The writer planned to write the "Gospel of Satan". In the image of Voland from "The Master and Margarita" put many features of Stalin.
Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" is one of the most mysterious novels in literary history; and today its researchers are trying to interpret it.
Why did the writer give his book this title and what is it about?
It is known that the idea of creating the novel was born when Bulgakov was fascinated by the mysticism of the 19th century. Legends about the devil, Jewish and Christian demonology, treatises about God - these themes are present in the novel.
The most important sources for the novel are the books "The History of Man's Intercourse with the Devil" by Mikhail Orlov and Amphiteatrov's book "The devil in everyday life, legends and literature in the Middle Ages".
The novel "The Master and Margarita" undergoes several revisions.
The first edition, on which the author worked in 1928-1929, is called "The Black Magician" and the central figure in it is the Devil. Bulgakov symbolically burned the first manuscript after his play "Kabbalah Svyatosh" was banned. About this act, the writer reports: "I personally, with my own hands, threw the draft of the novel about the devil into the stove!"
The second edition is also dedicated to the fallen angel and is called "Satan". It already features Margarita with the Master and Voland.
The third manuscript bears the current name of the novel, which the writer did not manage to finish.
The Many-Faced Woland
The Prince of Darkness is the most popular character in "The Master and Margarita". At first glance, Woland is "justice itself", a judge who fights human vices and patronizes love and creativity. Some believe that Bulgakov portrayed Stalin in this image, but Woland is multifaceted and complex. He is conceived as the classic Satanat in the early versions of the book, as a new Messiah, a reimagined Christ.
Actually, Woland is not just a devil; it has many prototypes. He is also the supreme pagan god Wotan among the ancient Germans, Odin among the Scandinavians, the great "mage" and Freemason Count Cagliostro.
Satan's retinue
Azazelo, Behemoth and Koroviev-Fagot are instruments of diabolical justice, the brightest characters in the novel.
Azazelo is "the demon of the waterless desert, the demon-killer". Bulgakov borrowed this image from the Old Testament books, in which they called the fallen angel who taught people to make weapons and ornaments. Thanks to him, women mastered the art of beautifying their faces. In the novel, he is Woland's right-hand man who does the "black work". He kills Baron Meigel, poisons the lovers. Its essence is absolute evil.
Koroviev-Fagot is the only person in Woland's entourage. It is not entirely clear who his prototype is, but researchers look for it among the Aztecs and their god Vitzlipuzli, who is a god of war to whom sacrifices were made.
Behemoth is a werewolf cat, Woland's favorite jester, whose image is derived from the legends of the demon of gluttony and the mythological beast of the Old Testament. In the study of I. Ya. Porfiriev "Apocryphal legends about Old Testament persons and events", which Bulgakov probably knew, mention is made of the sea monster Behemoth, which together with Leviathan inhabits the invisible desert "to the east of the garden, where the chosen and righteous". The author took information about Behemoth from the story of Anne Dazange, who lived in the 17th century, who was possessed by seven devils, among which Behemoth is mentioned.
Black Queen Margo
Margarita is often considered a model of femininity, sort of like Pushkin's Tatiana in the 20th century. But a prototype of "Queen Margot" became a clearly not very modest girl from the depths of Russia. In addition to the obvious similarity of the heroine to the last wife of the writer, the novel emphasizes Margarita's relationship with two French queens. The first is "Queen Margot", the wife of Henry IV, whose wedding turned into the bloody Bartholomew's Night. In the image of the heroine, they also see another queen - Margaret of Navarre, who was one of the first female writers in France, author of the famous "Heptameron" (a collection of light stories similar to the stories in the "Decameron+). The two ladies patronized writers and poets. Bulgakov's Margarita loves her genius writer - the Master.
The influence of Gustav Meyrink
The ideas of Gustav Meyrink, whose works appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, had a huge impact on Bulgakov. In the novel of the Austrian expressionist "Great" the main character - master Anastasius Pernat in the finale reunites with his beloved Miriam "on the border between real and side worlds." The connection with "The Master and Margarita" is available.
In "The Master and Margarita", as well as in "The White Dominican" of Meyrink, for the heroes the main thing is not the goal, but the very process of the path - the development. But the meaning of this path is different for the two writers. Gustav, as well as his characters, look for it in the creative beginning, Bulgakov strives to achieve some "esoteric" absolute, the essence of creation.
The final manuscript
The last edition of the novel, which subsequently reached the reader, was begun in 1927. The author continued to work on it until his death. Why was he unable to finish the book he had been writing for almost 12 years? Perhaps he felt that he was not quite knowledgeable about the subject he was tackling, and his understanding of Jewish demonology and early Christian texts was dilettantish?
In fact, the novel sucked the life force out of the writer. He made the last correction on February 13, 1940. This is Margarita's phrase "That's how it is, do writers go after death?" After a month, Bulgakov died.
In one conversation, Boris Pasternak said that phenomena in literature are legal and illegal, and "Bulgakov is an illegal phenomenon.
The fate of Bulgakov is inexplicable and mysterious. He miraculously did not die in the wars and in the bloody horrors of the revolution, during the time of the Bolshevik dictatorship. Bulgakov was an ideal target for the authorities: on both sides of his parents there were priests, his father was a doctor of theology at the Kiev Theological Academy. His first wife was a noblewoman, the daughter of a state councillor.
Bulgakov knows history, literature well, plays music, studies medicine, he was appointed a zemstvo doctor in the Smolensk province. His wife was with him on the fronts of the First World War and the Civil War, when Bulgakov became addicted to morphine...
He lives in dire need in the Caucasus.
At the age of 30, he settled in Moscow and knew that he would only be a writer.
Bulgakov hated the new Soviet way of life and, as a merciless satirist, showered it with "evil and malice". But Stalin liked him and was a fan of "Turbini Days".
Bulgakov, the unknown provincialist, chooses the most dangerous path in literature - that of the satirist, who boldly portrays the Soviet reality. A wave is rising against him in the press, which raises the slogan "Down with the Bulgakov region!". They stop printing it. From 1928 to 1938, Bulgakov wrote six letters to the authorities, five of which - personally to Stalin. Stalin ordered that he be appointed director at the Moscow Art Theater. They allow him to write a play about young Stalin as a revolutionary.
Source: Publishing House "Rasper"