Styopa Likhodeev: characteristics of the character of the novel "The Master and Margarita"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Who is Styopa Likhodeev? Everyone who knows the content of Bulgakov's book, which tells about the arrival of the devil's retinue in the Soviet capital, is familiar with the name of this character. We are talking about one of the heroes of the famous novel "The Master and Margarita".

Resident of apartment 50

Styopa Likhodeev is the same director of the Variety Theater, who, using his position, enters in connection with women, does not fulfill his official duties and drives a state-owned car in vain. The role of Likhodeev in Bulgakov's imperishable plot is small. Nevertheless, his image is memorable.

This character, unlike the colleagues of his dead neighbor, does not bring trouble to the Master. He, at first glance, is absolutely harmless. Nevertheless, Woland and his henchmen send the unlucky director a thousand kilometers from Moscow. For what? What was wrong with this seemingly good-natured tenant of a “bad” apartment? So, what was Styopa Likhodeev punished for?

Misty morning

Styopa Likhodeev in the novel "Master andMargarita" is mentioned only a few times. More details - in the seventh chapter. And then the author gives him a total of several lines. However, it is worth saying that it is in the chapter "Bad Apartment" that the assistants of Satan appear in front of the reader for the first time in their entirety, and that is why it is so memorable.

One day, after a stormy evening, Likhodeev wakes up in his bed (although it is difficult to call the state of the Variety director this morning an awakening) and finds an unknown man in a black beret sitting next to him. The unexpected visitor speaks with an accent, introduces himself as an artist, with whom Styopa Likhodeev supposedly signed a contract shortly before this ill-fated day. The director of Variety does not remember this. And no wonder, because last night he drank port wine after vodka, then declared his love to some lady, went to someone's dacha in Skhodnya … In a word, the night was busy.

Likhodeev, without remembering the events of the past days, drinks the vodka offered by the guest, eats miraculously appeared dishes and, being a cunning and intelligent person, tries to hide his own forgetfulness in front of a stranger. And suddenly, going out into the front hall, he discovers an extraneous black cat of terrible size.

The most unpleasant thoughts

Styopa comes out into the hall to call Variety and inquire about the forthcoming performance of a foreign artist. The seal on Berlioz's door catches his eye. So far, he does not know anything about the death of his neighbor Styopa Likhodeev. Characteristics of the director of "Variety",however, it was given by the author precisely when describing the feelings that took possession of him at the thought of possible troubles with the editor-in-chief of a literary magazine.

What does the seal on the room door say? That something happened to her owner. Thoughts about the death of a neighbor do not occur to Likhodeev. The first thing he thinks about is arrest. Memories of the stupid article that Styopa had recently foisted on Mikhail Alexandrovich for some reason, and of the dubious conversations in the dining-room at dinner, swirled in poor Styopa's head. Feelings about the fate of Berlioz did not touch his soul. Just the worst thoughts. It is not known what Styopa would have thought of this morning, being in front of the sealed door of the writer, if not for the appearance of the aforementioned cat.

This is how crazy

What happened next in a bad apartment, no doubt, fans of the novel "The Master and Margarita" remember. Styopa Likhodeev, whose characterization will be given a little later, returns to the room and sees his guest there in more than a strange company. Sitting in an armchair is a rather unpleasant fellow with a feathery mustache and a cracked pince-nez. On the pouf is the same cat that a minute ago unceremoniously moved along the front.

“That's how they go crazy!”, - thinks, seeing a drinking and famously snacking cat, the director of Variety. The characterization of Likhodeev was given precisely by Behemoth and Koroviev. It is thanks to their clear and concise remarks that the reader understands what the neighbor of the tragically deceased Berlioz is like.

Image of Styopa Likhodeev

What do Woland's assistants say about the theater director? They are known to know everything. And the fact that Likhodeev does not fulfill his official duties (“rubbing glasses to the authorities”), and the fact that he leads a wild life. Styopa, according to Koroviev, does nothing, because he does not know how to do anything. The main character traits of Likhodeev are carelessness, laziness, and a penchant for drunken orgies.

Styopa leads a depraved life, in addition, he is extremely irresponsible, which Rimsky later confirms, having received a strange telegram from Y alta and deciding that this is nothing more than Likhodeev's next antics. Cunning (by no means wisdom), cowardice and deceit should be added to the characterization of this character.

In Y alta

The punishment of Styopa Likhodeev is crazy. He ends up in Y alta, but the picturesque seascapes do not please him at all. How was it possible to be so far from the capital in just a few seconds? The author speaks only in passing about the fate of Likhodeev in subsequent chapters. It is known that the novel was subjected to repeated editing. In the final version of the work, Styopa, like his colleagues, ends up in Stravinsky's clinic.

And Likhodeev could have been completely different…

And in the first edition of the novel there was such a character as Likhodeev. His name was different though. Garusya Padulaev - in 1929, Bulgakov gave this name to the director of the theater. This hero had a prototype - an acquaintance of the writer (a native of sunny Vladikavkaz) Taudzhin Peyzulaev. This man worked with a writer on a play"Sons of the Mullah". In the original version of the novel, Garusya, like Styopa, leaves against his will apartment No. 50, located in house 302-bis on Sadovaya Street. But Woland sends him not to Y alta, but to the homeland of his prototype - to Vladikavkaz.

On the way from the capital to the small homeland, Garusya enjoys the view of the wonderful Moscow landscape. That is, Padulaev does not appear in Vladikavkaz instantly. There is even something romantic in his journey. Bulgakov de alt with Padulaev much softer than with Likhodeev. But later, having learned about the death of his co-author, the writer decides to radically change the image of the character expelled from Moscow. In 1936, Bulgakov once again rewrote the novel. And now the director of the theater named Likhodeev appears on the pages of this work.

Stravinsky's Patients

After a two-day stay in the resort town, Styopa returns to Moscow, where he is immediately sent to a psychiatric clinic. In these difficult days for Muscovites, Professor Stravinsky has a lot of work to do. First, a poet is brought to the hospital, constantly talking about Pontius Pilate and the foreign tourist, who urgently needs to be caught. Then an entertainer arrives at the clinic demanding that his head be returned to him. And finally, one by one, theater officials are brought to Stravinsky, who, as if by agreement, beg for imprisonment in an armored cell.

Likhodeev spends eight days in the hospital. According to the latest edition of the novel, after some time he will receive the position of head of the gastronomicshop in Rostov.

The man in the wrong place

In one of the editions, the author called Styopa a "red director". What does this phrase mean? In the 1920s and 1930s, party workers began to be appointed to administrative positions in theaters. They, and quite officially, were called "red directors".

These people were far from art. They, as Fagot put it, “didn’t do anything, and they didn’t know how to do anything.” Such administrators were well known to Mikhail Bulgakov. The writer came into contact with the theatrical world for the first time when staging the play The White Guard. As usual, years later, in one of his works, the author ridiculed both the famous director and actors known in those years. As for the theatrical officials, they served as material for creating the image of Likhodeev.

Major vice

The characteristics of the director of the "Variety" have already been given above. However, deceit and cunning are traits that all the negative characters of the novel are endowed with. The main vice of Likhodeev is drunkenness. And this is what makes him different from the other characters in the book.

In just a few days, Woland and his assistants managed to stir up the whole of Moscow. About a huge black cat, a cheeky regent in a plaid jacket, a red-haired stocky type and a mysterious foreigner in the city, they talked for a long time. Rumors and speculation haunted Muscovites. Most of the gossips only heard about a strange gang of either psychics, or sorcerers, or clever scammers. But there were also those wholucky to meet with evil spirits, as they say, face to face. And these meetings became fateful.

The homeless man stopped writing poetry. Varenukha stopped lying. Poplavsky forgot about the Moscow apartment. As for Styopa Likhodeev, he no longer drank … port wine with vodka. Only vodka, and only currant buds infused.

Bad apartment

How can you talk about such a character as Styopa Likhodeev, and not say a word about the apartment in which he lived until the moment of his teleportation? But the director of the theater was doomed to disappear already when he crossed her threshold.

In the seventh chapter, in which the reader gets acquainted with Likhodeev, the author tells about the former tenants of apartment No. 50. They all seem to have sunk into the abyss. The jeweler's widow's tenant was the first to disappear. The woman owned an apartment, which she, being especially enterprising, partially rented out to tenants, whose fate turned out to be rather sad. However, like everyone who was seduced by apartments at the famous address. The hostess herself disappeared without a trace, and even her housekeeper Anfisa. But if the location of the first tenants remained unknown, then the fate of Berlioz and Likhodeev was familiar to everyone who lived in house 302-bis, located on Sadovaya. True, Likhodeev was more fortunate than his neighbor. But Bulgakov had his own accounts with writers.