1. Never talk with Strangers (continued)

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The Phoenician Adonis

With the Phoenician Adonis Berlioz refers to the Syro-Phoenician equivalent of the Greek god Adonis: the demi-god Tammoz

The Phrygian Attis

Attis is a Phrygian god, companion to Cybele. He was castrated and bled to death.

The Persian Mithras

Mithras was the God of light in ancient Persian Mazdaism

The coming of the Magi

In the original Russian text is written приход волхвов (prikhod volkhvov). It means the coming of the magicians. But the coming of the Magi is indeed a correct translation, since священные волхвы (svyachennije volkhvy) literally means the holy magicians, which, in Russian, is the term to describe the Three Wise Men, the Three Kings, or the Kings from the east who visited the newborn Jesus according to Matthew 2:1-12. The Magi were members of the Persian priestly caste. In other bible translations the terms diviners or astrologers are also used.

Restless old Immanuel

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), was a German idealist philosopher. In his Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781) he wrote that, though we can not prove it, we can, by the pure reason - which is the ability to transcend the sensory reality and thus no longer depend on it - conclude that, among others, freedom, immorality and God exist.

The five proofs that Kant "roundly demolished" according to Woland, and to which he added "a sixth of his own", are the so called Quinquae viae, which are five proofs of the existence of God, formulated by the catholic philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) in his Summa Theologiae (1265-1274).

Click here to read more about these proofs.

Schiller

Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was a German poet and playwright and a liberal idealist. At the beginning Schiller was a revolutionary in his work. Which, in those days, meant that he was striving for freedom and equality, and rejected arbitrariness and injustice. Later he became more moderate. Schiller is, among others, known for his poem An die Freude (1785) which was partly used by his contemporary Ludwig von Beethoven (1770-1827) in the final part of the Ninth Symphony. A well-known statement of Schiller concerned the work of Immanuel Kant related to freedom: "you can because you have to".

Schiller struck a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1842), with whom he discussed much on issues concerning aesthetics, encouraging Goethe to finish works he left merely as sketches; this thereby gave way to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Die Xenien (The Xenies), a collection of short but harshly satiric poems in which both Schiller and Goethe verbally attacked those persons they perceived to be enemies of their aesthetic agenda.

Strauss

The Strauss mentioned here is David Strauss (1808-1874), a German theologian, author of Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet or The Life of Jesus Critically Examined. He didn't care of the reality of the Jesus character, but he gave a mythical interpretation of the New Testament in the context of the poetical consciousness of the Jewish and the early christian communities. The person Jesus was a fiction to him a fiction resulting from cultural and literary expectations.

Click here to read Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet in English

Solovki

Solovki is a casual name for the Solovetski Islands in the White Sea. On the territory of a former convent was situated the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp, one of the earliest and most notorious concentration camps. The last prisoners were loaded on a barge and drowned in the White Sea in 1959.

Our Brand

In the Russian text Ivan says that he smokes Наша Марка (Nasha Marka), or Our Brand. Nasha Marka, produced originally by V.I. Asmolov & Co in Rostov on Don, is a Russian brand of cigarettes. It still exists and is very popular and celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2003. In 1920 the company was nationalized and the name changed to the Don State Tabacco Factory (DSTF). Production promptly decreased by 60 % compared to 1916. But the NEP gave a new impulse and in 1926 the production was four times the 1922 results. After the Soviet era, in 1992, the DSTF was reorganised and the name changed into JSC Donskoy Tabak. At the centenary celebration of Nasha Marka in 2003 a new industrial complex was built with a production capacity of 60 billion cigarettes per year. JSC Donskoy Tabak is now part of the agroholding AGROCOM.

The way Woland offers a cigarette to Ivan reminds of a secene from Goethe's Faust. The devil Mephistopheles asks some tipplers in the Auerbachs Keller in Leipzig: "Nun sagt, was wünschet ihr zu schmecken?" or "Tell me, what do you wish to taste?", which is followed by the counter-question: "Wie meint Ihr das? Habt Ihr so mancherlei?" or "How do you mean? Have you got so much choice then?". Just like Ivan replied: "'What, have you got several?" when Woland asks him which kind of cigarettes he prefers.

A cigarette case

The cigarette case of the stranger contains precisely Our Brand cigarettes - it is not so strange: the devil is traditionally gifted with the power to make any desired object appear. But Berlioz and Ivan are also astonished by the triangle which adorns the case. It is one of the emblems of the devil. It is often found in esotericism (jewish mystic, mystic of numbers, freemasonry). It is the reversible face par excellence, often linked to its reversed picture, as in the Seal of Solomon and the Star of David (David was the father of Solomon). This seal is formed by two twined triangles: the one - going up - representing the negative force or the devil, the other one - going down - representing the positive force or God. The equilibrium of both triangles is the key of Wisdom.

Enemies? Interventionists?

There was constant talk in the early Soviet period of enemies of the revolution and foreign interventionists seeking to subvert the new workers' state.

Komsomol

Komsomol is the contraction of Коммунистический союз молодёжи (Kommunistichesky Soyuz Molodyozhy) or the Union of Communist Youth, which all "good Soviet" young people were expected to join.

Komsomol had little direct influence on the Communist Party but played an important role as a mechanism for teaching the values of the communist party to the young, and as an organ for introducing the young to the political arena. The driver woman of the tram that wll decapitate Berlioz, is a member of Komsomol. We know that because she has a "crimson armband".

The growing up Soviet citizen had to follow a complete ideological itinerary, starting with the Pioneers or Всесоюзная пионерская организация (Vsesoyuznaya pionyerskaya organizatsya). At the age of 14 the youngster moved to the Komsomol, where he or she stayed until the age of 28. After that, the talented members could join the Communist Party, which was a condition for having access to more important functions. The Komsomol served as a repository for young potentials and a steppingstone for any career. Being thrown out of the youth movement, for instance because of misbehaviour at school, or because of politically incorrect ideas, was considered as one of the major punishments and after that, further career opportunities within the Soviet Union were reduced to zero.

A Russian emigre

Many Russians who were opposed to the revolution emigrated abroad, forming important "colonies" in various capitals like Berlin, Paris, Prague, Harbin or Shanghai - where they remained potential spies and interventionists.

Gerbert of Aurillac

Gerbert of Aurillac (958-1005) was a theologian and mathematician, popularly taken to be a magician and alchemist. He became pope in 999 under the name of Sylvester II.

Nisan

Nisan is, according to the civil calendar, the seventh month of the Jewish lunar calendar. Originally, according to the ecclesiastical calendar, it was the first month. The fifteenth day of Nisan (beginning at sundown on the fourteenth) is the start of the feast of Pesach or Passover, (Hebrew: פסח - coming from passing over or Pasach). It's the day of the full moon, because the jewish months start on the day following the new lunar crescent.. Passover is also known as Pesach, the spring feast, or freedom feast, commemorating the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.

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