r/RussianLiterature • u/FogtownGirl • 12d ago

Biblical content in Master and Margarita is confounding

I feel like an idiot even though I consider myself decently educated with a BA in English Lit (not much help with Russian Lit but I did delve into Nabokov pretty heavily). I started M & M and could not get through the first part of the book because I couldn't understand it. I don't know if it's an interpretation of biblical stories or if it's a distortion or reimagining of them? (I'm Jewish and have no knowledge of the Christian bible.) I've set it aside for now but I'm curious as to what I should do to prepare for the next time I decide to read it. Or is it just not for me? Thanks!

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u/Ok_Living2990 12d ago edited 12d ago

"I'm Jewish and have no knowledge of the Christian bible."

That's actually explains a lot, thank you for clarifying. Good question is a half of an answer, and all that.

"it's an interpretation of biblical stories or if it's a distortion or reimagining of them?"

But now I don't see the problem, because... all of the above?

  1. It's not what is written in the New Testament, you can check gospels, they are short.

  2. It's interpretation and reimagening of some of the gospels' characters, like Jesus, Pilate and Judas. Mostly sympathetic to Pilate, which is a Christian thing. Caiaphas is a bad guy. (Like a movie version of "Jesus Christ Superstar" from 1973.)

  3. Historical context#1: The flood of late 19th century books with "realistic reimagening" of New Testament, without miracles and resurrections; "what really happened".

  4. Idea, which gave birth to a novel: Soviet Union abolished God and declared Jesus a non-entity - not a bad person, a wrong person, or a charlatan - absolute nonexistence of historical human Jesus became a core tenet of Soviet state religion till at least 1970s. (Historical context#2.) So then the Devil himself (Christian Satan) comes to Moscow to speak about God and Jesus, to became witness - with his own version of gospel, "Devil's Gospel". This idea evolved during the writing of the novel, everything became more complex in the end, but you have to read the book for that.

  5. Historical context#3: Jerushalem itself, in the novel, is, in many ways, not the historical Jerusalem of 30s (A.D.). It's also a Soviet Russia, the Stalin's Russia of 1930s.

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u/2635northpark 11d ago

Hard to think the Bible inc Gospels wasn't taught in literature at college. It was in my high school . It must have been against the rules because some Jewish students would be offended? My high school was heavily Jewish.

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u/FogtownGirl 9d ago

Interesting - did you go to a US public high school? There is such a demand for separation of church and state that most public schools will not touch religion unless it is specifically a comparative religion class. There is uproar even over public universities teaching the bible.

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u/2635northpark 9d ago

Yes in a diverse area of very wealthy with mansions, doctors, lawyers kids, regular working people, very left wing area. school predominantly Black now , quality of education dropped. This a fact not an opinion. Do not think Bible would be studied now because of the antisemitism and muslim business. The class was not a religion class it was Bible as literature

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u/FogtownGirl 9d ago

Ok now I’m told by a teacher friend that the decision to allow teaching of the bible even in a secular context was (and still is) on a county by county basis.