Artistic functions of the mother figure in the ouevre of Mikhail Bulgakov (on the basis of selected works)

Abstract

The figure of a mother and issues connected with motherhood are themes seldom encountered in Bulgakov’s works. It may be assumed that this is due to the fact that the writer himself did not have children, even though he was married three times and had been brought up in a family of seven children. In fact, Bulgakov was the oldest of them and his younger siblings were growing up in front of his eyes and with his help after their father’s death at the age of 48. These circumstances notwithstanding, the author of The Master and Margarita focused more strongly on creating touching figures of mistresses, women suffering because of love, ready to sacrifice even their lives for the sake of their lovers. One of the most beautiful and best-known mother figures is the mother of the Turbin family in the novel The White Guard. Her prototype was the writer’s mother, Varvara Mikhailovna Pokrovskaya (1869–1922). The novel begins with her illness and death, which forebode the following tragic events and sufferings awaiting the children during the civil war. In Masterand Margarita during Satan’s ball a ghost of a mother who killed her newborn child appears. The drama about Molière, in turn, introduces a traitress mother, who on her deathbed confesses the secret of her daughter’s birth, thus ruining the latter’s family. Viewed against the background of these figures, the mother of the Turbins appears to be an ideal woman and that is why Bulgakov calls her “the bright queen.” Her image provides a key to understanding the essence of the characters of the young Turbins, who inherit from their mother a moral code and an ability to sacrifice themselves for others.