Berlioz and Maximilian Andreevich Poplavsky

Berlioz and Maximilian Andreevich Poplavsky are uncle and nephew by marriage, bound by a family tie that the Kiev economist exploits for his own material advantage. Their relationship is one of the novel's sharpest satirical devices, exposing how the scramble for living space in Moscow overrides genuine mourning and reveals the moral corrosion at the heart of Soviet everyday life.

Identity and Family Connection

Maximilian Andreevich Poplavsky is the uncle of the late Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, the editor of a fat literary journal and chairman of the Massolit board who is decapitated by a tram-car at the Patriarch's Ponds. Poplavsky lives in Kiev on the former Institutsky Street and works as an industrial economist. He is considered one of the most intelligent men in Kiev, a reputation he deserves, but his intelligence is entirely directed toward practical self-interest. He has a wife, who experiences an outburst of grief upon learning of Berlioz's death, but Poplavsky himself is far more preoccupied with the apartment his nephew occupied in Moscow. He has long nursed a secret ambition to move to the capital, and the thought of exchanging his Kiev quarters for Berlioz's living space has been gnawing at him so much that he has even begun to sleep badly. He takes no delight in the spring flooding of the Dnieper, the staggeringly beautiful view from the monument to Prince Vladimir, or the patches of sunlight playing on the brick paths of Vladimir's Hill; he wants only one thing — to move to Moscow. His attempts to advertise in newspapers for an exchange of his Kiev apartment for smaller quarters in Moscow have brought no results, and the few offers that have come in have been disingenuous.

The Telegram and the Journey

Late in the evening two days before his departure, Poplavsky receives a telegram with the following content: "Have just been run over by tram-car at Patriarch's Ponds funeral Friday three pm come. Berlioz." The telegram is astonishing and confusing: if someone sends a telegram saying he has been run over, it is clear that he has not died of it, yet the message also mentions a funeral. Poplavsky, applying his intelligence, decides that a mistake has been made and that the word "have" has come from some other telegram in place of the word "Berlioz," which got moved and wound up at the end. With this emendation, the meaning becomes clear, though tragic. After his wife's outburst of grief subsides, he immediately starts preparing to go to Moscow. He travels by first-class sleeping car on the Kiev train, carrying a small fibreboard suitcase, and alights in Moscow among other passengers. His haste is not primarily for the funeral; the point is the apartment. An apartment in Moscow is a serious thing.

The Apartment as the Real Prize

Poplavsky's journey is motivated by the same housing obsession that pervades the novel. The apartment in question is the notorious Apartment No. 50 on Sadovaya Street, which has long had a strange reputation — people have been disappearing from it without a trace, and the late Berlioz shared it with the director of the Variety Theatre, Stepan Likhodeev. Poplavsky's plan is to claim the living space as the deceased's nearest relative. His calculation is cold and practical: he feels sorry for his wife's nephew, who has died in the bloom of life, but he realizes that there is no special need for his presence at the funeral. The real need is to secure the apartment before anyone else can stake a claim. The novel's narrator notes that for some unknown reason, Poplavsky does not like Kiev, and the thought of moving to Moscow has been gnawing at him so much that he has even begun to sleep badly. The telegram staggers him precisely because it opens the door to this long-cherished ambition.

The Encounter with Woland's Retinue

Poplavsky's scheme is thwarted before it can begin. When he arrives at the apartment, he is met not by grieving relatives or official administrators but by Woland's retinue. Koroviev, the checkered interpreter with a cracked pince-nez, and Behemoth, the enormous black cat, are in residence. They treat Poplavsky with mocking hostility, refusing to acknowledge his claim and ultimately driving him away. The encounter is a brutal comic reversal: the practical, calculating economist, who has traveled hundreds of miles for a piece of real estate, is outmaneuvered by supernatural forces that have no respect for Soviet property law or family ties. Poplavsky's intelligence and his carefully laid plans count for nothing against the arbitrary power of Woland's household.

Thematic Significance

The relationship between Berlioz and Poplavsky is a minor but telling thread in the novel's satire of Soviet life. Poplavsky's greed and opportunism mirror the behavior of the dozens of other citizens who besiege the house committee chairman Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy with declarations containing claims to the deceased's living space — pleas, threats, libels, denunciations, promises to do renovations at their own expense, references to unbearable overcrowding. The housing problem, as Woland himself observes during the black magic seance at the Variety Theatre, has corrupted the people. Poplavsky is a specimen of this corruption: a man who cannot enjoy the beauty of Kiev because he is obsessed with moving to Moscow, who cannot mourn his nephew because he is calculating how to profit from his death. His failed attempt to inherit the apartment underscores the novel's central irony: the worldly goods that people scheme for are ultimately worthless in the face of the supernatural reality that Woland represents. Poplavsky returns to Kiev empty-handed, his intelligence and his ambition defeated by forces he cannot comprehend.