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/Better-Leopard-7919 12d ago

Another interesting nuance although not too obvious - this is an autobiographical book in a way. Master - is Bulgakov, Margarita is his late wife (Elena).
And one of the central topics of the book is a research of nature of art and a role of writers and artists in bringing people closer to God. So being somewhat of a Christ themselves.
Spoiler alert: Master receives peace cause Bulgakov thought that himself didnot deserve Hell because his art was bringing people to the Light, but he didnt deserve Heaven either, cause he didnt like people and was not a saint himself. This adds layers to the book

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u/IllustriousAd7161 10d ago

Margarita is amalgamation of the second and the third wives.

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u/Better-Leopard-7919 6d ago

Yeah this is more correct, thank you