UNIVERSE RELATIVITY AND MYTHOPOETIC PARADIGM OF THE “EARTHLY WORLD” IN M. BULGAKOV`S NOVEL “THE MASTER AND MARGARITA”
Authors:   National Pedagogical Dragomanov University, Korniyenko Oksana A. 
Published: July 2022

The purpose of the work is to show the relativity of the Universe in the individual author`s myth of M. Bulgakov based on the analysis of the mythopoetic paradigm of the “earthly world” in the novel “The Master and Margarita” in conjunction with the axiological intention of the writer. So, the purpose stipulates the usage of methodological basis of the study including hermeneutic, structural-semantic, poetological, mythopoetic research methods. In the picture of the world created by M. Bulgakov, the basic semantic-structural basis of the ontological model is the idea of the relativity of the Universe, which is manifested in the understanding of the laws of being and human existence. Covering the epistemological and essential spheres of being, relativity is found in various constants (the idea of Good and Evil, the understanding of which implies the nature of antinomic mutual and co-relations). One of the fundamental philosophical problems is actualized – the Truth and its adequate perception (the characters reveal their involvement or non-participation in the “eternal truths”). The “truths” declared by the characters of Moscow in the 1930s turn out to be not true, knowledge turns out to be ignorance, etc., which is debunked at the plot-figurative level by the tricks of Woland and his retinue. In accordance with the notion of the relativity of being, the existence of the fifth dimension turns out to be admissible; transformations of spatial parameters, instantaneous changes in the topos of the characters, temporal shifts, etc. become possible. In Bulgakov`s artistic world the polystructure of mythopoetic symbolism can be traced to the image of the earthly world in its correlation with solar and lunar imagery and their derivatives (sun and moonbeams, sunset, dawn, etc.). Particularly significant are the reactions of the characters to certain astral objects, as well as qualitative changes in astral objects that react to the actions of people, more broadly – to the state of the world, the ratio of good and evil in it, the trampling of truth, etc. Consideration of polyvariant semantics in connection with the functional features of imagessymbols and symbolic details reveals the dominance of a complex of performed characterological and plotcompositional (code) functions that precede subsequent events in the novel. The article proposes observations on symbolic images and details that remained outside the attention of researchers. The undertaken analysis of the textual material gave grounds for the correction proposed in the work not only of individual interpretive provisions that exist in modern Bulgakov studies, but also for clarifying the ethical and philosophical vectors of the author’s intentionality, due to which demonic evil turns out to be less dangerous than what the human cohort of “small demons” are doing (a storyline associated with the image of Moscow in the 1930s) and people in power (Pilate and others). The latter (power) is recognized by the author of “The Master and Margarita” as a special form of violence against people. Bulgakov`s individual author`s myth is anthropocentric, because mercy and kindness, according to the writer, are the sphere of humans (this is also the subject of the rethinking of the Christian tradition, the strengthening of the human emanation in the image of Yeshua; Margarita and the Master show mercy in the novel). The writer builds a spiritual vertical in which the value scale is formed by the ideas of love, inner freedom, and creativity, which are enduring, eternal values for Bulgakov. Mythopoetic symbolism as a capacious form of a polylogue with the constants of human spiritual being in the 30s of the twentieth century actualizes the author`s internally oppositional dialogue with modernity and its deformations and acts as a productive way of expressing the writer`s artistic consciousness.