The Master and Margarita
For the next few months, our Liberal Arts Reading Group will be discussing Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita. Here is an excerpt from a review written in Literariness.org:
The Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) wrote The Master and Margarita (Master i Margarita) between 1928 and early 1940 in a time when the official ideology of the Soviet state was based on militant atheism and obligatory historical optimism. In stark opposition to the Bolshevik’s cultural norms, the novel depicts the devil as the main character and revolves around the grand themes of Christianity.
A “drawer masterpiece,” The Master and Margarita was first published long after the author’s death, between 1966 and 1967, yet in a highly censored form (12 percent of the text was cut by Soviet censors for references to the secret police, nudity, and coarse language). In 1967 a complete version was published in France by the YMCA Press and, soon after that, publication came in Germany by Possev. The uncensored edition was finally published in Moscow in 1973; since then it has been assimilated by the mainstream Soviet and post-Soviet literature and its appreciation has continuously grown. Both its form and themes define The Master and Margarita as a unique masterpiece not only in the Russian literary landscape but also in any Western world tradition (Salman Rushdie, among others, claims its influence upon The Satanic Verses). The (mis)alliances between the fantastic and realism, myth with accurate historical fact, theosophy with demonism, romanticism with burlesque proclaim the work’s individuality and position it among the most acclaimed novels of the 20th century.
The Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) wrote The Master and Margarita (Master i Margarita) between 1928 and early 1940 in a time when the official ideology of the Soviet state was based on militant atheism and obligatory historical optimism. In stark opposition to the Bolshevik’s cultural norms, the novel depicts the devil as the main character and revolves around the grand themes of Christianity.
A “drawer masterpiece,” The Master and Margarita was first published long after the author’s death, between 1966 and 1967, yet in a highly censored form (12 percent of the text was cut by Soviet censors for references to the secret police, nudity, and coarse language). In 1967 a complete version was published in France by the YMCA Press and, soon after that, publication came in Germany by Possev. The uncensored edition was finally published in Moscow in 1973; since then it has been assimilated by the mainstream Soviet and post-Soviet literature and its appreciation has continuously grown. Both its form and themes define The Master and Margarita as a unique masterpiece not only in the Russian literary landscape but also in any Western world tradition (Salman Rushdie, among others, claims its influence upon The Satanic Verses). The (mis)alliances between the fantastic and realism, myth with accurate historical fact, theosophy with demonism, romanticism with burlesque proclaim the work’s individuality and position it among the most acclaimed novels of the 20th century.