Bulgakov worked on the novel “The Master and Margarita” for about 12 years and did not have time to finally edit it. This novel became a real revelation of the writer; Bulgakov himself said that this was his main message to humanity, a testament to his descendants.

Many books have been written about this novel. Among researchers of Bulgakov's creative heritage, there is an opinion that this work is a kind of political treatise. In Woland they saw Stalin and his retinue was identified with political figures of that time. However, consider the novel “The Master and Margarita” only from this point of view and see in it only political satire it wouldn't be right.

Some literary scholars believe that the main meaning of this mystical work is eternal struggle between good and evil. According to Bulgakov, it turns out that evil on Earth must always be in balance. Yeshua and Woland personify precisely these two spiritual principles. One of the key phrases of the novel were the words of Woland, which he uttered when addressing Levi Matvey: “Wouldn’t it be so kind to think about the question: what would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would it look like if it disappeared? shadows?

In the novel, evil, in the person of Woland, ceases to be humane and fair. Good and evil are intertwined and are in close interaction, especially in human souls. Woland punished people with evil for evil for the sake of justice.

It is not for nothing that some critics have drawn an analogy between Bulgakov’s novel and the story of Faust, although in “The Master and Margarita” the situation is presented inverted. Faust sold his soul to the devil and betrayed Margarita's love for the sake of his thirst for knowledge, and in Bulgakov's novel Margarita makes a deal with the devil for the sake of love for the Master.

Fight for man

The inhabitants of Bulgakov's Moscow appear before the reader as a collection of puppets, tormented by passions. It is of great importance in the Variety Show, where Woland sits down in front of the audience and begins to talk about the fact that people do not change for centuries.

Against the background of this faceless mass, only the Master and Margarita are deeply aware of how the world works and who rules it.

The image of the Master is collective and autobiographical. The reader does not know his real name. The master is represented by any artist, as well as a person who has his own vision of the world. Margarita is an image ideal woman who is able to love to the end, despite difficulties and obstacles. They are perfect collective images a man dedicated to his work and a woman true to her feelings.

Thus, the meaning of this immortal novel can be divided into three layers.

Above everything stands the confrontation between Woland and Yeshua, who, together with their students and retinue, wage a continuous struggle for the immortal human soul, play with the destinies of people.

Just below are people like the Master and Margarita; later they are joined by the Master’s student, Professor Ponyrev. These people are spiritually more mature, who realize that life is much more complicated than it seems at first glance.

And finally, at the very bottom are the ordinary inhabitants of Bulgakov’s Moscow. They have no will and strive only for material values.

Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” serves as a constant warning against inattention to oneself, against blindly following the established order of things, to the detriment of awareness of one’s own personality.

Sources:

• The theme of good and evil in Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita"
• The meaning of the title of the novel "The Master and Margarita"
• Main idea novel "The Master and Margarita"

Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" is one of best books, written in the 20th century in Russian. Unfortunately, the novel was published many years after the writer’s death, and many of the mysteries encrypted by the author in the book remained unsolved.

Devil on the Patriarch's

Bulgakov began work on the novel, dedicated to the appearance of the Devil in Moscow in the 1930s, in 1929 and continued until his death in 1940, without finishing the author's editing. The book was published only in 1966, thanks to the fact that Mikhail Afanasyevich’s widow, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, kept the manuscript. The plot, or rather, all of it hidden meanings, are still the subject scientific research and disputes among literary scholars.

“The Master and Margarita” is included in the list of the hundred best books of the 20th century according to the French periodical Le Monde.

The text begins with the fact that by two Soviet writers While talking on the Patriarch's Ponds, a foreigner approaches, who turns out to be Satan. It turns out that the Devil (he introduces himself by the name Woland) travels all over the world, periodically stopping in various cities along with his retinue. Once in Moscow, Woland and his henchmen punish people for their petty sins and passions. The images of bribe takers and swindlers are drawn by Bulgakov masterfully, and the victims of Satan do not evoke sympathy at all. So, for example, the fate of Woland’s first two interlocutors is extremely unpleasant: one of them dies under a tram, and the second ends up in an insane asylum, where he meets a man who calls himself the Master.

The master tells Woland’s victim his story, in particular, saying that at one time he was talking about Pontius Pilate, because of whom he ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Moreover, he remembers romantic story his love for a woman named Margarita. At the same time, one of the representatives of Woland’s retinue turns to Margarita with a request to become the queen of Satan’s Ball, which is held annually by Woland in various capitals. Margarita agrees in exchange for the Master being returned to her. The novel ends with a scene of all the main characters from Moscow, and the Master and Margarita find the peace they dreamed of.

From Moscow to Jerusalem

In parallel with the “Moscow” plot line, the “Yershalaim” line is developing, that is, in fact, the novel about Pontius Pilate. From Moscow in the 30s, the reader is transported to Jerusalem at the beginning of our era, where tragic events take place, described in the New Testament and reinterpreted by Bulgakov. The author tries to understand the motives of the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, who sent the philosopher Yeshua Ha-Nozri, whose prototype is Jesus Christ, to execution. In the final part of the book storylines intersect, and each hero gets what he deserves.

There are many film adaptations of Bulgakov’s novel, both in Russia and abroad. In addition, the text has inspired many musicians, artists and playwrights.

“The Master and Margarita” is a novel at the intersection of genres. Of course, in the foreground is satirical image morals and way of life of the inhabitants of Moscow contemporary to Bulgakov, but in addition to this, the text contains various mystical symbols, moral confusion, and reveals the theme of retribution for sins and misdeeds.

One of the properties of literature is the desire to synthesize all available information. at the moment its achievements, generalize, bring into the system. As an example, we can recall “The Glass Bead Game” by Hesse, “Doctor Faustus” by Mann, “The Brothers Karamazov” by Dostoevsky.

General information

The history of the creation of the novel “The Master and Margarita” is still shrouded in secrets, however, like the novel itself, which never ceases to be the center of mysteries for the reader. It is not even known exactly when Bulgakov had the idea of ​​writing a work that is now known as “The Master and Margarita” (this title appeared in Bulgakov’s drafts relatively shortly before the creation of final version novel).

The time it took Bulgakov from the ripening of the idea to the final version of the novel was ultimately about ten years, which indicates the care with which Bulgakov took on the novel and what significance it apparently had for him. And Bulgakov seemed to have foreseen everything in advance, because “The Master and Margarita” became the last work he wrote. Bulgakov did not even have time to complete the literary editing of the novel; it stopped somewhere in the area of ​​the second part.

Conceptual question

Initially, Bulgakov chose the image of the devil (the future Woland) to replace the main character of his new novel. The first several editions of the novel were created under the banner of this idea. It should be noted that each of the four famous editors can be considered as an independent novel, since they all contain many fundamental differences at both the formal and semantic levels. Familiar to the reader main image- the image of the Master was introduced into the novel by Bulgakov only in the fourth, final edition, and this itself ultimately determined the main concept of the novel, which initially contained a bias in to a greater extent aside, however, the Master as the main character with his “appearance” forced Bulgakov to reconsider the prospects of the novel and give the dominant place to the theme of art, culture, and the place of the artist in the modern world.

Work on the novel took so long, probably not only because the concept was not finalized and changed, but also due to the fact that the novel was intended by Bulgakov himself as a final work, summarizing his entire path in the field of art, and in connection with this the novel has a rather complex structure, it is filled a huge amount explicit and implicit cultural allusions, references at each and every level of the novel’s poetics.

Analysis of the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"

In 1928, M.A. Bulgakov began the novel “The Master and Margarita” (which did not yet have this title). Brought to the 15th chapter, the novel was destroyed by the author himself in 1930, and started anew in 1932 or 1933. In subsequent years, work proceeded in fits and starts. In 1937, returning once again to the beginning of the novel, the author first wrote in title page the title that became final, “The Master and Margarita,” set the dates: 1928-1937 - and never stopped working on it. In 1939, important changes were made to the end of the novel and an epilogue was added. But then the terminally ill Bulgakov dictated amendments to the text to his wife, Elena Sergeevna. The extensiveness of insertions and amendments in the first part and at the beginning of the second suggests that no less work was to be done further, but the author did not have time to complete it. After Bulgakov's death, eight editions of the novel remained in his archive.

This book reigns in the happy freedom of creative imagination and at the same time the rigor of the compositional concept. Satan rules the great ball there and the inspired Master, a contemporary of the author, writes his immortal novel. There, the procurator of Judea sends Christ to execution, and nearby the citizens inhabiting the Garden and Bronnaya streets of Moscow of the 20s and 30s of the last century are fussing and berating. Laughter and sadness, joy and pain are mixed together, just like in life. "The Master and Margarita" is a lyrical and philosophical poem in prose about love and moral duty, about the inhumanity of evil, about true creativity, which is always an overcoming of inhumanity, always strives for light and good.

The idea for the book took shape gradually. The novel grew slowly. Critic I. Vinogradov called an article about the novel “the testament of a master.” Bulgakov himself, in a letter to his wife, who became the prototype of the main character of “The Master and Margarita,” back in 1938, almost two years before his death, said about his work: “The Last Sunset Romance.”

The action begins “one day in the spring, at the hour of an unprecedentedly hot sunset, in Moscow, on the Patriarch’s Ponds.” Satan and his retinue appear in the white-stone capital. The history of the four-day tour of that force “that always wants evil and always does good” gives the novel a plot point, the possibility of its rapid development in time.

Diaboliada - one of Bulgakov's favorite motifs - here plays a completely realistic role and can serve as an example of a grotesque-fantastic, satirical exposure of the contradictions of living reality. Woland sweeps over Bulgakov's Moscow like a thunderstorm, punishing mockery and dishonesty. Otherworldliness and mysticism somehow don’t fit in with this Messiah. If there was no such Woland, then he had to be invented.

A fantastic turn of events allows the writer to unfold before us a whole gallery of characters of a very unsightly kind. Sudden meeting with evil spirits turns the appearance of all these Berliozs, Brass, Maigels, Aloiziev Mogarychs, Nikanor Ivanovichs and others inside out. The black magic session that Woland and his assistants give at the capital’s Variety Show literally and figuratively “undresses” some citizens from the audience. But at the same time, the targets are strictly selective; they are internally oriented by the author’s ethics. The critic P. Palievsky correctly noted: “Nowhere did Vodand, Bulgakov’s Prince of Darkness, touch the one who creates honor, lives by it and advances. But he immediately seeps into the place where the gap is left for him, where they retreated, disintegrated and imagined that they were hiding: to the barman with “second-fresh fish” and gold tens in hiding places; to the professor, who had slightly forgotten the Hippocratic Oath; to the smartest specialist in “exposing values”...

And Master, main character Bulgakov's book, who created the novel about Christ and Pilate, is also far from religiosity in the Christian sense of the word. He wrote a book of enormous psychological expressiveness based on historical material. This “novel within a novel” seems to collect ethical contradictions that every generation of people, every thinking and suffering person must resolve with their lives. Two novels - The Master and about the Master - are mirrored to each other, and the play of reflections and parallels gives birth to an artistic whole, connecting legend and everyday life in historical life person. Among the characters in the book, Pontius Pilate, the fifth procurator of Judea, a man in a white cloak with bloody lining, is especially memorable. The story of his cowardice and repentance approaches in its artistic power best pages world prose.

"The Master and Margarita" - complex work. Criticism has already noted the excessive subjectivity of Bulgakov's view of contemporary reality, which was reflected in the satirical chapters of the novel. K. Simonov wrote: “When reading “The Master and Margarita,” people of older generations immediately notice that the main field for Bulgakov’s satirical observations was the Moscow philistine, including the literary and theatrical environment of the 20s, with its, as they said then , “burps of NEP”.

It should be added that another Moscow of that time, another, more wide field there is almost no sense of observation in the novel. And this is one of the examples that speaks to the limited views of the writer on modernity. We sometimes hesitate to say the words “limited vision” when talking about great talent. And in vain. For they, without detracting from talent, reflect reality; help to understand the real place of the writer in the history of literature.”

The master could not win. By making him a winner, Bulgakov would have violated the laws of artistic truth and betrayed his sense of realism. The novel is optimistic. Leaving this mortal world, the Master leaves in it his student, who sees the same dreams as him, raves about the same images of world history and culture, shares his philosophical ideas, believes in the same ideals of a universal human scale...

The Master’s student, his ideological successor and spiritual heir, now an employee of the Institute of History and Philosophy, Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, former Homeless, “knows and understands everything” - in history, in the world, and in life. “He knows that in his youth he was a victim of criminal hypnotists, was treated after that and was cured.” Now he is the Master himself. Bulgakov showed that the acquisition of intelligence occurs through the accumulation of knowledge, through intense intellectual, spiritual work, through the assimilation cultural traditions humanity, through deliverance from the spell of “black magic”, “criminal hypnotists”.

The heroes of “The Master and Margarita” escaped into the vastness of eternity and found themselves in the endless space of world history. And this indicates that no powerful forces have power over those who are the masters of their thoughts and their work, who have mastery. The master lives in a world without social, national and temporal boundaries; his interlocutors are Jesus Christ, Kant, Goethe, Dostoevsky... He is a contemporary and interlocutor of the immortals, because he is an equal with them.

There will still be a lot of thinking and writing about The Master and Margarita. The book is controversial; the reader will not agree with all of its ideas. But he will not remain indifferent. He will read it, crying and laughing, and perhaps it will awaken in his soul powers that he had never thought of before. In Bulgakov, the world of eternal human values, historical truth, creative search, and conscience is opposed to the world of formalism, soulless bureaucracy, self-interest, and immorality. And above all - love. The Master lives by love, and Bulgakov lives by love. The beggar prophet of Ancient Judea, Yeshua Ha-Nozri, also preaches love.

“Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no real, true, eternal love? May the liar's vile tongue be cut out!

Follow me, my reader, and only me, and I will show you such love!”

Bulgakov's novel, like all the great, eternal books of mankind, is dedicated to the omnipotence and invincibility of love. Manuscripts inspired by love, glorifying love, carrying with them a rush of love are indestructible and eternal. Truly, as Woland said, addressing the Master, “manuscripts do not burn.” Bulgakov tried to burn his manuscript, but this did not bring him relief. The novel continued to live, the Master remembered it by heart. The manuscript has been restored. After the death of the writer, it came to us and soon found readers in many countries around the world.

Bulgakov began writing his main book, the novel “The Master and Margarita,” which was first called “The Engineer’s Hoof” and “The Black Magician” in 1928-29. He dictated the last insertions of the work to his wife in 1940, in February, three weeks before his death. In this article we will look at last novel Bulgakov, let's analyze it.

"The Master and Margarita" - the result of Bulgakov's work

This novel was a kind of synthesis, the result of all the previous experience of the writer and playwright. It reflected Moscow life, which arose in the essays from the work “On the Eve”; satirical mysticism and fantasy, tested by Bulgakov in stories of the 1920s; motives of a restless conscience and knightly honor - in the novel " White Guard"; and also dramatic theme the evil fate of one persecuted artist, which was unfolded in " Theatrical novel" and "Moliere". The description of Yershalaim was prepared by a picture of life eastern city, which is mentioned in "Running". And the transfer of the narrative in time to the period of early Christianity was reminiscent of the plays “Ivan Vasilyevich” and “Bliss”, in which a journey through eras was also made.

Multi-layered work

It is worth noting first of all that this work is multi-layered, as our analysis shows. "The Master and Margarita" has several plans, including temporary ones. The author, on the one hand, describes the reality of the 1930s, contemporary to him, but on the other, Mikhail Afanasyevich goes to a different era: ancient Judea, the first two centuries of Christianity, the reign of Pontius Pilate. By comparing these two times, establishing indirect and direct analogies between them, the space of the novel is built, ideological content he is enriched by this. In addition, the work clearly depicts an adventurous and fantastic layer. This primarily includes scenes in which Koroviev, Behemoth and other representatives of the black magician’s “gang” participate.

Reflection of the characteristics of the era

Persecution, repression, fear, which literally permeated the atmosphere of the 30s, were reflected most clearly in the fate of the Master. Let us prove this using the example of one episode, analyzing it. "The Master and Margarita" contains interesting scene- a description of the protagonist’s return home after he became a victim of a denunciation carried out by Aloysius Mogarych. Having been absent from his home for three months, he comes to the windows of the basement in which the gramophone is playing. The master returned in the same coat, only with torn buttons (they were cut off during his arrest) with a reluctance to live and write.

The atmosphere of the 1930s is also reminiscent of the circumstances of the murder of Afranius Judas by mercenaries, the death of Maigel, who was killed by Azazello at Satan’s ball. These deaths demonstrate once again the law, which was confirmed more than once already in the time of Yezhov and Yagoda: evil itself will destroy its servants.

The role of mysticism in Bulgakov's work

Bulgakov called himself a mystical writer, but in the novel mysticism is not at all an apology for everything mysterious, which can be proven by analysis. “The Master and Margarita” is a work in which Woland’s retinue performs miracles with only one purpose: satire enters the novel through them. Woland and his henchmen make fun of human vices, punish the voluptuousness, lies, and greed of all these Likhodeevs, Sempleyarovs, Varenukhas. Bulgakov's representatives of evil act in accordance with Goethe's maxim that they are a force that does good by desiring evil.

An analysis of the work “The Master and Margarita” shows that one of the main targets is the complacency of the mind, primarily the atheistic one, which sweeps away the entire area of ​​the mysterious and mysterious from the path. Describing all the “hoaxes”, “jokes” and “adventures” of Behemoth, Koroviev and Azazello, the writer laughs at people’s confidence that all forms of existing life can be planned and calculated, and that it is not at all difficult to arrange the happiness and prosperity of people - you just need to want .

Criticism of rationalism by Bulgakov

Bulgakov, remaining a supporter Great Evolution, shows doubt that unidirectional and uniform progress can be ensured by a “cavalry charge.” His mysticism is directed primarily against rationalism. The analysis of the work “The Master and Margarita” from this side can be carried out as follows. Bulgakov ridicules, developing a theme outlined in various stories of the 1920s, the complacency of the mind, which is convinced that, freed from superstitions, it will create an accurate blueprint of the future, the structure of relations between people and harmony in the human soul. The image of Berlioz can serve as a characteristic example here. He, having ceased to believe in God, does not even believe that chance can interfere with him, tripping him up at the most unexpected moment. But this is exactly what happens in the end. Thus, an analysis of the novel “The Master and Margarita” proves that the author opposes rationalism.

The mysticism of the historical process

But the mysticism of everyday life for a writer is only a reflection of what can be considered mysticism historical process(the unpredictability of the course of history and the results obtained, their unexpectedness). In history major events, according to Bulgakov, ripen imperceptibly. They are carried out outside the will of people, although many are convinced that they can arbitrarily dispose of everything. As a result, unfortunate Berlioz, who knew exactly what he would do in the evening at the MASSOLIT meeting, dies a few minutes later under the wheels of a tram.

Pontius Pilate - "victim of history"

Like Berlioz, he becomes another “victim of history.” Analysis of the novel "The Master and Margarita" reveals following features this person. The hero gives the impression of a powerful person to people and himself. However, Yeshua's insight amazes the procurator no less than the unusual speeches of Berlioz and Woland. The self-satisfaction of Pontius Pilate, his right to dispose of the lives of others at his own discretion, are thereby called into question. The procurator decides the fate of Yeshua. But, despite this, the latter is free, and Pilate is an unfortunate hostage of his own conscience. This two-thousand-year captivity is a punishment for imaginary and temporary power.

Love of the Master and Margarita

The novel "The Master and Margarita" is dedicated to the fate of one master - creative personality, which opposes the entire surrounding world. His story is inextricably linked with the story of Margarita. The author in the second part of his novel promises to show readers “eternal”, “faithful”, “true” love. These were the feelings of the main characters in the work. Let's analyze them. works you, we hope, remember) is a novel in which love is one of the main themes.

"True Love" by Bulgakov

What does " true love"from the point of view of Mikhail Afanasyevich? Analysis of the chapters ("The Master and Margarita") shows that the meeting of the heroes was accidental, but this cannot be said about the feeling that connected them until the end of their days. The Master and Margarita recognize each other by the look that reflected “deep loneliness.” This means that, even without knowing each other, the heroes felt a great need for love, which Bulgakov notes in his novel “The Master and Margarita,” which we are analyzing, a work that demonstrates that a miracle has happened. (meeting of lovers) is also the will of chance, a mysterious fate, which is in every possible way denied by supporters of rationalism.

The master says that this feeling immediately struck them both. True love invades life powerfully and transforms it. The meeting of the Master and Margarita, which we are analyzing, turned everything ordinary and everyday into significant and bright. When the Master appeared in the basement main character, as if all the details of his meager life began to glow from within. And this can be easily noticed when conducting analysis. The love of Margarita and the Master was so bright that when the heroine left, everything faded for the writer in love.

First of all, real feelings must be selfless. Before meeting the Master, Margarita had everything a woman needs to be happy: a kind, handsome husband who adored his wife, money, a luxurious mansion. However, she was not happy with her life. Bulgakov writes that Margarita needed a Master, and not a separate garden, a Gothic mansion and money. When the heroine did not have love, she even wanted to commit suicide. At the same time, she could not harm her husband and acted honestly, deciding to leave a farewell note in which she explained everything.

Hence, true love cannot harm anyone. She will not build her happiness at the expense of the misfortune of others. This feeling is also selfless. Bulgakov's heroine is able to accept the aspirations and interests of her lover as her own. She helps the Master in everything, lives with his concerns. The hero writes a novel, which becomes the content of the girl’s entire life. She thoroughly rewrites the finished chapters, trying to keep the Master happy and calm. And in this he sees the meaning of his own life.

"True Love"

What does " true love"? Its definition can be found in the second part of the work, when the heroine is left alone, without having any news about her lover. She waits, not finding a place for herself. Margarita does not lose hope of meeting him again, she is true to her feelings. It makes absolutely no difference to her in what world this meeting will take place.

"Everlasting Love"

Love becomes “eternal” when Margarita passes the test of meeting with mysterious otherworldly forces, as the analysis of the episode (“The Master and Margarita”) shows. The girl in the scene where her encounter with otherworldly forces is described is fighting for her lover. While attending the full moon ball, the heroine returns the Master with the help of Woland. She is not afraid of death next to her lover and remains with him beyond the death line. Margarita says that she will take care of his sleep.

However, no matter how filled the girl is with anxiety for the Master and love for him, when the time comes to ask, she does it not for herself, but for Frida. She decides this not only because of Woland, who advises those in power not to demand anything. The heroine's love for the Master is organically combined with love for people. Your own suffering makes you want to save others from it.

Love and creativity

True love is also associated with creativity. The fate of Margarita is intertwined with the fate of the Master's novel. As love deepens, romance is created. The work is therefore a labor of love. The novel is equally dear to both the Master and Margarita. And if his creator refuses to fight, the heroine causes destruction in Latunsky’s apartment. However, she rejects the offer to destroy him coming from Woland. According to Bulgakov, the first stage of truth is justice, but the highest is mercy.

Creativity and love exist among people who know neither one nor the other. Because of this, they are simply doomed to tragedy. The Master and Margarita at the end of the novel leave this society, where there is no place for high spiritual impulses. They are given death as rest and peace, as freedom from torment, grief and earthly ordeals. It can also be perceived as a reward. This reflects the pain of life, time, and the writer himself.

Peace for Mikhail Afanasyevich is the absence of remorse. The fate of Pontius Pilate will never be known to the main characters who lived a worthy, albeit difficult life.

Having survived decades of unjust oblivion, the novel “The Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov is addressed to us today, in our time. The main essence that is defended in the work is “true, faithful and eternal love.”

Trying to explain the “mysteries” of “The Master and Margarita”, critical thought draws analogies to the work of Gogol, which is natural, since Bulgakov considered the author “ Dead souls"by your teacher. But this is not the only writer who, according to critics, influenced the work of Mikhail Afanasyevich. IN Russian literature his predecessors, in addition to Gogol, are considered to be Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. Bely, Mayakovsky (as a playwright), in foreign countries - first of all Hoffmann, a German romantic who recreated the world as a kind of unreality. There is no doubt that this list will grow.

Until now, no one has been able to determine exactly what the satirical, philosophical, psychological, and in the Yershalaim chapters - the epic novel “The Master and Margarita” is. It was also seen as a result of global literary development, and as a historical response to specific life events of the 20s and 30s. and as a concentration of ideas previous works writer. But most importantly, Bulgakov, anticipating his death, understood “The Master and Margarita” as “the last sunset novel”, as a testament, as his main message to humanity (what is most surprising, he wrote this work “for the table”, for himself, not at all confident in the prospect of publishing a masterpiece).

The novel “The Master and Margarita” loomed over everything that Bulgakov wrote, like the shadow of a mountain at sunset approaches the earth. In the shadows everything fades and becomes blurred; the earth itself seems to become an extension of the mountain, its pedestal. And the mountain seems even higher, even more majestic. Time has played a trick on us. The author himself made fun of us. He, of course, didn't want this. But he was writing a funny novel. Although the fun in it is mixed with sadness. Some pages even make your heart numb. And yet Bulgakov, laughing, parted with his past.

And maybe with life.

No matter how terrible this analogy is, Bulgakov’s novel and Bulgakov’s death stand side by side. “The Master and Margarita” is a dying novel. But this is also a novel about death. Its pages were completed with a weakening hand. And it was paid for not with hours of inspiration, but with the life of the author.

The novel “The Master and Margarita” requires the reader to go beyond everyday everyday ideas and information. Otherwise part artistic meanings the novel remains invisible, and some of its pages may seem like nothing more than the product of the author’s rich imagination.

Bulgakovsky Woland visited Moscow to find out how much people had changed internally after the great social revolution. And then it turns out that they have not become any better, that society is seriously ill. Woland in the novel does good, reveals human vices and evokes in the reader, in full accordance with Bulgakov’s plan, not hostility, but sympathy. But he is unable to change the existing social system. And after he leaves, everything returns to normal. The Master and Margarita are present in the novel in inextricable unity. Even when the Master alone is on stage telling Ivan the bitter story of his life, his entire story is permeated with memories of his beloved. Even when we see lonely Margarita, who has lost her Master, all her actions are subordinated to caring for her lover. She largely determines the course of action of the entire second part of the novel, although, if you look closely, she only fulfills Woland’s will. Great, all-consuming love for the Master and bitterness against the entire surrounding world - this is the main contradiction in Margarita’s character.

Finally, the Master is the hero whose fate most closely repeats the fate of Bulgakov himself. This proximity has already been discussed above. But the Master could not fully endure the trials that befell him. He really didn't make any compromises in his work. But at the same time, he gave up the fight for his work and could no longer create. Bulgakov fought all his life for his works to be published or his novels to be published, and he improved the text of “The Master and Margarita” as long as he remained conscious, despite his terminal illness.

The six main characters of the novel form two functional pairs: Pilate - Woland and Yeshua - Master. Among them is Margarita, who occupies a unique position in the structure of the work. The homeless man is quite different from the functionally similar character in the Yershalaim scenes, Levi Matvey. Jovanovic M. “The Gospel of Matthew as literary source“The Master and Margarita.” p.122-123 The figure of Levi is devoid of any evolution, and his character is contradictory. The role of this character, unlike the Homeless Man, is quite secondary. The main characters, following Yeshua and Woland, end up in an extraterrestrial world of light and darkness. Here the characters of the main characters lose their inherent contradiction. Margarita has only her love for the Master. The master gets rid of fear of life and alienation, remains with his beloved woman alone with his creativity and surrounded by his heroes. Pilate receives forgiveness and deliverance from the pangs of conscience that have tormented him for almost two thousand years. The procurator has only a craving for the great thinker Yeshua Ha-Nozri, with whom he can now easily finish the interrupted dispute about what the truth is and what the most terrible vice in the world is. Yeshua's fear of death and hostility towards executioners disappeared. He remains only in his eternal hypostasis of the ideal of good. Woland again took on his eternal guise as a knight of evil, that evil without which good cannot exist.

In the epilogue, on the night of the full moon, in a dream, the former poet again sees Yeshua and Pilate, the Master and Margarita, walking along the road moonlight, and thus learns the ending of the novel written by the Master. Only for this night does Ivan’s conviction in his own omniscience leave him, and new knowledge becomes vitally necessary for him. In this dream of Bezdomny, all the main characters of the novel meet, except Woland. But this dream itself is evidence that Ivan believed in the story of Woland and the Master about Yeshua and Pilate and, thus, believed in the existence of the devil - Woland, which he denied at the beginning of the novel. Therefore Woland is invisibly present in this final scene“The Master and Margarita.”

The reader does not feel any feelings towards any of the main characters. negative feelings. Even the prince of darkness Woland, who is traditionally supposed to inspire fear and horror, rather evokes a smile and sympathy for how he deftly brings out clean water persons like Berlioz, Likhodeev or Bosom. You feel sympathy for all the characters, and at the same time you realize that none of them is ideal. Even Yeshua, who comes closest to the image of the ideal hero, is given some degrading features: albeit vague, but still fear, a hoarse, rough voice with which he speaks to the executioners, bitterness against those who execute him.

In “The Master and Margarita” we no longer meet in the earthly world ideal heroes. They acquire their ideal quality only in the supermundane space, where a similar transformation occurs with minor characters- Woland's retinue. In his novel, Bulgakov abandoned ideal heroes as positive ones. Positive heroes here are those on whose side the author's and reader's sympathies are.

The novel “The Master and Margarita” can be considered the final one in Bulgakov’s work. It contains many layers of meaning and is revealed to us at different levels of understanding. The main thing that makes you think and awakens the reader’s thoughts is the confrontation between freedom and unfreedom that occurs throughout the entire novel.

Woland’s words “Manuscripts don’t burn” and the resurrection from the ashes of a “novel within a novel” - the Master’s narrative about Pontius Pilate - this illustration is widely known Latin proverb: “Verba volant, scripta manent.” Interestingly, it was often used by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, one of Bulgakov’s favorite authors. Translated, it sounds like this: “Words fly away, but what is written remains.” The fact that words actually fly away is evidenced by a noise similar to that produced by the flapping of a bird's wings. It appears during the chess game between Woland and Behemoth after the latter’s scholastic speech about syllogisms. Empty words actually did not leave a trace and were needed by Behemoth only to distract the attention of those present from the fraudulent combination with their king. The Master's novel, with the help of Woland, is destined long life. Bulgakov himself, who destroyed the first edition of “The Master and Margarita,” became convinced that once it was written it was no longer possible to banish it from memory, and as a result, after his death he left the manuscript of the great work as an inheritance to his descendants.

Elena Sergeevna Elena Sergeevna is the wife of M.A. Bulgakov.

I read to Bulgakov before his death: “The magic black horses were tired and carried their riders slowly, and the inevitable night began to catch up with them. The night began to cover the forests and meadows with a black scarf, the night lit sad lights somewhere far below, now no longer interesting or needed by either Margarita or the Master, other people’s lights...”

And the landscape of childhood, colored by the sadness of parting forever, was transformed in these lines, generalizing and turning into the image of a land left forever.

History rewarded the writer for his work: the novel was finally published from the depths of Bulgakov’s desk drawer (for the first time in 1966 in the eleventh issue of the Moscow magazine), when the hopeless Stalinist times were left behind.

The novel “The Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov is a novel in which the eternal themes of good and evil, love and hatred, loyalty and betrayal, sin and holiness, crime and retribution are amazingly combined and intertwined. This is a novel that will always be relevant, because the topical problems that arise on its pages will exist as long as humanity will exist.
In "The Master and Margarita" the most disgusting human vices are exposed, including selfishness, lies, hypocrisy, self-interest, acquisitiveness and betrayal. However, the main vice according to Bulgakov is cowardice, which led Ha-Nozri to execution, since Pilate did not dare to go against public opinion, although he understood that by doing so he was signing the death sentence of an innocent person, for which he was overtaken by punishment in the form of an eternal lonely life, accompanied by remorse, incinerating the soul from the inside.
But above all, this is a novel about the love of two people who, before meeting each other, were each lonely and unhappy in their own way. Margarita will look for her Master, and when she finds him, they will never part again, because love is the force through which you can survive all the hardships and hardships of life without losing such qualities as fidelity, hope, kindness and compassion !