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Classics

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Sandra Woien interrogates a famous Soviet-era satire.

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) was a Russian physician turned playwright and novelist. His masterpiece The Master and Margarita (1966) took him twelve years to write. At one point he ended up burning the manuscript in a fit of despair – just as his protagonist the Master does to his own masterpiece in the novel. Yet, it took even longer for the book to be published. Due to the strict censorship of Soviet society, an entire twenty-six years after his death passed before the public saw it.

The book takes the reader on a raucous adventure. Flying pigs, cats with guns, hapless people losing their heads, and money falling from the sky, are only some of the adventures awaiting the reader. But despite the fanciful shenanigans, the book is well worth reading for anyone with an interest in philosophy, as it contains profound ethical and political insights, and touches on three notable philosophical themes: arguments for the existence of God; the primacy of truth over convenient lies; and the nature of virtue and vice. (It’s even alleged to be the inspiration for the Rolling Stones’ song Sympathy for the Devil.)

The book weaves together two fundamentally different stories in an ingenious manner. The first is about the Devil, referred to as Woland, who visits Soviet Russia in the 1930s – the period in which Bulgakov wrote the novel. Of course, under Stalin, all kinds of travesties ensued, such as the systematic eradication of dissidents, the seizure of private property, forced communal living, a war on truth, and so on. The book comically, and heretically, touches on such issues, along with the general absurdities of living in such an unmoored bureaucracy. It not only tells the story of Satan’s visit to Moscow but also segues into the love between a repressed author known here only as the Master, and his beloved Margarita. The second story will be familiar to most readers, for it is an ancient one. It takes place in Jerusalem, and is the story of Jesus’s crucifixion at the hands of Pontius Pilate.

Master and Margarita 2 painting by Vladimir Ryklin

Seven Arguments For God

The book opens with two members of the literati meeting Woland at Patriarch’s Ponds, a park in Moscow near where Bulgakov lived. Berlioz, an editor, and chairman of a major literary association, the MASSOLIT, is instructing Ivan, a poet he’s hired to write a piece on Jesus. Berlioz is displeased with the piece, because he fears it doesn’t do a good enough job debasing Jesus. Most importantly, it doesn’t unequivocally demonstrate that Jesus never existed.

Berlioz is providing tips trying to help Ivan ‘improve’ the piece. Woland, eavesdropping, is fascinated by this conversation. Butting in, he sits down between them and starts conversing. He is delighted to find that his interlocutors are inveterate atheists, and queries how they deal with Aquinas’s five arguments for the existence of God. Berlioz quickly dismisses these arguments as nonsense, along with a sixth argument given by Kant. Woland’s delight increases, and he can’t help interjecting that he tried to tell Kant just that over breakfast – which, of course, strikes Berlioz and Ivan as absurd. Then he queries who governs the universe if there is no God. Of course, the atheists have an answer: Man governs himself. Woland is incredulous: he alludes to a type of intentional design in the universe, and to the inexorable nature of fate.

Woland goes on to present a seventh argument for the existence of God. Unfortunately for Berlioz, however, unlike the other six, this argument cannot be neatly packaged in syllogistic form: it can only be demonstrated. Thus Berlioz dies an atheist. But Ivan eventually becomes disillusioned with his worldview after confronting the Master and the power of the supernatural.

The Primacy of Truth

Bulgakov was personally familiar with the challenges of living in a totalitarian system, where conformism and censorship are rampant and truth is often held in contempt. Russia under Stalin was a morally bankrupt country. Friends and even family members tattled on one another to move up in the political hierarchy, to get their competitor’s job, or to secure better housing. Such a system created confusion, fear, and hypocrisy. Yet, the Soviet propaganda machine was powerful, and through fear, this system was maintained for decades.

Woland comes to Moscow on the pretence that he’s going to perform a magic show; but the irony is that through his magic (which is itself a play on the world of reality versus the world of appearances) he reveals all kinds of vice. Thus, Bulgakov’s Satan is less about lies, and more about revelation. Wherever he and his entourage travel, chaos ensues, but their antics playfully expose the lies endemic in Soviet society. Generally, Bulgakov forces his characters, and ultimately the reader, to leave the carefully-crafted world of appearances.

Woland’s primary manner of revealing the truth is via exposing hypocrisy, and this is best shown by his treatment of the MASSOLIT. The society is dedicated to pushing the Soviet agenda through literature. Any published piece must unequivocally align with Soviet ideology, and if it doesn’t do it well enough, then it must be revised, or left unpublished, or perhaps worse.

The Master, who had written a book about Pontius Pilate, faced the hypocrisy and superficiality of this establishment. He’s pilloried for his book, for it attempted to portray Jesus’s execution in a historically accurate and sympathetic manner. In the face of such criticism, he burnt it, and ended up in a mental hospital. The Master appears to be a stand-in for Bulgakov, who too was a victim of the intellectual elite. Yet, unlike in real life, in the novel the Master gains the upper hand. Members of the MASSOLIT hierarchy face the wrath of those they’ve harmed, like Margarita; and also the wrath of Satan’s entourage – such as when the demon Behemoth is conveniently careless with a primus stove while eating at a MASSOLIT establishment. In short, Bulgakov gives his readers hope that while lies, deceit, and propaganda may temporarily rule, justice and truth will ultimately triumph.

The Greatest of Vices

Bulgakov puts a key ethical claim into the mouth of Jesus, referred to in the novel as Yeshua. As Yeshua hangs on the cross, Bulgakov has him suggest that among all human vices, cowardice is the greatest. This is reiterated by Matthew Levi, Jesus’s key disciple in the novel, who carried around a parchment on which he wrote down Jesus’s words. The last line reads: “greater vice… cowardice…” Yet although the New Testament book of Matthew certainly admonishes against fear, Jesus is never reported in the Gospels to claim that cowardice is the greatest of vices. However, cowardice, Bulgakov maintained, is the greatest vice, because it is the father of so many other vices, especially the ones rampant in Soviet Russia – including lying, cheating, and tattling. (Ironically, when the book was first published, all mentions of the immorality of cowardice were removed.)

Cowardice is portrayed in the book as a pervasive and destructive force. It prevents various characters from doing all kinds of important things, ranging from saying what’s true to pursuing their dreams. More insidiously, cowardice allows other vices to grow and bear fruit. By succumbing to fear, corruption flourishes, and truth and freedom are squelched. Those who embody cowardice, such as petty bureaucrats and members of the literary elite, are depicted in an absurd, clownish manner, while those who exemplify courage, as Margarita does, end up as the heroes and heroines. When confronted with a lapse of courage, Koroviev, a member of Satan’s entourage, reminds Margarita to never be afraid. Thus, Bulgakov’s position on cowardice as the ultimate vice is a command to the reader to thoroughly reject it, and to courageously and unabashedly align oneself with the truth.

Key Takeaways

Bulgakov, through this novel, ultimately argues that both God and the Devil exist, truth ultimately prevails, and vice gives rise to more vice. He also suggests – as did another famous Soviet dissident, Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn – that at times a thin line may run between good and evil.

Even with such profound messages subtly and satirically revealed, The Master and Margarita is ultimately a novel about love and forgiveness, with good triumphing in the end. It is a novel that should be read not just for its entertainment value, but for its profound philosophical and moral messages, which are needed now as much as ever. It was human vice, primarily in the form of lies and fear, that kept The Master and Margarita from being birthed into the world for so long. These vices are still with us. Let’s not allow them to prevail.

Sandra Woien is an Associate Teaching Professor in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. Her recent research explores the relevance of ancient philosophy to the pursuit of the good life.