The real name of the homeless man from the master. Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev - the main character of the novel "The Master and Margarita"
Ivan Bezdomny (aka Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev) is a character in the novel “The Master and Margarita”, a poet who in the epilogue becomes a professor at the Institute of History and Philosophy.
Source: novel "The Master and Margarita"
One of the prototypes of Ivan Bezdomny was the poet Alexander Ilyich Bezymensky (1898-1973), whose pseudonym, which became his surname, was parodied in the pseudonym Bezdomny. The 1929 edition of The Master and Margarita mentioned the monument to “the famous poet Alexander Ivanovich Zhitomirsky, who was poisoned by sturgeon in 1933,” and the monument was located opposite the Griboedov House. Considering that Bezymensky was from Zhitomir, the hint here was even more transparent than in the final text, where the Komsomol poet remained associated only with the image of Bezdomny.
Bezymensky made sharp attacks on the “Days of the Turbins,” and his play “The Shot” (1929) parodied this Bulgakov work. “The shot” was ridiculed in an epigram by Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), written in December 1929 or January 1930, where it was said quite harshly about Bezymensky: “Get this bearded Komsomol member away from me!..” Quarrel between Bezymensky and Mayakovsky parodied in I.B.’s quarrel with the poet Alexander Ryukhin (Mayakovsky served as his prototype).
Woland's prediction that Homeless would end up in a madhouse goes back to the novel "Melmoth the Wanderer" (1820) by the English writer Charles Maturin (1782-1824). There, one of the heroes, a certain Stanton, meets Melmoth, who sold his soul to the devil. Melmoth predicts that their next meeting will take place within the walls of a madhouse at exactly twelve o'clock in the afternoon. In the early edition of “The Master and Margarita” in the psychiatric hospital of Professor Stravinsky, it was not the Master, but Woland who appeared before I.B.
Stanton, who confidently believed that he had nothing to learn from the messenger of Satan, was indeed soon committed by his loved ones to a madhouse, and this was caused by “his constant conversations about Melmoth, his reckless pursuit of him, strange behavior in the theater and a detailed description of their extraordinary meetings that were made with the deepest conviction." In the hospital, Stanton first goes on a rampage, but then decides that “the best thing for him would be to pretend to be submissive and calm in the hope that in the course of time he would either appease the scoundrels in whose hands he now found himself, or by convincing them that he was a man harmless, will achieve such indulgences for himself that in the future, perhaps, will make it easier for him to escape.” Maturin’s hero in a madhouse “had two very unpleasant neighbors,” one of whom constantly sang opera verses, and the second, nicknamed “The Wild Head,” kept repeating in his delirium: “Ruth, my sister, do not tempt me with this calf’s head (there is in view of the head of the English king Charles I (1600-1649), executed during the Puritan Revolution. Blood is flowing from it; I pray you, throw it on the floor, it is not proper for a woman to hold it in her hands, even if her brothers drink this blood." And one day in Midnight Melmoth appears at Stanton's hospital.
The misadventures of the unlucky hero Maturin in Bulgakov are exactly repeated by Bezdomny. The poet is chasing Woland; after a story about a meeting with a “foreign professor” at the Patriarch’s, who allegedly talked with Pontius Pilate, Bezdomny is mistaken for a madman and imprisoned in the Stravinsky clinic. There he comes to the same line of behavior as Stanton in Melmoth the Wanderer. Bezdomny's neighbors in the hospital are the chairman of the housing association Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, reciting in his sleep the monologue of Pushkin's Miserly Knight, and the entertainer of the Variety Theater Georges Bengalsky, raving about his head cut off during a session of black magic.
In the fate of the poet Ivan Bezdomny, who by the end of the novel turned into a professor at the Institute of History and Philosophy Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, Bulgakov seemed to give an answer to the assumption of one of the prominent Eurasian thinkers and brilliant linguist Prince Nikolai Sergeevich Trubetskoy (1890-1938), who in 1925 . in the article “We and Others”, published in the Berlin “Eurasian Times”, expressed the hope that “the positive meaning of Bolshevism may be that, by taking off the mask and showing everyone Satan in his undisguised form, through the confidence of many in the reality of Satan led to faith in God. But, besides this, Bolshevism, with its senseless (due to the inability to create) picking at life, deeply plowed the Russian virgin soil, turned up to the surface the layers that lay below, and down - the layers that previously lay on the surface. And, perhaps, when new people are needed to create a new national culture, such people will be found precisely in those layers that Bolshevism accidentally raised to the surface of Russian life. In any case, the degree of suitability for the task of creating a national culture and connection with the positive spiritual foundations laid down in the Russian past will serve as a natural sign of the selection of new people. Those new people created by Bolshevism who do not possess this characteristic will turn out to be unviable and, naturally, will perish along with Bolshevism that gave birth to them, they will perish not from any intervention, but from the fact that nature does not tolerate not only emptiness, but also pure destruction and negation and requires creation, creativity, and true, positive creativity is possible only with the affirmation of the beginning of the national and with the feeling of the religious connection of man and nation with the Creator of the Universe."
When meeting with Ivan, then still Bezdomny, Woland urges the poet to first believe in the devil, hoping that by doing so Bezdomny will be convinced of the truth of the story of Pontius Pilate and Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and then will believe in the existence of the Savior. In full accordance with the thoughts of N. S. Trubetskoy, the poet Bezdomny found his “small homeland”, becoming Professor Ponyrev (the surname comes from the Ponyri station in the Kursk region), thereby becoming familiar with the origins of national culture. However, the new Homeless One was struck by the know-it-all bacillus. This man, raised to the surface of public life by the revolution, was first a famous poet, then a famous scientist. He expanded his knowledge, ceasing to be that virgin youth who tried to detain Woland at the Patriarch's Ponds.
But Bezdomny believed in the reality of the devil, in the authenticity of the story of Pilate and Yeshua, while Satan and his retinue were in Moscow and while the poet himself communicated with the Master, whose behest Bezdomny fulfilled by refusing poetic creativity in the epilogue. But in the same way, Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev, on Woland’s recommendation, stopped drinking port wine and switched to only vodka infused with currant buds. Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev is convinced that there is neither God nor the devil, and he himself in the past became a victim of a hypnotist. The professor's old faith revives only once a year, on the night of the spring full moon, when he sees in a dream the execution of Yeshua, perceived as a world catastrophe. He sees Yeshua and Pilate peacefully talking on a wide, moonlit road, he sees and recognizes the Master and Margarita. Bezdomny himself is incapable of true creativity, and the true creator - the Master - is forced to seek protection from Woland in his last refuge.
This is how Bulgakov’s deep skepticism manifested itself regarding the possibility of a rebirth for the better of those who were brought into culture and public life by the October Revolution of 1917. The author of “The Master and Margarita” did not see in Soviet reality such people whose appearance was predicted and on whom Prince N.S. Trubetskoy and other Eurasians. Nurtured by the revolution, the nugget poets who emerged from the people, in the writer’s opinion, were too far from the feeling of “the religious connection of man and nation with the Creator of the Universe,” and the idea that they could become the creators of a new national culture turned out to be a utopia. Having “seen the light” and turned from Homeless to Ponyrev, Ivan feels such a connection only in a dream.
What is the role of Ivan Bezdomny in the novel “The Master and Margarita”? How does this image help you understand other characters?
The writer conveys in the novel an important idea for him that power in its qualities and manifestations corresponds to the demands, capabilities and needs of people. The names and titles of rulers may change, but in order to change the essence of power, a person’s spiritual renewal is required. The naive, weak and invincible wandering preacher Yeshua called for this on his disciples - simple and unsophisticated.
One of these people, Ivan Bezdomny-Ponyrev, runs through the entire work and participates in all the key scenes of the modern part. To him alone, among ordinary people who do not have special qualities, the content of the story of Pilate and Yeshua is revealed. Before leaving, the master called him his student, but at the same time demanded that he not write more poetry. This means that apprenticeship was meant not as a continuation of writing work, the completion, for example, of the story of Pilate, but something else. Ivan changed from a writer to a historian. And the Master was a historian and earned his living in a museum before fate gave him the opportunity to write. The master only dreamed of glory. Ivan went from the fame that he already had (photo on the front page of the central newspaper) to complete obscurity. The fate of Ivan Nikolayevich Ponyrev is so important and described in such detail, because the last pages of the work are dedicated to him, because he represents ordinary people who are not gifted with any special talents. He is one of those who could find himself in the crowd of those who trample spiritual truths. There were all the prerequisites for this and there were teachers on this path - with the death of Berlioz their number did not decrease. But Ivan, having gone through shock and suffering, managed to become different, remaining ordinary, ordinary. He found spiritual needs, torments, and insights. He became a man.
Perhaps the appeal on the last pages of the sunset novel to the image of an ordinary, but spiritually seeking person is Bulgakov’s appeal to the reader. The master's behest should in this case lead to the idea of a difficult but necessary spiritual search as the only possible basis for truly human existence.
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“The Master and Margarita” is a mysterious and mystical work of Soviet literature. Each character in the story is described in detail and has extraordinary functionality in the plot. The multi-layered nature of a literary work allows you to look at the characters from a new perspective each time. Ivan Bezdomny is a specific character, whose image is analyzed by critics and literary researchers.
History of creation
A character whose life story is typical of a Soviet writer before the advent of mystical characters writes a poem dedicated to. The novel begins with a description of a meeting with. The poet becomes a participant in the discussion and then a witness to the tragic death of Berlioz. The pursuit of him and his companions leads Bezdomny to a psychiatric hospital.
According to literary scholars, there are several personalities who could be called prototypes for Bulgakov’s hero.
In the twenties of the twentieth century, the production “Days of the Turbins” thundered on the theater stage. Critics of the performance, among whom was the poet and writer Alexander Bezymensky, analyzed the performance, identifying shortcomings. Bulgakov's novel depicts in a satirical format the omission that occurred between Bezymensky and. This scene was Bezdomny’s criticism of Sashka Ryukhin, in which the poet called his opponent a mediocrity.
In the dialogue that took place on the Patriarch's Ponds, Woland predicts madness for the Homeless Man. This motif echoes the plot of Maturin's novel Melmoth the Wanderer, in which the character meets a man whose soul has been sold to the devil. The hero is also predicted to be treated in a hospital for the mentally ill. His name is Stanton. He, along with the others, is considered the prototype of the Homeless One.
Literary scholars have seen the motives of the works in The Master and Margarita. The Student's personality traits are similar to those of the Homeless Man, especially when it comes to self-confidence. Just as the Student argues with, so the Homeless Man has the courage to doubt the existence of Woland.
There are alternative versions regarding the search for prototypes of the Homeless One. The poet is often compared to the writer Ivan Pribludny. He was one of those close to Yesenin and had a reputation as a joker. Pribludny's popularity was explained not by literary talent, but by friendship with famous personalities. The poet is also compared with Demyan Bedny, and some see similarities with. The nickname Homeless is sonorous and has a lot of associations. At the same time, it is similar to the names of the alleged prototypes. The real name of the hero is Ponyrev.
"Master and Margarita"
Ivan Bezdomny is by no means the main character of the story, but his biography and fate excite the imagination of readers. A member of MASSOLIT one day talks at the Patriarch's Ponds with the chairman of this organization, Berlioz, and with the appearance of Woland, he ceases to correctly perceive what is happening. After a mad pursuit of Woland, Ivan ends up in an insane asylum, where doctors diagnose the poet with schizophrenia.
The versatility of the hero's personality becomes one of the important leitmotifs of the work. As the action progresses, Ivan is transformed, and the reason for this is a change in priorities and worldview. He is greatly influenced by the meeting that took place in the hospital. Having met the master, the poet discusses with him, and the love vicissitudes associated with. An interesting point for a person writing poetry was the history of the publication of the novel and the misadventures associated with this event.
Ivan Bezdomny represents the elite of the Moscow literary community, a world that is hated by the master and Bulgakov himself in his person. After meeting the master, life takes on a new meaning for Ivan. It is centralized on Pontius Pilate, and not on modern realities. The death of Berlioz and a number of events accompanying it changed the hero's worldview. His concepts took on a precise form. An atheist who gains personal strength in the finale of the work, Homeless is transformed from a reckless helipad into a mature adult man with convictions and priorities.
Film adaptations
His age did not match the character (the actor turned 33 during filming), but his appearance corresponded to the era described. The artist subtly and vividly portrayed the hero, remembering the audience for his charisma, charm and authentic performance.
Quotes
Poetic activity presupposes literary awareness and a lyrical spiritual disposition. Ivan Bezdomny neither externally nor internally evokes such associations.
Unable to appeal to the reasoning of his opponents in a dispute, Bezdomny brushes aside unnecessary information and does not want to philosophize.
“I wish I could take this guy to Solovki for three years for such evidence!” exclaims the writer, not really knowing who Kant is and what his philosophy is.
When the master asks how he perceives his poems, Bezdomny unexpectedly answers that they are “monstrous.”
“I promise and swear!” says the poet, deciding never to write poetry again. This gesture is the most honest in his life in relation to literature and to himself.
Ivan Bezdomny, aka Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, is a character in the novel “The Master and Margarita,” a poet and member of MASSOLIT, a student of the master, later a professor at the Institute of History and Philosophy. At the beginning of the novel, this character does not appear in the best image. This is a broad-shouldered, reddish young man in chewed trousers, black slippers and a checkered cap. As a member of MASSOLIT, he wrote an atheistic poem about Jesus Christ, which turned out to be quite plausible. The customer of the poem was the editor of the art magazine Mikhail Aleksandrovich Berlioz, who at the very beginning of the novel died under the wheels of a tram.
The hero uses the pseudonym Homeless and undergoes evolution throughout the novel. If at first he was a useless poet writing on given topics, then having met the Master, he stops writing poetry and gives up his “pseudo-creativity.” Having reconsidered his views on life, he renounces the privilege of being a member of the writers' union. In this act, there is an obvious connection between Bezdomny and a follower of Yeshua named Levi Matthew. Ivan Bezdomny spends some time in a psychiatric hospital, since no one believes his story about a “mysterious foreigner” - a professor of black magic. Later he became an important historian.
Both main characters - Yeshua and the Master - have one student in the novel: Yeshua - Levi Matthew, the Master - Ivan Bezdomny. Moreover, the initial state of both students was the most inappropriate, unpresentable: Matthew Levi was a publican, that is, a tax collector; Homeless-Ponyrev was at the beginning of the novel an ignorant anti-religious poet who wrote poetic “products” to order. We meet him in the first chapter of the novel, and Bulgakov dressed him rather colorfully, which is a reflection of the internal disorder, lack of taste, and culture of the young poet: he was “a broad-shouldered, reddish, curly-haired young man in a checkered cap twisted at the back of his head - he was wearing a cowboy jacket , chewed white trousers and black slippers”, “brisk green eyes” (judging by the details of the clothing - clearly not a “foreigner”, since the “foreigner” Woland who appeared immediately was, as emphasized by the narrator, “in foreign shoes, in the color of his suit ").
The original versions of the name Ivan Bezdomny were Antosha Bezrodny, Ivanushka Popov, Ivanushka Bezrodny.
Having become a disciple of Yeshua, Levi threw money towards the journey, and Bezdomny refused the privilege of being a member of the writers' union. The meaning of the metamorphosis of both is obvious: the truth is not closed to anyone who has the courage to seek it.
Photo installation by Jean Lurie.
But just as the Master turned out to be less persistent than Yeshua, so the Master’s student, Ivan Bezdomny, is “weaker” than Levi Matvey and cannot be considered a true successor of the work of his teacher (as, indeed, is Levi Matvey). Ivan Bezdomny did not write a continuation of the novel about Yeshua, as the Master bequeathed to him. On the contrary, Homeless was “cured” from the damage cast on him by criminal hypnotists, and only “on the spring festive full moon” part of the Master’s truth is revealed to him, which he again forgets upon awakening. One of the researchers, P. Palievsky, even considers Ivan Bezdomny to be the main character of the novel: he alone remains in this world after all the scandalous events, everything that happened in the novel led him to correction, to purification. This evolution of his is also expressed in the semantics of the name, in the change of name: in the Epilogue of the novel he is no longer Ivan Bezdomny, but professor-historian Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev.
The motif of the house occupies a special place in the works of M. Bulgakov, as a symbol of a person’s moral stability, his involvement in the cultural tradition, in the House and Family (remember the house - the Turbins’ fortress in “The White Guard”). A person deprived of a home, a sense of home, is deprived of a lot in this world. Changing the character's name in this case indicates familiarization with cultural and moral origins.
Ivan Bezdomny’s bathing in the Moscow River near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, where before the destruction of the temple there was a granite descent to the river and a granite font (“Jordan”) in memory of the baptism of Jesus Christ, is like a sign of the new birth of the character, that is, we can talk about the baptism of Homeless. But it is also obvious that this bathing is of a parodic nature (like Satan’s anti-ritual ball in the novel) - that is, it is at the same time a parody of the baptism arranged for the atheist Ivan Bezdomny by evil spirits.
The consequence of such an ambiguous “baptism” is the ambiguous epiphany of Ivan Bezdomny - he did not write a continuation of the novel, he forgot everything, and only once a year he feels vague anxiety and anxiety as a reminder of what happened: “The same thing repeats with Ivan Ponyrev every year... Before us is a bad infinity, movement in a circle. “So, then, this is the end?” “This is the end, my student...” With the departure of the Master, the integrity of his novel is lost; no one can not only continue it, but even reproduce it coherently... The master leaves the novel along with his word about the world, but another word that follows him is not heard in the epilogue."
Illustration: Victor Efimenko.
The image of Ivan Bezdomny is also rooted in the literature of the 1920s: according to researchers, his prototype is the famous atheist poet of the 1920s Demyan Bedny (author of the libel “poem” How the Fourteenth Division Entered Paradise, which offends the religious feelings of believers) . In the twenties, such pseudonyms were common among poets as Bedny, Bezymensky, Golodny, etc., in contrast to the aristocratic names of the bygone bourgeois era and as a sign of a break with the “hated” past: it was assumed that a new world should be built anew and one must renounce everything that burdens a person. As the poet V. Lugovskoy wrote:
I want to forget my name and title,
Change to a number, to a letter, to a nickname.
This idea of namelessness, the desire to become one of many, the glorification of the masses at the expense of the individual was, as we know, placed at the center of E. Zamyatin’s novel “We”. Rejection of the experience of previous generations, according to Bulgakov, is undoubtedly disastrous, and M. Bulgakov leads Ivanushka Bezdomny to an understanding of this idea at the end of his novel.
