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The Master and Margarita

Фамилия автора: Булгаков
Имя автора: Михаил
Исполнитель: Julian Rhind-Tutt
Год выпуска: 2009 г.
Язык: Английский
Жанр: Роман
Издательство: Naxos Audiobooks
Время звучания: 16:59:00
Описание: The Devil comes to Moscow, but he isn’t all bad; Pontius Pilate sentences a charismatic leader to his death, but yearns for redemption; and a writer tries to destroy his greatest tale, but discovers that manuscripts don’t burn. Multi-layered and entrancing, blending sharp satire with glorious fantasy, The Master and Margarita is ceaselessly inventive and profoundly moving. In its imaginative freedom and raising of eternal human concerns, it is one of the world’s great novels.

ABOUT The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita is a novel that could not have been published when the author was alive; indeed it was pretty remarkable that it got published when it did, some 26 years after his death. In its energy, inventiveness, fantastic imagery, spirituality and belief in the capacity of the human spirit, it was a dangerously liberating book, and liberating books were not going to be published in the USSR of the 1920s and 30s. It was a world of overwhelming fear and suspicion, where the repressive State machinery made any opposition – real or imagined – punishable by death or imprisonment. This dark brutality infected every aspect of life; and the strict bureaucracy that enforced the State’s decrees led to profound social stagnation, quite apart from numbing inefficiency in even the most straightforward of transactions. In this world, art of any form was a dangerous currency, and the State did everything it could to ensure that only those works of which it approved were published. The Master and Margarita would not have been approved.
For a start, it is a satire, and people holding absolute power are rarely amused by being mocked. It pokes fun at the catastrophic absurdity of the system, uncovering the vanity and duplicity of those who operated within it. It makes a point of sending up the pompous literary establishment of the time, which would hardly endear it to publishers. More dangerously, it is also sympathetic to the figure of Christ (if not quite the orthodox one), an attitude the atheistic State would again have been ready and keen to punish. For today’s readers, these satirical elements would make the book worth attention. But what elevates it beyond its time, makes it more than a significant period-piece, is its dizzying, dazzling invention, its vivid fantasy, its complex, ambivalent morality, its humanity and its breadth of humour. It is Solzhenitsyn written by Lewis Carroll, Dostoevsky by Vonnegut.
Mikhail Bulgakov was born in Kiev in 1891, a son of a professor at a theological academy. He went on to study medicine, but after the turmoil of the Civil War (in which he served as a doctor) he turned to the area he had always loved – theatre and literature. One day in 1919 while on a train, he had written a story and when the train stopped, he sold it to the first paper he could find. It was never going to be that easy for him again. Over the next ten years, he wrote sketches, stories, novellas and plays which gradually displayed a more critical attitude to the Soviet system. As a result his works began to be banned and were viciously attacked in the press. Deeply frustrated by this official interference, he wrote a letter asking for permission to go abroad. In an irony that Thomas Hardy might have enjoyed, Bulgakov was telephoned by Stalin himself, who asked if he really wanted to go. The author, quite possibly fearing for his life, rescinded his request, claiming that a writer could not work outside his homeland; and the dictator arranged for him to work at the Moscow Art Theatre adapting Gogol’s work for the stage. But even here, his work continued to be banned, as it was later when he was at the Bolshoi Opera House as a librettist. In this atmosphere, The Master and Margarita had to be written in secret. He started it in 1928, and it took, in its various forms, twelve years; and nearly never got written at all.
The novel contains several incidents taken from Bulgakov’s life. He was married three times, and the figure of Margarita is probably based on his third wife; Pilate’s faithful and brave dog is called Banga, the nickname of Bulgakov’s second wife. Bulgakov knew what it was like to be rejected and publicly humiliated by the literary establishment, for example – something the Master has to endure. There are also plenty of references to real people (in disguised form) in the characters. But in perhaps the most significant autobiographical incident, Bulgakov had been so alarmed by the potential threat if his novel was discovered that he had burned the manuscript. When he later decided to carry on, his wife asked how he would manage without all his notes. And just as the Master does, he said he could remember it all. ‘Manuscripts don’t burn’ became something of a catchphrase in the USSR when the book was eventually published, and this personal reflection of the author was recognised as a statement about the indomitable nature of human invention. This incident and its implications echoes through the whole book, as does the expression ‘Cowardice is the worst of sins’. It relates to Bulgakov’s own fear about the novel and his own attitude to the Stalinist regime; and by extension to everyone else who suffered under it.
He had lost his faith for a while, but regained it in later life, finding comfort in his belief in God. This might also have made him a target for the authorities, since the State enforced atheism. But again, the capacity of some humans to follow their own convictions despite the threats of the all-powerful State demonstrated a tenacious capacity for individualism. And in the end, even Stalin failed to eradicate faith in the USSR, just as Caesar had failed to eliminate Christianity two thousand years before – the two periods reflected in the book.
The book weaves three separate strands together in its narrative. The first is 1920s and 30s Moscow, visited by the Devil in the form of Professor Woland and his crew of bizarre assistants (including a talking, shooting, bipedal cat). They set about destroying the comfortable pretensions of the jobsworths who superintend apartments or run theatres, and in particular the smug literary world, through displays of impossible, wild, unpredictable, cruel, bloody and sometimes fatal magic. The second is set in Jerusalem (named Yershalaim in the book), where Pontius Pilate is about to sentence a charismatic leader accused of inciting the population against their Roman overlords. Again, the name is altered, shifted from Jesus to Yeshua; and the characters are different, too. Pilate is tortured by the problem of goodness and obedience, while Yeshua dismisses some of the claims made for him by his followers but remains powerfully, luminously strong yet tender. The third strand binds the
se two together, and features the Master and Margarita themselves. He wrote the story of Pilate; but dispirited by its rejection by the establishment, he despairs of his work and himself, burning the former and committing the latter to an asylum. Margarita never loses faith in him or the book, and enters into a Faustian pact to save them all.
These interweaving plot lines are told either with extraordinary brio or brilliant control. In the Moscow sequences, the appearance of supernatural characters naturally allows for fantastic imaginings and events, creating an impossible, magic world inside the repressive reality of Moscow. Meanwhile, the discussions with Yeshua are told with a powerfully contrasting directness and simplicity. In both cases, Bulgakov examines the ideas of goodness, of obedience, of creativity, of courage and of freedom, but never reaches an easy moral conclusion. Woland may be the Devil – but his actions are sometimes beneficial. The Master has created a great work of art, but he is not granted simple or complete absolution. The system is mocked, but not directly. Pontius Pilate is made a human, sympathetic character; while innocents are sometimes punished. Margarita sides with Woland, but there is no retribution.
The Master and Margarita was eventually published in 1966. This was strange in itself – the Communist Party was still very strongly in power. The book came out in serial form, slightly censored and – equally strangely – in a rather conservative magazine. Whatever prompted the publication, it was greeted with a kind of rapturous joy. The boldness of its writing, the breadth and freshness of its imagining, the spirited and vivid characters, the courage to refer to the dire shortcomings of the system so fearlessly and with such humour – these were all inspirational and offered moral and intellectual hope. Since then, interest has if anything increased. The novel is filled with literary and musical references, especially Faust and the opera Eugene Onegin, allowing almost infinite academic speculation about its symbolic and thematic intentions, all fully justified by the text’s unobtrusive complexity. But whatever these close studies reveal, the magical depth of the book makes it as endlessly rewarding as it is immediately accessible.

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Теплый майский день. Иван Бездомный с Михаилом Берлиозом беседуют на одной из лавочек парка. В их разговор вмешивается некий гражданин, он рассказывает о встрече Иисуса с Понтием Пилатом и предвещает Берлиозу скоропостижную смерть. Имя незнакомца - Воланд. Дьявол со своей свитой располагается в квартире усопшего. В городе одно за другим начинают происходить мистические события. Вышеупомянутый гражданин Бездомный после встречи с сатаной лишается рассудка. Его отправляют в псих лечебницу, где он знакомится с Мастером – автором собственноручно сожженной рукописи, повествующей о временах правления Ирода Великого, о казне Иешуа.
30-летняя женщина по имени Маргарита – возлюбленная Мастера. Она опечалена его исчезновением и готова на все, чтобы узнать судьбу любимого. Под действием колдовского снадобья она превращается в ведьму и отправляется на бал сатаны, где встречается с Мастером. Вскоре пара в сопровождении Воланда и его «подчиненных» покинут город.

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«Мастер и Маргарита» краткое содержание на английском

The novel alternates between two settings. The first is 1930s Moscow, where Satan appears at the Patriarch Ponds in the guise of «Professor» Woland, a mysterious gentleman «magician» of uncertain origin. He arrives with a retinue that includes the grotesquely dressed valet Koroviev; the mischievous, gun-happy, fast-talking black cat Behemoth; the fanged hitman Azazello; the pale-faced Abadonna; and the witch Hella. They wreak havoc targeting the literary elite and its trade union MASSOLIT . Its privileged HQ is Griboyedov’s House and is made up of corrupt social climbers and their women (wives and mistresses alike), bureaucrats, profiteers, and, more generally, skeptical unbelievers in the human spirit.

The second setting is the Jerusalem of Pontius Pilate, described by Woland in his conversations with Berlioz and later echoed in the pages of the Master’s novel. This part of the novel concerns Pontius Pilate’s trial of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, his recognition of an affinity with, and spiritual need for, Yeshua and his reluctant but resigned submission to Yeshua’s execution.

Part one of the novel opens with a direct confrontation between the unbelieving head of the literary bureaucracy, Berlioz, and an urbane foreign gentleman (Woland) who defends belief and reveals his prophetic powers. Berlioz brushes off the prophecy of his death, only to have it come true just pages later in the novel. The fulfillment of this death prophecy is witnessed by a young and enthusiastically modern poet, Ivan Ponyrev, who writes his poems under the alias Bezdomny («homeless»). His futile attempt to chase and capture the «gang» and warn of their evil and mysterious nature lands Ivan in a lunatic asylum. There, Ivan is introduced to the Master, an embittered author, the petty-minded rejection of whose historical novel about Pontius Pilate and Christ leads him to such despair that he burns his manuscript and turns his back on the «real» world, including his devoted lover, Margarita.

Major episodes in the first part of the novel include a satirical portrait of the Massolit and their Griboyedov house; Satan’s magic show at the Variety Theatre, satirizing the vanity, greed and gullibility of the new rich; and Woland and his retinue capturing the late Berlioz’s apartment for their own use.

Part two of the novel introduces Margarita, the Master’s mistress, who refuses to despair over her lover or his work. She is invited to the Devil’s midnight ball, where Woland offers her the chance to become a witch with supernatural powers. This takes place the night of Good Friday, with the same spring full moon as when Christ’s fate is sealed by Pontius Pilate and he is crucified in Jerusalem, which is also dealt with in the Master’s novel. All three events in the novel are linked by this.

Learning to fly and control her unleashed passions (not without exacting violent retribution on the literary bureaucrats who condemned her beloved to despair) and taking her enthusiastic maid Natasha with her, Margarita enters naked into the realm of night. She flies over the deep forests and rivers of the USSR, bathes and returns with Azazello, her escort, to Moscow as the anointed hostess for Satan’s great Spring Ball. Standing by his side, she welcomes the dark celebrities of human history as they arrive from Hell.

She survives this ordeal without breaking; and, for her pains, Satan offers to grant Margarita her deepest wish. Margarita selflessly chooses to liberate a woman whom she met at the ball from the woman’s eternal punishment: the woman was raped and had later suffocated her newborn by stuffing a handkerchief in its mouth. Her punishment was to wake up every morning and find the same handkerchief lying on her nightstand. Satan grants her first wish and offers her another, citing that the first wish was unrelated to Margarita’s own desires. For her second wish, she chooses to liberate the Master and live in poverty-stricken love with him.

Neither Woland nor Yeshua appreciates her chosen way of life, and Azazello is sent to retrieve them. The three drink Pontius Pilate’s poisoned wine in the Master’s basement. Master and Margarita die, though their death is metaphorical as Azazello watches their physical manifestations die. Azazello reawakens them, and they leave civilization with the Devil as Moscow’s cupolas and windows burn in the setting Easter sun. The Master and Margarita, for not having lost their faith in humanity, are granted «peace» but are denied «light» - that is, they will spend eternity together in a shadowy yet pleasant region similar to Dante’s depiction of Limbo, having not earned the glories of Heaven, but not deserving the punishments of Hell. As a parallel to the Master and Margarita’s freedom, Pontius Pilate is released from his eternal punishment when the Master finally calls out to Pontius Pilate telling him he’s free to finally walk up the moonbeam path in his dreams to Yeshua, where another eternity awaits.