The Master and Margarita are parallel worlds. Parallelism in the plot lines of the novel M

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” is one of those works of world literature to which readers return again and again. Is it because the ciphers that literally permeate the entire text speak not only about events that took place in the foreseeable past, but also lead back to times long past?

Let us dwell only on two parallels concerning the topic of the Albigensian heresy, or Cathars (from Greek - “pure”). Bassoon - the “purple knight” (in the “modern” line of the novel - Koroviev, brilliantly played by Abdulov) in fact does not “measure up” to negative hero. And he looks very much like a Provençal troubadour mourning the death of his flourishing land, Occitania, at the hands of the wicked crusaders. And the death of Judas from Kiriath in the novel clearly echoes the murder of the papal legate Peter de Castelnau...

Dashingly twisted - isn't it? Let's try to figure it out. A short excursion into history. The dualistic, Manichaean teaching of the Cathars traces its origins to the Bogomils (Patarens) and Paulicans of Bulgarian Thrace (from the end of the 10th century) and Bosnia, “passive but unshakable nonconformists,” as he wrote in his fundamental work “History. Europe" by Englishman Norman Davis. Their ideologists from the “initiates”, adhering to harsh morality, but first towards themselves, believed that the world was in an eternal confrontation: Good, the personification of which was God, and Evil, respectively Satan, that is, light and darkness.

The teachings of the Cathars were practically no different from the postulates of the Bogomils. They called for the renunciation of earthly goods and recognized only one prayer - “Our Father.” The Cathars opposed baptism in infancy and the sacrament of communion, the veneration of the cross as a murder weapon, icons and the relaying role of the clergy. Christ was for them a kind of ghost who descended to earth from heaven. Human essence Accordingly, they denied God. By the way, Holy Bible(exclusively the New Testament, according to the Cathars, Jehovah of the Old Testament is Satan, and the prophets and the high clergy are his faithful servants) was translated into vernacular- an Occitan dialect, not at all similar to the Northern French dialect.

It is quite obvious that the Vatican saw in Catharism not a demand for any reforms, but an emerging religion and a preaching of ecumenism. Which was very dangerous for the official church, mired in sin and deaf to addressing social issues.

The blessed land of Provence, Languedoc, and the County of Toulouse became a life-giving field for the spread of heresy. Here, in Southern France, there was practically no class stratification, life flowed like a river, and courtliness and the knightly code of honor were not an empty phrase. Local feudal lords, very educated people, showed unprecedented religious tolerance (often they themselves were hidden Cathars). They patronized science and culture. The Renaissance, by the way, was not born in Italy, but in Languedoc and Provence a hundred years earlier.

As a result, a crusade against the Cathars was declared in 1209. There was also a Casus belli - the murder of the papal legate Peter de Castelnau (more about him below). Tens of thousands of knights from Northern France, Germany, England, Denmark, “like a swarm of locusts from the Apocalypse,” filled this region. They were opposed by local feudal lords and their mercenaries from Aragon and Lombardy.

The head of the crusader army, Count Simon de Montfort, who received the blessing of the Pope and King of France Philip II Augustus, particularly “distinguished himself” in the civil war between the North and South of France. During the capture of the city of Beziers, 20 thousand people were killed on his orders. How not to remember the legendary phrase of Abbot Arnaud-Amaury: “Kill them all, the Lord will distinguish his own and protect!”

But the “perfect” ones did not take up arms, even if they had to defend themselves. They were protected by mercenaries of local feudal lords. Therefore, the outcome of the confrontation was predetermined. The victory for the crusaders was achieved in a difficult struggle. Only on March 16, 1244, the last stronghold of the Cathars, the fortress of Montsepor, fell. 200 “initiates” refused to betray the faith and went to the stake...

Let's start with Fagot, who in the last chapter of the novel turned into an unnamed "dark purple knight with a gloomy and never smiling face." He flies across the sky in a cavalcade of horsemen, led by Woland and Margarita. When Margarita asked why Fagot had changed so much, Woland replied that “this knight once made a bad joke... his pun, which he made when talking about light and darkness, was not entirely good. And the knight had to joke a little more and longer than he expected. And today is the night when scores are settled. The knight paid his account and closed it!”

Let us pay attention to the opposition of light and darkness, elements of the dualistic cosmogony of Manichaeism, and to the unfortunate “pun” of the knight, as well as to his clothing. In the Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia (M. Bulgakov constantly resorted to the services of a dictionary), in the article “Albigensians” in the list of references there is a book by the French historian Napoleon Peyre Histoire des Albigeois (1870-1872). When writing it, Peira used manuscripts, one of which contains songs of the knight-troubadour Cadenet. The researcher discovered that the vignette of the manuscript's capital letter depicted the author in a purple dress. Bassoon, transformed into a “dark purple knight,” is constantly serious, without a hint of a smile. He is a troubadour (remember that Koroviev is also a “former regent” and “organizer of choral circles”), mourning, like the Provençal troubadour poets, with “immortal lament” the death of his land at the hands of the crusaders. And Odet is so blatantly ugly because he is also a jester (in French “fagotin” - jester). He became such for an unsuccessful joke about light and darkness (this hypothesis was first voiced by Irina Galinskaya in the brilliant book “Riddles of Famous Books”), so inappropriate during the years of the struggle of Catholics with the Cathars. The French phraseological unit “sentir le fagot” means “to give away heresy”, i.e. give back to the fire, bundles of branches from the fire.

... And here is the second parallel. The murder of Judas from Kiriath, who betrayed Yeshua Ha-Nozri, looks like this in the novel: “Behind Judas’ back, a knife flew up like lightning and hit the lover under the shoulder blade. Judas was thrown forward, and his hands with curled fingers were thrown into the air. The man in front caught Judas with his knife and thrust it up to the hilt into Judas’s heart.” To Pontius Pilate, who says that “and yet he will be slaughtered today... I have a presentiment, I tell you!”, the head of the secret service Afranius told that Judas from Kiriath was lured out of the city in the evening and killed on the banks of the Kidron River. For such zeal, Pontius Pilate awarded Afranius a ring...

It was the murder of the papal legate Peter de Castelnau, committed on January 15, 1208 on the banks of the Rhone River, that served as the reason for the start of the crusade against the Albigensians (from the city of Albi), consecrated by a bull of Pope Innocent III. Castelnau, an uncompromising enemy of the Cathars, declared an oathbreaker and excommunicated the uncrowned ruler of Southern France, Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who defended his heretical subjects and did not want to persecute them. The count had the “imprudence” to note that “the impudent person will not leave his possessions alive,” writes Nikolai Osokin in “The History of the Albigensians and Their Time.” There were those close to the count who understood this hint-threat literally. A number of chronicles talk about a stab in the back, others in the heart, but everyone emphasizes that the killers were generously rewarded by Raymond VI of Toulouse. For Nikolai Osokin, the executors of the sentence were the “oarsmen” who volunteered to transport the legate to the other side of the Rhone, outside of Provence.

Where did Mikhail Afanasyevich get his interest in the Cathars? Father - Afanasy Bulgakov was a professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy in the department of history of Western religions. His interests included ancient history, Christian confessions (primarily Protestantism). Misha’s godfather, academy professor Nikolai Petrov, an outstanding Ukrainian literary critic, historian and archaeologist, also had a great influence on Misha. A native of Kiev, literary critic Irina Galinskaya in her book speaks about the influence on the high school student and student Mikhail Bulgakov of the prominent philologist, private assistant professor at the University of St. Vladimir, Count Ferdinand de La Barthe, translator of “The Song of Roland.” In 1903-1909, he lived in Kyiv, conducted seminars and gave lectures, which were quite popular. De La Barthe taught Provençal and commented literary monuments Provence, and among them “The Song of the Albigensian Crusade”.

In my opinion, Mikhail Bulgakov, who was brought up in a family where they religiously adhered to the Orthodox tradition, was at the same time well aware that the official church had discredited itself by its absolute subordination to secular power. The high clergy, just like the Catholic Church during the time of the Cathars, turned a blind eye to social stratification and the gap between classes, often finding words of justification for its unrighteous actions. This fact largely predetermined the success of the revolution in the empire, which passed like a bloody Moloch through the destinies and souls of people. The writer, in an atmosphere of physical and moral terror of the Bolshevik dictatorship, wanted to show the humanistic essence of the Cathar movement, preaching freedom, equality, and “purity” of morals.

“By worshiping the immortal spirit, they thereby despised the mortal body. That is why the most sincere of them, the so-called “perfect” ones, went with such a desire for execution that their lives beyond the borders of death were illuminated by that new endless radiance, before the charm of which earthly passions, sufferings, and pleasures were insignificant,” Nikolai Osokin wrote about the Cathars . The works of the Master, a subtle psychologist, a brilliant encyclopedist and a thoughtful historian-researcher, will illuminate more than one generation with endless radiance.

mywebs.su

The universe has stopped creating new stars. This fact was stated by an international team of astronomers when processing data from such telescopes as the wide-field, infrared and Subaru, which are installed on Hawaiian Islands and in Chile.

One of the main tasks of the group is to establish all the details of star formation from the very moment of the formation of the Universe to the present day. As it turned out, most of all the stars that ever existed were formed at approximately the same time, more precisely in the period between 9 and 11 billion years ago, only a small part of them - in the remaining time. It turns out that 95% of all the stars that ever shone in the sky already existed by the time the Earth was formed.

“We currently live in a world of old stars. “The most important thing in the Universe happened billions of years ago,” said David Sobral, head of the study from Leiden University (Holland). He claims that the peak productivity of stars in the Universe passed 11 billion years ago, and in subsequent years it decreased by 30 times. “If this trend continues, then gradually no more than 5% of all the stars that have ever existed will remain in the Universe,” the scientist believes.

The new research was based mainly on the search for alpha particles, which are emitted by hydrogen atoms and pass through densities of space. This method allows you to create full picture world at certain points in time, namely 2, 4, 6 and 9 billion years ago. New generation telescopes make it possible to collect much more data than in previous years, and this significantly increases the reliability of the conclusions.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” is one of those works of world literature to which readers return again and again. Is it because the ciphers that literally permeate the entire text speak not only about events that took place in the foreseeable past, but also lead back to times long past?

Let us dwell only on two parallels concerning the topic of the Albigensian heresy, or Cathars (from Greek - “pure”). Bassoon - the “purple knight” (in the “modern” line of the novel - Koroviev, brilliantly played by Abdulov) in fact does not “live up” to the negative hero. And he looks very much like a Provençal troubadour mourning the death of his flourishing land, Occitania, at the hands of the wicked crusaders. And the death of Judas from Kiriath in the novel clearly echoes the murder of the papal legate Peter de Castelnau...

Dashingly twisted - isn't it? Let's try to figure it out. A short excursion into history. The dualistic, Manichaean teaching of the Cathars traces its origins to the Bogomils (Patarens) and Paulicans of Bulgarian Thrace (from the end of the 10th century) and Bosnia, “passive but unshakable nonconformists,” as he wrote in his fundamental work “History. Europe" by Englishman Norman Davis. Their ideologists from the “initiates”, adhering to harsh morality, but first towards themselves, believed that the world was in an eternal confrontation: Good, the personification of which was God, and Evil, respectively Satan, that is, light and darkness.

The teachings of the Cathars were practically no different from the postulates of the Bogomils. They called for the renunciation of earthly goods and recognized only one prayer - “Our Father.” The Cathars opposed baptism in infancy and the sacrament of communion, the veneration of the cross as a murder weapon, icons and the relaying role of the clergy. Christ was for them a kind of ghost who descended to earth from heaven. They accordingly denied the human essence of God. By the way, the Holy Scripture (exclusively the New Testament, according to the Cathars, Jehovah of the Old Testament is Satan, and the prophets and the high clergy are his faithful servants) was translated into the popular language - the Occitan dialect, which is not at all similar to the Northern French dialect.

It is quite obvious that the Vatican saw in Catharism not a demand for any reforms, but an emerging religion and a preaching of ecumenism. Which was very dangerous for the official church, mired in sin and deaf to addressing social issues.

The blessed land of Provence, Languedoc, and the County of Toulouse became a life-giving field for the spread of heresy. Here, in Southern France, there was practically no class stratification, life flowed like a river, and courtliness and the knightly code of honor were not an empty phrase. Local feudal lords, very educated people, showed unprecedented religious tolerance (often they themselves were hidden Cathars). They patronized science and culture. The Renaissance, by the way, was not born in Italy, but in Languedoc and Provence a hundred years earlier.

As a result, a crusade against the Cathars was declared in 1209. There was also a Casus belli - the murder of the papal legate Peter de Castelnau (more about him below). Tens of thousands of knights from Northern France, Germany, England, Denmark, “like a swarm of locusts from the Apocalypse,” filled this region. They were opposed by local feudal lords and their mercenaries from Aragon and Lombardy.

The head of the crusader army, Count Simon de Montfort, who received the blessing of the Pope and King of France Philip II Augustus, particularly “distinguished himself” in the civil war between the North and South of France. During the capture of the city of Beziers, 20 thousand people were killed on his orders. How not to remember the legendary phrase of Abbot Arnaud-Amaury: “Kill them all, the Lord will distinguish his own and protect!”

But the “perfect” ones did not take up arms, even if they had to defend themselves. They were protected by mercenaries of local feudal lords. Therefore, the outcome of the confrontation was predetermined. The victory for the crusaders was achieved in a difficult struggle. Only on March 16, 1244, the last stronghold of the Cathars, the fortress of Montsepor, fell. 200 “initiates” refused to betray the faith and went to the stake...

Let's start with Fagot, who in the last chapter of the novel turned into an unnamed "dark purple knight with a gloomy and never smiling face." He flies across the sky in a cavalcade of horsemen, led by Woland and Margarita. When Margarita asked why Fagot had changed so much, Woland replied that “this knight once made a bad joke... his pun, which he made when talking about light and darkness, was not entirely good. And the knight had to joke a little more and longer than he expected. And today is the night when scores are settled. The knight paid his account and closed it!”

Let us pay attention to the opposition of light and darkness, elements of the dualistic cosmogony of Manichaeism, and to the unfortunate “pun” of the knight, as well as to his clothing. In the Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia (M. Bulgakov constantly resorted to the services of a dictionary), in the article “Albigensians” in the list of references there is a book by the French historian Napoleon Peyre Histoire des Albigeois (1870-1872). When writing it, Peira used manuscripts, one of which contains songs of the knight-troubadour Cadenet. The researcher discovered that the vignette of the manuscript's capital letter depicted the author in a purple dress. Bassoon, transformed into a “dark purple knight,” is constantly serious, without a hint of a smile. He is a troubadour (remember that Koroviev is also a “former regent” and “organizer of choral circles”), mourning, like the Provençal troubadour poets, with “immortal lament” the death of his land at the hands of the crusaders. And Odet is so blatantly ugly because he is also a jester (in French “fagotin” - jester). He became such for an unsuccessful joke about light and darkness (this hypothesis was first voiced by Irina Galinskaya in the brilliant book “Riddles of Famous Books”), so inappropriate during the years of the struggle of Catholics with the Cathars. The French phraseological unit “sentir le fagot” means “to give away heresy”, i.e. give back to the fire, bundles of branches from the fire.

... And here is the second parallel. The murder of Judas from Kiriath, who betrayed Yeshua Ha-Nozri, looks like this in the novel: “Behind Judas’ back, a knife flew up like lightning and hit the lover under the shoulder blade. Judas was thrown forward, and his hands with curled fingers were thrown into the air. The man in front caught Judas with his knife and thrust it up to the hilt into Judas’s heart.” To Pontius Pilate, who says that “and yet he will be slaughtered today... I have a presentiment, I tell you!”, the head of the secret service Afranius told that Judas from Kiriath was lured out of the city in the evening and killed on the banks of the Kidron River. For such zeal, Pontius Pilate awarded Afranius a ring...

It was the murder of the papal legate Peter de Castelnau, committed on January 15, 1208 on the banks of the Rhone River, that served as the reason for the start of the crusade against the Albigensians (from the city of Albi), consecrated by a bull of Pope Innocent III. Castelnau, an uncompromising enemy of the Cathars, declared an oathbreaker and excommunicated the uncrowned ruler of Southern France, Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who defended his heretical subjects and did not want to persecute them. The count had the “imprudence” to note that “the impudent person will not leave his possessions alive,” writes Nikolai Osokin in “The History of the Albigensians and Their Time.” There were those close to the count who understood this hint-threat literally. A number of chronicles talk about a stab in the back, others in the heart, but everyone emphasizes that the killers were generously rewarded by Raymond VI of Toulouse. For Nikolai Osokin, the executors of the sentence were the “oarsmen” who volunteered to transport the legate to the other side of the Rhone, outside of Provence.

Where did Mikhail Afanasyevich get his interest in the Cathars? Father - Afanasy Bulgakov was a professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy in the department of history of Western religions. His interests included ancient history and Christian confessions (primarily Protestantism). Misha’s godfather, academy professor Nikolai Petrov, an outstanding Ukrainian literary critic, historian and archaeologist, also had a great influence on Misha. A native of Kiev, literary critic Irina Galinskaya in her book speaks about the influence on the high school student and student Mikhail Bulgakov of the prominent philologist, private assistant professor at the University of St. Vladimir, Count Ferdinand de La Barthe, translator of “The Song of Roland.” In 1903-1909, he lived in Kyiv, conducted seminars and gave lectures, which were quite popular. De La Barthe taught the Provençal language and commented on the literary monuments of Provence, including the Song of the Albigensian Crusade.

In my opinion, Mikhail Bulgakov, who was brought up in a family where they religiously adhered to the Orthodox tradition, was at the same time well aware that the official church had discredited itself by its absolute subordination to secular power. The high clergy, just like the Catholic Church during the time of the Cathars, turned a blind eye to social stratification and the gap between classes, often finding words of justification for its unrighteous actions. This fact largely predetermined the success of the revolution in the empire, which passed like a bloody Moloch through the destinies and souls of people. The writer, in an atmosphere of physical and moral terror of the Bolshevik dictatorship, wanted to show the humanistic essence of the Cathar movement, preaching freedom, equality, and “purity” of morals.

“By worshiping the immortal spirit, they thereby despised the mortal body. That is why the most sincere of them, the so-called “perfect” ones, went with such a desire for execution that their lives beyond the borders of death were illuminated by that new endless radiance, before the charm of which earthly passions, sufferings, and pleasures were insignificant,” Nikolai Osokin wrote about the Cathars . The works of the Master, a subtle psychologist, a brilliant encyclopedist and a thoughtful historian-researcher, will illuminate more than one generation with endless radiance.

6.10.2009, 21:36

Maybe I didn’t read it carefully, but in the book I didn’t notice the parallels between the characters that (parallels) were highlighted in the film.
Such as:
Yeshua and the Master;
Kaifa and the chief security officer;
Judas and Baron Meigel.
Maybe I forgot someone.

6.10.2009, 23:06

Blizzard24, “The Master and Margarita” cannot be filmed in principle. You can make a film “based on” but nothing more.

Yeshua and the Master;

Kaifa and the chief security officer

Judas and Baron Meigel

Is this Bulgakov’s or the director’s idea?

9.10.2009, 17:35

DR BENDER, I thought about your answer for a long time. I agree with some things, and not with others.
Yeshua and the Master. Yes, Yeshua poked at the procurator, but not because of his insolence, but because he considered everyone the same “good people.”
And the parallel between these heroes was drawn because they pursued one goal - to convey the Truth to people. Who was afraid and who wasn’t is a secondary matter. And I would not say that the Master ends up dying. He receives eternal peace. We can say that Berlioz received death. Sank into oblivion. But as was said, everyone receives according to their faith.
Otherwise, we more or less agreed.

10.10.2009, 11:11

Inga, don't disappoint!

14.10.2009, 8:24

I read “Heart of a Dog” and never get tired of watching it.

PS Yes, and "Morphine" - nothing. But. Purely from the plot point of view. The film doesn't make you think.

Oksankin

14.10.2009, 8:56

read and watch "Heart of a Dog" The only one worthy film adaptation.

Sorry for the necropost. The film adaptation of “The Master and Margarita” is disgusting; I watched the first two episodes and developed a terrible disgust for the novel, which dissipated only after reading the original.

But I didn’t understand the novel at all - I need to re-read it. Somehow there are 3 plots barely connected with each other: the Master with the heifer, Yeshua with Pilate and Volont with his team. I still didn’t understand what the volunteer needed from the margarita, why the master started moving, I also didn’t understand, and in general why the master wrote about Yeshua and why so much was dedicated
That story with Yeshua, in fact, could be a separate book, but the parallels are really very vague.
I don’t want to read reviews, otherwise you will forcibly possess someone else’s opinion and view, but I don’t want to re-read it yet.
And the heart of a dog is really cool, I love it immortally, especially about the closets, and in general, you can parse half the film into quotes or how they snuck magazines into Preobrazhensky... awesome... Evstigneev in the film is generally unsurpassed, it’s a pity he died early, but he did a lot, well done.

By the way, people, I GIVE Bulgakov’s books (except for the Master) and some publications about Bulgakov...

And also, looking at it at night, I remembered how I gave one of the very first mass-produced publications to a student friend to read, she read it in a day, and at night, while reading the scene when Gela’s green hand crawled through the window, in the complete silence of a completely empty bedroom A cover from an electrical box in the wall fell on the reader's head... That's where they end up in a fool...

Just read the book. I'm watching the series now. Either the skis don't work, or I'm not wearing shoes... Why is everyone so stubborn? no special mysticism, no humor, I think it’s also doubtful about historical authenticity. Although it’s nice to watch great actors.

how Preobrazhensky was sold magazines.... awesome... Evstigneev in the film is generally unsurpassed, it’s a pity he died early, but he did a lot, well done.

I really like the movie "Running"...

If we look at the parallels, there are many more of them. And there are so-called triads. The novel describes 3 worlds.

At one time, I read all the editions of the novel, many critics, and the novel itself 17 times. Not just like that, of course. Wrote a paper on color and number symbols in a novel.

I’m more than sure that Bulgakov didn’t even suspect the existence of “parallels” in his novel

Katrin, can you be a little more detailed about color and number symbols? this is quite interesting

demoiselle, Let's go in the evening. I will find my work on the computer. Because everything was done quite a long time ago. I'm afraid I'll tell a lie))))

Katrin, OK, see you in the evening)

Illustrations by Fomenko for MiM.
Maybe it will help someone.

“The tram covered Berlioz, and under the bars of the Patriarchal Alley a round dark object was thrown onto the cobblestone slope. Having rolled off the slope, it jumped on the cobblestones of Bronnaya.
It was Berlioz's severed head."

"Master and Margarita
The master is subjected to persecution from his fellow writers. A “fatherly” analysis of Bulgakov’s work was once given by some of his colleagues on the pages of the central Soviet press. The master is on the verge of madness and burns his novel about Pontius Pilate in the stove. Suddenly Margarita bursts into his room.
"Screaming quietly, she threw the last thing that was left there out of the stove onto the floor with her bare hands, which was immediately filled with smoke. Smoke filled the room immediately. I trampled the fire with my feet, and she collapsed on the sofa and cried uncontrollably and convulsively.
When she calmed down I said:
-I hated this novel, and I'm afraid. I am sick. I'm scared.
She stood up and spoke:
-God, how sick you are. What is this for, what for? But I will save you, I will save you. What is it?
I saw her eyes swollen from the smoke and crying, I felt cold hands stroking my forehead." (p. 207)."

"Before execution
“The sun was already setting over Bald Mountain, and this mountain was cordoned off with a double cordon...
After some time, a second cohort came to the hill behind the scarlet, climbed one tier higher and encircled the mountain with a crown.
Finally, the centurion arrived under the command of Mark the Ratslayer." (p. 240)"

And the execution is watched by Hippopotamus

Berlioz's head turns into a skull at Woland's ball
“Woland raised his sword. Immediately the coverings of the head darkened and shrank, then fell off in pieces, the eyes disappeared, and soon Margarita saw on a dish a yellowish skull with emerald eyes and pearl teeth, on a golden leg.” (p.381).
Golgotha, i.e. "skull", according to Christian tradition, is the place of Christ's crucifixion. Medieval theological thought associated Golgotha ​​with the skull of Adam, which supposedly ended up directly under the cross, so that the blood of Christ, flowing onto it, would cleanse Adam and all humanity from the filth of sin. Medieval iconography sometimes attributed gigantic dimensions to Adam's skull.

Procurator's Dream
At midnight, the procurator falls asleep and has a dream in which he walks along a luminous road to the moon with Yeshua and talks with him about something. This debate is very interesting and never-ending.
“All this was good, but the awakening of the hegemon was all the more terrible. Bunga growled at the moon, and the slippery blue road, as if rolled with oil, collapsed in front of the procurator. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he remembered was that the execution had taken place. The first thing was "The procurator made this, grabbed Banga's collar with his usual gesture, then with sore eyes he began to look for the moon and saw that it had moved a little to the side and turned silver. Its light was interrupted by the unpleasant, restless light playing on the balcony in front of his eyes."
(p.440)
And at this moment the giant black cat Behemoth - Woland's companion - slowly turns around and leisurely leaves the place of execution on Bald Mountain. The drama ends, the spectators leave the stands

The number 12 is very significant number. On the one hand, in the Bible these are 12 apostles, 12 disciples of Jesus Christ, the twelve acts of God are marked by 12 main holidays of the Christian church (Christmas, Easter, etc.), 12 is also the number of hymns of Gregory the Theologian, which are the foundations of church hymns.. On the other hand On the other hand, 12 is a dark number, denoting unbelief and godlessness. 12 is always a transition: from the first half of the day to the second, midnight, when evil spirits get out to the surface of the earth and do their deeds. The novel reflects both of these meanings, both dark and light.
The number 12 is used mainly to indicate time, and in the Moscow chapters it is always midnight (at midnight Varenukha, who became a vampire, came to Rimsky; at midnight the writers learned about the death of Berlioz and it was at midnight that Woland’s ball began), and in the Yershalaim chapters it is noon ( At noon the execution of Yeshua begins.) This is the only way the author contrasts Moscow and Yershalaim. Satan is having a ball in Moscow, and in Yershalaim Yeshua is going to his death.
12 writers are sitting at Griboyedov's and waiting for Berlioz. 12 is no coincidence. In the first edition of the novel called “The Great Chancellor” there are eleven writers: “By ten o’clock in the evening in the so-called Griboyedov’s house, on the top floor, in the office of comrade Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, about eleven people had gathered.” With Mikhail Alexandrovich there would be exactly 12 of them. 12 apostles who bring good to people, teach them how to love each other? No!!! That is why Bulgakov latest edition changed the number of writers. Now there are 12 of them. They have become “anti-apostles.” Their activities are subordinated to their own interests, their own self. At the head of the “anti-apostles” is Mikhail Alexandrovich, he can be dubbed “Anti-God”. These 13 people are the most famous people in Moscow, they are envied because they have “a MASSOLIT membership card, brown, smelling of expensive leather, with a wide gold border, a ticket known throughout Moscow.” The Pushkin lyre is not a symbol of poetry for writers; the symbol has become an ordinary ticket. In contrast to the 12 apostles and Christ, who evoked the best feelings in people and appealed to their souls, the 12 writers and Berlioz aroused black envy in people.
12 writers are not individuals, their work is one-sided and similar. They write to order. These are representatives of that opportunistic literature that Bulgakov himself did not want to join; he preferred to write “on the table,” but from the heart. He showed their impersonality with the lines “at exactly midnight all 12 writers left the top floor and went down to the restaurant.” In the first edition of the novel, they still retained some semblance of humanity: “at half past eleven those who had gathered for the meeting dispersed.” That is, they were still individuals, independent of each other.
A parallel with the 12 apostles can be drawn in the last chapters of the novel with 12 investigators who conduct an investigation. They are trying to help people understand everything that happened during Woland’s stay in Moscow.
For 12,000 moons the procurator sits on the throne in eternity. 12,000 moons is his punishment. It's not just a certain period of time. 12,000 moons - 1900 years are a multiple of 76, and 76 years is the famous lunisolar Callipus cycle - the smallest period of time containing equal number years according to the solar, Julian and lunar, Hebrew calendars. Every 76 years according to the Julian calendar, the phases of the moon fall on the same dates and days of the week.
The next significant number in the novel is 10. This number means perfection, reason, harmony of soul and body, future happiness, law and regularity. If we take the meaning of the number from the Bible, then these are the 10 commandments inscribed by God to Moses on two stone slabs on Mount Sinai.
The number 10 mainly signifies time periods. All events usually begin at 10 o'clock and reach their climax by 12 o'clock. You can trace all the events by this date - at 10 o'clock in the evening there was supposed to be a meeting at MASSOLIT, the next morning at 10 o'clock in the morning Woland appears in apartment No. 50, at 10 o'clock in the evening of the same day Azazello calls Margarita with instructions about the ball, etc. .d. The number 10 is closely related to twelve, since the interval between morning and evening is exactly 12 hours, and it is during this period that events change. It is interesting that the execution in Yershalaim also begins at 10 o’clock in the afternoon, which indicates the importance of this date for Bulgakov.
The 10 commandments are ethical standards for human behavior, and at 10 o’clock the characters in the novel violate these standards.
10 is also a symbol of future happiness for the Master and Margarita. “In ten minutes I sat down at the window,” “she entered the gate once, and before that I experienced at least ten heartbeats.”
The number 3 is not quite traditionally presented in the novel. Of course, there is a mention of this number in the novel, but it does not carry much meaning. But it plays an important role in the construction of the novel. Bulgakov depicted three worlds in “The Master and Margarita” - modern, otherworldly and historical.
The three worlds of the novel “The Master and Margarita” correspond to three series of characters, and representatives of different worlds form unique triads, united by functional similarity and similar interaction with the characters of their series, as well as elements of portrait resemblance between members of the same triad. There are eight triads in total in the novel:

1 Pontius Pilate Stravinsky Woland
2 Afraniy Fedor Vasilievich Fagot-Koroviev

4 Banga Tuzbuben Behemoth
5 Nisa Natasha Gella
6 Kaifa Berlioz scientific center from Torgsin
7 Judas Aloysius Mogarych Baron Maigel
8 Levi Matvey Alexander Rokhin Ivan Bezdomny

Of the main characters in the novel, only three are not part of triads. These are, first of all, two such important characters as Yeshua Ha-Nozri and the nameless Master, forming a couple or dyad, and the main character of the novel, Margarita. She operates in all three worlds of the novel: modern, otherworldly and historical (she encounters this latter on the night of her last flight, when she sees Pilate).
It is characteristic that none of the characters of the triads, as well as the monads, are connected with each other, or with other characters (with rare exceptions) by ties of kinship, property or marriage. Unlike many world-famous novels built on the type of family chronicles (“Buddenbrooks”, “The Forsyte Saga”, “War and Peace”, “Quiet Don” and others), in “The Master and Margarita” such connections serve as the basis for the development of the plot between actors, which arise entirely from their position in society.
The “three-world” structure of “The Master and Margarita” expresses Bulgakov’s philosophy. On your own philosophical topics Bulgakov almost did not speak out, there are practically no mentions of the names of prominent world philosophers in his works and correspondence (the use of Kant’s name in the novel is quite official, connected with the problem of proving the existence of God). But the writer’s archive contains a book by P.A. Florensky “Imaginaries in Geometry” with numerous Bulgakov notes. Thus, Florensky’s words were emphasized that “breaking time, The Divine Comedy unexpectedly finds itself not behind, but ahead of modern science.” These words also apply to “The Master and Margarita”. And Florensky’s philosophical system, in all likelihood, was reflected in Bulgakov’s novel. Florensky’s work was thoroughly studied by P.S. Popov, whose library also contained the philosopher’s main work, “The Pillar and Ground of Truth,” which, in particular, presented the idea that “trinity is the most general characteristic of being.” For Florensky, the trinity is associated with the Christian Trinity and the possibility of direct communication between man and God. In “Imaginaries in Geometry,” the supermundane region of Heaven is highlighted, where the laws of imaginary space operate (and such space, according to Florensky, can, under certain conditions, become reality). The trinitarian structure of “The Master and Margarita” looks like a kind of parody of the trinity of Florensky’s existential world. The characters of the modern and otherworldly worlds parody the heroes of the biblical one, which in the finale turns into an overworldly world, where Woland and his retinue and Margarita and the Master return. Imaginary space turns from the abode of God in Florensky into the seat of the forces of darkness.
Florensky argued: “Positively, the number three manifests itself everywhere, as some basic category of life and thinking.” As examples, he cited the three-dimensionality of space, three main categories of time: present, future and past, the presence of three grammatical persons in almost all languages, the philosophical law of three moments of dialectical development: thesis, antithesis and synthesis, the presence of three coordinates of the human psyche: reason, will and feeling, etc. Florensky proved that trinity as the basic theory of being cannot be logically deduced from any basis, and therefore raised it to the original trinity of the divine Trinity. It should be noted that the divine Trinity of the Christian religion itself can be deduced with even greater grounds from the properties of human thinking, if we accept the trinity as one of its main properties associated with the activity of the brain. Many properties of the trinity noted by Florensky are embodied in the novel “The Master and Margarita”. Thus, the philosopher wrote: “...truth is a single essence of three hypostases...” “Why are there exactly three hypostases?” - they will ask me. I am talking about the number “three” as immanent to the Truth, as internally inseparable from it. There cannot be less than three, for only three hypostases eternally make each other what they eternally are. Only in the unity of the three does each hypostasis receive an absolute affirmation that establishes it as such. Outside the Three there is no one, there is no Subject of Truth. What about more than three? – Yes, maybe more than three, through the acceptance of new hypostases into the depths of the Trinity life. However, these new hypostases are no longer the members on which the Subject of Truth rests, and therefore are not internally necessary for its absoluteness; they are conditional hypostases that may or may not be in the Subject of Truth... In
in three hypostases, each is directly next to each, and the relationship between the two can only be mediated by the third. Among them, championship is absolutely unthinkable. But every fourth hypostasis brings into relation to itself first three one or another order and, therefore, puts the hypostases into unequal activity in relation to themselves, like the fourth hypostases...
In other words, the Trinity can exist without a fourth hypostasis, while the fourth cannot have independence. This is the general meaning of the triple number.”
For Bulgakov, the trinity corresponds to the truth. Not only the space-time structure, but also the ethical concept of the novel is based on trinity. In “The Master and Margarita” there is also a fourth, imaginary world, and a corresponding number of characters, each of which can be correlated with the characters of the triads:

1 Pontius Pilate Stravinsky Woland of Rome
2 Afraniy Fedor Vasilievich Fagot-Koroviev Varenukha
3 Mark Ratboy Archibald Archibaldovich Azazello
4 Banga Tuzbuben Behemoth
5 Nisa Natasha Gella Anna Richardovna
6 Kaifa Berlioz scientific center from Torgsin Georges Bengalsky
7 Judas Aloysius Mogarych Baron Maigel Andrey Fokich
8 Levi Matvey Alexander Rokhin Ivan Bezdomny Styopa Likhodeev

This imaginary world has no independent meaning and is not structure-forming. It parodies the three main worlds of the novel. The imaginary world is not immanent to Truth.
In an imaginary world, heroes perform imaginary actions. So, Rimsky seems to control the course of events in the Variety Show, but in reality the director’s power is illusory, and he turns out to be subordinate to Woland’s will. Or the Armavir cat, who was caught after being mistaken for the magical cat Behemoth; the poor fellow’s connection with the other world exists only in the imagination of the tipsy citizen who grabbed the cat, that is, it also turns out to be imaginary when tested.
The imaginary world looks like it was created by the actions of Woland and his companions. But in fact, this is our real world; it becomes imaginary and irrational only as a consequence of the vices inherent in the satirical characters of the novel.
The fourth world appears in the novel not by chance, because one of the repeating numbers in the novel is 4. Four is a symbol of the cross. Means stability and strength. Its reliability is represented by a square - the sides of space, the seasons and the elements of “fire”, “earth”, “water”, “air”. There are four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The story of Yeshua and Pontius Pilate is told in four chapters. They differ in sound and style from the other chapters of the novel.
In the 2nd century AD, the Roman Emperor Andrian dealt with the Roman women Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov and Sophia because they were elevated to the rank of saints. In the Yershalaim chapters, the criminals Dismas and Gestas killed exactly four soldiers. Thus, a certain parallel is drawn between the crimes that have occurred.
In the epilogue of the novel, Bulgakov talks about four houses that were burned by Woland's retinue. The houses were not the most decent, in connection with which lines from the novel come to mind, spoken by Yeshua, although on a slightly different occasion, but quite applicable to this case: “... the temple of the old faith will collapse and a new temple of truth will be created...”. It was not for nothing that Koroviev-Fagot assured Woland in Chapter 29 that new buildings would be built in place of old buildings, better than the previous ones.
It is quite traditional for Russian literature to mention the number three when sending any signs or warnings. However, M.A. Bulgakov uses the number four for this. In Styopa Likhodeev’s apartment, he sees three phenomena and “the fourth and last phenomenon happened here.” Bulgakov violates tradition, thereby, from the beginning of the novel, drawing the reader’s attention to the significance of the number 4. After all, Woland’s retinue consists precisely of four people. And here, too, there is a peculiar parallel with the four apostles. Their stories are given in the Bible called the Acts of the Apostles. And each of Satan’s retinue also glorifies his master with his actions. Undoubtedly, their methods are sometimes quite cruel, but not a single innocent person was harmed in the novel. In addition, they punish Muscovites for the sins listed in the Bible.
There are 4 dimensions in the novel, these are light, peace, darkness and oblivion. Each dimension is represented by its own characters. Each dimension has its own rulers, as well as its own colors.

light blue
darkness black
peace white
nothingness without color

Let's look at each dimension and its representatives.

The first dimension is light.

Its color is blue. The meaning of color lies on the surface. This is a divine color, pure and transparent. Only three characters in the novel wear blue clothes (Yeshua, Judas, Levi Matthew) and one character has such eyes (Niza).
Levi Matthew was originally dressed in a blue tallif. He quits his job to follow Yeshua and becomes his disciple. He follows the Mission and writes down everything he says. But the trouble with Matthew Levi is that he does not understand his teacher and unwittingly becomes an accomplice in his death. He was not given the highest wisdom; after the execution of Yeshua, he is going to take revenge on Judas, forgetting about everything that the teacher confessed. Therefore, his tallif becomes dirty gray. He was given the opportunity to atone for his sins, to become a better person, to understand the meaning of life, but he could not comprehend what Yeshua preached. Therefore, he becomes the executor of orders. He comes to Woland to ask for the Master. And Woland quite rightly remarks: “You cannot argue with me, for the reason... you are stupid.” Even Pontius Pilate says to Matthew Levi after the death of Yeshua: “You, I know, consider yourself a disciple of Yeshua, but I will tell you that you have not learned anything from what he taught you.” The place of such people is always next to their master, and not even the teacher. Trying to do good, they always unwittingly make the situation worse, so even the tallif became dirty gray.
Judas and Yeshua seem to be completely opposite characters. However, if you pay attention to their clothes, you will notice that they are dressed exactly the same. Yeshua “was dressed in an old and torn blue tunic. His head was covered with a white bandage...”, and Judas was “in a clean white kefi, falling over his shoulders, in a new festive blue tallif with tassels at the bottom.” That is, with the color resolution of clothing, Bulgakov puts these characters on a par in terms of their importance.
Yeshua is important to the nations as the son of God. He has been bringing faith to various parts of the globe for many centuries. Thanks to Yeshua, many desperate people seek salvation in God; it is he who gives them hope for a bright future. Religion is one of the most important aspects of the lives of many people on earth.
Judas is a traitor, but there is an opinion that he did no less for people than Yeshua, and maybe more. It is thanks to him that the most important book on Earth - the Bible - is what it is. People make pilgrimages every year to see the holy places with their own eyes. Thanks to Judas, people all over the Earth have hope; it was he who gave people the story of Jesus Christ. At all times, Judas is branded as a vile traitor, but Jesus knew that it was Judas who would betray him. He said that whoever gives him bread will betray him. Judas gave the bread. And Jesus submitted to the circumstances. Judas' vice is that more than anything else he loves money. But Jesus also has a vice - he does not fight, but throws everything to the mercy of fate.
Judas, like Jesus, is dressed in blue clothes, thereby Bulgakov equalizes them. It is still unclear who did more for the people - Yeshua or Judas. Who knows what would have happened if Jesus had remained alive.
Judas commits a crime for money and dies because of his love for Nisa. He unwittingly creates history, becomes an instrument of Rock. Perhaps his act is the most important in the history of mankind. After all, he brought the world to its present state.
Thus, two characters, completely opposite, become equally significant in terms of color.
Another hero, or rather heroine, has a blue color. This is Nisa, who played a significant role in Bulgakov’s story about Christ. She becomes an instrument of retribution. She plays the role of Judas, and it is Judas who betrays, who from a traitor turns into a victim, cruelly deceived by the bribed Nisa. History repeats itself. Nisa is to some extent a parody of Judas. She also loves money, apparently she knew Judas even earlier and they had a romantic relationship. But the girl commits not a simple betrayal, like Judas, without knowing it, she commits retribution.

II dimension – darkness.

The main and only color of this dimension is black. This is the color of destruction, symbolizing uncertainty and a gloomy perception of life. Often associated with going beyond the limits of living space. We should not forget that destruction is a state that precedes creation or creativity. Eastern wisdom says that the darkest hour comes just before dawn. In psychotherapy and chromotherapy - color treatment - black color is called the invisible Light that has come to illuminate or cleanse the soul.
Woland and his retinue are the embodiment of this color. He appears everywhere in black clothes, and his retinue is also not particularly diverse in the choice of colors. However, the novel does not take on a dark tone due to the intensification of black. On the contrary, Woland and his retinue sometimes turn out to be more humane and merciful than earthly inhabitants, and in particular Muscovites. They, dressed in black, imperceptibly wedge themselves into the life of Moscow and do their business, but their business is by no means black.
They reveal the vices of society, which over the past two thousand years have not only not decreased, but have increased, and in even greater quantities. Crowds of people pass before the readers, unprincipled, calculating, vulgar, rude and uneducated, who were exposed for their vices.
The black color of the clothes is contrasted with their internal content. And it doesn’t matter that it’s the Prince of Darkness himself. He professes the same policy of humanism as Bulgakov himself. Bulgakov loved people, and his philosophy was put into the mouth of Yeshua - all people are good, but there are also unhappy ones among them. Woland does not contradict this statement, he only adds that “ housing problem ruined them."
Black color in physics means the absence of any color, that is, colorlessness, one might even say facelessness. This is exactly what Woland is. After the first meeting, no one could accurately describe his appearance. Nobody remembers his name. Woland is faceless. But he can instantly turn his facelessness into greatness, all with the help of the same black color. For example, at the end of the ball he came out unnoticed, limping, not looking like the lord of evil, but suddenly turned into the great Prince of Darkness.
Woland's retinue is very interesting in its color resolution. Azazello, the most cruel of Woland’s assistants, does not change color throughout the entire novel. He is always dressed in black. The demon does not waste his strength on such trivial matters as others do. He stands one step above Behemoth and Koroviev. And if we draw a parallel with Levi Matthew, then Azazello stands above him, since he could not compare with Yeshua, but Azazello and Woland could. He is not just a performer, he is Woland’s right hand. It is characteristic that Azazello addresses Woland as “sir,” but Yeshua does not even dare to name his master.
At the end of the journey, when everyone loses their original appearance, the demon practically does not change, he remains the same black.
Koroviev-Fagot plays a less important role in the retinue. He is entrusted with all the most vile and petty matters. He is mostly dressed in black, however, he is already showing other colors. This indicates that initially he was not subordinate to the forces of evil, he was not completely captured by them. This is evident in the flight scene when Koroviev becomes a dark purple knight. It turns out he has a different color, which he was able to return to himself. By the way, purple color is inherent in emotional, sensitive and delicate people. The novel does not give Koroviev's history, but from the fact that he once wrote poetry, one can make the assumption that this is exactly what he was like.
The hippopotamus, although it can turn into a large black cat, in human form is certainly dressed in something checkered, which does not at all fit with the kingdom of darkness. However, if you remember medieval castles with their jesters, which is the cat Behemoth, it becomes clear that the hippopotamus, as a clown, can dress the way he wants.
The cat is introduced into the story, most likely in order to create elements of humor in the novel, and to show that darkness is also capable of jokes.
Gella, Woland’s maid, appears in black only once in the entire novel. So, its main feature is green eyes. This shows her insignificance in the novel. Only once - on the Variety stage - she appears in a long black dress.

III dimension – peace.

The main color is white. This color is the perfect color, the color of dreams. It doesn’t repel anyone, but it doesn’t convey information either. White means rest, relaxation, openness to others. Pure white is the color of the highest spiritual achievement, purification and enlightenment.
Peace in the novel is represented by two different worlds. The first is the world of Professor Stravinsky and his clinic, which gives physical and mental peace. The second is the peace that Yeshua asks for the Master, that is, peace of mind. But these two worlds have the same color - white.
White is always associated with a hospital, and the first half of the interpretation of this color is more suitable here. Undoubtedly, this is the color of relaxation, which does not carry any semantic meaning. In this sense, the world of Professor Stravinsky is a kind of relaxation for the mind and body. Here there are not only mentally ill people, but also simply deeply unhappy people who have nowhere to go (Master).
Ivan Bezdomny also lies here. From the point of view of doctors, he is mentally ill. But what he talks about really happened. At first you might think that he is here by mistake. However, it is not. Ivanushka comes here to cleanse himself. He came under the influence of Berlioz early on, and perhaps in the future he would have become the same as the main writer. But fate gives him another chance.
In the hospital, the poet cleanses himself spiritually and physically. He begins to realize that all the poems he wrote are worthless. He rejects Berlioz's philosophy and composes his own, according to which he will continue to live. Yes, he abandons the life he lived before, but he comprehends what he could not comprehend in his previous dimension. This distinguishes him from all other Muscovites. He was able to overcome himself and the circumstances.
The second representative of this dimension is the Master. He is given a white peace for all his suffering and, most importantly, for his affair, which became fatal for him. The master is reborn, he replaces his entire nature with a new one. Criticism has always raised the question of why the Master deserved only peace. Probably the whole point is that he was not only incapable of fighting, like Yeshua, but was not even able to verbally formalize his protest.

IV dimension – non-existence.

The main feature of this measurement is that it has no color. Representatives of this dimension are faceless people who do not believe in anything.
Berlioz is an atheist. He does not believe in God or Satan, and during a meeting with the latter of them, he assures him that he does not exist. Mikhail Alexandrovich was subsequently punished for his atheism. He died, and no one will remember him afterward, because he was colorless during his life. He wrote works, articles, notes not from the heart, but on order. He was not individual. “To each according to his faith,” Woland asserted, and Berlioz received what he talked about with Woland at the Patriarch’s. He received non-existence, because he denied absolutely everything, but it turns out that he also denied himself, or rather the fact of his existence on Earth.
Another representative is Baron Meigel. It is also colorless, but here Bulgakov also contrasts two characters with color: Judas and Maigel. They perform the same function in two different worlds, but their color resolution is different.
So, Judas, although he is a traitor, he still fulfills a divine mission on Earth. Without it, the modern world might be completely different. Yes, it is sold for money, but for a lot of money. And Baron Meigel walks around, eavesdrops, spies all his life for personal gain. It became something of a job for him. That’s why he appears at Satan’s ball in a black tailcoat, only to sink into oblivion forever. Although for him it will be very peculiar. Most likely, he will be a guest at the annual full moon ball.
Some Muscovites, for example, the entire top administration of Variety, became representatives of this world during their lifetime. Varenukha is used to lying and dodging, and Rimsky, although he is the director of the Variety Show, he really has no power. When Woland arrives, he calmly manages both the Variety Show and all the spectators who come to the performance.
These four dimensions of the novel complement each other. Heroes can move from one to another, and they change their color to the color of the dimension they find themselves in, or initially have this color in their clothes or appearance. For example, Ivanushka the Bezdomny. He was originally in the dimension of nothingness, that is, he was without a specific color. He appears at the Patriarchal “in a checkered cap pulled back to the back of his head... in a cowboy shirt, chewed white trousers and black slippers.” That is, he already has an indication that he will soon move from one dimension to another.
The novel has interesting color combinations and color matches between completely different characters.
Four characters in the novel have green eyes (Woland, Gella, Margarita and Ivan Bezdomny). Green is the color of growth and its presence usually indicates that a person is in the process of choosing his or her attitude, beliefs or behavior patterns. This interpretation completely suits Ivan Bezdomny. He fell under the influence of Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, who imposed his point of view on him and forced him to rewrite his works, thereby ruining the writer’s talent.
Margarita and Gella most likely have green eyes due to their connection with dark forces. Margarita enters into a deal with the devil and becomes a witch (according to ancient legends, witches should have green eyes), and Gella is generally a servant of the Prince of Darkness.
Green is also the color of all living things. Woland has one black eye, the other green. This is probably because he combines both principles - both evil and good. He can give life, or he can kill. In this regard, the epigraph of the novel comes to mind: “I am part of that force that always wants evil and always does good.” Woland, despite the dominant black color in his clothes, is not so clearly dark. It also contains the good side. For example, he loves people, this trait of his belongs to Bulgakov himself and is expressed through the green color of his eyes.
In general, the color green in the novel is present only as the color of the eyes, which further suggests that the author used this color only where it was really necessary and appropriate in meaning. Green is the color of people trying to overcome life difficulties distinguished from others by their enviable constancy in tastes. These are the heroes with green eyes. They are full of energy, and they can handle any grief.
The next color used in the novel is grey. In general, it is the color of boredom and malaise, masking the emotions of fear or anger. This color is loved by sensible and distrustful people who think for a long time before deciding to do anything. People who have the dominant color of this color carry within themselves some kind of secret, a riddle, since the gray color is fog, haze, a veil, behind which you can hide anything. In the novel, this color is interesting because three characters appear in gray suits for the first time before the readers: Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, Woland and the Master. These are three significant characters, from which we can conclude that Bulgakov wanted to emphasize their role with the help of one color.
Each of them will change its original color upon subsequent meeting with readers. That is, the color gray in the novel is neutral color. It represents a kind of anonymity, because readers do not yet know who is sitting on the Patriarch’s bench, Berlioz’s fate has not yet been indicated, and as for the Master, Woland determines his fate only at the very end of the novel.
The gray color was given to Berlioz also because he hides both fear and uncertainty behind his authority. He is a synthesis of the writers of that time, to whom he dedicated the following lines: “something extremely false and uncertain was felt in literally every line of these articles, despite their menacing and confident tone... the authors of these articles do not say what they want to say , and that their rage is caused by this.” Therefore, Bulgakov chose gray color for Mikhail Alexandrovich, the color of mass character and facelessness.
This color is also used in chapter 26. The people who killed Judas wore gray cloaks. Thus, Bulgakov shows their facelessness.
The color gray in the novel is mainly the color of clothing and also the color of the sky. In Bulgakov, nature is little involved in the novel and one of its colors is gray. He is present in the description of heaven after the execution of Yeshua.
Margarita’s first appearance in the novel is interesting - she carried yellow flowers that “stood out very clearly on her black spring coat.” Black and yellow are quite a memorable and attention-grabbing combination. During the first meeting with Ivan Bezdomny in a psychiatric hospital, the master “took from the pocket of his robe a completely greasy black cap with the letter “M” embroidered on it in yellow silk.” Thus, the two characters find themselves connected not only by romantic relationships, but also by color scheme. That morning when Margarita met the Master, she was planning to commit suicide. Therefore, the yellow color on black served as a kind of sign of impending disaster, but the Master noticed this and, one might say, saved Margarita. Margarita embroidered the hat herself, and it also serves as a signal that the Master needs help.
Some of Bulgakov's heroes do not have a specific color at all, such as Pontius Pilate. The only thing he has in color is his white cloak with bloody lining and his face. The fact is that yellow and brown colors, almost not used in the main chapters, appear in the fifth Gospel as symptomatic signals of the hero’s moods and states. The ill health of the melancholy Pilate communicates itself to those around him (primarily to the reader) in pale, lifeless shades. Irritation immediately manifests itself with dark paint. The palette turns out to be an integral part of the action. In the description of Pilate there are no indications by which his portrait could be compiled, but there are many references to the complexion of this character, in which the main role is played by yellow and brown.

The golden color is used only in relation to the surroundings and sculpture, which, however, speaks of the wealth and luxury of the room where the golden color is present. The dominant of this color is a sign of mystics and people in a state of bliss, which corresponds to the truth.
This color is mainly concentrated in the Yershalaim domes - this is not surprising, since in ancient times, as well as now, the palaces of rulers were generously decorated with gold. There is also color in the Moscow halls, which are not inferior in beauty and decoration to Pilate’s palace. And this color is involved in describing the furnishings of Woland’s temporary apartment, who is in some way a mystic.
The silver color is similar in meaning to the gold color. This is the color of astral travel, and if a silver dominant appears, then the disunity of the astral body with the physical is emphasized. This color is present mainly in the scenes of the Yershalaim chapters. Owners silver color Mark the Ratboy and the soldiers of the legion become, executing two criminals and Yeshua. They are not subordinate to themselves. Perhaps, even most likely, they do not want to kill the condemned, but this is the will of Caesar, which they cannot disobey. And therefore they turn out to be carriers of this color - thus expressing the disunity between duty and will.
The color blue is very interesting in the novel. In general, it is the color of creation, imagination and self-expression. The dominant of the named color relieves irritation, nervousness, and causes calm and tranquility. In the novel, this color is mentioned only three times when describing light or lights. It is with the help of this color that an atmosphere of peace is created in Stravinsky’s hospital. The gems of the characters in the novel sparkle blue. At the beginning of the abstract, quotations from the Bible were given, associated with the repeating numbers of the novel: “and they will cover him and all his accessories with a cover of blue skins and put them on a stretcher” (part 10), “and they will take all the things of service that are used for serving in the sanctuary , and they will put them in clothes of blue wool, and cover them with a covering of blue skins, and put them on stretchers” (Part 12). In each passage there is a blue color, from which we can conclude that this color was divine for Bulgakov, and that is why he did not abuse it in the novel.
Yellow is the color of intelligence and represents the process of change from the unconscious to the conscious. He suggests changes and movements of all kinds, especially those leading to purification and growth of the mind. People who prefer yellow are sociable, curious, and easily adapt to different conditions. environment. The latter statement is reflected in suits and dresses
writers in Griboyedov's restaurant. As has been said more than once, they are opportunists and are in the MASSOLIT literary union only because of this quality. Also, the color yellow was used by Bulgakov in the portrait characteristics of the heroes to give them the greatest expressiveness.
Blue is a divine color. Only four characters have it. But there is also a blue road in the novel, along which the son of the astrologer Pontius Pilate and Yeshua Ha-Nozri go into the distance. The meaning lies on the surface. Blue means the road going to heaven, where Yeshua takes Caesar after the latter has served his punishment.
The next color used in the novel is pink. It is the color of intuition and intense knowledge of the Earth. It is characteristic of excited people. In “The Master and Margarita” this color comes with the help of smells, that is, with the help of roses and oil. Margarita, being a sensitive and impulsive nature, wears pink shoes to the Great Satan's Ball.
The color red is practically not used in the novel. It is the color of emotion and vitality, assertive energy, power, strength, aggression and love. Strong feelings, such as anger, fear or stress are represented in red. A clear example of this is Pontius Pilate, whose face either turns pale or purple, depending on the emotions he experiences. The color red is also present in the chapters dedicated to the love of the Master and Margarita. To show the depth of their feelings, the author even paints the furniture in the Master’s apartment red. On his table there is always a vase of red roses (the brightest and most unambiguous symbol of love), which are equally adored by both lovers.
The color violet is the color of Bassoon’s transformation from a tirush-regent into a sad knight, as well as the color of the cloud that came to wash away all the misfortunes of the city of Moscow.
Brown color is interpreted as the color of herdness and everything that is associated with the emotions of the crowd, the masses. The MASSOLIT membership card is brown. Bulgakov wanted to emphasize their mass character and collectivity. This is an environment where no one stands out, where everyone is alike. It is noteworthy that Muscovites, who have not yet completely lost the signs of individuality, are ready to do anything just to take possession of the ill-fated brown ticket. The author showed the crowd’s willingness to become even more faceless for the sake of their personal gain and delicious dishes from Griboyedov’s restaurant.
White, black and gray are quite traditional as colors of clothing and furnishings. These are the most popular colors. However, each color has a particular meaning or context for different characters. For example, Koroviev - at the first meeting he turns out to have dirty white socks. It would seem nothing special. However, if we remember the story of the unfortunate purple knight that Koroviev used to be, it becomes clear that the dirty white color is a symbol of the fact that, although Fagot is forced to be in the service of Satan, he remains kind in his soul. Or take Prokhor Petrovich in a gray suit. He is an ordinary boss, like thousands. For him, the gray color means facelessness and mass character; as a result, it even disappears and remains without color at all.
The color green, as already mentioned, is used only as an eye color for certain characters.
Each color in Bulgakov serves a specific plan of the great master. The color palette is varied and multifunctional, which makes it easier to achieve the desired effect. Bulgakov the artist did the impossible in his novel - with the help of paints and colors he created the context of the novel, which even includes references to the Bible. He forced time and man to move forward and change purely in colors. By looking at a character, or rather at his portrait palette, we can tell his story, determine the present and even predict the future. Few writers have achieved this. Bulgakov brought a lot of new things to Soviet literature, which, unfortunately, turned out to be unprepared for this great novel. Popov P.S. wrote to Elena Sergeevna in December 1940 about this: “But here, if you want, the sad side. Of course, printing is out of the question... The skill is too great, it shows through more and more clearly, in some places it not only did not veil, but dotted the i’s. In this regard, the less people know about the novel, the better. Brilliant craftsmanship should always remain brilliant, but now the novel is unacceptable. It will take 50-100 years.” And Popov was not much mistaken.

Brief excerpts from the work. I wrote for a very long time.
Py.Sy Don't judge strictly)))

And I have this crap:

Symbolism in M.A. Bulgakov’s novel MiM

Black poodle symbol.

Describing Woland, Bulgakov says that he the hero carried a cane with a black knob in the shape of a poodle's head.
It is with image of a black poodle they will hang a chain in an oval frame on Margarita’s chest, this particular one the symbol will be depicted on the pad, placed under the foot of the Ball Queen.
Woland's idea was taken from the poem by I.V. Goethe's Faust, where it is mentioned only once and is omitted in Russian translations. Woland got his name from Goethe's Mephistopheles. In ancient German literature, the devil was called by another name - Faland. It also appears in “The Master and Margarita”, when the Variety show employees cannot remember the name of the magician “... Maybe Faland?” In a conversation with a homeless man and Berlioz, Woland admits that he is “perhaps German.” With this he again seems to refer us to the hero Goethe. The connection between the two great works is obvious. In Goethe, Mephistopheles appears to Faust in the guise of a black poodle. It is this image of a black dog, a tempter and a harbinger of death, that appears on the pages of Bulgakov’s novel.
In many countries the black dog serves as a sign of death; if a person sees a Black Dog, it means that he or someone in his family will die soon. Black ghost dogs play a prominent role in medieval and Renaissance beliefs about black magic. The devil was believed to appear in the form of a black dog(Woland’s appearance at the Patriarch’s with a cane and a knob in the form of a poodle’s head). Witches traveled to the Sabbaths on black dogs, which were considered their companions (signs of Margarita’s black poodle at Satan’s Ball).
The idea of ​​a dog as a guide of souls to the afterlife developed even before our era.
So, the black poodle is a symbol of demonic, otherworldly forces, a harbinger of death, is important for describing the image of Woland and hints at his functions in the work.

Masonic symbolism in the work.
Appears twice in the novel triangle image, which the reader notices on Woland’s gold cigarette case and watch.
“The Holy Church of Christ allows the depiction of the Most Holy Trinity in the figure of an isosceles triangle, with its apex facing upward. According to revelation, the devil imagined himself to be like the Almighty. The Kabbalistic tetragram or the Masonic seal, therefore, depicted the devil as an equilateral triangle, equal to the first, but only with its apex facing downwards and not upwards, denoting the complete opposite of Satan to God, not without evidence that God’s adversary will be cast out of heaven.”
Of course, the novel does not say exactly how the “diamond triangle” is depicted on Woland’s cigarette case, and then the diamond triangle on the lid of his watch - this would be a direct hint to the reader. But it is precisely in connection with the adopted symbolism that it makes sense to fix the reader’s attention on Woland’s triangle.
It is possible that Bulgakov’s devil possesses qualities that should belong to a deity, which is why the “eye of God” was transferred to him.
These are some of the possible options for understanding the triangle symbol... But another is given, which concludes that the triangle is a Masonic symbol, a certain "Foundation stone".
The same cigarette case of enormous size, red gold” with a diamond triangle on the lid, “a large gold watch with a diamond triangle on the lid”, as well as a “candelabra with nests in the form of clawed bird paws” placed on the table were taken precisely from the Masonic teachings. In these seven paws the thick ones burned wax candles. There was another table... with another candelabra, the branches of which were made in the shape of a snake's head." The most famous Masonic symbols are: a skull and crossbones inscribed in a triangle, a compass, a square, a hammer - a triangle - “a shining delta with the name of Yahweh”, a pentagram, a star of David and, finally, a seven-branched candlestick from the synagogue, which denotes close and inextricable unity, existing between all brothers - Masons, who, although they have different degrees, act according to the same rule and create on a single foundation. The blue color in Freemasonry means glory and loyalty, white means wealth (gold), (the diamond triangle on the cigarette case flashed with blue and white flames). The clawed paws of a bird of prey - supremacy, dominance; The snake serves as a symbol of secret knowledge (candelabra).
In Masonic symbolism, the triangle goes back to the legend that develops the parable of Solomon's Temple. Woland's triangle is therefore also related to Freemasonry. Then one of the meanings of the diamond triangle on Woland’s cigarette case is to show (to the chief priests, scribes, rabbis, representatives of all classes of the Sanhedrin - the highest Jewish judicial body) that the scripture itself convicts them. Christ asked if they had never read in Scripture (Ps. CXVII) about the stone that was rejected by the builders, but which nevertheless, according to the wonderful purposes of God, became the head of the corner? How could they continue to remain builders when the entire plan for their construction was rejected and changed? To deny Him in His humanity and humility was already to suffer a lamentable loss; but to be found rejecting Him when He comes in glory, would not that be to “perish completely from the presence of the Lord?” To sit on the seat of judgment and condemn Him meant to bring destruction upon oneself and the people; but to be condemned by Him - would not this mean to be “ruined into dust” (Dan. II, 34-44)?
Woland's triangle symbolizes precisely this cornerstone - a rejected stone that has become the head of the corner. And the course of events in “The Master and Margarita” fully corresponds to the parable. Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny, sitting on a bench (“the seat of the court”), again, nineteen centuries later, judge Christ and reject his divinity (Bezdomny) and his very existence (Berlioz).
Woland’s triangle is another warning to the chairman of MASSOLIT, a reminder of the parable about the builders of Solomon’s Temple, especially in combination with the words: “A brick will never fall on anyone’s head for no apparent reason... You will die a different death.” Berlioz did not heed the warning, did not believe in the existence of God and the devil, and even decided to destroy Woland by denunciation, and paid for it with a quick death.

Woland's globe and scarab are attributes of power.

Very interesting “strange, as if alive and illuminated from one side by the sun globe", which Margarita sees before the Great Ball.
There are several versions about its origin. Thus, one of the versions connects Woland’s globe with the novel by L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". Many ideas from War and Peace were also reflected in Bulgakov’s last novel, The Master and Margarita. So, Tolstoy's idea of ​​"contagion with goodness" the impossibility of sending a defendant to death if some kind of human connection had been established between him and the judge was refracted in the relationship between Yeshua Ha-Nozri and Pontius Pilate. As for the globe, Tolstoy Pierre remembers the ball in connection with his old geography teacher - it is “a living, oscillating ball that has no dimensions.” Bulgakov used the image of a globe in The Master and Margarita, where the work of the demon Abadonna is demonstrated on Woland's living crystal globe(it shows the disasters of war in relief).
But there are several more versions regarding the origin of the globe. Abadonna (the demon of war) obviously owes his name to the story of the writer and historian N. A. Polevoy (1896-1946) “Abadonna” and especially to the poem by the poet Vasily Zhukovsky (1783-1852) “Abbadona” (1815), which is a free translation epilogue to the poem "Messiad" (1751-1773) by the German romantic Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803).
The hero of Zhukovsky's poem is an Old Testament fallen angel who led the angels' rebellion against God and was thrown to earth as punishment. Abbadona, doomed to immortality, seeks death in vain: “Suddenly a planet lost in the abyss flew into the sun; the hour of destruction had come for it... it was already smoking and glowing... Abbadona flew towards it, hoping to collapse together... It scattered in smoke, but, ah!.. Abbadon did not perish!”
In “The Master and Margarita,” the planet scattered with smoke turned into Woland’s crystal globe, where people are dying and houses hit by bombs and shells are smoking, and Abbadona impartially observes that the suffering for both warring sides is the same.
War, unleashed by Abbadona and presented to the gaze of Margarita, is quite specific war. On In Woland’s globe, “a piece of land, the side of which is washed by the ocean,” which became a theater of military operations, represents the Iberian Peninsula. Here is Spain, where in 1936-1939. There was a bloody civil war. For the first time, the episode with Abbadona and the globe appeared in the version of 1937, when the war in Spain was invariably present in newsreels and news broadcasts on the radio (Woland just complains about the indistinct voices of radio announcers, for which he got himself a crystal globe - the prototype of a TV, only live) .
So, whatever the primary source of the origin of Woland’s globe, it serves as proof of the power and omnipotence of Woland, the implementation of some “divine functions” by him: he controls not only lives individuals, but also of all humanity, administers justice and has omniscience.

Just like the globe The scarab is Woland's attribute of power. Margarita sees it on Woland’s chest: it is a beetle skillfully carved from dark stone on a gold chain and with some kind of writing on the back.
Scarabs are very common figurines of a sacred beetle made of stone or glazed clay in Ancient Egypt, which served as amulets, seals, and medals. As amulets, they were considered a means of obtaining immortality due to the etymology of their name (beetle in Egyptian is khepru, and khepru also means “to be, to exist”). The scarab is often depicted as the body of a beetle without legs, and even more often - only its upper part; the lower one represents a smooth oval on which the names or images of gods, sacred emblems, etc. were carved. Scarabs were often placed in the coffin of the dead, and sacred writings were scratched on their backs, often Chapter 30 of the Book of the Dead, convincing the heart not to testify against the deceased in the afterlife court
Thus, we can identify two main functions of the scarab symbol associated with the image of Satan: firstly, this talisman on Woland’s chest testifies to his immortality, unbreakable connection with the Universe and the existing world, and secondly, it serves as another proof of Woland’s implementation of punitive functions(the afterlife court of the ancient Egyptians). In addition, this is another attribute of otherworldly, afterlife forces.

Symbolism of color in the novel

Yellow and black.

The symbolism of yellow and black in the novel is interesting: a black and yellow cloud covers Yershalaim after the execution of Yeshua, foreshadowing the fall of Yershalaim, Margarita in her yellow coat carries alarming yellow flowers in her hands.
The symbolism of yellow is determined by the two poles of its shades. On the one hand, it is the warm red-golden yellow color of life. On the other hand, it is a cold and harsh, or faded and dirty yellow color of illness and death.

Let's first look at the positive value of yellow light.
The primary experience of experiencing the yellow color of life is associated primarily with the experience of sunlight and, thereby, light in general. Day after day, with each sunrise, all colors are reborn from the darkness of the night. A brilliant, sparkling yellow color is experienced when light plays off clouds or reflects on water. When the sun appears from behind the clouds, it immediately becomes warmer. Thus, the action of the yellow-golden rays of the sun is invariably associated with warmth, enlightenment, and the spread of something pleasant. The symbolism of golden yellow is associated with the spread of light and enlightenment. The solar symbolism of yellow is also associated with the effect of sunlight on the earth, vegetation and fertility. Spring begins with an abundance of yellow flowers: yellow stars coltsfoot, yellow daffodils, tulips, crocuses, primroses (primroses). In German mythology, these flowers were dedicated to the goddess of spring Freya.

Exactly this the meaning of yellow is important for us to understand the image of Margarita. Bulgakov's heroine is tired of her drab life and is looking for her Master, for this she picked up a bouquet of these yellow flowers. But, on the other hand, these flowers are “disturbing”. Let's consider negative meaning yellow color.
The negative range of yellow color values ​​is associated with a cold, sharp shade, “screaming”, “stabbing”, “rotting”, dirty, causing associations of illness and death.

Diseases are directly associated with yellow color yellowing of the skin - jaundice, kidney disease, malaise, poisoning. In ancient characterology, choleric temperament was associated with the predominance of yellow bile. IN figuratively, yellow color is associated with deception, poisoning, sickness, deceit, envy and lies("yellow press"). The color yellow is associated with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, delirium, mania and epilepsy. Mental asylum, “madhouse”, called “yellow house”" Indeed, in the paintings of some artists suffering from psychosis, schizophrenia (for example, Van Gogh) and epilepsy, the color yellow predominates. The aura experienced by epileptics before seizures is vaguely reminiscent of the golden aura of the enlightened ones, saints, which in Christian painting is depicted as a golden halo. For some Asian peoples, yellow is the color of mourning, sorrow, and sadness. In Europe, a yellow or yellow-black flag meant quarantine, and a yellow cross meant plague. Among the Slavic peoples, yellow is considered the color of jealousy and betrayal, and in Tibet jealousy is literally called “yellow eye.” Thus, Margarita’s yellow flowers, which she throws away, are a symbol of the vulgar and dirty world that surrounds her. And only those who also understand the ugliness of their surroundings can pay attention to her flowers.

Black coat color, against which Margarita carries flowers, also has a polar meaning. On the one hand, black color, as a rule, symbolizes misfortune, grief, mourning, and death. So, in Ancient Mexico During the ritual sacrifice of a person, the face and hands of the priests were painted black. Black eyes are still considered dangerous and envious. Ominous characters are dressed in black, whose appearance portends death. On the other hand, black can also have a favorable meaning. It is perceived this way, for example, in the arid regions of Africa, where there is little water and black clouds promise fertility and abundance. Black bulls, goats or birds are sacrificed to the guardian spirits who send rain, and the priests also dress in black. Among the Arabs, the expression “blackness of the eyes” means beloved, “blackness of the heart” means love. The master meets Margarita, dressed in black, she comes to him with long-awaited love, but with an alarming love, a killer love that struck the heroes like a Finnish knife. Margarita sews a black cap for the Master and embroiders it with gold threads, which can be seen as a prerequisite for further tragedy and the insanity of her lover. Thus, the combination of yellow and black in The Master and Margarita serves as a signal for further alarming events.

Eye color as a characteristic
In the description of Woland's appearance, one can highlight multi-colored eyes. As the plot progresses, an internal metamorphosis occurs: the color of the eyes changes. If in the middle of the novel there is “the right one with a golden spark at the bottom, drilling anyone to the depths of their soul, and the left one is empty and black,<...>like an exit into a bottomless well of all darkness and shadows,” then at the very beginning of the work - “the left one is green, completely insane, and the right one is black and dead.”
Description of the eyes is the most important means for creating a psychological portrait of a character. In characterizing Woland's essence, the eyes do not lose their basic shades: green and black...
IN literary tradition green color is a symbol of demonic forces, and in the works of M.A. Bulgakov several more meanings appear, namely wisdom, the desire for knowledge. Black color, in addition to its main associations with death, is a symbol of rebirth, the transition of the soul to another being, immortality. It is believed that black along with green indicates a dark beginning human soul.
But maybe Woland's two different-colored eyes have one more symbolic meaning- a pronounced “bifurcation” of the essence, the presence of qualities that are polar in meaning, one of which is the traits of omniscience and ignorance.

Colonel

Forgive me, but all this looks like the “creativity” of Academician Emik Fomenko, who pulls certain things by the ears.

Nope.
“Introduction to literary criticism. Literary work: basic concepts and terms,” ed. L.V. Chernets, M: “Higher School”, 2000, Pp. 302-311.
Maslova V.A. “Linguoculturology: A textbook for higher education students educational institutions. M.: Publishing center "Academy", 2001, pp. 95-107
K. Nikolaev “The Secret Writing of “The Master and Margarita.” Between the lines of a great novel”, Ed. "Veche", 2006
B. Sokolov “Secrets of the Master and Margarita”, Ed. "Yauza", "Eksmo", 2005
“History of Russian literature of the twentieth century (20-90s). Basic names", Faculty of Philology, Moscow State University. V. Lomonosov, 1998
IN AND. Sakharov “M.A. Bulgakov in life and work,” Ed. "Russian Word", 2005
M. Chudakov “Biography of Mikhail Bulgakov”, Ed. "Book", 1988
B.M. Sarnov “To each according to his faith. About Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”, Ed. Moscow University, 2000
L. Parshin “Devilliness at the American Embassy in Moscow or 13 mysteries of Mikhail Bulgakov”, Ed. "Book Chamber", 1991
Mamardashvili M.K.., Pyatigorsky A.M. "Symbol and consciousness. Metaphysical considerations about consciousness, symbolism and language" Ed. "Yark", 1997
I. L. Galinskaya, “The Legacy of Mikhail Bulgakov in Modern Interpretations”, Printed Products, 2003
Obukhov, Ya.L.: Yellow color, Journal of Practical Psychologist, 1997, No. 2
L.M. Yanovskaya, I.F. Belza, V. Akimov

Colonel

Xexbr, It's clear. These are the people who make money from this. They might as well admit that they were selling bullshit. In order to understand this, you can read your text diagonally - the pull by the ears is striking.

The first place my gaze fell:

In the literary tradition, green is a symbol of demonic forces

What kind of nonsense is this? Who came up with this?

The black color, in addition to its main associations with death, is a symbol of rebirth, the transition of the soul to another being, immortality. It is believed that black, along with green, indicates the dark beginning of the human soul.

Again - who came up with this? Who is “considered” to be?

Margarita’s yellow flowers, which she throws away, are a symbol of the vulgar and dirty world that surrounds her.

But in psychology, yellow helps to accept new ideas and points of view of other people. It is the color of optimism, sun and summer.

And you can think even further - for the ancient Slavs, gold is a symbol of the ripeness of grain, since straw is identified with the Sun. It is also a symbol of divine illumination, an aura of holiness, princely and royal beginning. Considering that Woland directly calls Margarita royal blood, apparently Bulgakov made this hint to the reader earlier, with the symbol of yellow flowers.

Or another option - in the novel little attention is paid to Margarita’s past. This is intentionally hidden by the writer - he left the color as a hint of this past! By decree of Nicholas I, which legalized pre-revolutionary Russia prostitution and brothels, prostitutes were required to have a special “yellow ticket”, which, in particular, described in detail their state of health. Thus, Margarita’s current husband pulled her out of the brothel after the revolution, which is why she is so grateful to him and reflects on the betrayal.

You see, everything can be turned the other way around, so such “research” reminds me of fortune-telling using bird guts or feces - I saw what I wanted.

There's something even funnier:

two main functions can be identified scarab symbol associated with the image of Satan: firstly, this talisman on Woland’s chest testifies to his immortality, inextricable connection with the Universe and the existing world, and secondly, it serves as another proof of Woland’s punitive functions (the afterlife court of the ancient Egyptians).

Explain to me, fool, what relation does the Judeo-Christian Satan have to Egyptian mythology, where such an archetype is completely absent?!

PS. This is only what lies on the surface. So... Without going deeper...

"M and M" have long been turned into a Raspberry jacket. Why get into the specifics of cutting and sewing? Wear it.

Oh, Colonel!
I don’t have time now to restore my personal notes (there was no computer then) on the “demonic” myth-making of the ancients.
In addition, an encyclopedia of “non-traditional teachings” (Rosicrucians, Freemasons, Thoth...) was stolen from me.
So. I cannot accurately report the similarities and differences in the representations of Satan and God in the Popol Vuh, Hesiod’s Theogony, Edda, Gilgamesh, and the Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead.
Green is demonic: but there is such a thing. The witch (in the classical sense) is red-haired, cross-eyed and green-eyed. Send to the "Witches Hammer" or something...

As for flowers (which are paints, not plants), you can even submit them to the Luscher test. It is still used when applying for jobs.

Colonel

I cannot accurately report the similarities and differences in the representations of Satan and God in the Popol Vuh, Hesiod’s Theogony, Edda, Gilgamesh, and the Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead.

But I can. Believe me, there is no smell of theological dualism there.

Green is demonic: but there is such a thing.

Well, where did you get this from, pray tell? Neither Plato, nor Iamblichus, nor Christian theologians have this. Moreover, demons are servants of Satan only in the Christian tradition. This is such a hint.

The witch (in the classical sense) is red-haired, cross-eyed and green-eyed. Send to the "Witches Hammer" or something...

Don’t be angry, but unlike you, I read this work. Classifications and descriptions of witches are contained in Question 6 of part one of "M.V." Neither there nor in general in this book is there a physiological description (eyes, hair, etc.) of a witch and never has been.

If you still refer me to this work, please indicate the part and the Question. You can specify the page. I have a book like this: http://books.shop.by/2675/3073/10024/

1. Dualism.
For some reason I thought that this was the unity and opposition of the feminine and masculine principles. A kind of Yin-Yang. (well, there is Horus - Isis, Marduk - Ishtar, Zeus-Hera, Kukulkan - Itzamna...)
If an evil-good deity, then... I don’t even know. This is jumping around all the pantheons of Gods.

Set - Osiris
Quetzalcoatl - Coatlicue (hmm, very, very controversial, since it is Evil, but a feminine deity)
Enki /Marduk/ - Hernundus (even more controversial)
Can't remember anymore.
Honestly, I won't argue.
in our paganism too... But if not so, then I ask you to observe the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”: Perun-Veles (feminine principle - Makosh...)

Makosh is a feminine-masculine dualism

Xexbr I wouldn’t be surprised if you studied Kabbalah

I didn’t study it, but leafed through it at my leisure. From Papus. on a par with Practical and Ceremonial magic. And Solomon's Keys too.
And what?

No problem, good health

What a cruel thing!
Well, here's my theater of the absurd)))

Symbols and prophecies in Russian folk tale"Kolobok"

To all of us early childhood The fairy tale "Kolobok" is familiar. For many centuries, this simple, at first glance, fairy tale has been passed on from mouth to mouth, published in thousands of copies and literally absorbed with mother’s milk into human mind. Long-term research by kolobok scholars allows us to take a fresh look at the trivial plot of a simple fairy tale, which hides numerous secret symbols, meanings and even prophecies regarding the present and future of our country and the rest of the world.
It is not known exactly when and by whom this fairy tale was invented. According to one version, the kolobok fairy tale was composed and spread by ancient pagan sorcerers, who thus passed on secret knowledge to us. Simplifying everything to the level of a children's fairy tale, from a very early age instilling protest against the concept of monotheism implanted in those days, the spread of Christian teaching and the consequences of this kind of action. Kolobok scholars are inclined to interpret the “kolobok” as a code, behind the symbols of which lies a multifaceted knowledge of the surrounding reality, the secrets of the universe and predictions of the imminent collapse of existing values.

Old Man and Old Woman
Naturally they represent the masculine and feminine principles, yin and yang. At the same time, an indication of age speaks of the decline of the worldview existing at that time. The need for the beginning of creative action, creation. All this echoes many religious teachings, in which the old, outdated, gives way to the new. Creation of the world from the old chaos. Of course, in this case, the old man is God, who by his own will

Bake a bun, old woman.

Begins the process of creation. The old woman is nature, with whose laws and forces God begins this act.
The process of creation is analogous to the Immaculate Conception, the phenomenon, and even the big bang in modern science. Moreover, the process of reviving the kolobok itself is, as it should be, hidden, since it is the main secret of the universe.

The old woman took the wing, scraped it along the box, broomed it along the bottom, and collected about two handfuls of flour.
She kneaded it with sour cream, fried it in oil and put it on the window to let it sit.

Next images:
Kolobok is naturally like a globe that rolls away from its original parents, and in the end dies, having gone through the main vices of society. (more about which below). And of course, the path of the kolobok is the path of the mission.
Hare. In Christianity, the hare signifies fertility and lust.
The wolf is evil, cruelty and heresy.
The bear is a symbol of malice, rudeness and greed.
The fox is a symbol of cunning, longevity, and hypocrisy. In addition, arctic fox is a colloquial alternative for the end of the world. It is not surprising that it was the fox that killed the bun. As it should be in all religious parables - deception and betrayal.

Numerology:
An amazing discovery was that the fairy tale was constructed in a rather unique way.
The description of the meeting with the hare is contained in 8 stanzas. 8 is the number of infinity, secret knowledge. This is the key to start from.
Meeting with the wolf 9 - stanzas. With the bear - again 9 stanzas, and finally with the fox - again 9 stanzas. In total, we get “999” - a hidden message to the Revelation of John the Theologian. It is possible that the inverted number of the beast speaks of the need to search for the opposite meaning in the apocalypse.
In the word kolobok itself there are three letters “o”, which, when completed accordingly, turn into the same “666”.

Colors:
Kolobok is always depicted in yellow. The color of the sun, divine light, and also the color of deception.
Hare and wolf - gray. Old age, sadness, despondency. At the same time, modesty.
The bear is brown, the color of feces. A foreshadowing of the further course of events and an unpleasant ending. besides, it is the color of the earth, near death and betrayal.
The fox is fiery, blinding. In addition, the fiery fox striking the globe (bun) is the emblem of the firefox company. Which once again proves the end of the world.

Parallels with today.

Everything points to us that the sunset existing world will have to be on the board of "Fox". I hope it’s clear who the wolf and the bear are.
But who is Lis? There is an opinion that Fox- this is the second coming WITH T Awhether on, about which so often Lately They say.

Research continues))
So it goes.

By the way, in folk tales you can dig up a lot of things.
Here is mine. Based on "The Frog Princess"

Right away.
- Why the best bride goes to a FOOL.
- Why did the boyar and merchant daughters HONESTLY try to do needlework (although they were also not deprived of grandmothers and nannies), but only the frog princess resorted to the help of her “servants”.
- How can we interpret the scene of “the little frog in the box” jumping? very Box - a coffin? Wedding = death and resurrection in a new form?

And what I found on the internet:

The title character, the frog, is a character widely represented in the myths and legends of many peoples. In various mythological and poetic systems there are both positive (connection with fertility, productive power, rebirth) and negative (connection with the chthonic world, pestilence, illness, death) functions of the frog, determined primarily by its connection with water, in particular with rain . In some cases, the frog, like a turtle, fish or any sea animal, holds the world on its back, in others it acts as the discoverer of some important cosmological elements. Among the Altai people, the frog discovers a mountain with a birch tree and stones from which the first fire is made. Sometimes the frog is associated with the water elements of chaos, the original silt (or mud) from which the world arose.
In Burma and Indochina, the image of a frog is often associated with a spirit that swallows the moon (therefore, the frog is considered the cause of an eclipse). In China, where frogs are also associated with the Moon, they are called “heavenly chickens”, as there is a belief that frogs fall with dew from the sky. The motif of the heavenly origin of frogs allows us to consider them as transformed children (or the wife) of the Thunderer, expelled to earth, into the water, into the lower world (compare with the Russian sign “until the first thunderstorm the frog does not croak” and the widespread ideas about the croaking of a frog for rain, about their appearing with rain, etc.).

The connection of the frog with the god of the sky is indirectly attested in Aesop's fable about the frogs asking the Thunderer for a king for themselves. The motif of frogs as transformed people, also known in Australian mythology, is not limited to their connection with the Thunderer; in a Philippine etiological myth, a man who fell into the water and was carried across the river in a basket turns into a frog; The same range of ideas includes the motive of turning into a frog for deception, images of the so-called frog prince in German folklore and, finally, images of the Frog Princess in Russian fairy tales

Bear.
Symbolizes the resurrection (the appearance in the spring from its winter den with a bear cub), new life, and therefore initiation and rituals associated with the transition.

Quote:
The first animal that Ivan Tsarevich saw after meeting with
The “old man” who gave him the ball to show him the way was a bear.

He is the most powerful forest animal. When in fairy tales one animal replaces another, the bear is in the position of the strongest. Such is the tale of the little tower, the beasts in the pit, and other tales. One must think that this position of the bear in the animal hierarchy is explained in its own way by its connection with those traditional pre-story mythological legends in which the bear occupied the most important place as the owner of forest lands. Perhaps, over time, the bear began to be seen as the embodiment of the sovereign, the ruler of the district.
Why is this question asked specifically about the bear? Is it because this beast has been considered an inviolable creature since ancient times? But this, of course, contradicted the spirit of the new Christian religion. So, nothing prevents us from recognizing the existence of a bear cult among the Slavs as more than likely. The idea of ​​a patron close to the totem was associated with the bear. But even regardless of the solution to the issue, there was totemism among the ancestors Eastern Slavs or not, scientists have proven the existence of mythical ideas about animals endowed with intelligence among the Slavic peoples. It was a world that people were afraid of and did not want to quarrel with: people observed all sorts of customs and magical rituals. This also applies to other animals that the main character meets. The drake, the slanting hare and the pike, which Ivan Tsarevich took pity on and did not kill, later served him well. In fairy tales, there is a widespread motive of gratitude to an animal, which becomes a faithful friend and helper of a person. The animals take the side of the hero when he shows generosity and does not harm them.
The later explanation for such a fabulous episode is natural: the beast rewards good for good. A different explanation for this was given in ancient times. Almost all peoples had a custom of killing the totem bird, the beast. Considerations for the inviolability of the totem were combined with expedient measures to preserve game at a time when it was breeding. Perhaps tales of grateful animals reflect these ancient fishing customs.

The next animal was HARE. Strictly speaking, the hare is a psychopomp, a link between the world of the dead and the world of the living (for some reason I can’t find it now.)

Quote:
Egyptian mythology god of wisdom, counting and writing. The goddess of truth and order Maat was considered the wife of Thoth. The origin of Thoth dates back to the most ancient period. hence the epithets Thoth - “lord of the Bedouins”, “ruler of foreign countries”. The center of the cult was the city of Shmun (Khemenu, literally “eight”; Greek Hermopolis) of the 15th Hare nome. The cult of the hare was supplanted by the cult of Thoth from the revered animals (eight frog gods, a snake and a baboon)

Hare
Lunar animal and attribute of all lunar deities. It was dedicated to Aphrodite by the ancient Greeks! (Aphrodite - Vasilisa the Beautiful?)

Toad(Or a frog?)
A lunar animal belonging to the water element. Symbolizes evil, disgusting things and death. It is believed that the toad, like a snake, has a precious stone in its head.

Duck
Because the duck floats on the surface, it symbolizes superficiality. It also means talkativeness, as well as deception. The duck is a very complex Vedic symbol in Slavic mythology. Cosmogony, supposedly

It's not mine anymore. This was added to me:

Here's more about the frog
Quote:
Frog - Mokosh's Creature
The frog (leg) has long been associated with the aquatic world - streams of rain, rivers and fast streams, and especially with gloomy swamps covered with duckweed. The thin skin of frogs dries quickly in the sun, so they hide during the day, coming out only at night and in the rain. It was precisely because of the forced secrecy that frogs were considered to belong to the underground, dark world. Along with mice, toads, snakes, insects and spiders, frogs were considered reptiles, unclean animals.

The frog is a creature that lives on the edge of the Middle and Lower worlds, a guardian and guide between them. Despite its proximity to the aquatic environment, the frog still lives on land and breathes air. The frog is extremely prolific, as evidenced by the many tadpoles that fill puddles and ponds in the spring. The frog is a symbol of birthing flesh, mature sexual feelings. And therefore its color is white, like the moon and the month, which from ancient times were associated with nourishing mother’s milk.

At the same time, the frog is a wise creature, sometimes cunning and insidious. She, along with the spider, mercilessly destroys the enemies of the human race - vampires - bloodsuckers: mosquitoes, flies, midges. The similarity of the limbs and entrails of frogs with those of humans gave rise to the belief about a beautiful girl enclosed in the slippery skin of an amphibian. And this is already a sign of the highest respect our ancestors had for frogs.

Role: mother in labor, vampire killer

Frog time is late spring/early summer. Color – white, green, black

The frog is a creature of chthonic nature. But it does not belong entirely to the dark underground world. She is an amphibian and therefore connects the earthly world and the underground world. According to popular beliefs of the Eastern Slavs, she is the bearer of wisdom and sacred knowledge. The transfer of witchcraft knowledge in ancient Rus' took place with the help of a frog. Vasilisa the Wise is a sorceress. She doesn’t carry out all the tasks herself, she controls the forces under her control. She is a creator, she sets the direction, others do. But the frog is just a symbol of knowledge, not creative power. That’s why Vasilisa the Wise takes off her clothes (temporary, by the way, put on by Kashchei). It is her true essence that creates, she herself.
But it’s interesting why Kashcheev’s power over the frog is returning.
The ban is violated again (she had three days left to wear the frog skin). The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, Bluebeard’s dark room... Eve violates the ban out of curiosity, Ivan Tsarevich out of impatience.
By the way, the royal feast here also acts as a kind of provocation. After all, it was there that Ivan Tsarevich first saw Vasilisa the Wise in her real appearance. Having found out what she really is, this The Wise Vasilisa, he immediately loses her. And now he himself must set off on his own journey - a journey for inner wisdom in order to defeat Kashchei and become a magician-king.

Here - about Kashchei the immortal

Russian fairy tales keep silent about Koshchei’s biography. We only know that he is the ruler of the “thirtieth kingdom”, which was located in the underground or northern - dark and cold - regions (see "Chemistry and Life", 2001, No. 12). It was believed that pagan gods took refuge there - this is directly stated in the ancient chronicle, which tells that after the forced baptism of Novgorod, the idol of Perun was thrown into the Volkhov and the river carried it to the north: “And they swam from the light into the cat, that is, into the pitch darkness ".

From this phrase the meaning of the word “koshny” (koshny) becomes clear - now forgotten, it once meant “hidden”, “dark”. Well, it’s really hard to find a better definition for the underworld and its owner. But although philological scientists, as a rule, manage to learn a lot by analyzing the origin of this or that word, too many completely different threads come off from the mysterious word “koschey” - the result is not a guiding tangle, but a tangled knot.

In the Old Russian language the word “koschey” meant “slave”, “captive”. Isn't that the point? After all, many fairy tales begin with Koschey being chained and locked up. But on the other hand, there seems to be a connection with the word “bone”, and with the concept of “blasphemy”, and then we will see other “threads”. Where is their beginning, where is their end? Go figure! Our people love such words. Take the same Serpent Gorynych: in some versions of fairy tales (probably later ones) he is settled in the mountains, but acquaintance with the character’s close relatives - fiery snakes - convinces that he is “Gorynych” - from the word “burn”. So let's try to take a closer look at Koshcheeva's relatives.

In some fairy tales, Koschey is a homely-looking old man. “He’s as tall as a fingernail, with a beard as long as an elbow, and a mustache of seven quarters,” but he has a lot of strength. A bearded man lives somewhere underground - “it looks like the well failed.” There the girls languish and barrels of living and dead water are stored. When meeting such a character, a specialist in Ancient Rus' Involuntarily, Koshchei’s resemblance to one of the Russian pagan gods - Beles (Hair) is striking.

Like Osiris of the ancient Egyptians, he was both the king of the dead and the god of fertility. Like Osiris, Hair, apparently, was identified with a plant (plants were considered hair on the huge body of the Earth). Back in the 19th century, peasants left a bunch of ears of grain in a harvested field - “Hair for a beard.”
And the parallels between Volos and Koshchei do not end there. According to B.A. Rybakov, the word “kosh” previously had such meanings as “lot”, “fate” - that is, it personified what the god of death disposed of. But it also had another meaning - “wealth”, “harvest” (hence the modern words “purse” and “purse”) - the image of an “agricultural” god is more compatible with these concepts. However, for our peasant ancestors, all these concepts came into close contact with each other - fate directly depended on wealth, prosperity - on the harvest.

It is interesting that both Koschey and Volos, upon closer examination, turn out to be akin to Viy. Who doesn’t remember Viy’s famous eyelids, which he couldn’t lift on his own? Meanwhile, in one of the fairy tales, Koshchei raises his heavy eyebrows with seven pitchforks. Koshchei's Christian "deputy", Saint Kasyan (it is no secret that many Christian saints in Rus' were endowed with features characteristic of one or another pagan character), "does not see God's light" because of his long eyelashes. And apparently, it is no coincidence that much in the appearance of Viy, covered with earth, suggests a plant - even the name itself, as one might assume, has a common root with the word “twist”. In addition, the church where Viy appeared is subsequently hidden under lush vegetation.

In the myth of Kashchei the Immortal one can find traces of the most ancient agricultural legend about dying and reviving grain.

Let's just go back to MiM.

What could be better?

The magical black horses were tired and carried their riders slowly, and the inevitable night began to catch up with them. Sensing her behind his back, even the restless Behemoth became quiet and, clutching the saddle with his claws, flew silent and serious, with his tail fluffed. The night began to cover the forests and meadows with a black scarf, the night lit sad lights somewhere far below, now
uninteresting and unnecessary neither to Margarita nor to the master, alien lights. Night overtook the cavalcade, fell on top of it and threw out white specks of stars here and there in the sad sky.
The night thickened, flew nearby, grabbed those jumping by the cloaks and, tearing them off their shoulders, exposed the deceptions. And when Margarita, blown by the cool wind, opened her eyes, she saw how the appearance of everyone flying towards their goal was changing. When the crimson and full moon began to emerge from the edge of the forest to meet them, all the deceptions disappeared, fell into the swamp, and drowned in the mists of the witchcraft.
unstable clothes.
It is unlikely that Koroviev-Fagot, a self-proclaimed translator for a mysterious consultant who did not need any translations, would now be recognized as the one who was now flying directly next to Woland on the right hand of the master’s girlfriend. In the place of the one who, in tattered circus clothes, left the Sparrow Hills under the name of Koroviev-Fagot, now galloped, quietly ringing the golden chain of the reins,
a dark purple knight with the gloomiest and never smiling face. He rested his chin on his chest, he did not look at the moon, he was not interested in the earth beneath him, he was thinking about something of his own, flying next to Woland.
- Why has he changed so much? - Margarita asked quietly as the wind whistled from Woland.
“This knight once made a bad joke,” Woland answered, turning his face to Margarita with a quietly burning eye, “his pun, which he made when talking about light and darkness, was not entirely good.” And after that the knight had to joke a little more and longer than he expected. But today is the night when scores are settled. The knight paid his account and closed it!
The night also tore off the fluffy tail from the Behemoth, tore off its fur and scattered its shreds across the swamps. The one who was a cat who amused the prince of darkness now turned out to be a thin youth, a demon page, the best jester that ever existed in the world. Now he too became silent and flew silently, exposing his young face to the light pouring from the moon.
Azazello flew at the side of everyone, shining with the steel of his armor. The moon also changed his face. The absurd, ugly fang disappeared without a trace, and the crooked eye turned out to be false. Both of Azazello's eyes were the same, empty and black, and his face was white and cold. Now Azazello flew in his real form, like a demon
waterless desert, demon killer.

Harmful Marmot

19.3.2010, 12:44

And all my life it seemed to me that Bulgakov was full of parallels... otherwise, why would he put two completely different ones in one novel? different stories- Masters and Yeshua?
The only problem is that while looking for parallels, everyone for some reason immediately tries to find similarities between the characters. The Master and Yeshua are rather antipodes. I think the story is about the situation. About the fact that from century to century it is the same thing... That there are people who go through trials (Golgotha) in their lives like Yeshua, like the Master... suffering for their faith, for their talent... And there are people who despise them, who are trying to save them, etc.
It seems to me that there are parallels in the novel.

Parallelism in the plot lines of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”

The genre of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” is unique. It uniquely combines fantasy and reality, lyricism and satire, history and myth. The composition of Bulgakov’s last work – a novel within a novel – is also original. Two novels - about the fate of the master and about Pontius Pilate - form a kind of organic unity.

Three storylines: philosophical, love, mystical and satirical are closely connected with the image of Woland.

The philosophical plot line reveals the dispute between Yeshua Ha-Nozri and Pontius Pilate about the truth. The love line is connected with the images of the master and Margarita. And the mystical and satirical plot line tells about the interaction of Woland and his retinue with Muscovites.

Parallelism is the basic principle of plot construction, in which three-worldness is presented as the main form of existence. According to the philosopher P. Florensky, “trinity is the most general characteristic of being.” The number 3 is the main category of life and thinking; to prove this, you can give examples from the Bible (the Holy Trinity - God in three forms) and from folklore.

What three worlds are presented in Bulgakov's novel? Firstly, this is the writer’s contemporary Moscow of the 30s of the 20th century, for the depiction of which satire and irony are most often used.

Secondly, this is the “Yershalaim world”, where the writer interprets the gospel events associated with Jesus Christ in his own way. Ancient world is separated from the modern world by 1900 years, but in depicting Moscow and Yershalaim (Jerusalem) the writer uses the technique of parallelism, trying to emphasize that the past and present are connected by a continuous chain of events, and what happened almost two thousand years ago is directly related to modern life .

It is this discovery that is made by the hero of A.P. Chekhov’s story “Student” Ivan Velikopolsky, who on Good Friday, retelling to two widows in the garden, Vasilisa and Lukerya, the Gospel story about the threefold denial of the Apostle Peter from Jesus, suddenly realizes that “the past... is connected with the present continuous chain of events flowing from one another.” It seemed to the student “that he had just seen both ends of this chain: he touched one end, and the other trembled.” Ivan Velikopolsky understood: “truth and beauty, which guided human life there, in the garden and in the courtyard of the high priest, continued continuously until this day, and, apparently, always constituted the main thing in human life and in general on earth...”

Bulgakov, like Chekhov, addressing gospel story, developing Christian motives, reveals Eternal values goodness and truth. His hero is Yeshua Ha-Nozri, artistic comprehension image of Jesus Christ, I am convinced that “there are no evil people in the world.” All people are kind to him. And Pontius Pilate, the fifth procurator of Judea, who in Yershalaim is called a “fierce monster” and who signed the death warrant for Yeshua because of his cowardice; and Levi Matvey, a former tax collector, who at first was so hostile to the wandering philosopher and even insulted him; and Judas from Kiriath, who invited Yeshua to his house, lit lamps and asked him a provocative question about state power in order to then betray him; and the centurion of the first century, Mark the Ratboy, who hit Yeshua with a whip so that he would not call Pontius Pilate “ kind person", and the hegemon. Dreamer-philosopher Yeshua is sure that if he had talked to Mark the Rat-Slayer, he would have changed dramatically. He believes in the miraculous power of the word, which, like a litmus test, reveals in a person all the best and kindest, which was originally inherent in the human soul. After all, Matthew Levi listened to him, “began to soften, finally threw money on the road” and went along with Yeshua, who became his Teacher.

But there is also a third world in the novel - the other world, represented by Woland (Bulgakov’s devil, or Satan, interpreted in his own way), and his retinue, assistants who perform a punitive function, punishing sinners. Good and evil in the novel are not opposed to each other, they are not in confrontation, they coexist and cooperate. These are simply two different “departments” with different tasks. Evil in the guise of Woland performs the function of punishment: Bulgakov’s Satan inflicts fair retribution, punishing people for their vices and thus improving the human race. A writer of the tragic twentieth century, Bulgakov believes that evil must be punished. Woland's role in the novel is revealed in the epigraph at the beginning of the work:

... so who are you, finally?

I am part of that force

What always wants evil

And he always does good.

The words of Mephistopheles from Goethe’s poem “Faust” help us understand that the “prince of darkness” justly punishes people for their sins, clearing the way for good. And goodness in the novel is personified by Yeshua, performing the main function of his “department” - mercy and compassion, forgiveness of sinners.

Emphasizing the interrelationship between ancient, modern and other world, the author builds parallel rows of characters that emphasize the connection of worlds: triads of characters are built on the principle of external similarity and the similarity of their actions. Pontius Pilate - Woland - Professor Stravinsky personify power; Kaifa - Berlioz - unknown in Torgsin, posing as a foreigner - orthodox servants of power, dogmatists, not deviating one iota from its laws and rules, unable to accept the new truth; Judas from Kiriath - Baron Maigel - Aloysius Mogarych - traitors; Afrany - Fagot Koroviev - doctor Fyodor Vasilyevich, assistant to Stravinsky - accomplices of power, his assistants and performers; the dog Banga (represents the ancient world and belongs to Pontius Pilate, only the procurator is cordially attached to his dog, since he does not trust people) - the cat Behemoth (belongs to the other world - a page who once made an unsuccessful joke and is now forced to forever play the role of a jester and a buffoon, but on the last night he was forgiven and acquired his real appearance) - the police dog Tuzbuben from the modern Moscow world. The triad is also formed by Nisa (the beautiful assistant Afrania, his “agent”, who with her beauty lures Judas in order, by order of Pontius Pilate, to carry out trial over the traitor, so the hegemon tries to calm his conscience, to pay off her, so as not to suffer because sent to death the wandering philosopher Yeshua with his peaceful preaching of good) – Gela – Woland’s assistant from the lower world; Natasha is Margarita’s servant who decided to stay in the other world. Centurion Mark Ratboy - Azazello - restaurant director Archibald Archibaldovich - performers who perform a punitive function, they are entrusted with the most “dirty” work, when it is necessary to use force or violence; Levi Matvey - Ivan Bezdomny - poet Alexander Ryukhin - students.

But there are characters in the novel who are not part of the triads. This is Yeshua and the master. The redemptive feat of Yeshua in the ancient world is compared with the creative feat of the master in modern Moscow, but the image of the master is undoubtedly belittled in relation to Yeshua. Margarita occupies an individual, isolated position in the history of the novel, personifying the ideal of eternal love.

Our task is to trace how parallelism manifests itself in the plot lines of the novel. The work opens with a scene on the Patriarch's Ponds, where two Moscow writers: Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny - meet a suspicious “foreigner”, not realizing that in front of them is Satan himself. The episode on the Patriarch's Ponds is the beginning of the action. The chapter is called “Never talk to strangers,” reminiscent of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale about Little Red Riding Hood. The role of the Gray Wolf is played by Woland, dressed in all gray: an expensive gray suit, shoes that match the color of the suit, and a gray beret tucked dashingly behind his ear. And the Soviet writers Berlioz and Bezdomny will become the red riding hoods, victims of the wolf. Berlioz will die under a tram, his head will be cut off by a “Russian woman, a Komsomol member,” a tram driver, as the “professor” predicted, and Ivan Bezdomny will end up in Stravinsky’s psychiatric clinic with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

The action begins with the fact that “at the hour of a hot spring sunset on the Patriarch’s Ponds” two citizens appeared, whose portraits were built on the principle of antithesis.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Berlioz (with this name the novel includes a “devilish theme”, as this surname is associated with the surname of the French composer G. Berlioz, author of the “Fantastic Symphony”, the third and fourth parts of which are called “Procession to Execution” and “Hellish Sabbath” ) - a respectable forty-year-old man, editor of a thick art magazine, chairman of the board of one of the largest Moscow literary associations, called MASSOLIT. This solidity, thoroughness and self-confidence are emphasized in the portrait: he is “well-fed, bald, he carried his decent hat like a pie in his hand, and his neatly shaven face was adorned with supernaturally sized glasses in black horn-rimmed frames.”

The poet Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, writing under the pseudonym Bezdomny, on the contrary, is young, undignified, and careless in his appearance: curly haired, wearing a checkered cap pulled back to the back of his head, and chewed white trousers. The name of the poet Bezdomny was stylized by Bulgakov to resemble common pseudonyms of “proletarian” poets. At the same time, the prototypes of Bezdomny could have been Demyan Bedny. Alexander Bezymensky.

Motive terrible heat combines two scenes following each other: a meeting with the devil on the Patriarch's Ponds and Pontius Pilate's interrogation of Yeshua Ha-Nozri. Both events take place on Good Friday. In the Moscow atheistic world this is the “terrible May evening”, in the ancient world it is the spring month of Nisan - the month of lunar calendar, accepted among the Jews, and corresponding to the end of March - April according to the solar calendar. On the 15th of Nisan, the Jewish Passover holiday falls, lasting seven days, according to which the exodus of the Jews from Egyptian captivity is celebrated. Woland tells the story of the interrogation, and when Bezdomny meets the master in Chapter 13 and retells to him the story he heard from Woland, the master exclaims: “Oh. How did I guess! Oh, how I guessed everything!” Perhaps Woland retold the master’s novel, which he burned, and the appearance of “Messer” in Moscow is explained not only by the desire to look at all the Muscovites en masse and find out whether people have changed over two thousand years, but by the act of burning the novel, tantamount to an act of self-immolation. The writers did not notice how the time of the story passed, they seemed to be in some kind of obsession, and when they woke up, they saw that evening had come. To the objection of the scientist Berlioz that the “professor’s” story does not coincide with the gospel stories, Woland stated that he was personally present at all this: both on Pontius Pilate’s balcony and in the garden during a conversation with Kaifa, only incognito.

In addition to the motif of heat, already from the very first pages of the novel the motif of thirst appears, and it is symbolic that instead of clean and fresh water from a colorful and painted booth with the inscription “Beer and Water,” the writers were served warm apricot water, which produced abundant yellow foam, and in the air smelled like a barbershop. In religious symbolism, the acceptance of fresh moisture into a vessel is the perception of the teachings of Christ. IN modern world truth is replaced by false teaching, atheism.

The motif of heat and thirst also runs through Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”, when at the beginning of July, during an extremely hot time, Raskolnikov goes out onto the streets of St. Petersburg and slowly, as if in indecision, walks in the direction of the Kokushkin Bridge. According to legends, evil spirits concentrate their forces precisely in extreme heat. Here the motive of the lack of clean and fresh water sounds when in the police office Raskolnikov is served a glass of yellow water. And in one of his dreams, Dostoevsky’s hero sees an oasis and a clear stream, reminiscences arise associated with Lermontov’s poem “Three Palms”. Raskolnikov also created a false theory about dividing people into those who have the right to shed blood for the high goal of the good of humanity and “trembling creatures.” After killing the old pawnbroker, he confesses to Sonya that he has left God and gone to hell.

The mystical world penetrates into the modern world almost immediately, only Berlioz is completely unprepared for this, since he is not used to believing in the supernatural. The author prepares readers to encounter something unusual and even terrible. Here he notes “the first strangeness of this terrible May evening” - there was no one in the alley. And the second strange thing happened to Berlioz: it was as if a dull needle had lodged in his heart, and he felt an unreasonable fear. And then there was the “vision” of an aerial citizen fathom tall and with a mocking face, who hung in front of Mikhail Alexandrovich without touching the ground, brought him to horror. Berlioz was not accustomed to extraordinary phenomena that defy reasonable explanation, so he thought: “This cannot be!” He mistook this phenomenon for a hallucination due to the heat.

The central and most important part of the chapter is the debate about God. We are in Moscow in the 1930s, when the majority of the country’s population “consciously and long ago stopped believing fairy tales about God.”

At first, the editor and poet, who fulfilled the magazine’s “social order” and wrote an anti-religious poem, talk about Jesus Christ. Berlioz does most of the talking, revealing thorough reading and erudition on this subject. He quotes ancient historians Philo of Alexandria. Josephus Flavius, Tacitus, reports information that is news to the ignorant Ivan Bezdomny. Ivan’s mistake, according to the editor, was that Jesus came out as alive, although equipped with all the negative traits, and it was only necessary to prove that Jesus did not exist in the world at all.

It is at this moment that the first person appears on the alley. Woland’s portrait is reminiscent of the opera’s Mephistopheles: “the right eye is black, the left is green for some reason,” “the eyebrows are black, but one is higher than the other.” And a cane with a black knob in the shape of a poodle’s head suggests that in Goethe’s poem Mephistopheles appeared before Doctor Faustus in the form of a black poodle.

It is symbolic that writers who mistook a stranger for a foreigner find it difficult to determine his nationality, because Woland embodies Evil, which has no nationality. Intrigued by the writers' conversation, the "foreigner" enters into a dispute about God. Recalling the five proofs of the existence of God, he talks about the restless old man Kant, with whom he personally talked and who “constructed his own sixth proof” - the moral imperative - the presence of conscience in a person as the voice of God, which allows one to distinguish between good and evil.

Soviet writers behave differently in front of a “foreigner.”

The homeless man did not like the foreigner, but Berlioz was interested in Woland. The poet’s mind reflects the features of mass psychosis of the 30s, spy mania, suspicion, he mistakes the “professor” for a Russian emigrant, a white officer, Kant offers to be sent to Solovki for his sixth proof. The anger of the “proletarian” poet is directed against dissidents, and his speech is full of rude and colloquial words, vulgarisms: “What the hell does he want?”; “There’s a foreign goose hanging on!” - Ivan, who behaves aggressively and viciously, thinks to himself.

The image of Ivan from the modern world is associated with the image of Levi Matthew. Having met the master at Stravinsky’s clinic and learned his story, as well as the continuation of the story of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, Bezdomny becomes the master’s student, promises him never to write poetry again, recognizing them as bad, and at the end of the novel Bezdomny finds Home, becomes professor of history Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev. The transformation also occurs with Levi Matthew, the tax collector, who was also ignorant and behaved rudely and aggressively towards Yeshua, calling him a “dog”. But after the wandering philosopher talked with the publican, he threw money on the road and went with Yeshua, becoming his disciple. At the end of the novel, Levi appears in the modern world as a messenger of Yeshua to ask Woland to arrange the fate of the master and Margarita.

A peculiar epiphany also comes to another poet from this triad, Alexander Ryukhin, who takes the bound Ivan to a clinic for the mentally ill. On the way back, Ryukhin “discovers” that he is “composing bad poetry” and fame will never come to him. Driving past the monument to Pushkin, Ryukhin enviously thinks that this is an example of real luck, reasoning in the spirit of his time: “This White Guard shot, shot at him and ensured immortality...”

Berlioz, unlike Ivan Bezdomny, behaves calmly and confidently in a conversation with a “consultant,” although sometimes disturbing thoughts begin to torment him. It is surprising that the well-read chairman of a literary organization could not recognize Satan.

Proving that man cannot rule the world because he is mortal, and, what is most terrible, he is “suddenly” mortal, Woland cruelly punishes Berlioz for his lack of faith in either God or the devil, providing the seventh proof: the meeting will not take place, since the editor will die. The last thing Berlioz saw, having slipped while crossing the turnstile on the oil that Annushka had spilled, was the gilded moon and the completely white with horror face of the female carriage driver and her scarlet bandage, thinking: “Really?”

Woland cruelly punished not the aggressive Ivan, but the calm and confident Berlioz, because the head of Moscow writers would never have believed in the existence of the other world, since he was dogmatic and orthodox, unable to change his views. At the end of the novel, Woland makes a cup for wine from Berlioz's head, and Berlioz himself is sent into oblivion - to each according to his faith.

In the ancient world, Berlioz corresponds to Joseph Caiaphas, the acting president of the Sanhedrin, the high priest. Pilate wanted to honor Jewish holiday Easter, according to tradition and law, three robbers: Dismas, Gestas and Varravan - as well as Yeshua, sentenced to death - would be released. Hearing that the Sanhedrin was asking to release Varravan, Pontius Pilate made an astonished face, although he knew in advance that the answer would be this. The fifth procurator of Judea is trying to convince Caiphas that Varravan is much more dangerous than Yeshua, since he “allowed himself to directly call for rebellion” and “killed the guard while trying to take him.” But the high priest repeats the decision of the Sanhedrin in a quiet and firm voice. In his opinion, Yeshua would have been released, “would have confused the people, outraged the faith and brought the people under the Roman swords.”

The noisy crowd in the square, gathered to listen to the decision of the Sanhedrin, resembles a crowd of Muscovites who came to a session of black magic.

Bulgakov was never overly optimistic about the moral progress of mankind, and this gave a certain skepticism to his novel: the writer testifies that over the two thousand years of his development in the bosom of Christianity (and the novel’s time), humanity has changed little. Two symmetrically located crowd scenes- in the ancient and modern parts of the novel - give this idea special clarity.

In the first part of the novel - in ancient Yershalaim - Yeshua is sentenced to “hanging on a stake”, a painful execution awaits, execution is torture, which, however, attracted many curious people, hungry for spectacles.

Chapter 12 is devoted to exposing the “Moscow population” and revealing its inner essence. Black magic and its exposure." It talks about a scandalous performance in Variety, which aroused no less interest than the execution of Yeshua. To modern humanity characterized by the same thirst for spectacles and pleasures as two thousand years ago.

The modern and ancient worlds are also united by the motif of a thunderstorm, which completes both storylines. In the pages of Yershalaim, a thunderstorm broke out at the moment of Yeshua’s death, which corresponds to the Gospel of Matthew. The death of Yeshua and the strange cloud that came from the sea, from the west, are undoubtedly connected: Yeshua is being taken to the place of execution to the west, and at the moment of death he is facing east. In many mythological systems, including Christianity, the west - the side of sunset - was associated with death, and the east - the side of sunrise - was associated with life, in this case with the resurrection of Yeshua, although the resurrection itself is absent in the novel.

In the Moscow chapters, a thunderstorm broke out when the earthly life of the master and Margarita was completed, and it also came from the west: A black cloud rose in the West and cut off the sun by half... covered the huge city. Bridges and palaces disappeared. Everything disappeared, as if it had never happened in the world...”

The image of a strange cloud receives a symbolic interpretation in the Epilogue - a dream of Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev, which says that such clouds happen during world catastrophes. The first catastrophe was death on the pillar of Yeshua two thousand years ago. He came to the world to proclaim truth and goodness, but no one understood his teachings. The second thunderstorm-catastrophe occurs in Moscow, when the master “guessed” the truth about the events in ancient Yershalaim, but his novel was not accepted.

Let us reveal the parallel of the images of Yeshua Ha - Nozri and the master. In Bulgakov, the image of Yeshua is not traditional in comparison with gospel Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was 33 years old, Bulgakov's hero is 27 years old and he does not remember his parents, and the mother and official father of Jesus are named in the Gospel. His Jewish origin can be traced from Abraham, and Bulgakov’s Yeshua “seems to be Syrian” by blood. Jesus had twelve disciples. And Yeshua only has Matthew Levi. In Bulgakov's novel, Judas is an unfamiliar young man who betrays Yeshua without being his disciple. In the Gospel, Judas is one of Christ’s disciples. In the novel, Judas was killed by Afranius on the orders of Pontius Pilate, and in the Gospel, Judas hanged himself. After the death of Yeshua, his body is kidnapped and buried by Matthew Levi, and in the Gospel - Joseph of Arimathea, “a disciple of Christ, but secret out of fear from the Jews.” In Bulgakov, Yeshua’s sermon comes down to one phrase: “All people are good,” but Christian teaching It just doesn’t come down to this.

Yeshua in the novel is, first of all, a man who finds spiritual support in himself and in his truth.

The Master is a tragic hero, in many ways repeating the path of Yeshua; he also came into the world with his truth, but was not accepted by society.

But still, the master lacks the spiritual and moral strength that Yeshua showed during interrogation by Pilate and at his hour of death. The master abandons his novel, broken by failure, so he does not deserve light, but only peace. According to the description in the novel, this place corresponds to the first circle of hell - limbo, where pagans born in the pre-Christian era languish. Both heroes have antagonists. For the master it is Berlioz, and for Yeshua it is Joseph Kaifa. Each of the heroes has their own traitor, whose incentive is material gain. Judas from Kiriath receives 30 tetradrachms, and Aloisy Mogarych receives a master’s apartment in the basement on Arbat.

Both heroes: the master and Yeshua have one student each. Both students cannot be considered true successors of the work of their teachers, since Bezdomny did not write a continuation of his teacher’s novel, and Matthew Levi poorly mastered the teachings of Yeshua.

Let's consider another image that serves as a way to move mystical heroes into the real world - this is a mirror. The mirror motif is one of the key ones in the novel. With the help of a mirror, evil spirits penetrate into the real world from the “fifth dimension”. At the beginning of the novel, the Patriarch's Pond serves as a “mirror”. In the old days there was a Goat swamp here, but in the 17th century the ponds were cleared by order of Patriarch Filaret and received the name Patriarchal. With the help of a mirror, Woland and his retinue enter Styopa Likhodeev’s apartment: “Then Styopa turned away from the apparatus and in the mirror located in the hallway, which had not been wiped for a long time by the lazy Grunya, he clearly saw some strange subject - long, like a pole, and wearing pince-nez ( oh, if it were Ivan Nikolaevich! He would recognize this subject immediately). And it was reflected and immediately disappeared. Styopa, in alarm, looked deeper into the hallway, and was rocked a second time, because a huge black cat passed in the mirror and also disappeared.” And soon after that, “a small, but unusually broad-shouldered man, wearing a bowler hat on his head and with a fang sticking out of his mouth, came straight out of the mirror of the dressing table.”

The mirror appears in key episodes of the novel: while waiting for the evening, Margarita spends the whole day in front of the mirror; the death of the master and Margarita is accompanied by a broken mirror, a broken reflection of the sun in the glass of houses; the fire in the “bad apartment” and the destruction of Torgsin are also associated with broken mirrors: “The glass in the exit mirror doors rang and fell,” “the mirror on the fireplace cracked with stars.”

Let us note another plot parallel. The ritual of Woland's ball is opposed to the ritual of the Christian liturgy, in which the central event is the Eucharist - the communion of believers with wine and bread transformed into the blood and body of Christ. Turning the blood of the traitor and spy Maigel into wine thus becomes anti-Eucharist.

Thus, having analyzed the plot parallels and parallels between the characters of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita,” we come to the conclusion that the image of the three worlds influences genre originality novel. The ancient world is depicted in a historical-epic genre orientation. Moscow scenes have a bright satirical tint. The philosophical principle is present in the depiction of the other world. Bulgakov managed to combine various genre forms and create an eternal novel about good and evil, about conscience and repentance, about forgiveness and mercy, about love and creativity, about truth and the meaning of life.
The theme of “high evil” in M.A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”

THREE WORLDS IN M. BULGAKOV’S NOVEL “THE MASTER AND MARGARITA”

2. Three-dimensionality as a form of being

Trinity of the Divine Trinity

3. Three-world structure of the novel

The ancient "Yershalaim" world

The modern Moscow world

Eternal otherworld

The relationship of three worlds

4. Parallel rows of characters emphasizing the connections of worlds

Triads of characters based on external similarity and their actions

Moving characters from one world to another

Characters not included in triads

Yeshua Ha-Nozri and the Master

Margarita

5. The influence of the three worlds on the genre uniqueness of the novel......00

Conclusion................................................. ......00

References.........................................00

Introduction

M. A. Bulgakov is one of the remarkable writers of the post-revolutionary era. Bulgakov had a difficult fate, there were many conflicts, victories and defeats. The novel “The Master and Margarita” became a revelation of the great writer.

Until now, no one has been able to determine what constitutes a satirical, philosophical, psychological, and in the Yershalaim chapters - a parable novel “The Master and Margarita”. It was viewed both as a result of world literary development, and as a historical response to specific life events of the 20s and 30s, and as a concentration of ideas from the writer’s previous works. The author himself assessed it as his main message to humanity, his testament to his descendants.

This novel is complex and multifaceted; the writer touched on many topics and problems in it.

In the image of the Master we recognize Bulgakov himself, and the prototype of Margarita was the writer’s beloved woman - his wife Elena Sergeevna. It is no coincidence that the theme of love is one of the main, main themes of the novel. Bulgakov writes about the highest and most beautiful human feeling - about love, about the pointlessness of resisting it. In the novel, he proves that true love cannot be hindered by any obstacles.

Another of the many problems raised in the novel is the problem of human cowardice. The author considers cowardice to be the greatest sin in life. This is shown through the image of Pontius Pilate. After all, he understood perfectly well that Yeshua had not done anything for which he needed to be executed. However, Pilate did not listen to his “inner” voice, the voice of conscience, but followed the lead of the crowd and executed Yeshua Ha-Nozri. Pontius Pilate was afraid and for this he was punished with immortality.

An endless chain of associations, not always explainable, not always traceable, but really existing; there are hundreds of them. Let's consider three of them: the ancient “Yershalaim” world, the modern Moscow world and the eternal other world.

The presented work compares these three worlds and the characters that inhabit them, the characters and actions of the heroes of the book.

The three-dimensional structure of the novel is also visible in the construction of the characters, who are collected according to the principle of the influence of similarities and their actions: Pontius Pilate - Woland - Professor Stravinsky; Afrany - Fagot Koroviev - doctor Fyodor Vasilyevich, assistant to Stravinsky; and others.

Three-dimensionality as a form of being.

“Trinity is the most general characteristic of being.”

P. Florensky

Space is a form of existence of matter, expressing the extent of its constituent objects, their structure from elements and parts.

Space has three dimensions and is called three-dimensional. It is a necessary condition existence of stable systems. Space is a time slice of our existence, characterized by the formula 3+1. It is the trinity of time and any change that reveals another feature of time, namely the unity of changing being that penetrates it.

Being is one of the most general categories, carrying a triple nature.

At the level of everyday life, the fact of the fluidity of time is striking: from the past to the present, from the present to the future.

To confirm this, there are metaphors: “Kill time”, “Time is money”, “Everything flows - everything changes.” The main manifestation of time is its change. Change is the unity of past, present and future.

Trinity of the Divine Trinity.

The word “trinity” of non-biblical origin was introduced into the Christian lexicon in the second half of the 2nd century by St. Theophilus of Antioch. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is given in Christian Revelation. It says: God is one in essence, but trinity in persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity is consubstantial and indivisible.

Belief in the Trinity distinguishes Christianity from all other monotheistic religions: Judaism, Islam. The doctrine of the Trinity is the basis of all Christian faith and moral teaching, for example, the doctrine of God the Savior, God the Sanctifier, etc. V.N. Lossky said that the doctrine of the Trinity “is not only the basis, but also the highest goal of theology, for... to know the mystery of the Holy Trinity in its fullness -

means to enter into the Divine life, into the very life of the Most Holy

The doctrine of the Triune God boils down to three provisions:

1. 
   God is trinity and trinity consists in the fact that in God there are three Persons (hypostases): Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
2. 
   Each Person of the Holy Trinity is God, but They are not three Gods, but are one Divine being.
3. 
   All three Persons differ in personal, or hypostatic properties.

Three-dimensional structure of the novel

In his novel, Bulgakov shows us that life is not two-dimensional, that it is not limited to the plane of earthly existence, that every event on this plane of earthly life only seems flat, two-dimensional to us. But in fact, it undoubtedly has, albeit invisible, indistinguishable to our eyes, but a completely real and unconditional “third dimension”.

The ancient “Yershalaim” world.

This world appears before us in the novel, written by one of the leading characters of the novel, it is the basis of the entire Bulgakov novel. The question of the Yershalaim scenes in The Master and Margarita has long attracted the attention of researchers.

E. Renan's book "The Life of Jesus" occupies an important place in Bulgakov's work on these scenes. Extracts from it are preserved in the writer’s archive. Besides chronological dates, Bulgakov also picked up some historical details from there.

Also, when working on a novel about Pontius Pilate, Bulgakov turned to another work by Renan - “Antichrist,” which tells about the history of Christianity during the time of Nero.

But none of these books can compare in value of information with the work of the British researcher, Bishop Frederick William Ferrar, “The Life of Jesus Christ.”

Another of the most important sources when creating Yershalaim scenes is the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron. It was from there that Bulgakov took information about the equipment, structure and weapons of the Roman army.

The novel has been cleared of many unreliable gospel events, as well as from some details of the gospel plot that are unnecessary for the novel. The writer concentrated the action of his novel around two characters - Yeshua and Pilate. In the Yershalaim scenes of The Master and Margarita there are much fewer characters, although the genre chosen by Bulgakov should have led to the opposite.

At the end of the novel, we see the procurator “on a rocky, joyless flat top,” sitting alone in a heavy chair in this desolate mountainous area. Pilate's last refuge in the novel is a kind of analogue of the deep well surrounded by mountains from the apocryphal legend.

The Yershalaim scenes are the most striking part of the novel. From various details, the author created a panorama of the life and everyday life of people of an era far from our days, giving it historical authenticity. The images described in these chapters are still clear to us today. These scenes contain the philosophical line of the novel, its highest aesthetic point.

Modern Moscow world.

On the pages of the novel, Moscow residents and their way of life, everyday life and worries are depicted satirically. Woland arrives to see what the inhabitants of Moscow have become. To do this, he arranges a black magic session. And he literally showers people with money, dresses them in expensive clothes. But it's not just greed

And greed is inherent in them who inhabit the capital. Mercy is alive and well in them. Suffice it to recall the episode that happened at that unusual session when the presenter of the program, Bengalsky, was torn off his head by Behemoth. Seeing the presenter without a head, Muscovites immediately ask Woland to return Bengalsky’s head. This is how Woland’s words can characterize the residents of Moscow at that time.

“Well,” he responded thoughtfully, “they are people like people, they love money; but this has always been... humanity loves money, no matter what it is made of, whether leather, paper, bronze or gold. Well, they are frivolous... well, well... and mercy sometimes knocks on their hearts... ordinary people... in general, they resemble the old ones... the housing problem has only spoiled them..."

Eternal other world.

“The demonological is something that neither reason nor reason can comprehend. It is alien to my nature, but I am subject to it.”

I.V.Goethe

When describing the Sabbath in The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov used many literary sources. In the preparatory materials for the first edition, excerpts from Orlov’s book “Antesser” were preserved. Sabbath games. Sawdust and a bell”, as well as from the article “The Sabbath of Witches” Encyclopedic Dictionary. The author of this article points out that witches and devils, who according to popular belief are participants in the Sabbath, originated from ancient pagan gods and goddesses, traditionally depicted on a hog. But this is exactly how Margarita’s servant, Natasha, travels.

But the flight of Margarita and the Sabbath is just a kind of prelude to the most bright scenes, associated with the great ball and Satan.

According to the memoirs of E.S. Bulgakova, the initial description of the ball was very different from the one we now know from the final text of the novel. At first it was a small ball in Woland’s bedroom, but already during his illness Bulgakov rewrote it and the ball became larger.

In order to describe such a grandiose ball, it was necessary to expand the space of an ordinary Moscow apartment to supernatural proportions. And, as Koroviev explains, “for those who are well acquainted with the fifth dimension,” it costs nothing to expand the room to the desired limits.

Some details of the ball scene are to a certain extent based on articles by Brockhaus and Efron, and a number of other sources. Thus, having abundantly decorated the ballrooms with roses, Bulgakov, without a doubt, took into account the complex and multifaceted symbolism associated with this flower. The Encyclopedic Dictionary article on roses in ethnography, literature and art notes that roses acted both as a symbol of mourning and as a symbol of love and purity.

Taking this into account, Bulgakov’s roses can simultaneously be considered both as symbols of Margarita’s love for the Master and as a harbinger of their imminent death. The abundance of roses - a flower alien to Russian tradition - emphasizes the foreign origin of the devil's play and its heroes played out in Moscow, and, if we remember the widespread use of roses to decorate Catholic services, roses add an additional element to the ball - a parody of a church service.

When describing Satan's ball, Bulgakov also took into account the tradition of Russian symbolism. Thus, Woland’s ball is called “the full moon spring ball, or the ball of a hundred kings,” and Margarita appears at it as a queen. At Bulgakov's, Margarita receives the guests of the ball, standing on one knee. The guests are men in tails, and naked women in hats with feathers kiss her hand and knee, and Margarita is forced to smile at everyone. During the ceremony, she is located on the marble staircase rising above the hall.

It is no coincidence that a line of villains, murderers, poisoners, and libertines passes in front of Margarita. Bulgakov's heroine suffers because of her betrayal of her husband and, albeit subconsciously, puts this offense on a par with greatest crimes past and present. Woland, introducing Margarita to famous villains and libertines, as if testing her love for the Master, intensifies the torment of her conscience.

The image of Frida occupies a special position in the ball scene. The name itself evokes many associations. It is also close to the English word freedom, meaning “freedom”. She kills her child in infancy and with the help of a handkerchief. In the episode with Frida, it was the innocent baby that was important to Bulgakov as the last measure of good and evil. The handkerchief that Frida sees every evening on her table is not only a symbol of the pangs of conscience tormenting her, but also the ghost of the existence of an obsession.

Frida is granted mercy. Her story in some ways echoes the story of Goethe’s Margarita from “Faust” and is contrasted with the fate of Bulgakov’s Margarita, which genetically goes back to this heroine of Goethe’s tragedy.

The transformation of Berlioz's head into a cup - a skull, from which they drink wine and blood, occurs in strict accordance with the laws of the Sabbath. Even in the preparatory materials for the first edition of the novel there is an extract from the article “The Sabbath of Witches”: “A horse skull from which they drink.” In the original source, this passage sounds like this: that the participants of the Sabbath “eat horse meat, and drink drinks from cow hooves and horse skulls.” At the ball of the dead, Woland, a specialist in “black magic”, Satan, refers to the severed head of Berlioz, on which “living eyes, full of thoughts and suffering” have been preserved: “... everyone will be given according to his faith. May it come true! You are going into oblivion, but I will be happy to drink from the cup into which you are turning into being.”

What “faith” does the chairman of MASSOLIT profess? In this context, it comes down to a simple thought: “when a person’s head is cut off, life in a person ceases... and he goes into oblivion.” Woland raises a toast “to being,” a toast to life.

However, “life” is only a superficial, far from exhaustive content that the author puts into the concept of “being”. In Woland's conversation with a Moscow writer at the Patriarch's Ponds we're talking about about evidence of the existence of God and, accordingly, the devil. Woland “begs” his interlocutors: “at least believe that the devil exists.” God and the devil are creatures of the spiritual world, of spiritual value. Being - in a broad sense - is the reality of the spiritual world, rejected by Berlioz. Woland forms the essence of his “faith” in an ironic maxim: “... whatever you miss, there is nothing.” Such is Berlioz’s “faith.” Woland refutes Berlioz's views point by point; he proves that they contradict “facts,” the most stubborn thing in the world. The “full of thoughts and suffering” eyes on the severed head indicate that the truth of the fact reached Berlioz’s still unextinguished consciousness.

Parallel rows of characters highlighting the connections between worlds.

Parallel rows of characters highlighting the connections between worlds.

There are no minor characters in the novel; but all the characters conditionally belong to three groups:

1) We accept a priori - Yeshua, Pilate and Woland, as well as the Master and Margarita, who existed long before Bulgakov, and were only included by him in the fabric of the narrative. The figures are certainly historical; about which endlessly much has been written and endlessly interesting. Controversy over the origin of the last two heroes still does not subside, and I believe that almost all researchers of this problem are equally right.

2) The characters are parodies, taken directly from life, and do not raise questions for us; just funny as hell. And Styopa Likhodeev, and financial director Rimsky, and the failed poet Ryukhin, and the brilliant Archibald Archibaldovich, and the entire literary world of the Griboyedov house, drawn with great care, but how mercilessly. But you never know how many of them are spotted on the street or in a queue, striking when they meet; for a book is an accumulation of facts from the biography of the writer himself, which no one argues with when trying to find a correspondence between a biographical fact and an episode of the novel. But such a direct relationship almost never happens, but strange associations do happen, like all of us, when two unfamiliar thoughts, in a hurry and bustle, suddenly collide and give birth to a third - brilliant and amazing. This is how they appear:

3) Mysterious heroes who have own story, lying outside the dimension of the book.

Bibliography:

1. 
   A short reference book for schoolchildren, grades 5-11, “Drofa”, Moscow 1997
2. 
   B.V. Sokolov M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”. Essays creative history, “Science”, Moscow 1991
3. 
   V.P. Maslov The hidden leitmotif of M.A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita.” "Izvestia of the Academy of Sciences", Series of literature and language, volume No. 54, No. 6, 1995
4. 
   www.rg.ru.
5. 
   M. Chudakov Mikhail Bulgakov. The era and fate of the artist. "Enlightenment", Moscow 1991
6. 
   B.M. Sarnov To each according to his faith. About M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”. "MSU" Moscow 1998
7. 
   V.V. Petelin The Life of Bulgakov. Finish before you die. ZAO "Tsentropoligraf", Moscow 2005
8. 
   Priest Oleg Davydenko Teaching Orthodox Church about the Holy Trinity. From lectures on dogmatic theology at the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute. 05/29/2004