Introduction

Roman Woland Satan Ball

The novel by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita" was not completed and was not published during the author's lifetime. It was first published only in 1966, 26 years after Bulgakov's death, and then in an abbreviated journal version. Because it's the greatest literary work reached the reader, we are indebted to the writer's wife, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, who managed to save the manuscript of the novel in difficult Stalinist times.

Bulgakov dated the start of work on The Master and Margarita in various manuscripts either 1928 or 1929. In the first edition, the novel had variants of the names Black Magician, Engineer's Hoof, Juggler with a Hoof, Son V., Tour. The first edition of The Master and Margarita was destroyed by the author on March 18, 1930, after receiving news of the ban on the play The Cabal of Saints. Bulgakov announced this in a letter to the government: “And personally, with my own hands, I threw a draft of a novel about the devil into the stove ...”.

Bulgakov wrote The Master and Margarita for a total of more than 10 years. Simultaneously with the writing of the novel, work was underway on plays, staging, libretto, but this novel was a book that he could not part with - a novel-fate, a novel-testament.

The novel is written in such a way, “as if the author, feeling in advance that this was his last work, wanted to put into it without a trace all the sharpness of his satirical eye, the unrestrained imagination, the power of psychological observation.” Bulgakov pushed the boundaries of the genre of the novel, he managed to achieve an organic combination of historical-epic, philosophical and satirical principles. In terms of the depth of philosophical content and the level of artistic skill, The Master and Margarita rightfully ranks with Dante's Divine Comedy, Cervantes' Don Quixote, Goethe's Faust, Tolstoy's War and Peace, and other "eternal companions of mankind in his quest for the truth of freedom” Galinskaya I.L. Riddles of famous books - M .: Nauka, 1986 p. 46

From the history of the creation of the novel, we see that it was conceived and created as a "novel about the devil." Some researchers see in it an apology for the devil, admiring the gloomy power, capitulation to the world of evil. In fact, Bulgakov called himself a "mystical writer," but this mysticism did not darken the mind and did not intimidate the reader.

The role of the forces of evil in the novel

satirical role

The satirical depiction of reality, which is “majestic and beautiful,” was more than dangerous in those years. And although Bulgakov did not count on the immediate publication of the novel, he, perhaps unwittingly, or perhaps deliberately, softened his satirical attacks against certain phenomena of this reality.

Bulgakov writes about all the oddities and deformities of the life of his contemporaries with a smile, in which, however, it is easy to distinguish both sadness and bitterness. Another thing is when his eyes fall on those who have adapted perfectly to these conditions and are prospering: bribe-takers and swindlers, bossy fools and bureaucrats. The writer also unleashes evil spirits on them, as he had planned from the first days of work on the novel.

According to critic E.L. Beznosov, the forces of hell play a somewhat unusual role in The Master and Margarita. They do not so much lead good and decent people astray from the path of righteousness, but they lead to clean water and punish already established sinners.

The evil spirits are doing in Moscow, at the behest of Bulgakov, many different outrages. It was not for nothing that the writer added his exuberant retinue to Woland. It brings together specialists of various profiles: the master of tricks and practical jokes, the cat Behemoth, the eloquent Koroviev, who owns all dialects and jargons, the gloomy Azazello, extremely inventive in the sense of kicking all kinds of sinners out of apartment No. 50, from Moscow, even from this to the next world. And, either alternating or acting in pairs or threes, they create situations that are sometimes eerie, as in the case of Rimsky, but more often comical, despite the devastating consequences of their actions.

The true nature of Muscovites is revealed only when these citizens of a materialistic state are involved in something other than the daily hell of their lives. In Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, the Moscow population is influenced by the so-called "black magic". Of course, the tricks of Woland and his retinue turn into a lot of trouble for the Moscow inhabitants. But do they lead to at least one genuine disaster? In the Soviet world of the twenties and thirties, black magic turns out to be less remarkable than real life, with its nocturnal disappearances and other types of institutionalized violence. But there is not a word about the Russian tyrant in the Moscow chapters. The reader himself is given the opportunity to guess by whose will the arrests are made, people disappear from apartments, and “quiet, decently dressed” citizens “with attentive and at the same time elusive eyes” try to remember as much as possible and deliver information to the right address.

Styopa Likhodeev, the director of the variety show, gets off with the fact that Woland's assistants throw him from Moscow to Yalta. And he has a whole load of sins: “... in general, they,” Koroviev reports, speaking of Styopa in the plural, “have been terribly swine lately. They get drunk, get involved with women, using their position, they don’t do a damn thing, and they can’t do a damn thing, because they don’t understand anything about what they are entrusted with. The authorities are rubbed points.

The car is being driven in vain by the government! - the cat also snitched. ”

And for all this, just a forced walk to Yalta. Without too serious consequences, a meeting with evil spirit and Nikanor Ivanovich, who really doesn’t play around with currency, but still takes bribes, and Uncle Berlioz, the cunning hunter for his nephew’s Moscow apartment, and the leaders of the Spectacular Commission, typical bureaucrats and loafers.

On the other hand, extremely severe punishments fall on those who do not steal and are not smeared with Stepin's vices, but have one seemingly harmless flaw. The master defines it like this: a person without a surprise inside. For the financial director of the variety show, Rimsky, who is trying to invent "ordinary explanations for extraordinary phenomena," Woland's assistants arrange such a horror scene that in a matter of minutes he turns into a gray-haired old man with a shaking head. They are also completely ruthless to the barman of the variety show, the very one who utters the famous words about the sturgeon of the second freshness. For what? The barman just steals and cheats, but this is not his most serious vice - in hoarding, in the fact that he robs himself. “Something, your will,” Woland remarks, “bad things lurk in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and table conversation. Such people are either seriously ill or secretly hate others.

But the saddest fate goes to the head of MASSOLIT, Berlioz. The trouble with Berlioz is the same: he is a man without imagination. But there is a special demand from him for this, because he is the head of a writers' organization - and at the same time an incorrigible dogmatist, recognizing only stamped truths. Raising the severed head of Berlioz at the Great Ball, Woland turns to her: "To each will be given according to his faith ...".

With seeming omnipotence, the devil administers his judgment and reprisal in Soviet Moscow. In this way? Bulgakov gets the opportunity to arrange, albeit only verbally, a certain court and retribution for literary rogues, administrative swindlers and all that inhuman bureaucratic system that is only subject to the devil's judgment.

Philosophical role

With the help of Woland's assistants, Bulgakov conducts his satirical and humorous review of the phenomena of Moscow life. He needs an alliance with Woland for other, more serious and important goals.

In one of the last chapters of the novel, Woland, on behalf of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, comes Levi Matvey to ask for the Master: you recognize shadows, and also evil. Would you be so kind as to think about the question: what would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are obtained from objects and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But there are shadows from trees and from living beings. Don't you want to tear the whole globe off, blowing away all the trees and all life from it because of your fantasy of enjoying the naked light?

Bulgakov was least of all attracted by the enjoyment of naked light, although the surrounding life was not so abundant in it. What Yeshua preached was dear to him - goodness, mercy, the kingdom of truth and justice, where no power would be needed at all. But this far from exhausted what, in his opinion, people needed for the fullness of life, for the eternal movement of thought and the eternal work of the imagination, and ultimately for happiness. Without the play of light and shadow, without fiction, without unusualness and mysteries, life, according to Bulgakov, cannot be complete. And all this is already under the control of Satan, the prince of darkness, the lord of shadows.

Bulgakov's Woland does not sow evil, but only exposes it in the light of day, making the secret clear. But its legal time - moonlit nights when the shadows dominate, become especially bizarre and mysterious.

It is on nights like these that the most incredible and the most poetic happens in the novel, which opposes the bleak prose of Moscow life: the flights of Margarita, the Great Ball of Satan, and in the finale - the jump of the Master and Margarita with Woland and his now no longer assistants - knights to where he waits heroes their eternal shelter and peace. And who knows what is more in all this: the omnipotence of Satan or the author's fantasy, which is sometimes itself perceived as some kind of demonic force that knows no fetters or boundaries.

and in Russian folk tales, in which one can also see a certain philosophy, but the whole point is that Bulgakov's novel about the devil is not a fairy tale, but a true story about the social structure of Soviet society, where good and evil sometimes change beyond recognition in their appearance and take on truly bizarre forms.

The heroes of the novel are the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, Yeshua, and representatives of the Russian creative intelligentsia. Philosophical reflections are also present in the procurator's disputes with Yeshua, and in Woland's conversations with the townsfolk. A time interval of almost two millennia separates the action of the novel about Jesus and Pilate and the novel about the Master. It is possible that with the help of this, Bulgakov wants to show the eternity of the struggle between positive and negative in man, freedom and non-freedom of the human spirit, as well as his relationship with society.

In his philosophical searches, the writer puts the Master in situations similar to the fate of Christ. The master also undergoes great trials in his field. Bulgakov, in artistically and philosophically vivid images, shows the true and imaginary strength of man on earth, the true and imaginary freedom of his spirit. For example, Pontius Pilate, who has power over Yeshua and conducts his interrogation, suddenly begins to feel the superiority of the spirit of the impoverished philosopher over himself, the great ruler of people. Undoubtedly, the author subtly psychologically noted that the true greatness of the spirit cannot but inspire a sense of respect and even fear. strong of the world this.

Pontius Pilate, in spite of his suffering, cannot maintain his mental balance in a verbal duel with a beggar philosopher. The ruler is not helped by his philosophy of the slave owner. He feels that with this philosophy he is defenseless before the highest truth and harmony of the world. On the other hand, Yeshua remains true to his truth even in the face of death, and not just before the procurator.

Interestingly, Pilate is a very complicated person. He is not just a villain and a coward. He is a man whom the social conditions that prevailed before him keep within certain limits. His soul begins to rebel, feeling that Yeshua is right. But Bulgakov certainly does not notice this and mercilessly condemns Pilate for his deed: the death sentence of Yeshua. Bulgakov-philosopher in this case takes the place of Yeshua, and, despite the objective and subjective conditions under which Pilate cannot do otherwise, the author affirms the highest philosophical law, according to which, at a certain moral level, there cannot be two correct decisions, but there is only one step towards higher truth.

truth, but his belief that manuscripts do not burn if they are honest books leaves him the right to understand in the future the highest truth and harmony of the world.

The forces of hell play a somewhat unusual role in The Master and Margarita. They do not so much lead good and decent people astray from the path of righteousness, but they lead to clean water and punish already established sinners.

The evil spirits are doing in Moscow, at the behest of Bulgakov, many different outrages. It was not for nothing that the writer added his exuberant retinue to Woland. It brings together specialists of various profiles: the cat Behemoth, the master of mischievous tricks and pranks, the eloquent Koroviev, who owns all dialects and jargons - from semi-criminal to high-society, the gloomy Azazello, extremely inventive in the sense of kicking all kinds of sinners out of apartment No. 50, from Moscow, even from this to the next world. And, either alternating or acting in pairs or threes, they create situations that are sometimes eerie, as in the case of Rimsky, but more often comical, despite the devastating consequences of their actions.

“They are driving a state-owned car in vain! - the cat also snitched"

And for all this, just a forced walk to Yalta. A meeting with evil spirits is without too serious consequences for Nikanor Ivanovich, who really does not play around with currency, but still takes bribes, and uncle Berlioz, a cunning hunter for his nephew's Moscow apartment, and the leaders of the Spectacular Commission, typical bureaucrats and loafers.

inside. For the financial director of the variety show, Rimsky, who is trying to invent "ordinary explanations for extraordinary phenomena," Woland's assistants arrange such a horror scene that in a matter of minutes he turns into a gray-haired old man with a shaking head. They are also completely ruthless to the barman of the variety show, the very one who utters the famous words about the sturgeon of the second freshness. For what? The barman just steals and cheats, but this is not his most serious vice - in hoarding, in the fact that he robs himself. “Something, your will,” Woland remarks, “bad things lurk in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and table conversation. Such people are either seriously ill or secretly hate others.

this is an incorrigible dogmatist, recognizing only stamped truths. Raising the severed head of Berlioz at the Great Ball, Woland turns to her: "To each will be given according to his faith ...". It seems to me that only at this moment does the first real meeting between Berlioz and Woland take place.

With seeming omnipotence, the devil administers his judgment and reprisal in Soviet Moscow. Thus, Bulgakov gets the opportunity to arrange, even if only verbally, a kind of court and retribution for literary rogues, administrative swindlers and all that inhuman bureaucratic system that is only subject to the devil's judgment.

In one of the last chapters of the novel, Bulgakov shows us the dialectical unity, the complementarity of good and evil. To Woland, on behalf of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, Levi Matvey comes to ask for the Master: “I am to you, the spirit of evil and the lord of shadows ...” - you pronounced your words like this, - Woland notices, - as if you do not recognize the shadows, as well as evil. Would you be so kind as to think about the question: what would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are obtained from objects and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But there are shadows from trees and from living beings. Don't you want to tear the whole globe off, blowing away all the trees and all life from it because of your fantasy of enjoying the naked light? Here is another example of Sharikovshchina, only from the diametrically opposite side. Clear everything to achieve your goal, regardless of anything and no one.

Bulgakov was least of all attracted by the enjoyment of naked light, although the surrounding life was not so abundant in it. What Yeshua preached was dear to him - goodness, mercy, the kingdom of truth and justice, where no power would be needed at all. With the help of Yeshua and the Master, Bulgakov preaches Ethics and morality. But this far from exhausted what, in his opinion, people needed for the fullness of life, for the eternal movement of thought and the eternal work of the imagination, and ultimately for happiness. Without the play of light and shadow, without fiction, without unusualness and mysteries, life, according to Bulgakov, cannot be complete. And all this is already under the control of Satan, the prince of darkness, the lord of shadows.

Secondary school No. 288

abstract

The role of dark forces in Mikhail Bulgakov's novel

"Master and Margarita"

student eleven " BUT » class

Teacher : Pimenova Svetlana

Evgenievna

G. Zaozersk – 2005 G.

Abstract plan

1 . Good and evil. Eternal problems in literature and in life.

The relevance of the problem of good and evil in the novel. Socio-political situation in the country and the history of writing the novel.

Diaboliad in the world folklore, its reflection in Bulgakov's book.

2. Heroes entering the world of Bulgakov's dark forces:

A) Woland as the main image for revealing the role of dark forces in the book.

B) Woland's retinue:
Azazello;

Fagot-Koroviev;

Cat Behemoth;

Gella;

3. The role of Satan's Great Ball as the climax of the novel.

4. An example of the life-affirming power of goodness and mercy as a counterbalance to evil.

5. List of used literature.

I.Good and evil. Eternal problems in literature and in life.

1. The relevance of the problem of good and evil in the novel. The socio-political situation in the country and the history of writing the novel

The central problem of the novel is the problem of good and evil. Why does evil exist in the world, why does it often triumph over good? How to defeat evil and is it possible at all? What is good for a person and what is evil? At all times, these questions have worried the best minds of mankind, they are especially relevant in our modern era, when, along with progress in society, we see all the same human vices: deceit, hypocrisy, betrayal, theft, bribery, lack of spirituality. For Bulgakov, these problems became especially acute because his whole life was crippled, crushed by the evil that triumphed in the country at that time.

At that time, entire historical and cultural layers that did not fit into the schemes of party ideologists were deleted. Russian art of the beginning of the century, the work of modernists of the 20s became practically inaccessible. Books of Russian idealist philosophers, innocently repressed writers, and émigré writers were confiscated from libraries. The works of S. A. Yesenin, A. P. Platonov, O. E. Mandelstam, the painting of P. D. Korin, K. S. Malevich, P. N. Filonov were persecuted and hushed up. Monuments of church and secular architecture were destroyed: only in Moscow in the 30s. the Sukharev Tower, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, built with public donations in honor of the victory over Napoleon, the Red and Triumphal Gates, the Miracles and Resurrection monasteries in the Kremlin, and many other monuments created by the talent and labor of the people were destroyed. And it was many representatives of this people that for some reason became "enemies"

Their arrests during 1935-1936. grew exponentially, reaching a climax in 1937, gradually subsided (without stopping, however, completely) in 1939. During these years, 1,108 out of 1961 delegates to the 17th Congress of the CPSU (b), about 40 thousand out of 80 thousand were repressed. officers, including the vast majority of the highest command staff of the Red Army. The scientific, technical and artistic intelligentsia, as well as the clergy, suffered a huge loss (starting from 1930, 90% of the churches were closed). The total number of repressed reached two million people.

in the western historical literature the events of those years in our country are often called the "great terror", sometimes - "great madness", that is, an action that had no rational explanation. In such an environment, Bulgakov worked on his novel.

The time when work began on The Master and Margarita, the writer in various manuscripts dated either 1928 or 1929. By 1928, the idea of the novel was born, and work on the text began in 1929. According to the surviving receipt, Bulgakov on May 8, 1929 passed to the publishing house "Nedra" the manuscript of "Furibund" under the pseudonym "K. Tugay" (the pseudonym went back to the names of the princes in the story "Khan Fire"). This is the earliest known date for the work on The Master and Margarita. In the winter of 1929, only separate chapters of the novel were written, which were even more politically poignant than the surviving fragments of the early edition.

In the first edition, the novel had variants of titles: "Black Magician", "Engineer's Hoof", "Juggler with a Hoof", "Son of V (eliar?)", "Tour (Woland?)". The first edition of The Master and Margarita was destroyed by the author on March 18, 1930, after receiving news of the ban on the play The Cabal of Saints. Bulgakov reported this in a letter to the government on March 28, 1930: "And personally, with my own hands, I threw a draft of a novel about the devil into the stove ..."
Work on The Master and Margarita was resumed in 1931. Rough sketches were made for the novel, and Margarita and her nameless companion, the future Master, already appeared here. At the end of 1932 or the beginning of 1933, the writer began again, as in 1929-1930, to create a plot-complete text. On August 2, 1933, he informed his friend, writer Vikenty Veresaev (Smidovich) (1867-1945): my novel destroyed three years ago. Why? I don't know. I'm amusing myself! Let it fall into oblivion! However, I'll probably give it up soon."

However, Bulgakov no longer abandoned The Master and Margarita and, with interruptions caused by the need to write commissioned plays, dramatizations and scripts, continued to work on the novel almost to the end of his life. The second edition of The Master and Margarita, which was created until 1936, had the subtitle "Fantastic novel".

The third edition of The Master and Margarita, begun in the second half of 1936 or in 1937, was originally called The Prince of Darkness, but already in the second half of 1937 the now well-known title The Master and Margarita appeared. In May - June 1938, the plot-completed text of The Master and Margarita was reprinted for the first time. The author's editing of the typescript began on September 19, 1938 and continued intermittently almost until the writer's death. Bulgakov stopped it on February 13, 1940, less than four weeks before his death, at Margarita's phrase: "So, it means that writers are following the coffin?"

2. Diaboliad in world folklore, its reflection in Bulgakov's book.

In revealing the problem of good and evil in the novel, the images of dark forces - Woland and his retinue - play a huge role. Bulgakov's appeal to these images is not accidental. It has its roots in the issue of diabolism in world folklore.

Demonology is a section of medieval Christian theology (western branches of Christianity) that deals with the issue of demons and their relations with people. Demonology comes from the ancient Greek words daimon, demon, evil spirit (in ancient Greece, this word did not yet have a negative connotation) and logos, word, concept. Literally translated "demonology" means "science of demons".
The knowledge gained from Demonology was widely used by Bulgakov in the novel The Master and Margarita. The sources of information on Demonology for Bulgakov were the articles of the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron devoted to this topic, the book by M. A. Orlov "The History of Relations between a Man and the Devil" (1904) and the book by the writer Alexander Valentinovich Amfiteatrov (1862-1938) "The Devil in everyday life, a legend and in the literature of the Middle Ages. Of the first two, numerous extracts with references have been preserved in the Bulgakov archive. From the work of A. V. Amfiteatrov in the archive of the author of The Master and Margarita there are no extracts with direct references, however, a number of them undoubtedly go back to the Devil, in particular, about the demon Astaroth (this is how Bulgakov intended to call the future Woland in an early edition novel). In addition, frequent references to Amfiteatrov's books in Bulgakov's works (for example, to the novel "Maria Lusyeva Abroad" in the story "The Doctor's Extraordinary Adventures"), clear parallels with the amphitheater's novel "Fire-flower" (1895 - 1910) and a study about the devil in "The Master and Margarita" they make one think that Bulgakov was well acquainted with the demonological work of Amfiteatrov.

For example, from M. A. Orlov's book "The History of Man's Relations with the Devil" Bulgakov took the name of Behemoth, many details of the covens different peoples used for the Great Ball at Satan's, some episodes of the biography of Koroviev-Fagot, etc.

Bulgakov in Master and Margarita accepted the dualism of ancient religions, where good and evil deities are equal objects of worship. It is no coincidence that one of the persecutors of the Master was named Arimanov - the bearer of the evil inclination, after the name of the Zoroastrian deity. Just in the years of the creation of Bulgakov's last novel, the people, under pressure from the authorities, changed "their ancestral religion to a new one", the communist one, and Jesus Christ was declared only a myth, a figment of the imagination (Berlioz was punished for blindly following this official installation on the Patriarchs).

Woland at Bulgakov also fulfills an order, even rather a request, Yeshua - to take the Master and Margarita to him. Satan in Bulgakov's novel is Ga-Notsri's servant "on such commissions, which the Highest Holiness cannot ... directly touch." No wonder Woland remarks to Levi Matthew: "It's not difficult for me to do anything." The high ethical ideal of Yeshua can be preserved only in transcendence, and in the earthly life of a brilliant Master, only Satan and his retinue, who are not bound by this ideal in their actions, can save from death. A creative person, such as the Master (like Goethe's Faust), always belongs not only to God, but also to the devil.

II. Heroes entering the world of Bulgakov's dark forces

1. Woland as the main image for understanding the role of dark forces.

The central image in the novel for understanding this problem is, of course, the image of Woland. But how to treat him? Is it really evil?

But what if Woland is a positive hero? In the very house in Moscow where the writer once lived and where the “bad” apartment No. 50 is located, on the wall in the entrance, in our time, someone depicted Woland’s head and wrote under it: “Woland, come, too much rubbish divorced” . This, so to speak, is the popular perception of Woland and his role, and if it is true, then Woland is not only not the embodiment of evil, but he is the main fighter against evil. Is it so?

If we single out the scenes “Inhabitants of Moscow” and “Unclean Forces” in the novel, then what did the writer want to say with them? In society, in that Moscow that the writer depicts, scoundrels and nonentities reign: Nikanor Ivanovichi, Aloisia Mogarychi, Andrey Fomichi, Varenukhi and Likhodeevs - they lie, swindle, steal, take bribes, and until they collide with subjects Satan, they are quite good at it. Aloisy Mogarych, who wrote a denunciation of the Master, moves into his apartment. Styopa Likhodeev, a fool and a drunkard, works most happily as the director of the Variety. Nikanor Ivanovich, a representative of the Domkom tribe so unloved by Bulgakov, prescribes for money and prospers.

But then the "evil spirit" appears, and all these scoundrels are exposed and punished. Woland's henchmen (like himself) are omnipotent and omniscient. They see through anyone, it is impossible to deceive them. And let scoundrels and nonentities live only by lies: lies are their way of existence, this is air, this is their armor and weapons. But against the "department of Satan" this weapon, so perfect in the world of people, turns out to be powerless.

“As soon as the chairman left the apartment, a low voice came from the bedroom:

I didn't like this Nikanor Ivanovich. He is a swindler and a rogue."

An instant and precise definition - and it is followed by a strictly corresponding "merit" punishment.

Styopa Likhodeev is thrown into Yalta, Varenukha is (temporarily) made a vampire, Berlioz himself is sent into oblivion. To each according to merit. Does this not resemble a punitive system, but absolutely perfect, ideal? After all, Woland and his retinue also protected the Master. So what is good in a novel? Everyone answers this question differently, according to their perception.

The literary critic L. Levina does not agree with the “popular” understanding of Woland as a satire of society, for whom Woland is the traditional Satan. “Satan is (according to Kant) the accuser of man,” she writes. It is also a tempter, a seducer. Woland, according to Levina, sees the evil side in everything and everyone. Assuming evil in people, he provokes its appearance.

At the same time, L. Levina believes that “the rejection of Christ (Yeshua) and – as an inevitable consequence – of the value human personality puts the heroes in vassal dependence on the prince of darkness. That is, it is still evil that people refuse Christ. However, Levina sees evil rather in evil spirits, and justifies people, as it were. And there are reasons for this: after all, the servants of Satan provoke people, pushing them to nasty deeds, like at a performance in the Variety Show, like in the scene “Koroviev and Nikanor Ivanovich”, when the bribe itself crawled into the briefcase to the house committee.

And yet, it is unlikely that Bulgakov wanted to say that anyone can be provoked - after all, the Master and Margarita cannot be provoked. So, probably, it would be more appropriate to say that Koroviev, Behemoth and others only reveal, pull out into the light of God everything that is nasty that is in people, and do not create that nasty. This view is shared by many critics.

"The evil spirit in The Master and Margarita, not without humor, exposes human vices to us." (B. Sokolov)

V. Akimov believes that the collision with them(impure force) is a collision with oneself. The power of evil spirits, in his opinion, manifests itself only where the human yields and recedes.

Most critics are unanimous in the opinion that the writer sees everything in people, and the evil spirit exposes and punishes this evil. In this sense, evil is weakness man, his betrayal of himself, the rejection of honor, home, conscience for the sake of some miserable benefit. Evil dominates because there is no force in society capable of exposing and punishing it, but according to Bulgakov, it is necessary to punish: the writer is clearly not a supporter of the idea of non-resistance to evil by violence, on the contrary, in his opinion, as in the opinion of the Russian philosopher I. Ilyin ( author of the book “On resisting evil by force”), it is possible to bring to life people who have become ossified in evil only by force.

According to V. Petelin, the image of Woland and his retinue is a symbol, a poetic similitude. In Woland, the author depicted some part of himself, in his thoughts some of Bulgakov's thoughts are easily guessed. In the image of the prince of darkness - the humanistic ideals of the writer. Woland is endowed with the author's omniscience. He knows the thoughts of his characters, their intentions and experiences.

The role of Woland in Bulgakov's philosophical concept is essentially (with a huge difference, of course) similar to the role of Raskolnikov or Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky. Woland, perhaps, the continuation of the development of a similar image in Russian literature. Just as in Dostoevsky Ivan Karamazov bifurcates and one of his “parts” is personified in the guise of the devil, so in Bulgakov’s Woland is in many ways a personification author's position. Raskolnikov and Ivan Karamazov rebel against the traditional understanding of good and evil, they advocate a reassessment of all former moral values, a reassessment of the role assigned to man in society. A smart and strong person can not reckon with generally accepted morality. Thus arises the problem of the individual and the crowd.

A. Zerkalov believes that Woland is closely connected with the devil, who appears to one of the heroes of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov", Ivan. And therefore, Ivan Bezdomny is not accidentally named Ivan - as a sign of kinship with Ivan Karamazov. The homeless man literally copies Karamazov: first he talks about the devil, then he looks for him under the table, then he screams, fights and they tie him up. Bound, he yells and breaks free, causing him to be carried away. But in Dostoevsky the appearance of the devil is a consequence. He is a delusional reflection of the already awakened conscience of Ivan Karamazov. With Dostoevsky it cannot be otherwise, since, according to his convictions, only the son of God can awaken the conscience. On the contrary, for Bulgakov, Woland turns out to be the reason for the transformation of Ivan Bezdomny. From this it follows that it is Satan who contributes to the awakening of conscience, which is contrary to his nature.

On the contrary, by portraying Yeshua Ha-Notsri, Bulgakov showed how Christ should be in his understanding - absolutely not like Woland. Jesus is devoid of the qualities of a judge, punishing lightning is disgusting to him, he is a man of unheard-of kindness.

B.V. Sokolov asks the question: “What is the main strength of Yeshua?” First of all, openness. immediacy. He is always in a state of spiritual impulse "towards". His very first appearance in the novel captures this: “The man with his hands tied leaned forward a little and began to say:

Good person! Believe me...".

Yeshua is a man always open to the world. “The trouble is,” the unstoppable bound man continued, “that you are too closed off and have finally lost faith in people.”

The great tragic philosophy of Yeshua's life is that the truth (and the choice of life in truth) is also tested and affirmed by the choice of death. He "managed" not only his life, but also his death. He "hung" his bodily death just as he "hung" his spiritual life. Thus, he truly "governs" himself (and the whole order on earth in general); governs not only Life, but also Death. Yeshua's "self-creation", "self-management" passed the test of death, and therefore it became immortal.

Yeshua dreams of a future kingdom of "truth and justice" and leaves it open to absolutely everyone. “... the time will come when there will be no power of either Caesar or any other power. A person will pass into the realm of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all.

In my opinion, justice and truth are the “weapons” that Woland and his retinue unleash on everyone who comes to apartment No. make great efforts to find out the truth about each person. Only Yeshua tries to point people to their lies and dark deeds, to help get rid of these qualities, and Woland, being, like Yeshua, an ideal judge, resolutely and cruelly punishes them for this.

It is worth dwelling in more detail on the mysterious and interesting figure of Woland.

This character is largely focused on Mephistopheles "Faust" (1808-1832) by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), including the opera from Charles Gounod's (1818-1893) opera "Faust" (1859).
The name Woland itself is taken from a poem by Goethe, where it is mentioned only once and is usually omitted in Russian translations. This is how Mephistopheles calls himself in the scene of Walpurgis Night, demanding from evil spirits to give way: "Nobleman Woland is coming!" In the prose translation of A. Sokolovsky (1902), with the text of which Bulgakov was familiar, this passage is given as follows:
"Mephistopheles. Where have you gone! I see that I must use my master's rights. Hey, you! Place! Mr. Woland is coming!"
In the commentary, the translator explained the German phrase "Junker Voland kommt" as follows: "Junker means a noble person (nobleman), and Woland was one of the names of the devil. The main word "Faland" (which meant a deceiver, crafty) was already used by ancient writers in the sense of a devil ".
Bulgakov also used this last name: after a session of black magic, the employees of the Variety Theater try to remember the name of the magician: "- In ... It seems, Woland. Or maybe not Woland? Maybe Faland."
In the edition of 1929-1930. Woland's name was reproduced entirely in Latin on his business card: "Dr Theodor Voland". In the final text, Bulgakov refused the Latin alphabet: Ivan Bezdomny on the Patriarchs remembers only the initial letter of the surname - W ("double-ve").
This replacement of the original V ("fau") is not accidental. The German "Voland" is pronounced like Foland, and in Russian the initial "ef" in this combination creates a comic effect, and is difficult to pronounce. The German "Faland" would not fit here either. With the Russian pronunciation - Faland - things were better, but there was an inappropriate association with the word "fal" (it denotes a rope that raises sails and yards on ships) and some of its slang derivatives. In addition, Faland did not meet in Goethe's poem, and Bulgakov wanted to connect his Satan with Faust, even if he was given a name not too well known to the Russian public. A rare name was needed so that an ordinary reader not experienced in Demonology would not immediately guess who Woland was.

Bulgakov, no doubt, was quite satisfied with the experiment. Even such a qualified listener as A. M. Faiko Woland did not immediately guess. Consequently, the riddle of the foreign professor who appeared at the Patriarch's Ponds will keep the majority of readers of The Master and Margarita in suspense from the very beginning. In early editions, Bulgakov tried the names Azazello and Belial for the future Woland.

Nevertheless, the author hides the true face of Woland only at the very beginning of the novel, in order to intrigue readers, and then directly declares through the lips of the Master and Woland himself that Satan (the devil) has definitely arrived at the Patriarch's. The version with hypnotists and mass hypnosis, which Woland and his companions allegedly subjected to Muscovites, is also present in The Master and Margarita. But its purpose is by no means a disguise. Thus, Bulgakov expresses the ability and desire of ordinary Soviet consciousness to explain any inexplicable phenomena of the surrounding life, up to mass repressions and the disappearance of people without a trace.

The author of The Master and Margarita, as it were, says: even if the devil himself with his infernal retinue appears in Moscow, the competent authorities and Marxist theorists, like the chairman of MASSOLIT Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, will still find a completely rational basis for this that does not contradict the teachings of Marx-Engels-Lenin -Stalin, and most importantly, they will be able to convince everyone of this, including those who have experienced the effects of evil spirits.

Woland's unconventionality is manifested in the fact that, being a devil, he is endowed with some obvious attributes of God. Bulgakov was well acquainted with the book of the English church historian and bishop F. V. Farrar, The Life of Jesus Christ (1873). Extracts from it have been preserved in the writer's archive.

This book, obviously, goes back to the episode when the barman of the Variety Theater Sokov learns from Woland about his incurable illness and imminent death, but still refuses to spend his considerable savings.

In The Master and Margarita, Woland talks about the future of the barman as follows, when it turns out that "he will die in nine months, next February, from liver cancer in the clinic of the First Moscow State University, in the fourth ward":

Nine months, Woland thought thoughtfully, two hundred and forty-nine thousand ... This comes out to twenty-seven thousand a month (for comparison: Bulgakov's salary as a consultant-librettist Bolshoi Theater in the late 1930s was 1,000 rubles a month). Not enough, but enough for a modest life ...
- Yes, I would not advise you to go to the clinic, - the artist continued, - what's the point of dying in the ward under the groans and wheezing of hopeless patients. Wouldn't it be better to arrange a feast for these twenty-seven thousand and, having taken poison, move to another world to the sound of strings, surrounded by drunken beauties and dashing friends?

During a conversation with Berlioz and Bezdomny, Woland opens a cigarette case - "huge sizes, pure gold, and on its lid, when opened, a diamond triangle sparkled with blue and white fire," a symbol of the Masons' connection with Satan. The Masonic theme unexpectedly appeared in Soviet reality quite shortly before the start of M. A. Bulgakov's work on the novel. At the end of 1927 a large Masonic organization was uncovered in Leningrad. Well-known journalists Tur brothers wrote about it. B. V. Sokolov admits that Bulgakov, who was keenly interested in mysticism in everyday life, did not pass by these messages.

Woland's triangle just symbolizes this cornerstone - the rejected stone, which has become the head of the corner. And the course of events in The Master and Margarita fully corresponds to the parable interpreted by F.V. Farrar. Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny, sitting on a bench ("seat of court"), again, nineteen centuries later, judge Christ and reject his divinity (Homeless) and his very existence (Berlioz).

Woland's triangle is another warning to the chairman of MASSOLIT, a reminder of the parable about the builders of Solomon's temple, especially in combination with the words: "A brick for no reason will never fall on anyone's head ... You will die a different death." Berlioz did not heed the warning, did not believe in the existence of God and the devil, and even decided to kill Woland with a denunciation, and paid for it with a quick death.

On the Patriarchs, in a conversation with Woland, Homeless is endowed with the features of a naive child. In the end, he forgets the meeting at the Patriarchs, and the Master in the last shelter forgets earthly life. The words about masons building houses here also bring to mind Freemasonry, since Freemasons are freemasons, the builders of the Solomon Temple, and Woland is also associated with Masonic symbols and rituals.

However, Woland's goal is not only the construction of a new temple of literature, where everyone will unite and be happy, but also the awakening of writers to creativity, the fruits of which may be pleasing to both God and the devil.

Woland criticizes the bureaucratic optimism of the “enlightened” in the Marxist way Berlioz from the standpoint of knowledge of millennia of human history: “Let me ask you, how can a person govern if he is not only deprived of the opportunity to draw up some kind of plan, even for a ridiculously short period, well, years, say, a thousand, but cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow?"

The dark magician indicates the unpredictability of human actions, often leading to results that are directly opposite to those intended, especially in the long run. The devil convinces the writer that it is not given to a person to foresee his future. But Berlioz, an orthodox Marxist, leaves no room in life for unpredictable, random phenomena, and pays for his vulgar determinism in the full sense of the word with his head.

Woland gives different explanations of the goals of his stay in Moscow to different characters who are in contact with him. He tells Berlioz and Bezdomny that he came to study the found manuscripts of Herbert of Avrilak (938-1003), a medieval scholar who, even after becoming Pope Sylvester II in 999, combined his duties with an interest in white, or natural magic, in unlike black magic, directed to people for the good, and not for harm. In the edition of 1929-1930. Woland directly called himself a specialist in white magic, just like Herbert Avrilaksky (in the final text, Woland already speaks of black magic).
Woland explains his visit to the employees of the Variety Theater and the house manager Nikanor Ivanovich Bosom with the intention to perform a session of black (in the early editions - white) magic. After the scandalous session, Satan told Variety Theater barman Sokov that he simply wanted to "see Muscovites en masse, but it was most convenient to do this in the theater."
Margarita Koroviev-Fagot, before the start of the Great Ball with Satan, reports that the purpose of the visit of Woland and his retinue to Moscow is to hold this ball, whose hostess must certainly bear the name of Margarita and be of royal blood. According to Woland's assistant, out of one hundred and twenty-one Margaritas, no one is suitable, except for the heroine of the novel.
Woland has many faces, as befits the devil, and in conversations with different people he puts on different

masks, gives completely different answers about the goals of his mission. Meanwhile, all the versions given serve only to disguise the true intention - to extract the brilliant Master and his beloved from Moscow, as well as the manuscript of the novel about Pontius Pilate.
Woland partly needed the session of black magic so that Margarita, having heard about what had happened at the Variety Theater, would already be prepared for a meeting with his messenger Azazello. At the same time, Woland’s omniscience of Satan is completely preserved: he and his people are well aware of both the past and future lives of those with whom they come into contact, they also know the text of the Master’s novel, which literally coincides with the “Woland gospel”, thus what was told unlucky writers at the Patriarchs.
It is no coincidence that Azazello, when meeting with Margarita in the Alexander Garden, quotes to her a fragment of the novel about Pontius Pilate, which in the end prompts the Master's beloved to agree to go to the powerful "foreigner" - Woland. Therefore, Woland's surprise when, after the Great Ball at Satan's, he "learns" from the Master the theme of his novel, is just another mask. The actions of Woland and his retinue in Moscow are subordinated to one goal - a meeting with the creator of the novel about Yeshua Ha-Notsri and Pontius Pilate, who is being recovered from the hospital, and with his beloved to determine their fate.

In The Master and Margarita, events begin "at the hour of an unprecedentedly hot sunset," "when the sun, having heated Moscow, was falling in a dry fog somewhere beyond the Garden Ring." Before the appearance of Woland and his retinue, Berlioz is seized by an "inexplicable languor" - an unconscious premonition of imminent death. In the 1929 edition, Woland said that "the daughter of the night, Moira, has spun her thread" (Moira is the ancient Greek goddess of fate), hinting that the "mysterious thread" of the fate of the chairman of MASSOLIT will soon be interrupted.
Berlioz is doomed to death, because he arrogantly believed that his knowledge allows him to unconditionally deny both God and the devil, and the living themselves, who do not fit into the framework of theories, the foundations of life. Woland presented him with the "seventh proof" of the opposite: the writer was overtaken by fate in the form of Annushka the Plague, who inadvertently spilled sunflower oil on the rails, and the girl-car driver, who therefore could not slow down.
Woland is the bearer of fate, and here Bulgakov is in line with the long tradition of Russian literature, which connected fate, fate, fate not with God, but with the devil.

For Bulgakov, Woland, like the earlier infernal Rock in "Fatal Eggs", personifies the fate that punishes Berlioz, Sokov and others who violate the norms of Christian morality. This is the first devil in world literature who punishes for non-compliance with the commandments of Christ.

According to Bulgakov, Woland, wishing evil, must do good. In order to get the Master with his novel, he punishes the opportunistic writer Berlioz, the traitor Baron Meigel and many petty crooks, such as the thief barmaid Sokov or the grabber-manager Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy. However, the desire to give the author of the novel about Pontius Pilate to the power of otherworldly forces is only a formal evil, since it is done with the blessing and even on the direct instructions of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, personifying the forces of good.
However, Bulgakov's good and evil are created, ultimately, by the hands of the person himself. Woland and his retinue only give an opportunity to manifest those vices and virtues that are inherent in people. For example, the cruelty of the crowd towards Georges of Bengal in the Variety Theater is replaced by mercy, and the initial evil, when they wanted to tear off the head of the unfortunate entertainer, becomes a necessary condition for the manifestation of goodness - pity for the headless entertainer.
The dialectical unity, the complementarity of good and evil is most fully revealed in the words of Woland addressed to Levi Matthew, who refused to wish health to the "spirit of evil and the lord of shadows": "You pronounced your words as if you did not recognize shadows, and also evil. Do not would you be so kind as to think about the question: what would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are obtained from objects and people. Here is the shadow from my sword. But there are shadows from trees and from living beings. Do you want to strip the whole globe, blowing away all the trees and all life from it because of your fantasy of enjoying the naked light? You are stupid.

What would self-sacrifice and self-denial be good for with universal happiness? Is it possible to understand virtue without knowing vice, love and beauty without knowing hatred and ugliness. It is only to evil and suffering that we owe the fact that our earth can be inhabited, and life is worth living. So don't complain about the devil. He created at least half of the universe. And this half merges so tightly with the other that if the first is touched, the blow will cause equal harm to the other. With every vice eradicated, the corresponding virtue disappears."

Woland fulfills the orders of Yeshua Ha-Nozri - in this way original way Bulgakov realizes the complementarity of good and evil principles. This idea, in all likelihood, was suggested by a passage about the Yezidis from the work of the Italian missionary Maurizio Garzoni, preserved among the materials for Pushkin's Journey to Arzrum (1836). It was noted there that "the Yezidis think that God commands, but the execution of their commands entrusts the power of the devil."

Yeshua, through Levi Matthew, asks Woland to take the Master and Margarita with him. From the point of view of Ga-Notsri and his only student, the reward given to the Master is somewhat flawed - "he did not deserve the light, he deserved peace." And from Woland's point of view, peace surpasses the "bare light", because it leaves the opportunity for creativity, which is what Satan convinces the author of the novel about Pontius Pilate: "... Why chase in the footsteps of what is already over? (i.e. to continue an already completed novel) ... O thrice romantic master, don't you want to walk with your girlfriend under the cherries that are beginning to bloom during the day, and listen to Schubert's music in the evening? Wouldn't it be pleasant for you to write by candlelight with a quill pen? like Faust, sit over a retort in the hope that you can fashion a new homunculus?"
Woland, like Yeshua, understands that only the devoted, but dogmatic Levi Matvey, and not the brilliant Master, can enjoy the "naked light". It is Woland, with his skepticism and doubt, who sees the world in all its contradictions (as a true artist sees it), who can best provide the main character with a worthy reward.
Woland's words at the Variety Theater: "The townspeople have changed a lot ... outwardly, I say, like the city itself, however. There is nothing to say about costumes, but these ... like them ... trams, cars ... But Of course, I'm not so much interested in buses, telephones and other ... equipment ... but a much more important question: have these citizens changed internally? surprisingly consonant with the thoughts of one of the founders of German existentialism, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), expressed in the work "The Source of Artistic Creation" (1935-1936): "Airplanes and radios, it is true, now belong to the number of closest things, but when we think about things, we remember something else. The last things are Death and Judgment."

In Bulgakov, Woland literally revives the burnt novel of the Master. The product of artistic creativity, preserved only in the head of the creator, materializes again, turns into a tangible thing.

Woland, unlike Yeshua Ha-Notsri, considers all people not good, but evil. The purpose of his mission in Moscow is precisely to reveal the evil inclination in a person. Woland and his retinue provoke Muscovites to unseemly acts, convincing them of complete impunity, and then they themselves parody punish them.

Woland often demonstrates a good knowledge of human nature, has the ability to explore and reveal "motives and passions, both spiritual and everything connected with living human life." All his knowledge, striking in its depth of idea, was brought, of course, not from underworld, but are drawn from the rich knowledge of live observations of life by Bulgakov himself. Everything that happens on the pages of the novel is just a game in which readers are involved.

Woland's appearance is both defiant and compromise: traditionally, the presence of noticeable physical defects (a crooked mouth, different eyes, eyebrows), the predominance of black and gray colors in clothes and appearance: “He was in an expensive gray suit, in foreign shoes, the color of the suit, he famously twisted his gray beret behind his ear, and under his arm he carried a cane with a black knob in the shape of a poodle's head.<...>The mouth is kind of crooked. Shaved smoothly. Brunette. The right eye is black, the left one is green for some reason. The eyebrows are black, but one is higher than the other” (p. 13). “Two eyes rested on Margarita’s face. The right one with a golden spark at the bottom, drilling anyone to the bottom of the soul, and the left one is empty and black, sort of like a narrow needle eye, like an exit into a bottomless well of all darkness and shadows. Woland's face was slanted to the side, the right corner of his mouth was drawn downwards, deep wrinkles parallel to sharp eyebrows were cut on his high bald forehead. The skin on Woland's face seemed to be burned forever by a tan.

In describing Woland, the author uses a contrast technique: Woland is "the embodiment of the contradictions of life (with his dominant - the ruler of hell)". It is characterized in different ways in different situations, appears in dynamics, changes its appearance. During his first meeting with Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny. Woland says that he is in Yershalaim incognito. This means that he was not simply invisible (as one might suggest), namely, he was present, but not in his usual, but in a travesty appearance. And Woland came to Moscow under the guise of a professor of black magic - a consultant and an artist, that is, also incognito, which means that he was also not in his own guise. There is no chance of meeting in Yershalaim a person directly similar to the Moscow Woland: Satan, undoubtedly, changed one mask to another, while not only clothes, but also facial features and voice can be an attribute of Satan's masquerade. Woland has different voices: in the main narration he speaks in a low “opera” voice, but in the narration about the execution of Yeshua, where, according to E. M. Gasparov, he plays the role of Aphranius, he has a high voice.

The tricks of the demons and Woland's visit to Moscow itself, of course, pursue a specific goal - to expose the deceptions of reality. In this connection, V.I. Nemtsev's consideration of the Kantian game theory developed by F. Schiller deserves attention. “Since man is a child of the material and at the same time ideal worlds, he constantly resides in two spheres. The game makes you master the duality of behavior, which is possible only with the help of imagination. It is the tech that Woland plays, especially in the first chapters of the novel, when he argues with the writers and tells them the story about Yeshua and Pilate, written by the Master. With the help of the game, Woland's assistants reveal the flaws of reality in their most essential plan - moral(emphasized by the author). The usual veil of current life is not able to cover all ulcers and scars, because this is not an obstacle to feeling pain. For conscience, there are no barriers at all.”

M. Bulgakov in his novel, as it were, bifurcates, finding himself either in the guise of a real Master, or a fantastic Woland. Woland came to earth to execute and pardon, and he knows whom and for what to execute, whom and for what to pardon. But the author only hints at the fact that Woland openly fulfills his own hidden desires. Therefore, Woland does not acquire a living character, remaining, as it were, an allegory of the author's conscience and wisdom. So, we can assume that in all this, it would seem, mysterious and wonderful, there is nothing mystical.

Summing up all the activities of Woland, I would like to emphasize a number of important points. Firstly, in my opinion, Woland is not the devil in the broadest sense of the word. His main difference from the traditional Satan is that he is not directly interested in any human failures. And those destructions left by his retinue, or the severed head of Berlioz, or the transformation of gold coins into candy wrappers would have happened WITHOUT Woland's participation. Even if not so soon (after all, the whole action of the novel unfolds in 4 days), but the punishment would come. And Woland is called the devil not because HE is so evil, but because he is forced to punish people who have committed such diabolical deeds. He is rather a devil, not by his own deeds, but by the circumstances.

Secondly, let's remember that Jesus Christ, the prototype of Yeshua, not only healed people, but also destroyed the temple, in which enterprising people organized a brisk trade. So the “punishments” of the gang of Koroviev and Behemoth, from which many “innocent” people suffered, are fully consistent with the deeds of God, who sometimes severely punishes the guilty. In The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov draws a parallel between Yeshua, personifying Christ, and Woland, personifying the Devil. But here they seem to complement each other, putting “on the true path” either with sincere conviction, like Yeshua, or with sobering punishment, like Woland and his gang. In any case, the function of both Woland and Yeshua is the same - to make a person more perfect, to make him give up his dark ways of finding a place under the sun.

And thirdly, the very essence of Woland is explained by the epigraph to the novel: “I am part of that force that always wants evil and always does good.” Here the devil is useful to the world just as the wolf is useful as an orderly to the forest. It is no coincidence that the words "Woland" and "wolf" are consonant. Therefore, in the novel, Woland, being a creature of darkness, does good deeds, because evil can often be destroyed only by evil, and like is eliminated by like. So, the lord of darkness in the book is the same Yeshua, only after 2000 years, because Woland is essentially doing everything to restore justice in this world. Albeit by force, but this is the case when the end justifies the means.

2. Woland's retinue

Azazello

The name Azazello and his titles are taken from religious books. It was formed by Bulgakov from the Old Testament name Azazel (or Azazel). This is the name of the negative hero of the Old Testament Apocrypha of the Book of Enoch, the fallen angel who taught people to make weapons and jewelry. Thanks to Azazello, women have mastered the "lascivious art" of face painting.

Perhaps that is why M. Bulgakov gives Margarita a cream that changes her appearance, it is Azazello. Azazello Cream makes her not only invisible, but also endows her with a new, witchy beauty.

In the novel, Azazello is Woland's right hand and carries out his instructions. It is Azazello who appears to Margarita in the garden, gives magic cream and brings her to the ball, and also kills Baron Meigel and escorts the lovers to another world with the help of poisoned wine. Unlike Koroviev and Behemoth, the image of Azazello is not comical.

In I. Ya. Porfiryev's book Apocryphal Tales of Old Testament Persons and Events (1872), most likely known to the author of The Master and Margarita, it was noted, in particular, that

Azazel "taught people to make swords, swords, knives, shields, armor, mirrors, bracelets and various ornaments; taught to paint eyebrows, use precious stones and all kinds of ornaments, so that the earth was corrupted."
Bulgakov was attracted by the combination in one character of the ability to seduce and kill. It is for the insidious seducer that Azazello Margarita takes during their first meeting in the Alexander Garden. But the main function of Azazello in the novel is associated with violence. He throws Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev from Moscow to Yalta, expels his uncle Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz Poplavsky from the Bad Apartment, and kills Baron Meigel with a revolver.
IN early editions Azazello committed this murder with the help of a knife, more befitting to him as the inventor of all edged weapons existing in the world. However, in the final text of The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov took into account that the prototype of Baron Meigel B.S. Shteiger had already been shot during the creation of the novel, and forced Azazello to kill the traitor not with a knife, but with a bullet.

In some surviving fragments of the 1929 edition of The Master and Margarita, Satan, the future Woland, bore the name Azazello. Here Bulgakov, obviously, took into account the instructions of I. Ya. Porfiriev that among Muslims Azazel is the highest angel, who, after his fall, was called Satan. Azazello then and later, until 1934, was called Fiello (Fiello). Perhaps the name Fiello, translated from Latin meaning "son", appeared under the influence of I. Ya. Porfiryev's message that in the book of Enoch there are two Latin names for the messiah: Fillius hominis (son of man) and Fillius mulieris (son of the wife). The name Fiello set off the subordinate position of the future Azazello in relation to the future Woland (then still Azazello), and on the other hand parodic equated him with the messiah.
In the book of Enoch, according to the translation of I. Ya. Porfiryev, the Lord says to the archangel Raphael: "Tie Azaziel and throw him into darkness and imprison (drive) into the desert." In this case, Azazello is likened to a scapegoat from the canonical Old Testament book of Leviticus. There, Azazel is a scapegoat who accepts all the sins of the Jewish people and is annually driven into the wilderness. At

I. Ya. Porfiryeva also cites the Slavic Old Testament apocrypha about Abraham, which says that “the devil Azazil appeared, in the form of an unclean bird, and began to tempt Abraham: what do you, Abraham, on the heights of the saints, they don’t eat, they don’t drink; if there is no human food in them, all these will devour and burn you with fire. Therefore, in the last flight, Azazello takes on the appearance of a demon of a waterless desert. Azazello in the form of an "unclean bird" sparrow appears before Professor Kuzmin, then turning into a strange nurse with a bird's paw instead of a hand and a dead, demonic look.
Apparently, the Apocrypha about Abraham was reflected in Bulgakov's rough draft,

dated 1933:
The meeting of the poet with Woland.
Marguerite and Faust.
Black mass.
You won't rise to the top. You won't listen to masses. But you'll listen to romantic...
Margaret and goat.
Cherry. River. Dreaming. Poems. Lipstick story.
Here the devil did not let the Master (Poet, Faust) go to the "holy heights", where there is no "human food", but sent him to create in the last romantic shelter with earthly fruits (cherries) and a river from which you can drink water. Azazello here, obviously, is turned into a goat, i.e. acquired its traditional appearance, and lipstick, which Azazel also gave to people, acts as a wonderful cream.
Plots with Azazello's ointment, which turns a woman into a witch, and with the transformation of Azazello into a sparrow, have ancient mythological roots. One can note "Lukia, or the Donkey" by the ancient Greek writer of the 2nd century BC. Lucian and "Metamorphoses" of his contemporary Roman Apuleius.
At Lucian, Hipparchus' wife undressed, "then she went naked to the light and, taking two grains of incense, threw them into the fire of the lamp and sentenced for a long time over the fire. Then she opened a voluminous casket, in which there were many jars, and took out one of them. What is in it I don't know, but it seemed to me from the smell that it was oil. Having collected it, she rubbed it all over, starting with her toes, and suddenly feathers began to grow in her, her nose became black and crooked - in a word, she acquired all the properties and signs of birds: she became nothing more than a night crow. When she saw that she was covered with feathers, she croaked terribly and, jumping up like a crow, flew out the window.
In exactly the same way, Margarita is rubbed with Azazello cream, but turns not into a crow, but into a witch, also gaining the ability to fly. Azazello himself in the waiting room of Professor Kuzmin turns first into a sparrow, and then into a woman in a scarf of a sister of mercy, but with a man's mouth, and this mouth is "crooked, to the ears, with one fang." Here the order of transformation is reversed than that of Lucian, and reduced - instead of a raven - sparrows. It is interesting that Bulgakov dictated the episode with Azazello's punishment of Professor Kuzmin in January 1940 after visiting Professor V.I.
Bulgakov, describing Margarita, rubbing herself with Azazello's cream, also took into account the transformation of the sorceress Pamfila, which Lucius observes in Apuleius' Metamorphoses: one of them, and, drawing ointment from it, first rubs it for a long time between his palms, then lubricates his whole body from the tips of his nails to the top of his head, whispers for a long time with his lamp and begins to tremble violently with all his limbs. fluff, strong feathers grow, the nose bends and hardens, crooked claws appear. Pamphyla turns into an owl. Having emitted a plaintive cry, now she is already trying her strength, slightly bouncing above the ground, and soon, rising up, spreading both wings, she flies away.
Another episode from "Metamorphoses" was reflected in "The Master and Margarita" in the scene of the murder of Azazello Baron Meigel. At Bulgakov, "the baron began to fall on his back, scarlet blood spurted from his chest and flooded his starched shirt and vest. Koroviev put the bowl under the beating stream and handed the filled bowl to Woland."
In Apuleius, the imaginary murder of one of the characters, Socrates, takes place in the same way: “And, turning Socrates’ head to the right, she (Meroya, the murderer) plunged the sword into the left side of his neck up to the hilt and diligently took the spilled blood into a small fur brought to the wound, so so that not a single drop can be seen anywhere. In both cases, the blood of the dead is collected not only to hide the traces of the crime, but also to prepare magical potions.

In the epilogue of the novel, this fallen angel appears before us in a new guise: “Flying on the side of everyone, shining with the steel of armor, Azazello. The moon changed his face too. The ridiculous, ugly fang disappeared without a trace, and the squint turned out to be false. Both Azazello's eyes were the same, empty and black, and his face was white and cold. Now Azazello flew in his real form, like a demon of a waterless desert, a demon-killer.

Koroviev

Koroviev-Fagot is a character in the novel The Master and Margarita, the eldest of the demons subordinate to Woland, a devil and a knight, who introduces himself to Muscovites as an interpreter with a foreign professor and a former regent of the church choir.
The surname Koroviev is modeled on the surname of a character in Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy's (1817-1875) novel "Ghoul" (1841) by State Councilor Telyaev, who turns out to be a knight Ambrose and a vampire. It is interesting that Ambrose is the name of one of the visitors to the Griboyedov House restaurant, who praises the merits of his cuisine at the very beginning of the novel. In the finale, the visit of Behemoth and Koroviev-Fagot to this restaurant ends with a fire and the death of the Griboedov House, and in the final scene of the last flight, Koroviev-Fagot, like A. K. Tolstoy's Telyaev, turns into a knight.

The knighthood of Koroviev-Fagot has many literary incarnations. On the last flight, the buffoon Koroviev transforms into a gloomy dark purple knight with a face that never smiles. This knight "once joked unsuccessfully ... his pun, which he composed, talking about light and darkness, was not very good. And after that the knight had to joke a little more and longer than he expected," Woland puts it to Margaret the history of the punishment of Koroviev-Fagot.

Here is his portrait: “... a transparent citizen of a strange appearance, on a small head a jockey cap, a short checkered jacket ... a citizen about a sazhen tall, but narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and a physiognomy, please note, mocking”; "... his antennae are like chicken feathers, his eyes are small, ironic and half-drunk."

One of the names of Koroviev-Fagot - Bassoon goes back to the name of the musical instrument bassoon, invented by the Italian monk Afranio. Thanks to this circumstance, the functional connection between Koroviev-Fagot and Aphranius is more clearly indicated. Koroviev-Fagot even has some resemblance to a bassoon - a long thin tube folded in three. Bulgakov's character is thin, tall and in imaginary subservience, it seems, is ready to triple in front of his interlocutor (in order to calmly harm him later).

Koroviev, this executor of Woland's will comically, but also quite cruelly treats the Moscow bribery bureaucracy. Let us recall at least the episode of the meeting between Koroviev and Nikanor Ivanovich, the manager of house No. 302-bis on Sadovaya Street. Here, our assistant to the devil performs two tasks: he makes it clear to the house manager that Woland is staying in apartment No. 50 legally, throwing a letter from nowhere in the manager’s briefcase, and fulfills the will of Messire, making sure that Nikanor Ivanovich is “raked in” by agents of the OGPU because for packs of chervonets planted by Koroviev, which then turned into illegal dollars:

“At the table of the deceased sat an unknown, skinny and long citizen in a plaid jacket, a jockey cap and pince-nez ... well, in a word, the same one.

Who are you, citizen? Nikanor Ivanovich asked frightened.

Ba! Nikanor Ivanovich, - the unexpected citizen yelled in a rattling tenor and, jumping up, greeted the chairman with a violent and sudden handshake. This greeting did not please Nikanor Ivanovich in the least.

I'm sorry," he said suspiciously, "who are you? Are you an official?

Oh, Nikanor Ivanovich! - the unknown person exclaimed sincerely. - What is an official person or not an official one? All this depends on the point of view from which one looks at the object; all this, Nikanor Ivanovich, is conditional and unsteady. Today I am an unofficial person, and tomorrow, you see, an official one! And it happens the other way around, Nikanor Ivanovich. And how it happens!”

“He wrote to Nikanor Ivanovich with a request to register a foreigner temporarily, while Likhodeev himself went to Yalta.

He didn't write me anything," the chairman said in amazement.

And you rummage through your briefcase, Nikanor Ivanovich, - sweetly suggested Koroviev.

Nikanor Ivanovich, shrugging his shoulders, opened the briefcase and found Likhodeev's letter in it.

How did I forget about him? - Nikanor Ivanovich muttered stupidly looking at the opened envelope.

“And then, as the chairman later claimed, a miracle happened: the pack itself crawled into his briefcase.”

It is known that then it was with the house manager. This is how Koroviev deals with all those who take bribes, lie, steal, in general, who have a full bouquet of human vices.

Koroviev-Fagot is a devil that has arisen from the sultry Moscow air (an unprecedented heat for May at the time of its appearance is one of the traditional signs of the approach of evil spirits). Woland's henchman, only out of necessity, puts on various masks-masks: a drunken regent, a gaer, a clever swindler, a rogue translator with a famous foreigner, etc. Only in the last flight Koroviev-Fagot becomes who he really is - a gloomy demon, a knight Bassoon, no worse than his master, who knows the price of human weaknesses and virtues.

Behemoth cat
This werewolf cat and Satan's favorite jester is perhaps the most amusing and memorable of Woland's retinue.

The author of The Master and Margarita got information about Behemoth from the book by M.A. Orlov "The History of Man's Relations with the Devil" (1904), extracts from which have been preserved in the Bulgakov archive. There, in particular, the case of the French abbess, who lived in the 17th century, was described. and possessed by seven devils, the fifth demon being Behemoth. This demon was depicted as a monster with an elephant's head, with a trunk and fangs. His hands were of a human style, and a huge belly, a short tail and thick hind legs, like a hippopotamus, reminded him of his name.

According to the testimony of the second wife of the writer L. E. Belozerskaya, their domestic cat Flyushka, a huge gray animal, served as the real prototype of the Behemoth. In the finale, the Behemoth, like other members of Woland's retinue, disappears before sunrise in a mountain hole in the desert area in front of the garden, where, in full accordance with the story of the book of Enoch, an eternal shelter is prepared for the "righteous and chosen ones" - the Master and Margarita.

Bulgakov's Behemoth became a huge black werewolf cat, since it is black cats that are traditionally considered to be associated with evil spirits. This is how we see it for the first time: "... on a jeweler's pouffe, a third person collapsed in a cheeky pose, namely, a terrible black cat with a glass of vodka in one paw and a fork, on which he managed to pry a pickled mushroom, in the other."

Behemoth in the demonological tradition is the demon of the desires of the stomach. Hence his extraordinary gluttony, especially in Torgsin, when he indiscriminately swallows everything edible. Bulgakov sneers at the visitors of the foreign exchange store, including himself. With the currency received from foreign directors of Bulgakov's plays, the playwright and his wife sometimes made

shopping in Torgsin. People seem to have been possessed by the demon Behemoth, and they are in a hurry to buy delicacies, while outside the capitals the population lives from hand to mouth.

Why did the author include this image in his novel? Probably, everything is clear here without additional digressions. The shootout of Behemoth with the detectives in apartment No. 50, his chess duel with Woland, the shooting contest with Azazello - all these are purely humorous scenes, very funny and even, to some extent, relieving the sharpness of those worldly, moral and philosophical problems that the novel poses reader.

In the last flight, the reincarnation of this merry joker is very unusual (like most of the plot moves in this science fiction novel): “The night tore off the Behemoth’s fluffy tail, tore off his hair and scattered it to shreds across the swamps. The one who was the cat that entertained the prince of darkness, now turned out to be a thin young man, a page demon, the best jester that ever existed in the world.

But the cat, like Koroviev, carries out Woland's instructions to identify people's not very good deeds and words. When Behemoth came to the chairman of the commission, "Prokhor Petrovich flared up again:" I'm busy! And he, just think, replies: “You are not busy with anything ...” Huh? Well, here, of course, Prokhor Petrovich's patience snapped, and he exclaimed: “But what is this? Take him out, the devil take me!” And he, imagine, smiled and said: “What the hell? Well, it's possible!" And, fuck, I did not have time to scream, I look: there is no this one with a cat's face and si ... sitting ... a suit ... "

“At a huge desk with a massive inkwell, an empty suit sat and, with a dry pen not dipped in ink, drew over the paper. The suit was tie-tied, a self-writing pen protruded from the suit pocket, but there was no neck or head above the collar, nor did the hands stick out of the cuffs. The suit was immersed in work and did not notice at all the mess that reigned around.

Here the Cat showed himself in all his picaresque glory ...

The cat also says funny, even somewhat clownish: “And I really look like a hallucination. Pay attention to my profile in the moonlight - the cat climbed into the moon pillar and wanted to say something else, he was asked to be silent, and he answered: - Good, good, ready to be silent. I will be a silent hallucination, - he stopped.

Despite the clownish image of the Cat, in the episode with the sitting jacket, Behemoth exposes the disgusting qualities of a person - foul language and bureaucracy. This jacket is like the personification of all the bureaucrats who slow down the progress of affairs.

Koroviev and Behemoth are debunkers of lies, hypocrisy, greed and other human vices. They play their roles, amusing themselves with human stupidity and ignorance.

Gella is a member of Woland's retinue, a female vampire.

Bulgakov got the name "Gella" from the article "Sorcery" of the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, where it was noted that in Lesbos this name was used to call untimely dead girls who became vampires after death.

When Gella, together with Varenukha, the administrator of the Variety Theater who had been turned into a vampire, tried to attack the financial director Rimsky in the evening after a session of black magic, traces of cadaveric decomposition clearly appeared on her body: "The financial director looked around desperately, retreating to the window leading to the garden, and in this window, flooded by the moon, I saw the face of a naked girl clinging to the glass and her bare hand poking through the window and trying to open the bottom bolt ... Varenukha ... hissed and smacked, winking at the girl in the window. could hand, began scratching the lower latch with her nails and shaking the frame. Her hand began to lengthen, like rubber, and became covered with cadaverous greens. Finally, the green fingers of the dead man clasped the head of the latch, turned it, and the frame began to open...

The frame opened wide, but instead of the freshness of the night and the scent of lindens, the smell of the cellar burst into the room. The deceased stepped onto the windowsill. Rimsky could clearly see the stains of decay on her chest.

And at that moment an unexpected rooster crow came from the garden, from that low building behind the shooting range, where the birds that participated in the programs were kept. A loud-mouthed trained rooster trumpeted, announcing that dawn was rolling towards Moscow from the east.

Wild fury distorted the girl's face, she let out a hoarse curse, and Varenukha squealed at the door and fell from thin air to the floor.

The rooster crowed again, the girl snapped her teeth, and her red hair stood on end. With the third crowing of the rooster, she turned and flew out. And after her, jumping up and stretching out horizontally in the air, resembling a flying cupid, Varenukha slowly floated out the window through the desk.

The fact that the cry of a rooster makes Gella and her henchman Varenukh retire completely corresponds to the association of a rooster with the sun, widespread in the pre-Christian tradition of many peoples - with his singing he announces the arrival of dawn from the east and then all evil spirits, including the revived vampire dead, are removed to the west, under the auspices of the devil.

The characteristic features of the behavior of vampires - clicking their teeth and smacking their lips, Bulgakov, perhaps, borrowed from the story of Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817-1875) "Ghoul" (1841), where the main character is threatened with death by ghouls (vampires). Here the vampire girl turns her lover into a vampire with a kiss - hence, obviously, the kiss of Gella, fatal for Varenukha.

Hella, the only one from Woland's retinue, is absent from the scene of the last flight. The third wife of the writer E. S. Bulgakov believed that this was the result of the incompleteness of work on The Master and Margarita. According to the memoirs of V. Ya. Lakshin, when he pointed out to her the absence of Gella in the last scene, "Elena Sergeevna looked at me in confusion and suddenly exclaimed with unforgettable expression:" Misha forgot Gella !!! ".

But it is possible that Bulgakov deliberately removed Gella from the scene of the last flight as the youngest member of the retinue, performing only auxiliary functions at the Variety Theater, and in the Bad Apartment, and at the Great Ball with Satan. Vampires are traditionally the lowest category of evil spirits.

In addition, Gella would have no one to turn into in the last flight, because, like Varenukha, having turned into a vampire (the living dead), she retained her original appearance. When the night "revealed all deceptions", Hella could only become a dead girl again. It is also possible that the absence of Gella means her immediate disappearance (as unnecessary) after the end of the mission of Woland and his companions in Moscow.

III. The great ball of Satan as the apotheosis of the novel.

The Great Ball at Satan's is a ball given by Woland in the Bad Apartment in the novel "The Master and Margarita" on the endlessly lasting midnight of Friday, May 3, 1929.

According to the memoirs of the third wife of the writer E. S. Bulgakova (recorded by V. A. Chebotareva), in the description of the Great Ball with Satan, impressions of a reception at the American embassy in Moscow on April 22, 1935 were used. US Ambassador William Bullitt (1891-1967) invited the writer and his wife to this solemn event.

In order to fit the Great Ball at Satan's into the Bad Apartment, it was necessary to expand it to supernatural dimensions. As Koroviev-Fagot explains, "for those who are well acquainted with the fifth dimension, it costs nothing to push the room to the desired limits."

For a semi-disgraced writer, such as Bulgakov was, a reception at the American embassy is an almost unbelievable event, comparable to a ball at Satan's. Soviet graphic propaganda of those years often depicted "American imperialism" in the guise of a devil. In the Great Ball at Satan's, the real features of the furnishings of the American ambassador's residence are combined with details and images of a distinctly literary origin.

This brings to mind the novel The Invisible Man (1897) by HG Wells (1866-1946), where main character Griffin talks about his invention to achieve invisibility: “I found a general law of pigments and refraction of light, a formula, a geometric expression that includes four dimensions. some general expression. Bulgakov goes further than the English science fiction writer, increasing the number of dimensions from the rather traditional four (one may recall the stereotypical "world in the fourth dimension") to five. In the fifth dimension, giant halls become visible, where the Great Ball is held by Satan, and the participants of the ball, on the contrary, are invisible to the people around them, including the OGPU agents on duty at the door of the Bad Apartment.

Having abundantly decorated the ballrooms with roses, Bulgakov took into account the complex and multifaceted symbolism associated with this flower.

In the cultural tradition of many nations, roses are the personification of both mourning and love and purity. With this in mind, the roses at Satan's Great Ball can be seen both as a symbol of Margarita's love for the Master and as a harbinger of their imminent death. Roses here - and an allegory of Christ, the memory of the shed blood, they have long been included in the symbolism of the Catholic Church.

The great ball at Satan's, in particular, can be imagined as a figment of the imagination of Margarita, who is about to commit suicide. Many eminent noblemen-criminals approach her as the queen (or queen) of the ball, but Margarita prefers her lover to everyone - brilliant writer Masters. Note that the Great Ball at Satan's is preceded by a session of black magic in the circus-like Variety Theater, where the musicians play a march in the finale (and in the works of this genre, the role of drums is always great).

The sequence of guests who pass in front of Margarita at the Great Ball at Satan's is not chosen by chance. The procession is opened by "Mr. Jacques with his wife", "one of the most interesting men", "a convinced counterfeiter, a traitor, but a very good alchemist", who "became famous for ... having poisoned the royal mistress". Here we are talking about the famous French statesman of the XV century. Jacques Le Coeuret (1400-1456).

In the Bulgakov archive, extracts from Brockhaus and Efron dedicated to "Mr. Jacques" have been preserved: "... a counterfeiter, an alchemist and a traitor. An interesting personality. He poisoned the royal mistress." Bulgakov undoubtedly knew that the real Coeur was not such a sinister figure and that the accusations against him remained unproven and were generated, first of all, by the slander of eminent debtors. But at the Great Ball with Satan, he deliberately puts into the mouth of Koroviev-Fagot a generally negative characterization of Coeur - a gifted person. Here the connection of talent with evil spirits is emphasized (the crowd usually believed in such a connection both in the Middle Ages and later). At the Great Ball, Satan and his retinue provide patronage to both criminals and remarkable personalities of the past, who were unreasonably accused of various crimes. In the nature of those who appear before Margarita, good and evil are closely intertwined.

During the Great Ball at Satan's, not only imaginary poisoners and murderers, but also real villains of all times and peoples pass in front of Margarita. Interestingly, if all the imaginary poisoners at the ball are men, then all the true poisoners are women. The first to speak is "Ms. Tofana". The author of The Master and Margarita got information about this famous Italian woman from the article of the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron "Aqua Tofana" (this is the name of the poison, in literal translation - water of Tofana). Extracts from this article have been preserved in the Bulgakov archive. It reported that in 1709 Tofana was arrested, tortured and strangled in prison (this version is reflected in the text of The Master and Margarita). However, in Brockhaus and Efron it was noted that, according to other sources, the Sicilian poisoner was kept in a dungeon as early as 1730 and, most likely, died a natural death there.

Malyuta Skuratov (Grigory Lukyanovich Skuratov-Belsky), the closest associate of Tsar Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584) in all his atrocities, who died in 1573 during the siege of the Wenden Castle in Livonia, is also present at the Great Ball with Satan, in connection with which, celebrating feast on the deceased breastplate, the king ordered that all the captives be subjected to a painful execution. The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron reported that "the memory of Malyuta Skuratov and his atrocities is preserved in folk songs, and even the name itself has become a common noun for the villain." Even in the play "Running" (1928), Bulgakov parodied the name, patronymic and surname of Malyuta Skuratov in General Grigory Lukyanovich Charnot (Charnot - Belsky), who also had one of the prototypes of the common executioner - Ya. A. Slashchev.

The fact that a string of murderers, poisoners, executioners, harlots and pimps passes in front of Margarita at the Great Ball at Satan's is not at all accidental. Bulgakov's heroine is tormented by betrayal of her husband and, albeit subconsciously, puts her misdeed on a par with the greatest crimes of the past and present. The abundance of poisoners and poisoners, real and imaginary, is a reflection in Margarita's brain of the thought of a possible suicide with the Master using poison. At the same time, their subsequent poisoning, carried out by Azazello, can be considered imaginary, and not real, since almost all male poisoners at Satan's Great Ball are imaginary poisoners. Another explanation for this episode is the suicide of the Master and Margarita. Woland, introducing the heroine to the famous villains and harlots, intensifies the pangs of her conscience. But Bulgakov, as it were, leaves an alternative possibility: the Great Ball with Satan and all the events associated with it occur only in the sick imagination of Margarita, who is tormented by the lack of news about the Master and guilt before her husband and subconsciously thinking about suicide. The author of The Master and Margarita offers a similar alternative explanation in relation to the Moscow adventures of Satan and his henchmen in the epilogue of the novel, making it clear that it is far from exhausting what is happening. Also, any rational explanation of the Great Ball with Satan, according to the author's intention, can in no way be complete.

Frida plays a special role at the Great Ball with Satan, showing Margarita the fate of the one who crosses the line defined by Dostoevsky in the form of an innocent child's tears. Frida, as it were, repeats the fate of Margarita in Goethe's Faust and becomes a mirror image of Margarita. Her biography reflected the fate of two women from the book of the Swiss psychiatrist and public figure August (Auguste) Forel (1848-1931) "The Sexual Question" (1908), one of the first works on sexology. An extract from this work has been preserved in Bulgakov's archive: "Frida Keller - killed the boy, Konietsko - strangled the baby with a handkerchief." Both of these stories are contaminated in the image of Frida.

To Frida at the Great Ball with Satan, Margarita shows mercy, which Forel also called for in relation to Frida Keller. And again, Bulgakov punishes the guest of the Great Ball with Satan more severely than it was in life. In a note from 1908, Forel noted that the intellectual circles of the canton of Saint Gallen were increasingly sympathetic to the convict, and expressed the hope that "poor Frieda Keller", whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, would soon be released. Bulgakov, on the other hand, executed his Frida, like Goethe his Margarita, in order to give her the opportunity to be at the Great Ball with Satan (only the living dead participate in the ball).

And yet the main one at the ball is Queen Margarita. She is the ideal of a woman, primarily because she is capable of a deep, devoted, selfless love. She leaves her husband, but only when she realizes that the Master needs him, that he will disappear without her. She enters into an agreement with Satan, but already in order to save the Master. She is driven by love. And so she is morally invulnerable. “Meeting Wolandam didn’t do her any harm,” unlike many others. Just as Yeshua remains a man, even being at the mercy of murderers, and sympathizes with and helps one of them, so Margarita, having fallen into a monstrous company of molesters, poisoners and scoundrels of all times and peoples, remains a man: none of them is disgusting to her, she trying to understand them, to sympathize with them. She lost the most precious thing - her Master, but did not withdraw into her grief: she sees the grief of another person (Frida) and actively sympathizes with him.

Perhaps Bulgakov needed the ball with Satan precisely as a test for Margarita: a person manifests himself in trials, only in this way can one reveal his core ...

IV. An example of the life-affirming power of kindness and mercy.

Evil, according to Bulgakov, is not in those who have power, not in the government, not in this or that social structure, but in people, as a person of this society.

As K. Ikramov says: “Responsibility for the work done in the world is borne not by the strong and not even omnipotent, but by the weak and even insignificant.” The evil is that people are humanly weak, insignificant, cowardly, that they are "not quite people, not quite souls." Such people cannot be happy; you cannot build a good life out of such rotten "living material".

How to defeat evil? For this, it is necessary first of all to establish in society the principles of justice, that is, the inevitability of exposing vices, punishing meanness, sycophancy and lies. However, this will still not be the ultimate triumph of good. Finally, only love and mercy can bring goodness into the world - it is mercy and love that Bulgakov calls to put as the basis of human relations and social structure.

One of the striking paradoxes of the novel lies in the fact that, having made a pretty mess in Moscow, Woland's gang at the same time restored decency and honesty to life and severely punished evil and untruth, thus serving, as it were, to affirm thousand-year-old moral precepts. Woland destroys the routine and punishes the vulgar and opportunistic. And if even his retinue appears in the guise of petty demons, not indifferent to arson, destruction and dirty tricks, then Messire himself invariably retains some majesty. He observes Bulgakov's Moscow as a researcher, setting up a scientific experiment, as if he really was sent on a business trip from the heavenly office. At the beginning of the book, fooling Berlioz, he claims that he arrived in Moscow to study the manuscripts of Herbert Avrilaksky - he is playing the role of a scientist, experimenter, magician. And his powers are great: he has the privilege of a punishing act, which is in no way with the hands of the highest contemplative good.

In the epilogue of the novel on the wings of clouds, Satan and his retinue leave Moscow, taking with them to their eternal world, to the last refuge of the Master and Margarita. But those who deprived the Master of a normal life in Moscow, hunted him down and forced him to seek refuge with the devil - they remained.

The devil and his retinue in the novel is a perfect, disinterested and incorruptible machine that punishes everyone who turned out to be weak, could not resist the temptation of this very devil. In the Variety, crowds of people rushed to the stage for "free" outfits, and when money fell from the ceiling, they grabbed them like children. Here it is - a manifestation of the true character of people, their greed, self-interest and greed. Woland arranges this performance with one goal - to test people, to test their strength with "copper pipes". But, alas, Messire makes a disappointing conclusion: “Well, then,” he replied thoughtfully, “they are people like people. They love money, but it has always been... Mankind loves money, no matter what it is made of, whether it is leather, paper, bronze or gold. Well, they are frivolous ... well, well ... and mercy sometimes knocks on their hearts ... ordinary people ... in general, they resemble the former ones ... the housing problem only spoiled them ... "

Dark forces tempt everyone who encounters them, who is brought into apartment No. 50. And - an amazing thing - everyone blindly accepts these temptations! Indeed, according to the Bible, it was the devil who tempted Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. And they could not resist, for which they paid the price, hitting the Earth. And in the novel, it is the devil - Woland and his retinue that punish everyone who has not passed the test. So, in Bulgakov, Satan performs some functions of divine power.

Note that Messire and his servants DO NOT punish the one who, in spite of any trials, does not succumb to their temptations. Margarita turns out to be such a person - a sincere soul, she is ready to give everything in order to save the Master. Not himself, but the Master. No matter how Woland and the retinue at the ball tempt her, Margarita for myself didn't want anything. She tried to help Frida, a poor girl who was a victim of circumstances ... Just as selfless kind person was Yeshua. Here it is - the ideal of moral purity and disinterestedness! Here it is - an example of the life-affirming power of kindness and mercy!

In the end, no matter what people are, life makes them think about true human values, and the trials that have befallen them reveal the true essence person.

List of used literature

1. Bulgakov M. A. Master and Margarita. - M.: Fiction, 1988.

2. Vadim Slutsky Problems of the novel "The Master and Margarita" newspaper "Literature" 2002 No. 27-28

3. Bulgakov Encyclopedia compiled by B.V. Sokolov - M. Lokid, Myth, 1997

(as well as materials from the site bulgakov.ru)

4. Akimov V. The man himself controls! The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. - L .: Neva, 1988.

5. Levina L. A. The moral meaning of cantial motifs in the philosophy of the novel "The Master and Margarita". - M .: Higher School, 1991

6. Petelin V. V. Mikhail Bulgakov. A life. Personality. Creation. - M.:

Moscow worker, 1989.

7. Levandovsky A. A. Russia in the XX century. - M .: Education, 2001.

8. Yanovskaya L. The creative path of Mikhail Bulgakov. Moscow: Soviet writer. 1983.

? Secondary school No. 288 Abstract The role of dark forces in the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita" Author

Dimitri Beznosko

“Impure forces” – or “non-dirty”?

Bulgakov dated the start of work on The Master and Margarita in various manuscripts either 1928 or 1929. In the first edition, the novel had variants of the names Black Magician, Engineer's Hoof, Juggler with a Hoof, Son of V., Tour. It is known that the first edition of The Master and Margarita was destroyed by the author on March 18, 1930, after receiving news of the ban on the play The Cabal of Saints. Bulgakov reported this in a letter to the government: "And personally, with my own hands, I threw a draft of a novel about the devil into the stove ..."

The novel "The Master and Margarita" combines "three independent plots within a single plot. It is easy to see that they all have all the components of the concept of "plot". Since any plot can be considered as a complete statement, then in the presence of an ethical component (composition) external to them, such statements as signs must inevitably enter into dialectical interaction, forming the resulting aesthetic form - a metaplot, in which the intention of the title author is manifested” (1 ). But all three main plots (as well as many small ones) are sometimes connected by the most incredible intricacies that in one way or another lead us to Woland and his retinue.

In the sixty years that have passed since Bulgakov wrote his famous novel The Master and Margarita, people's views on what the common people call "evil spirits" have changed dramatically. More and more people began to believe in the existence of evil and good wizards, magicians and witches, sorcerers and werewolves. In the process of this return to folk mythology, the very perception of "Good" and "Evil", associated with the concepts of light and darkness, was radically changed. According to S. Lukyanenko, “the difference between Good and Evil lies in the attitude towards ... people. If you choose Light, you will not use your abilities for personal gain. If you chose Darkness, it will become normal for you. But even a black magician is able to heal the sick and find the missing. And a white magician can refuse to help people ”((2), ch. 5).

In a certain sense, Bulgakov anticipates the change in the concepts of light and darkness. In the novel, the author introduces Woland as a positive, or at least as a non-negative character. After all, it is not for nothing that the epigraph to The Master and Margarita is a quote from Goethe “I am part of that force that always wants evil and always does good” (Goethe, “Faust”).

“As victims of the key Narrator [of the novel], which maliciously lured them into a trap and provoked them to rapture about the crude socialist realist crafts of their own work, real-life commentators of the novel are involved in the metaplot as characters - the (post) Soviet near-literary bureaucracy. In it, in real modern life, an act of Koroviev's mockery will be carried out according to the schemes described in the novel:
- ladies who were seduced by free fashionable outfits ended up in underwear when leaving the Variety Show;
- Koroviev provoked Bezdomny to shout "Help!" together, but he himself remained silent;
- he also drew the employees of the Soviet office into a friendly choral singing which drove them to madness. Similarly, the Narrator only outlined for the critics an empty shell of the novel in the spirit of socialist realism, they unanimously conceived all the elements necessary for this genre, and he himself carefully refuted all this. In this aspect of the meta-plot, the development of which is relegated to the future (to our present), the retinue playing the naked king (socialist realism) is satirically shown, and the whole content of the novel works on this plot ("supposedly money" - "supposedly a novel"); in this sense, The Master and Margarita is one of the "Koroviev tricks" of Bulgakov himself, a true master of mystification" (3).

And again we see a connection with Woland and his retinue. From the very moment of Satan's appearance at the Patriarch's Ponds, events begin to unfold with increasing speed. However, it should be noted that the influence of Woland and his retinue is sometimes either minimal or guiding, but almost never openly evil. It is possible that Bulgakov is trying to show the “impure forces” familiar to us in a role that can be called “non-dirty”.

In his first meeting with Berlioz and Bezdomny at the Patriarch's Ponds, Woland acts only as a storyteller, or, as Bulgakov himself put it, a historian. And the truth is that the story takes place at the Patriarchs. But is Satan or any of his retinue guilty of it? Woland predicts to Berlioz that his head will be cut off; Koroviev points out to the latter where the turnstile is. But none of them is guilty of the fact that Mikhail Alexandrovich takes that last step when he decides to return to the turntable, although, as Bulgakov emphasizes, he was already safe. So if there is Woland's fault in the death of Berlioz, it is in the very fact of his appearance at the Patriarch's Ponds and in a conversation with writers. But this is not something out of the ordinary, far from criminal, but rather a “non-dirty” act. Equally, the actions committed by Ivan Nikolaevich in the latter's futile attempt to catch up with Satan and his retinue, as well as the poet's placement in a psychiatric hospital after a fight in Griboyedovo, are not Woland's fault either.

The forgery of the contract with Variety falls under just the "impure" category. But the reader cannot fail to notice that Woland is very gentle with Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev, the director of the Variety Show, who “in general […] has been terribly pig[it] lately. Drink[s], enters into relations with women, using his position, does not do a damn thing, and cannot do anything, because nothing makes sense [it] that [he ] entrusted. The authorities are rubbing points! The car is in vain driving a state-owned one! ((4) Ch. 7). And what does Woland's retinue do with the Steppes? With the permission of their master, they simply throw him out of Moscow to Yalta, when it cost them nothing to get rid of Likhodeev by faster and more reliable methods. And this act, again, can be regarded as “not dirty”.

The scene with Nikanor Ivanovich shows how different it is: Koroviev's call to the police was certainly a dirty business. But the bribe that the chairman of the housing association receives from Koroviev, to some extent, justifies the actions of Satan's retinue.

We can say that actions, one way or another connected with Woland, bring evil. That there is nothing “undirty” in a character whose actions and orders bring people a nervous breakdown and loss of freedom, or even everything that they have, including life. The only objection is the fact that among the victims of the "jokes" of Woland and his retinue there is not a single person with a clear conscience. And the Variety barman, and Nikanor Ivanovich, and Baron Meigel - they were all guilty and lived under a suspended sentence. The appearance of Woland in their lives causes only a quick denouement.

The denouement only does what deprives the perpetrators of the opportunity to aimlessly live the rest of their lives. In the case of Baron Meigel, approaching him at the ball, Woland says: “Yes, by the way, baron,” Woland said, suddenly lowering his voice intimately, “rumors spread about your extreme curiosity. They say that she, combined with your equally developed talkativeness, began to attract everyone's attention. Moreover, evil tongues have already dropped the word - earpiece and spy. And what's more, there is an assumption that this will lead you to a sad end in no more than a month. So, in order to save you from this tedious waiting, we decided to come to your aid, taking advantage of the fact that you asked for a visit to me precisely with the aim of spying and eavesdropping on everything that is possible ”((4), ch. 23) .

The same theme is heard in the words of Woland, addressed to Andrey Fokich, the barman of the Variety, after he was told that he would die of liver cancer: under the groans and wheezing of hopeless patients. Wouldn't it be better to make a feast for these twenty-seven thousand and, having taken poison, move<в другой мир>to the sound of strings, surrounded by drunken beauties and dashing friends?” ((4), Ch. 18). It is possible that with these words Woland, and through him Bulgakov, clearly alludes to a similar story with the arbiter of grace Gaius Petronius at the court of Emperor Nero, who, having fallen out of favor with the emperor, arranges a feast with all his money, and in the presence of family, friends, dancers He opens his veins.

Approaching the end of the novel, Bulgakov shows Satan as the only one who is able to give peace to people who deserve it. He puts Woland higher in terms of capabilities than the forces of light, on behalf of which Levi Matthew asks Satan to provide the Master and Margarita with a reward for their labors and torment on Earth. This episode shows Bulgakov's attitude towards Woland and his retinue, the writer's respect for the roots of folk beliefs in "evil spirits", in the power of this force.

Leaving Moscow, Woland takes the Master and Margarita with him. Night returns the true appearance of Koroviev and Behemoth. This is “such a night when they settle scores” ((4), ch. 32.). The ending of the novel is somewhat unexpected - the Master and Margarita will find peace. Peace from everything: from their earthly lives, from themselves, from the novel about Pontius Pilate. And again Woland provides them with this peace. And in the person of Woland, Bulgakov releases his heroes into oblivion. And no one will ever disturb them again. Neither the noseless murderer of Gestas, nor the cruel fifth procurator of Judea, the horseman Pontus Pilate” ((4) Epilogue).

Bibliography.

1) Alfred Barkov, “ Metaplot of "The Master and Margarita" » http://ham.kiev.ua/barkov/bulgakov/mim10.htm

2) Sergey Lukyanenko, “ The night Watch", online publication http://www.rusf.ru/lukian/, 1998

3) Alfred Barkov, “ Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita":
"eternally faithful" love or a literary hoax? » http://ham.kiev.ua/barkov/bulgakov/mim12.htm

4) Mikhail Bulgakov, “ Master Margarita”, online publication.

http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/BULGAKOW/master.txt

Sections: Literature

“I am part of that force that always wants
evil and always does good"
Goethe "Faust"

I. Beginning of the lesson. 5 minutes

1. Organizational moment.

The lesson begins with establishing contact with the students. We say hello, remember the excellent results that the class showed in previous lessons (the composition of the novel, the system of characters, the fate of the Master).

2. Questions to identify perception.

– What is the Master's novel about?

– How does Yeshua develop the concept of truth?

What is Pontius Pilate afraid of?

– What is M. Bulgakov's novel about?

In a quick exchange of remarks, we restore the main conclusions of the previous lessons: the Master's novel is about Pontius Pilate; Yeshua develops the concept of truth in the following way: no one can dispose of his life (“cutting a hair… only the one who hung it can”), he believes in the power of the word, he is ready to go to the truth with the help of persuasion, the word; Pontius Pilate is afraid of losing power (being a brave warrior, he becomes a coward when it comes to power), therefore, he is not a free person; he is punished for cowardice, and punished with immortality, pangs of conscience; Bulgakov is convinced that cowardice is one of the worst vices; the novel is devoted to eternal problems, and they exist in the present just as they did many centuries ago.

3. Formulating the topic of the lesson, its goals and objectives.

We collectively formulate the topic of the lesson, based on its main goal: the problem of mercy, forgiveness, justice. We set tasks:

what will we learn today? (we will find out why the Master did not deserve the light; what is peace; what is the core theme of the novel)
what will we learn today? (we will learn to conduct a dialogue based on the primary perception of the text, to give a personal assessment of the characters and their actions)
what can each of us do? (everyone will try to express their attitude to eternal themes touched upon in the novel, give a personal assessment).

II. Primary updating of knowledge. 7 minutes

The purpose of this part of the lesson: express value judgments.

Work with written answers of students (checking homework). At home, the guys tried to figure out the question: why are fantastic pictures related to the presence of "evil spirits" in Moscow included in the novel, dedicated to life's problems? I give the guys the opportunity to listen to each other, to argue. The main points that can be distinguished in the answers of the students are as follows: Bulgakov portrayed a life that cannot be considered normal. It is absurd, surreal. If this life can be called hell, then the appearance of the Prince of Darkness in it is natural. Fantastic pictures expose reality, present it in a grotesque form and make one horrified by what they often pass by without noticing.

III. System update. 10 minutes

A task: give students the opportunity to conduct an educational dialogue, comment on their thoughts, answer questions from the teacher.

- Which of the heroes of the novel written by the Master does Margarita resemble in her desire to save her lover? Margarita is as brave as Matthew Levi, who tried to save Yeshua.

How will she return love? People did everything to separate the lovers, and evil spirits will help bring the Master back.

- Let's remember how Margarita's acquaintance with Woland took place? Margarita does not know where the Master has disappeared for many months. “Ah, right, I would pawn my soul to the devil just to find out if he is alive or not!” And the devil's assistant is right there. For information about her lover, Margarita must pay with the presence of Satan at the ball. She will endure this terrible night with dignity. But the Master is not there, and she cannot ask about him.

- Woland promises Margarita to fulfill only one of her wishes. What does Margarita ask for? Release Frida. Why? She promised her. Margarita has hatred for the persecutors of the Master in her soul, but mercy has not disappeared.

- Probably, a person would take advantage of Margarita's mistake, but not the devil. He must return the Master to her. But he promised to fulfill only one promise. How to be? Margarita herself will forgive Frida. This has symbolic meaning: a person will forgive a person. And Woland will fulfill her wish.

– And now the Master is here, in front of her and Woland. The burnt novel will miraculously be revived (“Manuscripts do not burn!”) What does Bulgakov want to emphasize with this detail? ( the idea of the immortality of art is affirmed - this is one of the root ideas of the novel)

- What is Margarita amazed at, finally seeing her beloved? Master is broken. He will tell Woland that the novel, which until recently was the meaning of his life, is now hated by him.

Let's go back to chapter 29. With what request does Levi Matthew come to Woland? Give the Master peace.

“Why didn’t the Master deserve the light?” This question cannot be answered unambiguously. Probably, the Master did his job on earth: he created a novel about Yeshua and Pilate; showed that a person's life can be determined by one of his actions, which will either exalt and immortalize him, or make him lose peace for life and suffer from the acquired immortality. But at some point the Master retreated, broke down, failed to fight for his offspring. Maybe that's why he didn't deserve the light?

– What is peace? A refuge for a weary, immensely tormented soul. (Remember Pushkin: “There is no happiness in the world, but there is peace and will ...”) The one who is not weighed down by pangs of conscience is worthy of peace.

– Is the Master worthy of his hero Yeshua? Yes and no. Yeshua, who did not depart from the truth, deserved the light, and the Master - only peace.

IV. Stage of assimilation of new material (10 minutes)

The task of this stage: the formation of students' ability to generalize, draw conclusions, using the method of integrated solution of several problems.

- Let's talk about how the concepts of "mercy", "forgiveness", "justice" correlate in the novel. (To discuss this issue, you should remember the lexical meaning of these words, because they seem understandable to the guys, but their exact interpretation will help to answer more consciously).

We display on the screen:

Forgiveness - complete forgiveness
Mercy - willingness to help
Justice is impartial action in accordance with truth.

– Let us return to the question of the relationship between these three concepts in the novel. Who is Woland - the bearer of evil or good? Woland is an evil spirit, he must destroy and punish, but he rewards - this is the mystery of the novel. Good is impossible without evil, they are always there. It is thanks to Woland that the truth is reborn. His justice is cruel, but without it, people would not open their eyes. It is the forces of evil that Bulgakov endowed with the right to administer justice, i.e. to punish severely for evil and generously reward for good. Woland is a performer of "dirty" work. And Yeshua preaches mercy and forgiveness. He believes in man and says that it is impossible to respond to evil with evil. Justice brings punishment. Mercy makes it possible for oneself to atone for guilt. You must be able to forgive, you can’t always carry a grudge in your soul. The world must maintain a balance between mercy and justice. How often do we forgive those who should not be forgiven, and condemn those who deserve forgiveness.

- We come to the conclusion: Woland is evil, which is necessary for the existence of good.

Let us recall the epigraph of Goethe's novel, which served as an epigraph for our lesson: "I am part of that force that always wants evil and always does good." For the sake of the triumph of truth, sometimes it is necessary to destroy and build again ( “The temple of the old faith will collapse and a new temple of truth will be created”).

V. The final stage of the lesson. Generalization, summing up. 0 minutes

A task: final performances of students, comments of the teacher.

Due to a certain loss of the pace of the lesson caused by the fatigue of the students, I somewhat change the “scenario” of the lesson: the students, as it were, “sort out” the roles: some express their own point of view, others act as critics, others are experts, evaluate the answers of their comrades.

– The time has come to sum up the conversation about M. Bulgakov's novel. Let's go back to where we started our acquaintance with the heroes - to the question of what is truth.

On the screen is a picture of M. Čiurlionis “Truth” (against the background of a person’s face there is a burning candle and a moth flying into the flame. It will die, but cannot but fly into the light).

- Which of the characters in the novel does this moth remind you of? Yeshua Ha-Nozri knows what threatens him with the desire to speak only the truth, but he cannot behave otherwise. And vice versa - it is worth being cowardly at least once, like Pontius Pilate, and your conscience will not give you peace.

What is the core idea of the novel? The idea of the inner freedom of a person who, under any circumstances, must act as he finds the only possible for himself. It brings good - and let it not be understood, but freedom, truth is above all, they are immortal.

- Why does the novel end with a scene connected with a hero that is not so important at first glance, like Ivan Bezdomny? Like Yeshua, the Master has a follower. Leaving this world, the Master leaves in it a man who stopped doing poetry and became an employee of the Institute of History and Philosophy.

- What is the meaning of replacing the name of Ivan Bezdomny with the name of Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev? Homeless - this surname spoke of the restlessness of the soul, the absence of one's own outlook on life. Acquaintance with the Master regenerated this man. Now it is he who can carry the word of truth into the world.

“So, what is the truth? In the triumph of kindness, mercy, forgiveness. These three qualities, interconnected with each other, make a person beautiful. These three qualities are beauty itself.

In conclusion, we read fragments from chapter 32 - about Woland and his companions, who are leaving Moscow. These lines end the conversation about M. Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita.

VI. Homework, grades for work in the lesson. 3 minutes

Written work-reflection "What is good and evil" (on literary material or life experience).