The Master and Marguerite
the Master and Marguerite is a Romance of Mikhaïl Boulgakov writes between 1928 and 1940. He reports the intrusion and the escapades of the Diable to Moscow, then capital of very atheistic the the USSR. Many are criticisms which count this satire of the Soviet mode among the major work S of the Russian Littérature of the 20th century.
Drafting
Boulgakov undertook the drafting of its novel as of 1928. It destroyed a first version of the work (by burning it in a stove) in March 1930 after being informed that one had banished his part the Cabal of the excessively pious people . It returned to this novel in 1931 and finished a second manuscript in 1936, which contained right now all the principal episodes of the final screen. The third version was completed in 1937. Boulgakov did not cease polishing a fourth version with the assistance of his wife, until it was constrained to stop four weeks before its death in 1940. It is his wife who completed her work between 1940 and 1941.
A censured version of the book (12% of the omitted text and a still faded larger part) were initially published in the magazine Moscow (n°11, 1966 and n°1, 1967). The text of the parts put at the variation or modified clandestinely appeared (publication called in Samizdat ), accompanied by the indications necessary to put in perspective it. In 1967, the publisher Posev (located in Frankfurt) published a version supplemented thanks to these extracts. In Russia, the first complete edition, prepared by the care of Anna Saakyants and based on the version going back to at the beginning of 1940, appeared in Khudozhestvennaya Literatura in 1973. This edition remained the edition of reference until in 1989, date of the last edition collated by the littératrice Lidiya Yanovskaya on the basis of all existing manuscript.
Intrigue
The intrigue of the novel is divided into three intermingled actions.The first action takes seat in Moscow of the years 1930, where Satan appears under cover of a mysterious magician named Woland, accompanied by a troop made up in a way as heteroclite as of the servant ex-chief of chorus, answering in the name of Fagotto, of the chafouin and talkative black cat Béhémoth, of the Azazello killer, of pale Abadonna to the lethal glance, as well as Hella witch. The troop takes for target the literary elite with its syndic, MASSOLIT, its restaurant-HQ for privileged the Griboyedov house, all its parvenus corrupted, their wives and/or mistresses, its bureaucrats and its profiteurs -- and in a more general way, skeptics and non-believers.
The Incipit introduces to a direct confrontation between the chief of the literary scene bureaucrat, Berlioz, atheist notorious, and a very polished foreign gentleman, which prides himself to defend the faith and fact shows to be able of divination (it is about Woland). Witness of this scene, a young person and enthusiastic poet, Ivan Bezdomny (of which the name means homeless person ). This one vainly tries to continue and capture the gang , then to inform the authorities of its diabolic nature, but only manages to be made throw in an asylum of insane.
This point appears the character of the Master, a turned sour author, despaired by the denigration and the rejection whose the object its novel made on Pontius Pilate and the Christ, at the point to have thrown to fire the manuscript of it before being diverted world, including sound liked Marguerite.
In the second part of the novel, the character of Marguerite takes a great importance. Marguerite refuses to give up her lover the Master and the work of this one. Satan makes an offer to him which it accepts, becoming a gifted witch of supernatural capacities the time of a ball of midnight given by Satan, which coincides with the night of the Good Friday. With this point, three actions of books meet, since the novel of the Master also treats with this same night Vernal E of full moon where the Christ, whose fate is sealed by Pontius Pilate, is crucifié with Jerusalem.
The second action is at Jerusalem, under the government of the Procurateur Pontius Pilate. It is about the account that made Woland with Berlioz and who finds echo in the pages of the novel of the Master. Pontius Pilate meets Yeshua ha-Notsri (Jesus) and is discovered a special affinity for this man and even a spiritual need for him; what does not prevent it from being resigned to deliver it to those which want its death.
The third action: Whereas she learns how to fly and to control its unslung passions -- not without being avenged with violence for the bureaucrats literary men who condemned his lover to despair -- and that it trains with it its Natacha servant, it penetrates naked in the world of the night, flies over the black forests and the rivers of the Russia Mother, bathes, and purified, returns to Moscow to be the host of the great ball of Satan. Upright at the side of this last, it accommodates the characters most sadly famous of the history of humanity whereas they flow of number of the doors of the hell.
It overcomes the test and for its sorrow and its uprightness it is rewarded: Satan expensive offers exaucer to him its wish. It chooses to release the Master and of living with him in misery and the love. Nevertheless, neither Satan, nor God judge this kind of existence worthy of the goods and the couple leaves Moscow with the devil, whereas its windows and its cupolas are consumed in the sleeping sun of Sunday of Easter.
Analyzes
The novel strongly underwent the influence of the Faust of Goethe and the topics of cowardice, of treason, the open-minded and curiosity, as of the redemption hold a dominating place.The interaction of the elements and the forces natural, such as fire, water and the destruction, is an essential component of the novel, for which it is advisable to add powerful contrasts between clearness and darkness, the noise and silence, the sun and the moon, the storms and peace
Moreover, it is necessary to notice to it parallel complex between Jerusalem and Moscow throughout the novel.
One can make various readings of this work: novel of humor, philosophical allegory or socio-policy, satire not only of the Soviet system, but still of the vanity of the modern life in general… From another point of view, the novel is also a novel of initiation whose Ivan is the main character.
Boulgakov resorts to styles and let us tons very varied according to the parts. The chapters where the action takes place in Moscow have a rate/rhythm fast, merry, almost farcesque, while those where the action is held in Jerusalem are written in a very realistic style.
This novel is, finally, in this context of Soviet Russia, a writing for freedom of the artists and against conformism. " I am that which wants eternally the evil but always made the bien" (epitaph drawn from the Faust of Goethe).
Influence
the Master and Marguerite inspired by many authors and musicians.-
the novel the satanic Verses of Salman Rushdie in is an illustration.
- the Rolling Stones also affirmed that this novel is the key of the one their songs Sympathy for the Devil .
- For the song Pilate of their album Yield , the group Grunge Pearl Jam was influenced by confrontation between Jesus and Pontius Pilate whom in scene the novel puts.
- the song of Franz Ferdinand Love and Destroy is drawn from the scene where Marguerite flies over Moscow in way towards the ball of Satan.
- the Canadian group The Tea Party was inspired by the novel for their song the Master and Marguerite .
- the German type-setter York Höller composed the opera Der Meister und Margarita which was created in 1989 with the opera of Paris.
- One also finds in the cartoon Absolute zero of Christophe Bec and Richard Marazano the influence of the novel the Master and Marguerite , where the protagonists are made have by an Animal in a very complex history, with the image of the book could one say.