The Master and Margarita is one of the most mysterious novels in history, and researchers are still struggling to interpret it. We will give seven keys to this piece.
Literary hoax
Why is Bulgakov's famous novel called "The Master and Margarita", and what, in fact, is this book about? It is known that the idea of creation was born to the author after being carried away by mysticism of the 19th century. Legends of the devil, Jewish and Christian demonology, treatises about God - all this is present in the work. The most important sources consulted by the author were Mikhail Orlov's The History of the Relationship of Man with the Devil and Amfitheatrov's book The Devil in Everyday Life, Legend and Literature of the Middle Ages. As you know, The Master and Margarita had several editions. They say that the first one, on which the author worked in 1928-1929, had nothing to do with either the Master or Margarita, and was called "Black Magician", "Juggler with a Hoof."
That is, the central figure and the essence of the novel was the Devil - a kind of Russian version of the work "Faust". Bulgakov personally burned the first manuscript after the ban on his play "The Cabal of the Holy". The writer informed the government about this: "And personally, with my own hands, I threw a draft of the novel about the devil into the stove!" The second edition was also dedicated to the fallen angel and was called "Satan" or "Great Chancellor". Margarita and the Master had already appeared here, and Woland acquired his own retinue. But, only the third manuscript received its current name, which, in fact, the author never finished.
Many-faced Woland
The Prince of Darkness is perhaps the most popular character in The Master and Margarita. A superficial reading gives the reader the impression that Woland is “justice itself”, a judge who fights against human vices and protects love and creativity. Someone generally believes that in this image Bulgakov portrayed Stalin! Woland is many-sided and complex, as befits a Tempter. He is considered as the classic Satan, as the author intended in the early versions of the book, as a new Messiah, a reinterpreted Christ, whose coming is described in the novel. In fact, Woland is not just the devil - he has many prototypes.
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This is the supreme pagan god - Wotan among the ancient Germans (Odin - among the Scandinavians), the great "magician" and freemason Count Cagliostro, who remembered the events of the millennial past, predicted the future, and had a portrait resemblance to Woland. And it is also the "dark horse" Woland from Goethe's "Faust", which is mentioned in the work only once, in an episode that was missed in the Russian translation. By the way, in Germany the devil was called "Faland". Remember the episode from the novel when the employees cannot remember the name of the magician: "Maybe Faland?"
Satan's retinue
Just as a person cannot exist without a shadow, so Woland is not Woland without his retinue. Azazello, Begemot and Koroviev-Fagot are instruments of diabolical justice, the brightest heroes of the novel, behind which have a far from unambiguous past. Take, for example, Azazello - "the demon of the waterless desert, the demon-killer." Bulgakov borrowed this image from the Old Testament books, where this is the name of the fallen angel, who taught people to make weapons and jewelry. Thanks to him, women have mastered the "lascivious art" of painting their faces.
Therefore, it is Azazello who gives the cream to Margarita, pushes her to the "dark path". In the novel, this is Woland's right hand doing the "dirty work". He kills Baron Meigel, poisons lovers. Its essence is incorporeal, absolute evil in its purest form. Koroviev-Fagot is the only person in Woland's retinue. It is not entirely clear who became its prototype, but researchers trace its roots to the Aztec god Witsliputsli, whose name is mentioned in Berlioz's conversation with Homeless. This is the god of war, to whom sacrifices were made, and according to the legends about Doctor Faust, he is the spirit of hell and the first helper of Satan. His name, inadvertently uttered by the chairman of MASSOLIT, is a signal for Woland to appear. Behemoth is a werewolf cat and Woland's favorite jester, whose image comes from the legends about the demon of gluttony and the mythological beast of the Old Testament. In the study of I. Ya. Porfiryev's "Apocryphal legends about Old Testament persons and events", which was clearly familiar to Bulgakov, the sea monster Behemoth was mentioned, together with Leviathan living in the invisible desert "to the east of the garden, where the chosen and the righteous lived." The author also drew information about the Behemoth from the story of a certain Anna DeSange, who lived in the 17th century and was possessed by seven devils, among which the Behemoth is mentioned, a demon from the rank of Thrones. This demon was depicted as a monster with an elephant's head, trunk and fangs. His hands were human, and his huge belly, short tail and thick hind legs were like those of a hippopotamus, which reminded of his name. The author also drew information about the Behemoth from the story of a certain Anna DeSange, who lived in the 17th century and was possessed by seven devils, among which the Behemoth is mentioned, a demon from the rank of Thrones. This demon was depicted as a monster with an elephant's head, trunk and fangs. His hands were human, and his huge belly, short tail and thick hind legs were like those of a hippopotamus, which reminded of his name. The author also drew information about the Behemoth from the story of a certain Anna DeSange, who lived in the 17th century and was possessed by seven devils, among which the Behemoth is mentioned, a demon from the rank of Thrones. This demon was depicted as a monster with an elephant's head, trunk and fangs. His hands were human, and his huge belly, short tail and thick hind legs were like those of a hippopotamus, which reminded of his name.
Black Queen Margot
Margarita is often considered a model of femininity, a kind of Pushkin's "Tatiana of the XX century". But the prototype of "Queen Margot" was clearly not a modest girl from the Russian hinterland. In addition to the obvious similarity of the heroine with the last wife of the writer, the novel emphasizes the connection between Marguerite and two French queens. The first is the same “Queen Margot”, the wife of Henry IV, whose wedding turned into a bloody St. Bartholomew's night. This event is mentioned on the way to Satan's Great Ball.
The fat man who recognized Margarita calls her "the bright queen Margot" and mutters "some nonsense about the bloody wedding of his friend in Paris Gessar." Gessard is the Parisian publisher of the correspondence of Marguerite Valois, whom Bulgakov made a participant in the St. Bartholomew's Night. Another queen is also seen in the image of the heroine - Margaret of Navarre, who was one of the first French women-writers, the author of the famous "Heptameron". Both ladies patronized writers and poets, Bulgakov's Margarita loves her genius writer - the Master.
Moscow - Yershalaim
One of the most interesting mysteries of The Master and Margarita is the time when the events take place. There is not a single absolute date in the novel from which to count. The action is attributed to Holy Week from May 1 to May 7, 1929. This dating gives a parallel with the world of the "Pilate Chapters", which took place in Yershalaim in the year 29 or 30 during the week that later became Passionate.
"Over Moscow in 1929 and Yershalaim on the 29th there is the same apocalyptic weather, the same darkness is approaching the city of sin like a thunderous wall, the same moon of the Easter full moon floods the alleys of Old Testament Yershalaim and New Testament Moscow." In the first part of the novel, both of these stories develop in parallel, in the second, more and more intertwining, in the end they merge together, gaining integrity and passing from our world to the other world.
Influence of Gustav Meyrink
Bulgakov was greatly influenced by the ideas of Gustav Meyrink, whose works appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. In the novel by the Austrian expressionist "Golem", the main character, master Anastasius Pernat, in the finale reunites with his beloved Miriam "at the wall of the last lantern", on the border of the real and the other worlds. The connection with "The Master and Margarita" is obvious. Let us recall the famous aphorism of Bulgakov's novel: "Manuscripts do not burn." Most likely, it goes back to the "White Dominican", which says: "Yes, of course, the truth does not burn and it is impossible to trample it."
It also tells about the inscription above the altar, because of which the icon of the Mother of God falls. As well as the burned manuscript of the master, reviving Woland from oblivion, which restores the true history of Yeshua, the inscription symbolizes the connection of truth not only with God, but also with the devil. In The Master and Margarita, as in The White Dominican by Meyrink, the main thing for the heroes is not the goal, but the process of the path itself - development. But the meaning of this path is different for writers. Gustav, like his heroes, was looking for him in the creative beginning, Bulgakov strove to achieve a kind of "esoteric" absolute, the essence of the universe.
The last manuscript
The last edition of the novel, which later reached the reader, was begun in 1937. The author continued to work with her until his death. Why couldn't he finish the book he had been writing for a dozen years? Perhaps he believed that he was not sufficiently knowledgeable about the issue he was tackling, and his understanding of Jewish demonology and early Christian texts was amateurish?
Be that as it may, the novel practically "sucked" the author's life. The last correction, which he made on February 13, 1940, was the phrase of Margarita: "So it is, therefore, the writers are following the coffin?" He died a month later. Bulgakov's last words addressed to the novel were: "To know, to know …".
