The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita ({{lang-ru|?????? ? ?????????}}) is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov. Many people consider the book as one of the greatest Russian novels of the 20th century - and also the most humorous.

Art and women in the novel

The bitterest ironies of the book emerge if we consider Shelley's remark in the Defence of Poetry that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world". As a poet/writer, the Master is so unacknowledged that he feels more at home in a lunatic asylum than in society, at the mercy of the actual legislators of the world. But the whole novel is directed at demonstrating to the corrupt philistines in power that they are less in control than they might wish. Above all they have no control over death or the spirit. They might mobilize the forces of darkness themselves, but fall short in a face-to-face contest with the Prince of Darkness. It is notable that Bulgakov attacks no actual political leaders. His targets are all minions of one kind or another, albeit comfortably placed minions, like Berlioz, the head of Massolit, the literary bureaucracy. Despite the grand gestures of universality – darkness and light, the world and the stars, historical and geographical range – the novel is to a great extent a psycho-drama playing itself out in the literary world. The protagonists are the Academy and Bohemia. Even Pilate and Christ clash on these terms of authority vs authenticity. Bulgakov induces a "willing suspension of disbelief" almost as effective as the tricks pulled off in the Variety by Woland, Fagotto the valet and Behemoth the cat. Georg Lukacs's remarks on naturalism in his critical work apply powerfully to this novel, too – focus on either the close-up surface texture of society, or the distant mystery of the stars at night. Treating the doings of a narrow circle as affairs of universal significance, and so on. No balanced middle ground. Bulgakov has all this.

Related Topics:
Shelley - Defence of Poetry - Academy - Bohemia - Lukacs - Naturalism

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And this affects his portrayal of women, too. Natasha seeks her freedom in witchdom, and Margarita flees respectability to devote herself to the service of her lover. She saves him, as Gretchen saves Faust, but likewise only because of the heroic challenge he has mounted to the "peace of the graveyard". "Das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan", Goethe wrote – "the eternal feminine draws us onward" – and the feeling is the same in The Master and Margarita. Most of the other female characters in the book are wives or mistresses of males in positions with some social clout. Or unattractive biddies.

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Of course, this courtly idealism with regard to women and relationships (and the ethos of the Middle Ages forms a clear motif in the book, especially in the internal relations of Satan's team) is nothing new in Russian or European literature. What is a little surprising is that such a traditional portrayal of a woman's role is so skilfully presented that the novel achieved cult status and still enjoys it to some extent, first in the Soviet Union and now in the Russian Federation.

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