Interesting facts about the novel The Master and Margarita. The Master and Margarita - interesting facts

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov began work on this literary masterpiece in 1928. The very story of the creation of “The Master and Margarita” is unusual - like the hero of his book, the writer threw the first edition of the novel into the fire. But, as you know, manuscripts don’t burn...

In total, Bulgakov spent more than ten years creating the book. On March 18, 1930, the writer threw a draft of the novel into the oven with his own hands. Bulgakov was prompted to this act by the news that his play entitled “The Cabal of the Holy One” was banned from production.

But the story of the creation of The Master and Margarita did not end there. There were some sketches left, and besides, the author himself perfectly remembered the contents of the novel. However, Bulgakov was not destined to live to see the publication of his work, which took place only in 1966.

The Master and Margarita - interesting facts

Alas, fans of the “diabolica” have to be content with a rather modest description of the stranger Woland. And in the first manuscript that Bulgakov burned, as many as fifteen handwritten pages are devoted to the signs of the devil! However, maybe it’s for the better - what if Woland continues to appear at the Patriarch’s Ponds?

The history of the creation of the television series is interesting. The main location for filming the biblical scenes presented in the film was Bulgaria. For the sake of the film adaptation, a real architectural ensemble was created that reproduced in detail the interiors of Herod's palace in Yershalaim. Moscow in the 1930s was filmed in the northern capital of Russia.

Instead of Oleg Basilashvili, they initially planned to invite Oleg Yankovsky to play the role of Woland, but he strongly opposed it. For what reasons - history is silent.

Curse of the Dark Messiah

The work “The Master and Margarita” was sadly glorified by deceased actors - full list deceased performers includes 17 names:

Abdulov, who played the role of Koroviev, died of lung cancer, which developed to the fourth stage.

He owns the image of the poet Ivan Bezdomny. Official reason death is considered acute heart failure.

Doctors came to the conclusion that the actor’s death was caused by severe nervous exhaustion due to alcohol abuse.

He played the role of financial director Rimsky.

People's Artist of Russia died of lung cancer. Many viewers remember him as one of the hosts of the humorous program “Town.”

He got the role of the bribe-taking house manager Nikanor Bosogo.

The cause of Zolotukhin’s death was a brain tumor that was not amenable to surgical intervention.

He played the Jewish procurator Pontius Pilate.

In the work, Pilate suffers from severe headaches and even wants to commit suicide; Lavrov was destined to die from leukemia.

He played an investigator involved in the search for Woland's gang.

He was found dead in his apartment shortly after the premiere of the television series. The circumstances of the actor's death remain unclear.

He had the opportunity to play a thief who stole Ivan Bezdomny’s clothes on the pier.

Komarov was also remembered by the viewer as “Lieutenant Tsyganenok” from the film “The Weather is Good on Deribasovskaya”.

The same critic Latunsky, whom Margarita wanted to shoot “right in the heart,” and then pardoned and asked the sir to let him live.

What is noteworthy is that Landgraf suffered a heart attack.

Honored Artist of Russia, in “The Master and Margarita” he got the character of an accountant.

Died on the same day as Kirill Lavrov, according to tragic accident fell through the ice while fishing. For Merkuriev and Lavrov, the day of April 27, 2007 became real.

He played the doorman Nikolai, who greeted guests at Griboedov's house.

In addition to “The Master and Margarita,” Oskin starred in 60 films, including “Burnt by the Sun-2,” “ dog's heart" and many others.

In the television series he played the role of one of the NKVD officers.

In The Master and Margarita, Poddubny was investigating in a “bad apartment.” The cause of death was a traumatic brain injury; authorities are investigating the circumstances of the incident.

In addition, some actors who participated in the episodes died - Galina Barkova, Valentina Egorenkova, Stanislav Sokolov (secretary of Procurator Pilate), Mikhail Surov and Stanislav Pryakhin. Andrei Tolubeev, in whose voice the character Aloisy Mogarych speaks, has died.

As you can see, the history of the creation of “The Master and Margarita” and the subsequent work on this work is full of secrets and mysteries. It’s not without reason that they say that it’s better not to joke with dark forces...

Why the actors refused to film at the last moment, and 13 deaths after the premiere.

The director of "Legend No. 17" and "Crew" Nikolai Lebedev will make a film based on the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov. The work has been filmed and staged in the theater more than once, but every time some kind of devilry happens on the set. And all the incidents with the actors who starred in the film are attributed to the action of a “demonic romance.”

"Nothing will work out"

In 2005, the series “The Master and Margarita” directed by Vladimir Bortko was released. He himself has said more than once that there is nothing mystical in the novel. But soon I remembered one story.

A few years ago, when I was preparing for filming, a strange incident happened to me at Patriarch’s Ponds. A man passing by suddenly turned to me: “You won’t succeed anyway!” - and moved on,” the director said in his interviews.

Bortko considers this a pure coincidence. Moreover, he did not listen to the pessimistic “forecast”.

Woland in the Bortko series was given to Oleg Basilashvili to play. Later, viewers will say hundreds of times that this is how they imagined the devil. For the actor himself, this role resulted, as TV Program writes, in the loss of his voice.

Basilashvili was delivering Woland’s monologue when he suddenly wheezed. A few moments later he completely lost his voice. Doctors said he had a hemorrhage on his right vocal cord.

The actor rehearsed the day before, there were no problems with the ligaments. The doctors prescribed him complete rest, injections and complete silence for a while.

Berlioz and surgery

Alexander Adabashyan, who played Mikhail Berlioz, was hospitalized with a heart attack shortly after filming. However, the actor himself did not connect his participation in the series, health problems and mysticism.

Adabashyan joked more than once in an interview about how members of the film crew used the “devilish train” of the work. For example, they said that the evil spirits themselves forced them to drink too much the day before filming.

Koroviev and Azazello

Alexander Filippenko played in two film adaptations of “The Master and Margarita” at once - by Vladimir Bortko and Yuri Kara. In Kara he played Koroviev.

Many years have passed since then. The actor walked with friends through the Patriarch's, showing them the scene of The Master and Margarita. Filippenko himself says that at that moment he met with Bortko.

You've already played Koroviev. Will you play Azazello for me? - asked Bortko. The actor agreed, considering it a sign of fate.

Refused at the last minute

Woland in the series was supposed to be Oleg Yankovsky. However, at the last moment he refused to film, saying that he did not consider this role to be strong. And then he admitted that, in his opinion, the devil, like God, cannot be played.

Alexander Kalyagin refused the role of Berlioz, Vladimir Mashkov never became a Master. Alexander Pankratov-Cherny refused the role of Varenukha. But Bortko decided not to part with the actor, offering him the option of Stepan Likhodeev as a replacement. That's what we agreed on.

13 deaths in five years

Some call it a terrible coincidence, others call it mysticism, but the fact remains: in the year of the premiere and in the five years after the release of the first episode, 13 actors who participated in the filming died.

Actor Alexander Chaban died at the age of 47. His body was found on October 2, 2005 in his apartment. He played an investigator looking for Woland.

Almost a year later, in September 2006, Pavel Komarov, who played the thief who stole the clothes of the bathing poet Ivan Bezdomny on the pier, died. He was not even 40 years old.

Stanislav Landgraf (critic Latunsky), Kirill Lavrov (Pontius Pilate), Evgeny Merkuryev (accountant), Alexander Abdulov (Korovyov), Andrey Tolubeev (voiced by Aloisy Mogarych), Yuri Oskin (doorman Nikolai), Galina Barkova (fruit seller), Vladislav Galkin (Ivan Bezdomny), Valentina Egorenkova (nurse in the mental hospital), Stanislav Sokolov (secretary of Pontius Pilate), Mikhail Surov (extras). 13 people.

With the death of each actor, rumors about the curse of “The Master and Margarita” were circulated in the press again and again.

A pipe burst

Yuri Kara's film "The Master and Margarita" has been waiting in the wings for 14 years. It was filmed back in 1994, and presented only in 2008 at the film festival of the CIS and Baltic countries "New Cinema. XXI Century". It was released at the box office only in 2011.

Although at press conferences the actors shouted loudly that there was no mysticism, members of the film crew still remembered some episodes.

So, Yuri Kara said that the devilry began literally with the filming of the first scene in the Moscow Hermitage Garden.

They started filming the film in the Hermitage garden from the stage in a variety show, all TV channels gave reports about it. Suddenly Levitin (director of the Hermitage Theater Mikhail Levitin) came to the set and asked to stop filming, RIA Novosti quotes Kara as saying.

It later turned out that a hot heating pipe had burst in the place where the footage was stored. When Levitin was informed about this, he did not believe it at first. And as soon as he put the phone down, a pipe burst in his office.

They even called a priest to the site, who sprinkled holy water on the camera and film crew.

Cameramen refused to film

In total, during the work on Kara’s film, six cameramen changed: they either left or simply disappeared. So, when they were filming ancient Judea in Crimea, it suddenly started snowing, something that had not happened in October for a long time. In addition, for unknown reasons, the cameraman did not come to the shooting. And the film itself, as it turned out, was forgotten in Moscow.

When Kara went to the capital to get film and a cameraman, in front of Bulgakov’s house, already in Moscow, his new Volga broke down. Let us note that after some time a man named Koroviev crashed into his car.

The film was eventually directed by Evgeny Grebnev. He died shortly after filming: at 35, the day before his birthday.

Actors Bronislav Brondukov and Spartak Mishulin (Varenukha and Archibald Archibaldovich), Viktor Pavlov (Behemoth) and Mikhail Ulyanov (Pontius Pilate) and composer Alfred Schnittke also did not live to see the premiere.

Israel and "terrorist filmmakers"

A forgotten film, an accident, some kind of devilry... the film crew decided to move the filming to Israel. Yuri Kara was sure that nothing would happen in the Promised Land.

The film crew wanted to reflect a line from the book “The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city hated by the procurator.” For this, darkness itself was necessary.

By that time computer graphics there weren’t any, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky - how dark it was here. The pyrotechnician agreed to “do” it, but, as the media wrote, for $200 thousand. They found the money, organized the darkness, but then...

15 Israeli combat helicopters descended from the sky. Special forces with machine guns jumped out from there and attacked the film crew. They decided that we were Arab terrorists. Our producers were shocked because everyone had been warned about the filming. By the time we figured it out, the cloud had gone away,” the director later said.

Woland Victor Avilov and clinical death

The famous actor Viktor Avilov, whom many viewers remember from his roles as the Count of Monte Cristo in The Prisoner of Chateau d'If and Mordaunt in The Musketeers 20 Years Later, also played Woland. But in the theater.

On tour in 1995, less than an hour before the start of “The Master and Margarita,” the actor experienced clinical death: Avilov’s heart stopped twice. However, after this he began to recover, and his health seemed to be returning to normal.

But in the early 2000s, he again began to suffer from ulcers and back pain. Returning from a tour in Israel in June 2004, he decided to get examined. Doctors said he had an inoperable tumor. Foreign doctors refused to treat me over and over again. Last hope they gave it to him in Novosibirsk. The actor lived for another two months, after which he died in Akademgorodok at the age of 51.

Bulgakov studied German mysticism XIX period centuries, treatises about God, literature about the Christian and Jewish faith, legends about the devil. The writer changed his novel several times, as well as its title: “Juggler with a Hoof”, “Black Magician”.

There was no Master and Margarita in the first novel; the main character was the Devil.

Bulgakov decided to burn the first version.

The second novel was called "Satan, or Grand Chancellor" The main character becomes fallen Angel, the Master and Margarita, Woland and his retinue appeared. But the second novel was also not published.

The third novel was called “The Master and Margarita”; unfortunately, Bulgakov was unable to finish the work. On February 13, 1940, the writer introduced into the novel last change- Margarita’s phrase about writers following the coffin. A month later, Bulgakov died. His last words were the phrase: “So that they know, so that they know...”.

Woland bears a portrait resemblance to the great magician Count Cagliostro, who knew how to predict the future and remembered events a thousand years ago.

When the employees try to remember the magician's name, they guess that his name is Faland. In Germany, "Valand" is the name given to the devil.

The prototype of Woland was V.I. Lenin. In the Bulgakov archive they found a clipping from the newspaper Pravda dated November 6-7, 1921, which tells how Lenin and Zinoviev were hiding from the provisional government in Finland. The famous police bloodhound “Tref” was brought in to catch them. In the novel, the famous police bloodhound Tuzbuben is looking for Woland. This is a parody of the nickname Clubs (clubs are the official suit). “Ace of Diamonds” - this sign was sewn onto the clothes of convicted criminals.

Hundreds of bourgeois citizens helped search for Lenin. This is strikingly reminiscent of the atmosphere of the search for Woland and his retinue after a session of black magic at the Variety Theater, when the NKVD and distraught ordinary people seize suspicious people and cats (a hint of the repressions of the 20s and 30s).

Ya. M. Sverdlov at the VI Party Congress in the summer of 1917 said that “although Lenin is deprived of the opportunity to personally attend the congress, he is invisibly present and leads it.” In the same way, Woland informs Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny that he was invisibly present at the trial of Pontius Pilate over Yeshua Ha-Nozri.

Retinue of Woland-Satan: Behemoth, Azazello and Karoviev-Fagot.

Azazello was taken by Bulgakov from the book of Enoch (Old Testament). There is a fallen angel named Azazel. He taught people to make weapons - swords, knives, shields, armor, mirrors, as well as bracelets and various jewelry; taught women to smear their faces and decorate themselves precious stones and other decorations, from which the earth was corrupted.

Azazello gave Margarita a cream, from which she became a witch, he also poisons the lovers and kills Baron Meigel.

Behemoth the cat is Woland's favorite jester. When creating the image of the cat Behemoth, the writer used the story of Anne Desange, who lived in the 17th century and was possessed by seven demons. One of them was a demon named Behemoth - a monster with the head of an elephant, terrible fangs, short tail, a huge belly, thick hind legs, and human hands.

The Behemoth cat also bears resemblance to Lenin's comrade-in-arms, Zinoviev. Of all the Bolshevik leaders, Grigory Evseevich Zinoviev was the closest to Lenin, like Behemoth to Woland. A plump man who loved to eat, with a mustache and beard, Zinoviev had cat-like features.

Koroviev-Fagot is the only person in Woland's retinue. The image of Bassoon is partially copied from the god Vitzliputzli. In the conversation between Bezdomny and Berlioz, the name of this Aztec god of war is mentioned. In the Faust legend, Vitzliputzli is Satan's first assistant. Bulgakov gave Fagot a thin neck, hinting at Molotov. He had a thin neck that stuck out from his collar, topped with a small head like a cat's. Molotov under Stalin played the same role as Woland’s closest assistant, Fagot-Koroviev.

Margaret, Queen Margot, is very similar to Helen, last wife Bulgakov. Partially, the image of Margaret was copied from the French queen Margot, who was the wife of Henry IV and patronized poets and writers.

Moscow – Yershalaim. The action of the novel dates back to May 1-7, 1929, which was Holy Week. In parallel, in the “Pilate Chapters” events develop during the week of the year 29 in Yershalaim, where Holy Week is also described. In the first part of the novel, the actions develop in parallel; in the second part, they begin to intertwine with each other and then merge into a single story. Yershalaim goes to Moscow.

During filming and after the release of the series “The Master and Margarita,” mystical incidents happened to the actors.
Almost all the actors initially cast in the lead roles abandoned the filming at the last moment.
Oleg Yankovsky was supposed to play Woland, but suddenly suffered two heart attacks in a row and said no.
Vladimir Mashkov auditioned for the role of the Master, but a sudden car accident forced him to abandon the role.
Pankratov-Cherny was afraid to play the vampire Varenukha and agreed only to Styopa Likhodeev, who was simply a drunkard and a womanizer.

Brilliant cast series - Oleg Basilashvili, Alexander Abdulov, Valentin Gaft, Alexander Galibin, Sergei Bezrukov, Alexander Filippenko and others - this is a backup option. And mystical events happened to them.
Oleg Basilashvili was delivering Woland's monologue, when suddenly the actor's throat convulsed, he began to wheeze, and then completely lost his voice. Doctors diagnosed a hemorrhage in the right vocal cord and prescribed complete rest and absolute silence for several months.
Anna Kovalchuk (Margarita) divorced after the release of the series.
Alexander Galibin (Master) suffered from severe bronchitis during filming and coughed so hard that the walls shook! And immediately after filming I got into a terrible car accident.
Alexander Adabashyan (Berlioz) suffered a heart attack.
Vlad Galkin and Alexander Abdulov died tragically after filming.
Alexander Filippenko (Azazello) met director Bortko at the Patriarch's Ponds, exactly in the place where the poet Bezdomny met Woland in the novel. Filippenko was then walking with friends and reading to them... the first chapter of the novel “The Master and Margarita”! Bortko approached Filippenko and said: “You don’t know me. Do I know you. You already played Koroviev in Yuri Kara’s film “The Master and Margarita” in 1994. Will you play Azazello for me?”
Valery Zolotukhin played Nikanor Bosogo. Soon Zolotukhin’s son committed suicide.
Vladimir Bortko scolded the actors for their superstitions, but after Basilashvili’s illness, he still invited them to film set the priest who blessed the filming equipment.

The chairman of the fantastic Acoustic Commission Sempleyarov is exactly similar to the political figure Abel Enukidze, who in 1922-1935 was the chairman of the Government Commission for the management of the Bolshoi and Art theaters. For theatrical arts this commission was as useless as the Acoustic Commission in the novel. Both had the task of preventing the emergence of “ideologically harmful” performances. Sempliarov in the novel, like Enukidze in life, is partial to the fair sex, especially to actresses of subordinate theaters. For Yenukidze it ended worse than for Bulgakov’s hero. For political and everyday decay, Yenukidze was removed from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, accused of “treason, terrorist activity and systematic espionage for a foreign state” and shot. Sempleyarov’s “exposure” at a black magic session became Bulgakov’s kind of revenge on A.S. Enukidze, because in response to the writer’s request for a two-month trip abroad, Enukidze refused Bulgakov in a humiliating manner.
Sempleyarov’s monologue also contains an obvious parody of V. E. Meyerhold’s speech at a discussion in March 1936: “The masses of spectators demand an explanation.” Sempliarov told Woland: “Still, we would be pleased, citizen artist... if you exposed us to the technique of mass hypnosis... this is extremely desirable. The mass of spectators..." The description of Sempleyarov’s entourage at the Variety Theater also hints at the loving Meyerhold: “Arkady Apollonovich was seated in a box with two ladies: an elderly one, expensively and fashionably dressed, and another, young and pretty, dressed more simply. The first of them, as it soon became clear when drawing up the protocol, was the wife of Arkady Apollonovich, and the second was distant relative him, an aspiring and promising actress who came from Saratov and lives in the apartment of Arkady Apollonovich and his wife.” Here is an allusion to Meyerhold's second wife, actress Zinaida Nikolaevna Reich, who was twenty years old younger than husband, like the imaginary relative from Saratov, she was much younger than Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov.
Great ball for Satan. The luxury of the ball reflected the reception at American Ambassador in the USSR, Bullita. Once a year, Bullitt gave big receptions about national holiday. Writers were also invited. One day the Bulgakovs also received an invitation. The reception was luxurious. In the huge hall with columns there was a swimming pool and a lot of exotic flowers. Multi-colored spotlights shone from the choirs. Birds fluttered behind the net. An orchestra from Stockholm played. Dinner was served in a dining room specially built for this ball at the embassy mansion, on separate tables. In the corners of the dining room there are pastures with kids, sheep, bear cubs, and roosters. There is a kebab shop on the top floor. There is champagne and cigarettes everywhere.

In the novel, in order to accommodate all the guests of the ball in the “bad apartment”, it was necessary to expand it to supernatural sizes. Bulgakov increased the number of dimensions from the traditional four to five. As Koroviev-Fagot explains, “for those who are well acquainted with the fifth dimension, it costs nothing to expand the room to the desired limits.” But the participants of the ball were invisible to the OGPU agents on duty at the doors of the Bad Apartment.

The story of the last two visitors to the ball, the unlucky poisoners, was based on materials from the trial of the “right-Trotskyist bloc” that took place in March 1938, during which the party ideologist Bukharin, the head of the Council of People’s Commissars Rykov, the Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Krestinsky, and the NKVD Minister Yagoda were accused of organizing the murder of the head of the Leningrad Bolsheviks of Kirov in December 1934, and the assassination attempt on Yezhov by poisoning his office with mercury. Bulgakov understood the anecdotal nature of these accusations, in the spirit of medieval legends, so he introduced a mention of poisoners into the novel. Bulgakov does not name the last guests of the ball, as well as who they were going to poison, hinting that after the conviction of the high-ranking “poisoners”, their names were forbidden to be mentioned in the press.

The scene of Satan's Great Ball reflected another episode, a completely farcical one. It's about about the so-called “Bokija commune”. Gleb Ivanovich Bokiy was a security officer-executioner whose hands were stained with blood up to his elbows. He was shot in 1937, and his employees gave the most interesting testimony about him during the investigation. On weekends, all members of the commune went to the dacha and were obliged to follow all the rules established by Father Bokiy: after drinking, go to the bathhouse, where they openly engage in group sexual debauchery. Drunk people had their genitals smeared with paint and mustard; those sleeping while drunk were often “buried” alive. At the same time, members of the commune with their wives came to the dacha. The women were drunk, undressed and used in turns, giving Bokiy an advantage. All members of the commune took part in this, including Bokiy’s two daughters. It was mandatory for men and women to remain naked or half-naked on the territory of the dacha. The atmosphere of this KGB commune is very reminiscent of the atmosphere of Satan's Great Ball. By the mid-20s, rumors about the outrages happening at Bokiy’s dacha began to circulate around Moscow. In the novel, the laws of the satanic ball that Koroviev-Fagot talks about coincide with the laws of the Bokiy commune. Woland treats Margarita to alcohol, as does Boky to the members of the commune. Woland's guests are drunk and the women are naked, just like at Bokiy's dacha.

Baron Meigel. It has a completely prototype real person, closely associated with the OGPU and the NKVD - the former baron Boris Shteiger, who in the 30s worked as a commissioner of the Collegium for Foreign Relations. At the same time, Steiger was a full-time employee of the OGPU-NKVD. No other people were appointed to such positions in Soviet ministries. In Stalin's Russia, unauthorized contacts with foreigners were a crime, and only verified people could meet with foreign professors. Steiger monitored Soviet citizens who came into contact with foreigners and sought to obtain from foreign diplomats information that was of interest to the Soviet security authorities. The position brought certain benefits, but at the same time the baron became a carrier of secret information, so he had practically no chance of surviving the great purge. He was arrested and shot. The scene of the murder of Meigel at Satan's Great Ball was included in the text after the execution of B. S. Steiger.

MASSOLIT. “The Master and Margarita” contains a sharp satire on Bulgakov’s fellow writers. Organization Soviet writers in the novel Bulgakov called it MASSOLIT. One of the supposed decodings is “Masters of Soviet (or socialist) literature,” or simply “Mass Literature,” because Berlioz and his comrades scattered literary consumer goods to fool the masses.

Griboyedov House Restaurant. This restaurant combines the features of the Herzen House restaurant, as well as the restaurant of the Theater Workers' Club. The director of both institutions, in different time there was Yakov Danilovich Rosenthal, who served as the prototype for Archibald Archibaldovich. The abundant vegetation that bordered Rosenthal's eastern face fully justified his nickname, “The Beard.” He had an impressive stature, a representative appearance, a thick black Assyrian, conical beard, and a large chest-length beard. The portrait of Archibald Archibaldovich clearly coincides with the portrait of the prototype: “A handsome black-eyed man with a dagger-like beard, in a tailcoat, came out onto the veranda and looked around his possessions with a royal gaze. They said, the mystics said, that there was a time when the handsome man did not wear a tailcoat, but was girded with a wide leather belt, from which the handles of pistols protruded, and his raven-wing hair was tied with scarlet silk, and sailed in the Caribbean Sea under his command of the brig under black coffin flag with Adam's head." Here's a hint military service J. D. Rosenthal, which abounded, according to the recollections of friends, extraordinary adventures. In the Herzen House, writers sometimes showed themselves not with the best side. Thus, the scene of the scandal that Ivan Bezdomny, shocked by the meeting with Woland and the death of Berlioz, causes in the restaurant, has a very real episode behind it.

"The writers are following the coffin." At the 125th anniversary of Pushkin on June 6, 1924, all writers were invited to the Herzen House at 6 p.m. Tverskoy Boulevard. From there, lined up in rows, with the banner at the head, they moved to the monument to Pushkin, where the laying of a wreath was to take place. In the history of Russian literature, this was the first procession of writers and quite crowded. This is very reminiscent of the description of the procession of writers following Berlioz’s coffin in The Master and Margarita. It was at the words of Margarita: “So these are the writers who are going after the coffin?” that the dying Bulgakov stopped editing the novel.

Critic Mstislav Lavrovich. This is a parody of the writer and playwright Vsevolod Vitalievich Vishnevsky, one of Bulgakov’s zealous persecutors.

Critic Latunsky. Chairman of the Main Repertoire Committee in 1932–1937, playwright and theater critic Osaf Semenovich Litovsky was one of Bulgakov’s most implacable opponents and actively contributed to the banning of all Bulgakov’s plays. Litovsky's surname is parodied in the surname of the critic Latunsky who killed the Master.

The twelve members of the MASSOLIT leadership, waiting in vain for their chairman in the Griboedov House, are parodically likened to the twelve apostles of the Christian, and then the new communist faith.

"Navigator Georges." Under this pseudonym, the “Moscow merchant orphan” Nastasya Lukinichna Nepremenova, the author of sea battle stories, who was present at the MASSOLIT meeting, writes. This is a parody of the famous French writer George Sand (Aurora Dupin), and playwright Sofya Aleksandrovna Apraksina-Lavrinaitis, who wrote under the pseudonym “Sergei Rebel.”

The scene when Koroviev-Fagot and Behemoth are not allowed into the writer's restaurant due to the lack of writer's certificates - Moscow sketch real events, when you could only get into the restaurant by presenting a membership card certifying your membership in a literary organization. Behemoth and Koroviev were able to enter the restaurant, introducing themselves as names known in the 19th century, but forgotten in the 20th century. writer and journalist Ivan Ivanovich Panaev and critic and literary historian Alexander Mikhailovich Skabichevsky.

“Literary Memoirs” by A. M. Skabichevsky, republished in 1928, on the eve of the start of Bulgakov’s work on the novel “The Master and Margarita,” served as a source for the writer to describe the fire in the Griboedov House: “On the historical day of the Apraksinsky fire, the public flocked to Summer Garden, thanks to the good weather, it was especially crowded. And then, in the midst of the festivities, at about five o’clock, shouts were heard at once from all ends of the garden: “Save yourself, we’re burning, Apraksin is all on fire!” The public rushed in horror to the exits from the garden, and at each gate there was a deadly stampede, from which many women were carried out dead. Taking advantage of this turmoil, the mazuriki tore off the girls' jewelry, with shreds of their dresses and blood from their torn ears. This gave reason to assume that the arson was carried out by the mazuriki with the special purpose of profiting from the dressed-up merchants walking in the Summer Garden... suffocating smoke, unbearable heat, showered with paper ash flying from the windows... huge sheaves of flame... Arsonist Koroviev- Bassoon helps firefighters extinguish the Griboyedov House, and as a result, the building burns to the ground. To set fires, Behemoth and Koroviev use an incendiary mixture from a primus stove - gasoline. During the hunt for Woland and his retinue in the epilogue of the novel, a maddened crowd grabs hundreds of cats, as well as all people with surnames even remotely reminiscent of Koroviev and Woland. Among those detained was a man with Polish surname– Candidate of Chemical Sciences Vetchinkevich. Here is an echo of the rumors of that time that the arson was started by the Poles.

Death of Berlioz. Woland's prediction about the death of Berlioz was made in full accordance with the canons of astrology. Satan noted the presence of Mercury in the second house of the ecliptic, which meant that the chairman of MASSOLIT was happy in trade. Mikhail Alexandrovich really brought traders into the holy temple of literature, he was successful in commerce - receiving material goods in exchange for convictions and renunciation of creative freedom (his last minutes the dream of a vacation trip to Kislovodsk dawns). There is a punishment for this. Misfortune in the sixth house, which Satan speaks of, means failure in marriage, and indeed, Mikhail Alexandrovich’s wife fled to Kharkov with the choreographer. The seventh house is the house of death. The chairman of MASSOLIT dies under the wheels of a tram immediately after a conversation with the devil.
Woland warns Berlioz about “mysterious threads” over which a person has no control: “... Someone who until recently believed that he was in control of something suddenly finds himself lying motionless in a wooden box, and everyone around him, realizing that there is no sense in him lying there.” no more, they burn it in the oven. And it happens even worse: a person has just decided to go to Kislovodsk... a seemingly trivial matter, but he cannot do this either, because for some unknown reason he suddenly slips and gets hit by a tram! Are you really going to say that he managed this on his own? Isn’t it more correct to think that someone completely different dealt with him?”

The episode with the severed head of the chairman of MASSOLIT has many literary parallels, starting from the beheading of John the Baptist. This is a gothic novel English writer Charles Maturin's "Melmoth the Wanderer", associated with the placement of the poet Ivan Bezdomny in madhouse. One of Maturin’s heroes, who ended up in a psychiatric hospital, “had two very unpleasant neighbors,” one of whom constantly sang opera verses, and the other, nicknamed the Wild Head, kept repeating in delirium: “Ruth, my sister, do not tempt me with the head of a calf.” (meaning the head of someone executed in 1649 English king Charles I), blood flows from her; I pray you, throw it on the floor, it is not proper for a woman to hold it in her hands, even if her brothers drink this blood.” During Satan’s ball, Berlioz’s head turns into a skull cup, from which Margarita drinks the blood that has turned into wine, and Koroviev-Fagot convinces Margarita: “Don’t be afraid, queen, the blood has long gone into the ground. And where it spilled, grapes are already growing.”

The severed head of Berlioz also echoes “The Head of Professor Dowell” (1925) by the famous Russian science fiction writer Alexander Romanovich Belyaev: “attached to a square glass board, the head looked attentively and mournfully at Laurent, blinking its eyelids.” At Bulgakov’s Great Ball at Satan’s, “the eyelids of the murdered man rose, and on his dead face, Margarita, shuddering, saw living eyes, full of thoughts and suffering.” Douel, like Berlioz, first died, and then his head, like the head of the chairman of MASSOLIT, was resurrected to help in diabolical experiments. Belyaev and Bulgakov have the same whole line details. Professor Dowell, waking up, sees that his head is lying on the kitchen table, and nearby, on a higher dissection table, lies his headless body with an open chest from which the heart has been removed. In the same way, in “The Master and Margarita” in the autopsy room we see Berlioz’s severed head on one table, and on the other his body with a crushed chest. Kern, who needs to get a couple of corpses for his experiments, argues almost in the same way as Woland in a conversation with Mikhail Alexandrovich: “Every day, with the immutability of the law of nature, people in the city die from traffic several people, not counting accidents in factories, factories, buildings. Well, these doomed, cheerful ones, full of strength and health, people will sleep peacefully today, not knowing what awaits them tomorrow. Tomorrow morning they will get up and, singing cheerfully, will get dressed to go, as they think, to work, but in reality - towards their inevitable death. At the same time, at the other end of the city, singing just as carefree, their involuntary executioner will dress: a driver or a carriage driver... they will persistently approach each other, not knowing each other, until the very fatal point of intersection of their paths.”

The head of Mikhail Alexandrovich was resurrected in the novel only to listen to the end of Woland’s proof, which began with the death of the writer under a tram on the Patriarch’s Ponds: “Everything came true, didn’t it?” Woland continued, looking into the eyes of the head, “the head was cut off by a woman, the meeting did not take place.” , and I live in your apartment. It is a fact. And fact is the most stubborn thing in the world. But now we are interested in what follows, and not in this already accomplished fact. You have always been an ardent preacher of the theory that when a person’s head is cut off, life in a person ceases, he turns into ash and goes into oblivion. I am pleased to tell you, in the presence of my guests, although they serve as proof of a completely different theory, that your theory is solid and ingenious. However, all theories are worth one another. Among them there is one according to which everyone will be given according to their faith. May it come true! You are going into oblivion, but I will be happy to drink from the cup into which you are turning into being.”

Quotes from the novel "The Master and Margarita".

1.Who told you that there is no real, true, eternal love? May the liar's vile tongue be cut out!
2. It was an incomparable smell of freshly printed money.
3.Sometimes The best way to destroy a person is to let him choose his own fate.
4. A person without a surprise inside is uninteresting.
5. The tongue can hide the truth, but the eyes never!
6. It’s nice to hear that you treat the cat so politely. For some reason, cats are usually called “you,” although not a single cat has ever drunk brotherhood with anyone.
7. Yes, man is mortal, but that would not be so bad. The bad thing is that he is sometimes suddenly mortal, that's the trick!
8.Do you judge by the suit? Never do this. You can make a mistake, and a very big one at that.
9. He who loves must share the fate of the one he loves.
10. There are no evil people in the world, there are only unhappy people.
11. Would I allow myself to pour vodka for a lady? This is pure alcohol!
12.A brick will never fall on anyone’s head for no reason.
13.People are like people. They love money, but that’s always been the case... Well, they’re frivolous... in general, they’re reminiscent of the old ones... housing problem I just ruined them...
14. Never ask for anything, especially from those who are stronger than you. They will offer and give everything themselves!
15.Maestro! Shorten the march!
16. Congratulations, citizen, having lied!
17. Nonsense! In three hundred years this will pass.
18.Which country's wine do you prefer at this time of day?
19. He didn’t deserve light, he deserved peace.
20.Cowardice is one of the most terrible human vices.
21. Never be afraid of anything. This is unreasonable.
22.The most terrible anger is the anger of powerlessness.
23.I like to sit low - it’s not so dangerous to fall from low.
24.What would your good do if evil did not exist?
25.Happiness is like health: when it is present, you don’t notice it.
26. Those who are not in a hurry succeed everywhere.
27. Truth comes only through suffering...
28.Sad but true.
29. A fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.
30. There are no evil people in the world, there are only unhappy people.
31.Manuscripts don’t burn.
32.You know, a person without documents is strictly prohibited from existing.
33. No document, no person.
34.Revolutionary driving: you drive for an hour and stand for two.
35. It is enough to chase a person under gunfire, and he turns into a wise wolf; to replace the very weak, indeed difficult cases unnecessary mind, a wise animal instinct grows.
36. There are only two forces in the world: dollars and literature.
37. I don’t play pranks, I don’t hurt anyone, I fix the Primus stove
38.A brick will never fall on anyone’s head for no reason at all.
39. Love jumped out in front of us, like a killer jumps out of the ground in an alley, and struck us both at once! That's how lightning strikes, that's how a Finnish knife strikes!
40. Why chase in the footsteps of what is already over.
41. Each will be given according to his faith.
42.What are these steps on the stairs? And they are coming to arrest us!
43.Speaking the truth is easy and pleasant.
44. All power is violence against people.
45. Only the one who hung it can probably cut the hair.
46. ​​No force can silence a crowd until it breathes out everything that has accumulated inside it and falls silent itself.
47. Smart people are smart to understand complicated things.
48. It doesn’t happen that something drags on forever, it all ends.
49.Follow the old wise rule - treat like with like.
50.What is an official person or an unofficial person? All this is conditional and unsteady. Today I am an unofficial person, and tomorrow, you see, I am an official person! And it happens the other way around. And how it happens!
51.Okay, a witch is a witch. Very nice and luxurious!
52. I won’t wish you success, because I don’t believe one iota in this success.
53.Insult is a common reward for good work.
54. In general, it does not happen that everything will become as it was.
55.How much you all adore foreign tourists! And among them, by the way, there are different ones!
56. It must be admitted that among intellectuals there are also extremely smart ones. This cannot be denied!
57. There is no worse misfortune in the world than the deprivation of reason.
58. The second freshness is nonsense! There is only one freshness - the first, and it is also the last. And if the sturgeon is second freshness, then this means that it is rotten!
59.I will be a silent hallucination.
60.I'm broken, I'm bored, and I want to go to the basement.
61.What do you have, no matter what you’re missing, there’s nothing!
62.I am a historian. There will be an interesting story at the Patriarch's this evening!
63.I had the pleasure of meeting this young man at the Patriarch’s Ponds. He almost drove me crazy, proving to me that I don’t exist!
64.However! I feel like you drank port after the vodka! For mercy's sake, is it really possible to do this!
65.What is the point of dying amid the groans and wheezes of hopeless patients. Isn’t it better to throw a feast for these twenty-seven thousand and, after taking poison, move to another world to the sound of strings, surrounded by drunken beauties and dashing friends?
66. Something evil lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and table conversation. Such people are either seriously ill or secretly hate those around them.
67. Housekeepers know everything - it’s a mistake to think that they are blind.
68. Annushka has already bought sunflower oil, and not only bought it, but even bottled it. So the meeting will not take place.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was born in Kyiv into a professorial family, so a good education was not a luxury for the future writer, but rather a forced necessity. Despite the fact that most sources claim that Bulgakov came to writing in adulthood, this is not entirely true. Since childhood, Bulgakov gravitated towards literature; his sister, already in old age, repeated more than once that having independently learned to read, even before entering the gymnasium, Bulgakov mastered “Cathedral Notre Dame of Paris“, and at the age of seven he created his first own work called “The Adventures of Svetlana.” In the fifth grade of the gymnasium, the feuilleton “The Day of the Chief Physician” came out from his pen, future writer He willingly composed epigrams and satirical poems, however, he considered medicine to be his main calling and dreamed of becoming a doctor.

Bulgakov and morphine

Mikhail Bulgakov actually trained as a doctor and practiced medicine for quite a long time. After graduating from medical university in 1916, student Mikhail Bulgakov was assigned as a zemstvo doctor to Smolensk, where he went with his first wife Tatyana. A year later, Bulgakov took morphine for the first time. Full time job with diphtheria patients, she forced the young doctor to take anti-diphtheria drugs, which in turn unexpectedly provoked severe allergies, to relieve the pain Bulgakov used morphine. According to some reports, he could not refuse the life-saving and deadly drug for the rest of his life.

On the very first day of service in the hospital, a woman in labor came to see the young doctor Bulgakov, accompanied by her husband, who, waving a loaded pistol, threatened Bulgakov: “If she dies, I will kill her!” The story, fortunately, ended well.

Bulgakov and Stalin

A mysterious relationship connected the writer with Joseph Stalin. Stalin loved “The Turbins” very much, watched the performance at least fifteen times, enthusiastically applauding the artists from the government box. Eight times the “Father of Nations” was at “Zoyka’s Apartment” in the Theater. E. Vakhtangov. And at the same time, according to historians, searches were carried out in Bulgakov’s apartment more than once, the writer was practically a regular at Lubyanka, and the novel “The Master and Margarita” was not destined to see the light of day. The presence of such a sworn friend weighed on Bulgakov, deprived him of the opportunity to be heard, and yet there was no way to break out of the vicious circle. Mikhail Afanasyevich more than once compared his relationship with the Leader to friendship with Satan, believing that submission to the tyrant was tantamount to selling the soul to the devil.

Missing Character

In 1937, on the anniversary of the death of A.S. Pushkin, several active playwrights presented plays dedicated to the poet to the attention of the general public, among them was Bulgakov. True, unlike his colleagues, he decided to win over sophisticated critics with his originality. Considering that a play about Pushkin could well do without one character, he immediately excluded him. Bulgakov believed that the appearance of this actor on stage it will be vulgar and tasteless. The missing character was Alexander Sergeevich himself. This play is played in theaters across the country to this day.

Treasure in the Turbins' house

In the novel “The White Guard,” Bulgakov quite accurately depicted the Turbins’ house; he took his memories from his youth as a basis - the descriptions fully corresponded to the house where he himself lived in Kyiv. True, there was one detail in the novel that did not exist in reality, but, nevertheless, greatly ruined the life of the owners of the house. The fact is that after familiarizing themselves with the writer’s work, the owners almost completely destroyed the building in an attempt to find the treasure described in “The White Guard.” It is quite natural that the unlucky treasure hunters were left with nothing.

Margarita and her prototype

Mikhail Bulgakov was married three times, but only his third wife, Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, whom the writer stole from influential official, it became difficult for him true friend, but also a muse. Their meeting took place in the apartment of the artists Moiseenko. 40 years later, Elena Sergeevna recalled this meeting: “...When I met Bulgakov by chance in the same house, I realized that this was my destiny, despite everything, despite the incredibly difficult tragedy of the breakup... we met and were close. It was fast, unusually fast, at least on my part, love for life.”

She is the prototype of Margarita from famous novel, and the Master, as you might guess, is Bulgakov himself. In the society where Bulgakov moved, Shilovskaya was treated ambiguously. Of course, the times of the Holy Inquisition have long since sunk into oblivion, but no one could ban rumors. They were sincerely afraid of Mikhail Afanasyevich, and with him Elena. Of course, after the appearance of a surprisingly realistic text about the devil, which was also called “Satan” in one of the first editions, coupled with the complete absence of problems with the authorities (in comparison with other artists, Bulgakov lived practically in paradise), the writer and his the wife was often accused of having connections with evil spirits.

Woland's story

The cult novel “The Master and Margarita” was originally conceived as an apocryphal “gospel of the devil”, and love line was completely absent from it. Over the years, a simple and at the same time terrible concept became more complex and transformed, absorbing the writer’s fate like a sponge. Woland, central character works, received its name from Goethe's Mephistopheles. True, in the poem "Faust" it sounds only once, when Mephistopheles asks evil spirits step aside and give him way: “Nobleman Woland is coming!” In the ancient German literature The devil was called by another name - Faland. It also appears in The Master and Margarita, when the variety show employees cannot remember the name of the magician: “...Perhaps Faland?”

By the way, in the first edition, where there was neither the Master nor Margarita, detailed description As many as 15 pages were dedicated to Woland (now this text is irretrievably lost). Those who had a chance to familiarize themselves with the first version had no doubt: such details about the devil could only be written by someone who knows him personally.

The Primus story

There are many legends about the novel “The Master and Margarita”; the longer Bulgakov’s creation lives, the more rumors and all sorts of mystical and eerie details there are. One of the stories associated with the creation of the work is told so often that it is quite likely that it actually happened. We all remember very well the incredibly charming scene with the cat Hippopotamus, who displeasedly declared his shocked stern look to citizens: “I’m not being naughty, I’m not hurting anyone, I’m fixing the primus stove.” It turns out that at the moment when Bulgakov was once again editing the episode, a fire suddenly started in the apartment on the floor above. They managed to put out the fire in time, but when trying to find the source of the fire, it turned out that in the kitchen of the writer’s neighbors, a very ordinary primus stove caught fire.

Mysterious death

Just like life, the death of Mikhail Bulgakov is shrouded in mystery. Of course, there is an official version - the writer died from a hereditary kidney disease, due to this, before his death he was practically blind and experienced unbearable pain, which forced him to start taking morphine again. It is often claimed, however, that Bulgakov died from an ordinary drug overdose. There is another version, a mystical one: remember the ending of “The Master and Margarita”, where the Master and his beloved moved into oblivion, where they could calmly spend eternity together, they said that Satan took his “scribe” Bulgakov to himself in reality, though without a wife.

A destroyed publication, a conversation with Stalin, the last words of Mikhail Bulgakov and other stories about the legendary book.

On November 11, online readings of excerpts from Mikhail Bulgakov’s cult novel “The Master and Margarita” took place on the RuNet. Participated in the project famous figures culture, businessmen and athletes, such as Diana Arbenina, Alena Khmelnitskaya, Maxim Tretyakov, as well as the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky. The readings were timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first publication of the book and the 125th anniversary of Mikhail Afanasyevich. Soyuz.Ru has prepared material about the great novel and is sharing it with readers interesting stories about "The Master and Margarita".

Working on a book

The first publication of the novel “The Master and Margarita” was destroyed. The author himself got rid of it after receiving a telegram banning the play “The Cabal of the Saint.” Bulgakov resumed work on the novel later, in 1931, and initially planned to call it Satan, Here I Am, The Black Magician, or The Great Chancellor. In total, the writer took about 10 years to create the manuscript.

It is believed that The Master and Margarita has always been the most important novel for Bulgakov himself. Last words The writer that he said about his “devilish game” was: “So that they know... So that they know!”

Cat Behemoth

The Hippopotamus cat has long become a popular image in everyday life - any large black cat readers of “The Master and Margarita” associate with Bulgakov’s character. Many Russians to this day consider the hero of the novel cute and somewhat funny.

When creating this image, did Mikhail Afanasyevich think about a real hippopotamus? Did you want to see your cat huge?

It's worth assuming not. After all, a hippopotamus is not only an animal that we can see every day in the city zoo, but also a mythological creature, a demon of carnal desires. And it’s not for nothing that in “The Master and Margarita” he becomes Woland’s jester. So you shouldn’t imagine the hero of the novel as a fat cat; he can be thin, but he must be demonic.

Conversation with Stalin

It is known that in 1937 the author had a phone conversation with Joseph Stalin. Nobody knows the details of that conversation. However, during the period of mass executions, Bulgakov and his family remained safe and sound, although NKVD officers knew about the existence of the manuscript of the diabolical novel and repeatedly searched the writer’s apartment. Many literary scholars believe that some phrases spoken different heroes“The Master and Margarita” is addressed specifically to the General Secretary. What exactly they said to each other on the phone will remain a mystery.

Master Bulgakov