The grotesque satire of Michail Bulgakov’s ‘povesti’: Russia tragic carnivalization in the Twenties

  • Cheti Traini Università Carlo Bo di Urbino
Keywords: Bulgakov, Bachtin, D’javoliada, Rokovye jajca, Sobač’e serdce

Abstract

At the end of 1921 Mikhail Bulgakov, a young doctor from Kiev with literary expectations, finally moved to Moscow. The capital of the new Soviet world is entering into the Nep’s years, featured by the figure of a new social climber, the nepman. Moscow and the entire Russia are changing, by staging a kind of huge Carnival of which Bulgakov chooses to portrait its contradictory and paradoxal nature throughout the instruments of a grotesque satire. The writer intends to represent the relativity and absurdity of situations that cross the threshold of reality to penetrate the world of paradox and absurd, where mistaken identities, amazing discoveries and unlikely experiments may be read as dethronizations of inauthentic heroes, unmasking of false myths, tragi-comic teasing of the authoritarian word.

This paper analyses three examples of the bulgakovian satire in the ‘povesti’ D’javoliadaRokovye jajca e Sobač’e serdce and, with the aid of Bachtin’s interpretations, it suggests a new reading of the three writings and an insight into the reasons for the choice of the satirical genre in the whole literary work of the writer.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Cheti Traini, Università Carlo Bo di Urbino
Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione, Studi Umanistici e Internazionali: Storia, Culture, Lingue, Letterature, Arti, Media (DISCUI)

References

Bachtin, Michail, Tvorčestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaja kul’tura srednevekov’ja i Renessansa, Moskva, Izdatel’stvo «Chudožestvennaja literatura», 1965, trad. it. L’opera di Rabelais e la cultura popolare, Torino, Einaudi, 1995.

Bazzarelli, Eridano, Invito alla lettura di Bulgakov, Milano, Mursia, 1976.

Id.- Křesálková, Jitka (eds.), Atti del convegno “Michail Bulgakov”: Gargnano del Garda, 17-22 settembre 1984, Milano, Università degli Studi, 1985.

Belobrovceva Irina - Kyl’jus Svetlana, Bulgakovskij sbornik II, Tallin, 1994.

Blok, Aleksandr, L’intelligencija e la rivoluzione, Milano, Adelphi, 1978.

Bulgakov, Michail, “Sobranie sočinenij v pjati tomach, Chudožestvennaja literatura, (1989).

Id., Diaboliade, Eds. Ellendea Proffer - Carl R. Proffer, Milano, Interno Giallo, 1990.

Id., Cuore di cane, Roma, Newton Compton, 1992.

Id., Le uova fatali. Introduzione di Rita Giuliani, Roma, Newton Compton, 1993.

Cazzola, Piero, Umorismo, satira e grottesco nella letteratura russa (da Gogol’ a Zoščenko), Bologna, Cooperativa libraria universitaria, 1974.

Čebotareva, B., Literaturnyj Azerbajdžan, 5 (1988).

Čudakova, Marietta, Žisneopisanie Michaila Bulgakova, Mosca, Kniga, 1988, trad. it. Michail Bulgakov. Cronaca di una vita, Bologna, Odoya, 2013.

Curtis, Julie, Manuscripts don’t burn. Mikhail Bulgakov. A life in Letters and Diaries, London, Bloombury Publishing Limited, 1991, trad. it. I manoscritti non bruciano. Michail Bulgakov: una vita in lettere e diari, Milano, Rizzoli, 1992.

Etkind, Efim - Nivat, Georges - Serman, Il’ja - Strada, Vittorio, Storia della letteratura russa. Il Novecento, Torino, Einaudi, 1989-1991.

Ferrazzi, Marialuisa, “La povest’ fra evo antico ed evo moderno”, Europa Orientalis, 9 (1990), http://www.europaorientalis.it/uploads/files/1990/1990.1.pdf"> style="color: #000000;"> /uploads/files/1990/1990.1.pdf, web (ultimo accesso 19/04/16).

Frolova, T. C., “Povesti M. A. Bulgakova («D’javoliada», «Rokovye jaica») i gogolevskaja literaturnaja tradizija”, Chudožestvennoe tvorčestvo i literaturnyj prozess: sbornik, 3 (1982): 28-40.

Giuliani Di Meo, Rita, Michail Bulgakov, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1981.

Id., “Introduzione”, Le uova fatali, Roma, Newton Compton, 1993.

Groznova N. A. - Pavlovskij A. I. (eds.), Tvorčestvo Michaila Bulgakova, kniga 1, Leningrad, Akademija Nauk SSSR, 1991.

Kochan, Lionel, Storia della Russia Moderna. Dal 1500 a oggi, Torino, Einaudi, 1968.

Lotman, Jurij M., Tesi per una semiotica delle culture, Eds. Franciscu Sedda, Roma, Meltemi, 2006.

Naiman, Eric, Sex in public. The incarnation of early Soviet ideology, Princeton University Press, 1997.

Natov, Nadine, “The supernatural in Bulgakov and Gogol’”, The Supernatural in Slavic and Baltic literature: essays in honor of Victor Terras, Ed. Amy Mandelker - Roberta Reeder, Columbus, Slavica, 1988.

Picchio, Riccardo, La letteratura russa antica, Milano, BUR, 1993.

Rabelais, François, Œuvres complètes, Paris, Éd. du Seuil, 1973.

Riccio, Carlo, “Attualità di Ščedrin”, L’Europa letteraria, 20-21 (1963).

Ripellino, Angelo Maria, Praga magica, Torino, Einaudi, 1973.

Rydel, Christine, Bulgakov and H. G. Wells”, Russian Literature Triquarterly, 15 (1978).

Sini, Stefania, Michail Bachtin. Una critica del pensiero dialogico, Roma, Carocci, 2011.

Todorov, Tzvetan (ed.), I formalisti russi, Torino, Einaudi, 1968.

Published
2016-11-30
How to Cite
Traini, C. (2016). The grotesque satire of Michail Bulgakov’s ‘povesti’: Russia tragic carnivalization in the Twenties. Between, 6(12). https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/2221
Section
Bakhtin's Keys to the Test of Modernity