Abstract:
The problem of studying Bulgakov’s novelistic heritage is still topical
and promising. The problem of studying Bulgakov’s novels as a special artistic
phenomenon, revealing the artistic uniqueness of Bulgakov’s works
created in a small genre, considering the novels as an “experimental platform”
of M. Bulgakov where the formation of the writer’s creative style took place, the study of the artistic method of Bulgakov-novelist in the context
of the main artistic trends of the era are still of scientific interest.
The novelistic genre is ideal for the implementation of expressionistic
aesthetics. By constructing a figurative semblance of the world, the expressionists
attempt to shift the absurdity and illogic of all that’s happening
to the new principles of constructing an artistic whole. The artist first and
foremost expresses his attitude to reality, evaluating it and consciously
avoiding the straightforward construction of an image of reality.
Expressionist aesthetics had a serious influence on M. Bulgakov’s
creative work. But for all the expressiveness of style, M. Bulgakov is distinguished
from the expressionists by a less pronounced degree of abstraction.
Another difference from the expressionist model of the world
in Bulgakov’s short novels is the “veiled” principle of deformation, a more
“flexible” image of the world.
The writer sees the disintegration of the fundamental values of the
new age. While choosing irrationality, the writer nevertheless avoids “pure”
modernism. Even in the most “irrational” stories he always initially follows
the objective reality, develops a system of realistic motivations, only then,
building on this basis, pushing away from it, transforming, M. Bulgakov creates
his novelistic images of the world. In Bulgakov’s novels, the combination
of fantastic and real, reflected and transfigured, momentary and
eternal, becomes a way of knowledge of the truth.