The Master and Margarita

Article written by Charles Asoluka

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

One of the key works of classic Russian literature from the contemporary age is ‘The Master and Margarita.’ As the novel’s portrayal of Soviet life in the 1930s is so shockingly true, it was only ever published in a redacted edition in the 1960s. Because of how durable its realities are, Russians now frequently use its language.

The devil travels to Moscow one hot spring with a retinue that includes a stunning nude witch and a huge talking black cat who enjoys chess and alcohol. The visitors swiftly cause chaos in a town where neither God nor Satan are believed in. Yet, they also bring comfort to two miserable Muscovites: Margarita, who is so devoted to the Master that she would practically go to hell for him, and the Master, a writer who was derided for having the audacity to write a book on Christ and Pontius Pilate. What follows is a novel with boundless energy, humor, and philosophical profundity.

Key Facts About The Master and Margarita

• Book Name: ‘Мастер и Маргарита’ (‘The Master and Margarita’ in Russian)
• Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
• Type Of Work: Novel/Fiction
• Genre: Satire/Fantasy
• Language: Russian
• Time And Place Written: 1928-1940, Soviet Union
• Date Of First Publication: 1967
• Publisher: YMCA Press
• Narrator: Omniscient third-person narrator
• Protagonist(s): The Master and Margarita
• Antagonist(s): Woland, Moscow Elites
• Climax: The Great Ball hosted by Woland

Mikhail Bulgakov and The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov was a famous Russian author and dramatist born in Kiev in 1891. His most well-known work is the satirical book ‘The Master and Margarita,’ which he authored covertly while living under the Communist regime. The novel has now become a literary classic and is regarded as one of the greatest pieces of Russian literature, despite being prohibited from publication during the author’s lifetime.

The novel’s central plot is the devil’s trip to Moscow in the 1930s, during which time he causes mayhem and chaos while revealing the hypocrisy and corruption of Soviet society. A variety of individuals, including a writer by the name of the Master who wrote a book about Pontius Pilate and his lover Margarita, who strikes a Faustian bargain with the devil in order to be reunited with the Master, provide insight into the devil’s acts.

The book also explores the nature of creative expression, the interplay between good and evil, and the efficacy of atonement. These issues are explored by Bulgakov using a variety of literary devices, such as magical realism and metafiction, to build a vivid and creative universe that has captivated readers for decades.

• Notes From The Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky remains his most innovative book, which draws a line between fiction from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as between the ideas of the self each century represented. The unidentified narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence, making him one of literature’s most extraordinary figures. He scrawls a passionate, obsessive, and contradictory tale in total seclusion from a society that serves as a withering critique of social utopianism and a proclamation of man’s fundamentally irrational nature.

Lasting Impact of The Master and Margarita

Books Related to The Master and Margarita

• The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky tells the story of when the Christ-like epileptic Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from a Swiss sanitarium, he finds himself caught in a web of love, torn between two women—the infamous kept woman Nastasya and the pure Aglaia—both of whom are connected in turn with the corrupt, greedy Ganya. The moral void of those surrounding Myshkin is ultimately proved to be greater than his honesty, goodness, and integrity.

• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a great, bestselling, historical novel that follows the narrative of the Buendia family and documents the unresolvable tension between the need for love and the yearning for isolation. “Magical realism” as portrayed in the classic, is a rich and inventive prose that has come to define the entire genre.

• Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz narrates the story of a writer who finds himself flung into a chaotic world of schoolboys by a malevolent professor who seeks to convert him to childishness. Published first in Poland in 1937. The young author’s book Ferdydurke instantly became a literary hit and propelled him to stardom. The novel and all of Gombrowicz’s other works were legally outlawed in Poland for many years because they were deemed scandalous and subversive by the Nazis, Stalinists, and the Polish Communist state. Nevertheless, it is regarded as one of the most important pieces of European literature from the 20th century.

• A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov harkens back to the tales of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, so adored by Russian society in the 1820s and 1830s, with its exciting events, abductions, duels, and sexual intrigues. The quintessential Russian antihero Pechorin, the protagonist of Lermontov’s tale, anticipates the later splendors and fervor of Russian literature, which it greatly contributed to making possible.

• Notes From The Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky remains his most innovative book, which draws a line between fiction from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as between the ideas of the self each century represented. The unidentified narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence, making him one of literature’s most extraordinary figures. He scrawls a passionate, obsessive, and contradictory tale in total seclusion from a society that serves as a withering critique of social utopianism and a proclamation of man’s fundamentally irrational nature.

Lasting Impact of The Master and Margarita