Keyword: «madness»

This article analyses the motif of madness as types of Gogol’s madness, was a key element of the early art of the prose of M. A. Bulgakov. Especially bright reflection characteristic motif received in the story «Red crown», where madness became a poetic sign, reflecting the nature of the current historical era (1920s), which the writer perceived as absurd, crazy. The study concluded that, through direct and varied understanding of Gogol's traditional motif of madness as a way of spiritual enlightenment of the character is the deepening of the philosophical and poetic sense of the content of Bulgakov's prose from the standpoint of catastrophic changes in the social structure of post-revolutionary Russia.