The Master and Margarita


The Master and Margarita is a novel by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940 during Stalin's regime. A censored version was published in Moscow magazine in 1966–1967, after the writer's death. The manuscript was not published as a book until 1967, in Paris. A samizdat version circulated that included parts cut out by official censors, and these were incorporated in a 1969 version published in Frankfurt. The novel has since been published in several languages and editions.
The story concerns a visit by the devil to the officially atheistic Soviet Union. The Master and Margarita combines supernatural elements with satirical dark comedy and Christian philosophy, defying a singular genre. Many critics consider it to be one of the best novels of the 20th century, as well as the foremost of Soviet satires.

History

Mikhail Bulgakov was a playwright and author. He started writing the novel in 1928, but burned the first manuscript in 1930 as he could not see a future as a writer in the Soviet Union at a time of widespread political repression. He restarted the novel in 1931. In the early 1920s, Bulgakov had visited an editorial meeting of an atheistic-propaganda journal. He is believed to have drawn from this to create the Walpurgis Night ball of the novel. He completed his second draft in 1936, by which point he had devised the major plot lines of the final version. He wrote another four versions. When Bulgakov stopped writing four weeks before his death in 1940, the novel had some unfinished sentences and loose ends.
A censored version, with about 12 percent of the text removed and more changed, was first published in Moskva magazine. A manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet Union to Paris, where the YMCA Press, celebrated for publishing the banned work of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, published the first book edition in 1967. The text, as published in the magazine Moskva in 1968, was swiftly translated into Estonian, remaining for decades the only printed edition of the novel in book form in the Soviet Union. The original text of all the omitted and changed parts, with indications of the places of modification, was printed and distributed by hand in the Soviet Union. In 1969, the publisher Posev printed a version produced with the aid of these inserts.
In the Soviet Union, the novel was first published in book form in Estonian in 1968 with some passages edited out. The first complete version, prepared by Anna Sahakyants, was published in Russian by Khudozhestvennaya Literatura in 1973. This was based on Bulgakov's last 1940 version, as proofread by the publisher. This version remained the canonical edition until 1989. The last version, based on all available manuscripts, was prepared by Lidiya Yanovskaya.

Plot summary

The novel alternates between two settings. The first is Moscow during the 1930s, where Satan appears at Patriarch's Ponds in the guise of "Professor Woland", a mysterious gentleman and "magician" of uncertain origin. He arrives with a retinue that includes the grotesquely dressed valet Koroviev; the mischievous, trigger-happy, fast-talking black cat Behemoth; the fanged hitman Azazello; and the female vampire Hella. They wreak havoc by targeting the literary elite and their trade union MASSOLIT. Its privileged HQ is Griboyedov House. The association is made up of corrupt social climbers and their women, bureaucrats, profiteers, and, more generally, skeptics of the human spirit.
The second setting is the Jerusalem of Pontius Pilate, described by Woland in his conversations with Berlioz and later reflected in the Master's novel. This part of the novel concerns Pontius Pilate's trial of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, his recognition of an affinity with, and spiritual need for, Yeshua, and his reluctant but resigned submission to Yeshua's execution.
Part one of the novel opens with a direct confrontation between Berlioz, the atheistic head of the literary bureaucracy, and an urbane foreign gentleman, who defends belief and reveals his prophetic powers in a deadpan prediction that Berlioz will die later that evening. Berlioz brushes off the prophecy of his death as the ravings of a madman, but dies pages later in the novel, in the exact manner described by Professor Woland. The fulfillment of the death prophecy is witnessed by Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, a young and enthusiastically modern poet. He writes poems under the alias Bezdomny. This alias is an allusion to soviet aliases like Maxim Gorky, Demyan Bedny, Michail Golodny. His futile attempts to capture the "gang" while warning of their evil and mysterious nature, lands Ivan in a lunatic asylum. There, he's introduced to the Master, an embittered author. The rejection of his historical novel about Pontius Pilate and Christ has led the Master to despair and to burn his manuscript, turning his back on the world.
Major episodes in the novel's first half include a satirical portrait of both the Massolit and their Griboyedov house; Satan's magic show at a variety theatre, satirizing the vanity, greed, and gullibility of the new elite; and Woland and his retinue taking over the late Berlioz's apartment for their own use.
Part two of the novel introduces Margarita, the Master's mistress. She refuses to despair over her lover or his work. She is met by the demonic hitman Azazello, who gives her a magical skin ointment and invites her to the Devil's midnight ball, where Woland offers her the chance to become a witch with supernatural powers. This takes place on the night of Good Friday, the time of the spring full moon, and the Jewish festival of Passover, as it was traditionally when Christ's fate was affirmed by Pontius Pilate, sending him to be crucified in Jerusalem. The Master's novel also covers this event. All three events in the novel are simultaneous, although the action takes place in early May in Moscow. The "Fifth Dimension" in which Satan and his associates vanish whenever the state security services visit their adopted residence, justifies all kinds of time compressions and extensions.
Margarita enters naked into the realm of night, after she learns to fly, and control her unleashed passions. Margarita brings an enthusiastic maid, Natasha, with her to fly across the deep forests and rivers of the USSR. She bathes and returns to Moscow with Azazello, her escort, as the anointed hostess for Satan's grand spring ball. Standing by his side, she welcomes the dark celebrities of human history as they arrive from Hell.
She survives this ordeal and, for her pains, Satan offers to grant Margarita her deepest wish. She chooses to free a woman whom she met at the ball from eternal punishment. The woman had been raped and had murdered the issue; her punishment was to wake each morning next to the handkerchief she had used to kill the child, for eternity. Satan tells Margarita that she herself liberated the afflicted soul: he didn't do anything, hence she still has a wish to claim from him. Satan's retinue advise her to choose wisely this time, and she does: imperiously she asks that the Master be delivered to her immediately, and he appears, if dazed and confused, believing he is in the mental hospital that has been his home, living a hallucination; but he is soon brought to his senses by the ministrations of his hosts. The couple are returned, per Margarita's wishes, to the basement apartment that had been their love nest.
Mathew the Levite visits Woland and delivers the verdict: the reunited couple is to be sent to the afterlife, where they are to be granted "peace", not "light". Azazello is sent to visit them in the Master's basement with a gift from Woland: a bottle of Pontius Pilate's Falernus wine, which is poisoned. The Master and Margarita die and Azazello brings their souls to Satan and his retinue, who are waiting for them on horsebacks on Moscow's rooftops; the party fly away into the unknown, as cupolas and windows burn in the setting sun, leaving Earth behind and traveling into dark cosmic space. The Master and Margarita will be allowed to spend eternity together in a shady, pleasant region, vaguely reminiscent of Dante's depiction of Limbo, where they will be allowed to live in dedication to each other in a house under flowering cherry trees for eternity. This seems the only way unconditional, unrequited love can exist: Bulgakov clearly values it as priceless, but tells us it has no place in this world.
Woland and his retinue – including the new disciples, Master and Margarita – swiftly move away from Moscow, the melting of space and time rendering the buffoonery and mischief that they had perpetrated there irrelevant. They all shed the disguises of their brief earthly adventure and become pure spirits. Moscow, left far behind, has been shaken by their visit. In a separate chapter, the authorities busy themselves explaining away the events that shook the city, calling them episodes of hysteria and mass hypnosis. The possibility of Satan's presence, is confined to ridicule by the official version of events; a clear caricature stigmatizing every day stalinist practice.
Woland, throughout the novel, acts as executor of divine will and the grantor of equilibrium and justice. In the final chapter, Margarita is extorted by Woland to tell the end of the story of Pontius Pilate, condemned by his cowardice to eternal limbo, as told in the novel the Master wrote, which is missing its end. "You are Free!" she thunders, and Pontius Pilate, son of the astrologer, is released from his seclusion of two thousand years of guilt and infamy, and is allowed to converse and walk alongside Yeshua, whom he didn't save from execution for political opportunism, and whose memory tormented him for twenty centuries, whose spirit and philosophy he so admired. Peace at last; although, back in Moscow, some unwitting co-protagonists of this prodigious story still undergo great disquiet every Moon of May.

Interpretations

There are several interpretations of the novel:
Some critics suggest that Bulgakov was responding to poets and writers whom he believed were spreading atheist propaganda in the Soviet Union, and denying Jesus Christ as a historical person. He particularly objected to the anti-religious poems of Demyan Bedny. The novel can be seen as a rebuke to the aggressively "godless people." There is justification in both the Moscow and Judaea sections of the novel for the entire image of the devil. Bulgakov uses characters from Jewish demonology as a retort to the denial of God in the USSR.
Literary critic and 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 of Strauss, Renan, Nietzsche and Binet-Sanglé, 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.
Bulgakov portrays evil as being as inseparable from our world as light is from darkness. Both Satan and Jesus Christ dwell mostly inside people. Jesus was unable to see Judas' treachery, despite Pilate's hints, because he saw only good in people. He couldn't protect himself, because he didn't know how, nor from whom. This interpretation presumes that Bulgakov had his own vision of Tolstoy's idea of resistance to evil through non-violence, by creating this image of Yeshua.
Academics have noted that Bulgakov's novel abounds with symbols derived from Freemasonry. It shows masonic rituals, which this theory suggests originate from the mystery plays of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. Such writers suggest that Bulgakov had knowledge of Freemasonry. Bulgakov may have obtained this knowledge from his father, Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov, who once wrote an article on "Modern Freemasonry and its Relation to the Church and the State" in The Acts of the Kiev Theological Academy in 1903.

The Spring Festival Ball at Spaso House

On 24 April 1935, Bulgakov was among the invited guests who attended the Spring Festival at Spaso House, the residence of the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, hosted by Ambassador William Bullitt. Critics believe Bulgakov drew from this extravagant event for his novel. In the middle of the Great Depression and Stalinist repression, Bullitt had instructed his staff to create an event that would surpass every other Embassy party in Moscow's history. The decorations included a forest of ten young birch trees in the chandelier room; a dining room table covered with Finnish tulips; a lawn made of chicory grown on wet felt; a fishnet aviary filled with pheasants, parakeets, and one hundred zebra finches, on loan from the Moscow Zoo; and a menagerie including several mountain goats, a dozen white roosters, and a baby bear.
Although Joseph Stalin didn't attend, the 400 elite guests at the festival included Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov, Defense Minister Kliment Voroshilov, Communist Party heavyweights Nikolai Bukharin, Lazar Kaganovich, and Karl Radek, Soviet Marshals Aleksandr Yegorov, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, and Semyon Budyonny, and other high-ranking guests.
The festival lasted until the early hours of the morning. The bear became drunk on champagne given to him by Karl Radek. In the early morning hours, the zebra finches escaped from the aviary and perched below the ceilings around the house.
In his novel, Bulgakov featured the Spring Ball of the Full Moon, considered to be one of the most memorable episodes. On 29 October 2010, seventy-five years after the original ball, John Beyrle, U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation, hosted an Enchanted Ball at Spaso House, recreating the spirit of the original ball as a tribute to Ambassador Bullitt and Bulgakov.

Major characters

Contemporary Russians

;The Master: An author who wrote a novel about the meeting of Pontius Pilate and Yeshua Ha-Notsri, which was rejected by the Soviet literary bureaucracy, ruining his career. He is "detained for questioning" for three months by the secret police because of a false report by an unscrupulous neighbor. Later, he is committed to a psychiatric clinic, where Bezdomny meets him. Little else is given about this character's past other than his belief that his life began to have meaning when he met Margarita.
;Margarita: The Master's lover. Trapped in a passionless marriage, she devoted herself to the Master, whom she believes to be dead. She appears briefly in the first half of the novel, but is not referred to by name until the second half, when she serves as the hostess of Satan's Grand Ball on Walpurgis Night. Her character is believed to have been inspired by Bulgakov's last wife, whom he called "my Margarita". He may also have been influenced by Faust's Gretchen, whose real name is Margarita, as well as by Queen Marguerite de Valois. The latter is featured as the main character of the opera Les Huguenots by Giacomo Meyerbeer, which Bulgakov particularly enjoyed, and Alexandre Dumas' novel, La Reine Margot. In these accounts, the queen is portrayed as daring and passionate.
;Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz: Head of the literary bureaucracy MASSOLIT. He bears the last name of French composer Hector Berlioz, who wrote the opera The Damnation of Faust. Berlioz insists that the Gospel Jesus was a mythical figure with no historical basis. Woland predicts that he will be decapitated by a young Soviet woman, which comes to pass as he gets run over by a streetcar.
;Ivan Nikolayevich Ponyryov : A young, aspiring poet. His pen name, Bezdomny, means "homeless". Initially a willing tool of the MASSOLIT apparatus, he is transformed by the events of the novel. He witnesses Berlioz's death and nearly goes mad, but later meets The Master in asylum. There he decides to stop writing poetry.
;Stephan Bogdanovich Likhodeyev: Director of the Variety Theatre and Berlioz's roommate, often called by the diminutive name Styopa. His surname is derived from the Russian word for "malfeasant". For his wicked deeds, he is magically teleported to Yalta, thereby freeing up the stolen apartment for Woland and his retinue.
;Grigory Danilovich Rimsky: Treasurer of the Variety Theatre. On the night of Woland's performance, Rimsky is ambushed by Varenukha and Hella. He barely escapes the encounter and flees to the train station to get out of the city.
;Ivan Savelyevich Varenukha: House-manager of the Variety Theatre, whose surname refers to a traditional alcoholic fruit-punch resembling mulled wine. He is turned into a creature of darkness but is forgiven by the end of Walpurgis Night, restoring his humanity.
;Natasha : Margarita's young maid, later turned into a witch.
;Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy: Chairman of the House Committee at 302A Sadovaya Street. For his greed and trickery, he is deceived by Korovyev and later arrested.

Woland and his entourage

;Woland: Woland is Satan in the disguise of a "foreign professor" who's "in Moscow to present a performance of 'black magic' and then expose its machinations". Woland instead exposes the greed and bourgeois behaviour of the spectators themselves. Voland is also mentioned in Faust when Mephistopheles announces to the witches to beware because 'Squire Voland is here'.
;Behemoth: An enormous demonic black cat who speaks, walks on two legs, and can transform into human shape for brief periods. He has a penchant for chess, vodka, pistols, and obnoxious sarcasm. He is evidently the least-respected member of Woland's team – Margarita boldly takes to slapping Behemoth on the head after one of his many ill-timed jokes, without fear of reaction. In the last chapters, it appears that Behemoth is a demon pageboy, the best clown in the world, who paid off his debt by serving Satan on his Moscow journey. His name refers to both the Biblical monster and the Russian word for hippopotamus.
;Korovyev: Also known as Fagotto, he's described as an "ex-choirmaster", perhaps implying that he was once a member of an angelic choir. He is Woland's assistant and translator, and is capable of creating any illusion. Unlike Behemoth and Azazello, he doesn't use violence at any point. Like Behemoth, his true form is revealed at the end: a never-smiling dark knight.
;Azazello: Azazello is a menacing, fanged, and wall-eyed member of Woland's retinue, a messenger and assassin. His name may be a reference to Azazel, the fallen angel who taught people to make weapons and jewelry, and taught women the "sinful art" of painting their faces. He gives a magical cream to Margarita. He transforms into his real shape in the end: a pale-faced demon with black empty eyes.
;Hella: Hella is a beautiful, redheaded succubus. She serves as maid to Woland and his retinue. She is described as being "perfect, were it not for a purple scar on her neck", suggesting that she is also a vampire.

Characters from The Master's novel

; Pontius Pilate: The Roman Procurator of Judaea. The historical Pontius Pilate was the Prefect of Judaea, not the procurator. This fact was not widely known until after Bulgakov's death.
; Yeshua Ha-Notsri: Jesus the Nazarene, a wanderer or "mad philosopher", as Pilate calls him. His name in Hebrew is said to mean either "Jesus who belongs to the Nazarene sect" or "Jesus who is from a place called Nazareth", though some commentators dispute the latter interpretation. In the Master's version, Yeshua describes himself as an orphan, denies doing miracles, and has one full-time "Apostle", not twelve, among other departures from the Gospels and mainstream Christian tradition. The atheist regime of the novel still considers this Jesus to be offensive.
; Aphranius: Head of the Roman Secret Service in Judaea.
; Niza: Aphranius's henchwoman, who entices Judas to his death.
; Levi Matvei: Levite, former tax collector, follower of Yeshua. Levi is introduced as a semi-fictionalized character in the Master's novel, but toward the end of The Master and Margarita, the "historical" Matthew of the Gospel appears in Moscow to deliver a message from Yeshua to Woland.
; Caiaphas: Politically savvy High Priest of Judaea. Caiaphas supports execution of Yeshua in order to "protect" the status quo ante religion, and his own status as the Chief of the Sanhedrin, from the influence of Yeshua's preachings and followers. He is considerably more aggressive towards Pilate than most accounts, and seems unconcerned by the other man's senior status.
; Judas Iscariot: A spy/informant hired by Caiaphas to assist the authorities in finding and arresting Yeshua. In contrast to the Gospels' version, in which Judas is a long-time member of Jesus's "inner circle" of Apostles, Bulgakov's Judas meets Yeshua for the first time less than 48 hours before betraying him. He is paid off by Caiaphas, but is later assassinated on Pilate's orders for his role in Yeshua's death.

Themes and imagery

The novel deals with the interplay of good and evil, innocence and guilt, courage and cowardice, exploring such issues as the responsibility towards truth when authority would deny it, and freedom of the spirit in an unfree world. Love and sensuality are also dominant themes in the novel.
Margarita's devotional love for the Master leads her to leave her husband, but she emerges victorious. Her spiritual union with the Master is also a sexual one. The novel is a riot of sensual impressions, but the emptiness of sensual gratification without love is emphasized in the satirical passages. Rejecting sensuality for the sake of empty respectability is pilloried in the figure of Nikolai Ivanovich, who becomes Natasha's hog-broomstick.
The interplay of fire, water, destruction, and other natural forces provides a constant accompaniment to the events of the novel, as do light and darkness, noise and silence, sun and moon, storms and tranquility, and other powerful polarities. There is a complex relationship between Jerusalem and Moscow throughout the novel, sometimes polyphony, sometimes counterpoint.
The novel is deeply influenced by Goethe's Faust, and its themes of cowardice, trust, intellectual curiosity, and redemption are prominent. It can be read on many different levels, as hilarious slapstick, deep philosophical allegory, and biting socio-political satire critical of not just the Soviet system but also the superficiality and vanity of modern life in general. Jazz is presented with an ambivalent fascination and revulsion. But the novel is full of modern elements, such as the model asylum, radio, street and shopping lights, cars, lorries, trams, and air travel. There is little evident nostalgia for any "good old days" – the only figure who mentions Tsarist Russia is Satan. The book is a Bildungsroman, with Ivan Nikolayevich as its focus. It also has strong elements of what in the later 20th century was called magic realism.

Allusions and references to other works

The novel is influenced by the Faust legend, particularly the first part of the Goethe interpretation, The Devil's Pact, which goes back to the 4th century; Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus ; and the libretto of the opera whose music was composed by Charles Gounod. Also of influence is Louis Hector Berlioz who wrote the opera La damnation de Faust. In this opera there are four characters: Faust, the devil Méphistophélès, Marguerite and Brander. And also the Symphonie Fantastique where the hero dreams of his own decapitation and attending a witches' sabbath. Nikolai Gogol is seen as an influence, as is the case in other Bulgakov novels. The dialogue between Pontius Pilate and Yeshua Ha-Notsri is strongly influenced by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's parable "The Grand Inquisitor" from The Brothers Karamazov. The "luckless visitors chapter" refers to Tolstoy's Anna Karenina: "everything became jumbled in the Oblonsky household". The theme of the Devil exposing society as an apartment block, as it could be seen if the entire façade would be removed, has some precedents in El diablo cojuelo by the Spaniard Luís Vélez de Guevara.

English translations

The novel has been translated several times into English:
The early translation by Glenny runs more smoothly than that of the modern translations; some Russian-speaking readers consider it to be the only one creating the desired effect, though it may take liberties with the text. The modern translators pay for their attempted closeness by losing idiomatic flow. Literary writer Kevin Moss considers the early translations by Ginsburg and Glenny to be hurried, and lacking much critical depth. As an example, he claims that the more idiomatic translations miss Bulgakov's "crucial" reference to the devil in Berlioz's thoughts :
Several literary critics have hailed the Burgin/Tiernan O’Connor translation as the most accurate and complete English translation, particularly when read in tandem with the matching annotations by Bulgakov's biographer, Ellendea Proffer. However, these judgements predate translations by Pevear & Volokhonsky, Karpelson, and Aplin. The Karpelson translation, even when republished in the UK by Wordsworth, has not been Anglicised, and retains North American spellings and idioms.

Cultural influence

The book was listed in Le Mondes 100 Books of the Century. Also, when asked by Tyler Cowen, "What’s your favorite novel?" the technologist Peter Thiel answered, "If you want something a little more intellectual, it’s probably the Bulgakov novel The Master and Margarita where the devil shows up in Stalinist Russia, and succeeds, and gives everybody what they want, and everything goes haywire. It’s hard, because no one believes he’s real."

"Manuscripts don't burn"

A memorable and much-quoted line in The Master and Margarita is: "manuscripts don't burn". The Master is a writer who is plagued both by his own mental problems and the harsh political criticism faced by most Soviet writers in 1930s Moscow in the Stalinist Soviet Union. He burns his treasured manuscript in an effort to cleanse his mind from the troubles the work has brought him. When they finally meet, Woland asks to see the Master's novel; the Master apologizes for not being able to do so, he burnt it. Woland to him saying, "You can't have done. Manuscripts don't burn." There is a deeply autobiographical element reflected in this passage. Bulgakov burned an early copy of The Master and Margarita for much the same reasons as he expresses in the novel. Also this may refer to Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus where the hero, deviating from previous tales of 'The Devil's Pact', is unable to burn his books or repent to a merciful God.

Bulgakov museums in Moscow

In Moscow, two museums honor the memory of Mikhail Bulgakov and The Master and Margarita. Both are located in Bulgakov's former apartment building on Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, No. 10. Since the late 1980s and the fall of the Soviet Union, the building has become a gathering spot for Bulgakov fans, as well as Moscow-based Satanist groups. Over the years they have filled the walls with graffiti. The best drawings were usually kept as the walls were repainted, so that several layers of different colored paints could be seen around them. In 2003, all of the numerous paintings, quips, and drawings were completely whitewashed.
The two museums are rivals: the official Museum M.A. Bulgakov, although established second, identifies as "the first and only Memorial Museum of Mikhail Bulgakov in Moscow".
The Bulgakov House is situated on the ground floor of the building. This museum was established as a private initiative on 15 May 2004. It contains personal belongings, photos, and several exhibitions related to Bulgakov's life and his different works. Various poetic and literary events are often held. The museum organises tours of Bulgakov's Moscow, some of which have re-enactors playing characters of The Master and Margarita. The Bulgakov House also operates the Theatre M.A. Bulgakov and the Café 302-bis.
In apartment number 50 on the fourth floor is the Museum M.A. Bulgakov. This facility is a government initiative, founded on 26 March 2007. It contains personal belongings, photos, and several exhibitions related to Bulgakov's life and his different works. Various poetic and literary events are often held here.

Allusions and references

Various authors and musicians have credited The Master and Margarita as inspiration for certain works.

Live action films

, Alfred Schnittke and Igor Kornelyuk have composed soundtracks for films of The Master and Margarita.

Animated films

Many students of art schools found inspiration in The Master and Margarita to make short animated movies. A full list is available on the Master & Margarita website.

Television

The novel has been adapted by Lucy Catherine, with music by Stephen Warbeck, for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 15 March 2015.

Comic strips and graphic novels

Several graphic novels have been adapted from this work, by the following:
, Russia

Theatre

The Master and Margarita has been adapted on stage by more than 500 theatre companies all over the world. A full list of all versions and languages is published on the Master & Margarita website.
Hundreds of composers, bands, singers and songwriters were inspired by The Master and Margarita in their work. Some 250 songs or musical pieces have been counted about it.

Rock and Roll

More than 35 rock bands and artists, including The Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, Franz Ferdinand and Pearl Jam, have been inspired by the novel.

Pop Music

In pop music, more than 15 popular bands and artists, including Igor Nikolayev, Valery Leontiev, Zsuzsa Koncz, Larisa Dolina and Linda, have been inspired by the novel. Valery Leontiev's song "Margarita" was the basis of the first Russian music video, produced in 1989.

Russian bards

Many Russian bards, including Alexander Rosenbaum, have been inspired by the novel to write songs about it. They have based more than 200 songs on themes and characters from The Master and Margarita.

Classical music

A dozen classical composers, including Dmitri Smirnov and Andrey Petrov, have been inspired by the novel to write symphonies and musical phantasies about it.
2011: Australian composer and domra player Stephen Lalor presented his "Master & Margarita Suite" of instrumental pieces in concert at the Bulgakov Museum Moscow in July 2011, performed on the Russian instruments domra, cimbalom, bass balalaika, and bayan.

Opera and musical theatre

More than 15 composers, including York Höller, Alexander Gradsky and Sergei Slonimsky, have made operas and musicals on the theme of The Master and Margarita.
Five alternative composers and performers, including Simon Nabatov, have been inspired by the novel to present various adaptations.
In 2009, Portuguese new media artists Video Jack premiered an audiovisual art performance inspired by the novel at Kiasma, Helsinki, as part of the PixelAche Festival. Since then, it has been shown in festivals in different countries, having won an honorable mention award at Future Places Festival, Porto. The project was released as a net art version later that year.