book review master and margarita

The Literary Edit

Review: The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov

When I decided to read the BBC’s Top 100 Books , my main reason for doing so was to expand my reading repertoire. And while it was something of a relief when I finished the hundredth book just a matter of minutes before I turned thirty, in the months that have since passed I’ve missed having a list to choose from. and often considered working my way through the additional hundred books that made the BBC’s Top 200 Books, particularly after finishing one of my most recent reads, The Mater and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

It’s not a book I had heard of until I launched my Desert Island Books series, but after editor Sam Baker and Bookstagrammer Bookish Bronte both chose it as one of their desert island reads it was firmly on my radar. I was then recently recommended it by someone I met at a party, and so I swiftly bought a copy from Gertrude and Alice, before settling in for a night of reading.

Like many people, I’m often wary of my literary abilities before beginning a Russian classic, but much like Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment – which I raced through – I was hooked from the get go with The Master and Margarita.

A unique tale unlike anything I’ve read before, Mikhail Bulgakov’s much-loved book is considered by many critics as one of the best novels of the twentieth century, as well as the foremost of Soviet satires. Fusing fantasy with magical surrealism and political satire, The Master and the Margarita is a pacy read set in 1930s Moscow. It tells the story of the devil and his cronies who descend on the Russian capital, putting the entire city on edge with their diabolical humour and magic tricks, while the authorities look on, entirely powerless. Before the arrival of the devil, a “Master” wrote a novel about Pontius Pilate (this serene novel within the novel is entirely integrated in the story), which was dismissed by the regime, therefore sending the Master into a mental asylum. Meanwhile, Margarita, the Master’s clandestine lover, makes a pact with the devil to save her companion writer.

A perfect example of the Russian tradition of wit, imagination and satire that features a wonderful cast of characters – including a talking black cat with a penchant for chess and vodka – Bulgakov effortlessly combines the historical, the biblical and the magical to deliver one of literature’s most accomplished and creative books.

About The Master and Margarita

Nothing in the whole of literature compares with  The Master and Margarita . One spring afternoon, the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow. Mikhail Bulgakov’s fantastical, funny, and devastating satire of Soviet life combines two distinct yet interwoven parts, one set in contemporary Moscow, the other in ancient Jerusalem, each brimming with historical, imaginary, frightful, and wonderful characters. Written during the darkest days of Stalin’s reign, and finally published in 1966 and 1967,  The Master and Margarita  became a literary phenomenon, signaling artistic and spiritual freedom for Russians everywhere.

About Mikhail Bulgakov

Born in 1891 in Kiev, now the capital of Ukraine, Mikhail Bulgakov studied medicine at Kiev University, practicing briefly before being drafted by the Whites (anti-Bolsheviks) in 1918 as a field doctor. He was sent to the Caucasus, where, after leaving the military, he began working as a journalist. Along with humorous sketches, Bulgakov wrote  White Guard  (1924), an autobiographical novel about his experience in the civil war and one of the first serious works of literature on the subject.  The Days of the Turbins  (1926), a play based on White Guard, was supposedly one of Joseph Stalin’s favorites and helped establish Bulgakov as one of Russia’s preeminent playwrights. He died impoverished and blind in 1940 shortly after completing his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita.

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The Master and Margarita

By mikhail bulgakov.

'The Master and Margarita' defies classification under a single genre by fusing supernatural themes with scathing dark humor and religious philosophy. It is regarded by many reviewers as one of the greatest books of the 20th century and the best Soviet satire.

Article written by Charles Asoluka

Degree in Computer Engineering. Passed TOEFL Exam. Seasoned literary critic.

Several reviewers have looked for a way to decipher the meaning of Bulgakov’s incomplete masterpiece ‘The Master and Margarita’ in the decades since its publication. Several others saw the book as a political roman à clef, laboriously replacing Bulgakov’s characters with real-life individuals from Stalinist Moscow. Others proposed a religious formula to explain how good and evil relate to one another throughout the text.

‘ The Master and Margarita ‘ serves as a testament to the importance of art in oppressive times as well as the urgent need for artists to reject cowardice and uphold their commitment to leading authentic human lives that combine fantasy and reality, history and invention, good and evil, and the shadows and depth that give life meaning and reality.

Style of Prose

Bulgakov weaves together three distinct storylines in ‘The Master and Margarita,’ which intertwine, particularly at the book’s conclusion: the frequent slapstick portrayal of life in Stalinist Moscow, seen in part through the antics of the devil Woland and his demonic helpers; the story of Pilate, with names and details, changed from the well-known Biblical versions; and the story of the Master and Margarita. Readers hoping to see character development will be let down because the action happens quickly. Instead, Bulgakov creates a lengthy allegory in which taking flight equates to being free, in which selfishness and small-mindedness are condemned, and in which exhausted artists are accorded some pity and calm.

In the middle of the stifling culture of Stalinist Russia, Bulgakov received a lifeline to the imagination with ‘The Master and Margarita.’ The book has reasonable amounts of wish fulfillment, particularly in the passages where Woland’s henchmen Azazello, Behemoth, and Koroviev exact revenge for the selfishness and greed that are ingrained in this political and social structure. Another desperate endeavor is to weave dizzying strands of enchantment, fantasy, and power into Moscow life to counter the Stalinist tendency toward flatness and monotony.

These attempts to use a story as wish fulfillment, criticize a social structure by inverting it in fiction, and understand how to use an audience’s sense of wonder as a catalyst for change are consistent with the historical and cultural functions of fairy tales as described by scholars like Jack Zipes in ‘The Great Fairy Tale Tradition’ and Marina Warner in ‘From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers.’ The reader is compelled by magic and awe to consider possibilities other than the oppressive political, material, and military realities.

Whether in the form of a wicked queen or a greedy government official, challenges to misplaced power in fairy tales can play one of two roles: either a subversive danger to authority or a release valve for the burden of living under strict restrictions. Maybe most importantly, fairy tales serve as a reminder to readers that life is miraculous and that even in the most oppressive of settings, certain liberties, like the ability to dream and imagine, can be cherished and honored.

Magical Realism in The Master and Margarita

Much like Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘One Hundred Years Of Solitude ,’ ‘The Master and Margarita’s’ fusion of the fantastical and the ordinary serves as Bulgakov’s manifesto. He battled throughout his life to protect the complete human experience rather than the two-dimensional authoritarianism of the Stalinist USSR, which stripped human life of all wonder, creativity, and exuberance. Instead, he supported a foundation of wonder and imagination for human life, with all of its shades and hues. He didn’t just want to be free of communal living or oppressive government regulations. Instead, he yearned for the freedom to dream, fantasize, inject wonder into his existence, and express his vision.

This makes it incorrect to interpret ‘The Master and Margarita’ as a straightforward parody of Soviet authoritarianism. Instead, Bulgakov aimed to let his characters soar along with them, appealing to the human condition’s craving for wonder, imagination, and intellectual and spiritual freedom.

Character Development in The Master and Margarita

‘The Master and Margarita’ has received some criticism for its abrupt transitions and mood changes between its three storylines: the actions of Woland and his minions in Moscow; the transformed story of Pontius Pilate, with some striking changes to the names of characters , and the sequence of events that at the same time make the narrative seem more historical and keep readers off-balance; and the story of the Master and Margarita, which includes Bulgakov’s central concerns about human nature.

Bulgakov’s story is thought to have been intentionally written so that the reader would be transported between dimensions. Although startling, the result is one of ongoing volatility and surprise. The reader is taken into a world where a Biblical past appears to be less fantastical and more historically based than Moscow in the 20th century, where characters who are selfish and greedy receive fantastic public punishments, sometimes literally on stage, and where, in the end, characters with the most substance and loyalty have their lives transformed by magic.

Bulgakov challenges the readers to think about the points at which different universes converge by meticulously creating this complex universe with all of its seams exposed. Bulgakov exposes how individuals separate themselves from the sources of enchantment and wonder and urge his audience to join him in hopping on a flying broomstick and escaping the confines of daily life.

What characterizes Mikhail Bulgakov’s writing style in ‘The Master and Margarita’ ?

Satire, surrealism, and magical realism are all elements that define Mikhail Bulgakov’s writing style. He frequently incorporates absurdist themes and uses vivid, inventive vocabulary to convey a surreal or otherworldly feeling. In addition, he frequently uses political and social satire in his writing, reflecting on his personal experiences as a Soviet resident. The writing of Bulgakov is renowned for its razor-sharp wit, light humor, and deft use of irony, which he employs to challenge accepted wisdom and confound expectations. He is one of the most distinctive and enduring writers of the 20th century thanks to his overall extremely inventive, intellectually interesting, and frequently demanding writing style.

Who were the writers that influenced Mikhail Bulgakov’s ‘The Master and Margarita’ ?

The great Russian authors who came before Bulgakov, such Dostoevsky , Tolstoy, and Gogol, had a significant influence on him. He was in awe of their literary exploration of difficult social and philosophical issues.

What makes ‘The Master and Margarita’ unique?

Mikhail Bulgakov’s ‘The Master and Margarita’ is unique for its blending of genres by combining elements of satire, surrealism, magical realism, and historical fiction in a way that had never been seen before. ‘The Master and Margarita’ also explores a variety of existential and philosophical themes such as faith, love, redemption , and the human condition in a profound and thought-provoking way.

The Master and Margarita Review: An exploration of good and evil

Book Title: The Master and Margarita

Book Description: 'The Master and Margarita' by Bulgakov offers a satirical glimpse into Stalinist Russia, where the devil's visit to Moscow unveils themes of censorship, love, and redemption.

Book Author: Mikhail Bulgakov

Book Edition: First Edition

Book Format: Hardcover

Publisher - Organization: Goslitizdat

Date published: September 18, 1966

ISBN: 978-0-399-55621-0

Number Of Pages: 400

• Writing Style
• Lasting Effect on the Reader

The Master and Margarita Review

‘The Master and Margarita’ is a satirical and fantastical novel by Mikhail Bulgakov. Set in Stalinist Russia, the novel tells the story of the devil’s visit to Moscow and the chaos that ensues. It explores themes of censorship, corruption, and oppression, as well as the nature of love, faith, and redemption.  

• It is well written
• It is socially relevant
• It is a compelling story
• It is difficult to read for some
• It is sometimes too ambiguous

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About Charles Asoluka

Charles Asoluka is a seasoned content creator with a decade-long experience in professional writing. His works have earned him numerous accolades and top prizes in esteemed writing competitions.

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The master and margarita, by mikhail bulgakov, recommendations from our site.

“I defy anyone to read those opening pages…and not have it slightly get under their skin and haunt them…I believe that there’s been a lot of dispute about whether Mikhail Bulgakov was writing against Soviet atheism or in favour of it, against religion or in favour of it. Like all great art, it’s shot through with ambivalence. But I don’t think he could ever have written this other than through the collision of the creative impulse and the soulless worldview of Soviet communism. I just don’t think it would have been created other than through that rather disfiguring collision between creativity and conformity. And, for that reason alone, I just think it’s an astonishing book.” Read more...

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“ The Master and Margarita is brilliant, not only for its interweaving of past and present and linking of different timelines with the Pontius Pilate story, but also the complexity of the relationship between good and evil in it. You really feel for the evil characters — you find yourself backing them completely in their worst actions. The Rolling Stones song ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ was heavily inspired by The Master and Margarita . It’s a beautiful commentary and reflection on questions like ‘what are we doing in our lives, why are we here?'” Read more...

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“It’s all about compassion for yourself, for others and really how ultimately that’s all that matters.” Read more...

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“The Master and Margarita is the most mystical and mysterious way of describing the primitive and base sort of simplification of society under the Soviets.” Read more...

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The white guard by mikhail bulgakov, our most recommended books, middlemarch by george eliot, war and peace by leo tolstoy, on liberty by john stuart mill, frankenstein (book) by mary shelley, nineteen eighty-four by george orwell, republic by plato.

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Revisiting a Classic: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

• October 27, 2024

Richard Cocks

• Fiction & Literature , Reviews

After a friend mentioned reading The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov recently, not to be confused with the Silver Age Russian philosopher Sergei Bulgakov, who lived at the same time, and another person asked if I was familiar with the novel and wanted to know what I thought of it, it seems that it is time to reread the book after over thirty years. I could remember nothing about it except a cat trying to pay to get onto a tram car and that I liked it, and liked it enough to include it in what I think of as a shrine to my favorite books with their special bookshelf. Dostoevsky’s longer novels, Gogol’s collected fiction, Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain , Herman Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game , Cervantes’ Don Quixote , Philip K Dick’s collected novels, and the collected fiction of Borges sit there, too.

The first chapter of the master and margarita introduces three characters. berlioz, who is an editor and the head of the writer’s union and, for some reason, named after a famous composer; bezdomny, a bad poet whose name means “homeless” in addition to other possible associations, and woland, who will later turn out to be the devil. stalin had combined all the separate writer’s unions into one, and it was controlled, ultimately and indirectly, by him. bulgakov was heavily censored and suffered under this new arrangement. consequently, he had an ax to grind. part of his vengeance is having berlioz beheaded and mutilated by being run over by a tram. presumably, having it happen to stalin would have been even better but too risky were his manuscript to be found. the beheading calls to mind dante’s inferno , where dante meets his real-life persecutors and enemies in hell, suffering all the torments dante thought they deserved. literary vengeance is mine say the authors., woland has some of the god-like qualities often attributed to movie heroes who somehow know how to escape from a complicated building they have never seen before, how to ride a motorcycle or drive a car in the manner of a stuntman, how to fly a helicopter, hack a computer without knowing any of the passwords, and, notoriously, being unhittable with even machine-gun bullets. this god-complex is popular with audiences; it is fun to have a hero who is both omniscient and omnipotent. woland’s abilities extend to reading minds and knowing all autobiographical information about everyone, which he demonstrates with berlioz and bezdomny. he telepathically knows that bezdomny would like a cigarette and asks what brand he smokes. this seems like a pointless question. yet, bezdomny, humoring him, answers and, like a magician, woland produces the desired brand out of his gold and diamond encrusted (in the shape of a triangle) cigarette case. there is an enjoyable sense of confusion by these hapless mortals. the two writers intensely annoy woland by denying the devil’s existence, along with god and jesus. since they are being questioned by the devil himself, though they do not know it, their materialist position, which was the official marxist state position, is untenable in this context, and they are about to suffer for their hubris and disbelief., woland prophesizes berlioz’s imminent death, saying a woman named anna will be involved, and says he, woland, will be living in the writer’s then vacant apartment shortly. anna will spill sunflower oil, leading to berlioz slipping on it and meeting his demise (based on a real woman bulgakov hated with a passion who lived in his apartment building). this, of course, is met with skepticism but comes true forthwith. woland also starts to tell a story about jesus meeting pontius pilate, which he claims to have witnessed first-hand. the story begins in the last couple of sentences of the first chapter. these words are then exactly repeated in chapter two, and that anecdote completed., the scene with jesus and pontius pilate is memorable enough to bring a prick of recognition after all those years, but if read in isolation, it would probably not be remembered as part of this novel. it stands alone artistically, as do the subsequent chapters to do with this duo. woland is relating this story as evidence that jesus did, in fact, exist in response to berlioz’s assertion that he would not believe jesus existed without proof., jesus, referred to as yeshua ha-notsri, possibly to diminish one’s usual associations with the name, differs from the biblical jesus and espouses an unusual theology that all people are good. he says of a brutal centurion when asked, that he too is good but unhappy and has become harsh and callous since being disfigured by other good people, but that he would be sure to change greatly if jesus were to talk to him. this seems something like socrates’ dictum, which states that to know the good, with heart and soul, one might add, is to do the good. it also seems compatible with unconditional love and a lack of judgment. jesus says he is from gamala rather than bethlehem and does not remember his parents. he has no relations. joseph, mary, and his siblings are thus expunged from this version of the christ narrative. he tells the procurator that those who write down what he does and says are unreliable. they are “unlearned and confuse everything i say. i am beginning to fear that this confusion will last a very long time.” thus, this rejects the idea that biblical accounts of jesus are reliable. in this story, matthew, the levite and tax collector, is said to be scribbling down erroneous accounts of jesus’s words and actions and is thus chiefly responsible for the errors., when jesus adds that all power is violence at one point, this is too much for pontius pilate, who fears the wrath of rome and thus any challenge to its authority, and he reacts angrily. interestingly, nikolai berdyaev, a contemporary of bulgakov who was exiled from russia in 1923, held similar views about social organization, presumably because both had been the victims of soviet socialism. he considered people’s lives to be maimed and squished in the manner of a procrustean bed for the sake of societal order. that and the heartbreak involved in losing the people we love when they die were two of his biggest objections to life here on earth., the first of the two books into which the novel is divided is enough to make one doubt whether it is worth reading. the devil and his compatriots torture, flummox, frame, and torment a list of insufferable, lying, cheating, greedy, and self-serving characters, many wishing to take advantage of the apartment that they presume to be empty of the now-dead berlioz. moscow suffered from having too little housing, so this topic loomed large in people’s concerns as it did for bulgakov, who wrote in his diary on september 30, 1923, “there is only one major defect in my life – the lack of my own apartment.” the building devoted to the writer’s club in the novel even has a special division devoted to housing with a permanent line to get in. that same place has a fancy restaurant, often with a band playing, where several crucial scenes are played out., the diary entry proves that bulgakov is not unconsciously projecting onto others aspects of himself that he despises. he had shared the craven apartment seekers’ desires, if not their behaviors (we do not know if he did or not). if he is revolted by them, and he appears to be, then he is equally disgusted by himself. there is to be no blanket condemnation from on high by the narrator and implied author of this novel. this point is crucial to the novel’s greatness. the best stories are conversion stories, not moralistic renunciations. there is no point to a novel that just says, for instance, “this slavery thing was a bit rum, don’t you think chaps” yes. yes, we do., continuing the theme of envy concerning lodging, there is a discussion at one point about certain members of the writers’ club getting on holiday during the summer in fancy accommodations with as many as five rooms to themselves. those at the top of the organization, not the most talented, seem to be the lucky ones. there are just twenty-two dachas and three thousand one hundred and eleven writers, so very few will get this privilege, generating resentment from the excluded who would like at least one of those rooms for themselves. the whole scene suggests that accommodation and living the good life rather than writing looms largest in their concerns and daydreams., needless to say, the demons are unlikeable, but so are the other characters for that first half. there is not a sympathetic character to be found. they all deserve their punishment. this differs from the persecutions of stalin’s regime, where many people innocent of trying to subvert the regime were rounded up and sent to the gulags, though often these prisoners thought that everyone else was guilty but that a mistake had been made merely in their case. this indicates that stalin-era propaganda was effective. no regime, no matter how autocratic, can completely disregard public opinion, and that is why they all use such brainwashing techniques, hence fake news, fake fact-checkers, and all the rest. selective fact-checking is probably worse than none because it implies that the unchecked do not need it., the person who quizzed me about the novel had made several attempts to read the book but had so far failed, and it seems likely that this rogues’ gallery was the reason he had been struggling. being unsympathetic to religion-related themes would not help either. reading the richard pevear and larissa volokhonsky translation might have contributed, too. apparently, they make a point of exoticizing texts with things like overly literal translations of idioms. a plausible rule of thumb for translating, contra pevear and volokhonsky, is to use standard english when commonplace russian is used and unusual english when the russian is also convoluted and obscure., woland has styled himself as a foreigner, though his perfect russian, which also perplexes his interlocutors, alternates between having an accent and not having one, and he claims to be a professor and expert in black magic. he says he is in the country because he has been summoned to decipher some recently unearthed original manuscripts of the 9 th -century necromancer herbert aurilachs. since he is there, he has also arranged to put on a theater performance, showing signed contracts between the theater and various bodies whose permission is required. each person thinks someone else has signed the contracts and permissions and so he ought to comply as well. woland has done this as a convenient way of gathering the muscovites together in one place to assess their moral character and to see if humanity is as forlorn and the hopeless case he remembers them as being. yes, indeed. they turn out to be as servile and greedy in their money-loving ways as all human crowds he has met in the past. at one point, he makes it rain money from the ceiling and watches the audience scramble to grab it; he tricks on the female audience members by making them give up their dresses and shoes in exchange for fancier foreign items and some cologne. after the theater act ends, both the money and the clothing turn out to be illusory, or at least completely real and then completely not real (the money even smells of being freshly printed), and the women’s dresses disappear after the event and they find themselves in only their underwear outside, and the moscow cab drivers start to refuse fares from anyone paying with ten ruble notes because they later turn into paper bottle labels., yet another person who had read the book relatively recently said he had no memory of the naked women, with a couple more featuring prominently later in the story. it was enough to make one question his red-blooded heterosexuality – or perhaps he just has a poor visual imagination. the scenes were considered salacious enough to be cut from the first censored edition of the novel published in the ussr in 1966., the theater scene also has a horrifying episode where behemoth, the talking black cat, one of woland’s assistants, is instructed to teach the theater manager bengalsky a lesson. the manager is anxious to assure everyone that woland’s “tricks” are mere illusions, the money fake and that the audience should not take them too seriously. this woland takes exception because the manager is ruining woland’s presentation with his repeated interruptions and belittling his feats, though what he says happens to be true. as punishment, at a signal from woland, behemoth rips bengalsky’s head off, with blood erupting out of his neck. however, a little later, bending to the audience’s entreaties, woland has behemoth reattach the head and lick the blood away., in the meantime, the poet bezdomny (ivan) has been incarcerated in a mental asylum for wandering around in a daze in his underwear and a picture of a saint pinned to his chest after witnessing berlioz’s beheading and hitting someone at the writers’ restaurant. perhaps the saint’s picture is to act as a talisman to ward off evil powers. together with his tale of meeting the devil, of hearing him foretell the death of berlioz and having firsthand knowledge of the meeting between jesus and pilate, and of chasing the devil and his accomplices to no avail, this would, in fact, be enough to convince anyone that he was certifiable. he had wanted the police to track down and arrest the devil and his cohorts, but the psychiatrist talks him out of it, saying that he would inevitably just end up back in the asylum. the psychiatrist is named stravinsky, another great composer, and diagnoses bezdomny as schizophrenic, another of woland’s predictions. there, bezdomny meets the master, the one referred to in the title of the novel. the master has stolen some keys, can access any room he wants in the institution and pays him a visit. not surprisingly, the theater manager, bengalsky, also resides in the mental asylum, not having responded too well to having his head ripped off and reattached., the master is given no other name and has been dubbed with the honorific by margarita, his unhappily married lover, who loves the book the master has been writing to the extent that she starts calling him just “the master.” there is an intentional confusion between the master and bulgakov himself. on the one hand, bulgakov has woland recite the tail of yeshua ha-notsri (jesus) and pontius pilate. on the other hand, this tale is said by the narrator and others within the story to have been written by the master. the master’s book is only about this encounter, whereas bulgakov’s book has many other components, including both woland and the jesus story. effectively, in some ways, bulgakov is calling himself the master. this idea is supported by the fact that the master has no given name. mikhail bulgakov seems as good as any, at one point, to the dismay of margarita, the master burns the manuscript of his novel after it gets excoriated by various critics and rejected by publishers. this is something bulgakov did in 1930 to one draft of the novel when he despaired of ever getting it published. margarita reluctantly departs to inform her husband that she will be leaving him for the master, feeling that she owes him that. but, when margarita returns to find her lover, he has gone. he has been driven to depression by the incessant negative reviews of his novel and the accusations that he is a jesus apologist and “a militant old believer,” something that would happen often enough in soviet russia. he began to feel foreboding and fear of the dark, needing to sleep with the light on. this had been bulgakov’s situation, too. mentioning a knock at his window that is not further explained, except that it produced fear and anger in the whispered account given to ivan (bezdomny), suggests perhaps a visit from the secret police, whereupon he finds himself outside in the cold and underdressed. too afraid to throw himself under a tram, he makes his way to the asylum, getting frostbite in the process. he does not want his lover to know where he is because it would upset her. he worries that he is a lost cause and will only drag her down with him. such concerns mirror bulgakov’s worries about making a living as a writer and supporting himself and his wife when his projects kept getting censored. none of his works saw print in his lifetime after 1927. he only made any kind of living by an appointment from stalin at the moscow arts theater. stalin happened to like his play the days of the turbins , so that was performed while all his other plays were written, rehearsed, revised and sometimes previewed before being banned., the master and margarita become crucial figures in the second half of the novel and rescue it from being unfinishable. it could be said to redeem the unrelieved surreal nastiness of the first half, excluding the scenes with jesus and pilate and a few others. in this second half, margarita is approached by one of the devil’s assistants, azazello, after she thinks to herself that she would sell her soul to the devil to find out where the master is and to be with him again, motivated by true love rather than faust’s desire for knowledge and fortune. she is told to rub an ointment that azazello gives her on her naked body at 8:30 pm. the ointment takes ten years off her age and makes her skin glow. she is wanted as a mistress of ceremonies for the devil’s ball: a queen of the night. by tradition, the mistress must be named margarita and a native of where the ball is held. woland found 121 margaritas, but none were suitable until she was discovered. but first she must be transformed into a witch, which the ointment also accomplishes, where she flies a broomstick naked though invisible to others, taking the opportunity to get revenge on one of the literary critics, latunsky, associated with a publisher who had rubbished the master’s writing by wrecking his apartment and breaking all his windows, a similar rejection having happened to bulgakov, and then ends up having her hand kissed and being venerated by various diabolical temporarily resurrected humans at the ball who have been brought back to life for the night; husband poisoners, child-killers, and the like., this vicarious revenge on critics can be related to bulgakov’s march 28, 1930 diary entry that of the 301 reviews of his literary work in the ussr, only three were positive, and 298 hostile and abusive. real life should provide some retrospective succor in this regard because the master and margarita remain hugely popular in russia, even among people who do not consider themselves big readers of fiction., oddly enough, the devil and his helpers, behemoth the cat, azazello, and koroviev come across as much more sympathetic characters in their interactions with margarita, as though in tribute to the idea that women act as a civilizing force on men. this is partly because they owe her a favor for cooperating and for her total stoicism in the face of physical pain that being kissed by ghouls induces and from the very heavy weight of the oval framed picture of a black poodle around her neck, an allusion to goethe’s faust where mephistopheles first appears as a poodle, which is why woland has a walking stick with the head of a poodle too, and for not visibly reacting negatively to the horror of the ball. margarita refuses to utter the slightest complaint, much to the delight and appreciation of woland. other connections with faust include the fact that woland agrees that he is german and the name gretchen is a shortened version of margarete., in the chapter called “the final adventure of koroviev and behemoth,” bulgakov gets his final revenge on the writer’s union. the two demonic assistants approach the house and restaurant of the writers’ headquarters. koroviev says, “look, there’s the writers’ club. you know, behemoth, that house has a great reputation… how lovely to think of so much talent ripening under that roof.” “like pineapples in a hothouse,’ said behemoth.” the scene is filled with humor as there are guaranteed to be no ripening talents in that club, having been filtered out by the regime, and the comparison of writers with none-too-bright, vegetative pineapples has marvelous ridiculousness. “quite so,” agreed his inseparable companion koroviev, “and what a delicious thrill one gets, doesn’t one, to think at this moment in that house there may be a future author of a don quixote or a faust or who knows – dead souls ”, those are certainly three great books and suggest bulgakov has excellent taste – gogol being his absolute favorite. this is fascinating as a list of authors and books that bulgakov himself admired and also because of the irony. there were no such writers in that writers’ club, but there was one literary masterpiece being composed at that time outside the club’s premises and remit, and it was bulgakov’s novel. koroviev adds that such books will be written if “those hothouse growths are not attacked by some micro-organism, provided they’re not nipped in the bud, provided they don’t rot” his own book was not to see the light of day until many years after his death in 1940. a heavily censored version was released in 1966 in the ussr, with references to people disappearing from apartment buildings (mirroring people being sent to gulags or killed by the secret police), criticisms of socialist materialism, and references to naked women removed. an uncensored version was smuggled to paris in 1967 and published there. bulgakov had every reason to think that he was one of these hothouse plants though, he lived outside the officially sanctioned and compensated writers’ union and that his writings were destined to rot., koroviev ambiguously says, “just imagine the furor if one of them were to present the reading public with a government inspector [by gogol] or at least a eugene onegin [by pushkin].” he speaks as though they would be met with an ecstatic reception, but “the furor” would be more likely to be the authorities cracking down on counter-revolutionary propaganda. making fun of government officials and public obsequiousness regarding them in the manner of a government inspector would be a recipe for getting arrested or banned in real life by the time bulgakov was writing., ostensibly deciding they would like to eat, but mostly to create mischief, the pair try to enter the club. at first, they are resolutely prevented from entering by a woman barring their way due to a lack of membership cards. koroviev says, “look here – if you wanted to make sure that dostoevsky was a writer, would you really ask him for his membership card why, you only have to take five pages of one of his novels and you won’t need a membership card to convince you that the man’s a writer.” the woman denying them entry replies disdainfully and accurately, “you’re not dostoevsky.” “how do you know” “‘ dostoevsky’s dead,’ said the woman, though not very confidently.” “i protest” exclaimed behemoth warmly. “dostoevsky is immortal” but, a writer in charge lets them in and offers them his personal services because he has already heard of the unstoppable trail of destruction these two leave behind them. nonetheless, after a while, he leaves them, collects two heavy fillets of smoked sturgeon from the kitchen fridge, and exits. by that time, the inevitable has happened, and when he looks back, the writers’ club is on fire before becoming a pile of rubble—bulgakov’s final revenge. clearly, you are not a writer just because the writers’ club says you are, and you are not not a writer just because they say you are not. as it happens, koroviev and behemoth are not writers, but the excluded bulgakov certainly was., as a reward for performing her duties as mistress of ceremonies and queen, margarita is asked what she would like woland to do in return. in an act of self-sacrifice, she asks that the woman frieda, who she met during the ball, be forgiven. she had been seduced by the store owner for whom she worked, got pregnant, and then killed the baby, stuffing a handkerchief in its mouth. every morning, a new handkerchief appears at her bedside table to remind her of her evil deed. the devil says that only margarita can save frieda, whereupon she screams her name. frieda appears and prostrates herself before margarita, and margarita officially forgives her, hence frieda vanishes. the devil generously says that since he really did nothing in that regard, he still has a favor owed to her. margarita reluctantly asks to be reunited with the master. everyone there can read minds, and they have been waiting for her to say as much., since jesus himself will turn out to be a fan of the master (and thus bulgakov), and margarita is a necessary part of the master’s happiness, she has also been selected because of her connection to the master. her championing of his novel has been unwavering. in real life, bulgakov’s wife was ultimately responsible for getting his novel published twenty-five years later. like margarita, his wife had also left her husband to marry bulgakov. margarita’s sexy maid natasha also becomes a witch in the story, and the married man living downstairs declares his devotion to her only to be transformed into a pig, which natasha, also naked, of course, rides instead of a broom. so, this theme of married men and women dumping their spouses for someone new interweaves itself in both the novel and real life. also, as mentioned, naked women keep turning up. the devil has a maid, hella, who appears sporadically, has a perfect figure not hidden by clothes, and whose beauty is marred solely by a livid scar on her throat., in honoring margarita’s desire, the master is magically whisked in from his detention but has no clear idea what he wants to do next and does not seem to want to write any more books. the devil is at a loss about what to do with him. the master’s basement flat has been occupied by a new tenant, who like so many other characters, schemed and lied to get it, bearing false witness against the master. he is summarily brought in and told he must find a new place to live, and the master and margarita and are installed there instead. but they still have nothing to live on, and their future is uncertain. azazello is sent to poison them at the request of jesus. interestingly, jesus is described as asking favors from the devil without compelling him, and the devil willingly grants them – a give-and-take between good and evil. the television show lucifer had a similar premise that lucifer is not himself evil. he just has the job of punishing those who are. and woland seems to be like this. once dead, the couple are resurrected, and they all ride spirit horses off into the heavens., the annoying practical jokers, koroviev and behemoth, turn out to be suffering a form of punishment themselves and have been condemned to farcical behavior as the devil’s assistants. now that they are on their way to some spiritual destination, each assistant takes his real form. “in place of the person who had left sparrow hills in shabby circus clothes under the name of koroviev-faggot, there now galloped, the gold chain of his bridle chinking softly, a knight clad in dark violet with a grim and unsmiling face.” he has, however, served the term of his punishment and is now free. behemoth is no longer a large cat, and so on. now, the group encounters pontius pilate, who has been sitting alone for 2000 years, wanting to cross the moonlight path across the sea to escape his confinement. jesus has asked that he, too, be forgiven, and pilate gets to make that trek after all after the master cries, “you are free. free. he is waiting for you.” jesus will be united with the man who condemned him, and he has also read the master’s account, and thus bulgakov’s, of his interactions with pilate and liked it. it is a fun idea that jesus reads novels in the afterlife. bulgakov has a unique imaginary (or not) fan., the novel was bulgakov’s last work. he was persecuted and censored by stalin’s regime, to the point of asking if he could leave the country, which stalin declined. his father had died young from kidney disease, and bulgakov knew that he was dying from the same malady when writing the master and margarita . this gives some of the final scenes, which offer a reconciliation with death and acceptance, added pathos. the disease was accompanied by horrible headaches. the number of references to migraines in the book, suffered in particular by pontius pilate and temporarily abated by jesus during his interview with him, made it seem likely that bulgakov had them himself. a quick google search confirmed this., in chapter 32, “absolution and eternal refuge,” bulgakov writes: “how sad, ye gods, how sad the world is at evening, how mysterious the mists over the swamps. you will know it when you have wandered astray in these mists, when you have suffered greatly before dying, when you have walked through the world carrying an unbearable burden. you know it too when you are weary and ready to leave this earth without regret; its mists, its swamps and its rivers; ready to give yourself into the arms of death with a light heart, knowing that death alone can comfort you.”, bulgakov had suffered unbearably and knew that death meant the end of his suffering, and he was ready to die. it is clear that this is a cri de coeur of the author himself. he is reconciled with his fate, has no regrets, and meets his end with “a light heart,” or at least aspires to this position. the paragraph sits awkwardly on the page, is not well connected to the following section, and there are no further passages of this precise kind. the novel was not completely finished when he died, and this may be why. bulgakov might have found a better way of integrating these thoughts about death had he lived longer., rené girard’s arguably best book was his first, deceit, desire and the novel . inspired by re-reading classic novels in preparation for teaching a survey class, he argues that all great books have the same ending, namely, a reconciliation with a figure despised in the novel that represents a hated aspect of the author – what jung would call his shadow. this requires transcendence and self-overcoming: to recognize that what one hates most is an aspect of oneself that one is projecting onto everyone else and then to accept this and forgive oneself. examples include don quixote, relentlessly beaten up and humiliated by cervantes, only to renounce his madness and apologize on his deathbed at the end of part two. madam bovary , like don quixote , perverted by cheap romance stories, ruins her life by aspiring to shape it in the manner of bad fiction. yet flaubert forgives her, too, having her laugh at herself as she vomits black fluid after swallowing poison. she laughs at the ugly and painful reality of her death and her own delusional thinking instead of the romantic swoon she was hoping for. flaubert goes all the way in owning his shadow when he says about madam bovary, “c’est moi.” cervantes and flaubert, as writers, are sensitive to the lure of literature and share their characters’ fascination with romances but dislike this about themselves. julian sorel, too, redeems himself at the end of the red and the black . stendhal wrote him as a depiction of the most revolting kind of lying and hypocritical social climber and yet has him demonstrating self-sacrificial true love in the finale. stendhal will have also aspired to social ostentation and recognition and would have had to forgive himself for this attribute as much as julian. an inability of an author to do this renders him second-rate and his novels lifeless., bulgakov’s writing suggests hatred of both the persecutors and the persecuted in the first half of the novel, but that he has managed to forgive and humanize the former in the second half, offering a satisfying reconciliation with aspects of himself, he would most like to obliterate. unjust persecution, in his case, suppression of his literary and playwrighting ambitions, arouses resentment and a desire to hit back – imitating one’s enemies’ stance to you. these feelings are harsh and unpleasant and are part of the torment one feels. forgiveness is the only way to reduce this aspect of one’s situation. bulgakov seems to achieve this and writes of the role of evil in a world that cannot contain only good. it would not be this world if it did., the theology that bulgakov attributes to his version of jesus in book one is consistent with this interpretation of bulgakov’s relation to his characters and to their real-life counterparts like stalin, who some critics compare to woland/the devil, and the head of the writer’s union. yeshua ha-notsri is convinced that if he could talk to the brutal centurion, the ratslayer, he could bring about a beneficial change in his heart and behavior. this is the same person who has beaten him within an inch of his life for daring to call pontius pilate “my good man” instead of his official title, following pilate’s orders. this suggests a view of people who act badly as simply being misguided or being shaped by environmental forces outside their control, while at the same time, their inner selves are fundamentally good in some sense or capable of good with a little help. ha-nostri is convinced that everyone deserves to be addressed as “my good man.” whatever the merits of this view, it certainly lends itself to the apparent authorial attitudinal tenor of book two., it would be easy to despise oneself for being persecuted too, representing as it does an emasculating low-status impotence, vulnerability, and powerlessness. no one enjoys feeling like a little worm. about the only way that self-respect can be retained in such circumstances is through extreme stoicism and forbearance. solzhenitsyn writes of an army officer he saw doing push-ups in his cell as he did every morning minutes before being taken off to be executed in the gulag archipelago. the officer knew when the execution was scheduled but defiantly kept his morning exercise routine anyway. young children dying of cancer frequently demonstrate acceptance of their impending deaths and comfort their parents in a role reversal. these kinds of behaviors represent human dignity at its finest., bulgakov has played both roles in real life, at least in his imagination. fantasies of revenge will probably have played out first in his head before making their way to his novel. seeing evildoers as a necessary part of the functioning of reality is part of this for him. woland and his helpers are thus depicted more and more sympathetically as the end of the novel approaches., koroviev and the others are all-powerful. one of their favorite methods of persecution is to have their victims suddenly possess foreign currency, something strictly outlawed by stalin’s government. he can plant it someplace at a wave of his finger or have it converted from domestic to foreign while it sits in the victim’s hands, tied together with string and newspaper; the kind of thing the secret police could do., the theme of forgiveness and reconciliation even extends to the devil and jesus cooperating and helping each other. such a vision makes a manichean division into extremes of good and evil impossible. this is consistent with certain mystical visions where even the evil that is done on earth is transformed by god into a good that completes his plan. this interpretation is supported by a quotation from faust bulgakov inserts as a preface to his novel: “say at last – who art thou that power i serve, which wills forever evil, yet does forever good.”, dostoevsky’s the possessed, aka demons, also has no initially likable main characters but is an exposé and refutation of obsessive and extreme egalitarianism and the horrible manipulative swine who promulgate this ideology out of a narcissistic desire for power and hatred of structure and order, in other words, all that makes life bearable. dostoevsky had started out being attracted to the various 19 th -century schemes for general utopia, such as fourier, with its hostility to elitism and hierarchy. so, he is attacking something he had once supported. having several key figures confess their sins and ask for atonement towards the end of the novel meant that dostoevsky managed to not merely reject this tendency but to offer his characters’ redemption, forgiving both them and himself for his earlier misguidedness. if he just continued to depict them negatively, then this would also mean he was projecting his own shadow onto others., characters like stepan trofimovitch and shatov beg forgiveness from the women in their lives for their prior delusions. the peak of their earlier madness lay in their following the self-confessed scoundrel verhovensky, trofimovich’s horrible son, who says things like, “the thirst for culture is an aristocratic thirst. the moment you have family ties or love, you get the desire for property. we will destroy that desire; we’ll make use of drunkenness, slander, spying; we’ll make use of incredible corruption; we’ll stifle every genius in its infancy. we’ll reduce all to a common denominator complete equality” he tells stavrogin, “those with higher abilities…have always done more harm than good; they’ll either be banished or executed. cicero’s tongue will be cut out, copernicus’s eyes will be gouged out, shakespeare will be stoned…it’s a fine idea to level mountains—there’s nothing ridiculous in that…we’ll suffocate every genius in its infancy.”, an absolute key paragraph in the novel is one uttered by shatov: “marie, marie,” said shatov…i heard afterwards that you despised me for changing my convictions. but what are the men i’ve broken with the enemies of all true life, out-of-date liberals who are afraid of their own independence, the flunkeys of thought, the enemies of individuality and freedom, the decrepit advocates of deadness and rottenness all they have to offer is senility, a glorious mediocrity of the most bourgeois kind, contemptible shallowness, a jealous equality, equality without individual dignity, equality as it’s understood by flunkeys or by the french in ’93. and the worst of it is there are swarms of scoundrels among them, swarms of scoundrels”, the master and margarita can be contrasted with thomas mann’s dr. faustus. the latter novel suffers from having the titular character be mostly a cypher right up until the final forty or so pages. instead of dr. faustus, the reader becomes much more intimately acquainted with the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the narrator. this situation is rectified, but only at the last minute. it arguably comes too late to save the artistic integrity of the novel. if mann had done this halfway through, as bulgakov does, dr. faustus would be much more aesthetically successful. thankfully, bulgakov does not wait until the final pages to provide the resolution. one also hopes for his sake that the sentiment that bulgakov expressed about being ready to die represented his actual feelings and remained with him up until the last., the master and margarita by mikhail bulgakov london: penguin classics, 2016; 448pp, ~ postscript ~, after writing this in graz, austria, i watched a man named otto on the plane trip home only to find that otto meets his future wife when she drops a copy of the master and margarita at a train station and he catches her train to return it..

Richard Cocks is an Associate Editor and Contributing Editor of VoegelinView, and has been a faculty member of the Philosophy Department at SUNY Oswego since 2001. Dr. Cocks is an editor and regular contributor at the Orthosphere and has been published at The Brussels Journal, The Sydney Traditionalist Forum, People of Shambhala, The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal and the University Bookman.

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Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita

Or, how to be happy with russian literature.

‘“And what is your particular field of work?” asked Berlioz. “I specialize in black magic.”’

If many Russian classics are dark and deep and full of the horrors of the blackness of the human soul (or, indeed, are about the Gulag), then this is the one book to buck the trend. Of all the Russian classics, The Master and Margarita is undoubtedly the most cheering. It’s funny, it’s profound and it has to be read to be believed. In some ways, the book has an odd reputation. It is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century and as a masterpiece of magical realism, but it’s very common even for people who are very well read not to have heard of it, although among Russians you have only to mention a cat the size of a pig and apricot juice that makes you hiccup and everyone will know what you are talking about. Most of all, it is the book that saved me when I felt like I had wasted my life. It’s a novel that encourages you not to take yourself too seriously, no matter how bad things have got. The Master and Margarita is a reminder that, ultimately, everything is better if you can inject a note of silliness and of the absurd. Not only is this a possibility at any time; occasionally, it’s an absolute necessity: “You’ve got to laugh. Otherwise you’d cry.”

For those who already know and love The Master and Margarita , there is something of a cult-like “circle of trust” thing going on. I’ve formed friendships with people purely on the strength of the knowledge that they have read and enjoyed this novel. I have a friend who married her husband almost exclusively because he told her he had read it. I would normally say that it’s not a great idea to found a lifelong relationship on the basis of liking one particular book. But, in this case, it’s a very special book. So, if you are unmarried, and you love it and you meet someone else who loves it, you should definitely marry them. It’s the most entertaining and comforting novel. When I was feeling low about not being able to pretend to be Russian any more, I would read bits of it to cheer myself up and remind myself that, whatever the truth about where I come from, I had succeeded in understanding some important things about another culture. It is a book that takes your breath away and makes you laugh out loud, sometimes at its cleverness, sometimes because it’s just so funny and ridiculous. I might have kidded myself that you need to be a bit Russian to understand Tolstoy. But with Bulgakov, all you need to understand him is a sense of humor. His comedy is universal.

Written in the 1930s but not published until the 1960s, The Master and Margarita is the most breathtakingly original piece of work. Few books can match it for weirdness. The devil, Woland, comes to Moscow with a retinue of terrifying henchmen, including, of course, the giant talking cat (literally “the size of a pig”), a witch and a wall-eyed assassin with one yellow fang. They appear to be targeting Moscow’s literary elite. Woland meets Berlioz, influential magazine editor and chairman of the biggest Soviet writers’ club. (Berlioz has been drinking the hiccup-inducing apricot juice.) Berlioz believes Woland to be some kind of German professor. Woland predicts Berlioz’s death, which almost instantly comes to pass when the editor is decapitated in a freak accident involving a tram and a spillage of sunflower oil. All this happens within the first few pages.

A young poet, Ivan Bezdomny (his surname means “Homeless”), has witnessed this incident and heard Woland telling a bizarre story about Pontius Pilate. (This “Procurator of Judaea” narrative is interspersed between the “Moscow” chapters.) Bezdomny attempts to chase Woland and his gang but ends up in a lunatic asylum, ranting about an evil professor who is obsessed with Pontius Pilate. In the asylum, he meets the Master, a writer who has been locked away for writing a novel about Jesus Christ and, yes, Pontius Pilate. The story of the relationship between Christ and Pilate, witnessed by Woland and recounted by the Master, returns at intervals throughout the novel and, eventually, both stories tie in together. (Stick with me here. Honestly, it’s big fun.)

Meanwhile, outside the asylum, Woland has taken over Berlioz’s flat and is hosting magic shows for Moscow’s elite. He summons the Master’s mistress, Margarita, who has remained loyal to the writer and his work. At a midnight ball hosted by Satan, Woland offers Margarita the chance to become a witch with magical powers. This happens on Good Friday, the day Christ is crucified. (Seriously, all this makes perfect sense when you are reading the book. And it is not remotely confusing. I promise.) At the ball, there is a lot of naked dancing and cavorting (oh, suddenly you’re interested and want to read this book?) and then Margarita starts flying around naked, first across Moscow and then the USSR. Again, I repeat: this all makes sense within the context of the book.

Woland grants Margarita one wish. She chooses the most altruistic thing possible, liberating a woman she meets at the ball from eternal suffering. The devil decides not to count this wish and gives her another one. This time, Margarita chooses to free the Master. Woland is not happy about this and gets her and the Master to drink poisoned wine. They come together again in the afterlife, granted “peace” but not “light,” a limbo situation that has caused academics to wrap themselves up in knots for years. Why doesn’t Bulgakov absolve them? Why do both Jesus and the Devil seem to agree on their punishment? Bulgakov seems to suggest that you should always choose freedom—but expect it to come at a price.

One of the great strengths of The Master and Margarita is its lightness of tone. It’s full of cheap (but good) jokes at the expense of the literati, who get their comeuppance for rejecting the Master’s work. (This is a parallel of Bulgakov’s experience; he was held at arm’s length by the Soviet literary establishment and “allowed” to work only in the theatre, and even then with some difficulty). In dealing so frivolously and surreally with the nightmare society in which Woland wreaks havoc, Bulgakov’s satire becomes vicious without even needing to draw blood. His characters are in a sort of living hell, but they never quite lose sight of the fact that entertaining and amusing things are happening around them. However darkly comedic these things might sometimes be.

While The Master and Margarita is a hugely complex novel, with its quasi-religious themes and its biting critique of the Soviet system, above all it’s a big fat lesson in optimism through laughs. If you can’t see the funny side of your predicament, then what is the point of anything? Bulgakov loves to make fun of everyone and everything. “There’s only one way a man can walk round Moscow in his underwear—when he’s being escorted by the police on the way to a police station!” (This is when Ivan Bezdomny appears, half naked, at the writers’ restaurant to tell them a strange character has come to Moscow and murdered their colleague.) “I’d rather be a tram conductor and there’s no job worse than that.” (The giant cat talking rubbish at Satan’s ball.) “The only thing that can save a mortally wounded cat is a drink of paraffin.” (More cat gibberish.)

The final joke of the book is that maybe Satan is not the bad guy after all. While I was trying to recover my sense of humor about being Polish and Jewish instead of being Russian, this was all a great comfort. Life is, in Bulgakov’s eyes, a great cosmic joke. Of course, there’s a political message here, too. But Bulgakov delivers it with such gusto and playfulness that you never feel preached at. You have got to be a seriously good satirist in order to write a novel where the Devil is supposed to represent Stalin and/or Soviet power without making the reader feel you are bludgeoning them over the head with the idea. Bulgakov’s novel is tragic and poignant in many ways, but this feeling sneaks up on you only afterwards. Most of all, Bulgakov is about conjuring up a feeling of fun. Perhaps because of this he’s the cleverest and most subversive of all the writers who were working at this time. It’s almost impossible to believe that he and Pasternak were contemporaries, so different are their novels in style and tone. (Pasternak was born in 1890, Bulgakov in 1891.) The Master and Margarita and Doctor Zhivago feel as if they were written in two different centuries.

Unlike Pasternak, though, Bulgakov never experienced any reaction to his novel during his lifetime, as it wasn’t published until after he had died. One of the things that makes The Master and Margarita so compelling is the circumstances in which it was written. Bulgakov wrote it perhaps not only “for the drawer” (i.e. not to be published within his lifetime) but never to be read by anyone at all. He was writing it at a time of Black Marias (the KGB’s fleet of cars), knocks on the door and disappearances in the middle of the night. Ordinary life had been turned on its head for most Muscovites, and yet they had to find a way to keep on living and pretending that things were normal. Bulgakov draws on this and creates a twilight world where nothing is as it seems and the fantastical, paranormal and downright evil are treated as everyday occurrences.

It’s hard to imagine how Bulgakov would have survived if the novel had been released. Bulgakov must have known this when he was writing it. And he also must have known that it could never be published—which means that he did not hold back and wrote exactly what he wanted, without fear of retribution. (Although there was always the fear that the novel would be discovered. Just to write it would have been a crime, let alone to attempt to have it published.) This doesn’t mean that he in any way lived a carefree life. He worried about being attacked by the authorities. He worried about being prevented from doing any work that would earn him money. He worried about being unable to finish this novel. And he worried incessantly—and justifiably—about his health.

During his lifetime Bulgakov was known for his dystopian stories “The Fatal Eggs” (1924) and “The Heart of a Dog” (1925) and his play The Days of the Turbins (1926), about the civil war. Despite his early success, from his late twenties onwards, Bulgakov seemed to live with an awareness that he was probably going to be cut down in mid-life. He wrote a note to himself on the manuscript of The Master and Margarita : “Finish it before you die.” J.A.E. Curtis’s compelling biography Manuscripts Don’t Burn: Mikhail Bulgakov, A Life in Letters and Diaries , gives a near-cinematic insight into the traumatic double life Bulgakov was leading as he wrote the novel in secrecy. I love this book with the same intensity that I love The Master and Margarita . Curtis’s quotes from the letters and the diaries bring Bulgakov to life and are packed full of black comedy and everyday detail, from Bulgakov begging his brother not to send coffee and socks from Paris because “the duty has gone up considerably” to his wife’s diary entry from New Year’s Day 1937 which tells of Bulgakov’s joy at smashing cups with 1936 written on them.

As well as being terrified that he would never finish The Master and Margarita , Bulgakov was becoming increasingly ill. In 1934, he wrote to a friend that he had been suffering from insomnia, weakness and “finally, which was the filthiest thing I have ever experienced in my life, a fear of solitude, or to be more precise, a fear of being left on my own. It’s so repellent that I would prefer to have a leg cut off.” He was often in physical pain with a kidney disease but was just as tortured psychologically. There was the continual business of seeming to be offered the chance to travel abroad, only for it to be withdrawn. Of course, the authorities had no interest in letting him go, in case he never came back. (Because it would make them look bad if talented writers didn’t want to live in the USSR. And because it was much more fun to keep them in their own country, attempt to get them to write things praising Soviet power and torture them, in most cases literally.)

It is extraordinary that Bulgakov managed to write a novel that is so full of humor and wit and lightness of tone when he was living through this period. He grew accustomed to being in a world where sometimes the phone would ring, he would pick it up and on the other end of the line an anonymous official would say something like: “Go to the Foreign Section of the Executive Committee and fill in a form for yourself and your wife.” He would do this and grow cautiously hopeful. And then, instead of an international passport, he would receive a slip of paper that read: “M.A. Bulgakov is refused permission.” In all the years that Bulgakov continued, secretly, to write The Master and Margarita —as well as making a living (of sorts) as a playwright—what is ultimately surprising is that he did not go completely insane from all the cat-and-mouse games that Stalin and his acolytes played with him. Stalin took a personal interest in him, in the same way he did with Akhmatova. There’s some suggestion that his relationship with Stalin prevented Bulgakov’s arrest and execution. But it also prevented him from being able to work on anything publicly he wanted to work on.

How galling, too, to have no recognition in your own lifetime for your greatest work. When the book did come out in 1966-7, its significance was immense, perhaps greater than any other book published in the 20th century. As the novelist Viktor Pelevin once said, it’s almost impossible to explain to anyone who has not lived through Soviet life exactly what this novel meant to people. “ The Master and Margarita didn’t even bother to be anti-Soviet, yet reading this book would make you free instantly. It didn’t liberate you from some particular old ideas, but rather from the hypnotism of the entire order of things.”

The Master and Margarita symbolizes dissidence; it’s a wry acknowledgement that bad things happened that can never, ever be forgiven. But it is also representative of an interesting kind of passivity or non-aggression. It is not a novel that encourages revolution. It is a novel that throws its hands up in horror but does not necessarily know what to do next. Literature can be a catalyst for change. But it can also be a safety valve for a release of tension and one that results in paralysis. I sometimes wonder if The Master and Margarita —the novel I have heard Russians speak the most passionately about—explains many Russians’ indifference to politics and current affairs. They are deeply cynical, for reasons explored fully in this novel. Bulgakov describes a society where nothing is as it seems. People lie routinely. People who do not deserve them receive rewards. You can be declared insane simply for wanting to write fiction. The Master and Margarita is, ultimately, a huge study in cognitive dissonance. It’s about a state of mind where nothing adds up and yet you must act as if it does. Often, the only way to survive in that state is to tune out. And, ideally, make a lot of jokes about how terrible everything is.

Overtly, Bulgakov also wants us to think about good and evil, light and darkness. So as not to be preachy about things, he does this by mixing in absurd humor. Do you choose to be the sort of person who joins Woland’s retinue of weirdos? (Wall-eyed goons, step forward!) Or do you choose to be the sort of person who is prepared to go to an insane asylum for writing poetry? (I didn’t say these were straightforward choices.) On a deeper level, he is asking whether we are okay with standing up for what we believe in, even if the consequences are terrifying. And he is challenging us to live a life where we can look ourselves in the eye and be happy with who we are. There is always a light in the dark. But first, you have to be the right kind of person to be able to see it.

From The Anna Karenina Fix , by Viv Grokop, courtesy Abrams. Copyright 2018, Viv Groskop.

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Viv Groskop

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