Introduction
The novel The Master and Margarita is known all over the world. Movies and TV series have been created based on its plot, and many cinemas consider it an honor to stage performances based on this amazing book.
The history of the creation of “The Master and Margarita” by Bulgakov is full of difficulties and experiences. This work is the writer’s crowning glory, his swan song and “sunset” novel, perhaps that’s why Mikhail Bulgakov gave him all the power of his talent, skill and imagination.
The idea of the creation of the work
Now it is no longer known exactly when the idea of the work and its images were born. It is known that the writer was very fond of Goethe’s Faust; in one of the first versions of the novel, he called the master Faust. Perhaps it was the brilliant work of the German poet that gave the first germs of ideas for Bulgakov’s no less brilliant novel.
In the history of writing “The Master and Margarita” there are many “blank spots”. There is evidence that brief rough notes were made by Mikhail Bulgakov back in 1928-1929. But in the first novel, all 160 pages of the manuscript were devoted to the story of Christ and the procurator and Woland’s sparkling stay in Moscow with his unusual tours and revelations of the greedy public. There was no place here for the master and Margarita, although it was thanks to them that the novel became so diverse and humane.
Among the options for the title of the work were “The Engineer’s Hoof” and “Woland’s Tour”, “The Prince of Darkness” and “The Black Magician”, but shortly before his death, in 1937, Bulgakov called his immortal work “The Master and Margarita”. Editing the written chapters of the novel will last as long as the writer’s heart beats. Then the work will be continued by his wife. During the writer's lifetime, his greatest work will neither be completed nor published.
"Manuscripts don't burn"
The spring of 1930 was a turning point for the writer and his work. In a fit of dissatisfaction with his work and under public pressure, Bulgakov burned the first version of the novel. Later, in the already written work, the desperate master will also burn his manuscript: “I took the heavy lists of the novel and rough notebooks out of the desk drawer and began to burn them.” The master will be stopped by the arrival of Margarita, and the manuscript of the novel will later be brought back to life by Woland, uttering the phrase that has become an aphorism - “Manuscripts do not burn”!
Two years later, having found the surviving parts, Mikhail Bulgakov will begin to create his novel again. In his letters to a friend, he will write that “he himself does not know why he is doing this.”
In 1940, the writer was severely debilitated by illness. Not having the strength to get up, he dictated amendments to the novel to his wife, who, like Margarita, was completely absorbed in working on last work husband
After the death of the writer, his widow Elena Sergeevna will edit the novel for about two decades and make attempts to publish it. The story of the Master and Margarita will become for her last will husband, and the meaning of her life.
The fate of the novel
Having invested a lot of effort into editing the novel, Elena Sergeevna could not find a place for it in publishing houses. She was refused, sent to other offices and to higher authorities, “for fear of making a decision about printing alone.”
One publishing house answered her with the laconic phrase “Not the time.” Indeed, the novel was very progressive for its prim and too traditional time.
Only almost three decades after Bulgakov’s death, the novel will be accepted for publication and published by the Moscow magazine. This will happen in 1967-1968, but the version will be edited and greatly shortened. Many of Woland’s monologues, as well as the description of the devil’s ball and Margarita, will be cut out.
For the first time, the original version of the novel without censorship restrictions will be published by the Posev publishing house. This will happen in 1969 in Germany, and the Soviet Union learns about the fate of the master and Margarita in 1973, thanks to the authorities’ permission to publish previously prohibited works.
"The Master and Margarita" today
The history of the creation of the novel “The Master and Margarita” is interesting, as is the novel itself. Despite persecution by the authorities, disappointment and illness of the writer, the novel was published and read. Now this work is included in the lists of school curricula and is studied in literary schools. There really is a special, subtle subtext hidden in it. Here irony and satire are intertwined with tragedy, biblical stories with everyday details, eternal suffering with the same eternal, immortal love. The novel is not unambiguous, which is reinforced by its special “Stories within History” structure: the events take place both in the ancient biblical ancestor of Jerusalem and in modern Moscow. One thing remains unchanged, the spiritual values glorified by the author: love and mercy, the arch of the spirit and forgiveness. And as long as they live in people, the novel will live, and with it the memory of the brilliant writer.
Work test
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Of all the writers of the 20s - 30s. of our century, which is now approaching the end, probably Mikhail Bulgakov is preserved to the greatest extent in Russian public consciousness. It is preserved not so much by his biography, from which his letters to Stalin and the only one are usually remembered telephone conversation with the tyrant, as much as with our own brilliant works, the main one being “The Master and Margarita”. The novel reveals new facets to each next generation of readers. Let us just remember the “sturgeon of the second freshness”, and the sad thought will come to mind that everything in Russia is forever second freshness, everything except literature. Bulgakov proved this brilliantly.” - So, in a few words, Boris Sokolov, a famous researcher of Bulgakov’s work, was able to show what a tangible contribution the writer made to Russian and world literature. Outstanding creative minds recognize the novel “The Master and Margarita” as one of the greatest creations of the twentieth century. IN Soviet times Chingiz Aitmatov put this novel next to “ Quiet Don"M. Sholokhov, distinguishing them by the degree of accessibility to the general reader. Not everyone is able to comprehend “The Master and Margarita” in the ideological philosophical key that the author offers. Of course, in order to delve into and understand all the details of the novel, a person must have high cultural preparedness and historical awareness on many issues, but the phenomenon of perceiving the work is that “The Masters...” is also re-read by young people, finding in it something fabulous and mysterious for themselves , which helps their tender childhood imagination work.
HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF THE NOVEL.
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” was not completed and was not published during the author’s lifetime. It was first published only in 1966, 26 years after Bulgakov’s death, and then in an abbreviated form magazine version. Because it's the greatest literary work reached the reader, we are indebted to the writer’s wife Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, who during the difficult Stalinist times managed to preserve the manuscript of the novel.
Bulgakov dated the start of work on “The Master and Margarita” in different manuscripts as either 1928 or 1929. In the first edition, the novel had variant titles “Black Magician”, “Engineer’s Hoof”, “Juggler with a Hoof”, “Son of V.” "Tour". The first edition of “The Master and Margarita” was destroyed by the author on March 18, 1930 after receiving news of the ban on the play “The Cabal of the Holy One.” Bulgakov reported this in a letter to the government: “And I personally, with my own hands, threw a draft of a novel about the devil into the stove...”
Work on “The Master and Margarita” resumed in 1931. Rough sketches were made for the novel, and Margarita and her nameless companion, the future Master, already appeared here, and Woland acquired his own riotous retinue. The second edition, created before 1936, had the subtitle “ Fantasy novel"and variations of the names "Grand Chancellor", "Satan", "Here I am", "Black Magician", "Consultant's Hoof".
The third edition, begun in the second half of 1936, was initially called “The Prince of Darkness,” but already in 1937 the now well-known title “The Master and Margarita” appeared. In May - June 1938 full text was reprinted for the first time. The author’s edits continued almost until the writer’s death; Bulgakov stopped it with Margarita’s phrase: “So this means that the writers are going after the coffin?”...
Bulgakov wrote “The Master and Margarita” for a total of more than 10 years. Simultaneously with the writing of the novel, work was underway on plays, dramatizations, librettos, but this novel was a book that he was unable to part with, a novel-fate, a novel-testament. The novel absorbed almost all of the works written by Bulgakov: Moscow life, captured in the essays “On the Eve”, satirical fiction and mysticism, tested in the stories of the 20s, motives of knightly honor and troubled conscience in the novel “ White Guard”, the dramatic theme of the fate of a persecuted artist, developed in “Molière”, a play about Pushkin and “Theatrical Novel”... In addition, the picture of the life of an unfamiliar eastern city, depicted in “Run”, prepared the description of Yershalaim. And the very method of moving back in time - to the first century of the history of Christianity and forward - to the utopian dream of “peace” was reminiscent of the plot of “Ivan Vasilyevich”.
From the history of the creation of the novel, we see that it was conceived and created as a “novel about the devil.” Some researchers see in it an apology for the devil, admiration of the dark power, capitulation to the world of evil. In fact, Bulgakov called himself a “mystical writer,” but this mysticism did not cloud the mind and did not intimidate the reader...
Novel "The Master and Margarita"
It must be said that when writing the novel, Bulgakov used several philosophical theories: some compositional moments were based on them, as well as mystical episodes and episodes of the Yershalaim chapters. Thus, in the novel there is an interaction between three worlds: the human (all the people in the novel), the biblical (biblical characters) and the cosmic (Woland and his retinue). Most main world- cosmic, Universe, all-encompassing macrocosm. The other two worlds are private. One of them is human, microcosm; the other is symbolic, i.e. biblical world. Each of the three worlds has two “natures”: visible and invisible. All three worlds are woven from good and evil, and the biblical world acts as a connecting link between the visible and invisible natures of the macrocosm and microcosm. Man has two bodies and two hearts: corruptible and eternal, earthly and spiritual, and this means that man is “external” and “internal.” And the latter never dies: by dying, he only loses his earthly body. In the novel "The Master and Margarita" duality is expressed in dialectical interaction and the struggle between good and evil (this is main problem novel). Good cannot exist without evil; people simply will not know that it is good. As Woland said to Levi Matthew: “What would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared from it?” There must be some kind of balance between good and evil, which was disrupted in Moscow: the scales tipped sharply towards the latter and Woland came as the chief punisher to restore it.
Chapter 2 - "Pontius Pilate"
Most of the characters in the Yershalaim chapters of the novel “The Master and Margarita” go back to the Gospel ones. But this cannot be fully said about Pontius Pilate, the fifth procurator of Judea. He had a reputation as a "ferocious monster." But, nevertheless, Bulgakov’s Pontius Pilate is greatly improved in comparison with the prototype. In his image, the writer depicts a man tormented by the pangs of conscience for sending an innocent person to death, and in the finale of the novel Pontius Pilate is granted forgiveness.
Pilate is faced with a dilemma: to save his career, and perhaps his life, over which the shadow of the decrepit empire of Tiberius hangs, or to save the philosopher Yeshua Ha-Nozri. Bulgakov persistently (five times!) calls the procurator a horseman, apparently due to his belonging to a certain class.
Ha-Nozri never deviated from the Truth, from the ideal, and therefore deserved the light. He himself is an ideal - the personified conscience of humanity. The tragedy of the hero is his physical death, but morally he wins. Pilate, who sent him to his death, suffers for almost two thousand years, “twelve thousand moons.” Conscience does not give the procurator peace...
Pilate’s difficult decision, the macro-choice he made at the level of consciousness, is preceded by a micro-choice at the subconscious level. This unconscious choice anticipates the actions of the procurator, which influenced not only his subsequent life, but also the fate of all the heroes of the novel.
Coming out into the colonnade of the palace, the procurator feels that the “smell of leather and convoy is mixed with a damned pink stream,” a smell that the procurator “hated more than anything else in the world.” Neither the smell of horses nor the smell of bitter smoke wafting from the centuries irritate Pilate or cause him such suffering as the “fat pink spirit”, which also foretells a “bad day.” What's behind this? Why does the procurator hate the scent of flowers, the smell of which the majority of humanity finds pleasant?
It can be assumed that the matter is as follows. Since ancient times, roses have been considered one of the symbols of Christ and Christianity. For Bulgakov's generation, roses were associated with the teachings of Christ. And Blok in “The Twelve” has similar symbolism:
In a white corolla of roses -
Ahead is Jesus Christ.
Whether a certain smell is pleasant or not, a person decides not at the conscious level, but at the subconscious level. What will he choose? Will he follow the direction of the horse smells or will he head in the direction where the scent of roses comes from? Preferring the smell of “leather and convoy,” the pagan Pilate anticipates the fatal choice that he will make at the level of consciousness.
M. Bulgakov also repeatedly mentions that the trial of Yeshua takes place near the “Yershalaim hippodrome”, “lists”. The closeness of the horses is constantly felt. Let's compare two passages:
“... the procurator looked at the arrested man, then at the sun, steadily rising above the equestrian statues of the hippodrome, and suddenly, in some kind of sickening torment, he thought that the easiest way would be to expel this strange robber from the balcony, uttering only two words: “Hang him "
“...all those present set off down the wide marble staircase between the walls of roses, exuding an intoxicating aroma, descending lower and lower to the palace wall, to the gate leading to a large, smoothly paved square, at the end of which the columns and statues of the Yershalaim lists could be seen "
Simultaneously with the thought of Yeshua’s execution, equestrian statues appear before Pilate’s eyes; members of the Sanhedrin, having pronounced a death sentence, move past the rose bushes towards the same horses. Symbolic horses each time emphasize the choice that the heroes make. Moreover, the possible decision of the procurator corresponds only to a glance towards the place where passions are raging, and the actual decision of the Sanhedrin, which has just passed a death sentence, corresponds to the physical movement of its members in the same direction.
In the gospel chapters of the novel, a certain battle between good and evil, light and darkness takes place. Pilate’s torment lasts twelve thousand moons, it is difficult for him with a sick conscience, and in the finale, forgiven, he quickly runs along the lunar road to “talk with the prisoner Ha-Nozri.” And this time he chooses the right path - the righteous one.
The history of writing Bulgakov's work "The Master and Margarita"
An outstanding Russian prose writer and playwright who called himself a “mystical writer.” In his original work, along with “magical realism,” a powerful satirical charge plays an extremely important role. Bulgakov's heroes are always concerned with global problems that are of a universal human nature. As a satirist writer, Bulgakov was one of the first who had the courage to show the degradation of a totalitarian society and the tragedy of the thinking person in it.
The novel “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Afanasovich Bulgakov (1891-1940), coming to the reader a quarter of a century after the author’s death, immediately after its publication became famous not only in Russian literature but also in the world. In this we find a new artistic version of the Gospel legend, and satirical sketches of Moscow life in the late 20s, but above all, this novel is about good and evil, about betrayal, heroism, art and the power of love...
“The Master and Margarita,” first published in the Moscow magazine with a foreword by K. Simonov, was immediately noticed by critics.
Some authors of the articles did not approve of the novel; they despised the writer for the lack of a class approach.
This point of view was not supported in the following literary works.
In the following articles, the novel was examined primarily as a work dedicated to the “eternal” question of good and evil, taken in the broadest cultural and philosophical context, as a kind of “urban” novel. Writers and critics noted the main problems presented in the novel: freedom of creativity, a person’s moral responsibility for his actions; much attention was paid when analyzing the text to the main characters - Yeshua, Pilate, the Master, Margarita. There is a well-known article by V. Lakshin, which not only was a relevant critical response to the publication, but also represents the first serious literary study of the work. A lot of research work appeared in this direction in the 70s and 80s.
October 4, 1939, convinced of fatal disease, Bulgakov began dictating amendments to the novel to his wife and continued this work until last day of your life.
Back in 1928, the writer began work on his famous novel “The Master and Margarita”. First full version The Master and Margarita was completed in 1934, and the last one in 1938. Already on his deathbed, the blinded Bulgakov dictated the proofs of his main work, but did not have time to complete the work. The writer died on March 10, 1940, and the first magazine publication of “The Master and Margarita” in his homeland became possible only 26 years later.
The first full text of the book was published as a separate edition in 1967 in Paris, and in the USSR in 1973. The novel is today one of the most popular works Russian prose, a “cult” book of several generations of readers.
The novel develops schemes that are quite common in world literature: the adventures of the devil in the human world, the sale of the soul, variations on Gospel themes, etc.
Using compositional technique Bulgakov connected “text within text” within the framework of space (“Moscow” and “Yershalaim” plot lines), which are inextricably linked. The action of the two plots takes place in 29 and 1929 from the Nativity of Christ and thus they develop as if simultaneously.
“The interpenetration of these texts, the collision of their” points of view “forms a very important collision” of the mythologized and “real” images of a specific person.
Bulgakov's principle of use Gospel story is that the Master’s novel is polemically correlated with it; the historical Gospel takes on the features of an unreliable version.
Despite the fact that the novel was written a long time ago and is classic work, he is still very popular among younger generation. Thanks to school curriculum Almost everyone knows this novel and who wrote it. “The Master and Margarita” is a novel created by the greatest author, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov.
Indifference to the novel
In relation to this work it practically does not exist. In fact, readers are divided into two camps: those who love the novel and admire it, and those who simply hate it and do not recognize Bulgakov’s genius. But there is a third, the smallest, category. This can probably only include small children. These are those who have not heard of the novel and do not know who the author is.
“The Master and Margarita” is one of the most extraordinary and mysterious. Many writers and literary scholars have tried to unravel the mystery of its popularity and success among the reader. No one has yet succeeded in achieving this.
It is not possible to recall and name many works that would generate so much controversy. They don’t stop talking about Bulgakov’s novel to this day. They talk about the biblical component of the plot, about the prototypes of the main characters, about the philosophical and aesthetic roots of the novel, about who the main character is, and even about the genre in which the work is written.
Three stages of writing a novel, according to B.V. Sokolov
The opinions of literary scholars regarding the history of writing “The Master and Margarita,” as well as the essence of this work, differ. For example, Sokolov, the author of the book “Bulgakov Encyclopedia,” divides the editions of the novel into three stages. He says that work on the work began back in 1928. Presumably, it was then that the author of the novel “The Master and Margarita” conceived it, and began writing individual chapters only in the winter of 1929. Already in the spring of the same year, the first complete edition was submitted. But then it was not yet directly said who the author of the book was, who wrote it. “The Master and Margarita” did not appear as the title of the work even then. The manuscript entitled “Furibunda” was submitted to the publishing house “Nedra” under the pseudonym K. Tugai. And on March 18, 1930, it was destroyed by the author himself. This is how the first stage of editions of the work, highlighted by Boris Vadimovich Sokolov, ends.
The second stage began in the fall of 1936. And at that time no one knew that the novel would be called as we are now accustomed to. Bulgakov himself, the one who wrote it, thought differently. “The Master and Margarita” is a work that received different names from its author: “He Appeared” and “He Appeared”, “The Advent”, “The Great Chancellor”, “Here I Am”, “The Black Magician”, “The Hat with a Feather” , “The Consultant’s Hoof” and “The Foreigner’s Horseshoe”, “The Black Theologian”, and even “Satan”. Only one subtitle remained unchanged - “Fantastic Novel”.
And finally, the third stage - from the second half of 1936 to the end of 1938. At first the novel was called “Prince of Darkness”, but then it acquired such a familiar name for us. And at the beginning of summer, in 1938, it was completely reprinted for the first time.
Nine editions, according to Losev
V.I. Losev studied the biography and work of Mikhail Afanasyevich for more than twenty years. He divides the story of writing the novel into nine parts, just like the author himself.
- The first edition is “Black Magician”. These are drafts of the novel, the first notebook, written in 1928-1929. It does not yet contain The Master and Margarita and there are only four chapters.
- The second is “Engineer’s Hoof”. This is the second draft notebook from the same years. This is like a continuation, the second part of the first edition of the work. There are only three chapters in it, but here the idea of one of the most important parts of the novel has already appeared - this is the section called “The Gospel of Woland.”
- The third is “The Evening of Terrible Saturday.” Drafts, sketches for the novel, written in 1929-1931. There are also three chapters. And only the case in Griboedov reached the final version.
- The fourth is “Grand Chancellor”. The first complete handwritten edition. Margarita and her lover already appear here. But his name is not yet Master, but Poet.
- Fifth - “Fantastic novel”. These are chapters rewritten and completed in 1934-1936. New details appear, but there are no significant modifications.
- Sixth - “Golden Spear”. This is an unfinished manuscript, torn off at the chapter “Magic Money”.
- Seventh - “Prince of Darkness”. The first thirteen chapters of the novel. not here, and in general everything ends with the appearance of the main character. And Berlioz is called Mirtsev here.
- The eighth part is “The Master and Margarita”. Complete and mature handwritten edition of 1928-1937. And it was this version that was published by Elena Bulgakova’s sister Olga Bokshanskaya.
- The ninth is also “The Master and Margarita”. The latest and final edition, including all the latest additions and comments by Mikhail Afanasyevich. It was published after the death of the writer by Elena Sergeevna, his wife, in 1966.
Variant of the story of Belobrovtseva and Kuljus
In many ways, their version is similar to Losev’s, since they completely agree with the critic regarding the first edition. However, they call the second edition the chapters of the novel “The Engineer’s Hoof”, submitted to the Nedra publishing house. It is here that the Master, also called Fesey, appears for the first time. He plays the role of Faust even without Margarita. The third version, according to Belobrovtseva and Kuljus, is the “Fantastic Novel” written by Bulgakov in 1932, where the Master turns from Fesi into the Poet and Margarita already appears. They consider the fourth edition to be the 1936 edition, the one that was completed for the first time with the word “end.” Next the piece is in progress 1937 - unfinished novel"Prince of Darkness" And then the manuscript printed by O. S. Bokshanskaya. Already its editing by the authors is considered the seventh edition. And the eighth and last is the one that was edited by Bulgakov’s wife before his death and was published after his death.
The novel was published in the form in which we know it for the first time in the Moscow magazine in 1966. The work immediately gained popularity, and Bulgakov’s name never left the lips of his contemporaries. Then no one really had any questions about who the author of the work was, who wrote it. “The Master and Margarita” is a novel that made a great impression. And he still holds the brand.
In this article we decided to do brief analysis famous novel Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita". For the most part This article will discuss the history of the creation of the novel and its publication.
The novel was written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940 during the Stalinist regime. The manuscript was not published as a book until 1967. The novel was first published in Paris and then in France.
A samizdat version was circulated that included portions cut by official censors, and these were included in the 1969 version published in Frankfurt. The novel has since been published in several languages.
If we briefly mention the plot of the novel, then the main idea is the visit of the devil to an officially atheistic Soviet Union. Many critics believe that this is one of the best novels 20th century, where the author focused on Soviet satire. The book creates very conflicting feelings in the reader. This is due to the fact that in this work evil is not presented as a specific evil spirits, and is presented in the form ordinary people.
The novel “The Master and Margarita” shows the reader the true “face” of a person. The author is not trying to disguise it in any way in beautiful words or business. It shows the truth about people and the world they live in. But despite all deep meaning work, the history of its creation is also very interesting.
To get acquainted with the plot of the novel “The Master and Margarita” in more detail, you can read the summary of the novel.
The history of the creation of the novel “The Master and Margarita”
Mikhail Bulgakov was a playwright and writer. He began writing the novel in 1928, but burned the first manuscript in 1930 because he could not see his future as a writer in the Soviet Union during a period of widespread political repression. He resumed work on the novel in 1931. In the early 1920s, Bulgakov attended an editorial meeting of an atheist propaganda magazine. It is believed that he attended this meeting to create the Walpurgis Night in the novel.
He completed his second project in 1936, at which point he developed the main storylines final version. He wrote four more versions. When Bulgakov stopped writing four weeks before his death in 1940, the novel contained some unfinished sentences and loose ends. Thus, Bulgakov left us a great work, which, although it was not perfect, still makes people experience strong emotions. Read also interesting
