Тройной юбилей
The regular visitors of this website know since long that we commemorate the 125th anniversary of Afanasievich Mikhail Bulgakov this year. But in this month of November, we have two more reasons to celebrate.
50 years The Master and Margarita
This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of The Master and Margarita in the Soviet Union. Elena Sergeevna, the widow of Mikhail Bulgakov, had managed to get the first book of the novel published in the literary journal Moskva. The text was highly maimed by the censorship, but this first publication hit like a bomb.
10 years The Master and Margarita
In 2004, your webmaster started reading The Master and Margarita for the first time. In order to get a better understanding of Bulgakov's satire, he made annotations that quickly yielded to a modest first Dutch website of 100 pages. Exactly 10 years ago, on November 6, 2006, this small site was transformed into the four-language website that you're visiting now.
Ever since then, more than 5.5 million people from around the world have been visiting the website, which now has more than 12,000 pages. Most visitors begin by using the annotations by chapter while reading the novel. Many do so with the book in one hand, and our mobile app in the other hand. Then they often explore the rest of the website to get more information about the historical, political, social or cultural context of the novel. Students and translators consult the archives of the website where they find dozens of essays, master proofs and studies, while others watch and listen to the vast collection of illustrations, songs and movies that have been inspired by The Master and Margarita.