The Master and Margarita
Literature (a must read !)
To offer or to treat yourself!... The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
"One day, the Devil came to earth... One day the Devil came to earth to watch over his interests. He saw everything the Devil. He heard everything..." Said Jacques Brel, a long time ago already, in a song that is surprisingly topical...
It should therefore not surprise anyone that he (the Devil) decided, one fine day, to take a look, and even a little more than a look, in Moscow, in this country (the USSR) which claimed wanting to be atheist (*)... Where we see that it is much more difficult to get rid of the Devil than of God...
Three stories, in fact, make up the novel. Three stories which relate to each other, and also at times, irresistibly, to the author's life. Mikhail Bulgakov, born in Kyiv on May 3 "old style", or May 15 "new style" (°) 1891. Immersed in culture from his childhood, particularly in the family dacha where they met in the summer and organized theater shows with family and friendly enthusiasts. He happened to be a doctor, but in 1920 in Vladikavkaz he decided to abandon medicine to devote himself body and soul to literature and theater. His entire life from this decision will be a relentless struggle to succeed in publishing and/or having his works (or adaptations) performed. Object of permanent surveillance by the GPU (**), which searched and questioned him on several occasions, seized the manuscript of his short story "Heart of a Dog" in 1926, and noted in 1929 information according to which Bulgakov had undertaken the writing of a "novel about the devil" imagined at the end of the previous year...
This novel which would become "The Master and Margarita" (this title only appeared at the end of 1938), of which on two occasions, out of fear, he burned the manuscript, only to return to the work each time, and which he would rework again and again until his death... He dictated some more corrections to his wife on February 13, 1940. He died on March 10. The first uncensored version was published in Germany in 1969. But in Russia, it was not until 1973.
As Efim Etkind wrote about Vassili Grossman's "Life and Destiny" (another major work that I will have to talk to you about one of these days): "Putting a novel behind bars is the highest distinction that state power can bestow on a novel (...) How strong it seemed, however, this power with such fragile nerves, with its tanks, its air force, its printing works, its radio, its television, its missiles and his nuclear energy! And now he is afraid of a novel! Of the carbon sheets of a novel, even, to the extent that we can read "by transparency"."
If the imperative need for domination of the media, the full-scale application of which we have been able to admire in our so-called democratic countries during the recent and prolonged viral and military adventures, is easily understandable. What a scathing admission of weakness is this need to also control artistic productions (and representations)! In these three stories which relate to each other, and in which Bulgakov summons all the dimensions of literary creation - historical story, adventure novel, comedy, pamphlet, tragedy, fantasy, sociology, psychoanalysis, burlesque, drama... . - in a wonderful hymn to creative freedom. What is unbearable, precisely, is that we can read there "by transparency"... That sometimes the emergence of an absurd disorder says a lot about the absurdity of the disrupted order... That one can sometimes enjoy infinite freedom in even a cramped interior space, and be "locked in" outside, in public space...
Among other examples that come to mind...
The most fundamental question remaining: What force pushes a man to invest himself, until his last breath, in the creation of a work that he knows is unpublishable? He who had written repeatedly and in vain to Stalin and Gorky to obtain, if he could not exercise his profession as a writer, at least permission to emigrate...
" - And why don't you take it home, into the light?
- He did not deserve light, he deserved rest, replied Levi..."
Have a nice reading time... We bet that in the future, you will no longer send anyone to Him, nor will you advocate for Him, lightly...
* * *
To know more :
- I can only advise you to listen to the translator to French, André Markowicz, as he presents his work at the Librairie du Globe in Paris. Ici.
- There is also a (Belgian) website exclusively devoted to this novel, created by an enthusiast, Jan Vanhellemont.
* * *
(*) What's more religious than the Communist Party?... What's more political than (so-called) "revealed" religions?... Looking more closely...
(°) As explained in a previous note, May 3 of the Julian calendar = 15 of the Gregorian calendar.
(**) Guépéou, or Oguépéou: state police founded in 1922 (acronym for "Unified State Political Directorate"). Absorbed by the NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) in 1934.
As far as possible DO NOT buy on Amazon!!! There are (still) booksellers in this country. THANKS
Other Intercultural Notes...
"Si vis pacem..." the article, some kind of manifesto of our association.
You can follow our Facebook. page. But, as prevention is better than cure, to avoid censorship, we are also on Telegram