by foreign reptiles symbolized the future defeat of the USSR in the war, which at that moment the writer considered inevitable. The invasion of reptiles also personified the ephemerality of the NEP well-being, depicted in the fantastic 1928 in a rather parodic manner. The same attitude towards NEP is the author of R. Ya. expressed in a conversation with N.O. Lerner, information about which reached the OGPU.
On R. i. there were curious responses abroad as well. Bulgakov kept in his archives a typewritten copy of a TASS report dated January 24, 1926, entitled "Churchill Fears Socialism." It said that on January 22, UK Treasury Secretary Winston Churchill (1874-1965), in a speech in connection with workers' strikes in Scotland, pointed out that "the dire conditions prevailing in Glasgow are giving rise to communism," but "we do not want to see our table Moscow crocodile eggs (underlined by Bulgakov - BS). I am confident that the time will come when the Liberal Party will provide all possible assistance to the Conservative Party to eradicate these doctrines. I am not afraid of the Bolshevik revolution in England, but I am afraid of the attempts of the socialist majority to introduce socialism on their own accord. One tenth of the socialism that ruined Russia would finally ruin England ... ”(It is difficult to doubt the validity of these words today, seventy years later).
In R. i. Bulgakov parodied V.E. Meyerhold, referring to "the theater named after the late Vsevolod Meyerhold, who died, as you know, in 1927, during the production of Pushkin's Boris Godunov, when trapezes with naked boyars collapsed." This phrase goes back to one comic conversation in the editorial office of "Gudok", which is reported by the head of the "fourth page" of this newspaper, Ivan Semenovich Ovchinnikov (1880-1967): "The beginning of the twenties ... Bulgakov sits in the next room, but for some reason he has his own sheepskin coat. morning brings to our hanger. The sheepskin coat is one of a kind: it has no fasteners and no belt. Put your hands in your sleeves - and you can consider yourself dressed. Mikhail Afanasyevich himself attests the sheepskin coat as follows:
Russian ohaben. Late seventeenth century fashion. It is mentioned for the first time in the chronicle under the year 1377. Now at Meyerhold, in such ohabnya, Duma boyars fall from the second floor. Affected actors and spectators are taken to the Sklifosovsky Institute. I recommend watching ... "
Obviously, Bulgakov suggested that by 1927 - exactly 550 years after the first mention of ohab in the annals, Meyerhold's creative evolution would come to the point that the actors playing boyars would be removed from ohab and left in what their mother gave birth, so that only directing and the technique of acting replaced all the historical scenery. After all, Vsevolod Emilievich said at one of the lectures in February 1924 about the production of Godunov: “... Dmitry had to lie on the couch, certainly half naked ... even the body must be shown ... by removing stockings, for example, from Godunov, we will force us to approach differently to the whole tragedy ... "
There is in R. i. and other parody sketches. For example, the one where the soldiers of the First Cavalry, at the head of which "in the same crimson head as all the riders, rides the legendary 10 years ago, the aged and gray-haired commander of the equestrian community" - Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny (1883-1973), perform in a campaign against reptiles with a thug song performed in the manner of the "Internationale":
Neither ace nor queen nor jack
We will beat the bastards, without a doubt,
Four on the side - yours are not ...
A real case (or, at least, a rumor widespread in Moscow) found its place here. On August 2, 1924, Bulgakov entered into his diary the story of his friend writer Ilya Kremlev (Sven) (1897-1971) that “the GPU regiment went to a demonstration with an orchestra that played“ These girls love everything ”. In R. i. The GPU was replaced by the First Horse, and such foresight, in the light of the above-cited article by M. Lirov, was not at all superfluous. The writer, undoubtedly, was familiar with the testimonies and rumors about the morals of the Budyonnovsk freemen, which was distinguished by violence and robbery. They were captured in the book of stories "Cavalry" (1923) by Isaac Babel (1894-1940) (albeit in a somewhat softened form against the facts of his own cavalry diary). It was quite appropriate to put a thieves' song in the mouth of the Budennovites in the rhythm of the "Internationale". It is curious that in Bulgakov's diary the last entry, made more than six months after the release of R. Ya., On December 13, 1925, is dedicated specifically to Budyonny and characterizes him quite in the spirit of the Cavalry fighters singing by the criminal "Internationale" in R. Ya.: I heard that Budyonny's wife had died. Then a rumor that she was committing suicide, and then, it turns out, he killed her. He fell in love, she disturbed him. Remains completely unpunished. According to the story, she threatened him that she would come out with an exposure of his atrocities with the soldiers during the tsarist era, when he was a sergeant-major. " The credibility of these rumors is difficult to assess today.
On R. i. were criticized and positively received. So, Y. Sobolev in the "Dawn of the East" on March 11, 1925, assessed the story as the most significant publication in the 6th book of "Nedr", claiming: "Bulgakov alone with his ironically fantastic and satirically utopian story" Fatal Eggs " unexpectedly falls out of the general, very well-meaning and very decent tone. " "Utopianism" R. i. the critic saw "in the very drawing of Moscow in 1928, in which Professor Persikov again receives" an apartment of six rooms "and feels his whole life as it was ... before October". However, in general, Soviet criticism reacted to R. i. negatively as a phenomenon that opposes the official ideology. Censorship became more vigilant in relation to the novice author, and already Bulgakov's next story "Heart of a Dog" was never published during his lifetime. Also, the secretary of the American embassy in Moscow, Charles Boolen, who was friends with Bulgakov in the mid-30s, and in the 50s became ambassador to the USSR, according to the author R. Ya. it was the appearance of this story in his memoirs that he called as a milestone, after which criticism hit the writer in earnest: “Coup de grace” (decisive blow (French) - BS) was directed against Bulgakov after he wrote the story “Fatal eggs "(As we have already seen, the author often called R. Ya. not a story, but a story. - BS) ... Bolshevism, which turns people into monsters, destroying Russia and can only be stopped by the intervention of the Lord. When the real meaning of the story was understood, an accusatory campaign was launched against Bulgakov. " R. i. enjoyed great readership and even in 1930 remained one of the most requested works in libraries.
On January 30, 1926, Bulgakov signed an agreement with the Moscow Chamber Theater to stage R. Ya. However, the sharp criticism of R. i. in the censored press made the prospects for the production of R. Ya. not too encouraging, and instead of R. i. was staged "Crimson Island". The contract for this play, concluded on July 15, 1926, left the dramatization of R. Ya. as a fallback: "If" Crimson Island "cannot for any reason be accepted for staging by the Directorate, then M. A. Bulgakov undertakes instead of him, at the expense of the payment made for the" Crimson Island ", to provide the Directorate with a new a play based on the story “Fatal Eggs” ... ”“ The Crimson Island ”appeared on the stage at the end of 1928, but was banned already in June 1929. In those conditions, the chances for R. Ya. disappeared completely, and Bulgakov never returned to the idea of staging.
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