Would-be Margaritas
May 10, 2020
Today we added to this website a page on some women who thought that Bulgakov had them in mind when he created the character of Margarita.
In almost all publications about The Master and Margarita, the authors agree on who the woman was which inspired Bulgakov to the Margarita character in the novel. Almost everyone thinks it is his third wife, Elena Sergeevna Nyurenberg (1893-1970), who at the time of their acquaintance was married to army officer Yevgeni Alexandrovich Shilovsky (1889-1952). The countless similarities between Elena Sergeevna and the character from the novel are striking, the evidence is extremely credible.
And yet… As it often happens when an author is inspired by real-life prototypes to create the characters in a novel, several women presented themselves after the first publication of The Master and Margarita, being convinced that they had modeled for the title role.
In this article I am not going to present all pretendants. I will limit myself to the two who got the most response in various Russian media.
Bulgakov and his women
News archives
English subtitles
Your webmaster subtitled the films based on The Master and Margaita in English, French, Dutch, German, Spanish and Italian. Check our web shop