The main composition is Master and Margarita. "The Master and Margarita". History of the novel. Genre and composition. lesson plan in literature (grade 11) on the topic. Literary direction and genre

Literature lesson in 11th grade on the topic “The Master and Margarita.”

History of the novel. Genre and composition.

The purpose of the lesson: 1) talk about the meaning of the novel, its fate, show the features of the genre and composition, 2) promote students’ interest in the work of M.A. Bulgakov.

During the classes

1) Introductory speech by the teacher.

Reading an excerpt from the book “Bulgakov and Lappa”

Why do you think I started the lesson by reading this passage?

2) Work in a notebook. Record the topic of the lesson.

3) Teacher's message.

“Finish it before you die!”

History of the novel.

Bulgakov began writing the novel “The Master and Margarita” in 1928 and worked on it for 12 years, that is, until the end of his life, without hoping to publish it.

Work on the novel resumed in 1931.

At this time, Bulgakov writes to his friend: “A demon has possessed me. Choking in my little room, I began to dirty page after page of my novel, destroyed three years ago. For what? Don't know. I console myself. Let it fall into oblivion. However, I’ll probably give it up soon.”

However, Bulgakov no longer throws “M and M”.

The second edition of "The Master and Margarita", created until 1936, had the subtitle "Fantastic Novel" and variant titles "Great Chancellor", "Satan", "Here I Am", "Hat with a Feather", "Black Theologian", " He Appeared", "The Foreigner's Horseshoe", "He Appeared", "The Advent", "The Black Magician" and "The Consultant's Hoof".

In the second edition of the novel, Margarita and the Master already appeared, and Woland acquired his own retinue.

The third edition of the novel, begun in the second half of 1936 or 1937, was initially called “The Prince of Darkness.” In 1937, returning once again to the beginning of the novel, the author first wrote on the title page the title “The Master and Margarita”, which became final, and set the date 1928‑ 1937 and no longer stopped working on it.

In May - June 1938, the full text of the novel was reprinted for the first time; the author's editing continued almost until the writer's death. 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. Bulgakov stopped working on the novel on February 13, 1940, less than four weeks before his death.

Mortally ill, Bulgakov continued to work on the novel until the last day, making corrections. E.S. Bulgakova recalled this: “During my illness, he dictated to me and corrected The Master and Margarita, the piece that he loved more than all his other works. He wrote it for 12 years. And the last corrections that he dictated to me were included in the copy, which is in the Lenin Library. From these amendments and additions it is clear that his intelligence and talent have not weakened at all. These were brilliant additions to what had been written before.

When, at the end of his illness, he almost lost his speech, sometimes only the ends or beginnings of words came out. There was a case when I was sitting next to him, as always, on a pillow on the floor, near the head of his bed, he made me understand that he needed something, that he wanted something from me. I offered him medicine, a drink - lemon juice, but I clearly understood that this was not the point. Then I guessed and asked: “Your things?” He nodded with a look that said both “yes” and “no.” I said: “The Master and Margarita”? He, terribly delighted, made a sign with his head that “yes, this is it.” And he squeezed out two words: “So that they know, so that they know.”

Bulgakov understood his novel “as the last, sunset one,” as a testament, as his main message to humanity.

4) Genre of the novel “The Master and Margarita”

Remember what genres of novels do you know?

The novel can be called everyday, fantastic, philosophical, autobiographical, love-lyrical, and satirical.

The work is multi-genre and multi-faceted. Everything is closely intertwined, just like in life.

Bulgakov scholars call this work a novel-menippea.

A menippea novel is a work in which serious philosophical content is hidden under the mask of laughter.

The menippea is very characterized by scenes of scandals, eccentric behavior, inappropriate speeches and performances, i.e., all sorts of violations of the generally accepted, usual course of events, established norms of behavior.

5) The composition of the novel.

According to the remark of literary critic V.I. Tyupy, “the title of a literary text (like the epigraph) is one of the most essential elements of the composition with its own poetics”

Let's try to analyze the title of the novel.

Remember the works whose titles follow the same “he and she” scheme.

Such a traditional title immediately warns the reader that the love line will be central and, obviously, the story will be tragic.

The title of the novel thus immediately states the theme of love.

Moreover, the theme of love is connected with the theme of creativity.

It's all about the unusualness of the name - Master (in the text this word is written with a small letter) is an anonymous name, a generalization name meaning “a creator, a highly professional in his field”

Master is the very first word of the novel; it opens the work. There is no real name, but it expresses the essence of the individual --------- the tragedy of the individual.

What features of the title did you note?

The title is harmonious, since the anagram technique is used - repetitions of some letters in both parts of the novel's title.

This repetition indicates that there is a deep connection between the words - at the level of character, the fate of the heroes.

But in this case the title does not reflect the completeness of the content of the text,

in which, in addition to the theme of love and creativity, the theme of good and evil is very important.

Which part of the composition reflects this theme?

Reading the epigraph.

Think about what else is unique about the composition of the novel?

A novel within a novel.

Drawing up a diagram (Yershalaim chapters and Moscow chapters)

6) Message dz.

Make a diagram of “Heroes of the novel “The Master and Margarita””

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita,” to which the writer devoted 12 years of his life, is rightfully considered a real pearl of world literature. The work became the pinnacle of Bulgakov's creativity, in which he touched upon the eternal themes of good and evil, love and betrayal, faith and unbelief, life and death. In The Master and Margarita, the most complete analysis is needed, since the novel is particularly deep and complex. A detailed plan for analyzing the work “The Master and Margarita” will allow 11th grade students to better prepare for a literature lesson.

Brief Analysis

Year of writing– 1928-1940

History of creation– The source of inspiration for the writer was Goethe’s tragedy “Faust”. The original recordings were destroyed by Bulkagov himself, but were later restored. They served as the basis for writing a novel, which Mikhail Afanasyevich worked on for 12 years.

Subject– The central theme of the novel is the confrontation between good and evil.

Composition– The composition of “The Master and Margarita” is very complex - it is a double novel or a novel within a novel, in which the storylines of the Master and Pontius Pilate run parallel to each other.

Genre- Novel.

Direction– Realism.

History of creation

The writer first thought about a future novel in the mid-20s. The impetus for its writing was the brilliant work of the German poet Goethe “Faust”.

It is known that the first sketches for the novel were made in 1928, but neither the Master nor Margarita appeared in them. The central characters in the original version were Jesus and Woland. There were also many variations of the title of the work, and they all revolved around the mystical hero: “Black Magician”, “Prince of Darkness”, “Engineer’s Hoof”, “Woland’s Tour”. Only shortly before his death, after numerous edits and meticulous criticism, Bulgakov renamed his novel “The Master and Margarita.”

In 1930, extremely dissatisfied with what was written, Mikhail Afanasyevich burned 160 pages of the manuscript. But two years later, having miraculously found the surviving sheets, the writer restored his literary work and began work again. Interestingly, the original version of the novel was restored and published 60 years later. In the novel called "The Great Chancellor" there was neither Margarita nor the Master, and the gospel chapters were reduced to one - "The Gospel of Judas."

Bulgakov worked on the work, which became the crown of all his work, until the last days of his life. He endlessly made amendments, reworked chapters, added new characters, adjusted their characters.

In 1940, the writer became seriously ill and was forced to dictate the lines of the novel to his faithful wife Elena. After Bulgakov’s death, she tried to publish the novel, but the work was first published only in 1966.

Subject

“The Master and Margarita” is a complex and incredibly multifaceted literary work in which the author presented many different themes to the reader: love, religion, the sinful nature of man, betrayal. But, in fact, they are all just parts of a complex mosaic, a skillful frame main topic- the eternal confrontation between good and evil. Moreover, each theme is tied to its characters and intertwined with other characters in the novel.

Central theme The novel, of course, is the theme of the all-consuming, all-forgiving love of the Master and Margarita, which is able to survive all difficulties and trials. By introducing these characters, Bulgakov incredibly enriched his work, giving it a completely different, more earthly and understandable meaning to the reader.

No less important in the novel is problem of choice, which is especially colorfully shown in the example of the relationship between Pontius Pilate and Yeshua. According to the author, the most terrible vice is cowardice, which caused the death of an innocent preacher and lifelong punishment for Pilate.

In “The Master and Margarita” the writer clearly and convincingly shows problems of human vices, which do not depend on religion, social status or time era. Throughout the novel, the main characters have to face moral questions and choose one path or another for themselves.

The main idea The work is a harmonious interaction between the forces of good and evil. The struggle between them is as old as the world, and will continue as long as people live. Good cannot exist without evil, just as the existence of evil is impossible without good. The idea of ​​the eternal confrontation between these forces permeates the entire work of the writer, who sees the main task of man in choosing the right path.

Composition

The composition of the novel is complex and original. Essentially this is novel within a novel: one of them tells about Pontius Pilate, the second - about the writer. At first it seems that there is nothing in common between them, but as the novel progresses, the relationship between the two storylines becomes obvious.

At the end of the work, Moscow and the ancient city of Yershalaim are connected, and events take place simultaneously in two dimensions. Moreover, they take place in the same month, a few days before Easter, but only in one “novel” - in the 30s of the twentieth century, and in the second - in the 30s of the new era.

Philosophical line in the novel it is represented by Pilate and Yeshua, love - by the Master and Margarita. However, the work has a separate story line, filled to the brim with mysticism and satire. Its main characters are Muscovites and Woland's retinue, represented by incredibly bright and charismatic characters.

At the end of the novel, the storylines are connected at a common point for all - Eternity. Such a unique composition of the work constantly keeps the reader in suspense, causing genuine interest in the plot.

Main characters

Genre

The genre of “The Master and Margarita” is very difficult to define - this work is so multifaceted. Most often it is defined as a fantastic, philosophical and satirical novel. However, one can easily find in it signs of other literary genres: realism is intertwined with fantasy, mysticism is adjacent to philosophy. Such an unusual literary alloy makes Bulgakov’s work truly unique, which has no analogues in domestic or foreign literature.

Work test

Rating Analysis

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Description of the presentation by individual slides:

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Lesson objectives: talk about the meaning of the novel, its fate; show the features of the genre and composition.

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The novel “The Master and Margarita” is the main one in Bulgakov’s work. He wrote it from 1928 to 1940, until his death, made 8 (!) editions, and there is a problem as to which edition should be considered final. This is a “sunset” novel, paid for with the life of the author. In the forties, for obvious reasons, it could not be published.

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The appearance of the novel in the Moscow magazine (No. 11 for 1966 and No. 1 for 1967), even in a truncated form, had a stunning effect on readers and baffled critics. They had to evaluate something completely unusual, which had no analogues in modern Soviet literature either in the formulation of problems, or in the nature of their solution, or in the images of the characters, or in style. They began to actively publish Bulgakov and study his work only in the eighties of the twentieth century. The novel caused and causes heated controversy, various hypotheses, interpretations. Until now, it brings surprises and amazes with its inexhaustibility. “The Master and Margarita” does not fit into traditional, familiar schemes.

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Genre of the novel. You can call it everyday (pictures of Moscow life of the twenties and thirties are reproduced), and fantastic, and philosophical, and autobiographical, and love-lyrical, and satirical. A novel of multi-genres and multi-facetedness. Everything is closely intertwined, just like in life. In “The Master and Margarita” “almost all genres and literary trends existing in the world were combined very organically” B.V. Sokolov Novel - myth Philosophical novel Novel - mystery (connected with the divine)

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The composition of the novel is also unusual. This is a “novel within a novel” - 32 chapters. The fate of Bulgakov himself is reflected in the fate of the Master, the fate of the Master is reflected in the fate of his hero Yeshua. 2 layers of time biblical contemporary Bulgakov 30s of the 1st century AD 30s of the 20th century Events take place before Easter A number of reflections create the impression of a perspective going deep into historical time, into eternity.

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What time period do the events of the novel cover? The Moscow events from the time of the meeting and argument between Berlioz and Bezdomny with the foreigner and until Woland and his retinue, along with the Master and his lover leave the city, take place in just four days. During this short time, many events occur: fantastic, tragic, and comic. The heroes of the novel are revealed from an unexpected side, in each of them something that was implicit is revealed. Woland’s gang, as it were, provokes people to actions, exposes their essence (sometimes exposes them in the literal sense, as happened in Variety.

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The gospel chapters, which take place over the course of one day, take us almost two thousand years ago, to a world that has not gone away forever, but exists in parallel with the modern one. And, of course, it is more real. Realism is achieved, first of all, by a special way of telling the story. - Who is the narrator of the story of Pontius Pilate and Yeshua?

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This story is told from several points of view, which gives credibility to what is happening. Chapter 2 “Pontius Pilate” is told to the atheists Berlioz and Homeless Woland. Ivan Bezdomny saw the events of Chapter 16 “Execution” in a dream, in a madhouse. In chapter 19, Azazello gives the incredulous Margarita an excerpt from the Master’s manuscript: “The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city hated by the procurator...”. In chapter 25 “How the procurator tried to save Judas from Kiriath,” Margarita reads the resurrected manuscripts in the Master’s basement, continues reading (chapter 26 “Burial” and ends it at the beginning of chapter 27. The objectivity of what is happening is emphasized by staples - repeated sentences that end one chapter and begin next one.)

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From the point of view of composition, it is also unusual that the hero, the Master, appears only in chapter 13 (“The Appearance of the Hero”). This is one of the many mysteries of Bulgakov, the resolution of which we will try to get closer to. Bulgakov consciously, sometimes demonstratively, emphasizes the autobiographical nature of the image of the Master. The atmosphere of persecution, complete renunciation from literary and public life, lack of livelihood, constant expectation of arrest, denunciation articles, devotion and dedication of the woman he loved - both Bulgakov himself and his hero experienced all this. The fate of Master Bulgakov is natural. In the country of “victorious socialism” there is no place for freedom of creativity, there is only a planned “social order”. The master has no place in this world - neither as a writer, nor as a thinker, nor as a person. Bulgakov makes a diagnosis of society, where they determine whether this or that person is a writer, based on a piece of cardboard.

The genre uniqueness of the novel "The Master and Margarita" - the "last, sunset" work of M. A. Bulgakov still causes controversy among literary scholars. It is defined as a mythical novel, a philosophical novel, a menippea, a mystery novel, etc. “The Master and Margarita” quite organically combines almost all the genres and literary movements existing in the world. According to the English researcher of Bulgakov's creativity J.

Curtis, the form of The Master and Margarita and its content make it a unique masterpiece, parallels with which “are difficult to find in both the Russian and Western European literary traditions.” No less original is the composition of “The Master and Margarita” - a novel within a novel, or a double novel - about the fate of the Master and Pontius Pilate.

On the one hand, these two novels are opposed to each other, while on the other hand they form a kind of organic unity. The plot combines two layers of time in an original way: biblical and contemporary to Bulgakov - the 1930s. and I century. ad. Some events described in the Yershalaim chapters are repeated exactly 1900 years later in Moscow in a parodic, reduced version.

There are three storylines in the novel: philosophical - Yeshua and Pontius Pilate, love - the Master and Margarita, mystical and satirical - Woland, his retinue and Muscovites. They are presented in a free, bright, sometimes bizarre form of storytelling and are closely interconnected with Woland’s infernal image. The novel begins with a scene on the Patriarch's Ponds, where Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny heatedly argue with a strange stranger about the existence of God.

To Woland’s question “who controls human life and all order on earth in general,” if there is no God, Ivan Bezdomny, as a convinced atheist, answers: “Man himself controls.” But soon the development of the plot refutes this thesis. Bulgakov reveals the relativity of human knowledge and the predetermination of life's path. At the same time, he affirms man's responsibility for his destiny. Eternal questions: “What is truth in this unpredictable world?

Are there unchangeable, eternal moral values?" - are posed by the author in the Yershalaim chapters (there are only 4 (2, 16, 25, 26) of the 32 chapters of the novel), which, undoubtedly, are the ideological center of the novel. The course of life in Moscow in the 1930s gg. merges with the Master’s story about Pontius Pilate.

Hunted down in modern life, the Master's genius finally finds peace in Eternity. As a result, the storylines of the two novels are completed, converging at one spatio-temporal point - in Eternity, where the Master and his hero Pontius Pilate meet and find “forgiveness and eternal shelter.” Unexpected turns, situations and characters of the biblical chapters are mirrored in the Moscow chapters, contributing to such a plot conclusion and the disclosure of the philosophical content of Bulgakov's narrative.

In the story “The Heart of a Dog,” Bulgakov described as the main character an outstanding scientist (Professor Preobrazhensky) and his scientific activities, and from the specific scientific problems of eugenics (the science of improving the human race) moved on to the philosophical problems of the revolutionary and evolutionary development of human knowledge, human society and nature in general. In The Master and Margarita, this pattern is repeated, but the main character becomes a writer who wrote only one novel, and even that one was not finished. With all this, he can be called outstanding because he devoted his novel to the fundamental moral issues of humanity, and did not succumb to the pressure of the authorities, which called on (and, with the help of literary associations, forced) cultural figures to glorify the successes of the proletarian state. From issues that concern creative people (freedom of creativity, openness, the problem of choice), Bulgakov in the novel moved on to the philosophical problems of good and evil, conscience and fate, to the question of the meaning of life and death, therefore the social and philosophical content in “The Master and Margarita” , compared to the story “Heart of a Dog,” is distinguished by greater depth and significance due to the many episodes and characters.

The genre of “The Master and Margarita” is a novel. Its genre uniqueness can be revealed as follows: a satirical, socio-philosophical, fantastic novel within a novel. The novel is social, as it describes life in the USSR in the last years of NEP, that is, in the late 20s of the 20th century. It is impossible to more accurately date the time of action in the work: the author deliberately (or not intentionally) connects facts from different times on the pages of the work: the Cathedral of Christ the Savior has not yet been destroyed (1931), but passports have already been introduced (1932), and Muscovites travel in trolleybuses (1934). The setting of the novel is philistine Moscow, not ministerial, not academic, not party and government, but rather communal. In the capital, for three days, Woland and his retinue study the morals of ordinary (average) Soviet people, who, according to communist ideologists, should represent a new type of citizen, free from social illnesses and shortcomings inherent in people of a class society.

The life of Moscow inhabitants is described satirically. Evil spirits punish grabbers, careerists, schemers who “flourished magnificently” on the “healthy soil of Soviet society.” The scene of Koroviev and Behemoth's visit to the Smolensk market at the Torgsin store is wonderfully presented - Bulgakov considers this establishment a bright sign of the times. Small demons casually expose the swindler posing as a foreigner and deliberately destroy the entire store, where an ordinary Soviet citizen (due to the lack of currency and gold items) has no access (2, 28). Woland punishes a cunning businessman who carries out clever fraud with living space, a thief-bartender from the Variety Theater Andrei Fokich Sokov (1, 18), a bribe-taker-chairman of the house committee Nikanor Ivanovich Bosogo (1, 9) and others. Bulgakov very wittily depicts Woland's performance in the theater (1, 12), when all interested ladies are offered free new beautiful outfits in exchange for their own modest clothes. At first, the audience does not believe in such a miracle, but very quickly greed and the opportunity to receive unexpected gifts overcome mistrust. The crowd rushes to the stage, where everyone gets dressed to their liking. The performance ends funny and instructive: after the performance, the ladies, flattered by the gifts of evil spirits, find themselves naked, and Woland sums up the whole performance: “... people are like people. They love money, but that’s always been the case... (...) in general, they resemble the old ones, the housing issue only spoiled them...” (1, 12). In other words, the new Soviet man, about whom the authorities talk so much, has not yet been brought up in the country of the Soviets.

In parallel with the satirical depiction of swindlers of various stripes, the author gives a description of the spiritual life of Soviet society. It is clear that Bulgakov was primarily interested in the literary life of Moscow in the late 20s of the 20th century. Prominent representatives of the new creative intelligentsia in the novel are the semi-literate, but very self-confident Ivan Bezdomny, who considers himself a poet, and the literary official Mikhail Aleksandrovich Berlioz, who educates and inspires young members of MASSOLIT (in different editions of the novel, the literary association, located in the house of Griboyedov’s aunt, is designated as Massolit, then MASSOLIT). The satirical portrayal of proletarian cultural figures is based on the fact that their high self-esteem and pretensions do not correspond to their “creative” achievements. Officials from the “Commission for Shows and Entertainment of the Light Type” are shown simply grotesquely (1, 17): the suit calmly replaces the head of the Commission, Prokhor Petrovich, and signs official documents, and minor clerks sing folk songs during working hours (the same “serious” activity in the evenings was Domkom activists are busy in the story “Heart of a Dog”).

Next to such “creative” workers, the author places a tragic hero - a real writer. As Bulgakov half-jokingly and half-seriously said, the Moscow chapters can be briefly retold as follows: a story about a writer who ends up in a madhouse for writing the truth in his novel and hoping that it would be published. The fate of the Master (Bulgakov in the novel calls his hero “master”, but in critical literature another designation for this hero is accepted - Master, which is used in this analysis) proves that in the literary life of the Soviet Union reigns the dictate of mediocrities and functionaries like Berlioz who allow themselves rudely interfere with the work of a real writer. He cannot fight them, because there is no freedom of creativity in the USSR, although the most proletarian writers and leaders speak about it from the highest tribunes. The state uses its entire repressive apparatus against independent, independent writers, as is shown in the example of the Master.

The philosophical content of the novel is intertwined with the social; scenes from the ancient era alternate with a description of Soviet reality. The philosophical moral content of the work is revealed from the relationship between Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judea, the all-powerful governor of Rome, and Yeshua Ha-Nozri, a poor preacher. It can be argued that in the clash of these heroes Bulgakov sees a manifestation of the eternal confrontation between the ideas of good and evil. The Master, living in Moscow in the late 20s of the 20th century, entered into the same fundamental confrontation with the state system. In the philosophical content of the novel, the author offers his solution to “eternal” moral questions: what is life, what is the main thing in life, can a person, alone opposing the whole society, be right, etc.? Separately in the novel there is a problem of choice associated with the actions of the procurator and Yeshua, who profess opposite principles of life.

The procurator understands from a personal conversation with Yeshua that the accused is not a criminal at all. However, the Jewish high priest Kaifa comes to Pontius Pilate and convinces the Roman governor that Yeshua is a terrible rebel-inciter who preaches heresy and pushes the people towards unrest. Kaifa demands the execution of Yeshua. Consequently, Pontius Pilate faces a dilemma: execute an innocent man and calm the crowd, or spare this innocent man, but prepare for a popular revolt, which the Jewish priests themselves can provoke. In other words, Pilate is faced with a choice: to act according to his conscience or against his conscience, guided by immediate interests.

Yeshua does not face such a dilemma. He could choose: to tell the truth and thereby help people, or to renounce the truth and be saved from crucifixion, but he had already made his choice. The procurator asks him what is the worst thing in the world, and receives the answer - cowardice. Yeshua himself demonstrates by his behavior that he is not afraid of anything. The interrogation scene with Pontius Pilate indicates that Bulgakov, like his hero, a wandering philosopher, considers truth to be the main value in life. God (the highest justice) is on the side of a physically weak person if he stands for the truth, therefore the beaten, poor, lonely philosopher wins a moral victory over the procurator and makes him painfully experience the cowardly act committed by Pilate precisely out of cowardice. This problem worried Bulgakov himself both as a writer and as a person. Living in a state that he considered unjust, he had to decide for himself: to serve such a state or resist it, for the second he could pay for it, as happened with Yeshua and the Master. Still, Bulgakov, like his heroes, chose confrontation, and the writer’s work itself became a brave act, even a feat of an honest man.

Elements of fantasy allow Bulgakov to more fully reveal the ideological concept of the work. Some literary scholars see in The Master and Margarita features that bring the novel closer to the menippea - a literary genre in which laughter and an adventurous plot create a situation where high philosophical ideas are tested. A distinctive feature of the menippea is fantasy (Satan's ball, the last refuge of the Master and Margarita), it overturns the usual system of values, gives rise to a special type of behavior of the heroes, free from any conventions (Ivan Bezdomny in a madhouse, Margarita in the role of a witch).

The demonic principle in the images of Woland and his retinue performs a complex function in the novel: these characters are capable of doing not only evil, but also good. In Bulgakov's novel, Woland opposes the earthly world of swindlers and unscrupulous functionaries from art, that is, he defends justice (!); he sympathizes with the Master and Margarita, helps the separated lovers unite and settle scores with the traitor (Aloysius Mogarych) and persecutor (critic Latunsky). But even Woland is powerless to save the Master from the tragic ending of life (complete disappointment and spiritual devastation). This image of Satan, of course, reflected the European tradition, which comes from Goethe’s Mephistopheles, as indicated by the epigraph to the novel from Faust: “I am part of that force that always wants evil and always does good...”. Maybe that’s why Bulgakov turned out to have Woland and the little demons as likable, even generous, and their witty pranks prove the writer’s extraordinary ingenuity.

“The Master and Margarita” is a novel within a novel, since chapters from the Master’s novel about Pontius Pilate and chapters in which the Master himself is the main character, that is, the “ancient” and “Moscow” chapters, are intertwined in one work. Through the comparison of two different novels within one, Bulgakov expresses his philosophy of history: the ideological and moral crisis of the ancient world led to the emergence of a new religion - Christianity and Christian morality, the crisis of European civilization of the 20th century - to social revolutions and atheism, that is, to the rejection of Christianity. Thus, humanity moves in a vicious circle and after two thousand years (less one century) returns to the same thing from which it once left. The main thing that attracts Bulgakov's attention is, of course, the depiction of contemporary Soviet reality. Understanding modernity and the fate of the writer in the modern world, the author resorts to an analogy - to depict a historical situation (the life and execution of the philosopher Yeshua Ha-Nozri in Judea at the beginning of the new era).

So, the novel “The Master and Margarita” is a very complex work in genre. The description of the life of Moscow during the NEP period, that is, the social content, is intertwined with scenes in ancient Judea, that is, with the philosophical content. Bulgakov satirically ridicules various Soviet swindlers, semi-literate poets, cynical functionaries from culture and literature, and useless officials. At the same time, he sympathetically tells the story of the love and suffering of the Master and Margarita. This is how satire and lyricism are combined in the novel. Along with a realistic depiction of Muscovites, Bulgakov places fantastic images of Woland and his retinue in the novel. All these various scenes and depiction techniques are combined in one work through a complex composition - a novel within a novel.

At first glance, “The Master and Margarita” is a fascinating novel about the fantastic tricks of evil spirits in Moscow, a witty novel that sarcastically ridicules the mores of NEP life. However, behind the external entertainment and fun in the work one can see deep philosophical content - a discussion about the struggle between good and evil in the human soul and in the history of mankind. Bulgakov's novel is often compared to the great novel by J.-W. Goethe "Faust", and not only because of the image of Woland, who is both similar and not similar to Mephistopheles. Another thing is important: the similarity of the two novels is expressed in the humanistic idea. Goethe's novel arose as a philosophical understanding of the European world after the French Revolution of 1789; Bulgakov in his novel comprehends the fate of Russia after the October Revolution of 1917. Both Goethe and Bulgakov argue that the main value of a person is in his desire for goodness and creativity. Both authors contrast these qualities with chaos in the human soul and destructive processes in society. However, periods of chaos and destruction in history are always replaced by creation. That is why Goethe’s Mephistopheles never receives the soul of Faust, and Bulgakov’s Master, unable to withstand the struggle with the surrounding spiritless world, burns his novel, but does not become bitter, retains in his soul love for Margarita, sympathy for Ivan Bezdomny, sympathy for Pontius Pilate, who dreams of forgiveness .