IVAN BOMZH & IVAN BEZDOMNYI (BULGAKOV)

[Andrei Ostrovskii]

SEELANGUISHERS! I just read ZAPISKI BOMZHA, by a person who claims to be the
son of Ivan Homeless (Bezdomnyi in "MASTER I MARGARITA"), who, he says, was
based on a real person. He has supposedly changed his last name to Bomzh "in
keeping with the spirit of recent changes"! These claims to an identity can
hardly be believed, but the book is amazing -- both the story and the
drawings by Alexander Tiumerov. The story and the drawings taught me a lot
about Bulgakov's many sleights-of-hand, some based on Pushkinian images that
have become a seminal myth in the Russian national consciousness. The story
solves a number of puzzles that Bulgakov specialists have tackled --
including the location of the "amphitheater-like" steps on the Moscow River
where Homeless dives into the water at the start of MASTER I MARGARITA. This
was the site of Khram Khrista Spasitelia (the Church of Christ the Savior)
that was blown up in the early stages of Bulgakov's work on the novel. The
steps leading down to the river were truly like an "amphitheater" -- and
they led down to a round baptismal font at the edge of the water! Hence,
Homeless's symbolic BAPTISM in the river. Bulgakov specialists have long
speculated about the location that Bulgakov had in mind, but they missed the
mark by about a hundred meters. I found the title in a SEELANGS announcement
for The Birchbark Press (Anna Dranova:
wolandusa at yahoo.com
I assume Kamkin and EastView have the book, too.
-- Alex Ostrovskii






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