Moscow 1984

The text is printed in the last lifetime edition (manuscripts are stored in the manuscript department of the State Library of the USSR named after V. I. Lenin), as well as with corrections and additions made under the dictation of the writer by his wife, E. S. Bulgakova.

PART ONE

...So who are you, finally?
I am part of that power
what you always want
evil and always doing good.

Goethe. "Faust"

Chapter 1
Never talk to strangers

One day in the spring, at the hour of an unprecedentedly hot sunset, two citizens appeared in Moscow, at the Patriarch's Ponds. The first of them, dressed in a summer gray pair, was small, well-fed, bald, carried his decent hat with a pie in his hand, and on his well-shaven face were glasses of supernatural size in black horn-rimmed. The other, a broad-shouldered, reddish, shaggy young man with a checkered cap folded at the back of his head, was wearing a cowboy shirt, chewed white trousers, and black slippers.

The first was none other than Mikhail Aleksandrovich Berlioz, chairman of the board of one of the largest Moscow literary associations, abbreviated as MASSOLIT, and editor of a thick art magazine, and his young companion, the poet Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, writing under the pseudonym Bezdomny.

Once in the shade of slightly green lindens, the writers first rushed to the colorfully painted booth with the inscription "Beer and water."

Yes, the first strangeness of this terrible May evening should be noted. Not only at the booth, but in the entire alley parallel to Malaya Bronnaya Street, there was not a single person. At that hour, when, it seemed, there was no strength to breathe, when the sun, having heated Moscow, was falling in a dry fog somewhere beyond the Garden Ring, no one came under the lindens, no one sat on the bench, the alley was empty.

"Give me the narzan," Berlioz asked.

“Narzan is gone,” the woman in the booth answered, and for some reason took offense.

“The beer will be delivered by evening,” the woman replied.

– What is there? Berlioz asked.

“Apricot, but warm,” the woman said.

- Come on, come on, come on, come on!

The apricot gave a rich yellow foam, and the air smelled of a barbershop. Having drunk, the writers immediately began to hiccup, paid off and sat down on a bench facing the pond and with their backs to Bronnaya.

Here a second oddity happened, concerning Berlioz alone. He suddenly stopped hiccuping, his heart thumped and fell somewhere for a moment, then returned, but with a blunt needle stuck in it. In addition, Berlioz was seized by an unreasonable, but such a strong fear that he wanted to immediately run away from the Patriarchs without looking back. Berlioz looked around sadly, not understanding what had frightened him. He turned pale, wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, thought: “What is the matter with me? This has never happened... my heart is beating... I'm overtired. Perhaps it's time to throw everything to hell and to Kislovodsk ... "

And then the sultry air thickened in front of him, and a transparent citizen of a most strange appearance was woven from this air. On a small head is a jockey cap, a checkered, short, airy jacket ... A citizen is a sazhen tall, but narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and his physiognomy, please note, is mocking.

Berlioz's life developed in such a way that he was not accustomed to unusual phenomena. Even more pale, he goggled his eyes and thought in dismay: “This cannot be! ..”

But, alas, it was, and a long, through which one can see, a citizen, without touching the ground, swayed in front of him both to the left and to the right.

Here terror seized Berlioz to such an extent that he closed his eyes. And when he opened them, he saw that everything was over, the haze dissolved, the checkered one disappeared, and at the same time a blunt needle jumped out of the heart.

- Damn you! - the editor exclaimed, - you know, Ivan, I just now almost had a stroke from the heat! There was even something like a hallucination,” he tried to grin, but anxiety still jumped in his eyes, and his hands were trembling.

However, he gradually calmed down, fanned himself with a handkerchief and, saying rather cheerfully: “Well, so ...” - he began his speech, interrupted by drinking apricot.

This speech, as they later learned, was about Jesus Christ. The fact is that the editor ordered the poet for the next book of the magazine a large anti-religious poem. Ivan Nikolaevich composed this poem, and in a very short time, but, unfortunately, the editor was not at all satisfied with it. Bezdomny outlined the main character of his poem, that is, Jesus, with very black colors, and yet, according to the editor, the whole poem had to be written anew. And now the editor was giving the poet a kind of lecture about Jesus, in order to emphasize the poet's basic mistake. It is difficult to say what exactly let Ivan Nikolaevich down - whether the pictorial power of his talent or complete ignorance of the issue on which he was going to write - but Jesus in his image turned out to be well, just like a living, although not attracting character. Berlioz wanted to prove to the poet that the main thing was not what Jesus was like, whether he was good or bad, but that this Jesus, as a person, did not exist at all in the world and that all the stories about him were mere inventions, the most common myth.

It should be noted that the editor was a well-read man and very skillfully pointed in his speech to ancient historians, for example, the famous Philo of Alexandria, the brilliantly educated Josephus Flavius, who never mentioned the existence of Jesus in a word. Displaying solid erudition, Mikhail Alexandrovich informed the poet, among other things, that that place in the 15th book, in chapter 44 of the famous Tacitus Annals, which speaks of the execution of Jesus, is nothing more than a later fake insert.

Vladimir Bortko's feature series "The Master and Margarita" was awarded the Special Prize of the FIPA International Festival, which took place in January 2007 in Biarritz (France).

The fate of the most famous novel by Mikhail Bulgakov was not easy, but it was an unconditional success with readers and covered the name of the writer with immortal glory. The text is literally torn apart into quotes, several theatrical productions have been created on the basis of the novel, including at the Taganka Theater, and only the film version has so far been pursued by evil fate.

"Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no true, true, eternal love in the world? Let them cut off the liar's vile tongue! Follow me, my reader, and only me, and I will show you such love!"

"... The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city hated by the procurator. The suspension bridges connecting the temple with the terrible Anthony Tower disappeared, the abyss descended from the sky and flooded the winged gods over the hippodrome, the Hasmonean palace with loopholes, bazaars, caravanserais, lanes , ponds ... Yershalaim disappeared - the great city, as if it did not exist in the world ... "

Oleg Basilashvili invited to play Woland, does not consider his hero an evil spirit. According to a film and stage veteran, in Bulgakov's novel Satan, rather, "a high-ranking official of a certain "department from there", who flew to Earth to see what is happening in a country that has abandoned God."

“Flying on the side of everyone, shining with the steel of armor, Azazello. The moon also changed his face. The ridiculous ugly fang disappeared without a trace, and the squint turned out to be false. Both eyes of Azazello were the same, empty and black, and his face was white and cold. Now Azazello flew in his present like a demon of the waterless desert, a slayer demon."

Actor Alexander Filippenko who plays the role Azazello, I am sure that this image is quite consistent with his role. He believes that after he played Koshchei the Immortal and Death, the role of Azazello turned out to be very suitable. And the very decision of the image was born in disputes with the director. The actor sincerely considers the film adaptation of the novel a great project. He admitted that it was both an honor and a responsibility to participate in it. Although, personally, as actors of the older generation, it was difficult for him to work when he had to use new filming technologies. With particular dislike, the actor recalls the scenes filmed for subsequent computer processing.

“Gods, my gods! .. What did this woman need, in whose eyes some incomprehensible light always burned, what did this witch, slightly squinting in one eye, decorate herself with mimosas in the spring? I don’t know. I don’t know. Obviously , she spoke the truth, she needed him, the master, in not a Gothic mansion at all, and not a separate garden, and not money. She loved him, she spoke the truth. "

Anna Kovalchuk work on the image was not easy. For example, for filming the ball scene, she was dressed in a corset weighing 16 kg (in which she could only lie or stand), an iron crown and metal shoes that mercilessly rubbed her legs, leaving unhealed abrasions. And at the same time, the actress complained, she also had to fly upside down. But now, seeing the finished result, Anna feels real pleasure, recognizing that the role margaritas- the highest good in her acting career.

"In the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, in a white cloak with a bloody lining, with a shuffling cavalry gait, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, came out into the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great. More than anything in the world, the procurator hated the smell of rose oil, and everything now foreshadowed a bad day , since this smell began to haunt the procurator from dawn ... "

Despite the fact that the plot of the book has not undergone any changes and the creators of the telenovela have treated the text of the original source very carefully, the audience is still in for a surprise. Some actors played two roles, and this is a completely conscious move by the director, who emphasized the relationship of seemingly different characters.

Dmitry Nagiev played not only Judas, but also Baron Meigel, whose blood is in the cup from the skull of the long-suffering Berlioz they bring Margarita at the ball with the words that where this blood was shed, vines have long grown. Both Judas and Meigel are traitors, and this is the common feature that allowed the director to unite them by choosing one actor for two roles.

Valentin Gaft got used not only to the image Kaifa. He became and Man in French. The latter is a kind of collective image, the replicas of which are scattered throughout the novel and together create a completely integral impression of an abstract functionary of the Soviet era. Both Kaifa and the Man in a Jacket allegedly defend the state, the existing ideology.

According to the director general of the TV channel "Russia" Anton Zlatopolsky, the budget of the television series amounted to more than 5 million dollars.

Vladimir Bortko was awarded the "TEFI-2006" award in the nomination "Director of a television feature film/series" ("The Master and Margarita").

Director and screenwriter: Vladimir Bortko
Producer: Valery Todorovsky
Artist: Vladimir Svetozarov
Operator: Valery Mulhaut
Composer: Igor Kornelyuk
Cast: Alexander Galibin, Anna Kovalchuk, Oleg Basilashvili, Alexander Abdulov, Alexander Bashirov, Alexander Filippenko, Sergey Bezrukov, Kirill Lavrov, Valentin Gaft, Vladislav Galkin, Alexander Adabashyan, Alexander Pankratov-Cherny, Valery Zolotukhin, Roman Kartsev, Ilya Oleinikov, Nina Usatova, Dmitry Nagiev, Lev Borisov, Vadim Lobanov, Vasily Livanov, Ksenia Nazarova, Irina Rakshina, Semyon Furman, Tatyana Tkach, Lev Durov, Galina Bokashevskaya, Yulia Aug

Frame from the film "The Master and Margarita" (2005)

In the work - two storylines, each of which develops independently. The action of the first takes place in Moscow during several May days (days of the spring full moon) in the 30s. XX century, the action of the second also takes place in May, but in the city of Yershalaim (Jerusalem) almost two thousand years ago - at the very beginning of a new era. The novel is structured in such a way that the chapters of the main storyline are interspersed with chapters that make up the second storyline, and these inserted chapters are either chapters from the master’s novel, or an eyewitness account of Woland’s events.

On one of the hot days in May, a certain Woland appears in Moscow, posing as a specialist in black magic, but in fact he is Satan. He is accompanied by a strange retinue: the pretty vampire witch Gella, the cheeky type of Koroviev, also known as Fagot, the gloomy and sinister Azazello and the cheerful fat Behemoth, who for the most part appears before the reader in the guise of a black cat of incredible size.

The first to meet Woland at Patriarch's Ponds is the editor of a thick art magazine, Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, and the poet Ivan Bezdomny, who wrote an anti-religious poem about Jesus Christ. Woland intervenes in their conversation, arguing that Christ really existed. As proof that there is something beyond human control, Woland predicts that Berlioz will be beheaded by a Russian Komsomol girl. In front of the shocked Ivan, Berlioz immediately falls under a tram driven by a Komsomol girl, and cuts off his head. Ivan unsuccessfully tries to pursue Woland, and then, having appeared in Massolit (Moscow Literary Association), he recounts the sequence of events so intricately that he is taken to Professor Stravinsky's suburban psychiatric clinic, where he meets the protagonist of the novel, the master.

Woland, having appeared in apartment No. 50 of building 302-bis on Sadovaya Street, which the late Berlioz occupied with the director of the Variety Theater Stepan Likhodeev, and finding the latter in a state of severe hangover, presents him with a contract signed by him, Likhodeev, for Woland's performance in the theater, and then escorts him out of the apartment, and Styopa inexplicably ends up in Yalta.

Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, chairman of the housing association of house No. 302-bis, comes to apartment No. 50 and finds Koroviev there, who asks to rent this apartment to Woland, since Berlioz died, and Likhodeev is in Yalta. Nikanor Ivanovich, after much persuasion, agrees and receives from Koroviev, in addition to the payment stipulated by the contract, 400 rubles, which he hides in the ventilation. On the same day, they come to Nikanor Ivanovich with an arrest warrant for possession of currency, since these rubles have turned into dollars. The stunned Nikanor Ivanovich ends up in the same clinic of Professor Stravinsky.

At this time, the financial director of the Variety Rimsky and the administrator Varenukha unsuccessfully try to find the disappeared Likhodeev by phone and are perplexed, receiving telegrams from Yalta one after another with a request to send money and confirm his identity, since he was abandoned in Yalta by the hypnotist Woland. Deciding that this is Likhodeev's stupid joke, Rimsky, having collected telegrams, sends Varenukh to take them "where necessary", but Varenukha fails to do this: Azazello and the cat Behemoth, grabbing him by the arms, deliver Varenukh to apartment No. 50, and from a kiss naked witch Gella Varenukha faints.

In the evening, a performance begins on the stage of the Variety Theater with the participation of the great magician Woland and his retinue. A bassoon with a shot from a pistol causes a rain of money in the theater, and the whole hall catches the falling gold coins. Then a “ladies' shop” opens on the stage, where any woman from among those sitting in the hall can dress from head to toe for free. Immediately, a queue forms in the store, but at the end of the performance, the gold pieces turn into pieces of paper, and everything purchased in the "ladies' store" disappears without a trace, forcing gullible women to rush through the streets in their underwear.

After the performance, Rimsky lingers in his office, and Varenukh, turned by the kiss of Gella into a vampire, appears to him. Seeing that he does not cast a shadow, Rimsky is mortally frightened and tries to escape, but the vampire Gella comes to the aid of Varenukha. With a hand covered with cadaveric stains, she tries to open the window bolt, and Varenukha is on guard at the door. Meanwhile, morning comes, the first cock crow is heard, and the vampires disappear. Without wasting a minute, instantly gray-haired Rimsky rushes to the station in a taxi and leaves for Leningrad by courier train.

Meanwhile, Ivan Bezdomny, having met the Master, tells him about how he met with a strange foreigner who killed Misha Berlioz. The master explains to Ivan that he met with Satan at the Patriarchs, and tells Ivan about himself. His beloved Margarita called him a master. Being a historian by education, he worked in one of the museums, when he suddenly won a huge sum - one hundred thousand rubles. He left his job at the museum, rented two rooms in the basement of a small house in one of the Arbat lanes and began to write a novel about Pontius Pilate. The novel was already almost finished when he accidentally met Margarita on the street, and love struck them both instantly. Margarita was married to a worthy man, lived with him in a mansion on the Arbat, but did not love him. Every day she came to the master. The romance was nearing its end, and they were happy. Finally, the novel was completed, and the master took it to the magazine, but they refused to print it there. Nevertheless, an excerpt from the novel was published, and soon several devastating articles about the novel appeared in the newspapers, signed by critics Ariman, Latunsky and Lavrovich. And then the master felt that he was ill. One night he threw the novel into the oven, but the alarmed Margarita ran up and snatched the last stack of sheets from the fire. She left, taking the manuscript with her in order to worthily say goodbye to her husband and return to her beloved forever in the morning, but a quarter of an hour after she left, they knocked on his window - telling Ivan his story, at this point the Master lowers his voice to a whisper, - and now a few months later, on a winter night, having come to his home, he found his rooms occupied and went to a new country clinic, where he has been living for the fourth month, without a name and surname, just a patient from room No. 118.

This morning Margarita wakes up with the feeling that something is about to happen. Wiping her tears, she sorts through the sheets of the burnt manuscript, looks at the photograph of the master, and then goes for a walk in the Alexander Garden. Here Azazello sits next to her and informs her that a certain noble foreigner invites her to visit. Margarita accepts the invitation because she hopes to learn at least something about the Master. In the evening of the same day, Margarita, having stripped naked, rubs her body with the cream that Azazello gave her, becomes invisible and flies out the window. Flying past the writers' house, Margarita arranges a rout in the apartment of the critic Latunsky, who, in her opinion, killed the master. Then Margarita meets Azazello and brings her to apartment number 50, where she meets Woland and the rest of his retinue. Woland asks Margarita to be the queen at his ball. As a reward, he promises to grant her wish.

At midnight, the full moon spring ball begins - the great ball of Satan, to which scammers, executioners, molesters, murderers - criminals of all times and peoples are invited; men are in tailcoats, women are naked. For several hours, naked Margarita greets guests, offering her hand and knee for a kiss. Finally, the ball is over, and Woland asks Margarita what she wants as a reward for being the hostess of the ball. And Margarita asks to immediately return the master to her. Immediately the master appears in a hospital gown, and Margarita, after conferring with him, asks Woland to return them to a small house on the Arbat, where they were happy.

Meanwhile, one Moscow institution begins to take an interest in the strange events taking place in the city, and they all line up in a logically clear whole: the mysterious foreigner Ivan Bezdomny, and the black magic session in the Variety, and the dollars of Nikanor Ivanovich, and the disappearance of Rimsky and Likhodeev. It becomes clear that all this is the work of the same gang, led by a mysterious magician, and all traces of this gang lead to apartment number 50.

Let us now turn to the second storyline of the novel. In the palace of Herod the Great, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, interrogates the arrested Yeshua Ha-Nozri, who was sentenced to death by the Sanhedrin for insulting the authority of Caesar, and this sentence is sent to Pilate for approval. Interrogating the arrested man, Pilate realizes that before him is not a robber who incited the people to disobedience, but a wandering philosopher who preaches the kingdom of truth and justice. However, the Roman procurator cannot release the man who is accused of a crime against Caesar, and approves the death sentence. Then he turns to the Jewish high priest Kaifa, who, in honor of the upcoming Easter holiday, can release one of the four criminals sentenced to death; Pilate asks that it be Ha-Nozri. However, Kaifa refuses him and releases the robber Bar-Rabban. On the top of Bald Mountain there are three crosses on which the condemned are crucified. After the crowd of onlookers who accompanied the procession to the place of execution returned to the city, only Yeshua's disciple Levi Matvey, a former tax collector, remains on Bald Mountain. The executioner stabs the exhausted convicts, and a sudden downpour falls on the mountain.

The procurator summons Aphranius, the head of his secret service, and instructs him to kill Judas from Kiriath, who received money from the Sanhedrin for allowing Yeshua Ha-Nozri to be arrested in his house. Soon, a young woman named Niza allegedly accidentally meets Judas in the city and appoints him a date outside the city in the Garden of Gethsemane, where unknown people attack him, stab him with a knife and take away a purse of money. After some time, Aphranius reports to Pilate that Judas was stabbed to death, and a bag of money - thirty tetradrachms - was thrown into the high priest's house.

Levi Matthew is brought to Pilate, who shows the procurator a parchment with the sermons of Ha-Nozri recorded by him. “The gravest vice is cowardice,” reads the procurator.

But back to Moscow. At sunset, on the terrace of one of the Moscow buildings, they say goodbye to the city of Woland and his retinue. Suddenly, Matvey Levi appears, who offers Woland to take the master to himself and reward him with peace. “But why don’t you take him to yourself, into the world?” Woland asks. “He did not deserve the light, he deserved peace,” Levi Matvey answers. After some time, Azazello appears in the house to Margarita and the master and brings a bottle of wine - Woland's gift. After drinking wine, the master and Margarita fall unconscious; at the same moment, turmoil begins in the house of sorrow: the patient from room No. 118 has died; and at the same moment, in a mansion on the Arbat, a young woman suddenly turns pale, clutching her heart, and falls to the floor.

Magic black horses carry away Woland, his retinue, Margarita and the Master. “Your novel has been read,” Woland says to the Master, “and I would like to show you your hero. For about two thousand years he has been sitting on this site and dreaming of a lunar road and wants to walk along it and talk with a wandering philosopher. You can now end the novel with one sentence. "Free! He is waiting for you!" - the master shouts, and over the black abyss, an immense city with a garden lights up, to which the lunar road stretches, and the procurator runs swiftly along this road.

"Farewell!" - shouts Woland; Margarita and the master walk across the bridge over the stream, and Margarita says: “Here is your eternal home, in the evening those you love will come to you, and at night I will take care of your sleep.”

And in Moscow, after Woland left her, the investigation into the case of a criminal gang continues for a long time, but the measures taken to capture her do not give results. Experienced psychiatrists come to the conclusion that the members of the gang were hypnotists of unprecedented power. Several years pass, the events of those May days begin to be forgotten, and only Professor Ivan Nikolayevich Ponyrev, the former poet Bezdomny, every year, as soon as the spring festive full moon arrives, appears at the Patriarch's Ponds and sits down on the same bench where he first met Woland, and then, having walked along the Arbat, he returns home and sees the same dream in which Margarita, and the master, and Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and the cruel fifth procurator of Judea, horseman Pontius Pilate, come to him.

retold

The novel "The Master and Margarita" is a work that reflects philosophical, and therefore eternal themes. Love and betrayal, good and evil, truth and lies, amaze with their duality, reflecting the inconsistency and, at the same time, the fullness of human nature. Mystification and romanticism, framed in the writer's elegant language, captivate with a depth of thought that requires repeated reading.

Tragically and ruthlessly, a difficult period of Russian history appears in the novel, unfolding in such a homespun side that the devil himself visits the halls of the capital in order to once again become a prisoner of the Faustian thesis about a force that always wants evil, but does good.

History of creation

In the first edition of 1928 (according to some sources, 1929), the novel was flatter, and it was not difficult to single out specific topics, but after almost a decade and as a result of difficult work, Bulgakov came to a complexly structured, fantastic, but because of this no less life story.

Along with this, being a man overcoming difficulties hand in hand with his beloved woman, the writer managed to find a place for the nature of feelings more subtle than vanity. Fireflies of hope leading the main characters through diabolical trials. So the novel in 1937 was given the final title: The Master and Margarita. And that was the third edition.

But the work continued almost until the death of Mikhail Afanasyevich, he made the last revision on February 13, 1940, and died on March 10 of the same year. The novel is considered unfinished, as evidenced by numerous notes in the drafts kept by the writer's third wife. It was thanks to her that the world saw the work, albeit in an abridged magazine version, in 1966.

The author's attempts to bring the novel to its logical conclusion testify to how important it was to him. Bulgakov burned out the last of his strength into the idea of ​​​​creating a wonderful and tragic phantasmagoria. It clearly and harmoniously reflected his own life in a narrow room, like a stocking, where he fought the disease and came to realize the true values ​​​​of human existence.

Analysis of the work

Description of the artwork

(Berlioz, Ivan the homeless and Woland between them)

The action begins with a description of the meeting of two Moscow writers with the devil. Of course, neither Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz nor Ivan the homeless even suspect who they are talking to on a May day at the Patriarch's Ponds. In the future, Berlioz dies according to Woland's prophecy, and Messire himself occupies his apartment in order to continue his practical jokes and hoaxes.

Ivan the homeless, in turn, becomes a patient in a psychiatric hospital, unable to cope with the impressions of meeting with Woland and his retinue. In the house of sorrow, the poet meets the Master, who wrote a novel about the procurator of Judea, Pilate. Ivan learns that the metropolitan world of critics is cruel to objectionable writers and begins to understand a lot about literature.

Margarita, a childless woman of thirty, the wife of a prominent specialist, yearns for the disappeared Master. Ignorance brings her to despair, in which she admits to herself that she is ready to give her soul to the devil, just to find out about the fate of her beloved. One of the members of Woland's retinue, the waterless desert demon Azazello, delivers a miraculous cream to Margarita, thanks to which the heroine turns into a witch in order to play the role of a queen at Satan's ball. Having overcome some torment with dignity, the woman receives the fulfillment of her desire - a meeting with the Master. Woland returns to the writer the manuscript burned during the persecution, proclaiming a deeply philosophical thesis that "manuscripts do not burn."

In parallel, a storyline develops about Pilate, a novel written by the Master. The story tells of the arrested wandering philosopher Yeshua Ha-Nozri, who was betrayed by Judas of Kiriath, handing over to the authorities. The procurator of Judea administers judgment within the walls of the palace of Herod the Great and is forced to execute a man whose ideas, disdainful of the power of Caesar, and power in general, seem to him interesting and worthy of discussion, if not fair. Having coped with his duty, Pilate orders Aphranius, the head of the secret service, to kill Judas.

The plot lines are combined in the last chapters of the novel. One of Yeshua's disciples, Levi Matthew, visits Woland with a petition to grant peace to those in love. That same night, Satan and his retinue leave the capital, and the devil gives the Master and Margarita eternal shelter.

Main characters

Let's start with the dark forces appearing in the first chapters.

Woland's character is somewhat different from the canonical embodiment of evil in its purest form, although in the first edition he was assigned the role of a tempter. In the process of processing material on satanic topics, Bulgakov molded the image of a player with unlimited power to decide fate, endowed, at the same time, with omniscience, skepticism and a bit of playful curiosity. The author deprived the hero of any props, such as hooves or horns, and also removed most of the description of the appearance that took place in the second edition.

Moscow serves Woland as a stage on which, by the way, he does not leave any fatal destruction. Woland is called by Bulgakov as a higher power, a measure of human actions. He is a mirror that reflects the essence of other characters and society, mired in denunciations, deceit, greed and hypocrisy. And, like any mirror, messire gives people who think and tend to justice the opportunity to change for the better.

An image with an elusive portrait. Outwardly, the features of Faust, Gogol and Bulgakov himself intertwined in him, since the mental pain caused by harsh criticism and non-recognition caused the writer a lot of problems. The master is conceived by the author as a character whom the reader rather feels as if he is dealing with a close, dear person, and does not see him as an outsider through the prism of a deceptive appearance.

The master remembers little about life before meeting his love - Margarita, as if he did not really live. The biography of the hero bears a clear imprint of the events of the life of Mikhail Afanasyevich. Only the ending the writer came up with for the hero is lighter than he himself experienced.

A collective image that embodies the female courage to love in spite of circumstances. Margarita is attractive, brash and desperate in her quest to reunite with the Master. Without her, nothing would have happened, because through her prayers, so to speak, a meeting with Satan took place, her determination led to a great ball, and only thanks to her uncompromising dignity did the two main tragic heroes meet.
If you look back at Bulgakov’s life again, it’s easy to note that without Elena Sergeevna, the writer’s third wife, who worked on his manuscripts for twenty years and followed him during his lifetime, like a faithful, but expressive shadow, ready to put enemies and ill-wishers out of the light, it wouldn’t have happened either. publication of the novel.

Woland's retinue

(Woland and his retinue)

The retinue includes Azazello, Koroviev-Fagot, Behemoth Cat and Hella. The latter is a female vampire and occupies the lowest rung in the demonic hierarchy, a minor character.
The first is the prototype of the demon of the desert, he plays the role of Woland's right hand. So Azazello ruthlessly kills Baron Meigel. In addition to the ability to kill, Azazello skillfully seduces Margarita. In some way, this character was introduced by Bulgakov in order to remove characteristic behavioral habits from the image of Satan. In the first edition, the author wanted to name Woland Azazel, but changed his mind.

(Bad apartment)

Koroviev-Fagot is also a demon, and an older one, but a buffoon and a clown. His task is to confuse and mislead the venerable public. The character helps the author provide the novel with a satirical component, ridiculing the vices of society, crawling into such cracks where the seducer Azazello will not get. At the same time, in the finale, he turns out to be not at all a joker in essence, but a knight punished for an unsuccessful pun.

The cat Behemoth is the best of jesters, a werewolf, a demon prone to gluttony, every now and then making a stir in the life of Muscovites with his comical adventures. The prototypes were definitely cats, both mythological and quite real. For example, Flyushka, who lived in the Bulgakovs' house. The writer's love for the animal, on behalf of which he sometimes wrote notes to his second wife, migrated to the pages of the novel. The werewolf reflects the tendency of the intelligentsia to transform, as the writer himself did, receiving a fee and spending it on buying delicacies in the Torgsin store.

"The Master and Margarita" is a unique literary creation that has become a weapon in the hands of the writer. With his help, Bulgakov dealt with the hated social vices, including those to which he himself was subject. He was able to express his experience through the phrases of the characters, which became a household name. In particular, the statement about manuscripts goes back to the Latin proverb "Verba volant, scripta manent" - "words fly away, what is written remains." After all, burning the manuscript of the novel, Mikhail Afanasyevich could not forget what he had previously created and returned to work on the work.

The idea of ​​a novel in a novel allows the author to lead two large storylines, gradually bringing them together in the timeline until they intersect "beyond", where fiction and reality are already indistinguishable. Which, in turn, raises the philosophical question of the significance of human thoughts, against the background of the emptiness of words that fly away with the noise of bird wings during the game of Behemoth and Woland.

Roman Bulgakov is destined to go through time, like the heroes themselves, in order to again and again touch on important aspects of human social life, religion, issues of moral and ethical choice and the eternal struggle between good and evil.

It happened on one unremarkable day, in May 1935, in the capital at Patriarch's Ponds. A tragic incident happened here. Two very unattractive characters - the poet Ivan Bezdomny and the editor Mikhail Berlioz - were having a conversation. They were approached by a stranger who introduced himself as a professor of black magic. The interlocutors did not believe in his stories, and paid dearly for it. Berlioz died when he was hit by a tram, and the poet lost his mind and ended up in a psychiatric clinic for treatment. Master was his roommate. He told him an incredible story about how he worked on a book about Pontius Pilate, how he met the beautiful Margaret, who was married, how he burned the manuscript of his novel and left home. The master said that Professor Woland was not even a man, but the very fiend of hell. Meanwhile, Woland and his henchmen were doing their dark deeds in the capital. It all started with a magical session at the Variety Theatre. Margarita was also drawn into this terrible and at the same time charming story. In an attempt to find and return her lover, she agreed to Azazello's proposal and became a witch. The heroes have an adventure into the dark worlds from which they may never return. Watch The Master and Margarita season 1 online with voice acting in Russian. Added all the series in a row, for free and in good quality HD 720p and 1080p.