Essays about the Master and Margarita

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English

The Dialectics of Closure in The Master and Margarita - Amert, Susan
Amert explores the notion of endings - particularly death, but also narrative endings - in The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 16 pages

Sin and Redemption - Anderson, Anthony
Anderson argues that yet, despite this arguably unforgivable moral failing, the reader is nevertheless able to sympathize with the procurator.
English original - pdf 3 pages

Mythic and Daimonic Paradigms - Arenberg, Carol
Arenberg discusses Bulgakovs ideas about history and artists, and how they lead to the thematic structure of the novel.
English original - pdf 17 pages

Through the Lens of Carnival - Arnold, Yanina
In her doctoral thesis Yanina Arnold studied themes as Identity, Community and Fear in The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 14 pages

The Author and the Magician - Arnold, Troy
In this article Troy Arnold discusses how in Bortko's movie historical mysticism is melted with modern cinema.
English original - pdf 6 pages

e-notes - Author unknown
A high school level paper on Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 69 pages

The Human Response to Evil and Injustice - Author unknown
On the weblog Nonsense On Stilts are published “the Occasional Writings and Accidental Observations of a Southerner in Boston”, among which are essays written for his undergraduate thesis at Marlboro College.
English original - pdf 17 pages

The Master and Margarita: An Analysis - Author unknown
This undergraduate paper examines the themes of Michael Bulgakov’s Stalinist era novel, The Master and Margarita. The author analyzes the ana-logies, discusses the significance of the interwoven stories, and explores the New Testament aspects of the book.
English original - pdf 7 pages

The Master's Audience in The Master and Margarita - Avins, Carol
Avins discusses the role of the unknown reader of the text of the Master as keepers and possible communicators of the text.
English original - pdf 2 pages

The Master and Margarita - The True Content - Barkov, Alfred
In his first essay, Barkov argues that Maksim Gorky is the real prototype of Bulgakov's Master, while actress Maria Andreeva would be Margarita, and Bulgakov would be Ivan Bezdomny. Furthermore, Barkov writes that Mikhail Bulgakov depicted Margarita as a bestial whore betraying the Master to the secret police.
English translation (partial) - pdf 18 pages

The Master and Margarita - A Literary Mystification - Barkov, Alfred
In his second essay, Barkov continues giving controversial interpretations of The Master and Margarita, one of which is that the novel itself parodies the Faust and the City, a procommunist drama by Anatoly Lunacharsky. Some of his conclusions, however, contradict the statements of his first essay.
English summary - pdf 8 pages

Master & Margarita: a literary autobiography? - Belenkiy, Ari
An essay written on the 60th anniversary of the death of the Master.
English original - pdf 6 pages

The Master and Margarita: Deconstructing Social Realism - Belyk, Kristina
Belyk explores the creation of Russian Socialist Realism as a genre, and considers the ideology that is so imbibed within it. She elucidates, with a richly theoretical approach, Mikhail Bulgakov’s inversion of the genre in The Master and Margarita to create a critique not just of life in 1930s Moscow, but of humanity itself.
English original - pdf 23 pages

History as Hippodrome: The Apocalyptic Horse... - Bethea, David M.
Bethea discusses Bulgakov's use of the image of the horseman from the Book of Revelations in The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 11 pages

Elements of Satire ... in the Prose of M.A. Bulgakov - Blake, Barbara
In September 1968, Barbara Blake was, to our knowledge, the first Master student ever who submitted a thesis on The Master and Margarita. It was at the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at the McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
English original - pdf 58 pages

The Master and Margarita - BookRags Literary Study Guide
This BookRags Literature Study Guide is an offprint from Gale's For Students Series and presents analysises, context descriptions, and criticism on commonly studied works.
English original - pdf 19 pages

Michail Afanas'evich Boelgakov - BookRags Biography
Biography of Mikhail Bulgakov, presented by Amy Singleton Adams, College of the Holy Cross.
English original - pdf 17 pages

The Master and Margarita and Gabriel Garcia Marquez... - Brown, Stephanie
Brown compares Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. Both are novels which concentrate thematically on the relations of power between humans, and the violence of authoritarian control.
English original - pdf 5 pages

Jesus and Satan in Moscow - Bruhn, Siglind
Bruhn compares three opera's based on Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. The composers are York Höller, Rainer Kunad and Sergey Slonimsky.
English original - pdf 29 pages

A Popular Reading of Bulgakov: Explication des Graffiti - Bushnell, John
An analysis of the graffiti in Bolshaya Sadovaya, as they appeared in the autumn of 1988.
English original - pdf 11 pages

Bulgakov’s “Moonlight Sonata” - Collins, John Patrick
The Thematic Functions of Grand Opera and Lieder in The Master and Margarita - John Collins is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, majoring in music and English with a minor in psychology. This essay was written for Maria Gapotchenko’s course Russian Literary Masterpieces.
English original - pdf 10 pages

Political Satire in The Master and Margarita - Curtis, J.A.E.
Mikhail Bulgakov and the Red Army's Polo Instructor - Curtis provides a biographical account of Bulgakov's involvement with American diplomats in Russia and argues that the author satirized his experience in The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 7pages

The Master and Margarita: The Reach Exceeds the Grasp - Delaney, Joan
Delaney studies the meaning of the character of the master in the novel, and argues against a Faustian interpretation.
English original - pdf 10 pages

Analysis of Koroviev's (Fagot's) Character - Dudka
On the Custom Papers Network is published this short paper from an author known as Dudka, describing the Koroviev character in The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 3 pages

The Apocalyptic Vision of The Master and Margarita - Ericson, Edward E. Jr.
Ericson posits that Russian Orthodox Christian doctrine is the fundamental context in which The Master and Margarita must be understood.
English original - pdf 13 pages

The Mystery of the Master's Final Destination - Frank, Margot K.
Frank discusses the possible reasons for the fate of the Master at the end of the novel.
English original - pdf 10 pages

Existential Thought in The Master and Margarita - Glenny, Michael
Glenny explores possible neo-Platonic influences on The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 11 pages

Why Can't Critics Agree on What It Means? - Gurevich, Olga
An analysis of the parallels between the three worlds described in the novel: the real Moscow in the twenties and thirties, the world of Woland and his retinue, and the historical world of Pilate.
English original - pdf 20 pages

Cases of Schizophrenia in The Master and Margarita - Gimpelevich, Zina
Gimpelevich examines Bulgakov's use of schizophrenia as a literary device in The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 10 pages

Darkness Visible: Bulgakov and Milton - Gorbunov, A. N.
Professor A. N. Gorbunov of the Moscow State University argues that Bulgakov, while writing his last novel, may not specially have thought about Milton, but his poetry in spite of this could have remained in the Russian writer’s memory as a kind of a cultural frame or an intertext.
English original - pdf 13 pages

The Mythic Structure of The Master and Margarita - Haber, Edythe C.
In this essay Haber argues that Bulgakov's use of the mythical stories of Faust and Christ doesn't follow a strict and linear interpretation, but that he interweaves elements to create a mythical structure of his own.
English original - pdf 21 pages

Bulgakov’s Post Horses - Ivanov, Mikhail
Russian Life Editor Mikhail Ivanov visited Richard Pevear and his wife Larissa Volokhonsky, who translated The Master and Margarita in English in 1997. Together they discussed the subtleties of the translator's art and on the particular difficulty of translating Bulgakov.
English original - pdf 8 pages

What role does the rational and irrational play in understanding truth and morality in The Master and Margarita? - Johnson, Theo
Theo Johnson discusses The Master and Margarita and how Bulgakov utilised classical ideas to help land some of his ideas. It was submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Masters by Research in Classical Reception at the Royal Holloway College of the University of London in 2016.
English original - pdf 73 pages

Margarita Uncovered - Sexuality, Power, and Gender... - Juklova, Michaela
Juklova explores how the female characters in The Master and Margarita are indispensible to the novel’s plot as enablers of men, and their actions reveal a great deal about gender relationships in the Soviet Union in the early twentieth century.
English original - pdf 6 pages

The Master and Margarita - Satire and Transcendence - Kidder, Paulette W.
Paulette Kidder is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Seattle University. This paper was prepared for delivery at the September 2012 Eric Voegelin Society meeting in New Orleans.
English original - pdf 17 pages

The Master and Margarita - Knowledge Reports
A short analysis of The Master and Margarita published by Knowledge Reports.
English original - pdf 4 pages

The Master & Margarita and Freedom of Censorship - Kudelina,
Aleksandra
Seminar paper presented at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität München Institut für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft.
English original - pdf 26 pages

Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita - Lakshin, Vladimir
Lakshin presents an overview of The Master and Margarita and situates the novel within the modern Russian literature.
English original - pdf 25 pages

Bulgakov's Faith: Fact and Fiction - Lakshin, Vladimir
Lakshin discusses Bulgakov's faith in the context of his relation with Stalin.
English original - pdf 11 pages

Rediscovering The Master and Margarita: from Creation to Adaptation - Leshcheva, Olga
This work investigates the challenges encountered when translating The Master and Margarita into a different language as well as into a different medium.
English original - pdf 120 pages

The Variety Theater in The Master and Margarita: - Lynne McCulloch
Chilstrom, Karen
Subtitle: A Portrait of Soviet Life in 1930s Moscow. Report presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in May 2011.
English original - pdf 37 pages

Religious doctrine in the works of Mikhail Bulgakov (with special reference to Belaia Gvardiia, Beg and Master i Margarita) - Martin, Isobel Victoria
Isabel Martin wants to show that Russian Orthodox Doctrine can provide a cohesive whole for Bulgakov's works, uniting them on a spiritual level.
English original - pdf 129 pages

Fallen and Changed: Tracing the Biblical -Mythological Origins of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Azazello and Koroviev - Mason, Elliot
Elliot Mason explores the biblical and mythological ancestry of two of the novel’s most understudied demonic characters: Azazello and Koroviev-Fagot.
English original - pdf 100 pages

Dreams, Devils, Irrationality, and The Master and Margarita - Mills, Judith M.
Mills explores traditional Russian literary elements as well as modern psy-choanalytic dream theory in The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 19 pages

Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. Masking the Supernatural and the Secret Police - Moss, Kevin
Kevin Moss, Professor at the Middlebury College in Vermont, explains how the devices Bulgakov uses to mask the actions of the secret police produce grotesque effects because these actions are distinctly threatening.
English original - pdf 26 pages

The Gnostic devil in Bulgakov's «Master and Margerita» - Neininger, Marc
A comparative study of the devil figure in Goethe's Faust and the presentation of the devil in the bible. The focus lies on Bulgakov's devil figuration, however. The essay also deals with the Gnostic aspects in The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 8 pages

The Master and Margarita - Parkes, Alexa
Parkes describes how, through the use of fantastic elements in his novel The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov tries to ridiculise and undermine the foundations of the Soviet security.
English original - pdf 4 pages

The Role of Afranius - Pope, Richard W.F.
Pope argues that the ambiguity of the Afranius character is essential for the meaning and the structure of The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 22 pages

The Model of a Parody of Christ - Pruitt, Donald B.
Pruitt arguments that the way in which Bulgakov tells the biblical story, shows that he based himself on the Gospel of John.
English original - pdf 8 pages

The Figure of Pontius Pilate in the Novel The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov Compared with Pilate in the Bible - Qose, Belfjore
Qose discusses the character of Pontius Pilate in the novel compared to Pontius Pilate in the Bible, and concludes he is more human than all the other biblical characters that Bulgakov depicts.
English original - pdf 18 pages

Key and Tripod in The Master and Margarita - Reidel Schrewe, Ursula
Schrewe examines the significance of items which figure in both Goethe's Faust and Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 8 pages

The Sources for The Master and Margarita - Sokolov, B.V.
Bulgakov expert Sokolov analyses the philosophical grounds of The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 12 pages

Sympathy For The Devil - Taylor, Mia
Taylor discusses the ill-fated attempts of Polanski, Fellini, Manzarak, and a host of others to bring The Master and Margarita to the big screen.
English original - pdf 14 pages

Bulgakov's Master i Margarita: Post-Romantic Devil Pacts - Testa, Carlo
Carlo Testa traces the development of the devil figure in post-Romantic European literature and Bulgakov's use of the devil in The Master and Margarita.
English original - pdf 16 pages

Chervontsi or roubles - does it matter? - Vanhellemont, Jan
In The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov used several times the word chervonets. According to Jan Vanhellemont it’s a pity that the English, French and Dutch translators of Bulgakov’s masterpiece translated this word as ten-rouble bill. He argues that, by doing so, they missed a part of Bulgakov's satire on the subject of money in the Soviet Union era.
English original - pdf 6 pages

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Master & Margarita -
Vanhellemont, Jan.
In this book you will find very detailed descriptions of all the characters of the novel and their prototypes. You will finn also a description of the places in Moscow which Bulgakov described, and the role they played in the life of the author. In the appendices you will also find the text of a passage that does not appear in the English translation of the novel, and the Dutch text of Bears in the Caviar, the hilarious eyewitness report that Charles Thayer wrote about the sensational Spring Festival which the American ambassador William Bullitt organised on 23 April 1935 in Moscow, and at which Mikhail Bulgakov himself was present. It inspired him to describe the famous Ball of Satan.
Paid download - 14,99 €
English original - pdf 486 pages

The Master and Margarita. Annotations per Chapter - Vanhellemont, Jan.
Your webmaster explains the names, locations, situations and quotations which Mikhail Bulgakov used in The Master and Margarita. With 33 colour illustrations - one per chapter - made by the author. The terms are mentioned in the order of their first appearance in the novel.
Paid download - 8,99 €
English translation - pdf 258 pages

In Defense of the Homeless - Weeks, Laura D.
Weeks discusses the character Ivan Bezdomny in the novel.
English original - pdf 18 pages

Sympathy For The Devil - Wood, Michael
Michael Wood compares the English translations of The Master and Margarita made by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O’Connor, and by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky in the London Review of Books.
English original - pdf 9 pages


French

La question religieuse dans Le Maître et Marguerite - Flamant, Françoise.
Flamant says that Bulgakov didn't do something new by telling an episode from the life of Jesus Christ - Strauss, Renard and Farrar had already done it - but that the fuss was caused because it happened in an atheist country with an Orthodox tradition.
French original - pdf 4 pages

Le Maître et Marguerite, une oeuvre-univers - Gourg, Marianne.
Introduction of Marianne Gourg to the defense of her doctoral thesis on 28 February 1987 at the University of Paris. The thesis of the same title has 700 pages but is, unfortunately, not available in our archives.
French original - pdf 9 pages

Une cure de fantastique ou Mikhail Boulgakov - Nivat, Georges
The author assesses the most important interpretations of The Master and Margarita of these last few years. He maintains the interpretation of the novel as a «mythologising novel». Published in Cahiers du Monde Russe, Année 1983, Volume 24, Numéro 3, p. 247 - 259. Source: Le Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bi-bliothèques et de la docu-mentation.
French original - pdf 14 pages

Un Maître et Marguerite allemand à l'Opéra de Paris - Spindler-Troubetzkoy, Laure.
Spindler-Troubetzkoy discusses the representation of York Höller's opera Der Meister und Margarita at the Palais Garnier in Paris in November 1991.
French original - pdf 3 pages

Le maître et Marguerite. Annotations par chapitre - Vanhellemont, Jan.
Your webmaster explains the names, locations, situations and quotations which Mikhail Bulgakov used in The Master and Margarita. With 33 colour illustrations - one per chapter - made by the author. The terms are mentioned in the order of their first appearance in the novel.
Paid download - 8,99 €
French translation - pdf 266 pages


German

Eine Multimediale Installation zu dem Roman Der Meister und Margarita - Fröhling, Paul.
Bachelor thesis by the German student Paul Fröhling with a description of the interactive graphic novel he made of The Master and Margarita in 2015 at the University of Pforzheim.
German original - pdf 74 pages

Artbook. Bilder zur Bachelorarbeit von Paul Fröhling - Fröhling, Paul.
A collection of the illustrations of the Bachelor thesis made by the German student Paul Fröhling in 2015 at the University of Pforzheim.
German original - pdf 52 pages


Dutch

Van vergetelheid tot beroemdheid - Pieter Boulogne
A seminar on The Master and Margarita was organized on November 16, 2007 in Antwerp. Pieter Boulogne (PhD student, KUL) presented the story about the rehabilitation of Bulgakov which, at first sight, began on an unex-pected moment.
Dutch original - pdf 12 pages

De meester en Margarita - De roman en de film - Vikki Raskin
In her master paper at the Catholic University of Leuven, Vikki Raskin compares Vladimir Bortko's film with Mikhail Bulgakov's novel.
Dutch original - pdf 63 pages

Alles wat u altijd al wilde weten over De meester en Margarita -
Vanhellemont, Jan.
In this book you will find very detailed descriptions of all the characters of the novel and their prototypes. You will finn also a description of the places in Moscow which Bulgakov described, and the role they played in the life of the author. In the appendices you will also find the text of a passage that does not appear in the English translation of the novel, and the Dutch text of Bears in the Caviar, the hilarious eyewitness report that Charles Thayer wrote about the sensational Spring Festival which the American ambassador William Bullitt organised on 23 April 1935 in Moscow, and at which Mikhail Bulgakov himself was present. It inspired him to describe the famous Ball of Satan.
Paid download - 14,99 €
Dutch original - pdf 506 pages

De meester en Margarita. Aantekeningen per hoofdstuk - Vanhellemont, Jan.
Your webmaster explains the names, locations, situations and quotations which Mikhail Bulgakov used in The Master and Margarita. With 33 colour illustrations - one per chapter - made by the author. The terms are mentioned in the order of their first appearance in the novel.
Paid download - 8,99 €
Dutch original - pdf 252 pages

Van roman tot graphic novel - Maarten Van Tieghem
Maarten Van Tieghem graduated summa cum lauda at the University of Ghent with a master paper, in which he compared the various comic strip adaptations of The Master and Margarita.
Dutch original - pdf 84 pages


Russian

Мастер и Маргарита - Альтернативное прочтение - Барков,
Альфред
In his first essay, Barkov argues that Maksim Gorky is the real prototype of Bulgakov's Master, while actress Maria Andreeva would be Margarita, and Bulgakov would be Ivan Bezdomny. Furthermore, Barkov writes that Mikhail Bulgakov depicted Margarita as a bestial whore betraying the Master to the secret police.
Russian original - pdf 290 pages

Мастер и Маргарита - Литературная мистификация - Барков, Альфред
In his second essay, Barkov continues giving controversial interpretations of The Master and Margarita, one of which is that the novel itself parodies the Faust and the City, a procommunist drama by Anatoly Lunacharsky. Some of his conclusions, however, contradict the statements of his first essay.
Russian original - pdf 184 pages

Посол и сатана: Уильям К. Буллит в булгаковской Москве - Эткинд, Александр
Chapter 9 from the book Эрос невозможного. История психоанализа в России (1993) or Eros is impossible. History of psychoanalysis in Russia. In this chapter, Alexander Etkind argues that the American ambassador William K. Bullitt was the prototype of Woland in The Master and Margarita.
Russian original - pdf 22 pages

Булгаков без глянца - Фокин, Павел Евгеньевич
Bulgakov devoid of brightness. In this book, Pavel Yevgenievich Fokin describes the personality of Mikhail Bulgakov using statements of people who knew the author.
Russian original - pdf 178 pages

Рукописи горят, или Роман о предателях. «Мастер и Маргарита»: наблюдения и заметки - Лифшиц, Юрий
Manuscripts Do Burn, or a Novel About Traitors. «The Master and Margarita»: Observations and Annotations. In this booklet, Yuri Lifshits seems less concerned with explaining his own observations than with rejecting the observations of others. Lots of words but little substance.
Russian original - pdf 81 pages

Фантастиский Роман о Дьяволе - Лосев, Виктор
The Fantastic Novel about the Devil. Victor Losev discusses the genesis of The Master and Margarita.
Russian original - pdf 12 pages

Булгаков на Патриарших - Мягков, Борис
Bulgakov at the Patriarch Ponds. This book by Boris Myagkov (1938-2003) is devoted to the addresses related to the biography of Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov (1891-1940) and his literary heroes. It is a kind of a guidebook not only through the mysterious streets and alleys of Bulgakov's Moscow, but also through the pages of his works.
Russian original - pdf 215 pages

Тайны романа «Мастер и Маргарита» М.А. Булгакова - Осиненко, Владимир Антонович
The Secrets of the Novel 'The Master and Margarita' by M.A. Bulgakov. Vladimir Antonovich Osinenko (1926-2011) wrote one of the many Russian books about the «secrets» of The Master and Margarita . Basixally, he wrote his Annotations per Chapter, but less extensive than those you find on this website.
Russian original - pdf 174 pages

Михаил Булгаков, его время и мы - Пшебинда, Гжегож и.д.
Mikhail Bulgakov, his time and us. Collection of 70 monographs on Mikhail Bulgakov and his work, compiled by Grzegorz Przebinda and Janusz Świeży, in collaboration with Dzmitry Kliabanau.
Russian original - pdf 922 pages

Энциклопедия Булгаковская - Соколов, Борис Вадимович
Bulgakov Encyclopedia. A standard work for anyone who wants to get to know Mikhail Bulgakov, his life and his works, compiled by Doctor of Philology Boris Vadimovich Sokolov.
Russian original - pdf 593 pages

Расшифрованный Булгаков. Тайны «Мастера и Маргариты» - Соколов, Борис Вадимович
Bulgakov Decripted. Secrets of «The Master and Margarita». Doctor of Philology Boris Vadimovich Sokolov tries to answer many questions which the readers of Mikhail Bulgakov's masterpiece may have.
Russian original - pdf 247 pages

Михаил Булгаков и славянская культура - Яблоков, Е. А. (отв. редактор)
Mikhail Bulgakov and the Slavic Culture. Collection of studies presented at an international scientific conference of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, 2016). The documents deal with Mikhail Bulgakov's work in the cultural context of Central and Southeastern Europe. Russian and foreign authors focus on Bulgakov's poetics, the difficulties in translating and commenting on his texts, the connection between the writer's work and the mythology and culture of the Slavic peoples, and experiences with theater and film adaptations of The Master and Margarita.
Russian original - pdf 385 pages



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