The focus of this study is revelation at the limits of communication. It considers the way in which (biblical) apocalyptic literature prominently figures the interconnection between liminality, revelation, and representation. The methodology asserts an indissoluble association between theology, philosophy and literature. As such it is interdisciplinary. A preliminary theory (and theology) of liminality interweaves the theological and philosophical contributions of, amongst others, Karl Barth, Graham Ward, Jürgen Moltmann and Jacques Derrida, thereby initiating a revised perspective on the constitution of literary apocalyptic text production and interpretation. Theorising the limen begins to describe the Trinitarian economy at work in Christian apocalyptic processing of scripture. I begin with the idea that revelation (apokalypsis) is the experience of the limen itself (in a coincidence of opposites). Thus the limen (as an actively divine space) incorporates that which stands on both sides, in vertical and horizontal, linear and cyclical, spatial and temporal movements. I then propose that apocalyptic literature re-presents this complex economy in which the end is rehearsed simultaneously as limit, threshold, and rupture. Theologically, this complicates inter-relational notions of ‘apocalyptic’ and eschatology, and stimulates a debate on a metaphysics of violence in communication (between God, man and Creation). I conclude that, at the extreme limit of human understanding (where words fail), those with faith in God’s love are opened out to revelation in the apocalyptic textual performance of the liminal economy, and thus to hope and forgiveness. Stressing the importance of reading apocalyptically, I begin to demonstrate the relationship between Christian-canonical narratives and the broader western literary canon, the critical process having invited an exploration of those literary characteristics (of tone, mode and genre) shared by (biblical, modern and postmodern) texts. An important principle in the literary analyses is the association between apocalyptic text production and hermeneutics. Christopher Rowland’s description of a ‘visionary mode’ explains how this process works. Thus the preliminary theory leads into a close reading of recent Russian and American works by Mikhail Bulgakov and Thomas Pynchon. These are compared to, and worked through, Mark’s and John’s gospels and the Book of Revelation. The interpretative approach widens the often self-limiting study of apocalyptic literature, and broadens theological debate on revelation. Thus it begins to show how the rhetoric of apocalyptic makes belief compelling.

Part 1. Chapter 1. Introduction: the Man and his work. The intellectual life of Russia at the turn of the century was marked by a lively interest in religious questions, and, in some circles, a cautious rapprochement between the intelligentsia and the Orthodox Church. Vladimir Lossky was born into an academic environment which looked more sympathetically upon traditional Christianity than had previously been usual: and the fact of his being brought up in a household both academic and (articulately and critically) Christian tends to set him apart from the religious thinkers of his father's generation (Bulgakov, Berdyaev, and others) who had discovered, or rediscovered, Orthodox faith in adult life adter experiencing disillusion with radicalism or Idealism, or both. Lossky's first major theological essay was, in fact, directed against the ethos of Russian 'religious philosophy', especially its preoccupation with the Wisdom of God (Sophia) as a cosmic principle. In this, as in later works, he pleads for a theology rooted in the historical experience of the Church and free from philosophical systems. His commitment to the 'historical experience' of the Church is reflected in his lifelong allegiance to the Patriarchate of Moscow as the only canonically authoritative Russian ecclesial body. His thinking on the relation between Church and culture was clarified in his experiences in the Second War, which also brought him into close association with several Catholic theologians. It was in this context that he first attempted a synthetic presentation of Orthodox dogma in his best-known work, the 'Essai sur la théologie mystique de l'Eglise d'Orient'. In the post-war period he continued his professional work as a mediaevalist at the Sorbonne, but continued to write on theological questions, developing, in particular, a distinctive approach to the concept of the human person and to the catholicity of the Church. He was much involved in ecumenical gatherings in France and England, and, in Paris, up to the time of his death, assisted in the training of clergy for the Patriarchal jurisdiction (though his hopes for the development of a western-rite group were frustrated). Chapter 2: The debate with Bulgakov. Superficially, Lossky's theology has much in common with that of Sergei Bulgakov, especially in their attitudes to tradition and catholicity, and Lossky's hostility to Bulgakov is surprising. However, a brief examination of Bulgakov's thought reveals its extensive dependence upon the notion of 'Sophia', the Divine Wisdom, as an all-embracing cosmic reality, both divine and human - a notion which Lossky rejects absolutely as deterministic, destructive of a proper sense of both divine and human freedom. He also condemns Bulgakov's Christology: the idea of 'Godmanhood', fundamental to Bulgakov's theology, jeopardises the reality of Christ's humanity, and tends to reduce the Incarnation to a manifestation of cosmic process. The basic theme of Lossky's critique is that Bulgakov's system, in Christology, ecclesiology, and Trinitarian theology, is dominated by metaphysical presuppositions incompatible with orthodox belief: it is insufficiently apophatic, too preoccupied with concepts. Lossky's own theology shows a marked and conscious reaction away from this kind of conceptualism. Chapter 3. The Via Negativa. The 'negative way' is not, for Lossky, merely a dialectical step in theology, a 'corrective' to affirmative theology: it is the essential ground of all theology. Theology beings in personal encounter with a personal God, an encounter which cannot be expressed in concepts; negative theology, which declines to speak of God in concepts, most closely reflects this basic reality. It is the μετάνοια, the conversion and self-sacrifice, of the intellect. The Greek patristic language about meeting God in 'darkness' is simply a 'dogmatic metaphor' for this experience, complementing, not contradicting the imagery of 'light': darkness and light together here represent the experience of transcending the sphere of the intellect. The history of early Christian spirituality shows a gradual movement towards a via media between intellectualism and agnosticism, a position which allows for both the absolute incomprehensibility of God in seipso, and His accessibility to man. This via media is expressed most fully by Gregory Palamas, but is anticipated by the Cappadocians, pseudo-Dionysius, and Maximus. It envisages God 'transcending His transcendence, expressing His unknowable 'essence' in His 'energies', His manifestation in the world. God's self-transcendence calls forth man's 'ecstacy'. The personal encounter of man with God is a mutual movement of self-giving: man is nearest to God and so most fully God-like in this movement. And since God is always fully personal, man is therefore most personal in the act of self-renunciation: negative theology alone is adequately 'personalist'. Chapter 4. Imago Trinitatis. Man is in the image of God because he is personal: he cannot be reduced to his 'nature', to what is common, repeatable and conceptualisable. He is more than an individual of a species; and this constitutes him in the image of God's trinitarian life, in which individuality is perfectly transcended in full communion. The Church, in which man realises his capacity for communion can also be called imago Trinitatis: it is a plurality of persons, each called and sanctified in a unique manner by the Spirit, sharing one nature, the humanity which Christ has restored and 'deified'. This 'trinitarian' life is what is designated by the term 'catholicity', the existence of the whole in the part. Lossky's method in discussing the theology of personality is resolutely Christocentric: the impossibility of interpreting ὑπόστᾰσις as 'individual' is established by an appeal to the inadmissibility of so interpreting it in Christology. Lossky's appeal to the Fathers in support of this thesis is, however, problematic: his concern to include the body in the imago Dei, and his understanding of ὑπόστᾰσις both lack a clear and consistent patristic foundation. Although he does genuinely build upon certain Greek patristic ideas, he is, as a 'personalist', essentially and inevitably - a -post-Augustinian'. The ambiguity of the patristic evidence raises the serious question of how far Lossky is justified in criticising Western theology (as he does) according to alledgedly patristic criteria. Chapter 5: The debate with the West (i). Lossky presupposes the unity of Christian theology; if one doctrinal topic is infected with error, the whole theological system is poisoned. In the West, it is the doctrine of the double procession of the Spirit, the filioque, which is the basic error: it suggests that the Spirit is somehow less personal than the Son, rejects the patristic idea that the Father is the sole source of 'cause' of the other persons, and so makes the unity of the Trinity reside not in the person of the Father but in a super-personal 'essence', that which is common to Father and Son. Western theology opts for a divine essence, in place of the living God of revelation: it is as much in thrall to philosophy as Bulgakov's system. Consequently, it is consistently impersonalist, not only in Trinitarian theology, but in its ecclesiology, its doctrine of grace, and its ascetical theology. Protestantism is as much conditioned as Catholicism by the basic assumption implicit in the filioque that real communion, sharing (in some sense) of substance, is impossible between God and man, because both are encapsulated in their 'essences'. Historically, Lossky's critique is often inaccurate and unjust; but he makes a good case, nonetheless, for the dominance, in much of Western theology, of conceptualism and impersonalism. There is little to correspond to Lossky's profound apophoticism and 'kenotic' idea of personality.

Sowohl in der Musikgeschichte als auch in Bulgakovs Roman treten Strawinsky und Berlioz fiir immer Seite an Seite auf.

Nesta dissertação me proponho a analisar o romance O Mestre e Margarida (1940) de M. Bulgákov a partir das noções de humano, fantasia e realidade. Para isso, inicio por uma análise do primeiro capítulo do romance de Bulgákov em aproximação com o romance realista socialista, buscando elementos com que Bulgákov se contrapõe ao realismo socialista. Sugiro, aqui, que esses elementos teriam ligação com questões éticas e de modos de representação do real, de tal modo que essas questões residem no cerne temático e formal do romance. Em seguida, me proponho a analisar o entremeio entre o primeiro capítulo de O Mestre e Margarida, que se passa em Moscou, e o segundo capítulo, o romance dentro do romance, a história de Pôncios Pilatos e Jeshua escrita pelo personagem Mestre. Nesse momento, estou preocupado em discutir três temas principais: a. a função do fáustico no romance, bem como outras questões a ele associadas, como o problema do valor em Goethe, Binswanger, Nietzsche e Heidegger leitor de Nietzsche; b. o modo como um romance está dentro do outro, uma vez que, entre outras coisas, o modo como se dá a passagem entre um e outro é variado e instaura uma questão sobre a qual não poucos críticos se debruçaram; e c. a singularidade do procedimento paródico presente no romance, a qual me leva a enveredar por um estudo da sátira menipeia de Bakhtin, em consonância com alguns pontos de seus textos iniciais, preocupados, por exemplo, com o problema da responsabilidade. Por fim, passo a uma análise do segundo capítulo de O Mestre e Margarida, o assim chamado romance dentro do romance, que narra à sua maneira a interação entre Jeshua e Pôncios Pilatos. Aqui, aproximo dessa narrativa algumas questões relacionadas ao nietzschianismo russo e a Nietzsche, tendo em vista hipóteses trabalhadas nos momentos anteriores deste estudo. Nesse percurso, as desenvolvo e aprofundo, principalmente a respeito de assuntos como a recepção de aspectos da filosofia alemã no contexto russo-soviético e o lugar complexo de O Mestre e Margarida no modernismo. / In this dissertation I propose an analysis of M. Bulgakovs novel The Master and Margarita (1940), considering the notions of human, fantasy and reality. For this purpose, I begin by an analysis of the first chapter of Bulgakovs novel, approaching it to socialist realist novel, aiming to find elements in which Bulgakov counteracts socialist realism. I suggest these elements have to do with ethical matters and with issues about how to represent the real, in a way that these matters and issues rest on the novels thematic and formal heart. Afterwards, I propose to analyse the intermedium (entremeio) between The Master and Margaritas first chapter, which takes place in Moscow, and the second chapter, which is the novel inside the novel, the story of Pontius Pilate and Yeshua written by the Master, the character. At this point, I am concerned with three main themes: a. the function of the faustic in the novel and related matters, like the value issue in Goethe, Binswanger, Nietzsche and Heidegger as Nietzsches reader; b. the way in which a novel is inside the other, since the link between one and another varies, posing an issue handled by several critics; and c. the singularity of the parodic procedure found in the novel, which leads me to embark on a study of Bakhtins menippean satire in consonance with some points of his first texts that are concerned, for example, with the issue of the answerability. Finally, I analyse the The Master and Margaritas second chapter, the so called novel inside the novel, which tells in its own ways the interaction between Yeshua and Pilate. I articulate it here with some issues connected with the Russian Nietzscheanism and with Nietzsche himself considering assumptions that Ive worked previously. In this route, I advance assumptions about issues like the reception of aspects of German philosophy in Russian-soviet background and The Master and Margaritas intricate place inside modernism.

Nesta dissertação me proponho a analisar o romance O Mestre e Margarida (1940) de M. Bulgákov a partir das noções de humano, fantasia e realidade. Para isso, inicio por uma análise do primeiro capítulo do romance de Bulgákov em aproximação com o romance realista socialista, buscando elementos com que Bulgákov se contrapõe ao realismo socialista. Sugiro, aqui, que esses elementos teriam ligação com questões éticas e de modos de representação do real, de tal modo que essas questões residem no cerne temático e formal do romance. Em seguida, me proponho a analisar o entremeio entre o primeiro capítulo de O Mestre e Margarida, que se passa em Moscou, e o segundo capítulo, o romance dentro do romance, a história de Pôncios Pilatos e Jeshua escrita pelo personagem Mestre. Nesse momento, estou preocupado em discutir três temas principais: a. a função do fáustico no romance, bem como outras questões a ele associadas, como o problema do valor em Goethe, Binswanger, Nietzsche e Heidegger leitor de Nietzsche; b. o modo como um romance está dentro do outro, uma vez que, entre outras coisas, o modo como se dá a passagem entre um e outro é variado e instaura uma questão sobre a qual não poucos críticos se debruçaram; e c. a singularidade do procedimento paródico presente no romance, a qual me leva a enveredar por um estudo da sátira menipeia de Bakhtin, em consonância com alguns pontos de seus textos iniciais, preocupados, por exemplo, com o problema da responsabilidade. Por fim, passo a uma análise do segundo capítulo de O Mestre e Margarida, o assim chamado romance dentro do romance, que narra à sua maneira a interação entre Jeshua e Pôncios Pilatos. Aqui, aproximo dessa narrativa algumas questões relacionadas ao nietzschianismo russo e a Nietzsche, tendo em vista hipóteses trabalhadas nos momentos anteriores deste estudo. Nesse percurso, as desenvolvo e aprofundo, principalmente a respeito de assuntos como a recepção de aspectos da filosofia alemã no contexto russo-soviético e o lugar complexo de O Mestre e Margarida no modernismo. / In this dissertation I propose an analysis of M. Bulgakovs novel The Master and Margarita (1940), considering the notions of human, fantasy and reality. For this purpose, I begin by an analysis of the first chapter of Bulgakovs novel, approaching it to socialist realist novel, aiming to find elements in which Bulgakov counteracts socialist realism. I suggest these elements have to do with ethical matters and with issues about how to represent the real, in a way that these matters and issues rest on the novels thematic and formal heart. Afterwards, I propose to analyse the intermedium (entremeio) between The Master and Margaritas first chapter, which takes place in Moscow, and the second chapter, which is the novel inside the novel, the story of Pontius Pilate and Yeshua written by the Master, the character. At this point, I am concerned with three main themes: a. the function of the faustic in the novel and related matters, like the value issue in Goethe, Binswanger, Nietzsche and Heidegger as Nietzsches reader; b. the way in which a novel is inside the other, since the link between one and another varies, posing an issue handled by several critics; and c. the singularity of the parodic procedure found in the novel, which leads me to embark on a study of Bakhtins menippean satire in consonance with some points of his first texts that are concerned, for example, with the issue of the answerability. Finally, I analyse the The Master and Margaritas second chapter, the so called novel inside the novel, which tells in its own ways the interaction between Yeshua and Pilate. I articulate it here with some issues connected with the Russian Nietzscheanism and with Nietzsche himself considering assumptions that Ive worked previously. In this route, I advance assumptions about issues like the reception of aspects of German philosophy in Russian-soviet background and The Master and Margaritas intricate place inside modernism.

This thesis deals with the reception of the works of Michail Bugakov by the Czech community from the 1920s to 1980s. This time frame is set by the publishing of two translations of Bulgakov's novella Fatal Eggs. Using the two translations, published over fifty years apart, this thesis attempts to demonstrate how were Bulgakov's works received by the Czech community and in what context were they understood. The thesis focuses mainly on the impact of the novel in the life and work of Michail Bulgakov. Following that, a picture of the author created by the Czech journalism and commentaries accompanying his works is shown. Through the analysis of these texts the thesis focuses on the influence of ideology on the interpretation of author's works and fate. Further focus is given to the differences of translation styles of both translators. The translatological analysis of selected samples of both translations has been conducted and upon it the methods used by each of the translators have been synthesized. Key words: Michail Bulgakov, Fatal Eggs, Kamila Značkovská-Neumannová, Alena Morávková, the picture of the author, translation method, translatological analysis

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