Master and Margarita
“Master and Margarita” is one of three novels that had a profound influence on me as a teenager... with “Great Expectation” and “George Orwell's Essays”. Beforehand, I had read about Bulgakov's bold mail to Stalin in thirties, and surprisingly, the very proper return telephone call and the vital help of Stalin (1).
Nevertheless, at home, we only had one of Bulgakov's books: “Black Snow” and not the “Master and Margarita”.
Later, I found the “Mater and Margarita” entirely coincidental. In my favourite bookshop: a second-hand bookshop that had left-wing books and Russian literature novels to sell, of course anonymously...
I finished it the first night... I couldn't stop reading it. But the story appeared complex to me after the first reading.
Three stories simultaneously: Master & Margarita story, Woland and his companion's story in Moscow and Jesus and Pontius Pilate.
It was the second time that I understood the connections. And then just like the sun comes out of clouds, I comprehended the wistful elegance of the book.
Prior to the book, I had read about the Stalin epoch. Elegantly, Bulgakov presented that period as a dark comedy. It was a new experience for me.
So I start to re-read it again and again. Comprehending the Pontius Pilate’s decisions under the conspicuous and formidable Roman Empire’s shadow, exactly like Stalin’s shadow on characters of the book though invisible, was gripping and thrilling.
The very first draft of the book didn't have Margarita ... Darker book. Bulgakov added the Margarita character, based on his wife, later...
“Master and Margarita” had never been published in Bulgakov lifetime (in Stalin's epoch) ... of course. His wife was the one who kept the book until Khrushchev's period.
The widely acclaimed masterpiece and one of the major work of literature: some critics consider it as the best novel of the twentieth century and the others regard it as one of the best a hundred novels of all time.
My favourite chapters are “The Satan's Rout”, “Black Magic and Its Exposure” and “How the Procurator Tried to Save Judas of Karioth”.
The book has many political references to Stalin's epoch, but more notably in the chapter: “The Dream of Nikanor Ivanovich” which exclusively cites the “Moscow Show Trials”.
Bulgakov was aware of the aspects of living under the bureaucratic regime, the loneliness of intellectuals and their fear for the future.
It's a book which can fulfill and satisfy many ways:
The dark epoch of Stalin and Stalin’s iron grip on intellectuals (by Soviet and Roman atmosphere)
- Repercussions of a bureaucratic system on intelligentsia and ordinary people
- Satiric analysis of totalitarianism
- Betraying others and yourself
- Platonic love
- Behemoth (my favourite character).
- Breathtaking literary chapters (e.g. Absolution and Eternal Refuge)
- Heavily influenced by Goethe's Faust.
- Pushkin references
- and many more...
And this very famous quote: Manuscripts don't burn.
Master and Margarita wasn't burnt. It was published 27 years later after Bulgakov death.
=========== (1) – Please read Will Self's article in Guardian for more information about this telephone call.
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