interpretations
English > The novel > Interpretations
Introduction
You can find the most common interpretations of the characters, places and situations described in The Master and Margarita in the sections Characters, Locations and Annotations of this website. I can't claim expert knowledge though. How could I? Doctor Ari Belenkiy, a mathematician who first graduated at the university of his hometown Donetsk (Ukraine), and later at the Moscow State University and the University of California in Irvine, counted not less than 150 different academic studies on The Master and Margarita - and he had only analyzed what has been published in the '90's.
In this part of the website you can find a a variety of interpretations of The Master and Margarita. Among them, a selection of introductions to the novel, written by translators of Bulgakov's work, along with polemics and discussions in the press and on radio and television. As far as television is concerned, we include in this section the complete lectures on The Master and Margarita presented by three illustrious Bulgakov scholars - Marietta Chudakova, Andrey Kuraev and Aleksandr Uzhankov - in the Academia project of the Russian station Telekanal Kultura in October 2011.
Studies and essays
Elsewhere, in the Own archives part of the Links section, you can find a colourful collection of interpretations and studies which were often made on specific aspects of the novel.
Link to the archives of this website
Opinionated
Someone who is without any doubt in a class of his own as far as the interpretations of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita are concerned, is the Ukrainian philologist and radio presenter Alfred Nikolayevich Barkov. I don't agree with him, but it's worth to read.
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Your guide through the novel
In this section are explained, per chapter, all typical notions, names of people and places, quotations and expressions from the novel with a description of the political, social, economical and cultural context.