Why Use Jungian Archetypal Theory to Investigate The Master and Margarita?

My examination of The Master and Margarita is propelled by the following thoughts: Bulgakov was not shy about expressing his anti-Bolshevik sentiments nor his dislike of the ideology behind socialist realism (and the expectations they created for artists). While scholars read The Master and Margarita as an anti-Soviet work, the question remains: why would Bulgakov…

Overview

On 24 August 1929, Soviet playwright and author Mikhail Afansievich Bulgakov (1891-1940), who wanted nothing more than success as an artist, wrote his brother that his “destruction as a writer had been accomplished [moe pisatel’skoe unichtozhenie]” [1]. Only three years before, after initial Soviet censorship clamped down on his work, Bulgakov began researching Christianity and…