2025, Volume 22, Issue 2
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Anatoly Arkadyevich Fomin THE MYSTERY OF A SURNAME: ON THE POETONYM DUNCHIL IN THE NOVEL THE MASTER AND MARGARITA
For citation Received on 10 February 2025 Abstract: This article examines the surname Dunchil’, which belongs to a minor character in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita. The study concludes that the name is of occasional and authorial origin and proposes a hypothesis regarding its derivation. According to the suggested etymology, the anthroponym Dunchil is an anagram of the surname of one of the central characters in Aleksandr Ostrovsky’s comedy The Last Victim — Vadim Grigor’evich Dulchin. The anagram results from the metathesis of the final consonants in the two closed syllables of the surname Dul’chin, thus Dul’chin becomes Dunchil’. This rearrangement significantly alters the morphological form of the surname, making it sound strange, unusual, and atypical for the Russian anthroponymic system. Based on this etymology, the article argues for the importance of the intertextual function of the poetonym Dunchil’, which signals the embedding of another literary world within Bulgakov’s novel. From this perspective, the character may be viewed as a literary projection of Ostrovsky’s protagonist. A comparative analysis of the two characters reveals several notable similarities. First, both are involved in close relationships with women who play significant roles in their lives. Second, both are publicly exposed for deceiving those with whom they are romantically or domestically involved. Third, both disguise their true selves through deception. Fourth, once their fraud is uncovered, both receive their just punishment. Fifth, in both cases, it is a woman close to them who triggers their downfall unexpectedly for the character. Additional narrative details discussed in the article further support the proposed etymology of the surname Dunchil’. Keywords: literary onomastics; poetic onomastics; poetonymy; literary proper name; poetonym; poetics of naming; proper names in fiction; intertextual function of the poetonym; Mikhail Bulgakov References Bagirova, E. P. (2011). Poeticheskaia onomastika M. A. Bulgakova (na materiale antroponimii romana Master i Margarita) [The Poetic Onomastics of M. A. Bulgakov (Based on the Anthroponymy in The Master and Margarita)]. In G. D. Akhmetova (Ed.), Sovremennaia filologiia: materialy mezhdunarodnoi zaochnoi nauchnoi konferentsii [Modern Philology: Proceedings of the International Conference] (pp. 71–73). Ufa: Leto. Fomin, A. A. (2001). Ob odnom sobstvennom imeni v romane M. A. Bulgakova “Master i Margarita” [On One Personal Name in M. A. Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita]. In A. V. Podchinenov (Ed.), Dergachevskie chteniia — 2000: Russkaia literatura: natsional’noe razvitie i regional’nye osobennosti: materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii [The Dergachev Readings — 2000: Russian Literature—National Development and Regional Features: Proceedings of the International Conference] (Vol. 2, pp. 330–342). Ekaterinburg: Ural University Press. Fomin, A. A. (2005). Vliianie assotsiativnogo fona literaturnogo onima na formirovanie chitatel’skogo predstavleniia o personazhe [The Influence of the Associative Background of a Literary Proper Name on Readers’ Perception of a Character]. In Kul’turologicheskii podkhod v obrazovanii: materialy IV Vserossiiskoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii [The Cultural Approach in Education: Proceedings of the 4th All-Russian Conference] (pp. 162–168). Ekaterinburg: Grif. Superanskaya, A. V. (2005). Sovremennyi slovar’ lichnykh imen: Sravnenie. Proiskhozhdenie. Napisanie [A Modern Dictionary of Personal Names: Comparison, Origin, Spelling]. Moscow: Airis-Press.
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