The Master and Margarita as Philosophical and Theological Concern with the Human Condition

My previous post discussed the second category of Bulgakov scholarship: The Master and Margarita as a product of previous literary traditions. I presented an overview of scholarship on Bulgakov’s connection to pre-revolutionary Russian authors (i.e., Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Gogol) and literary traditions (symbolism and romanticism), as well as the link between The Master and Margarita…

Scholarly Interest in The Master and Margarita: Overview

Twenty-six years after Bulgakov’s death, the literary journal Moskva (known for publishing writers suppressed during the Stalinist era) published The Master and Margarita in two installments, the first in November 1966 and the second in January 1967.[1] “‘[U]nlike’” anything published during the four previous decades of Soviet Literature, and “unlike” any contemporary literature as well,…

Introduction: Born from Regression

The catalyst for Bulgakov’s investigation into Christianity, and his desire to write about Christ and the devil, appears to be a May 1926 incident during which the Soviet secret police known as the OGPU (Obyedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye or Joint State Police Directorate) searched his apartment and confiscated three notebooks of journals and his manuscript…