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ABSTRACT
The article examines the birth of biomechanics in Soviet scientific discourses and how it was absorbed by the theater and literature of the day, in a reading of Michail Bulgakov’s three novellas “D′javoljada” (1924), “Rokovye jajca” (1924) and “Sobač′e serdce” (1925), interpreting them as both products of and critical reactions to the transformational trends in early Soviet ideology. While artists and theorists like Aleksej Gastev worked to ensure the creation of the New Man by reshaping the human animal into an industrious mechanical man of steel, Bulgakov actively opposed such ideas. In his fiction, he exhibits a dialogical and contentious relationship to biomechanics. This reading argues that the novellas are paradoxically dependent on notions of mechanization and hybridity, aligning them with features of posthumanism, at the expense of Bulgakov’s satirical attacks on Vsevolod Mejerchol′d and his theatrical biomechanics. The noisy soundscapes, metal tropes and mechanical motifs that shape the novellas, at times distract from Bulgakov’s parodic affect and nurture instances of pastiche, making his early short prose indebted to none other than his avant-garde adversaries of the 1920s.Footnote1
1 Acknowledgements: The current article is a revised version of a chapter from my MA thesis, Refiguring the New Man: Animality and Machinery in Three of Bulgakov’s Novellas. I would like to thank Professor Ingunn Lunde for her insights and supervision, Professor Eric Naiman for his constructive criticisms, and the Davis Center at Harvard University for hosting me as I edited this material into a publishable article.
Notes
1 Acknowledgements: The current article is a revised version of a chapter from my MA thesis, Refiguring the New Man: Animality and Machinery in Three of Bulgakov’s Novellas. I would like to thank Professor Ingunn Lunde for her insights and supervision, Professor Eric Naiman for his constructive criticisms, and the Davis Center at Harvard University for hosting me as I edited this material into a publishable article.
2 The goal of reshaping the human largely dates back to Enlightenment thinkers, who saw man as principally shaped by his environment (Cheng Citation2009, 8).
3 Bulgakov, who openly supported the Whites, was a fervent believer in the historical figure of man and the achievements of human culture: “Ах, отчего я опоздал родиться! Отчего я не родился сто лет назад. [Я] консерватор до … ‘мозга костеи˘’ хотел написать, но это шаблонно, ну, словом, консерватор” (Bulgakov Citation1997, 10 and 55).
4 Within a posthumanist ontology, all bodies and all matter, be it animal or machine, may be understood as possessing some form of vitality or agency (cf. Coole and Frost Citation2010, 20; Braidotti Citation2013, 66). Making the leap from animal to mechanical figurations within a continuum of bodies is therefore less of an illogical move than one might initially think.
5 J. A. E. Curtis (Citation2017, 46) gives an informative overview of Bulgakov’s conservativism and patriotism, found e.g. in “Grjaduščie perspektivy,” a newspaper opinion piece where he hailed the long, multigenerational struggle against Bolshevism. He also openly favored the whites, even when interrogated by OGPU, as reflected in the archived records.
6 In “Sorok sorokov,” Bulgakov (Citation1995–Citation2000, I, 235) touches on a similar, metallic trope in which the individual is tempered and hardened: “Тело мое стало худым и жилистым, сердце железным, глаза зоркими. Я – закален.”
7 Mejerchol′d had read Gastev, but he also had other sources for his own theatrical strain of biomechanics, cf. Vaingurt Citation2013, 61. For more on Gastev’s poetry, see Johansson Citation1983.
8 Note that Mejerchol′d and Bulgakov were adversaries for years, partly on account of Bulgakov’s feud with Majakovskij, one of Mejerchol′d’s closest associates, over Majakovskij’s constructivist and formalist experiments, which Bulgakov vehemently opposed (Wright Citation1978, 46–47).
9 Bulgakov is referring to Mejerchol′d’s productions of Il′ja Èrenburg’s literary works. Although the novella was set several years into the future, Mejerchol′d was still alive and well when “Rokovye jajca,” and hence this passage, was written. Like Gastev, Mejerchol′d would eventually fall into disfavor with the Soviet regime: both were purged during Stalin’s terror in the late thirties. But before that, Mejerchol′d would forgive and forget Bulgakov’s insolence; Il′ja Èrenburg would not (Belozerskaja-Bulgakova Citation1979, 104).
10 Hannah Arendt (Citation2006, 289) touches on the same trope: “[T]he essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them.”
11 Such measures are taken countless times also in “Rokovye jajca” for example when a loud-mouthed prophet appears in the midst of the chicken plague, pointing fingers at the commissars, or when some people revolt by breaking a few windows, whereupon local officials take measures and he is never seen again (Bulgakov Citation1995–Citation2000, II, 339).
12 In his retrospective feuilleton from 1922, “Kiev-gorod,” Bulgakov paints the same picture of the German soldiers in one of his many historical flashbacks to the struggles that had taken place in Kiev those past years: немцы, железные немцы в тазах на головах (Bulgakov Citation1995–Citation2000, I, 299).
13 The word tolkač also means “pusher engine,” a railway locomotive assisting trains through steep terrain.
14 Ščitok denotes both a machine “dashboard” and an “animal thorax.”
15 We find a similar reference in the secretary of the house committee: he assists the secret police in rooting out a spy who tries to bribe Persikov and is named Kolesov, “Mr. Wheel” (Bulgakov Citation1995–Citation2000, II, 329–30).
16 Cf. Hellebust Citation2003, 60; Burgin Citation1978, 500. On Burgin’s reading, the unyielding qualities of cast-iron—the criminal donor’s obstinate nature—precludes any possibility of a successful transformation: “Here is one base metal which apparently even the most talented alchemist cannot turn into gold.”
17 This motif of the gun barrels may perhaps be traced to Zamjatin (Citation1989, 211) and his quirky novella from 1923, “Rasskaz o samom glavnom,” featuring a man named Dorda: “Вскакивает, весь заряженный, револьверный, пули из глаз[.]”
18 Julia Vaingurt (Citation2013, 35) identifies a similar poetics of changeable parts in her reading of Dziga Vertov’s film montage, “Kino-glaz” (1924): “In such a montage, the “perfect man” is an assemblage of perfect parts harvested from various bodies. It stands to reason that the remains of these donor bodies are discarded, like defunct machines cannibalized for useful parts. Thus perfection by means of technology entails that man should regard violence done to his body merely as a kind of industrial reassembly.”
19 Korotkov sounding a “трубный отбой” (Bulgakov Citation1995–Citation2000, I, 447), phonetically evocative of the Russian adjective for denoting a corpse (trupnyj), further suggests his imminent death. His lips, now a brass instrument, issue a military fanfare, ironically lamenting his cruel fate. The rooftop in this scene is incidentally the same as the one in “Sorok sorokov.”
20 Curtis (Citation2017, 35, 68, 71) sees this theatricality and dramatic quality as a general trend in his prose, especially prominent when we compare “Dni Turbinych” and Belaja gvardija.