Hello, Joseph Vissarionovich. - We received your letter. Read with friends. You will have a favorable response to it... Or maybe it’s true - you are asking to go abroad? What, are you really tired of us?
The author of "The Master and Margarita" is one of the most mysterious figures in our cultural history. Today Anews wants to understand in more detail the fate of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov. Did mysticism have a place in his life? How did the writer struggle with drug addiction? And what role did Joseph Stalin play in his fate?
Drug addiction and do-it-yourself abortion
One of the main “scandalous” aspects of Bulgakov’s biography is his passion for drugs. Indeed, the writer had this bad habit, and acquired it quite early - in 1913, while studying to become a doctor, he tried cocaine.
But the use of morphine really seriously affected Bulgakov’s health. A doctor by profession, he came to practice in the village of Nikolskoye, Smolensk province, and one day in the summer of 1917 he admitted a baby with diphtheria. Trying to save the child, Bulgakov cut his throat and sucked out diphtheria films through a tube. And then, to be on the safe side, he injected himself with the diphtheria vaccine. The effect of the vaccine caused itching and severe pain- to relieve them, the young doctor began using morphine injections.
I managed to get rid of the pain, but the price I paid for it was addiction. It is also believed that the writer had a hard time living in the wilderness and took drugs out of boredom. Bulgakov did not believe in addiction, arguing that a doctor cannot become a drug addict thanks to his knowledge.
A few months later, the writer began to experience withdrawal symptoms and attacks of insanity, during which he chased his wife with a revolver, demanding to bring a dose.
Because of this, Bulgakov began to try to get rid of his addiction by smoking opium cigarettes and reducing doses. His wife Tatyana Lappa also helped him, secretly diluting morphine with distilled water, gradually increasing its ratio to the drug.
Her husband's problems doomed Tatiana to truly terrible trials. Writer Yuri Vorobyovsky, author of the book “The Unknown Bulgakov,” said:
“Tatyana Nikolaevna, Bulgakov’s first wife, recalled how she told her husband about her pregnancy. He replied: “I will perform the operation on Thursday. I’m a doctor and I know what kind of children morphine addicts have.” True, he had never had to perform such operations before. Before putting on his gloves, he leafed through a medical reference book for a long time. The operation took a long time. The wife realized that something had gone wrong. “I’ll never have children now,” she thought stupidly.”
Tatyana, who had her first abortion back in 1913, really had no more children. Just as, however, Bulgakov did not have them either, who broke up with his faithful companion, who lived with him in the legendary “bad apartment,” in 1924. Then the writer became interested in the stylish and relaxed socialite Lyubov Belozerskaya, who at first even suggested that the three of them live together, to which Lappa responded with an indignant refusal. Belozerskaya married the writer, but after 6 years there was a divorce - it is believed that the bright woman did not pay too much attention to the comfort of her husband.
For a long time it was believed that by the early 20s the writer managed to overcome his addiction to drugs, but in 2015 a group of scientists from Israel and Italy analyzed 127 randomly selected pages of the original manuscript of the novel “The Master and Margarita”. On old paper they found significant traces of morphine, ranging from 2 to 100 nanograms per square centimeter.
On the page with the largest number morphine there is a narrative plan, which the author has reworked more than once. This find suggested that in the last years of his life the writer returned to his deadly addiction.
Gravestone, fire and Gogol's ghost
In popular memory, the figure of Bulgakov is traditionally shrouded in a mystical flair. One of the legends is connected precisely with the writer’s drug addiction and includes another outstanding writer - Nikolai Gogol.
In his diary, Bulgakov wrote how, suffering from another withdrawal, he suddenly saw someone entering the room "a short, pointed-nosed man with small, crazy eyes"- he bent over the bed of the sufferer and angrily threatened him with his finger.
It is believed that the described alien was Gogol, and that after his visit, drug addiction began to rapidly fade away.
Naturally, legends connect Bulgakov with the characters of “The Master and Margarita” - and in particular with the cat Behemoth.
According to one of the stories, Behemoth had a real prototype - only not a cat, but a dog with the same nickname. He was so smart that one day New Year after the chimes, he barked 12 times, although no one taught him this.
True, reliable evidence names cats as the prototypes of the magical animal - the Bulgakov family's pet kitten Flushka and Murr from Ernst Hoffmann's satirical novel "The Worldly Views of the Cat Murr."
Another story is related to the famous phrase of Hippopotamus: “I’m not being naughty, I’m not hurting anyone, I’m fixing the primus stove.”. It is believed that one day, when Bulgakov was once again editing an episode with a quote, a fire suddenly started in the apartment on the floor above. Subsequently, when trying to find the source of the fire, it turned out that it was the primus stove that caught fire in the kitchen of the writer’s neighbors.
The main “posthumous” story about Bulgakov is also associated with Gogol - this time it is genuine. The writer’s third wife, Elena, wrote in a message to his brother Nikolai:
“I couldn’t find what I wanted to see on Misha’s grave(deceased Bulgakov) - worthy of him. And then one day, when I, as usual, went into the workshop at the Novodevichy cemetery, I saw some kind of granite block deeply hidden in a hole.
The director of the workshop, in response to my question, explained that this was Golgotha from Gogol’s grave, taken from Gogol’s grave when a new monument was erected to him. At my request, with the help of an excavator, they lifted this block, drove it to Misha’s grave and set it up. You yourself understand how this fits Misha’s grave - Golgotha from the grave of his beloved writer Gogol.”
Bulgakov and Stalin
Relations with the “Father of Nations” became a special part of Bulgakov’s biography.
Experts characterize them as very ambiguous. On the one hand, Stalin several times spoke very coldly about the works of Bulgakov, who never particularly hid his negative attitude towards the revolution and the Soviet system. The head of the USSR called the play “Running” “a manifestation of an attempt to arouse pity, if not sympathy, for certain layers of anti-Soviet emigrants”, desire “to justify or half-justify the White Guard affair”. About the play “Days of the Turbins,” based on the novel “The White Guard,” Stalin said: “An anti-Soviet phenomenon,” but added: “Why are Bulgakov’s plays staged so often? Because it must be that there are not enough plays of our own suitable for production. Without fish, even “Days of the Turbins” is a fish.
If even people like the Turbins are forced to lay down their arms and submit to the will of the people, recognizing their cause as completely lost, it means that the Bolsheviks are invincible, nothing can be done about them, the Bolsheviks. “Days of the Turbins” is a demonstration of the all-crushing power of Bolshevism. Of course, the author is in no way “to blame” for this demonstration. But what do we care about that?
And here another facet of Stalin’s attitude emerged. On March 28, Bulgakov wrote a letter to the government, saying that he did not have the opportunity to publish and collaborate with the theater in the USSR. “I ask you to take into account that the inability to write for me is tantamount to being buried alive.”“, the writer concluded and asked permission to travel abroad.
Already on April 18, a sound was heard in his apartment. phone call. In 1956, Elena Bulgakova wrote in her diary in memory of her husband’s story at that time:
“He went to bed after dinner, as always, but then the phone rang, and Lyuba called him over, saying that they were asking from the Central Committee. Mikhail Afanasyevich did not believe it, decided that it was a joke (at that time this was done), and, disheveled and irritated, he picked up the phone and heard:
- Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov?
- Yes Yes.
- Now Comrade Stalin will talk to you.
- What? Stalin? Stalin?
- Yes, Stalin is talking to you. Hello, Comrade Bulgakov (or Mikhail Afanasyevich - I don’t remember exactly).
- Hello, Joseph Vissarionovich.
- We received your letter. Read with friends. You will have a favorable response to it... Or maybe it’s true - you are asking to go abroad? What, are you really tired of us?
Mikhail Afanasyevich said that he did not expect such a question (and he did not expect a call at all) - that he was confused and did not immediately answer:
- I thought a lot about Lately- Can a Russian writer live outside his homeland? And it seems to me that he cannot.
- You're right. I think so too. Where do you want to work? At the Art Theater?
- Yes, I wanted to. But I spoke about it and they refused.
- And you apply there. It seems to me that they will agree. We would like to meet and talk with you.
- Yes Yes! Joseph Vissarionovich, I really need to talk to you.
- Yes, we need to find time and definitely meet. Now I wish you all the best.”
Bulgakov got a job at the Moscow Art Theater, the country's main drama theater, and subsequently did not experience the threat of poverty. The mass repressions of the second half of the 30s also bypassed the writer.
However, Bulgakov never received full recognition. Some of his plays were still banned from production, a personal meeting with Stalin did not take place, and he was never allowed to travel abroad.
The writer made his last attempt to find a dialogue with the authorities and society in 1939, writing the play “Batum”, dedicated to the youth of Stalin - it was believed that the need for such a production would arise on the 60th anniversary of the head of the USSR. Along the way, Bulgakov most likely cherished the hope that the success of the play would help the publication of the main work of his life, the novel “The Master and Margarita.”
Preliminary demonstrations of the play, including in front of party officials, went very well. Elena Bulgakova wrote to her mother:
“Mommy, dear, I’ve been meaning to write to you for a long time, but I was crazy busy. Misha finished and submitted the play to the Moscow Art Theater... He was tired as hell, the work was intense, he had to submit it on time. But the fatigue was good - the work was terribly interesting. According to general reviews, this is a great success. There have been several readings - two official and others - at our apartment, and always a great success."
Bulgakov took what happened extremely hard. He told his wife: “I feel bad, Lyusenka. He(Stalin) I signed my death warrant."
“Misha, as much as I can, I’m editing the novel, I’m rewriting it”
According to the recollections of relatives, from that moment the writer’s health began to deteriorate sharply, and his vision began to disappear. Doctors diagnosed hypertensive nephrosclerosis - kidney disease.
“And suddenly Kreshkov told me(common law husband) the newspaper shows: Bulgakov died. Arrived(to Moscow), came to Lela(to the writer's sister). She told me everything, and the fact that he called me before his death... Of course, I would have come. I was terribly worried then. I went to the grave.”
The novel “The Master and Margarita” lay on the shelf for more than a quarter of a century and was first published in the November 1966 issue of “Moscow” magazine.
First minute: sensation of touching. This touch becomes warm and expands. In the second minute, a cold wave suddenly passes in the pit of the stomach, and after this an extraordinary clarification of thoughts and an explosion of efficiency begins. Absolutely all unpleasant sensations stop. This is the highest point of manifestation of human spiritual power. And if I had not been spoiled by my medical education, I would have said that a person can work normally only after an injection of morphine...
This enthusiastic tirade by a great writer and talented doctor Michael Bulgakov wrote in the diary of Doctor Polyakov, the hero of his story “ Morphine“.
There is no doubt about the authenticity of the described sensations: the medical histories of morphine addicts - the fictional Polyakov and the real Bulgakov - practically coincide. Except for the finale. Bulgakov fantastically managed to defeat his morphine addiction. But Polyakov - no.
Accident
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the range of medicines in pharmacies was surprisingly diverse. Sold openly without a prescription here: Camphor tincture of opium, with the help of which insomnia and diarrhea were treated; heroin powder as a remedy for the treatment of bronchitis, asthma, tuberculosis and depression; laudanum- a sedative with a high percentage of opiates. It was often given to young children so that when adults were absent, they could sit quietly at home, or better yet, sleep. And, of course, white morphine crystals- an excellent sleeping pill and pain reliever.
In the mid-20s of the 20th century, when, according to statistics, 40% of European doctors and 10% of their wives (not to mention patients!) became morphine addicts, a ban was imposed on the widespread use of white powder. But then, in 1916, 25-year-old doctor Mikhail Bulgakov arrived on assignment in the remote village of Nikolskoye near Vyazma without any serious prejudices about the prescription drug morphini.
For the first time, Bulgakov was forced to inject himself with morphine by chance. Mikhail Afanasyevich’s first wife, Tatyana Lappa, recalled: “Once, when we lived in Nikolskoye, they brought a boy with diphtheria. Mikhail examined him and decided to suck out the diphtheria films from his throat with a tube. It seemed to him that the contagious culture had also spread to him.
Then he ordered himself to be injected with anti-diphtheria serum. He began to experience terrible itching, his face became swollen, his body was covered in a rash, and he felt terrible pain in his chest. Mikhail, of course, could not stand this and asked to be given morphine. After the injection he felt better, he fell asleep, and later, fearing the itching would return, he demanded to repeat the injection. That's how it started..."
How does a habit start?
The World Health Organization has long described the scenario of addiction to morphine. Even in a small therapeutic dose - 0.02-0.06 g per day - morphine immerses the beginner in a “state of paradise”: fantasies come to life, perception is sharpened, the performance of easy physical and mental work is accompanied by the illusion of ease. At will, drug addicts can “order” and “change” the content of their dreams. However, over time, “control” over visions triples, and bouts of euphoria alternate with the experience of terrible hallucinations.
Getting used to opiates comes relatively quickly: literally after 2-3 doses, mental dependence sets in: thoughts about taking the drug become obsessive. The physical connection is also rapidly developing - morphine is quickly integrated into the metabolic processes of the body. Moreover, with each subsequent injection, in order to achieve the “state of paradise”, an increasingly larger dose has to be administered. The morphine addict is driven to the next injection not only by the thirst to experience unearthly sensations, but also by the horror of withdrawal syndrome.
The description of Pontius Pilate’s migraine attack in the novel “The Master and Margarita” is quite realistic, because Mikhail Bulgakov himself suffered from terrible headaches. It is believed that he belonged to the so-called migraine personalities, which are characterized by increased excitability, touchiness, conscientiousness, and intolerance to the mistakes of others.
The unfortunate slaves of morphine, having passed the initial euphoric stage, fall into an irreversible state of painful and physical suffering. The slightest delay in the next injection threatens unbearable pain in the muscles, joints, internal organs, bloody diarrhea, vomiting, breathing and heart rhythm disturbances, phobias and terrible visions...
They are exhausted, incapable of action, their will is completely paralyzed, and the most important functions of the brain are damaged. The sallow face of a morphine addict resembles a mask behind which a real tragedy is played out. Weakened to the limit, the exhausted victim of morphini is helplessly present at his own physical and mental destruction. Of course, not everyone who knows morphine 100% becomes its slaves. But once morphinism has taken root, it can only be eliminated through enormous effort.
Terrible streak
Mikhail Bulgakov, like many of his colleagues of that time, became hostage to the common misconception that a doctor, due to his knowledge and experience, cannot become a morphine addict. Mikhail Afanasyevich’s illness was played into by his dreary life in the wilderness of the village. The young doctor, accustomed to city entertainment and amenities, had a hard time enduring forced rural life.
The drug gave oblivion, a feeling of creative exhilaration, and gave birth to sweet dreams. Usually, the writer’s injections were given to him by his wife Tatyana. She described the state in which Bulgakov was after a dose of morphine as “... very calm. Not exactly sleepy. Nothing like this. He even tried to write in this state.” Biographers claim that it was during the days of his illness that Bulgakov began working on the autobiographical story “Morphine.”
From the diary of Doctor Polyakov: “I pace the lonely empty large room in my doctor's apartment diagonally from doors to windows, from windows to doors. How many of these walks can I do? Fifteen or sixteen - no more. And then I have to turn and go to the bedroom. There is a syringe on the gauze next to the bottle. I take it and, casually smearing the punctured thigh with iodine, insert the needle into the skin. There is no pain. Oh, on the contrary, I look forward to the euphoria that will now arise. And it arises. I learn about this because the sounds of the accordion played by the watchman Vlas, who is happy about spring, on the porch, the ragged, hoarse sounds of the accordion, muffledly flying towards me through the glass, become angelic, and the rough bass in the swelling bellows hums like a heavenly choir...”
Realizing that this was serious, Bulgakov made attempts to switch to opium cigarettes, tried to reduce the dose - in vain. Morphine held him tightly in his arms. According to his wife’s recollections, he gave injections twice a day: at 5 o’clock in the afternoon (after lunch) and at 12 at night before bed.
When the village began to suspect that Mikhail Afanasyevich was ill, the Bulgakov couple had to move to Vyazma. The couple had high hopes for recovery with this city. However, the change of scenery did not help. T. Lappa recalls: “Vyazma is such a provincial town. They gave us a room there. As soon as we woke up - “Go, look for a pharmacy.”
I went. I found a pharmacy and bring it to him. It's over - we need to do it again. He used it very quickly. He had a seal that allowed him to write prescriptions. This is how the whole of Vyazma proceeded. And he’s standing right on the street, waiting for me. He was so scary back then... Do you remember his picture before his death? That's what his face was like. So pathetic, miserable. And he asked me one thing: “Just don’t send me to the hospital.” Lord, how much I persuaded him, exhorted him, entertained him. I wanted to drop everything and leave. But how can I look at him, what he is like, how can I leave him? Who needs it? Yes, it was a terrible streak...”
In Vyazma, the drug was accountable. In order to obtain a few grams of opiate, Bulgakov had to resort to all sorts of tricks, write out prescriptions under various fictitious names, and several times he sent his wife to Kyiv for him. If she refused, he flew into a rage. Once he put a Browning to her head, another time he threw a hot Primus at his wife.
“I didn’t know what to do,” said T. Lappa, “he regularly demanded morphine. I cried, asked him to stop, but he didn’t pay attention to it. At the cost of incredible efforts, I forced him to leave for Kyiv, otherwise, I said, I would have to commit suicide.”
Among celebrities of different times and peoples drug addiction was with Byron and Shelley, the Bronte sisters, and Dumas the father advised smoking opium mixed with hashish. Among the artists, the most famous morphinists were Modigliani and Beardsley.
From the diary of Doctor Polyakov: “...No, I, who have fallen ill with this terrible disease, warn doctors to be more compassionate towards their patients. It is not a “melancholy state”, but a slow death that takes possession of the morphine addict, as soon as you deprive him of morphine for an hour or two. The air is not nourishing, you can’t swallow it... There is not a cell in the body that doesn’t thirst... What? This cannot be defined or explained. In a word, there is no man. It's turned off. The corpse moves, yearns, suffers. He doesn't want anything, doesn't think about anything except morphine. Morphine! Death from thirst is heavenly, blissful compared to thirst for morphine. Thus, the person buried alive probably catches the last insignificant air bubbles in the coffin and tears the skin on his chest with his nails. So the heretic at the stake groans and moves when the first tongues of flame lick his feet... Death is a dry, slow death..."
Substitution effect
There are three versions about how the writer recovered. According to one of them, upon arrival in Kyiv, the Bulgakovs’ relative, Doctor Voznesensky, advised Tatyana to inject distilled water into her husband’s vein. Mikhail Afanasyevich allegedly accepted the “game” and gradually moved away from the terrible habit. However, narcologists claim that such a healing scenario is unlikely for a morphine addict. According to other sources, the wife began to reduce the percentage of morphine in injections in favor of distilled water, and gradually reduced it to zero. This is more believable.
Tatyana Lappa’s own confused memories of this period of time are as follows: “In Kiev, at first, I also kept going to pharmacies, one after another, once I tried to bring distilled water instead of morphine, so he threw this syringe at me... I stole Browning from him, when he was sleeping... And then she said: “You know what, I won’t go to the pharmacy anymore. They wrote down your address.”
I lied to him, of course. And he was terribly afraid that they would come and take away his seal. He wouldn’t have been able to practice then. He says, “Then bring me the opium.” It was then sold without a prescription in pharmacies. He got the whole bottle at once... And then he suffered a lot with his stomach. And so gradually, gradually, I began to move away from drugs. And it passed.”
It took Bulgakov at least three years to fight morphine. And according to medical psychotherapists, another drug helped to win it - creation.
Towards the end of his life, Mikhail Bulgakov was tormented by fears. “As soon as I turned off the lamp in a small room before going to bed, it seemed to me that some kind of octopus with very long and cold tentacles was crawling through the window, even though it was closed. And I had to sleep with fire.” Bulgakov tried to recover from terrible visions using hypnosis
The case of Bulgakov’s healing is unique, morphine, or opiate,addiction- one of the most difficult, because addiction to morphine due to the instantaneous achievement of a “state of paradise” occurs almost after the first dose. The recovery rate is one in tens of thousands. But not during courses of treatment, but as a spontaneous result of experiencing a turning point in life. For example, the death of a drug addict friend or the death of a loved one who fought to save him. Bulgakov's case is exceptional in that by his nature he was predisposed to all kinds of addictions.
The writer was a psychasthenic, anxious person, prone to depression, over-analysis, sleep disorders, hypochondria, and headaches. Later, he underwent psychotherapy and hypnosis sessions on this matter. Posthumously, he was even diagnosed with a “low-progradient (sluggish) form of schizophrenia” without hallucinations and delusions.
However, most scientists who have studied Bulgakov’s biography and work from the point of view reject this diagnosis. Depressive-anxious personality - nothing more. These are the people who most often end up in drug addiction. Therefore, the question of how he was able to move away from morphinism remains a real mystery.
Obviously, Bulgakov was greatly helped by his wife, his intuitive psychotherapist. Apparently, she actually injected him with distillate and at the same time gave him opium tincture to drink. Gradually, he switched from injection addiction to an easier option - oral. Over time, the dosage decreased and gradually faded away.
But the most important thing is Bulgakov had motivation. Only if it is present can the patient recover. The narcissistic soul of the writer demanded creation, presenting himself to the world. He could not present himself as a drug addict; on the contrary, he hid this side of his life in every possible way. And then, at the cost of incredible efforts, he replaced one drug with another: he preferred creativity to morphine.
Dear blog readers, what is the secret of Mikhail Bulgakov’s genius? Leave comments or reviews. This will be very useful for someone!
Speaking about Mikhail Bulgakov, such unusual works as “The Master and Margarita” and “Heart of a Dog” immediately come to mind. Perhaps someone will remember his “White Guard”, and someone even read the story “Morphine”.
This is a talented writer who, due to his second profession (doctor), became acquainted with morphine and became an eyewitness to how the drug destroys a person, his body and soul.
Why did Bulgakov start taking morphine?
Until the 30s of the last century, morphine was actively used in medicine, and according to statistics, 40% of doctors and even their wives (10%) were addicted. At the same time, a large percentage of patients also became morphine addicts (addicted). Morphine was freely sold in pharmacies as an anesthetic and sleeping pill. Heroin was also sold there - a remedy against pulmonary diseases and depression. Bulgakov saw the end of this period.
In 1916, young Mikhail was assigned to work in a hospital in the distant village of Nikolskoye. He first tried morphine by accident - he was forced by necessity.
While treating a sick child, it seemed to him that the virus was transmitted to him during one of the procedures. The doctor asked to give him an injection of serum against this virus, after which he began to experience severe itching, unbearable pain, his face was swollen and his body was covered with a rash. Then he received an injection of morphine, after which his condition improved and he fell asleep. And when he woke up, he asked for more morphine - just in case.
How did the addiction arise?
The habit arises quickly - 2-3 times are enough. At first, the desire to “feel like in heaven” pushes you to use it. Drug addicts (and even patients receiving therapeutic doses of the drug) see pleasant dreams and feel lightness, fantasies come to life, and perceptions become sharper.
Gradually, the dose has to be increased, and now it is no longer the desire to be in heaven that guides the person, but the horror of severe suffering without the drug. And all because even a slight delay in taking the dose causes unbearable pain throughout the body, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, breathing problems and nightmare visions.
Addiction did not spare Mikhail either. His wife gave him injections. And she described his state as “very calm.” He could work and write.
How morphine influenced the life and work of Bulgakov
Reading the lines of the novel “Morphine,” it becomes obvious that these are not just the observer’s guesses or the writer’s imagination, he conveys the truth about this drug so subtly and accurately.
The suffering associated with drug use formed the basis of the story “Morphine.” And the writer also makes the hero of the novel “The Master and Margarita” Ivan Bezdomny a morphine addict, and describes his visions under the influence of the drug.
It took the writer about three years to stop using. His wife, stepfather helped, as well as a craving for creativity and an awareness of how addiction was ruining his life.
Series of stories “Notes of a Young Doctor”
It's seven or eight stories. Researchers disagree on whether the story "Morphine" is part of this series. These works are based on real events that happened to the author. The plot has been changed, but they basically reflect what actually happened.
In his stories, Bulgakov wrote about successful operations, colorfully and vividly described the life and customs of the inhabitants of the village where he lived and worked.
In the story “Morphine,” he describes how a young doctor became addicted to the drug, what he experienced, what he felt, and how he tried to escape from this trap. He vividly and truthfully describes the tragedy that happened to a talented person. Yes, morphine can break anyone, even the strongest of us.
About the future fate of the writer
After living in the village, Bulgakov moved to the capital and was engaged in writing and worked as a director. His last novel was The Master and Margarita. Before his death, he suffered from kidney disease and was forced to take his prescribed morphine again to relieve the pain.
In conclusion, we can say the following. On the one hand, thanks to the drug, the world received an unusual story. On the other hand, suffering and grief are not worth writing. It's a myth that drugs promote creativity. Without them, a person is much stronger and more capable.
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Bohemia loved the white powder, which was soon nicknamed “marafet”. As the author of the song “Cocainetka” Alexander Vertinsky writes in his memoirs about the pre-revolutionary years, the drug was first sold openly in pharmacies, in sealed 1-gram jars. The product of the German company Mark, for example, cost fifty dollars per dose. Then they began to demand a recipe, and the “marafet” went to the black market, they began to dilute it with tooth powder and chalk - as we see, some things remain unchanged in any era.
According to him, everyone sniffed: actors, actresses, poets, artists; they offered to “borrow” the powder, just as they used to borrow snuffs of snuff.
It was sold by dealers at the entrance to the theater along with tickets, as evidenced by a 1913 newspaper.
“Cocaine was the curse of our youth,” recalled “Russian Pierrot.” Those addicted to it sat in basement cabarets, white as death, with blood-red lips, with their bodies exhausted to the limit. They didn’t want to eat; only very strong drinks had an effect on the brain, which seemed to sober them up and “pause” the narcotic frenzy. Those who had been hooked for a long time were plunging into an atmosphere of depressing, hopeless despair. All this was interspersed with periods when a person thought he was a genius - I wonder who real geniuses felt like? The era of decadence and maximum rise of culture - a broken one, which was soon destined to collapse - was acutely felt by everyone and required a boost to the brain.
Men carried cocaine in bottles, women in powder compacts. Jewelers made “cocaine boxes,” a type of cigarette case. They can still be found in abundance in modern antique shops - the main thing is not to confuse them with other, completely innocent objects.
Sniffing was fashionable. Bulgakov’s first wife Tatyana Lappa recalled how once, either in 1913 or 1914, her husband brought cocaine. He said: “We must try. Let's try". According to her, they didn’t like it: Bulgakov felt sleepy, but since it was fashionable, they needed to taste it. In the autobiographical “Morphine,” Mikhail Afanasyevich, on the contrary, describes in great detail and with masochistic voluptuousness the effects of cocaine on his body (among other drugs).
However, this “tried it once” is typical of women’s memories of the greats. Galina Benislavskaya claimed that Yesenin snorted cocaine only once, already in the 20s, under Isadora.
We retell the charming scene from her words: the insidious Joseph Axelrod gave the drug to the poet, but Yesenin, by his own admission, did not feel anything - it did not work. He showed Benislavskaya a cartridge case mouthpiece filled with white powder. She screamed in horror: “Give it up now! What is this!” - and with all her strength she hit him on the hand. Yesenin, in her words, “confused, like a boy who realized that he was indulging in something bad and dangerous, spread out his fingers with fear and dropped them. He looked like he had gotten rid of danger.” After which the poet was properly reprimanded: “I searched for him for half an hour, and S.A., trembling, frightened, listened and gave his word that not only would he never take cocaine in his hands, but he would also give it to the person who gave it to him in the face.” "
Vera friend "S.A." in his “purity” she is sweet: in the same conversation Yesenin complained to her that the poet Nikolai Klyuev was forcing him to smoke hashish - to poison him because he wanted to! At the same time, according to the testimony of the same lady, a malicious and completely degenerate cocaine addict was Alexey Ganin, who also wrote poetry, a close friend of Yesenin (a witness at his wedding with Zinaida Reich!), who met him on a paramedic train in 1916, when both were serving orderlies. The “last poet of the village” was also friends with the Far Eastern futurist Venedikt Mart - not only the author of the poem “Cain of Cocaine”, let’s not guess what it was inspired by, but also a famous morphine addict and opium smoker. However, it’s not Mart’s fault: in Harbin in the 1920s it was difficult not to get carried away by it, especially if you were translating ancient Chinese lyrics. According to the writer Nikolai Zakharov-Mensky, another friend of Yesenin, imagist, actor Boris Glubovskoy, was on cocaine.
Such a number of cocaine-using friends is alarming, but does not prove anything. But the People's Commissar of Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, in his brochure “On Everyday Life,” directly speaks about Yesenin’s addiction (two years after his death):
“He was picked up by the Futuro-Imagist intelligentsia, the tavern bohemia clung to him, made a sign out of him and at the same time taught him to snort cocaine, drink vodka, and debauchery.”
The combination “Yesenin and cocaine”, “cocaine and Yesenin” is repeated four times in two paragraphs.
According to Gippius, Igor Severyanin also indulged in “marafet”. Futurist Sergei Bobrov, “twitching with his nasty face of an esthete-criminal,” according to Georgy Ivanov, is also a cocaine addict. Vera Sudeikina in her diary of 1917 writes about the composer Nikolai Tsybulsky that “he snorts cocaine and smokes opium.” And we present only those rumors whose source we were able to trace to a specific memoirist.
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The ease with which people of the Silver Age became addicted to drugs is completely natural: they grew up on them.
It was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that manufacturers stopped adding “substances” to their products - before that, cocaine and opium were used in local anesthetics (tooth powder), cold and headache medications, “medicinal wines” and even baby drops to ease teething .
There were cocaine lozenges to relieve sore throats, powder for runny noses; The drug was also used as a medicine for angina pectoris. Brockhaus recommended cocaine as a remedy for seasickness back in 1909 (we bet it really helped?). It was used for local anesthesia - in the form of hydrochloric acid solution. All this was already prohibited by the beginning of the First World War, but consumer predisposition may well have remained.
The word “cocaine” was used in the poetry of the 1910s–1920s with almost the same frequency with which the poets of Pushkin’s time wrote about “Clicquot” and “ai.”
Alymov urged: “Don’t inhale cocaine magnolias!” Shengeli describes “the acrid sugar of cocaine.” From Nesmelov: “And the woman with the cocaine / brought a pinch to her nostrils.”
Mayakovsky: “A handful of stars, / shout! / Run away in fear, evening monk! Let's go! / Let us flare at the females / nostrils / eaten away by the teeth of cocaine!”
From Pasternak: “...Drained from the hooves of winter / Cocaine!” From Zemenkov: “The face turns blue, like a lit sulfur match / From cocaine.” From Savin: “I inject the spicy, / Sticky cocaine of poetry into my heart.” Selvinsky, Sasha Cherny, many others - in short, the word was included in the operational poetic dictionary.
Even, I beg your pardon, Nikolai Ostrovsky in “How the Steel Was Tempered” writes in poetic prose about the beauty: “Sensual nostrils, familiar with cocaine, trembled.” In 1934, in exile, under the pseudonym M. Ageev, “A Romance with Cocaine” was published, entirely dedicated to the protagonist’s relationship with drugs. They even suspected that the author belonged to Nabokov - in the end it turned out to be Mark Levy.
Opium/hashish/ether
Russian writers had a different relationship with this type of drug, more contemplative and enthusiastic. The fact is that hashish had a literary Tradition (with a capital T). This is not just about “Confessions of an Englishman who used opium” (1821) by de Quincey, but about the more recent past. In Paris, since the 40s, there was such a Le Club des Hashischins, where Dumas, Hugo, and Balzac went - some to talk, some to drink. And most importantly for our heroes, the poets Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud visited there. And these writers with great gusto described the sensations they experienced - which served as a completely model for the poets of the Russian Silver Age, who translated a lot from the French, at the same time spying on their aesthetics and poetic meters for their works and the ability to be dandy.
The first to come to mind is the main poser of the era - Nikolai Gumilyov. His passion is evidenced by Erich Hollerbach (from whom he asked for a pipe to smoke opium), Yuri Annenkov, Pavel Luknitsky. And Akhmatova herself was absolutely sure that even during his life with her he “resorted to these drugs,” although he carefully hid his habits from his wife, since she clearly did not approve of such eccentricities. (Did Akhmatova take drugs? Apparently, she was indifferent to them. According to Mikhail Meilakh, when she had a heart attack, she was injected with morphine for a whole month. He asked if this was accompanied by any pleasant visions. “There was nothing pleasant in them ", answered Akhmatova. “Well, since I saw a cat on my bed. Why do I need a cat?”)
Let's return to Gumilyov. He was also interested in inhaling ether. Annenkov left detailed story, how they, in the apartment of engineer Boris Kaplun (Spesivtseva’s husband and Uritsky’s cousin), “went into the world of dreams” together with some girl.
By the way, it was Gumilev who left the first description of a trip and non-standard sensations in Russian fiction, which makes up about a third of his short story “Journey to the Land of Ether.”
But alas, the story is generally erotic, about a girl and their hypothetical sex, so today it seems naive and teenage.
Ether was easy to get. Opium too. As Lappa, who brought it for Bulgakov when there was no morphine, says, back in 1916 it was sold in pharmacies without a prescription, and you could get a large dose by running.
Prosaic memoir “coming out” usually takes the “I tried it once” format. For example, the poet Georgy Ivanov in “Chinese Shadows” writes how, out of politeness, he smoked a thick cigarette stuffed with hashish with the editor of “Birzhevye Vedomosti” Vladimir Bondi. The interlocutor promised him “colorful dreams - lakes, pyramids, palm trees.” Instead, Ivanov experienced mild nausea.
“I was mistaken,” Bondi said to this, “you don’t need hashish, but ether, morphine.”
The journalist considered himself a physiognomist and could determine by the wrinkles and folds on his face which drug his interlocutor was addicted to.
It is, of course, difficult to compile a complete picture based on memoirs: few people were frank about their sad experience, and they wrote about others in cases where it was absolutely useless to hide it or if they felt hostility towards one or another character.
The writer Evgeny Solovyov was a heavy drug addict. In 1905, Chukovsky, in a text in his memory, describes how a “mighty talent” pitifully begged him for “hashish,” which was taken away from him. Or the founder of the “circle of decadents,” poet Alexander Dobrolyubov, “with a large face that bore a perfect resemblance to a white mask, from which some fabulous oriental eyes glazed terribly black,” as Bunin described him. According to his own testimony, Dobrolyubov smoked opium and chewed hashish. Socialite poet Pallada Bogdanova-Belskaya smoked cigarettes containing opium to create the image of a fatal beauty (according to Georgy Ivanov).
Some clearly let it slip in their texts. For example, Annensky, speaking about Little Russian beauties in Gogol’s works, calmly uses the following comparison: “Climb a step higher, and only opium will give you unattainable beauty.” Tatyana Vechorka was not shy in her poetry: “While vague in the chest / The opium is stirring sultryly...” She also wrote the poem “And you were dreaming about subtle pleasant poisons...”, where there is about hydrochloride, and about opium, and about Veronal.
The lyrical hero of the poem “The Shira Smoker” by Velimir Khlebnikov describes in detail and in detail the sensations from a mixture of opium fumes, or teriyak, with hashish.
Doctor Anfimov, talking about his medical case, writes that even as a child Khlebnikov sniffed ether. While living in Persia, the poet became addicted to reclining in a teahouse and smoking teryak there - this is how their friend Alexei Kosterin talks about him and the artist Mieczyslaw Dobrokovsky in “Russian Dervishes”.
In poetic language, the word “opium” is found in Pushkin and has long since acquired figurative meaning. So it’s not interesting to search and read. Only the already mentioned Venedict Mart in 1922 describes everything strictly and to the point: “In a nimble and fidgety needle / A black piece will be spotted, / Burning opium poison / Will excite a drunken appetite.” The substance was still called “opium”. Pasternak speaks specifically about “opium,” as do Voloshin, Shengeli and Zenkevich. Boris Poplavsky has a poem “Caravans of Hashish” (1918), where “a brothel cooks opium in blue smoke.”
There are also problems with finding the word “ether” in the lyrics, it’s too ambiguous. But with “hashish” everything is clear, it is specific. It is praised, and more than once, by Innokenty Annensky (“sweet hashish”), and mentioned by Benedict Livshits (“eternally feminine hashish”). Boris Poplavsky calls for “hashish to be scattered on the table”, Bryusov, Vladimir Narbut, Aseev and even Voloshin have it... Georgy Ivanov, the same one who was sick at once, writes: “And, like the secret aroma of hashish, / Was floating in the air night. / The glow of sunset is getting paler..."
Morphine
The spread of morphine in the country was greatly influenced by the First World War. Many people started using it as a pain reliever for wounds, and then became addicted. Doctors suffered from overwork. According to statistics, in 1919–1922, 60% of morphine addicts in Petrograd were doctors or nurses and orderlies, others fought at the front.
The most famous of them is Bulgakov, whose autobiographical and heartbreaking “Morphine” we have already mentioned. Reading the recordings of his wife Lappa’s oral conversations with Leonid Parshin is more terrifying: they are not embellished with literary flair.
The image of a loving woman rushing around provincial Vyazma in winter to get a dose of morphine for a doctor who has become hooked is scary.
But there were plenty of morphine addicts at the beginning of the twentieth century: among them, for example, the actor Andreev-Burlak, the writer and actress Elizaveta Shabelskaya; in 1914, the artist Vsevolod Maksimovich died from a lethal injection.
But the legendary Nina Petrovskaya is a bad poetess, but a talented destroyer of men, love triangle whom Bely and Bryusov are described by the latter in the novel “Fire Angel” (in a satanic setting) - became addicted to morphine in the spring of 1908 and soon carried Bryusov along with her, “and this was her real, albeit unconscious, revenge,” Khodasevich wrote. And here is one more, his own testimony, now about the poet himself: “I remember, in 1917, during one conversation, I noticed that Bryusov was gradually falling into some kind of stupor, almost falling asleep. Finally, he got up, briefly went into the next room - and returned rejuvenated.<…>Looking into the empty drawer of his desk, I found a syringe needle and a piece of newspaper with blood stains. Last years he often fell ill, apparently due to intoxication.”
The bilious Bunin called Bryusov “a morphine addict and a sadistic erotomaniac.”
And finally, we read poetry again. From Lozina-Lozinsky: “We don’t know: where are you from? Who called you? / Like a sarafan girl, you sing, whining. / And from the red larynx of your phrases, the earth calls out / Accepts it like morphine.” Zenkevich’s terrible poem - “There are moments...”, about “nerves” and morphine, flooding “the veins with an inflamed wave”... Look for it, it’s better to read it in its entirety. From Kirsanov: “I / myself collected / poison from ampoules” and “...morphine drags me into a dead sleep.” The word is found in Severyanin and Selvinsky - but without any personal connotation. Poplavsky has the lines: “You said: death threatens me, / A green hand in a green sky,” and then: “...This is how a brave clown injects morphine...”
Poplavsky, by the way, died in 1935 in exile, together with the 19-year-old poet Sergei Yarho. Both died in their sleep after taking a large dose of some “substandard drugs.” We find out what kind of substance it was in the obituary in the newspaper “Sword” (dated October 20, 1935): heroin. The era of new drugs and completely different literature is coming.
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After the First World War, the revolution and Civil War The drug situation in the country has deteriorated greatly. They began to be used by huge sections of the ordinary urban population, soldiers, sailors, prostitutes, and the homeless. From the point of view of Russian literature, this is important, since everything listed above has ceased to be an “item of elite consumption” and a sign of bohemia, and has become less fashionable. However, things have also become somehow bad with the layer of writers and poets in the country...
