The Devil comes to Moscow
The Master and Margarita is a complex and multi-level novel. The city of Moscow is made unsafe by one professor Woland and his henchmen. These suspects prove to be of diabolic origin and make the life difficult of the artists, civil servants and others who are walking along with the regime. In a very contagious manner the reader becomes withness of decapita-tions, arson, black magic, abductions, counterfeiting of currency and self-satisfied people who are litterally put in the nude... no lack of phantasy. Margarita is not afraid of the satanic company. She calls on the devil, flies on her broom through Moscow as an experienced witch, in search of her disappeared lover, the Master. He stays in a psychiatric institution. He had written a book on Pontius Pilate, with a completely new variant of Jesus' trial. But the manuscript was rejected by law-abiding editors and in the press appeared ominous articles about the novel while it was never published. As a result, the master collapsed totally, and he even burned his manuscript. But it shows up again because.. Рукописи не горят or "ma-nuscripts don't burn"...
The punitive expedition of the devil throughout Moscow, Margarita's search for her lover and excerpts from the Master's novel about Pontius Pilate are the most important materials for The Master and Margarita. The book is not only a funny and sometimes caustic criticism on the soviet society between 1920 and 1940 but also a touching love story... And the devil, after all, does not at all appear a bad chap. The book shows the large creative phantasy of Bulgakov. His work is part of a Russian tradition of satire that started with Gogol and continued with authors as Zostchenko, Ilf and Petrov..
In the section Annotations you can find, for each chapter, all possible expla-nations of the names that are used, the links to situations, the sources of quotations and much more.
Subtitled films
On demand of many visitors of this site, the webmaster made English subtitles for the TV-series Master i Margarita, made by Vladimir Bortko, and the film Master i Margarita, made by Yuri Kara. Both are available on DVD.
Click here to buy the DVD of Vladimir Bortko's TV series
Click here to buy the DVD of Yuri Kara's film
The novel
Your guide through the novel
In this section are explained, per chapter, all typical notions, names of people and places, quotations and expressions from the novel with a description of the political, social, economical and cultural context.
Bulgakov's Moscow
Have a look at the most important places from the novel at a single glance on a clickable map of Moscow.
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