The Bulgakovian Code of Alexander Galich’s Pushkiniana

The objective is to describe the ways in which Bulgakov’s meanings are transformed, as implied in A. Galich’s references to the personality and works of A.S. Pushkin. The Bulgakov code of works, in one way or another correlated with Pushkin in Galich’s work, has not yet become the subject of a special research. The study traces forms of actualization of Bulgakovian impressions at different stages of Galich’s life as they are reflected in his mature works - the autobiographical novel Dress Rehearsal (“General’naya repetitsiya”) and the poems The Fires Have Broken Out (“Zanyalis’ pozhary”), Experience of Despair (“Opyt otchayaniya”), and Experience of Nostalgia (“Opyt nostal’gii”). Analyzing the conceptual significance of reminiscences from Bulgakov’s play about Pushkin and from The Master and Margarita , it focuses on the encoding function of a quotation from Anna Akhmatova’s epitaph for Bulgakov. Particular attention is paid to Galich’s response to the collision embodied in the figure of the Master: Bulgakov endowed his fictional Doppelganger with his own creative maximalism and human frailty, whereas Galich shifted the emphasis from circumstances of irresistible force to personal imperfection. The poet perceives Pushkin’s ideal fate as a reproach.The conclusions of the research suggest that: actualization of the Pushkin myth of in Galich’s work is based on the conviction of the uniqueness of the poet’s ideal path, with the Pushkin invariant functioning as an imperative; by interpreting his own destiny through the Bulgakovian code of the Pushkin myth, Galich was able to transcend empirical experience and, by universalizing his personal trials, repeatedly re-establish a connection with the ideal, embodied in Pushkin; in Galich’s reception, Bulgakov’s principle of the “indivisible yet unmerged” relationship between the Pushkinian and the Gospel myths emerged as a productively creative contradiction.