Edythe Haber, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Mikhail Bulgakov’s move at the end of 1924 from his “cursed” apartment on Sadovaya Street (immortalized in The Master and Margarita) to a flat in the Prechistenka neighborhood brought with it a whole new circle of friends and acquaintances, mostly affiliated with the State Academy of Artistic Research (Gosudarstvennaia akademiia khudozhestvennykh nauk, or GAKhN). The only undisputed trace that members of GAKhN left on Bulgakov’s literary works is the character of Fesya in the first draft of his “novel about the devil.” I propose that their influence on The Master and Margarita — in particular that of the well-known philosopher and classicist Aleksei Losev — is far-reaching, contributing to the portrait of the Master and — more significantly, if more speculatively — clarifying the philosophical/religious underpinnings of the novel, still the subject of heated debates.

Refreshments will be provided.

Co-sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

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