“My Anna is tired of me like a bitter radish”: How the famous novel by Leo Tolstoy was created. Workshop "Writing a novel"
IV. Principles of plot construction
What is a plot?
A plot is a "record of events".
Little Red Riding Hood goes to the forest, meets a wolf there, goes to her grandmother, sees the wolf again, takes him for her grandmother, asks: “Grandma, grandmother, why do you have such big teeth?”, then the woodcutters come, and the end comes to the wolf. The account of events is a simple enumeration or retelling of what happened either in the "real" world or in the "fictional" world. It is quite obvious that the tale of the Little Red Riding Hood is merely recounting certain events.
The old man goes to sea to catch big fish, Michael Corleone takes revenge on the killers of his father, Leamas ends up in East Germany - all this is a presentation of certain events. Each story is a narrative of events. But that is not all.
Consider the following chain of events:
Joe jumps out of bed, gets dressed, prepares a snack, jumps into the car. He drives a few blocks, stops at his girlfriend's house. She jumps into the car. The girl's name is Sally. They go to the beach, where they lie on the hot sand all day. They have lunch on the beach, and eat ice cream on the way home.
Is this chain of events a plot?
Most readers will intuitively say no.
The thing is that these events are not worth your attention. Joe went with the girl to the beach, they ate there - well, what's next? The events in this chain are meaningless, because we do not see their consequences. If we call the plot a "retelling of events", this definition does not get far. It should be noted that the plot is a "statement successive events."
And it's all?
What if I told you about the suffering of a rubber tree, when the trunk is cut to collect the juice, or about the trials and tribulations that befell the motorboat on the road to the Congo? It would be interesting if I put on a rubber tree or a motorboat human qualities. Jonathan Livingston is a seagull with a human heart. Jonathan Livingston and the engine, who said: "I think I can do it," are interesting not because they are, respectively, a seagull and an engine, but because they have human souls.
Thus, the plot is not just a sequence of events, but a sequence of events in which human characters are involved. And not just characters, but interesting characters. Reading just about someone is boring. I want to read about characters that can excite the imagination.
With this in mind, the plot can be defined as "the presentation of successive events involving human characters."
Not bad, but still missing something. We forgot that the characters should change as a result of the conflict. If the character throughout the story does not change under the influence of the suffering that he sees or experiences, the result is not a story, but a narrative of adventure. Therefore, the full definition of the plot sounds like this: "A plot is a narrative of successive events involving human characters who change as a result of the events that have occurred."
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M.A. Bulgakov, "The Master and Margarita" " />
How the novel "The Master and Margarita" was created
An interesting informative article. There are boobs!
“I, however,” Koroviev continued to chatter, “knew people who had no idea not only about the fifth dimension, but who had no idea about anything at all, and yet performed the most perfect miracles ...”
M.A. Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov - an artist who left a rich literary heritage in almost all genres: he began with a feuilleton, a story, an essay, created a cycle of original plays and dramatizations that had audience success, wrote novels, librettos, deep and brilliant novels - “ white guard”, “The Life of Monsieur de Molière”, “Notes of a Dead Man” and “The Master and Margarita”, - the pinnacle of his work. This last work The writer, his “sunset novel”, completes the topic that is significant for Bulgakov - the artist and power, this is a novel of difficult and sad thoughts about life, where philosophy and fantasy, mysticism and penetrating lyrics, mild humor and accurate deep satire are combined.
The history of the creation and publication of this most famous novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, one of the most outstanding works in modern domestic and world literature, is complex and dramatic. This final work, as it were, summarizes the writer's ideas about the meaning of life, about man, about his mortality and immortality, about the struggle between good and evil principles in history and in moral world person. The foregoing helps to understand Bulgakov's own assessment of his offspring. “Dying, he spoke,” recalled his widow, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova: “Maybe this is right ... What could I write after the Master? ..”
creative history"Masters and Margaritas" in the most in general terms comes down to the following. Bulgakov attributed the idea of the novel and the beginning of work on it to 1928, however, according to other sources, it is obvious that the idea of writing a book about the adventures of the devil in Moscow came to him several years earlier, in the early to mid-1920s.
The first chapters were written in the spring of 1929. On May 8 of this year, Bulgakov handed over to the Nedra publishing house for publication in the almanac of the same name a fragment of the future novel - its separate independent chapter, called “Furibunda Mania”, which in Latin means “violent insanity, mania of rage”. This chapter, from which only fragments not destroyed by the author have come down to us, roughly corresponded in content to the fifth chapter of the printed text “It was in Griboyedov”. In 1929, the main parts of the text of the first edition of the novel were created (and, possibly, a plot-completed draft version of it about the appearance and tricks of the devil in Moscow).
M. Bulgakov wrote a novel, which he read in a certain society, where he was told that they would not let him through in this form, since he was extremely sharp with attacks, then he redid it and thinks of publishing it, and in the original edition, putting it into society as a manuscript and this is simultaneously with the publication in a truncated censored form.” Probably, in the winter of 1928/29, only separate chapters of the novel were written, which were even more politically poignant than the surviving fragments of the early edition. It is possible that the “Furibunda Mania” given to “Nedra” and not fully extant to us was already a softened version of the original text. It is also plausible that Bulgakov’s intention to let the manuscript circulate freely on the rights of “samizdat”: after all, there were already circulating among the interested public lists of “The Cabal of the Holy Ones”, “ dog heart”, story“ Fatal eggs” with a different version of the final, not published in the collection “Nedr”. This first edition of the novel had at least 15 chapters, of which 10 had titles, and took up about 160 pages of handwritten text in a thick school-format notebook (this is how the handwritten versions of the novel have been preserved).
In the first edition, the author went through several options for the titles of his work: “Black Magician”, “Engineer's Hoof”, “Woland's Tour”, “Son of Doom”, “Juggler with a Hoof”, but did not stop at any. This first edition of the novel was destroyed by Bulgakov on March 18, 1930, after receiving news of the ban on the play The Cabal of Saints. The writer reported this in a letter to the government on March 28, 1930: “And personally, with my own hands, I threw a draft of the novel about the devil into the stove ...” There is no exact information about the degree of plot completion of this edition, but it is obvious from the surviving materials that that compositional juxtaposition of two novels in a novel (“ancient” and modern), which is genre feature"Masters and Margaritas".
Written by the hero of this book - the master - "the novel about Pontius Pilate", in fact, does not exist; A “simply” “strange foreigner” tells Vladimir Mironovich Berlioz and Antosha (Ivanushka) Bezrodny on Patriarch’s Ponds about Yeshua Ha-Notsri, and all the “New Testament” material is presented in one chapter (“The Gospel of Woland”) in the form of a lively conversation of a “foreigner” and his listeners. There are also no future main characters - the master and Margarita. So far, this is a novel about the devil, and in the interpretation of the image of the devil, Bulgakov is at first more traditional than in the final text: his Woland (or Faland) still plays the classic role of a tempter and provocateur (he, for example, teaches Ivanushka to trample on the image of Christ), but the “super task” of the writer is already clear: both Satan and Christ are necessary for the author of the novel as representatives of absolute (albeit “opposite-polar”) truth, opposing the moral relativism of the world of Berlioz, Mogarych, Latunsky, Lavrovich ... For Bulgakov not only denies, but also affirms.
Work on the novel resumed in 1931. The idea of the work is significantly changed and deepened - Margarita appears and her companion - the Poet, who will later be called the master and will take a central place. But so far this place still belongs to Woland, and the novel itself is planned to be called: “Consultant with a hoof”. Bulgakov is working on one of the last chapters (“Flight of Woland”) and in the right upper corner sheet with the outline of this chapter writes: “Help me, Lord, to finish the novel. 1931”. This edition, the second in a row, was continued by Bulgakov in the autumn of 1932 in Leningrad, where the writer arrived without a single draft - not only the idea, but also the text of this work was so thought out and endured by that time. Almost a year later, on August 2, 1933, he informed the writer V. V. Veresaev about the resumption of work on the novel: “A demon has taken possession of me .... Already in Leningrad and now here, suffocating in my small rooms, I began to dirty page after page of my novel that had been destroyed three years ago. For what? Don't know. I indulge myself! Let it fall into oblivion! However, I will probably give it up soon.” However, Bulgakov no longer abandoned The Master and Margarita, and with interruptions caused by the need to write commissioned plays, dramatizations, scripts and librettos, continued his work on the novel almost to the end of his life.
By November 1933, 500 pages of handwritten text had been written, divided into 37 chapters. The genre is defined by the author himself as " fantasy novel” – this is how it is written at the top of the sheet with a list of possible titles: “Great Chancellor. Satan. Here I am. Feather hat. Black theologian. Horseshoe of a foreigner. He came. Advent. Black magician. Counselor's hoof (Consultant with a hoof)”, but Bulgakov did not stop at any of them. All these variants of the title seem to still point to Woland as the main person. However, Woland is already significantly supplanted by the new hero, who becomes the author of the novel about Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and this inner novel is broken in two, and between the chapters that form it (chapters 11 and 16), the love and misadventures of the “Poet” (or “Faust” , as it is called in one of the drafts) and Margarita. By the end of 1934, this edition was rough finished. By this time, the word "master" had already been used three times in recent chapters in an appeal to the “Poet” by Woland, Azazello and Koroviev (who have already received permanent names). Over the next two years, Bulgakov made numerous additions and compositional changes to the manuscript, including finally crossing the lines of the master and Ivan Bezdomny. In July 1936, the last and final chapter of this edition of the novel “The Last Flight” was created, in which the fate of the master, Margarita, Pontius Pilate was determined.
The third edition of the novel was started in late 1936 - early 1937. In the first, unfinished version of this edition, brought to the fifth chapter and occupying 60 pages, Bulgakov, unlike the second edition, moved the story of Pilate and Yeshua again to the beginning of the novel, making up a single second chapter, called "The Golden Spear". In 1937, the second, also unfinished version of this edition was written, brought to the thirteenth chapter (299 pages). It is dated 1928-1937 and is entitled "Prince of Darkness". Finally, the third and only completed version of the third edition of the novel was created from November 1937 to the spring of 1938. This edition takes 6 thick notebooks; The text is divided into thirty chapters. In the second and third versions of this edition, the Yershalaim scenes were introduced into the novel in exactly the same way as in the published text, and in its third version, the well-known and definitive title appeared - “The Master and Margarita”.
From the end of May to June 24, 1938, this edition was retyped on a typewriter under the dictation of the author, who often changed the text along the way. The editing of this typescript by Bulgakov began on September 19, with individual chapters being rewritten. The epilogue was written on May 14, 1939, immediately in the form that we know.
At the same time, the scene of the appearance of Levi Matthew to Woland was painted with a decision about the fate of the master. When Bulgakov fell mortally ill, his wife Elena Sergeevna continued to correct under her husband's dictation, while this correction was partially entered into typescript, partially into a separate notebook. On January 15, 1940, E. S. Bulgakova wrote in her diary: “Misha, as much as she has the strength, corrects the novel, I am rewriting it,” and the episodes with Professor Kuzmin and the miraculous transfer of Styopa Likhodeev to Yalta were recorded (before that, the director of the Variety was Garasey Pedulaev , and Woland sent him to Vladikavkaz). The editing was stopped on February 13, 1940, less than four weeks before Bulgakov’s death, at the phrase: “So this, then, is the writers following the coffin?”, in the middle of the nineteenth chapter of the novel ...
Final Thoughts and the words of the dying writer were addressed to this work, which contained all of his creative life: “When at the end of the illness he almost lost his speech, sometimes only the ends and beginnings of words came out of him,” recalled E. S. Bulgakova. - There was a case when I was sitting next to him, as always, on a pillow on the floor, near the head of his bed, he let me know that he needed something, that he wanted something from me. I offered him medicine, drink - lemon juice, but I clearly understood that this was not the point. Then I guessed and asked: “Your things?” He nodded with an air of yes and no. I said: “Master and Margarita?” He, terribly delighted, made a sign with his head that “yes, it is”. And he squeezed out two words: “So that they know, so that they know ...” But it was then very difficult to fulfill this dying will of Bulgakov - to print and convey to people, readers the novel he had written.
One of Bulgakov's closest friends and the first biographer of Bulgakov, PS Popov (1892–1964), re-reading the novel after the death of its author, wrote to Elena Sergeevna: “Brilliant craftsmanship always remains brilliant craftsmanship, but now the novel is unacceptable. 50-100 years will have to pass ... "Now, he thought," the less they know about the novel, the better. Fortunately, the author of these lines made a mistake in the timing, but in the next 20 years after Bulgakov’s death, we do not find in the literature any mention of the existence of this work in the writer’s legacy, although Elena Sergeyevna made six attempts to break through censorship and print the novel from 1946 to 1966 .
Only in the first edition of Bulgakov's book "The Life of Monsieur de Molière" (1962) did V. A. Kaverin manage to break the conspiracy of silence and mention the existence of the novel "The Master and Margarita" in the manuscript. Kaverin firmly stated that “the inexplicable indifference to the work of Mikhail Bulgakov, which sometimes inspired a deceptive hope that there were many like him and that, therefore, his absence in our literature does not constitute a big problem, this is harmful indifference ...” Four years later, the magazine “ Moscow ”(No. 11 for 1966 and No. 1 for 1967) published the novel in an abridged version with numerous censorship cuts and editing that distort the meaning of the text compared to the final, fourth and first posthumous edition of the novel presented by E. S. Bulgakova. The journal version of the book with censorship omissions and distortions and abbreviations made at the initiative of the management of the editorial office of Moskva (E. S. Bulgakova was forced to agree to all this, if only to keep the word given to the dying author, to publish this work), was thus , the fifth edition, which was published abroad as a separate book.
The response to this publisher's arbitrariness was the appearance in "samizdat" of typewritten text of all the passages released or distorted in a journal publication with an exact indication of where to insert the missing or replace the distorted. The author of this "cut" edition was Elena Sergeevna herself and her friends. Such a text, which was one of the variants of the fourth (1940–1941) edition of the novel, was released in 1969 in Frankfurt am Main by the Posev publishing house. Portions omitted or "edited" from the journal publication were in italics in the 1969 edition. What did such censoring and voluntaristic “editing” of the novel represent? What goals did it pursue? Now this is quite clear. 159 banknotes were made: 21 in the 1st part and 138 in the 2nd; in total more than 14,000 words (12% of the text!). Bulgakov's text was grossly distorted, phrases from different pages were arbitrarily combined, sometimes completely meaningless sentences arose. The reasons related to the literary and ideological canons that existed at that time are obvious: most of all, the passages describing the actions of the Roman secret police and the work of “one of the Moscow institutions”, the similarity of the ancient and modern world. Further, the “inadequate” reaction “ Soviet people” on our reality and some of their very unattractive features. The role and moral strength of Yeshua was weakened in the spirit of vulgar anti-religious propaganda. Finally, the “censor” in many cases showed a kind of “chastity”: some persistent references to the nakedness of Margarita, Natasha and other women at Woland’s ball were removed, the naked fat man, the landlady brothel in Strasbourg and an enterprising Moscow dressmaker, Margarita's witch-like rudeness was weakened, etc.
When preparing a complete uncensored domestic edition, which was published in 1973, the edition of the early 1940s was restored, followed by its textual revision, carried out by the editor of the publishing house " Fiction” (where the novel was printed) A. A. Saakyants. Published after the death of E. S. Bulgakova (in 1970), this actually sixth edition of the novel was fixed for a long time as canonical by numerous reprints, and as such was introduced into literary circulation in the 1970s-1980s. Finally, for the Kiev edition of 1989 and the Moscow collected works of 1989-1990, the seventh and last edition of the text of the novel was made with a new reconciliation based on all the surviving author's materials, made by the literary critic L. M. Yanovskaya. At the same time, however, it should be remembered that, as in many other cases in the history of literature, when there is no definitive author's text, the novel remains open to clarifications and new readings. And such a case with The Master and Margarita is almost classical in its way: Bulgakov died while working on finishing the text of the novel, he failed to fulfill his own textological task for this work. Therefore, there are obvious traces of a flaw in the novel even in its plot part (Woland is limping and not limping; Berlioz is called either the chairman or the secretary of Massolit; the white bandage with a strap on Yeshua's head is suddenly replaced by a turban; Margarita and Natasha "pre-witch status" disappear somewhere; Aloysius appears without explanation, he and Varenukha fly out first from the bedroom window, and then from the window of the stairwell, Gella is absent in the “last flight”, although he leaves the “bad apartment”, etc., and it is impossible to explain this as “on purpose conceived”), some stylistic errors are also noticeable. So the history of the publication of the novel did not end there, especially since all of its early editions were published.
Illustrations
By the way, about the Rushes. Nikolai Konstantinovich Rusev was an artist and the father of a brilliant girl Nadya. Nadia, who inherited the ability to draw from her father, made completely unique series of drawings for various works of art. When the binder of the very “Moscow” with the novel fell into her hands, the girl literally went crazy for the book and began new series drawings illustrating The Master and Margarita. During the year she made more than 160 compositions... But the novel, they say, is cursed... “Somehow, at the exhibition, an old artist approached me and Nadia, who wished to remain anonymous. He said that he was familiar with the widow of Mikhail Bulgakov, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, that Nadya, in order to continue her successfully begun work, needed to get to know her, because she also kept all the banknotes (cut out pieces - author's note) issued during the first publication. (N.K. Rushev " Last year Hopes”) Such an indicative artist, don’t you think? Nikolai Rushev met with Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, but without Nadia. On March 6, 1969, an absolutely healthy 16-year-old girl suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Doctors could not save. When the father brought the drawings to Elena Sergeevna, a striking thing turned out: the portrait of Margarita, made by Nadia, conveyed a complete resemblance to the writer's wife, who was the prototype of Margarita. Of course, Nadya had never seen either Elena Sergeevna or her photographs.
Screen adaptations
In our country, the full version of the novel in printed version has not yet been released, but in Poland they have already made a film adaptation. Andrzej Wajda was the first to take a swing at The Master and Margarita, releasing the film Pilate and Others in 1971. They shot it without any special tragedies, it was released, everything is tip-top. And the only oddity is that this film was never shown in Russia.
In 1972, the Italian-Yugoslav version of The Master and Margarita was filmed. Director - Alexander Petrovich. In 1988, another Pole, Maczek Wojtyszko, created an eight-episode TV movie based on the novel. And in no case were there any mystical circumstances that interfered with filming, budgets did not disappear without a trace, the only copies, did not prohibit the screening of films. True, in the 80s, Roman Polanski in Hollywood took on the film adaptation of the novel, and the project was closed, but for quite earthly reasons - the project seemed simply unprofitable to the producers.
Our directors turned out to be a complete mysticism. They already remembered that Woland could not stand electricity, and I even read a version from someone that Bulgakov did not like cinema, and therefore, it means that we can’t do anything with film adaptations ...
Igor Talankin, Elem Klimov, Eldar Ryazanov and others dreamed of making a film based on the novel. whole line talented directors, and none of them managed to realize their dream.
Vladimir Naumov wanted to film The Master and Margarita together with his friend Alexander Alov. Naumov was familiar with the widow of the writer Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova since the time of work on "Running". She worked on the set as a literary consultant, she also gave Naumov to read full version novel. When he started working on the film, Elena Sergeevna had already died. And one night Naumov had a dream that in front door called. The director went to the door and looked through the peephole. “I look: Elena Sergeevna in a fur coat.” He opened the door, invited the guest to come in. She only said: “I'll be here for a minute - Mikhail Afanasyevich is waiting downstairs. I wanted to inform you, Volodya, that there will be no film. The dream turned out to be real.
Ryazanov was simply forbidden to make a film from above. No explanation. He was never able to get to the bottom of the truth, who exactly banned and why.
In 1991, the original script based on the novel was written by Elem Klimov (co-authored with his brother German Klimov) and, being the chairman of the Union of Cinematographers, he received the right to shoot. Newspapers have already written about the future picture. But it was never filmed, because there were no technologies, their development required a lot of money, which he never found.
But Yuri Kara found them somewhere. About $ 15 million was spent on his project. And it is with this film that the most mysteries are associated. The picture was filmed in 1994, but the screens never came out. The director himself recalled that during the filming there were so many obstacles, as if the novel resisted with all its might. “We made expensive scenery of ancient Jerusalem in early autumn in Sudak,” Kara recalled. - But as soon as we were going to start filming, it snowed. Filming had to be canceled and sets had to be redone." When the film was nevertheless shot, the director and producer had a conflict that ended in litigation. Then the film with the film disappeared, and the person who was given it for safekeeping suddenly died. Then, it seems, they found the film and came to a compromise with the producer, but Bulgakov’s relatives suddenly appeared and banned the release of the film ... In short, some kind of unresolved rigmarole, for some reason it seems to me that if they agree with the relatives, then some more insurmountable obstacles.
Vladimir Bortko shot the film on the second attempt. The first was undertaken in 2000, but the project was closed. Starting work on the film for the second time, Bortko film set banned all talk of mysticism. Although he admitted that he once met a strange gentleman at the Patriarchs, who casually threw out: “You won’t succeed.” However, it worked out. Not a masterpiece, of course, but we are not talking about the artistic value of the paintings. The film was filmed and even shown on television!
Here is a selection of facts from the Internet on the topic of mysticism on the set:
People's Artist of Russia Oleg Basilashvili lost his voice on the set of The Master and Margarita. The doctors diagnosed him with a hemorrhage of the ligaments. Colleagues of the artist at the St. Petersburg theater BDT unanimously claim that on the eve of the ill-fated filming, Oleg Valeryanovich felt great. He rehearsed in the play "Quartet" and was in a good mood preparing to work on "The Master and Margarita", where he played Woland's Satan. Problems with his voice began already on the set, when Basilashvili uttered Bulgakov's famous phrases with his inimitable bass. His throat seemed to cramp, the actor began to wheeze and lost consciousness for a few seconds. The next day, having appeared in the theater, Basilashvili could hardly speak. An urgently called doctor prescribed him complete rest and absolute silence for at least a month.
Alexander Kalyagin, who was preparing to play Berlioz, had two heart attacks in a row.
Viktor Avilov played in the Woland Theater with two pectoral crosses. But at the same time, on tour in Germany, his heart stopped twice. The young, full of energy actor died of cancer.
The artist Valery Ivakin, who replaced Avilov in the performance, had a heart attack at the second performance.
Alexander Abdulov, who played Fagot, sadly states: "For the fifth time I play Koroviev with the fifth director, but none of these films has yet been released."
Well .. And even if the fate of Alexander Abdulov somehow painfully echoes Woland's words about lung sarcoma, but here is an excerpt from an interview with Abdulov:
Have you seen the film adaptations of Yuri Kara and Andrzej Wajda, which never reached a wide audience? Are they worth the conversations that arise around them year after year.
Saw. They don't stand. It is not interesting. Vaida, in my opinion, simply did not understand Bulgakov. I have no right to dispute the great director, but it was none of his business. It's not Kara's business. My fellow producer helped shoot his picture. The film lies under his covers, and he does not show it to anyone. He tried to remount it, offered to do it to big directors - everyone refused, even for big money.
That is, there is no mysticism in the fact that the picture of Kara did not come out, no?
Mysticism begins when your brother approaches the discussion of this picture. This is where the Sabbath, the ball of Satan, will begin. You will invent all the mysticism. When we were filming, there was no hell.
Quotes from The Master and Margarita:
Yes, man is mortal, but that would be half the trouble. The bad thing is that he is sometimes suddenly mortal, that's the trick! (Woland)
A brick will never fall on anyone's head for no reason. (Woland)
It is easy and pleasant to speak the truth. (Yeshua Ha-Nozri)
People are like people. They love money, but it has always been... Mankind loves money, no matter what it is made of, whether it is leather, paper, bronze or gold. Well, frivolous ... well, well ... ordinary people... in general, they resemble the former ones ... housing problem only spoiled them ... (Woland)
I congratulate you, citizen, lie! (Bassoon)
Excuse me ... would I allow myself to pour vodka for a lady? It's pure alcohol! (cat Behemoth)
The most interesting thing about this lie is that it is a lie from the first to last word. (Woland)
…never ask for anything! Never and nothing, and especially for those who are stronger than you. They will offer and give everything themselves! (Woland)
(Woland - to Behemoth: Get out.) I haven’t drunk coffee yet, how can I leave? (cat Behemoth)
Manuscripts do not burn. (Woland)
It's nice to hear that you treat the cat so politely. For some reason, cats usually say "you", although not a single cat has ever drunk brotherhood with anyone. (cat Behemoth)
No document, no person. (Koroviev)
Maestro! Cut the march! (Cat)
Beg them to leave me as a witch!.. I won't go either as an engineer or as a technician! (Natasha)
Festive midnight is sometimes nice to delay. (Woland)
…he wasn't verbose this time. The only thing he said was that among human vices he considers cowardice to be one of the most important. (Aphranius, about Yeshua)
I'm not naughty, I'm not touching anyone, I'm fixing the stove. (cat Behemoth)
Well, the one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves. (Woland)
There is only one freshness - the first, it is also the last. And if the sturgeon is of the second freshness, then this means that it is rotten! (Woland)
In the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, in a white cloak with a bloody lining, shuffling with a cavalry gait, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, entered the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great. (Author)
Each will be rewarded according to his faith. (Woland)
History will judge us. (cat Behemoth)
Housekeepers know everything - it's a mistake to think they're blind. (cat Behemoth)
I'll be a silent hallucination. (cat Behemoth)
After all, you think how you can be dead. (Azazello).
He didn't deserve light, he deserved peace. (Levi about the Master).
Why chase in the footsteps of what is already over. (Woland).
Love jumped out in front of us, like a murderer jumping out of the ground in an alley, and hit us both at once! so strikes lightning, so strikes a Finnish knife! (Master).
Yes, I give up, - said the cat, - but I give up solely because I can’t play in an atmosphere of harassment from envious people! (cat Behemoth)
The time will come when there will be no power of Caesars or any other power. Man will pass into the realm of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all.
All power is violence against people.
The cat turned out to be not only solvent, but also a disciplined beast. at the first shout from the conductor, he stopped the advance, took off from the footboard and sat down at the bus stop, rubbing his moustache with a dime. But as soon as the conductor jerked the rope and the tram started, the cat acted like anyone who is expelled from the tram, but who still needs to go. Letting all three carriages past him, the cat jumped onto the back arch of the last one, grabbed with his paw some kind of gut coming out of the wall, and drove off, thus saving a dime.
Understood! - Ivan declared decisively, - I ask you to give me paper and a pen.
“Give me paper and a short pencil,” Stravinsky ordered the fat woman, and Ivan said this: “But today I advise you not to write.
“No, no, today, certainly today,” Ivan cried in alarm.
- OK then. Just don't strain your brain. It won't come out today, it will come out tomorrow... And remember that here we will help you in every possible way, and without this you will not succeed. Do you hear?.. They will help you here... do you hear me?.. They will help you here... they will help you here... You will get relief. It's quiet here, everything is calm... They will help you here...
You know, I can't stand noise, fuss, violence and all sorts of things like that. I especially hate the human cry, whether it be the cry of suffering, rage, or any other cry.
Love jumped out in front of us, like a murderer jumping out of the ground in an alley, and hit us both at once!
This is how lightning strikes, this is how a Finnish knife strikes!
No no no! Not another word! No way and never! I won't take anything in your buffet! I, most respected, passed by your counter yesterday and still cannot forget either sturgeon or cheese. My precious! Bryndza does not come in green color, someone deceived you. She's supposed to be white. Yes, for tea? After all, this is garbage! I saw with my own eyes how some untidy girl was pouring raw water from a bucket into your huge samovar, and meanwhile the tea continued to be poured. No, my dear, that's impossible!
The second freshness - that's nonsense! There is only one freshness - the first, it is also the last. And if the sturgeon is of the second freshness, then this means that it is rotten!
There is something evil lurking in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, table conversation. Such people are either seriously ill or secretly hate those around them. True, exceptions are possible. Among the people who sat down with me at the banquet table, sometimes surprising scoundrels came across!
The darkness that came from the Mediterranean covered the city hated by the procurator. The suspension bridges connecting the temple with the terrible Anthony Tower disappeared, the abyss descended from the sky and flooded the winged gods over the hippodrome, the Hasmonean palace with loopholes, bazaars, caravanserais, lanes, ponds ... Yershalaim disappeared - the great city, as if it did not exist on light...
Trousers are not supposed to be worn by a cat, sir, - the cat answered with great dignity, - won't you order me to put on a boot too? Puss in boots only happens in fairy tales, sir. But have you ever seen anyone at a ball without a tie? I'm not going to be in a comical position and risk being pushed in the neck!
I frankly don't like breaking news on the radio. They are always reported by some girls slurring the names of places. besides, every third of them is tongue-tied, as if they were picked on purpose.
Why chop wood, - the talkative cat picked up, - I would like to serve as a conductor in a tram, and there is nothing worse than this work in the world.
I am in admiration, - Koroviev sang in a monotone, - we are in admiration, the queen is in admiration.
“The queen is in admiration,” Azazello scolded behind his back.
"I'm delighted," cried the cat.
Never ask for anything Never and for nothing, and especially from those who are stronger than you. They will offer and give everything themselves!
I hereby certify that the bearer of this, Nikolai Ivanovich, spent the aforementioned night at Satan's ball, being brought there as a means of transportation ... put a bracket, Gella! Write "boar" in brackets. Signature - Behemoth.
- And the number? squeaked Nikolai Ivanovich.
“We don’t put numbers, with the number the paper will become invalid,” the cat answered, waved the paper, obtained a seal from somewhere, breathed on it in accordance with all the rules, stamped the word “paid” on the paper and handed the paper to Nikolai Ivanovich.
Listen to the silence, - Margarita said to the master, and the sand rustled under her bare feet, - listen and enjoy what you have not been given in life - silence. Look, ahead of you is your eternal home, which you were given as a reward. I can already see the Venetian window and climbing grapes, it rises to the very roof. This is your home, your eternal home. I know that in the evening those whom you love will come to you, whom you are interested in and who will not alarm you. They will play for you, they will sing for you, you will see the light in the room when the candles are burning. You will fall asleep wearing your greasy and eternal cap, you will fall asleep with a smile on your lips. Sleep will strengthen you, you will reason wisely. And you won't be able to drive me away. I will take care of your sleep....
We are making great progress and are gradually approaching the final of the workshop. Whatever we talked about! And about the construction of the work, and about the dynamics of the text, and even about how to find your audience. If at the beginning of the workshop (or at some stage of the workshop) you started working on a big thing, you are good. And if you came here with the thought “this workshop will help me get started on large form”, But so far they haven’t done anything, but you’re still collecting tasks in a piggy bank and putting things off indefinitely, alas, alas. You will not begin your romance soon. If you start at all. However, everyone - and his choice. From myself I can say: participation in the workshop is very important. “I will collect, and then apply” - this is not here. And it's not about writing at all.
So, we are gradually approaching the final. Actually ... yes, we are already at the finish line! We have two materials left, today's and the next, which will be devoted to the types of drafts and editing. Now you understand why I often ask “do you do tasks”? Because the workshop is coming to an end. A workshop is an event where they do not read, but first of all practice. But I sincerely believe that you have begun work on your novel. Perhaps not from the first task, and not even from the second, but they started. And this gives you a huge advantage over those who came just to read.
The structure of the work: split the text and not die
When you write your first novel, you have a lot of questions. And not all of them relate to the planning of the work and the work as such: the climax, the "hooks", the characters. Sometimes purely technical details become a stumbling block. What size chapters are accepted in the literature? How is the work divided into parts? Why are some writers so free with both the former and the latter, and what position should I take as an aspiring writer? Safe or risky, but free? ..
I am one of those writers who say that the most boring thing in literature is stereotypes. No, not stamps, but what is called the beautiful word "ideal". When I hear “an ideal chapter should have twenty thousand characters,” my eye twitches. No, not because it's too big or too small. But because such an “ideal” fetters us hand and foot. What if you, like me, have a wordy style, and your heads are under twenty-five thousand? But what if you, like Anya, rarely have chapters exceeding ten thousand? No, no and NO. No ideals. Let's leave it to others - and let them sit for themselves, adjusting the number of characters in semantic pieces.
I cannot say that there are no rules in planning the structure of a novel. They are. More precisely, it is one rule. And it consists in the following: the structure ALWAYS serves the plot. Not vice versa. Your chapters begin and end in certain places and at certain events because the plot requires it, and not because the slider on the invisible ruler has reached the "ideal". But ... let's go in order.
Let's define concepts
You and I are already adult and serious writers, as part of the workshop we write a big thing, and, therefore, we have something in common with the writers' party. God forbid you from actually getting into it, but there is a fact that cannot be dismissed. The world of literature has its own language, and in order to feel at home among fellow writers, we need to learn it.
Standard view of a Word document
I believe that almost everyone uses this particular editor, and therefore I will talk about it. What is a standard Word document? This font is Times New Roman 12-gauge with a line spacing of 1.15 lines and standard (the program gives them yourself) margins. It is generally accepted that this type is the most convenient for both reading and typing. I use wider margins, indent 1.5 lines, add spacing before and after the paragraph, and set the red line indent to 1.25, because I love the "air" in the document, but to each his own. Now you won't get lost when you hear "standard view document".
"How much is half a page of text?"
Adult and serious writers consider what is written not in semantic pieces, but in words or signs. Word has a "Statistics" tab that allows us to determine this.
Number of words. This method is popular in the English-speaking environment due to the peculiarities of the language, but it is beginning to come into fashion with us. Today, many writers consider what is written in words. But personally I prefer ordinary life count signs. Again, due to the fact that in Russian, due to its peculiarities, words are not very convenient to count.
Number of signs. The most popular way to measure the amount of writing. If we are talking about non-fiction, they consider characters without spaces. If it's about fiction, then they count characters with spaces (with very rare exceptions). The author's sheet (a. l., or alka, if we turn to the writer's jargon) is 40,000 characters with spaces. In author's sheets, the size of the manuscript is measured. Suppose a novel of 800,000 characters is, let's divide 800,000 by 40,000, 20 author's sheets. Not a bad fantasy novel of the traditional size, not small and not large.
Chapters
Before we start talking about chapters, let's turn to our favorite (and not so) works and remember how these same chapters look there. We will notice that their size varies from book to book and from genre to genre. Moreover: there are works where the chapters do not have a fixed size at all.
What unites them? Semantic completeness, logical completeness of one or another piece of text. Why does the author use different chapter lengths?
To create tension
Stephen King is a master at this. In his works, there are sometimes very short, less than one page, chapters, clearly calibrated pieces of text that do not carry a special semantic load, but add tension to the narrative. Chapters can also consist of one sentence spoken by another character (or an impersonal narrator), a kind of insertion between the main chapters.
Changing the pace of the story
Sometimes the authors intersperse long “canvas” chapters with short chapters, alternating between unhurried narrative descriptions and “quick”, spectacular scenes that move the plot. This can be found in detective stories and mystical novels, these are genres where a change of pace is an artistic means in itself.
What to do if the chapter, in your opinion, comes out “too big”, and breaking it into smaller ones is inappropriate? Put magic sign"***". I call this "camera switching" because it gives the piece a cinematic effect, which I really like.
Attention: the reader loves small pieces separated by three asterisks!
Parts
In the case of parts, things are not nearly as obvious as with chapters. At least because every writer understands something of his own by the word “part”. Here is a definition that you can rely on at the very beginning, when you still do not understand what you want from the manuscript. A part is a large semantic piece, separated from other pieces by a clear boundary: for example, temporary or plot. The time limit is “so much time has passed (a month, three months, a year, two hundred years). A storyline is a switch to another storyline, or something related to this switch in one way or another: for example, the introduction of a new character or the introduction of a new storyline.
Are parts really necessary in a work?.. To be honest, you can do without them. Especially if your thing does not extend in time. For example, my novel The Night She Died has two timelines, past and present. I introduce the lines chapter by chapter, alternating between past and present, but without parts, because the story in this case is a single canvas, and it does not need to be broken. In the dilogy "Counselor" I acted differently. The chapters there in the vast majority of cases are parts - there are temporary breaks in the narrative. And the parts are introduced in order to focus on the stages of the development of the hero, on important events for him. Here are two examples where parts and chapters are used as an artistic medium, and not because "it's necessary."
Interludes
A thing that, in a good way, should be attributed to the chapters, but at the same time it is not worth it, because it is not the same thing. An interlude is something like interspersed in the text of the main manuscript. Not a full chapter, but rather a makeweight. It's also a great piece of art. That's what interludes can be.
Poetic
In the "Saga of Prince Grivald" I have them just like that. As interludes, I used the poems of the characters - their thoughts, as it were, between the lines, in poetic form. In this case, poetry complemented prose, revealed it and gave it new shades, making it sound different.
Inserts of an impersonal narrator
We remember that the impersonal narrator is the all-seeing eye that knows everything. With the help of such interludes, you can give short explanations and detail some points hidden from the rest of the characters. But it would be better to use not an impersonal narrator, but ...
Inserts on behalf of other characters
The difference between the interlude on behalf of other characters and the change of narrator (change of point of view) is that in the interlude we introduce the hero one time (or multiple times, but he is not included in the number of narrators anyway). By the way, this is not necessarily an existing living character. Such an interlude could just as well be written "from the perspective" of an animal or a chair, that sort of thing.
Dreams and flashbacks
Let's not forget them, our relatives, glorious and beloved. Most often, it is not dreams or even flashbacks that stand out in the interlude, but memories. Sometimes, based on them, a whole line is built about the character's past, albeit a small one. But in the case of dreams and flashbacks as interludes, there is something very important to consider. The passage must be independent and complete in terms of meaning. Yes, of course, it's not a chapter, but it's not part of a chapter either. Remember this!
Practice time
We divide our novel into chapters and parts, friends. Where do you plan to use long chapters and where do you plan to use short ones? Do you like the idea of interludes?
I wish you good luck with the assignments - and see you next Friday, as part of latest material Workshop "Writing a Novel"!
“I, however,” Koroviev continued to chatter, “knew people who had no idea not only about the fifth dimension, but who had no idea about anything at all, and yet performed the most perfect miracles ...”
M.A. Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov is an artist who left a rich literary legacy in almost all genres: he began with a feuilleton, a story, an essay, created a cycle of original plays and dramatizations that had audience success, wrote novels, librettos, deep and brilliant novels - “The White Guard ”, “The Life of Monsieur de Molière”, “Notes of a Dead Man” and “The Master and Margarita”, - the pinnacle of his work. This last work of the writer, his “sunset novel”, completes the theme that is significant for Bulgakov - the artist and power, this is a novel of difficult and sad thoughts about life, where philosophy and fantasy, mysticism and penetrating lyrics, mild humor and accurate deep satire are combined.
The history of the creation and publication of this most famous novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, one of the most outstanding works in modern domestic and world literature, is complex and dramatic. This final work, as it were, summarizes the writer's ideas about the meaning of life, about man, about his mortality and immortality, about the struggle between good and evil principles in history and in the moral world of man. The foregoing helps to understand Bulgakov's own assessment of his offspring. “Dying, he spoke,” recalled his widow, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova: “Maybe this is right ... What could I write after the Master? ..”
The creative history of The Master and Margarita, in the most general terms, boils down to the following. Bulgakov attributed the idea of the novel and the beginning of work on it to 1928, however, according to other sources, it is obvious that the idea of writing a book about the adventures of the devil in Moscow came to him several years earlier, in the early to mid-1920s.
The first chapters were written in the spring of 1929. On May 8 of this year, Bulgakov handed over to the Nedra publishing house for publication in the almanac of the same name a fragment of the future novel - its separate independent chapter, called “Furibunda Mania”, which in Latin means “violent insanity, mania of rage”. This chapter, from which only fragments not destroyed by the author have come down to us, roughly corresponded in content to the fifth chapter of the printed text “It was in Griboyedov”. In 1929, the main parts of the text of the first edition of the novel were created (and, possibly, a plot-completed draft version of it about the appearance and tricks of the devil in Moscow).
M. Bulgakov wrote a novel, which he read in a certain society, where he was told that they would not let him through in this form, since he was extremely sharp with attacks, then he redid it and thinks of publishing it, and in the original edition, putting it into society as a manuscript and this is simultaneously with the publication in a truncated censored form.” Probably, in the winter of 1928/29, only separate chapters of the novel were written, which were even more politically poignant than the surviving fragments of the early edition. It is possible that the “Furibunda Mania” given to “Nedra” and not fully extant to us was already a softened version of the original text. It is also plausible that Bulgakov’s intention was to let the manuscript circulate freely as “samizdat”: after all, there were already circulating among the interested public lists of “The Cabal of the Hypocrites”, “The Heart of a Dog”, the story “Fatal Eggs” with a different version of the finale that was not published in the collection “Nedr”. This first edition of the novel had at least 15 chapters, of which 10 had titles, and took up about 160 pages of handwritten text in a thick school-format notebook (this is how the handwritten versions of the novel have been preserved).
In the first edition, the author went through several options for the titles of his work: “Black Magician”, “Engineer's Hoof”, “Woland's Tour”, “Son of Doom”, “Juggler with a Hoof”, but did not stop at any. This first edition of the novel was destroyed by Bulgakov on March 18, 1930, after receiving news of the ban on the play The Cabal of Saints. The writer reported this in a letter to the government on March 28, 1930: “And personally, with my own hands, I threw a draft of the novel about the devil into the stove ...” There is no exact information about the degree of plot completion of this edition, but it is obvious from the surviving materials that that compositional juxtaposition of two novels in a novel (“ancient” and modern), which constitutes the genre feature of “The Master and Margarita”.
Written by the hero of this book - the master - "the novel about Pontius Pilate", in fact, is not; A “simply” “strange foreigner” tells Vladimir Mironovich Berlioz and Antosha (Ivanushka) Bezrodny on Patriarch’s Ponds about Yeshua Ha-Notsri, and all the “New Testament” material is presented in one chapter (“The Gospel of Woland”) in the form of a lively conversation of a “foreigner” and his listeners. There are also no future main characters - the master and Margarita. So far, this is a novel about the devil, and in the interpretation of the image of the devil, Bulgakov is at first more traditional than in the final text: his Woland (or Faland) still plays the classic role of a tempter and provocateur (he, for example, teaches Ivanushka to trample on the image of Christ), but the “super task” of the writer is already clear: both Satan and Christ are necessary for the author of the novel as representatives of absolute (albeit “opposite-polar”) truth, opposing the moral relativism of the world of Berlioz, Mogarych, Latunsky, Lavrovich ... For Bulgakov not only denies, but also affirms.
Work on the novel resumed in 1931. The idea of the work is significantly changed and deepened - Margarita appears and her companion - the Poet, who will later be called the master and will take a central place. But so far this place still belongs to Woland, and the novel itself is planned to be called: “Consultant with a hoof”. Bulgakov is working on one of the last chapters (“Flight of Woland”) and in the upper right corner of the sheet with the outlines of this chapter he writes: “Help me, Lord, to finish the novel. 1931”. This edition, the second in a row, was continued by Bulgakov in the autumn of 1932 in Leningrad, where the writer arrived without a single draft - not only the idea, but also the text of this work was so thought out and endured by this time. Almost a year later, on August 2, 1933, he informed the writer V. V. Veresaev about the resumption of work on the novel: “A demon has taken possession of me .... Already in Leningrad and now here, suffocating in my small rooms, I began to dirty page after page of my novel that had been destroyed three years ago. For what? Don't know. I indulge myself! Let it fall into oblivion! However, I will probably give it up soon.” However, Bulgakov no longer abandoned The Master and Margarita, and with interruptions caused by the need to write commissioned plays, dramatizations, scripts and librettos, continued his work on the novel almost to the end of his life.
By November 1933, 500 pages of handwritten text had been written, divided into 37 chapters. The genre is defined by the author himself as a “fantastic novel” - this is how it is written at the top of the sheet with a list of possible titles: “The Great Chancellor. Satan. Here I am. Feather hat. Black theologian. Horseshoe of a foreigner. He came. Advent. Black magician. Counselor's hoof (Consultant with a hoof)”, but Bulgakov did not stop at any of them. All these variants of the title seem to still point to Woland as the main person. However, Woland is already significantly supplanted by the new hero, who becomes the author of the novel about Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and this inner novel is broken in two, and between the chapters that form it (chapters 11 and 16), the love and misadventures of the “Poet” (or “Faust” , as it is called in one of the drafts) and Margarita. By the end of 1934, this edition was rough finished. By this time, the word “master” had already been used three times in the last chapters in an appeal to the “Poet” by Woland, Azazello and Koroviev (who had already received permanent names). Over the next two years, Bulgakov made numerous additions and compositional changes to the manuscript, including finally crossing the lines of the master and Ivan Bezdomny. In July 1936, the last and final chapter of this edition of the novel “The Last Flight” was created, in which the fate of the master, Margarita, Pontius Pilate was determined.
The third edition of the novel was started in late 1936 - early 1937. In the first, unfinished version of this edition, brought to the fifth chapter and occupying 60 pages, Bulgakov, unlike the second edition, moved the story of Pilate and Yeshua again to the beginning of the novel, making up a single second chapter, called "The Golden Spear". In 1937, the second, also unfinished version of this edition was written, brought to the thirteenth chapter (299 pages). It is dated 1928-1937 and is entitled "Prince of Darkness". Finally, the third and only completed version of the third edition of the novel was created from November 1937 to the spring of 1938. This edition takes 6 thick notebooks; The text is divided into thirty chapters. In the second and third versions of this edition, the Yershalaim scenes were introduced into the novel in exactly the same way as in the published text, and in its third version, the well-known and final title appeared - “The Master and Margarita”.
From the end of May to June 24, 1938, this edition was retyped on a typewriter under the dictation of the author, who often changed the text along the way. The editing of this typescript by Bulgakov began on September 19, with individual chapters being rewritten. The epilogue was written on May 14, 1939, immediately in the form that we know.
At the same time, the scene of the appearance of Levi Matthew to Woland was painted with a decision about the fate of the master. When Bulgakov fell mortally ill, his wife Elena Sergeevna continued to correct under her husband's dictation, while this correction was partially entered into typescript, partially into a separate notebook. On January 15, 1940, E. S. Bulgakova wrote in her diary: “Misha, as much as he has enough strength, corrects the novel, I am rewriting it,” and the episodes with Professor Kuzmin and the miraculous transfer of Styopa Likhodeev to Yalta were recorded (before that, the director of the Variety was Garasey Pedulaev , and Woland sent him to Vladikavkaz). The editing was stopped on February 13, 1940, less than four weeks before Bulgakov’s death, at the phrase: “So this, then, is the writers following the coffin?”, in the middle of the nineteenth chapter of the novel ...
The last thoughts and words of the dying writer were directed to this work, which contained his entire creative life: “When at the end of his illness he almost lost his speech, sometimes only the ends and beginnings of words came out of him,” recalled E. S. Bulgakova. - There was a case when I was sitting next to him, as always, on a pillow on the floor, near the head of his bed, he let me know that he needed something, that he wanted something from me. I offered him medicine, drink - lemon juice, but I clearly understood that this was not the point. Then I guessed and asked: “Your things?” He nodded with an air of yes and no. I said: “Master and Margarita?” He, terribly delighted, made a sign with his head that “yes, it is”. And he squeezed out two words: “To know, to know ...” But it was then very difficult to fulfill this dying will of Bulgakov - to print and convey to people, readers the novel he had written.
One of Bulgakov's closest friends and the first biographer of Bulgakov, PS Popov (1892-1964), re-reading the novel after the death of its author, wrote to Elena Sergeevna: “Brilliant craftsmanship always remains brilliant craftsmanship, but now the novel is unacceptable. It will take 50-100 years…” Now, he thought, “the less they know about the novel, the better.” Fortunately, the author of these lines made a mistake in the timing, but in the next 20 years after Bulgakov’s death, we do not find in the literature any mention of the existence of this work in the writer’s legacy, although Elena Sergeyevna made six attempts to break through censorship and print the novel from 1946 to 1966 .
Only in the first edition of Bulgakov's book "The Life of Monsieur de Molière" (1962) did V. A. Kaverin manage to break the conspiracy of silence and mention the existence of the novel "The Master and Margarita" in the manuscript. Kaverin firmly stated that “the inexplicable indifference to the work of Mikhail Bulgakov, which sometimes inspired a deceptive hope that there were many like him and that, therefore, his absence in our literature does not constitute a big problem, this is harmful indifference ...” Four years later, the magazine “ Moscow ”(No. 11 for 1966 and No. 1 for 1967) published the novel in an abridged version with numerous censorship cuts and editing that distort the meaning of the text compared to the final, fourth and first posthumous edition of the novel presented by E. S. Bulgakova. The journal version of the book with censorship omissions and distortions and abbreviations made at the initiative of the management of the editorial office of Moskva (E. S. Bulgakova was forced to agree to all this, if only to keep the word given to the dying author, to publish this work), was thus , the fifth edition, which was published abroad as a separate book.
The response to this publisher's arbitrariness was the appearance in "samizdat" of typewritten text of all the passages released or distorted in a journal publication with an exact indication of where to insert the missing or replace the distorted. The author of this "cut" edition was Elena Sergeevna herself and her friends. Such a text, which was one of the variants of the fourth (1940-1941) edition of the novel, was released in 1969 in Frankfurt am Main by the Posev publishing house. Portions omitted or "edited" from the journal publication were in italics in the 1969 edition. What did such censoring and voluntaristic “editing” of the novel represent? What goals did it pursue? Now this is quite clear. 159 banknotes were made: 21 in the 1st part and 138 in the 2nd; in total more than 14,000 words (12% of the text!). Bulgakov's text was grossly distorted, phrases from different pages were arbitrarily combined, sometimes completely meaningless sentences arose. The reasons related to the literary and ideological canons that existed at that time are obvious: most of all, the places that describe the actions of the Roman secret police and the work of “one of the Moscow institutions”, the similarity of the ancient and modern world are removed. Further, the “inadequate” reaction of the “Soviet people” to our reality and some of their very unattractive features was weakened. The role and moral strength of Yeshua was weakened in the spirit of vulgar anti-religious propaganda. Finally, the “censor” in many cases showed a kind of “chastity”: some persistent references to the nakedness of Margarita, Natasha and other women at Woland’s ball were removed, a naked fat man, a keeper of a brothel in Strasbourg and an enterprising Moscow dressmaker, were removed, Margarita’s witch rudeness was weakened and etc.
When preparing a complete uncensored domestic edition, which was published in 1973, the edition of the early 1940s was restored, followed by its textual revision, carried out by the editor of the Khudozhestvennaya Literatura publishing house (where the novel was published) A. A. Saakyants. Published after the death of E. S. Bulgakova (in 1970), this actually sixth edition of the novel was fixed for a long time as canonical by numerous reprints, and as such was introduced into literary circulation in the 1970s-1980s. Finally, for the Kiev edition of 1989 and the Moscow collected works of 1989-1990, the seventh and last edition of the text of the novel was made with a new reconciliation based on all surviving author's materials, made by the literary critic L. M. Yanovskaya. At the same time, however, it should be remembered that, as in many other cases in the history of literature, when there is no definitive author's text, the novel remains open to clarifications and new readings. And such a case with The Master and Margarita is almost classical in its way: Bulgakov died while working on finishing the text of the novel, he failed to fulfill his own textological task for this work. Therefore, there are obvious traces of a flaw in the novel even in its plot part (Woland is limping and not limping; Berlioz is called either the chairman or the secretary of Massolit; the white bandage with a strap on Yeshua's head is suddenly replaced by a turban; Margarita and Natasha "pre-witch status" disappear somewhere; Aloysius appears without explanation, he and Varenukha fly out first from the bedroom window, and then from the window of the stairwell, Gella is absent in the “last flight”, although he leaves the “bad apartment”, etc., and it is impossible to explain this as “on purpose conceived”), some stylistic errors are also noticeable. So the history of the publication of the novel did not end there, especially since all of its early editions were published.
Illustrations
By the way, about the Rushes. Nikolai Konstantinovich Rusev was an artist and the father of a brilliant girl Nadya. Nadia, who inherited the ability to draw from her father, made completely unique series of drawings for various works of art. When the binder of the very “Moscow” with the novel fell into her hands, the girl literally became obsessed with the book and began a new series of drawings illustrating The Master and Margarita. During the year she made more than 160 compositions... But the novel, they say, is cursed... “Somehow, at the exhibition, an old artist approached me and Nadia, who wished to remain anonymous. He said that he was familiar with the widow of Mikhail Bulgakov, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, that Nadia, in order to continue her successfully begun work, needed to get to know her, because she also kept all the banknotes (cut out pieces - author's note) issued during the first publication. (N.K. Rushev "The Last Year of Hope") Such an indicative artist, don't you think? Nikolai Rushev met with Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, but without Nadia. On March 6, 1969, an absolutely healthy 16-year-old girl suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Doctors could not save. When the father brought the drawings to Elena Sergeevna, a striking thing turned out: the portrait of Margarita, made by Nadia, conveyed a complete resemblance to the writer's wife, who was the prototype of Margarita. Of course, Nadya had never seen either Elena Sergeevna or her photographs.
Screen adaptations
In our country, the full version of the novel in printed version has not yet been released, but in Poland they have already made a film adaptation. Andrzej Wajda was the first to take a swing at The Master and Margarita, releasing the film Pilate and Others in 1971. They shot it without any special tragedies, it was released, everything is tip-top. And the only oddity is that this film was never shown in Russia.
In 1972, the Italian-Yugoslav version of The Master and Margarita was filmed. Director - Alexander Petrovich. In 1988, another Pole, Maczek Wojtyszko, created an eight-episode TV movie based on the novel. And in no case were there any mystical circumstances that interfered with filming, budgets did not disappear without a trace, the only copies did not evaporate, or films were not banned from showing. True, in the 80s, Roman Polanski in Hollywood took on the film adaptation of the novel, and the project was closed, but for quite earthly reasons - the project seemed simply unprofitable to the producers.
Our directors turned out to be a complete mysticism. They already remembered that Woland could not stand electricity, and I even read a version from someone that Bulgakov did not like cinema, and therefore, it means that we can’t do anything with film adaptations ...
Igor Talankin, Elem Klimov, Eldar Ryazanov and a number of talented directors dreamed of making a film based on the novel, and none of them managed to make their dream come true.
Vladimir Naumov wanted to film The Master and Margarita together with his friend Alexander Alov. Naumov was familiar with the widow of the writer Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova since the time of work on "Running". She worked on the set as a literary consultant, and she also gave Naumov the full version of the novel to read. When he started working on the film, Elena Sergeevna had already died. And one night Naumov had a dream that the front door rang. The director went to the door and looked through the peephole. “I look: Elena Sergeevna in a fur coat.” He opened the door, invited the guest to come in. She only said: “I'll be here for a minute - Mikhail Afanasyevich is waiting downstairs. I wanted to inform you, Volodya, that there will be no film. The dream turned out to be real.
Ryazanov was simply forbidden to make a film from above. No explanation. He was never able to get to the bottom of the truth, who exactly banned and why.
In 1991, the original script based on the novel was written by Elem Klimov (co-authored with his brother German Klimov) and, being the chairman of the Union of Cinematographers, he received the right to shoot. Newspapers have already written about the future picture. But it was never filmed, because there were no technologies, their development required a lot of money, which he never found.
But Yuri Kara found them somewhere. About $ 15 million was spent on his project. And it is with this film that the most mysteries are associated. The picture was filmed in 1994, but the screens never came out. The director himself recalled that during the filming there were so many obstacles, as if the novel resisted with all its might. “We made expensive scenery of ancient Jerusalem in early autumn in Sudak,” Kara recalled. - But as soon as we were going to start filming, it snowed. Filming had to be canceled and sets had to be redone." When the film was nevertheless shot, the director and producer had a conflict that ended in litigation. Then the film with the film disappeared, and the person who was given it for safekeeping suddenly died. Then, it seems, they found the film and came to a compromise with the producer, but Bulgakov’s relatives suddenly appeared and banned the release of the film ... In short, some kind of unresolved rigmarole, for some reason it seems to me that if they agree with the relatives, then some more insurmountable obstacles.
Vladimir Bortko shot the film on the second attempt. The first was undertaken in 2000, but the project was closed. Starting work on the film for the second time, Bortko banned all talk of mysticism on the set. Although he admitted that he once met a strange gentleman at the Patriarchs, who casually threw out: “You won’t succeed.” However, it worked out. Not a masterpiece, of course, but we are not talking about the artistic value of the paintings. The film was filmed and even shown on television!
Here is a selection of facts from the Internet on the topic of mysticism on the set:
People's Artist of Russia Oleg Basilashvili lost his voice on the set of The Master and Margarita. The doctors diagnosed him with a hemorrhage of the ligaments. Colleagues of the artist at the St. Petersburg theater BDT unanimously claim that on the eve of the ill-fated filming, Oleg Valeryanovich felt great. He rehearsed in the play "Quartet" and was in a good mood preparing to work on "The Master and Margarita", where he played Woland's Satan. Problems with his voice began already on the set, when Basilashvili uttered Bulgakov's famous phrases with his inimitable bass. His throat seemed to cramp, the actor began to wheeze and lost consciousness for a few seconds. The next day, having appeared in the theater, Basilashvili could hardly speak. An urgently called doctor prescribed him complete rest and absolute silence for at least a month.
Alexander Kalyagin, who was preparing to play Berlioz, had two heart attacks in a row.
Viktor Avilov played in the Woland Theater with two pectoral crosses. But at the same time, on tour in Germany, his heart stopped twice. The young, full of energy actor died of cancer.
The artist Valery Ivakin, who replaced Avilov in the performance, had a heart attack at the second performance.
Alexander Abdulov, who played Fagot, sadly states: "For the fifth time I play Koroviev with the fifth director, but none of these films has yet been released."
Well .. And even if the fate of Alexander Abdulov somehow painfully echoes Woland's words about lung sarcoma, but here is an excerpt from an interview with Abdulov:
Have you seen the film adaptations of Yuri Kara and Andrzej Wajda, which never reached a wide audience? Are they worth the conversations that arise around them year after year.
Saw. They don't stand. It is not interesting. Vaida, in my opinion, simply did not understand Bulgakov. I have no right to dispute the great director, but it was none of his business. It's not Kara's business. My fellow producer helped shoot his picture. The film lies under his covers, and he does not show it to anyone. He tried to remount it, offered to do it to big directors - everyone refused, even for big money.
That is, there is no mysticism in the fact that the picture of Kara did not come out, no?
Mysticism begins when your brother approaches the discussion of this picture. This is where the Sabbath, the ball of Satan, will begin. You will invent all the mysticism. When we were filming, there was no hell.
Quotes from The Master and Margarita:
Yes, man is mortal, but that would be half the trouble. The bad thing is that he is sometimes suddenly mortal, that's the trick! (Woland)
A brick will never fall on anyone's head for no reason. (Woland)
It is easy and pleasant to speak the truth. (Yeshua Ha-Nozri)
People are like people. They love money, but it has always been... Mankind loves money, no matter what it is made of, whether it is leather, paper, bronze or gold. Well, they are frivolous ... well, well ... ordinary people ... in general, they resemble the former ones ... the housing problem only spoiled them ... (Woland)
I congratulate you, citizen, lie! (Bassoon)
Excuse me ... would I allow myself to pour vodka for a lady? It's pure alcohol! (cat Behemoth)
The most interesting thing about this lie is that it is a lie from the first to the last word. (Woland)
…never ask for anything! Never and nothing, and especially for those who are stronger than you. They will offer and give everything themselves! (Woland)
(Woland to Behemoth: Get out.) I haven't drunk coffee yet, how am I going to leave? (cat Behemoth)
Manuscripts do not burn. (Woland)
It's nice to hear that you treat the cat so politely. For some reason, cats usually say "you", although not a single cat has ever drunk brotherhood with anyone. (cat Behemoth)
No document, no person. (Koroviev)
Maestro! Cut the march! (Cat)
Beg them to leave me as a witch!.. I won't go either as an engineer or as a technician! (Natasha)
Festive midnight is sometimes nice to delay. (Woland)
…he wasn't verbose this time. The only thing he said is that among human vices, he considers cowardice to be one of the most important. (Aphranius, about Yeshua)
I'm not naughty, I'm not touching anyone, I'm fixing the stove. (cat Behemoth)
Well, the one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves. (Woland)
There is only one freshness - the first, it is also the last. And if the sturgeon is of the second freshness, then this means that it is rotten! (Woland)
In the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, in a white cloak with a bloody lining, shuffling with a cavalry gait, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, entered the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great. (Author)
Each will be rewarded according to his faith. (Woland)
History will judge us. (cat Behemoth)
Housekeepers know everything - it's a mistake to think they're blind. (cat Behemoth)
I'll be a silent hallucination. (cat Behemoth)
After all, you think how you can be dead. (Azazello).
He didn't deserve light, he deserved peace. (Levi about the Master).
Why chase in the footsteps of what is already over. (Woland).
Love jumped out in front of us, like a murderer jumping out of the ground in an alley, and hit us both at once! so strikes lightning, so strikes a Finnish knife! (Master).
Yes, I give up, - said the cat, - but I give up solely because I can’t play in an atmosphere of harassment from envious people! (cat Behemoth)
The time will come when there will be no power of Caesars or any other power. Man will pass into the realm of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all.
All power is violence against people.
The cat turned out to be not only solvent, but also a disciplined beast. at the first shout from the conductor, he stopped the advance, took off from the footboard and sat down at the bus stop, rubbing his moustache with a dime. But as soon as the conductor jerked the rope and the tram started, the cat acted like anyone who is expelled from the tram, but who still needs to go. Letting all three carriages past him, the cat jumped onto the back arch of the last one, grabbed with his paw some kind of gut coming out of the wall, and drove off, thus saving a dime.
Understood! - Ivan declared decisively, - I ask you to give me paper and a pen.
“Give me paper and a short pencil,” Stravinsky ordered the fat woman, and Ivan said this: “But today I advise you not to write.
“No, no, today, certainly today,” Ivan cried in alarm.
- OK then. Just don't strain your brain. It won't come out today, it will come out tomorrow... And remember that here we will help you in every possible way, and without this you will not succeed. Do you hear? .. They will help you here ... do you hear me? .. They will help you here ... you will be helped here ... You will get relief. It's quiet here, everything is calm... You will be helped here...
You know, I can't stand noise, fuss, violence and all sorts of things like that. I especially hate the human cry, whether it be the cry of suffering, rage, or any other cry.
Love jumped out in front of us, like a murderer jumping out of the ground in an alley, and hit us both at once!
This is how lightning strikes, this is how a Finnish knife strikes!
No no no! Not another word! No way and never! I won't take anything in your buffet! I, most respected, passed by your counter yesterday and still cannot forget either sturgeon or cheese. My precious! Bryndza does not come in green color, someone deceived you. She's supposed to be white. Yes, for tea? After all, this is garbage! I saw with my own eyes how some untidy girl was pouring raw water from a bucket into your huge samovar, and meanwhile the tea continued to be poured. No, my dear, that's impossible!
The second freshness - that's nonsense! There is only one freshness - the first, it is also the last. And if the sturgeon is of the second freshness, then this means that it is rotten!
There is something evil lurking in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, table conversation. Such people are either seriously ill or secretly hate those around them. True, exceptions are possible. Among the people who sat down with me at the banquet table, sometimes surprising scoundrels came across!
... the darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city hated by the procurator. The suspension bridges connecting the temple with the terrible Anthony Tower disappeared, the abyss descended from the sky and flooded the winged gods over the hippodrome, the Hasmonean palace with loopholes, bazaars, caravanserais, lanes, ponds ... Yershalaim disappeared - the great city, as if it did not exist in the world ...
Trousers are not supposed to be worn by a cat, sir, - the cat answered with great dignity, - won't you order me to put on a boot too? Puss in boots only happens in fairy tales, sir. But have you ever seen anyone at a ball without a tie? I'm not going to be in a comical position and risk being pushed in the neck!
I frankly don't like breaking news on the radio. They are always reported by some girls slurring the names of places. besides, every third of them is tongue-tied, as if they were picked on purpose.
Why chop wood, - the talkative cat picked up, - I would like to serve as a conductor in a tram, and there is nothing worse than this work in the world.
I am in admiration, - Koroviev sang in a monotone, - we are in admiration, the queen is in admiration.
“The queen is in admiration,” Azazello scolded behind his back.
"I'm delighted," cried the cat.
Never ask for anything Never and for nothing, and especially from those who are stronger than you. They will offer and give everything themselves!
I hereby certify that the bearer of this, Nikolai Ivanovich, spent the aforementioned night at Satan's ball, being brought there as a means of transportation ... put a bracket, Gella! Write "boar" in brackets. Signature - Behemoth.
- And the number? squeaked Nikolai Ivanovich.
“We don’t put numbers, with the number the paper will become invalid,” the cat answered, waved the paper, obtained a seal from somewhere, breathed on it in accordance with all the rules, stamped the word “paid” on the paper and handed the paper to Nikolai Ivanovich.
Listen to the silence, - Margarita said to the master, and the sand rustled under her bare feet, - listen and enjoy what you have not been given in life - silence. Look, ahead of you is your eternal home, which you were given as a reward. I can already see the Venetian window and climbing grapes, it rises to the very roof. This is your home, your eternal home. I know that in the evening those whom you love will come to you, whom you are interested in and who will not alarm you. They will play for you, they will sing for you, you will see the light in the room when the candles are burning. You will fall asleep wearing your greasy and eternal cap, you will fall asleep with a smile on your lips. Sleep will strengthen you, you will reason wisely. And you won't be able to drive me away. I will take care of your sleep ....
This is a graphic novel by illustrator Igor Oleinikov, who worked at the Soyuzmultfilm film studio on famous films“Once upon a time there was a dog”, “Journey of an ant”, “Martynko”.
We talked about the novel itself, how it was invented, about hidden meanings and how to remain a "hungry" artist and finally start painting.
Larisa: Why did you choose this particular Russian fairy tale?
Igor: Before this book, I was doing another one - about Dahl's fairy tales. And there was this fairy tale about the fox and the hare. When I decided to make a graphic novel, I thought that it should be very famous history but told in a completely new way. And just in this fairy tale, everything came together.
I tried to look for other fairy tales, but did not find a better one. This one is the most expressive. Here is a vivid conflict, and expressive animals, and characters. The fight between good and evil, where evil is a fox, an infernal and evil creature in folklore, and good is a rooster that drives away evil spirits.
Larisa: I have read many interpretations of your fairy tale: someone thinks that this is a story about learning to resist the evil that exists in the world. There was also a version that the rooster is a phoenix, the creative energy of fire, and the book is tied to the current year of the rooster. But what is the story really about? What is it about?
Igor: About the fears that we all have. And about how these fears manipulate us. Everyone is subject to fears to one degree or another, and so am I. By the way, this idea did not immediately come to me. At first it was just an expressive tale, and then I realized that it was about our fears.
Each hero of the fairy tale is afraid of something, and the fox manipulates them through these fears. She projects his own fear to everyone. A dog is a military man, and every military man is afraid of his superior. Therefore, the fox is in the form of a general. The bear is a criminal and is being scared by the police. The bull ran out of the arena. But the fox was taken by the same fear - death. A rooster with a scythe personifies this fear. He puts on a fox skull, there is even a tail, with a red tassel at the end.
Larisa: So many small references, meanings! Looks like I need to take a closer look at each picture.
Igor: Yes, here you need to look at the picture and turn on. You can't just skim through this book. Here you need to think a little. This story is not for children, and not for all adults. By the way, in the book there is the text of the tale itself, which clarifies what is happening. The story should raise many questions. In fact, this is such a social graphic novel and for modern Russia the topic is very relevant.
Larisa: How long did it take you to work on the book? How did you write it?
Igor: I worked on the book for two months, probably. Very quickly, because for me it was one sheer pleasure, a stream of positive.
How did I draw her? I generally like to take a book and pull it out of it. hidden meaning, find the second, third, fourth layer. You sit on the sofa with a notepad, start scribbling, and suddenly thoughts start to creep in. Plus, of course, I had a lot of practice at Soyuzmultfilm, after all, 30 years in animation. And there you have to constantly come up with something.
Larisa: Usually writers, artists and directors sew in some kind of secrets, etc. Do you have any of these stitched-in things in your book?
Igor: Now I will remember. I started with the fact that someone is standing and looking at a photo of the house. We can't see who it is from the back. And then the story begins. Later, at the very end, the picture reveals to us that this someone is a janitor with a shovel. We drive off, and this is a fox. A fox who works as a janitor now.
In the story, the fox collects money from his relatives and illegally builds a giant superstructure, turning the house into a hostel, which he rents out and uses for his own enrichment. And then a hurricane that destroyed everything, and now relatives are ruining the fox with their lawsuits. In general, there was also an economic background.
By the way, in all variations of the tale there is no ending where the rooster would let the fox go. Such a fairy tale is cheerful, kind, but in the end, the rooster must have killed the fox. Why did he kill her, why couldn't he let her go? And we thought with the publisher: let go or kill? Still, they decided to do it like in a fairy tale and hacked her to death. At the end of the book there is a grave, and on it is the shadow of a hare. If at the beginning the shadow of the fox lies on the hare, on the cover, then here the shadow of the hare lies on the fox. Such is the cycle.
Larisa: What would you advise to those who want to become an artist, start drawing, but are afraid for some reason?
Igor: The main thing is not to be afraid. That's all. Although it is very difficult. Many people are afraid to fall in their own eyes, to lower their self-esteem when they hear - no, this does not suit us. Afraid of getting rejected. I see that it is present in almost all young people. You have to be very brave to avoid this.
I even have an example about a woman who worked at Soyuzmultfilm at the same time as me. She was an assistant director and couldn't draw, but she was terribly eager to learn. One of her acquaintances, an artist, began to paint still lifes for her, and she began to paint, not giving a damn about anything. public opinion. And this woman became an absolutely remarkable artist, entered the International Union of Artists, her paintings were exhibited at famous exhibitions. She was able to do all this simply because she was sneezing at every opinion.
Larisa: And how did you overcome these fears yourself? Or, perhaps, it was just a great love for this business?
Igor: First of all, I have always loved to draw, always. And to be honest, my father kicked me in the ass from the design institute, where I worked as an engineer in his department. Gave me the courage to act. So I got to Soyuzmultfilm. And then it went on its own.
Larisa: What do you think ruins talented artists more often?
Igor: Destroys, the artist ceases to develop. I also, of course, find it difficult to switch to a new one, but at least I try. It destroys when you start to work mechanically.
Larisa: There is such famous phrase that the artist must be hungry. In what sense do you understand it, what is it for you?
Igor: This is not physical hunger, this is a desire to work, look for something new (physically, of course, you need to be full, because being hungry you will take on anything just to earn money). Desire, like movement, is life. They say old age comes when desires disappear. I still have a desire to work.
