How the storyline of the Master and Margarita develops. The Master and Margarita Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov. storylines in the work there are two storylines, each of which develops independently. action. Mikhail Berlioz - Demyan Bedny

Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita" was published in 1966-1967 and immediately brought the writer worldwide fame. The author himself defines the genre of the work as a novel, but genre uniqueness still causes controversy among writers. It is defined as a mythical novel, a philosophical novel, a mystical novel, and so on. This happens because the novel combines all genres at once, even those that cannot exist together. The novel's narrative is directed to the future, the content is both psychologically and philosophically reliable, the problems raised in the novel are eternal. The main idea of ​​the novel is the struggle between good and evil, inseparable and eternal concepts.

The composition of the novel is as original as the genre - a novel within a novel. One is about the fate of the Master, the other is about Pontius Pilate. On the one hand, they are opposed to each other, on the other, they seem to form a single whole. This novel within a novel brings together global problems and contradictions. The master is concerned about the same problems as Pontius Pilate. At the end of the novel, you can see how Moscow connects with Yershalaim, that is, one novel is combined with another and turns into one storyline. Reading the work, we are in two dimensions at once: the 30s of the 20th century and the 30s of the 1st century. era. We see that the events took place in the same month and on several days before Easter, only with an interval of 1900 years, which proves the deep connection between the Moscow and Yershalaim chapters. The action of the novel, which are separated by almost two thousand years, are in harmony with each other, and they are connected by the fight against evil, the search for truth, and creativity. And yet the main character of the novel is love. Love is what captivates the reader. In general, the theme of love is the writer’s favorite. According to the author, all the happiness that a person has in life comes from love. Love elevates a person above the world and comprehends the spiritual. This is the feeling of The Master and Margarita. That is why the author included these names in the title. Margarita completely surrenders to love, and for the sake of saving the Master, she sells her soul to the devil, taking on a huge sin. But still, the author makes her the most positive heroine of the novel and himself takes her side. Using the example of Margarita, Bulgakov showed that each person must make his own personal choice, without asking for help from higher powers, not expecting favors from life, a person must make his own destiny.

There are three storylines in the novel: philosophical - Yeshua and Pontius Pilate, love - the Master and Margarita, mystical and satirical - Woland, his entire retinue and Muscovites. These lines are closely related to each other by the image of Woland. He feels free in both biblical and modern times as a writer.

The plot of the novel is the scene on the Patriarch's Ponds, where Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny argue with a stranger about the existence of God. To Woland’s question about “who controls human life and all order on earth in general,” if there is no God, Ivan Bezdomny replies: “Man himself controls.” The author reveals the relativity of human knowledge and at the same time affirms man's responsibility for his destiny. The author tells what is true in the biblical chapters, which are the center of the novel. The course of modern life lies in the Master's story about Pontius Pilate. Another feature of this work is that it is autobiographical. In the image of the Master we recognize Bulgakov himself, and in the image of Margarita - his beloved woman, his wife Elena Sergeevna. This is probably why we perceive heroes as real individuals. We sympathize with them, worry, put ourselves in their place. The reader seems to move along the artistic ladder of the work, improving along with the characters.

The storylines are completed, connecting at one point in Eternity. This unique composition of the novel makes it interesting for the reader, and most importantly, an immortal work. There are few novels that have generated as much controversy as The Master and Margarita. They argue about the prototypes of the characters, about the book sources of certain components of the plot, the philosophical and aesthetic roots of the novel and its moral and ethical principles, about who is the main character of the work: the Master, Woland, Yeshua or Ivan Bezdomny (despite the fact that the author expressed his position quite clearly by calling chapter 13, in which the Master first appears on stage, “The Appearance of the Hero”), about finally what genre the novel was written in. The latter cannot be determined unambiguously. This was noted very well by the American literary critic M. Kreps in his book “Bulgakov and Pasternak as Novelists: Analysis of the Novels “The Master and Margarita” and “Doctor Zhivago”” (1984): “Bulgakov’s novel for Russian literature is indeed highly innovative, and therefore not easy to grasp. As soon as the critic approaches him with the old standard system of measures, it turns out that some things are true, and some things are completely wrong. The dress of Menippus's satire (the founder of this genre is the ancient Greek poet of the Swedish BC Menippus - I.A.) when tried on, covers some places well, but leaves others bare; Propp's criteria for a fairy tale are applicable only to certain ones, which are very modest in specific weight , events, leaving almost the entire novel and its main characters behind. Fiction collides with strict realism, myth with scrupulous historical authenticity, theosophy with demonism, romance with clownery.” If we add that the action of the Yershalaim scenes - the Master's novel about Pontius Pilate - takes place over the course of one day, which satisfies the requirements of classicism, then we can say that Bulgakov's novel combines almost all genres and literary trends existing in the world. Moreover, definitions of “The Master and Margarita” as a symbolist, post-symbolist or neo-romantic novel are quite common. In addition, it can well be called a post-realistic novel, since “Masters...” has something in common with modernist and postmodernist, avant-garde literature in that Bulgakov builds the novel’s reality, not excluding the modern Moscow chapters, almost exclusively on the basis of literary sources, and infernal fiction is deeply penetrates into Soviet life. Perhaps the prerequisite for such a multifaceted genre of the novel is that Bulgakov himself for a long time could not decide on its final plot and title. Thus, there were three editions of the novel, in which there were the following variant titles: “Black Magician”, “Engineer’s Hoof”, “Juggler with a Hoof”, “Son of V(eliar?)”, “Tour (Woland?)” (1st editorial); "The Great Chancellor", "Satan", "Here I Am", "The Hat with a Feather", "The Black Theologian", "He Appeared", "The Foreigner's Horseshoe", "He Appeared", "The Advent", "The Black Magician" and “The Consultant’s Hoof” (2nd edition, which bore the subtitle “Fantastic Novel” - perhaps this is a hint at how the author himself determined the genre of his work); and finally, the third edition was originally called “The Prince of Darkness”, and less than a year later, the now well-known title “The Master and Margarita” appeared.

It must be said that when writing the novel, Bulgakov used several philosophical theories: some compositional moments, as well as mystical episodes and episodes from the Yershalaim chapters, were based on them. The writer borrowed most of his ideas from the 18th century Ukrainian philosopher Grigory Skovoroda (whose works he studied thoroughly). Thus, in the novel there is an interaction between three worlds: the human (all the people in the novel), the biblical (biblical characters) and the cosmic (Woland and his retinue). Let’s compare: according to the theory of “three worlds” by Skovoroda, the most important world is the cosmic one, the Universe, the all-encompassing macrocosm. The other two worlds are private. One of them is human, microcosm; the other is symbolic, i.e. biblical world. Each of the three worlds has two “natures”: visible and invisible. All three worlds are woven from good and evil, and the biblical world appears in Skovoroda as a connecting link between the visible and invisible natures of the macrocosm and microcosm. Man has two bodies and two hearts: corruptible and eternal, earthly and spiritual, and this means that man is “external” and “internal.” And the latter never dies: by dying, he only loses his earthly body. In the novel "The Master and Margarita" duality is expressed in the dialectical interaction and struggle of good and evil (this is the main problem of the novel). According to the same Skovoroda, good cannot exist without evil, people simply will not know that it is good. As Woland said to Levi Matthew: “What would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared from it?” There must be some kind of balance between good and evil, which was disrupted in Moscow: the scales tipped sharply towards the latter and Woland came, as the chief punisher, to restore it.

The three-world nature of “The Master and Margarita” can also be correlated with the views of the famous Russian religious philosopher, theologian and mathematician P.A. Florensky (1882-1937), who developed the idea that “trinity is the most general characteristic of being,” connecting it with the Christian Trinity. He also wrote: “...Truth is a single essence with three hypostases...”. For Bulgakov, the composition of the novel really consists of three layers, which together lead us to understand the main idea of ​​the novel: about the moral responsibility of a person for his actions, that all people at all times should strive for truth.

And finally, recent studies of Bulgakov’s work lead many scientists and literary critics to believe that the philosophical concept of the novel was influenced by the views of the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, his work “I and IT” about the separation of the I, IT and the I-ideal in man. The composition of the novel is formed by three intricately intertwined storylines, in each of which the elements of Freud’s idea of ​​the human psyche are refracted in a unique way: the biblical chapters of the novel narrate the life and death of Yeshua Ha-Nozri, personifying the I-ideal (strives for goodness, truth and speaks only the truth), the Moscow chapters show the adventures of IT - Woland and his retinue, exposing human base passions, vulgar lust, lust. Who personifies I? The tragedy of the Master, called a hero by the author, lies in the loss of his Self. “Now I’m nobody... I don’t have any dreams and I don’t have any inspiration either... I was broken, I’m bored, and I want to go to the basement,” he says. Like a truly tragic hero, the Master is guilty and not guilty. Having entered into a deal with evil spirits through Margarita, “he did not deserve light, he deserved peace,” the desired balance between IT and the I-ideal.

To finally understand the problems and idea of ​​the novel, you need to consider in more detail the characters, their role in the work and prototypes in history, literature or the life of the author.

The novel is written in such a way “as if the author, feeling in advance that this was his last work, wanted to put into it without reserve all the sharpness of his satirical eye, the unbridled imagination, the power of psychological observation.” Bulgakov pushed the boundaries of the novel genre; he managed to achieve an organic combination of historical-epic, philosophical and satirical principles. In terms of the depth of philosophical content and level of artistic skill, “The Master and Margarita” rightfully stands on a par with Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, “Don Quixote” by Cervantes, Goethe’s “Faust”, Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” and other “eternal companions of humanity” in his search for the truth of “freedom”.

The amount of research devoted to the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov is enormous. Even the publication of the Bulgakov Encyclopedia did not put an end to the work of the researchers. The thing is that the novel is quite complex in genre and therefore difficult to analyze. According to the definition of the British researcher of the work of M. Bulgakov J. Curtis, given in her book “The Last Bulgakov Decade: The Writer as a Hero,” “The Master and Margarita” has the property of a rich deposit where as yet unidentified minerals lie together. Both the form of the novel and its content distinguish it as a unique masterpiece: parallels with it are difficult to find in both the Russian and Western European cultural traditions.”

The characters and plots of “The Master and Margarita” are projected simultaneously onto both the Gospel and the legend of Faust, onto specific historical figures of Bulgakov’s contemporaries, which gives the novel a paradoxical and sometimes contradictory character. In one field, holiness and demonism, miracle and magic, temptation and betrayal are inextricably combined.

It is customary to talk about three planes of the novel - ancient, Yershalaim, eternal otherworldly and modern Moscow, which are surprisingly connected with each other, the role of this connection is played by the world of evil spirits, headed by the majestic and royal Woland. But “no matter how many plans are highlighted in the novel and no matter how they are called, it is indisputable that the author had in mind to show the reflection of eternal, transtemporal images and relationships in the unsteady surface of historical existence.”

The image of Jesus Christ as an ideal of moral perfection invariably attracts many writers and artists. Some of them adhered to the traditional, canonical interpretation of it, based on the four gospels and the apostolic epistles, while others gravitated toward apocryphal or simply heretical subjects. As is well known, M. Bulgakov took the second path. Jesus himself, as he appears in the novel, rejects the authenticity of the evidence of the “Gospel of Matthew” (let us remember here the words of Yeshua about what he saw when he looked into the goat parchment of Matthew Levi). And in this regard, he demonstrates a striking unity of views with Woland-Satan: “... just anyone,” Woland turns to Berlioz, “but you should know that absolutely nothing of what is written in the Gospels, never really happened..." Woland is the devil, Satan, the prince of darkness, the spirit of evil and the lord of shadows (all these definitions are found in the text of the novel). “It is undeniable... that not only Jesus, but also Satan in the novel are not presented in the New Testament interpretation.” Woland is largely focused on Mephistopheles, even the name Woland itself is taken from Goethe’s poem, where it is mentioned only once and is usually omitted in Russian translations. The novel's epigraph also reminds us of Goethe's poem. In addition, researchers find that when creating Woland, Bulgakov also remembered the opera by Charles Gounod, and the contemporary Bulgakov version of Faust, written by the writer and journalist E.L. Mindlin, the beginning of whose novel was published in 1923. Generally speaking, the images of evil spirits in the novel carry with them many allusions - literary, operatic, musical. It seems that none of the researchers remembered that the French composer Berlioz (1803-1869), whose last name is one of the characters in the novel, is the author of the opera “The Damnation of Doctor Faustus”.

And yet Woland is, first of all, Satan. With all this, the image of Satan in the novel is not traditional.

Woland's unconventionality lies in the fact that, being a devil, he is endowed with some obvious attributes of God. And Woland-Satan himself sees himself with him in the “cosmic hierarchy” on approximately equal terms. No wonder Woland remarks to Levi Matvey: “It’s not difficult for me to do anything.”

Traditionally, the image of the devil has been portrayed comically in literature. And in the edition of the novel 1929-1930. Woland had a number of derogatory traits: he giggled, spoke with a “rogue smile,” used colloquial expressions, calling, for example, Bezdomny a “pig liar,” and feigningly complaining to the bartender Sokov: “Oh, the bastard people in Moscow!” and tearfully begging on his knees : “Do not destroy the orphan.” However, in the final text of the novel, Woland became different, majestic and regal: “He was in an expensive gray suit, in foreign-made shoes that matched the color of the suit, he dashed his gray beret behind his ear, and under his arm he carried a cane with a black knob in the shape of a poodle’s head. The mouth is kind of crooked. Shaven clean. Brunette. The right eye is black, the left one is green for some reason. The eyebrows are black, but one is higher than the other.” “Two eyes fixed on Margarita’s face. The right one with a golden spark at the bottom, drilling anyone to the bottom of the soul, and the left one is empty and black, kind of like a narrow eye of a needle, like an exit into a bottomless well of all darkness and shadows. Woland's face was slanted to the side, the right corner of his mouth was pulled down, and deep wrinkles were cut into his high, bald forehead, parallel to his sharp eyebrows. The skin on Woland’s face seemed to be forever burned by a tan.”

Woland has many faces, as befits the devil, and in conversations with different people he puts on different masks. At the same time, Woland’s omniscience of Satan is completely preserved (he and his people are well aware of both the past and future lives of those with whom they come into contact, they also know the text of the Master’s novel, which literally coincides with the “Gospel of Woland”, the same thing that was told to the unlucky writers at the Patriarch's).

In addition, Woland does not come to Moscow alone, but surrounded by his retinue, which is also unusual for the traditional embodiment of the devil in literature. After all, Satan usually appears on his own - without accomplices. Bulgakov's devil has a retinue, and a retinue in which a strict hierarchy reigns, and each has his own function. The closest to the devil in position is Koroviev-Fagot, the first in rank among demons, the main assistant of Satan. Azazello and Gella are subordinate to Bassoon. A somewhat special position is occupied by the werecat Behemoth, a favorite jester and a kind of confidant of the “prince of darkness.”

And it seems that Koroviev, aka Fagot, the eldest of the demons subordinate to Woland, who introduces himself to Muscovites as a translator for a foreign professor and a former director of a church choir, has many similarities with the traditional incarnation of a minor demon. Through the entire logic of the novel, the reader is led to the idea of ​​not judging characters by their appearance, and the final scene of the “transformation” of evil spirits looks like a confirmation of the correctness of the guesses that arise involuntarily. Woland's henchman, only when necessary, puts on various disguises: a drunken regent, a gayer, a clever swindler. And only in the final chapters of the novel Koroviev sheds his disguise and appears before the reader as a dark purple knight with a never smiling face.

In the same way, the Behemoth cat changes its appearance: “He who was a cat who amused the prince of darkness now turned out to be a thin youth, a demon page, the best jester that ever existed in the world.” These characters in the novel, it turns out, have their own history that is not connected with biblical history. So the purple knight, as it turns out, is paying for some joke that turned out to be unsuccessful. The cat Behemoth was the personal page of the purple knight. And only the transformation of another servant of Woland does not occur: the changes that happened to Azazello did not turn him into a person, like Woland’s other companions - in the farewell flight over Moscow we see a cold and impassive demon of death.

It is interesting that Gella, a female vampire, another member of Woland's retinue, is missing from the scene of the last flight. “The writer’s third wife believed that this was the result of unfinished work on “Master Margarita.”

However, it is possible that Bulgakov deliberately removed Gella as the youngest member of the retinue, performing only auxiliary functions. Vampires are traditionally the lowest category of evil spirits.”

One of the researchers makes an interesting observation: “And finally, Woland flew in his real guise.” Which one? Not a word is said about this."

The unconventional nature of the images of evil spirits also lies in the fact that “usually the evil spirits in Bulgakov’s novel are not at all inclined to engage in what, according to tradition, they are absorbed - seduction and temptation of people. On the contrary, Woland’s gang defends integrity, purity of morals... In fact, what are he and his associates primarily doing in Moscow, for what purpose did the author let them walk and misbehave in the capital for four days?

In fact, the forces of hell play a somewhat unusual role for them in The Master and Margarita. (Actually, only one scene in the novel - the scene of "mass hypnosis in the Variety Show - shows the devil completely in his original role as a tempter. But here too Woland acts exactly like a moral corrector or, in other words, like a very satirical writer plays into the hands of the author who invented it. “Woland, as it were, deliberately narrows his functions, he is inclined not so much to seduce as to punish.” He exposes low lusts and grows only to brand them with contempt and laughter.) They do not so much lead people astray from the path of righteous people there are so many good and decent people who are exposed and punished who have already committed sinners.

At the behest of Bulgakov, evil spirits commit many different outrages in Moscow. It’s not for nothing that Woland has a riotous retinue assigned to him. It brings together specialists of different profiles: the master of mischievous tricks and pranks - the cat Behemoth, the eloquent Koroviev, who speaks all the dialects and jargons - from semi-criminal to high-society, the gloomy Azazello, extremely inventive in the sense of kicking out various kinds of sinners from apartment No. 50, from Moscow, even from this to the next world. And then alternating, then acting together or three, they create situations, sometimes creepy, as in the case of Rimsky, but more often comic, despite the destructive consequences of their actions.

Styopa Likhodeev, the director of the variety show, gets away with Woland's assistants throwing him from Moscow to Yalta. And he has a whole cartload of sins: “... in general,” Koroviev reports, speaking about Stepa in the plural, “lately they’ve been terribly piggy. They get drunk, have relationships with women, using their position, don’t do a damn thing, yes and they can’t do a damn thing, because they don’t understand anything about what they’re entrusted with. They’re rubbish at the bosses. “They’re driving a government-issued car in vain!” the cat also lied."

And for all this, just a forced walk to Yalta. Nikanor Ivanovich Bosom, who really doesn’t play around with currency, but still takes bribes, and Berlioz’s uncle, a cunning hunter for his nephew’s Moscow apartment, and the leaders of the Entertainment Commission, typical bureaucrats and slackers, avoid any too serious consequences from meeting with evil spirits. .

On the other hand, extremely severe punishments fall on those who do not steal and who do not seem to be covered with Stepa’s vices, but who have one seemingly harmless flaw. The master defines it this way: a person without a surprise inside. For the financial director of the variety show Rimsky, who is trying to invent “ordinary explanations for extraordinary phenomena,” Woland’s retinue creates such a scene of horror that in a matter of minutes he turns into a gray-haired old man with a shaking head. They are also completely merciless towards the bartender of the variety show, the very one who utters the famous words about sturgeon of the second freshness. For what? The bartender steals and cheats, but this is not his most serious vice - hoarding, the fact that he robs himself. “Something, as you please,” notes Woland, “unkindness lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and table conversation. Such people are either seriously ill or secretly hate those around them.”

But the saddest fate befalls the head of MASSOLIT, Berlioz. Berlioz's fault is that he, an educated man who grew up in pre-Soviet Russia, in the hope of adapting to the new government, openly changed his beliefs (he, of course, could have been an atheist, but not claim at the same time that the story of Jesus Christ, on which the entire European civilization took shape - “mere inventions, the most ordinary myth.”) and began to preach what this power would require of him. But he is also in special demand, because he is the head of a writers’ organization - and his sermons tempt those who are just joining the world of literature and culture. How can one not remember the words of Christ: “Woe to those who tempt these little ones.” It is clear that the choice made by Berlioz was conscious. In exchange for betraying literature, the authorities give him a lot - position, money, the opportunity to occupy a leadership position.

It is interesting to observe how Berlioz's death is predicted. “The stranger looked Berlioz up and down, as if he was going to sew him a suit, muttered through his teeth something like: “One, two... Mercury in the second house... the moon is gone... six is ​​misfortune... evening is seven...” and announced loudly and joyfully: “Your head will be cut off!” .

Here is what we read about this in the Bulgakov Encyclopedia: “According to the principles of astrology, twelve houses are twelve parts of the ecliptic. The location of certain luminaries in each of their houses reflects certain events in a person’s fate. Mercury in the second house means happiness in trade. Berlioz was really punished for introducing traders into the temple of literature - members of MASSOLIT, which he headed, who were concerned only with obtaining material benefits in the form of dachas, creative business trips, vouchers to sanatoriums (Mikhail Alexandrovich was thinking about such a voucher in the last hours of his life).” .

The writer Berlioz, like all the writers from the House of Griboyedov, decided for himself that the affairs of the writer matter only for the time in which he himself lives. Further - nothingness. Raising Berlioz's severed head at the Great Ball, Woland addresses it: “Everyone will be given according to his faith...” Thus, it turns out that “justice in the novel invariably celebrates victory, but this is most often achieved through witchcraft, in an incomprehensible way.”

Woland turns out to be the bearer of fate, and here Bulgakov finds himself in line with the traditions of Russian literature, which linked fate not with God, but with the devil.

With seeming omnipotence, the devil carries out his judgment and reprisals in Soviet Moscow. Generally speaking, good and evil in a novel are created by the hands of man himself. Woland and his retinue only give the opportunity to manifest those vices and virtues that are inherent in people. For example, the cruelty of the crowd towards Georges Bengalsky at the Variety Theater is replaced by mercy, and the initial evil, when they wanted to tear off the unfortunate entertainer's head, becomes a necessary condition for good - pity for the entertainer who lost his head.

But the evil spirits in the novel not only punish, forcing people to suffer from their own depravity. She also helps those who cannot stand up for themselves in the fight against those who violate all moral laws. In Bulgakov, Woland literally revives the Master's burnt novel - a product of artistic creativity, preserved only in the creator's head, materializes again, turns into a tangible thing.

Woland, who explained the purpose of his visit to the Soviet capital for various reasons, eventually admits that he arrived in Moscow in order to fulfill the order, or rather the request, of Yeshua to take the Master and Margarita to him. It turns out that Satan in Bulgakov’s novel is the servant of Ha-Notsri “on commissions of this kind that the highest holiness cannot... directly touch.” Maybe that’s why it seems that Woland is the first devil in world literature, admonishing the atheists and punishing them for non-observance of the commandments of Christ. Now it becomes clear that the epigraph to the novel “I am part of that force that wants evil and always does good” is an important part of the author’s worldview, according to which high ideals can only be preserved in the supermundane. In earthly life, the brilliant Master can only be saved from death by Satan and his retinue, who are not bound by this ideal in their lives. And in order to get the Master to himself with his novel, Woland, wishing evil, must do good: he punishes the opportunistic writer Berlioz, the traitor Baron Meigel and many petty swindlers, like the thief-bartender Sokov or the grabber-house manager Bosogo. Moreover, it turns out that giving the author of the novel about Pontius Pilate to the power of otherworldly forces is only a formal evil, since it is done with the blessing and even on the direct instructions of Yeshua Ha-Nozri, who personifies the forces of good.

Dialectical unity, the complementarity of good and evil are most clearly revealed in Woland’s words addressed to Matthew Levi, who refused to wish health to the “spirit of evil and the lord of shadows”: “Would you be kind enough to think about what your good would do if it did not exist evil, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows come from objects and people. Here is the shadow from my sword. But shadows come from trees and living creatures. Do you want to rip off the entire globe, tearing it off away with all the trees and all living things because of your fantasy of enjoying the naked light. You are stupid."

Thus, the eternal, traditional opposition of good and evil, light and darkness is absent in Bulgakov’s novel. The forces of darkness, with all the evil that they bring to the Soviet capital, turn out to be assistants to the forces of light and good, because they are at war with those who have long forgotten how to distinguish between both - with the new Soviet religion, which has crossed out the entire history of mankind, abolished and rejected all the moral experience of previous generations.

Menippea is extremely interesting for literary analysis. Combining unbridled fantasy with the formulation of global ideological problems, this genre deliberately creates provocative situations to confirm or refute certain philosophical ideas. One of the most important characteristics of the menippea is a moral and psychological experiment, which involves a disruption of the normal course of events. Mixing reality with the fictional world and combining chronotopes make it possible to create conditions for testing traditional ideas about eternal values ​​and immutable truths. The features of the genre determine the plot and compositional originality of the work.

There are several chronotopes in Bulgakov's menippea. One of them is the Russian capital of the 30s of the XX century; the second is Yershalaim, the first three decades of our era (this is not real space and time, but a novel by the Master); the third chronotope has conditional coordinates; these are most likely eternity and infinity. Bulgakov's prince of darkness resides here. He is provided with access to all spheres of human existence: to the artistic world of the story invented by the Master, to the specific space of the city in which the main characters live, and, amazingly, even to the sphere of mental illness. All these circumstances indicate how complex the author's techniques are for transforming the plot into a plot.

The composition can be called discrete: the main action is interrupted by chapters of the novel about Pilate. The frame episodes are based on biblical reminiscence. The connection between these two storylines is determined by the commonality of the ideological concept and the presence of a fantastic element in them.

The most important semantic accents are concentrated in grotesque scenes; here the fantastic hero becomes a form of the author's presence. One of the episodes can serve as proof - a session of black magic. In this fascinating fragment, fiction helps the writer expose the vices of ordinary people. The technique of “tearing off masks” already existed in Russian literature before Bulgakov, but the goal of the creator of “The Master and Margarita,” unlike his predecessors, was not only to punish scoundrels. Woland in the novel represents not so much a punitive force as a fair one, and therefore he allows himself to check whether mercy and compassion have been preserved in people. At this point, farce and slapstick, based on fantasy, turn into a deep philosophical study of the real world.

Woland’s words that Muscovites resemble the people of “the past” become the plot motivation: there are points of contact between the worlds of Moscow and Yershalaim, they must be seen in order to understand the philosophical idea. What makes the officials who are stationed in all the capital's institutions lose their human appearance? Thirst for power, material wealth, bourgeois comfort. Why does Pontius Pilate, despite sincere inner impulses, go against his desires and conscience? He is hampered by spiritual lack of freedom (its cause, oddly enough, is also power, but more powerful than that of Moscow officials). Woland, a hero from the unreal world, discovers the connection between all human beings who have lost the purity of thoughts due to certain privileges; he derives a philosophical axiom that underlies several plot lines of the novel: a person cannot be free unless the spiritual principle prevails in him. This means that the compositional unity of Bulgakov’s menippea is explained by the fact that all its collisions are conditioned by the verification of universal human truths.

This reveals another important feature of “The Master and Margarita”: the severity of the conflicts in each storyline is based not on the vicissitudes of the action, but on the difference in ideals. This is especially clear in the chapters about the ruler of Judea. There are two main collisions here. The first is between the ideological positions of Yeshua and the procurator; the second is connected with the spiritual contradictions of Pontius Pilate himself. As a result, the main conflict of this part of the novel arises, and the reader comes to understand the difference between genuine and imaginary freedom.

In the plot of the novel, this theme runs through real and retrospective chronotopes. There are other problems common to the entire plot space: evil and good, justice, mercy, forgiveness. That is why the author builds the composition so that characters from different space-time planes are united in counterpoint - in the chapter symbolically titled “Forgiveness and Eternal Shelter.” In this episode, Bulgakov proves a thesis that sounds twice (but slightly differently) in the novel of the Master and in the novel about the Master (“To each according to his deeds” - “To each according to his faith”).

Here another important storyline comes to an end - love. Woland carries out the test of feeling in the novel, so the author allows Margarita to stay in the fantasy world longer than all the other characters. The interweaving of several semantic lines in different episodes occurs not for the sake of intensifying the plot, not for the sake of entertaining the reader - it’s just that all the moral and psychological experiments are carried out in the menippea by the same hero - the prince of darkness.

Consequently, the plot characters include primarily Woland, as well as the Master, Margarita, Pontius Pilate, Yeshua. Other characters have plot functions, but their role is still very significant. So, for example, the “distorting mirrors” of the caricature of reality are held by fantastic characters. Here, in addition to Woland, the inhabitants of the unreal world accompanying him are also important. Koroviev and Behemoth are rowdy in “decent places” not for fun: they expose and punish, and draw the reader’s attention to everyday abominations, which, unfortunately, are no longer considered vices in the real world.

All the fantastic heroes of the novel can exist in reality and mix with it. To make this happen, Bulgakov builds the composition in a special way: three worlds do not exist in parallel, but one in the other, all together, although in different space and time. The author uses discreteness and mystification when he connects reality with the Master's novel. Characters of the surreal world move freely throughout the artistic canvas, uniting heroes from different chronotopes in individual episodes of the work. The complex frame composition does not complicate, but facilitates the perception of the philosophical ideas that permeate The Master and Margarita.

Weaving real and fantastic storylines, Bulgakov relied on the experience of his predecessors, on the traditions of Russian classical literature; He considered Saltykov-Shchedrin his teacher. “I am a mystical writer,” declared M. A. Bulgakov, and called his novel fantastic. Of course, this statement is legitimate, but such a definition does not reflect the entire diversity of the work’s problems and does not explain its plot and compositional complexity.

The plot and composition of the novel “The Master and Margarita” was analyzed by Fyodor Korneychuk.

More than 10 years. He changed the plot many times, removing some characters and adding others. In the first version of the manuscript there was neither the Master nor his beloved, and Mikhail Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny had different names. The prototypes of the heroes were literary characters of other authors, friends and opponents of the writer himself.

Master - Mikhail Bulgakov and Nikolai Gogol

Writers Mikhail Bulgakov (left) and Nikolai Gogol

Mikhail Bulgakov largely based the main character of the novel on himself. The work mentions the age of the Master: "a man about thirty-eight years old". The author was the same age when he began work on The Master and Margarita in 1929. Angry articles about the Master and his novel are reminiscent of the accusatory campaign that was launched against Bulgakov himself. Critics spoke sharply about the story “Fatal Eggs”, the novel “The White Guard”, the plays “Zoyka’s Apartment”, “Running”, “Days of the Turbins”. The author’s archives contain extracts from the material “Let’s hit Bulgakovism,” which was published in the newspaper “Working Moscow.” In the book, the Master says: “A day later, in another newspaper, signed by Mstislav Lavrovich, another article was discovered, where the author proposed to hit her, and hit her hard, in the pilatchina...”

However, Bulgakov did not endow the Master with the features of his appearance: “shaven, dark-haired, with a pointed nose, anxious eyes and a tuft of hair hanging over his forehead”. The scene in which the Master burned his novel echoes the biographies of Gogol and Bulgakov himself, who destroyed their works in the fire.

Margarita - Elena Shilovskaya-Bulgakova, Margarita from Faust and Queen Margot

French princess Marguerite de Valois (Queen Margot) and wife of writer Mikhail Bulgakov Elena Shilovskaya-Bulgakova

Mikhail Bulgakov met Elena Shilovskaya at a party with mutual friends. The writer at that time was married to Lyubov Belozerskaya, his new acquaintance was married to military leader Yevgeny Shilovsky. Despite this, their relationship developed so rapidly that it can be described with a phrase from the novel “The Master and Margarita”: “Love jumped out in front of us, like a killer jumps out of the ground in an alley... That’s how lightning strikes, that’s how a Finnish knife strikes!”

Like the heroine of the novel, Elena Shilovskaya for a long time did not dare to part with her husband, who loved her very much. She even gave her word not to see the writer again, which she kept for almost two years. Then she accidentally met Bulgakov on the street and on the same day asked her husband for a divorce.

I would stay with you now, but I don’t want to do it this way. I don’t want him to forever remember that I ran away from him at night. He never did me any harm... I will explain myself to him tomorrow morning, say that I love someone else, and return to you forever.

The literary prototype of the main character of the novel was Margarita from Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s drama “Faust”. Gretchen's sincere and selfless love helped Faust escape hell. Thanks to the same love of Margarita Master "deserved peace".

In addition, Bulgakov endowed his heroine with the traits of a historical figure - the French Queen Margaret of Navarre. She was an unusually educated woman for her time: she knew Latin and Greek, and became one of the first writers in France.

Let me give you a hint: one of the French queens who lived in the sixteenth century... would have been very amazed if someone had told her that I... would lead her lovely great-great-great-great-granddaughter arm in arm in Moscow through the ballrooms.

Michael Bulgakov. "Master and Margarita"

Mikhail Berlioz - Demyan Bedny

The prototype of Mikhail Berlioz was Demyan Bedny, a Soviet poet, author of many anti-religious poems. Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny talk about one of these works at the Patriarch's Ponds, before meeting Woland.

Berlioz also resembles Demyan Bedny in appearance: “The first of them, approximately forty years old... was well-fed and bald, carried his decent hat like a pie in his hand, and on his well-shaven face were glasses of supernatural size in black horn-rimmed frames.”. On his own behalf, the author added glasses to Poor’s portrait, and turned the characteristic headdress from winter to summer.

According to the plot of the novel, Mikhail Berlioz was the chairman of the fictional literary organization MASSOLIT. Bulgakov came up with it as a parody of the writers' unions of that time: the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) and the Workshop of Communist Drama (MASTKOMDRAM). Another prototype of Berlioz was the chairman of RAPP Leopold Averbakh. At the end of the 1920s, he, together with Vladimir Bill-Belotserkovsky and Vladimir Kirshon, participated in the campaign against Bulgakov and wrote critical articles about his works.

Ivan Bezdomny - Alexander Bezymensky

The poet Alexander Bezymensky was another fierce critic of Bulgakov. He wrote poems about the revolution and satirical works, and in 1929 he published the play “The Shot,” a parody of “The Days of the Turbins.”

Bezymensky wrote tendentious poems on the topic of the day, always responding to the party line and filled with joyful optimism. As a result, it is nothing more than rhyming journalism.

Wolfgang Kazak. "Lexicon of Russian Literature of the 20th Century"

The surname of Alexander Bezymensky is consonant with the pseudonym that Mikhail Bulgakov gave to his character - Bezdomny. And in the hero’s quarrel with the poet Ryukhin, the author parodied the conflicts between Bezymensky and Vladimir Mayakovsky.

…Necessary,
so that the poet
and in life he was a master.
We are strong
like alcohol in Poltava shtof.
Well, what about Bezymensky?!
So…
Nothing…
carrot coffee.

From the poem “Yubileinoe” by Vladimir Mayakovsky

Bezymensky responded to his opponent with no less caustic epigrams: “The Moscow fire was noisy and burning... Everyone thought it was Mayakovsky!”

Ivan Bezdomny also had a literary prototype - John Stanton, the hero of Charles Robert Maturin's novel Melmoth the Wanderer. The plot of this work was reminiscent of the plot line of “The Master and Margarita”: Stanton met with the living embodiment of the devil, just like Bezdomny and Woland. This meeting led both heroes to a madhouse.

Aloisy Mogarych - playwright Sergei Ermolinsky

Aloisy Mogarych is a minor character in the novel “The Master and Margarita”, who wrote a denunciation against the Master. He ended up in a mental hospital, and Mogarych settled in his basement not far from Arbat.

The author based the image of Aloysius Mogarych on screenwriter and playwright Sergei Ermolinsky. At the end of the 1920s, Bulgakov and his second wife Lyubov Belozerskaya rented a room in Mansurovsky Lane: this place later became the prototype of the basement where the Master lived. Ermolinsky often visited the couple and became friends with the writer. But in the late 1930s, Bulgakov began to suspect that the playwright was writing denunciations against him to the NKVD.

And a man came through the gate, he went into the house on some business with my developer, then he went into the kindergarten and somehow very quickly made acquaintance with me. He introduced himself to me as a journalist. I liked him so much, imagine that I still sometimes remember him and miss him. Further - more, he began to come to me. I found out that he was single, that he lived next to me in about the same apartment, that he was cramped there, and so on. Somehow I didn’t invite you. My wife did not like him extremely.

Michael Bulgakov. "Master and Margarita"

Bulgakov's suspicions were not confirmed. Sergei Ermolinsky was arrested in December 1940 and during the investigation no documents were found that he could send to the NKVD. However, Mikhail Bulgakov no longer found out about this: he died nine months before Ermolinsky’s arrest, in March 1940.

Parallelism in the plot lines of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”

The genre of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” is unique. It uniquely combines fantasy and reality, lyricism and satire, history and myth. The composition of Bulgakov’s last work – a novel within a novel – is also original. Two novels - about the fate of the master and about Pontius Pilate - form a kind of organic unity.

Three storylines: philosophical, love, mystical and satirical are closely connected with the image of Woland.

The philosophical plot line reveals the dispute between Yeshua Ha-Nozri and Pontius Pilate about the truth. The love line is connected with the images of the master and Margarita. And the mystical and satirical plot line tells about the interaction of Woland and his retinue with Muscovites.

Parallelism is the basic principle of plot construction, in which three-worldness is presented as the main form of existence. According to the philosopher P. Florensky, “trinity is the most general characteristic of being.” The number 3 is the main category of life and thinking; to prove this, you can give examples from the Bible (the Holy Trinity - God in three forms) and from folklore.

What three worlds are presented in Bulgakov's novel? Firstly, this is the writer’s contemporary Moscow of the 30s of the 20th century, for the depiction of which satire and irony are most often used. Secondly, this is the “Yershalaim world”, where the writer interprets the gospel events associated with Jesus Christ in his own way. The ancient world is separated from the modern world by 1900 years, but in depicting Moscow and Yershalaim (Jerusalem), the writer uses the technique of parallelism, trying to emphasize that the past and present are connected by a continuous chain of events, and what happened almost two thousand years ago is directly related to modern life.

It is this discovery that is made by the hero of A.P. Chekhov’s story “Student” Ivan Velikopolsky, who on Good Friday, retelling to two widows in the garden, Vasilisa and Lukerya, the Gospel story about the threefold denial of the Apostle Peter from Jesus, suddenly realizes that “the past... is connected with the present continuous chain of events flowing from one another.” It seemed to the student “that he had just seen both ends of this chain: he touched one end, and the other trembled.” Ivan Velikopolsky understood: “truth and beauty, which guided human life there, in the garden and in the courtyard of the high priest, continued continuously to this day, and, apparently, always constituted the main thing in human life and in general on earth...”.

Bulgakov, like Chekhov, turning to the gospel plot, developing Christian motives, reveals the eternal values ​​of goodness and truth. His hero Yeshua Ha-Nozri, an artistic interpretation of the image of Jesus Christ, is convinced that “there are no evil people in the world.” All people are kind to him. And Pontius Pilate, the fifth procurator of Judea, who in Yershalaim is called a “fierce monster” and who signed the death warrant for Yeshua because of his cowardice; and Levi Matvey, a former tax collector, who at first was so hostile to the wandering philosopher and even insulted him; and Judas from Kiriath, who invited Yeshua to his house, lit lamps and asked him a provocative question about state power in order to then betray him; and the centurion of the first century, Mark the Ratboy, who hit Yeshua with a whip so that he would call Pontius Pilate not a “good man,” but an hegemon. Dreamer-philosopher Yeshua is sure that if he had talked to Mark the Rat-Slayer, he would have changed dramatically. He believes in the miraculous power of the word, which, like a litmus test, reveals in a person all the best and kindest, which was originally inherent in the human soul. After all, Matthew Levi listened to him, “began to soften, finally threw money on the road” and went along with Yeshua, who became his Teacher.

But there is also a third world in the novel - the other world, represented by Woland (Bulgakov’s devil, or Satan, interpreted in his own way), and his retinue, assistants who perform a punitive function, punishing sinners. Good and evil in the novel are not opposed to each other, they are not in confrontation, they coexist and cooperate. These are simply two different “departments” with different tasks. Evil in the guise of Woland performs the function of punishment: Bulgakov’s Satan inflicts fair retribution, punishing people for their vices and thus improving the human race. A writer of the tragic twentieth century, Bulgakov believes that evil must be punished. Woland's role in the novel is revealed in the epigraph at the beginning of the work:

... so who are you, finally?

I am part of that force

What always wants evil

And he always does good.

The words of Mephistopheles from Goethe’s poem “Faust” help us understand that the “prince of darkness” justly punishes people for their sins, clearing the way for good. And goodness in the novel is personified by Yeshua, performing the main function of his “department” - mercy and compassion, forgiveness of sinners.

Emphasizing the interconnection of the ancient, modern and other worlds, the author builds parallel rows of characters that emphasize the connection of worlds: triads of characters are built on the principle of external similarity and the similarity of their actions. Pontius Pilate - Woland - Professor Stravinsky personify power; Kaifa - Berlioz - unknown in Torgsin, posing as a foreigner - orthodox servants of power, dogmatists, not deviating one iota from its laws and rules, unable to accept the new truth; Judas from Kiriath - Baron Maigel - Aloysius Mogarych - traitors; Afrany - Fagot Koroviev - doctor Fyodor Vasilyevich, assistant to Stravinsky - accomplices of power, his assistants and performers; the dog Banga (represents the ancient world and belongs to Pontius Pilate, only the procurator is cordially attached to his dog, since he does not trust people) - the cat Behemoth (belongs to the other world - a page who once made an unsuccessful joke and is now forced to forever play the role of a jester and a buffoon, but on the last night he was forgiven and acquired his real appearance) - the police dog Tuzbuben from the modern Moscow world. The triad is also formed by Nisa (the beautiful assistant Afrania, his “agent”, who with her beauty lures Judas in order, by order of Pontius Pilate, to carry out trial over the traitor, so the hegemon tries to calm his conscience, to pay off her, so as not to suffer because sent to death the wandering philosopher Yeshua with his peaceful preaching of good) – Gela – Woland’s assistant from the lower world; Natasha is Margarita’s servant who decided to stay in the other world. Centurion Mark Ratboy - Azazello - restaurant director Archibald Archibaldovich - performers who perform a punitive function, they are entrusted with the most “dirty” work, when it is necessary to use force or violence; Levi Matvey - Ivan Bezdomny - poet Alexander Ryukhin - students.

But there are characters in the novel who are not part of the triads. This is Yeshua and the master. The redemptive feat of Yeshua in the ancient world is compared with the creative feat of the master in modern Moscow, but the image of the master is undoubtedly belittled in relation to Yeshua. Margarita occupies an individual, isolated position in the history of the novel, personifying the ideal of eternal love.

Our task is to trace how parallelism manifests itself in the plot lines of the novel. The work opens with a scene on the Patriarch's Ponds, where two Moscow writers: Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny - meet a suspicious “foreigner”, not realizing that in front of them is Satan himself. The episode on the Patriarch's Ponds is the beginning of the action. The chapter is called “Never talk to strangers,” reminiscent of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale about Little Red Riding Hood. The role of the Gray Wolf is played by Woland, dressed in all gray: an expensive gray suit, shoes that match the color of the suit, and a gray beret tucked dashingly behind his ear. And the Soviet writers Berlioz and Bezdomny will become the red riding hoods, victims of the wolf. Berlioz will die under a tram, his head will be cut off by a “Russian woman, a Komsomol member,” a tram driver, as the “professor” predicted, and Ivan Bezdomny will end up in Stravinsky’s psychiatric clinic with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

The action begins with the fact that “at the hour of a hot spring sunset on the Patriarch’s Ponds” two citizens appeared, whose portraits were built on the principle of antithesis.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Berlioz (with this name the novel includes a “devilish theme”, as this surname is associated with the surname of the French composer G. Berlioz, author of the “Fantastic Symphony”, the third and fourth parts of which are called “Procession to Execution” and “Hellish Sabbath” ) is a respectable forty-year-old man, editor of a thick art magazine, chairman of the board of one of the largest Moscow literary associations, called MASSOLIT. This solidity, thoroughness and self-confidence are emphasized in the portrait: he is “well-fed, bald, he carried his decent hat like a pie in his hand, and his neatly shaven face was adorned with supernaturally sized glasses in black horn-rimmed frames.”

The poet Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, writing under the pseudonym Bezdomny, on the contrary, is young, undignified, and careless in his appearance: curly hair, wearing a checkered cap twisted at the back of his head, and chewed white trousers. The name of the poet Bezdomny was stylized by Bulgakov to resemble common pseudonyms of “proletarian” poets. At the same time, the prototypes of Bezdomny could have been Demyan Bedny. Alexander Bezymensky.

The motif of terrible heat combines two scenes following each other: a meeting with the devil on the Patriarch's Ponds and Pontius Pilate's interrogation of Yeshua Ha-Nozri. Both events take place on Good Friday. In the Moscow atheistic world this is a “terrible May evening”; in the ancient world it is the spring month of Nisan - a month according to the lunar calendar adopted by the Jews, and corresponding to the end of March - April according to the solar calendar. On the 15th of Nisan, the Jewish Passover holiday falls, lasting seven days, according to which the exodus of the Jews from Egyptian captivity is celebrated. Woland tells the story of the interrogation, and when Bezdomny meets the master in Chapter 13 and retells to him the story he heard from Woland, the master exclaims: “Oh. How did I guess! Oh, how I guessed everything!” Perhaps Woland retold the master’s novel, which he burned, and the appearance of “Messer” in Moscow is explained not only by the desire to look at all the Muscovites en masse and find out whether people have changed over two thousand years, but by the act of burning the novel, tantamount to an act of self-immolation. The writers did not notice how the time of the story passed, they seemed to be in some kind of obsession, and when they woke up, they saw that evening had come. To the objection of the scientist Berlioz that the “professor’s” story does not coincide with the gospel stories, Woland stated that he was personally present at all this: both on Pontius Pilate’s balcony and in the garden during a conversation with Kaifa, only incognito.

In addition to the motif of heat, already from the very first pages of the novel the motif of thirst appears, and it is symbolic that instead of clean and fresh water from a colorful and painted booth with the inscription “Beer and Water,” the writers were served warm apricot water, which produced abundant yellow foam, and in the air smelled like a barbershop. In religious symbolism, the acceptance of fresh moisture into a vessel is the perception of the teachings of Christ. In the modern world, truth has been replaced by false teachings and atheism.

The motif of heat and thirst also runs through Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”, when at the beginning of July, during an extremely hot time, Raskolnikov goes out onto the streets of St. Petersburg and slowly, as if in indecision, walks in the direction of the Kokushkin Bridge. According to legends, evil spirits concentrate their forces precisely in extreme heat. Here the motive of the lack of clean and fresh water sounds when in the police office Raskolnikov is served a glass of yellow water. And in one of his dreams, Dostoevsky’s hero sees an oasis and a clear stream, reminiscences arise associated with Lermontov’s poem “Three Palms”. Raskolnikov also created a false theory about dividing people into those who have the right to shed blood for the high goal of the good of humanity and “trembling creatures.” After killing the old pawnbroker, he confesses to Sonya that he has left God and gone to hell.

The mystical world penetrates into the modern world almost immediately, only Berlioz is completely unprepared for this, since he is not used to believing in the supernatural. The author prepares readers to encounter something unusual and even terrible. Here he notes “the first strangeness of this terrible May evening” - there was no one in the alley. And the second strange thing happened to Berlioz: it was as if a dull needle had lodged in his heart, and he felt an unreasonable fear. And then there was the “vision” of an aerial citizen fathom tall and with a mocking face, who hung in front of Mikhail Alexandrovich without touching the ground, brought him to horror. Berlioz was not accustomed to extraordinary phenomena that defy reasonable explanation, so he thought: “This cannot be!” He mistook this phenomenon for a hallucination due to the heat.

The central and most important part of the chapter is the debate about God. We are in Moscow in the 1930s, when the majority of the country’s population “consciously and long ago stopped believing fairy tales about God.”

At first, the editor and poet, who fulfilled the magazine’s “social order” and wrote an anti-religious poem, talk about Jesus Christ. Berlioz does most of the talking, revealing thorough reading and erudition on this subject. He quotes ancient historians Philo of Alexandria. Josephus Flavius, Tacitus, reports information that is news to the ignorant Ivan Bezdomny. Ivan’s mistake, according to the editor, was that Jesus came out as alive, although equipped with all the negative traits, and it was only necessary to prove that Jesus did not exist in the world at all.

It is at this moment that the first person appears on the alley. Woland’s portrait is reminiscent of the opera’s Mephistopheles: “the right eye is black, the left is green for some reason,” “the eyebrows are black, but one is higher than the other.” And a cane with a black knob in the shape of a poodle’s head suggests that in Goethe’s poem Mephistopheles appeared before Doctor Faustus in the form of a black poodle.

It is symbolic that writers who mistook a stranger for a foreigner find it difficult to determine his nationality, because Woland embodies Evil, which has no nationality. Intrigued by the writers' conversation, the "foreigner" enters into a dispute about God. Recalling the five proofs of the existence of God, he talks about the restless old man Kant, with whom he personally talked and who “constructed his own sixth proof” - the moral imperative - the presence of conscience in a person as the voice of God, which allows one to distinguish between good and evil.

Soviet writers behave differently in front of a “foreigner.”

The homeless man did not like the foreigner, but Berlioz was interested in Woland. The poet’s mind reflects the features of mass psychosis of the 30s, spy mania, suspicion, he mistakes the “professor” for a Russian emigrant, a white officer, Kant offers to be sent to Solovki for his sixth proof. The anger of the “proletarian” poet is directed against dissidents, and his speech is full of rude and colloquial words, vulgarisms: “What the hell does he want?”; “There’s a foreign goose hanging on!” - Ivan, who behaves aggressively and viciously, thinks to himself.

The image of Ivan from the modern world is associated with the image of Levi Matthew. Having met the master at Stravinsky’s clinic and learned his story, as well as the continuation of the story of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, Bezdomny becomes the master’s student, promises him never to write poetry again, recognizing them as bad, and at the end of the novel Bezdomny finds Home, becomes professor of history Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev. The transformation also occurs with Levi Matthew, the tax collector, who was also ignorant and behaved rudely and aggressively towards Yeshua, calling him a “dog”. But after the wandering philosopher talked with the publican, he threw money on the road and went with Yeshua, becoming his disciple. At the end of the novel, Levi appears in the modern world as a messenger of Yeshua to ask Woland to arrange the fate of the master and Margarita.

A peculiar epiphany also comes to another poet from this triad, Alexander Ryukhin, who takes the bound Ivan to a clinic for the mentally ill. On the way back, Ryukhin “discovers” that he is “composing bad poetry” and fame will never come to him. Driving past the monument to Pushkin, Ryukhin enviously thinks that this is an example of real luck, reasoning in the spirit of his time: “This White Guard shot, shot at him and ensured immortality...”

Berlioz, unlike Ivan Bezdomny, behaves calmly and confidently in a conversation with a “consultant,” although sometimes disturbing thoughts begin to torment him. It is surprising that the well-read chairman of a literary organization could not recognize Satan.

Proving that man cannot rule the world because he is mortal, and, what is most terrible, he is “suddenly” mortal, Woland cruelly punishes Berlioz for his lack of faith in either God or the devil, providing the seventh proof: the meeting will not take place, since the editor will die. The last thing Berlioz saw, having slipped while crossing the turnstile on the oil that Annushka had spilled, was the gilded moon and the completely white with horror face of the female carriage driver and her scarlet bandage, thinking: “Really?”

Woland cruelly punished not the aggressive Ivan, but the calm and confident Berlioz, because the head of Moscow writers would never have believed in the existence of the other world, since he was dogmatic and orthodox, unable to change his views. At the end of the novel, Woland makes a cup for wine from Berlioz's head, and Berlioz himself is sent into oblivion - to each according to his faith.

In the ancient world, Berlioz corresponds to Joseph Caiaphas, the acting president of the Sanhedrin, the high priest. Pilate wanted that, in honor of the Jewish holiday of Passover, according to tradition and law, three robbers: Dismas, Gestas and Varravan - as well as Yeshua, sentenced to death - would be released. Hearing that the Sanhedrin was asking to release Varravan, Pontius Pilate made an astonished face, although he knew in advance that the answer would be this. The fifth procurator of Judea is trying to convince Caiphas that Varravan is much more dangerous than Yeshua, since he “allowed himself to directly call for rebellion” and “killed the guard while trying to take him.” But the high priest repeats the decision of the Sanhedrin in a quiet and firm voice. In his opinion, Yeshua would have been released, “would have confused the people, outraged the faith and brought the people under the Roman swords.”

The noisy crowd in the square, gathered to listen to the decision of the Sanhedrin, resembles a crowd of Muscovites who came to a session of black magic.

Bulgakov was never overly optimistic about the moral progress of mankind, and this gave a certain skepticism to his novel: the writer testifies that over the two thousand years of his development in the bosom of Christianity (and the novel’s time), humanity has changed little. Two symmetrically located crowd scenes - in the ancient and modern parts of the novel - give this idea special clarity.

In the first part of the novel - in ancient Yershalaim - Yeshua is sentenced to “hanging on a stake”, a painful execution awaits, execution is torture, which, however, attracted many curious people, hungry for spectacles.

The 12th chapter, “Black Magic and Its Exposure,” is devoted to exposing the “Moscow population” and revealing its inner essence. It talks about a scandalous performance in Variety, which aroused no less interest than the execution of Yeshua. Modern humanity has the same thirst for spectacle and pleasure as two thousand years ago.

The modern and ancient worlds are also united by the motif of a thunderstorm, which completes both storylines. In the pages of Yershalaim, a thunderstorm broke out at the moment of Yeshua’s death, which corresponds to the Gospel of Matthew. The death of Yeshua and the strange cloud that came from the sea, from the west, are undoubtedly connected: Yeshua is being taken to the place of execution to the west, and at the moment of death he is facing east. In many mythological systems, including Christianity, the west - the side of sunset - was associated with death, and the east - the side of sunrise - was associated with life, in this case with the resurrection of Yeshua, although the resurrection itself is absent in the novel.

In the Moscow chapters, a thunderstorm broke out when the earthly life of the master and Margarita was completed, and it also came from the west: A black cloud rose in the West and cut off the sun by half... covered the huge city. Bridges and palaces disappeared. Everything disappeared, as if it had never happened in the world...”

The image of a strange cloud receives a symbolic interpretation in the Epilogue - a dream of Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, which says that such clouds happen during world catastrophes. The first catastrophe was death on the pillar of Yeshua two thousand years ago. He came to the world to proclaim truth and goodness, but no one understood his teachings. The second thunderstorm-catastrophe occurs in Moscow, when the master “guessed” the truth about the events in ancient Yershalaim, but his novel was not accepted.

Let us reveal the parallel of the images of Yeshua Ha - Nozri and the master. In Bulgakov, the image of Yeshua is not traditional in comparison with the Gospel Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was 33 years old, Bulgakov's hero is 27 years old and he does not remember his parents, and the mother and official father of Jesus are named in the Gospel. His Jewish origin can be traced back to Abraham, and Bulgakov’s Yeshua “seems to be Syrian” by blood. Jesus had twelve disciples. And Yeshua only has Matthew Levi. In Bulgakov's novel, Judas is an unfamiliar young man who betrays Yeshua without being his disciple. In the Gospel, Judas is one of Christ’s disciples. In the novel, Judas was killed by Afranius on the orders of Pontius Pilate, and in the Gospel, Judas hanged himself. After the death of Yeshua, his body is kidnapped and buried by Matthew Levi, and in the Gospel - Joseph of Arimathea, “a disciple of Christ, but secret out of fear from the Jews.” In Bulgakov, Yeshua’s sermon boils down to one phrase: “All people are good,” but Christian teaching does not boil down to this.

Yeshua in the novel is, first of all, a man who finds spiritual support in himself and in his truth.

The Master is a tragic hero, in many ways repeating the path of Yeshua; he also came into the world with his truth, but was not accepted by society.

But still, the master lacks the spiritual and moral strength that Yeshua showed during interrogation by Pilate and at his hour of death. The master abandons his novel, broken by failure, so he does not deserve light, but only peace. According to the description in the novel, this place corresponds to the first circle of hell - limbo, where pagans born in the pre-Christian era languish. Both heroes have antagonists. For the master it is Berlioz, and for Yeshua it is Joseph Kaifa. Each of the heroes has their own traitor, whose incentive is material gain. Judas from Kiriath receives 30 tetradrachms, and Aloisy Mogarych receives a master’s apartment in the basement on Arbat.

Both heroes: the master and Yeshua have one student each. Both students cannot be considered true successors of the work of their teachers, since Bezdomny did not write a continuation of his teacher’s novel, and Matthew Levi poorly mastered the teachings of Yeshua.

Let's consider another image that serves as a way to move mystical heroes into the real world - this is a mirror. The mirror motif is one of the key ones in the novel. With the help of a mirror, evil spirits penetrate into the real world from the “fifth dimension”. At the beginning of the novel, the Patriarch's Pond serves as a “mirror”. In the old days there was a Goat swamp here, but in the 17th century the ponds were cleared by order of Patriarch Filaret and received the name Patriarchal. With the help of a mirror, Woland and his retinue enter Styopa Likhodeev’s apartment: “Then Styopa turned away from the apparatus and in the mirror located in the hallway, which had not been wiped for a long time by the lazy Grunya, he clearly saw some strange subject - long, like a pole, and wearing pince-nez ( oh, if it were Ivan Nikolaevich! He would recognize this subject immediately). And it was reflected and immediately disappeared. Styopa, in alarm, looked deeper into the hallway, and was rocked a second time, because a huge black cat passed in the mirror and also disappeared.” And soon after that, “a small, but unusually broad-shouldered man, wearing a bowler hat on his head and with a fang sticking out of his mouth, came straight out of the mirror of the dressing table.”

The mirror appears in key episodes of the novel: while waiting for the evening, Margarita spends the whole day in front of the mirror; the death of the master and Margarita is accompanied by a broken mirror, a broken reflection of the sun in the glass of houses; the fire in the “bad apartment” and the destruction of Torgsin are also associated with broken mirrors: “The glass in the exit mirror doors rang and fell,” “the mirror on the fireplace cracked with stars.”

Let us note another plot parallel. The ritual of Woland's ball is opposed to the ritual of the Christian liturgy, in which the central event is the Eucharist - the communion of believers with wine and bread transformed into the blood and body of Christ. Turning the blood of the traitor and spy Meigel into wine thus becomes anti-Eucharist.

Thus, having analyzed the plot parallels and parallels between the characters of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita,” we come to the conclusion that the depiction of the three worlds influences the genre originality of the novel. The ancient world is depicted in a historical-epic genre orientation. Moscow scenes have a bright satirical tint. The philosophical principle is present in the depiction of the other world. Bulgakov managed to combine various genre forms into an organic whole and create an eternal novel about good and evil, conscience and repentance, forgiveness and mercy, love and creativity, truth and the meaning of life.
Works of M.A. Bulgakov (The Master and Margarita, The White Guard)

In this article we will look at the novel that Bulgakov created in 1940 - “The Master and Margarita”. A brief summary of this work will be brought to your attention. You will find a description of the main events of the novel, as well as an analysis of the work “The Master and Margarita” by Bulgakov.

Two storylines

There are two storylines in this work that develop independently. In the first of them, the action takes place in Moscow in May (several days of the full moon) in the 30s of the 20th century. In the second storyline, the action also takes place in May, but already in Jerusalem (Yershalaim) about 2000 years ago - at the beginning of a new era. The chapters of the first line echo the second.

The appearance of Woland

One day Woland appears in Moscow, introducing himself as a specialist in black magic, but in reality he is Satan. A strange retinue accompanies Woland: this is Gella, a vampire witch, Koroviev, a cheeky type, also known by the nickname Fagot, the sinister and gloomy Azazello and Behemoth, a cheerful fat man, appearing mainly in the form of a huge black cat.

Death of Berlioz

At the Patriarch's Ponds, the first to meet Woland are the editor of a magazine, Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, as well as Ivan Bezdomny, a poet who created an anti-religious work about Jesus Christ. This “foreigner” intervenes in their conversation, saying that Christ really existed. As proof that there is something beyond human understanding, he predicts that a Komsomol girl will cut off Berlioz's head. Mikhail Alexandrovich, in front of Ivan’s eyes, immediately falls under a tram driven by a Komsomol member, and his head is actually cut off. The homeless man tries unsuccessfully to pursue his new acquaintance, and then, having arrived in Massolit, he talks about what happened so confusingly that he is taken to a psychiatric clinic, where he meets the Master, the main character of the novel.

Likhodeev in Yalta

Arriving at the apartment on Sadovaya Street, occupied by the late Berliz together with Stepan Likhodeev, director of the Variety Theater, Woland, finding Likhodeev in a severe hangover, presented him with a signed contract to perform in the theater. After this, he escorts Stepan out of the apartment, and he strangely ends up in Yalta.

Incident in the house of Nikanor Ivanovich

Bulgakov's work "The Master and Margarita" continues with the fact that barefoot Nikanor Ivanovich, the chairman of the house's partnership, comes to the apartment occupied by Woland and finds Koroviev there, who asks to rent this premises to him, since Berlioz has died and Likhodeev is now in Yalta. After lengthy persuasion, Nikanor Ivanovich agrees and receives another 400 rubles in addition to the payment stipulated in the contract. He hides them in the ventilation. After this, they come to Nikanor Ivanovich to arrest him for possession of currency, since rubles have somehow turned into dollars, and he, in turn, ends up in the Stravinsky clinic.

At the same time, Rimsky, the financial director of Variety, as well as Varenukha, the administrator, are trying to find Likhodeev by phone and are perplexed when reading his telegrams from Yalta asking him to confirm his identity and send money, since he was abandoned here by the hypnotist Woland. Rimsky, deciding that he is joking, sends Varenukha to take the telegrams “to the right place,” but the administrator fails to do this: the cat Behemoth and Azazello, taking him by the arms, carry him to the above-mentioned apartment, and Varenukha faints from the kiss of the naked Gella.

Woland's presentation

What happens next in the novel that Bulgakov created (“The Master and Margarita”)? A summary of further events is as follows. Woland's performance begins on the Variety stage in the evening. The bassoon causes money to rain with a pistol shot, and the audience catches the falling money. Then a “ladies’ store” appears where you can dress for free. There is a line immediately forming into the store. But at the end of the performance, the chervonets turn into pieces of paper, and the clothes disappear without a trace, forcing women to rush through the streets in their underwear.

After the performance, Rimsky lingers in his office, and Varenukha, transformed into a vampire by the kiss of Gella, comes to him. Noticing that he does not cast a shadow, the director tries to run away, scared, but Gella comes to the rescue. She tries to open the latch on the window, and Varenukha, meanwhile, is standing guard at the door. Morning comes, and with the first crow of the rooster, the guests disappear. Rimsky, instantly turning gray, rushes to the station and leaves for Leningrad.

The Master's Tale

Ivan Bezdomny, having met the Master at the clinic, tells how he met the foreigner who killed Berlioz. The master says that he met with Satan and tells Ivan about himself. Beloved Margarita gave him this name. A historian by training, this man worked in a museum, but suddenly he won 100 thousand rubles - a huge amount. He rented two rooms located in the basement of a small house, left his job and began writing a novel about Pontius Pilate. The work was almost finished, but then he accidentally met Margarita on the street, and a feeling immediately flared up between them.

Margarita was married to a rich man, lived in a mansion on Arbat, but did not love her husband. She came to the Master every day. They were happy. When the novel was finally finished, the author took it to the magazine, but they refused to publish the work. Only an excerpt was published, and soon devastating articles appeared about it, written by critics Lavrovich, Latunsky and Ariman. Then the Master fell ill. One night he threw his creation into the oven, but Margarita snatched the last pack of sheets from the fire. She took the manuscript with her and went to her husband to say goodbye to him and in the morning to reunite with the Master forever, but a quarter of an hour after the girl left, there was a knock on the writer’s window. On a winter night, after returning home a few months later, he found that the rooms were already occupied, and went to this clinic, where he has been living for four months without a name.

Meeting of Margarita with Azazello

Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita continues with Margarita waking up with the feeling that something is about to happen. She sorts through the sheets of manuscript and then goes for a walk. Here Azazello sits down next to her and reports that some foreigner is inviting a girl to visit. She agrees, as she hopes to find out something about the Master. Margarita rubs her body with a special cream in the evening and becomes invisible, after which she flies out the window. She causes destruction in the home of the critic Latunsky. Then the girl is met by Azazelo and escorted to the apartment, where she meets Woland’s retinue and himself. Woland asks Margarita to become queen at his ball. As a reward, he promises to fulfill the girl's wish.

Margarita - queen at Woland's ball

How does Mikhail Bulgakov describe further events? "The Master and Margarita" is a very multi-layered novel, and the narrative continues with the full moon ball, which begins at midnight. Criminals are invited to attend, who come in tailcoats, and the women are naked. Margarita greets them, offering her knee and hand for a kiss. The ball is over, and Woland asks what she wants to receive as a reward. Margarita asks her lover, and he immediately appears in a hospital gown. The girl asks Satan to return them to the house where they were so happy.

Some Moscow institution, meanwhile, is interested in the strange events taking place in the city. It becomes clear that they are all the work of one gang, headed by a magician, and the traces lead to Woland’s apartment.

Pontius Pilate's decision

We continue to consider the work that Bulgakov created (“The Master and Margarita”). The summary of the novel consists of the following further events. Pontius Pilate in the palace of King Herod interrogates Yeshua Ha-Nozri, who was sentenced to death by the court for insulting the authority of Caesar. Pilate was obliged to approve it. Interrogating the accused, he realizes that he is dealing not with a robber, but with a wandering philosopher who preaches justice and truth. But Pontius cannot simply release a person who is accused of acts against Caesar, so he confirms the sentence. Then he turns to Caiaphas, the high priest, who, in honor of Easter, can release one of the four sentenced to death. Pilate asks to release Ha-Nozri. But he refuses him and releases Bar-Rabban. There are three crosses on Bald Mountain, and the condemned are crucified on them. After the execution, only the former tax collector, Levi Matvey, a disciple of Yeshua, remains there. The executioner stabs the condemned to death, and suddenly a downpour falls.

The procurator summons the head of the secret service, Afranius, and instructs him to kill Judas, who received a reward for allowing Ha-Nozri to be arrested in his house. Nisa, a young woman, meets him in the city and arranges a date, where unknown men stab Judas with a knife and take his money. Afranius tells Pilate that Judas was stabbed to death and the money was planted in the high priest's house.

Levi Matthew is brought before Pilate. He shows him recordings of Yeshua's sermons. The procurator reads in them that the most serious sin is cowardice.

Woland and his retinue leave Moscow

We continue to describe the events of the work “The Master and Margarita” (Bulgakov). We return to Moscow. Woland and his retinue say goodbye to the city. Then Levi Matvey appears with an offer to take the Master to him. Woland asks why he is not accepted into the world. Levi replies that the Master did not deserve light, only peace. After some time, Azazello comes to the lovers’ house and brings wine - a gift from Satan. After drinking it, the heroes fall unconscious. At the same moment, there is turmoil in the clinic - the patient has died, and on the Arbat, in a mansion, a young woman suddenly falls to the floor.

The novel that Bulgakov created (“The Master and Margarita”) is coming to an end. Black horses carry away Woland and his retinue, and with them the main characters. Woland tells the writer that the character in his novel has been sitting on this site for 2000 years, seeing the lunar road in a dream and wanting to walk along it. The master shouts: “Free!” And the city with the garden lights up over the abyss, and a lunar road leads to it, along which the procurator runs.

A wonderful work was created by Mikhail Bulgakov. "The Master and Margarita" ends as follows. In Moscow, the investigation into the case of one gang continues for a long time, but there are no results. Psychiatrists conclude that the gang members are powerful hypnotists. After a few years, the events are forgotten, and only the poet Bezdomny, now professor Ponyrev Ivan Nikolaevich, every year on the full moon sits on the bench where he met Woland, and then, returning home, sees the same dream in which the Master and Margarita appear to him , Yeshua and Pontius Pilate.

Meaning of the work

The work “The Master and Margarita” by Bulgakov amazes readers even today, since even now it is impossible to find an analogue of a novel of this level of skill. Modern writers fail to note the reason for such popularity of the work, to highlight its fundamental, main motive. This novel is often called unprecedented for all world literature.

The main idea of ​​the author

So, we looked at the novel and its summary. Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" also needs analysis. What is the author's main intention? The narrative takes place in two eras: the life of Jesus Christ and the author’s contemporary period of the Soviet Union. Bulgakov paradoxically combines these very different eras and draws deep parallels between them.

The master, the main character, himself creates a novel about Yeshua, Judas, Pontius Pilate. Mikhail Afanasyevich unfolds a phantasmagoria throughout the work. The events of the present turn out to be connected in a surprising way with what has changed humanity forever. It is difficult to single out a specific topic to which M. Bulgakov devoted his work. "The Master and Margarita" touches on many eternal, sacramental issues for art. This, of course, is the theme of love, tragic and unconditional, the meaning of life, truth and justice, unawareness and madness. It cannot be said that the author directly reveals these issues; he only creates a symbolic holistic system, which is quite difficult to interpret.

The main characters are so non-standard that only their images can be the reason for a detailed analysis of the concept of the work that M. Bulgakov created. "The Master and Margarita" is imbued with ideological and philosophical themes. This gives rise to the multifaceted semantic content of the novel that Bulgakov wrote. “The Master and Margarita”, as you see, touches on very large-scale and significant problems.

Out of time

The main idea can be interpreted in different ways. The Master and Ga-Nozri are two unique messiahs whose activities take place in different eras. But the Master’s life story is not so simple; his divine, bright art is also connected with dark forces, because Margarita turns to Woland to help the Master.

The novel that this hero creates is a sacred and amazing story, but the writers of the Soviet era refuse to publish it because they do not want to recognize it as worthy. Woland helps the lovers restore justice and returns to the author the work he had previously burned.

Thanks to mythological techniques and a fantastic plot, Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" shows eternal human values. Therefore, this novel is a story outside of culture and era.

Cinema showed great interest in the creation that Bulgakov created. “The Master and Margarita” is a film that exists in several versions: 1971, 1972, 2005. In 2005, a popular mini-series of 10 episodes directed by Vladimir Bortko was released.

This concludes the analysis of the work that Bulgakov created (“The Master and Margarita”). Our essay does not reveal all the topics in detail, we just tried to succinctly highlight them. This plan can serve as the basis for writing your own essay on this novel.