This is the acclaimed, bestselling translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's masterwork, an undisputed classic of Russian and world literature. A soaring, dazzling novel. (New York Times)
A novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, The Master and Margarita is an audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate and is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern literature. This edition's superb English translation by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's, along with an afterword and extensive commentary by Ellendea Proffer Teasley, heighten the pleasure of exploring this classic. The novel's vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author's lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech. One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing to literally go to hell for him.The Master and Margarita has been captivating readers around the world ever since its first publication in 1967. Written during Stalin's time in power but suppressed in the Soviet Union for decades, Bulgakov's masterpiece is an ironic parable on power and its corruption, on good and evil, and on human frailty and the strength of love.
In The Master and Margarita, the Devil himself pays a visit to Soviet Moscow. Accompanied by a retinue that includes the fast-talking, vodka-drinking, giant tomcat Behemoth, he sets about creating a whirlwind of chaos that soon involves the beautiful Margarita and her beloved, a distraught writer known only as the Master, and even Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate. The Master and Margarita combines fable, fantasy, political satire, and slapstick comedy to create a wildly entertaining and unforgettable tale that is commonly considered the greatest novel to come out of the Soviet Union. It appears in this edition in a translation by Mirra Ginsburg that was judged brilliant by Publishers Weekly.
The underground masterpiece of twentieth-century Russian fiction, Mikhail Bulgakov's THE MASTER AND MARGARITA was written during Stalin's regime and could not be published until many years after its author's death.
When the devil arrives in 1930s Moscow, consorting with a retinue of odd associates--including a talking black cat, an assassin, and a beautiful naked witch--his antics wreak havoc among the literary elite of the world capital of atheism. Meanwhile, the Master, author of an unpublished novel about Jesus and Pontius Pilate, languishes in despair in a pyschiatric hospital, while his devoted lover, Margarita, decides to sell her soul to save him. As Bulgakov's dazzlingly exuberant narrative weaves back and forth between Moscow and ancient Jerusalem, studded with scenes ranging from a giddy Satanic ball to the murder of Judas in Gethsemane, Margarita's enduring love for the Master joins the strands of plot across space and time.
Through surreal, often grotesque humour, Bulgakov gives an ingenious new twist to the Frankenstein parable, in a new translation of one of the most popular satires on the Russian Revolution and on Soviet society
Having been scalded by boiling water earlier that day, and with little chance to survive the severe winter night, a stray dog is left for dead on the streets. Lamenting his fate, he is ill-prepared for the chance arrival of a wealthy professor who befriends him and takes him home. However, it seems the professor's motives are not entirely altruistic--an expert in medical experimentation, he sees his new charge as the potential subject for a bizarre operation, and implants glands from a dead criminal in the dog. The resulting half-man, half-beast is, as to be expected, a monstrosity, yet one that fits in remarkably well with Soviet society.
This edition (Classic Wisdom Reprint) is non-censored, based on a samizdat version and translated in Russia by an unknown translator.
Widely held as one of the best novels of the 20th century the book depicts a story in a story, a manuscript of a Biblical story that the Master cannot publish and locked up in the asylum for.
The story concerns a visit by the devil to the officially atheistic Soviet Union. The Master and Margarita combine supernatural elements with satirical dark comedy and Christian philosophy, defying a singular genre.
Literary critic, assistant professor at the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts Nadezhda Dozhdikova notes that the image of Jesus as a harmless madman presented in ″Master and Margarita″ has its source in the literature of the USSR of the 1920s, which, following the tradition of the demythologization of Jesus in the works Strauss, Renan, Nietzsche, and Binet-Sangl , put forward two main themes - mental illness and deception. The mythological option, namely the denial of the existence of Jesus, only prevailed in the Soviet propaganda at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s.
Heart of a Dog (Sobachye serdtse) is a novella by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. A biting satire of Bolshevism, it was written in 1925 at the height of the NEP period, when communism appeared to be relaxing in the Soviet Union. It is generally interpreted as an allegory of the Communist revolution and the revolution's misguided attempt to radically transform mankind. Its publication was initially prohibited in the Soviet Union, but it circulated in samizdat until it was officially released in the country in 1987. It was almost immediately turned into a TV movie, which was aired in late 1988 on First Programme (First Channel) of Soviet Television, gained almost universal acclaim and attracted many readers to the original Bulgakov text. Since then, the novella has become a cultural phenomenon in Russia, known and discussed by people from schoolchildren to politicians. It has become a subject of critical argument, was filmed in Russian and Italian-language versions, and was adapted in English as a play and an opera. (wikipedia.org)
First published in 1925, 'The White Guard' is an engrossing book in which a Kyiv family is caught up in the Ukrainian War of Independence. Written by Mikhail Bulgakov, a Russian writer, medical doctor, and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century.
Reds, Whites, German troops, and Ukrainian nationalists battle for control of the city of Kyiv as the war becomes more cataclysmic in Mikhail Bulgakov's debut novel. Drawing laboriously from the author's own background in Ukraine during the period of the Russian Civil War-he witnessed ten changes of government himself-the novel is told from alternating points of view and takes an unusual angle on the conflict between Russian Whites (with whom the Turbin family identify) and Ukrainian nationalists. It elegantly portrays the disarray of a civil war in which there is no good or evil, only loyalty to one's friends, family, and convictions.
Reissued to tie in with a new production of Flight adapted by Ron Hutchinson and performed at the Olivier, Royal National Theatre
Mikhail Bulgakov was one of the Soviet Union's finest playwrights, whose work was often at odds with the Soviet State. This volume brings together his major dramatic achievements, including The White Guard, Madame Zoyka, Flight, Molière, Adam and Eve and The Last Days.One of the world's great plays about censorship and the oppression of artists is now newly translated by the renowned translators, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonksy (winner of two PEN/Book-Of-The-Month Translation Awards) and the playwright/director, Richard Nelson (Tony Award, Olivier Award).
Put yourselves in our place, ladies and gentlemen...the performance is over.
ACT FOUR, MOLIÈRE OR THE CABAL OF HYPOCRITES
Premiered on February 16, 1936 at the Moscow Art Theater, MOLIÈRE OR THE CABAL OF HYPOCRITES was banned after seven performances.
Invite[s] the theatergoer to see an analogy between the situation of a writer under the dictatorship of the proletariat and the 'tyranny without redress' of Louis XIV.
Chairman of the Committee for the Arts of the Soviet Union
Heart of a Dog (Sobachye serdtse) is a novella by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. A biting satire of Bolshevism, it was written in 1925 at the height of the NEP period, when communism appeared to be relaxing in the Soviet Union. It is generally interpreted as an allegory of the Communist revolution and the revolution's misguided attempt to radically transform mankind. Its publication was initially prohibited in the Soviet Union, but it circulated in samizdat until it was officially released in the country in 1987. It was almost immediately turned into a TV movie, which was aired in late 1988 on First Programme (First Channel) of Soviet Television, gained almost universal acclaim and attracted many readers to the original Bulgakov text. Since then, the novella has become a cultural phenomenon in Russia, known and discussed by people from schoolchildren to politicians. It has become a subject of critical argument, was filmed in Russian and Italian-language versions, and was adapted in English as a play and an opera. (wikipedia.org)