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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENRE OF
THE INITIATION NOVEL IN 20TH-CENTURY
RUSSIAN LITERATURE—MIKHAIL BULGAKOV’S
THE MASTER AND MARGARITA
ee
LÉNA SZILÁRD
ABSTRACT!
In accordance with the poetics of the genre of the initiation novel (invented
by Andrey Bely), at the core of the plot of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and
Margarita lies the road to the spiritual enlightenment (via illuminativa) of
Ivan Ponyrev. At the beginning of the novel, Ponyrev is presented as a stupefied
Soviet poet who uses the pseudonym "Bezdomny," or "Homeless," a typical
type of pseudonym of the time. In the epilogue, however, he is a historian¬
philosopher who, having been freed of the manipulative influences of the social
environment, which made him go to a mental asylum, is led by the lunar light,
a symbol of cosmic order.
The impulse to Ivan’s ascension is given by his encounter with the “overturned
master” Woland, who opens up the via purgativa by punishing “the pseudo¬
master” Berlioz and taking Ivan to meet the nameless Master in the clinic
headed by Doctor Stravinsky (a mental institution where consciousness is
being cleared).
The symbolism of the hero’s path in Book I is saturated with the signs
of Freemasonry. Book II, on the other hand, by accentuating the details of
the road as a via illuminativa, emphasizes the transition to Rosicrucianism.
The shift from the symbol of the mimosa (Freemasonry) to the symbol of
the rose, Rosicrucianism) is of paramount importance.
The epilogue of the novel, by hinting at the probability of the perspective
of the via unitiva, makes the following principal idea explicit: Ivan Ponyrev
is the student of the nameless Master, so he is on the road to realizing
1 Mikhail Bulgakov, Master i Margarita, München, POSEV, 1969.
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