Tag Archives: Bulgakov
Verb of the Week: посвящать/посвятить Posted by Natalie on Aug 17, 2012
Всем привет! [Hello all!] It’s been a while since we have done a verb of the week, so I thought it would be a good idea to write a post about yet another wonderful Russian verb (because there’s nothing like a little Russian grammar to spice up your Friday, right?). I opened my verb book…
Reading “Мастер и Маргарита”: Chapter 19 Posted by yelena on Nov 25, 2010
For those of the blog readers who’ve taken up our challenge to read «Мастер и Маргарита» [Master and Margarita] «по-русски» [in Russian], congratulations! We are now officially done with «часть первая» [part one] of the novel and are moving on into a very exciting «часть вторая» [part two]. It is only here, in Chapter 19…
Reading “Мастер и Маргарита”: Chapter 18 Posted by yelena on Nov 15, 2010
How much do I love bookstores? So much that I am ready to fly to Moscow for just one day to browse through books at “Библио-Глобус” (one of the largest bookstores in Moscow). While I’m saving up for the transatlantic flight, I shop online and, when possible, on Brighton Beach (Brooklyn, NY). That’s where I…
Reading “Мастер и Маргарита”: Chapter 17 Posted by yelena on Nov 5, 2010
Did you enjoy reading Chapter 17 of Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita”? «Лично» [personally], I love all of it, from the sniffing dog «Тузбубен» whose «кличка» [name] literally means Ace of Diamonds to the empty suit, «ведущий дела» [conducting business] to the hapless and unwilling «хор» [choir]. But what I love even more is the…
Reading “Мастер и Маргарита”: Chapter 15 Posted by yelena on Oct 1, 2010
Remember Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoi (literal translation of his last name is “Shoeless”) who briefly appears in Chapter 9? In the beginning of that chapter he strikes a not-very-clear-cut deal with «коварный» [treacherous] Koroviev and at the end is led away by two nameless, but sinister «товарищи» [comrades]. And that was, seemingly, the end of…
Reading “Мастер и Маргарита”: Chapter 14 Posted by yelena on Sep 17, 2010
It looks like we haven’t talked about Master and Margarita for a while. «Приступим к четырнадцатой главе» [Let’s get to Chapter 14] . It is intense and sinister, don’t you think? Yet there are also quite a few «юмористические моменты» [comical episodes] that can make even the most serious reader smile. Here also we encounter…
Reading «Мастер и Маргарита»: Chapter 13 Posted by yelena on Sep 6, 2010
This is mimosa, one of the first flowers that appear at Russian markets in late winter and early spring. There’s much discussion whether the flowers Margarita carried the day she met Master were indeed «мимозы» [mimosa flowers]. After all, Bulgakov never named them, not in Chapter 13 anyway. He only described them as «отвратительные, тревожные…