The Master and Margarita

Epigraph

1

The epigraph comes from the scene entitled ‘Faust’s Study’ in the first part of the drama Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1842). The question is asked by Faust; the answer comes from the demon Mephistopheles.

2

the Patriarch’s Ponds: Bulgakov uses the old name for what in 1918 was rechristened ‘Pioneer Ponds’. Originally these were three ponds, only one of which remains, on the place where Philaret, eighteenth-century patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, had his residence.

3

Berlioz: Bulgakov names several of his characters after composers. In addition to Berlioz, there will be the financial director Rimsky and the psychiatrist Stravinsky. The efforts of critics to find some meaning behind this fact seem rather strained.

4

Massolit: An invented but plausible contraction parodying the many contractions introduced in post-revolutionary Russia. There will be others further on - Dramlit House (House for Dramatists and Literary Workers), findirector (financial director), and so on.

5

Homeless: In early versions of the novel, Bulgakov called his poet Bezrodny (‘Pastless’ or ’Familyless‘). Many ’proletarian’ writers adopted such pen-names, the most famous being Alexei Peshkov, who called himself Maxim Gorky (gorky meaning ‘bitter’). Others called themselves Golodny (‘Hungry’), Besposhchadny (‘Merciless’), Pribludny (‘Stray’). Worthy of special note here is the poet Efim Pridvorov, who called himself Demian Bedny (‘Poor’), author of violent anti-religious poems. It may have been the reading of Bedny that originally sparked Bulgakov’s impulse to write The Master and Margarita. In his Journal of 1925 (the so-called ‘Confiscated Journal’ which turned up in the files of the KGB and was published in 1990), Bulgakov noted: ‘Jesus Christ is presented as a scoundrel and swindler ... There is no name for this crime.’

6

Kislovodsk: Literally ’acid waters‘, a popular resort in the northern Caucasus, famous for its mineral springs.

7

Philo of Alexandria: (20 BC-AD 54), Greek philosopher of Jewish origin, a biblical exegete and theologian, influenced both the Neo-Platonists and early Christian thinkers.

8

Flavius Josephus: (AD 37-100), Jewish general and historian, born in Jerusalem, the author of The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews. Incidentally, Berlioz is mistaken: Christ is mentioned in the latter work.

9

Tacitus’s [famous] Annals: A work, covering the years AD 14-66, by Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (AD 55-120). He also wrote a History of the years AD 69-70, among other works. Modem scholarship rejects the opinion that the passage Berlioz refers to here is a later interpolation.

10

Osiris: Ancient Egyptian protector of the dead, brother and husband of Isis, and father of the hawk-headed Horus, a ’corn god‘, annually killed and resurrected.

11

Tammuz: A Syro-Phoenician demi-god, like Osiris a spirit of annual vegetation.

12

Marduk: Babylonian sun-god, leader of a revolt against the old deities and institutor of a new order.

13

Vitzliputzli: Also known as Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of war, to whom human sacrifices were offered.

14

a poodle’s head: In Goethe’s Faust, Mephistopheles first gets to Faust by taking the form of a black poodle.

15

a foreigner: Foreigners aroused both curiosity and suspicion in Soviet Russia, representing both the glamour of ’abroad’ and the possibility of espionage.

16

Adonis: Greek version of the Syro-Phoenician demi-god Tammuz.

17

Attis: Phrygian god, companion to Cybele. He was castrated and bled to death.

18

Mithras: God of light in ancient Persian Mazdaism.

19

Magi: The three wise men from the east (a magus was a member of the Persian priestly caste) who visited the newborn Jesus (Matt. 2:1-12).

20

restless old Immanuel: Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), German idealist philosopher, thought that the moral law innate in man implied freedom, immortality and the existence of God.

21

Schiller: Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), German poet and playwright, a liberal idealist.

22

Strauss: David Strauss (1808-74), German theologian, author of a Life of Jesus, considered the Gospel story as belonging to the category of myth.

23

Solovki: A casual name for the ‘Solovetsky Special Purpose Camps’ located on the site of a former monastery on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea. They were of especially terrible renown during the thirties. The last prisoners were loaded on a barge and drowned in the White Sea in 1939.

24

Enemies? Intementionists?: There was constant talk in the early Soviet period of ’enemies of the revolution’ and ‘foreign interventionists’ seeking to subvert the new workers’ state.

25

Komsomol: Contraction of the Union of Communist Youth, which all good Soviet young people were expected to join.

26

A Russian émigré: Many Russians opposed to the revolution emigrated abroad, forming important ’colonies’ in various capitals - Berlin, Paris, Prague, Harbin, Shanghai — where they remained potential spies and interventionists.

27

Gerbert of Aurillac: (938-1003), theologian and mathematician, popularly taken to be a magician and alchemist. He became pope in 999 under the name of Sylvester II.

28

Nisan: The seventh month of the Jewish lunar calendar, twenty-nine days in length. The fifteenth day of Nisan (beginning at sundown on the fourteenth) is the start of the feast of Passover, commemorating the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.

29

Herod the Great: (?73 BC-AD 4), a clever politician whom the Romans rewarded for his services by making king of Judea, an honour he handed on to his son and grandson.

30

Judea: The southern part of Palestine, subject to Rome since 63 BC, named for Judah, fourth son of Jacob. In AD 6 it was made a Roman province with the procurator’s seat at Caesarea.

31

Pontius Pilate: Roman procurator of Judea from about AD 26 to 36. Outside the Gospels, virtually nothing is known of him, though he is mentioned in the passage from Tacitus referred to above. Bulgakov drew details for his portrayal of the procurator from fictional lives of Jesus by F. W. Farrar (1831-1903), Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, and by Ernest Renan (1823-92), French historian and lapsed Catholic, as well as by the previously mentioned David Strauss.

32

Twelfth Lightning legion: Bulgakov translates the actual Latin nickname (fulminata) by which the Twelfth legion was known at least as early as the time of the emperors Nerva and Trajan (late first century AD), and probably earlier.

33

Yershalaim: An alternative transliteration from Hebrew of the name of Jerusalem. In certain other cases as well, Bulgakov has preferred the distancing effect of these alternatives: Yeshua for Jesus, Kaifa for Caiaphas, Kiriath for Iscariot.

34

Galilee: The northern part of Palestine, green and fertile, with its capital at Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinnereth). In Galilee at that time, the tetrarch (ruler of one of the four Roman subdivisions of Palestine) was Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. According to the Gospel of Luke (23:7–11), Herod Antipas was in Jerusalem at the time of Christ’s crucifixion.

35

Sanhedrin: The highest Jewish legislative and judicial body, headed by the high priest of the temple in Jerusalem. The lower courts of justice were called lesser sanhedrins.

36

Aramaic: Name of the northern branch of Semitic languages, used extensively in south-west Asia, adopted by the Jews after the Babylonian captivity in the late sixth century BC.

37

the temple of Yershalaim: Built by King Solomon (tenth century BC), the first temple was destroyed by the Babylonian invaders in 586 BC. The second temple, built in 537-515 BC, rebuilt and embellished by Herod the Great, was destroyed by Titus in AD 70. No third temple has been built. One of the accusations against Jesus in the Gospels was that he threatened to destroy the temple (see Mark 13:1-2,14:58). It may be well to note here that Bulgakov’s Yeshua is not intended as a faithful depiction of Jesus or as a ‘revisionist’ alternative to the Christ of the Gospels, though he does borrow a number of details from the Gospels in portraying him.

38

Hegemon: Greek for ’leader’ or ‘governor’.

39

Yeshua: Aramaic for ‘the lord is salvation’. Ha-Nozri means ‘of Nazareth’, the town in Galilee where Jesus lived before beginning his public ministry.

40

Gamala: A town north-east of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, not traditionally connected with Jesus.

41

Matthew Levi: Compare the Matthew Levi of the Gospels, a former tax collector, one of the twelve disciples (Matt. 9:9, Mark 2:14, Luke 5:27), author of the first Gospel. Again, Bulgakov’s character is not meant as an accurate portrayal of Christ’s disciple (about whom virtually nothing is known) but is a free variation on the theme of discipleship.

42

Bethphage: Hebrew for ‘house of figs’, the name of a village near Jerusalem which Jesus passed through on his final journey to the city.

43

What is truth?: Pilate’s question to Christ in the Gospel of John (18:38).

44

the Mount of Olives: A hill to the east of Jerusalem. At the foot of this hill is Gethsemane (‘the olive press’), just across the stream of Kedron. It was here that Christ was arrested (Matt. 26:36, Mark 14:32, Luke 22:39, John 18:1). These places will be important later in the novel.

45

the Susa gate Also known as the Golden gate, on the east side of Jerusalem, facing the Mount of Olives.

46

riding on an ass: The Gospels are unanimous in describing Christ’s entry into Jerusalem riding on an ass (Matt. 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28- 38, John 12:12-19).

47

Dysmas ... Gestas ... Bar-Rabban: The first two are the thieves crucified with Christ; not given in the canonical Gospels, the names here come from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (part of which is known as ‘the Acts of Pilate’), one of Bulgakov’s references during the writing of the novel. The third is a variant on the Barabbas of the Gospels.

48

Idistaviso: Mentioned in Tacitus’s Annals (2:16) as the site of a battle between the Romans and the Germani in AD 16, on the right bank of the Weser, in which the Roman general Germanicus defeated the army of Arminius.

49

another appeared in its place: Pilate’s nightmarish vision is of the aged emperor Tiberius (42 BC — AD 37), who spent many years in seclusion on the island of Capri, where he succumbed to all sorts of vicious passions. The law of lese-majesty (offence against the sovereign people or authority) existed in Rome under the republic; it was revived by Augustus and given wide application by Tiberius.

50

Judas from Kiriath: Bulgakov’s variant of Judas Iscariot is developed quite differently from the Judas of the Gospel accounts, though they have in common their betrayal and the reward they get for it from the high priest.

51

Lit the lamps: According to B. V. Sokolov’s commentary to the Vysshaya Shkola edition of the novel (Leningrad, 1989), the law demanded that lights be lit so that the concealed witnesses for the accusation could see the face of the criminal. This would explain Pilate’s unexpected knowledge.

52

Bald Mountain: Also referred to in the novel as Bald Hill and Bald Skull, the site corresponds to the Golgotha (‘place of the skull’) of the Gospels, where Christ was crucified, though topographically Bulgakov’s hill is higher and farther from the city. There is also a Bald Mountain near Kiev, Bulgakov’s native city.

53

Kaifa: Bulgakov’s variant of the name of the high priest Caiaphas, mentioned in the Gospels and in historical records.

54

Kaifa politely apologized: Going under the roof of a gentile would have made the high priest unclean and therefore unable to celebrate the coming feast.

55

Bar-Rabban or Ha-Nozri?: The same choice is offered in the Gospel accounts (see Matt. 27:15-23, Mark 15:6-15, John 19:39-40).

56

there floated some purple mass: According to B. V. Sokolov, there existed a legend according to which Pilate died by drowning himself. That may be what Bulgakov has in mind here.

57

equestrian of the Golden Spear: The equestrian order of Roman nobility was next in importance to the Senate. Augustus reformed the order, after which it supplied occupants for many administrative posts. The name Pilate (Pilatus) may derive from pilum, Latin for ’spear‘.

58

Metropol: A luxury hotel in Moscow, built at the turn of the century, decorated with mosaics by the artist Vrubel. Used mainly by foreigners during the Soviet period, it still exists and has recently been renovated.

59

about a dozen extinguished primuses: The shortage of living space after the revolution led to the typically Soviet phenomenon of the communal apartment, in which several families would have one or two private rooms and share kitchen and toilet facilities. This led to special psychological conditions among people and to a specific literary genre (the communal-apartment story, which still flourishes in Russia). The primus stove, a portable one-burner stove fuelled with pressurized benzene, made its appearance at the same time and became a symbol of communal-apartment life. Each family would have its own primus. The old wood- or (more rarely) coal-burning ranges went out of use but remained in place. The general problem of ‘living space’, and the primus stove in particular, plays an important part throughout the Moscow sections of The Master and Margarita.

60

two wedding candles: In the Orthodox marriage service, the bride and groom stand during the ceremony holding lighted candles. These are special, large, often decorated candles, and are customarily kept indefinitely after the wedding, sometimes in the comer with the family icon.

61

the Moscow River amphitheatre: Ivan takes his swim at the foot of what had been the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which was dynamited in 1931. The remaining granite steps and amphitheatre were originally a grand baptismal font at the riverside, popularly known as ‘the Jordan’. The cathedral has now been rebuilt.

62

Evgeny Onegin: An opera by Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky (1840-93), with libretto by the composer’s brother Modest, based on the great ‘novel in verse’ of the same title by Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837). Its ubiquity, like the orange lampshades, suggests the standardizing of Soviet life. Tatiana, mentioned further on, is the heroine of Evgeny Onegin.

63

Alexander Sergeevich Griboedov: (1795 — 1829), poet, playwright and diplomat, best known as the author of the comedy Woe From Wit, the first real masterpiece of the Russian theatre.

64

Perelygino: The name is clearly meant to suggest the actual Peredelkino, a ‘writers’ village’ near Moscow where many writers were allotted country houses. It was a privileged and highly desirable place.

65

Yalta, Suuk-Su ... (Winter Palace): To this list of resort towns in the Crimea, the Caucasus and Kazakhstan, Bulgakov incongruously adds the Winter Palace in Leningrad, former residence of the emperors.

66

dachas: The Russian dacha (pronounced DA-tcha) is a summer or country house.

67

coachmen: Though increasingly replaced by automobiles, horse-drawn cabs were still in use in Moscow until around 1940. Thus the special tribe of Russian coachmen persisted long after their western counterparts disappeared.

68

saboteur: Here and a little further on Ivan uses standard terms from Soviet mass campaigns against ‘enemies of the people’. Anyone thought to be working against the aims of the ruling party could be denounced and arrested as a saboteur.

69

Kulak: (Russian for ‘fist’) refers to the class of wealthy peasants, which Stalin ordered liquidated in 1930.

70

the First of May: Originally commemorating the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, this day later became a general holiday of the labour movement and was celebrated with particular enthusiasm in the Soviet Union.

71

a metal man: This is the poet Pushkin, whose statue stands in Strastnaya (renamed Pushkin) Square. ‘The snowstorm covers ...’ is the beginning of Pushkin’s much-anthologized poem ‘The Snowstorm’. The reference to ‘that white guard’ is anachronistic here. The White Guard opposed the Bolsheviks (‘Reds’) during the Russian civil war in the early twenties. Pushkin was fatally wounded in the stomach during a duel with Baron Georges D’Anthès, an Alsatian who served in the Russian Imperial Horse Guard. Under the Soviet regime the term ‘white guard’ was a pejorative accusation, which was levelled against Bulgakov himself after the publication of his novel, The White Guard, and the production of his play, Days of the Turbins, based on the novel. In having Riukhin talk with Pushkin’s statue, Bulgakov parodies the ‘revolutionary’ poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), whose poem Yubileinoe was written in 1924 on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of Pushkin’s birth.

72

people began to disappear: Here, as throughout The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov treats the everyday Soviet phenomenon of ‘disappearances’ (arrests) and other activities of the secret police in the most vague, impersonal and hushed manner. The main example is the arrest of the master himself in Chapter 13, which passes almost without mention.

73

Here I am!: Bulgakov quotes the exact words (in Russian translation) of Mephistopheles’ first appearance to Faust in the opera Faust, by French composer Charles Gounod (1818 — 93).

74

Woland: A German name for Satan, which appears in several variants in the old Faust legends (Valand, Woland, Faland, Wieland). In his drama, Goethe once refers to the devil as ’Junket Woland‘.

75

findirector: Typical Soviet contraction for financial director.

76

an enormous wax seal: Styopa immediately assumes that Berlioz has been arrested, hence his ’disagreeable thoughts’ about whether he may have compromised himself with the editor and thus be in danger of arrest himself.

77

Azazello: Bulgakov adds an Italian ending to the Hebrew name Azazel (‘goat god’), to whom a goat (the scapegoat or ‘goat for Azazel’) bearing the sins of the people was sacrificed on Yom Kippur by being sent into the wilderness to die (Leviticus 16:7 — 10).

78

chairman of the tenants’ association: This quasi-official position gave its occupant enormous power, considering the permanent shortage of living space, which led to all sorts of crookedness and bribe-taking. Bulgakov portrays knavish house chairmen in several works, having suffered a good deal from them in his search for quarters during the twenties and thirties. This chairman’s name, Bosoy, means ‘Barefoot’.

79

speculating in foreign currency: The Soviet rouble was not a convertible currency, and the government therefore had great need of foreign currency for trade purposes. Soviet citizens were forbidden to keep foreign currency, and there were also several ‘round-ups’ of gold and jewellery during the thirties. Speculating in currency could even be a capital offence. This situation plays a role in several later episodes of the novel.

80

Varenukha: His name is that of a drink made from honey, berries and spices boiled in vodka.

81

A super-lightning telegram: Bulgakov’s exaggeration of the ‘lightning telegram’, which did exist.

82

A false Dmitri: The notorious impostor Grigory (‘Grishka’) Otrepev, known as ‘the false Dmitri’, was a defrocked monk of the seventeenth century who claimed the Russian throne by pretending to be the prince Dmitri, murdered son of Ivan the Terrible.

83

rocks, my refuge ...: Words from the romance ‘Refuge’, with music by Franz Schubert (1797-1828), inspired by Goethe’s Faust.

84

take it there personalty: Another oblique reference to the secret police. By now the reader should recognize the manner.

85

Louisa: The character Louisa Miller, from Schiller’s play Intrigue and Love, a fixture in the repertories of Soviet theatres.

86

A state bond: Soviet citizens were ‘asked’ to buy state bonds at their places of work. As an incentive, lotteries would be held every so often in which certain bond numbers would win a significant amount of money. Secure places being scarce in communal living conditions, the master evidently kept his bond in his laundry basket

87

Latunsky ... Ariman ... Lavrovich: Russian commentators see the name Latunsky as a fusion of the names of critics O. Litovsky and A. Orlinsky, who led the attack on ’Bulgakovism’ in the mid-twenties, after the first performances of Bulgakov’s play Days of the Turbins. Ariman (Ahriman), name of the principle of evil in the Zoroastrian religion, has also been identified by commentators with L. L. Averbakh, general secretary of RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers), one of Bulgakov’s fiercest opponents. And Lavrovich is thought to be V. V. Vishnevsky, who forced the withdrawal of two of Bulgakov’s plays from the repertory of the Moscow Art Theatre.

88

an article by the critic Ariman: It was common practice in Soviet literary politics to mount a press campaign against a book after denying it publication. The same happened at the end of the fifties with Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago.

89

A Militant Old Believer: The Old Believers broke with the Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-seventeenth century, in protest against the reforms of the patriarch Nikon. The term is thus used rather loosely by Latunsky. In the mid-twenties, Bulgakov was similarly attacked as ‘a militant white guard’.

90

in the same coat but with the buttons torn off: This laconic reference is the only indication of where the master spent those lost three months. It was customary to remove belts, shoelaces and buttons from the apparel of those ‘held for questioning’.

91

after first visiting another place: Noteworthy is not only the impersonality of the interrogation that follows, but the combination in the interrogating voice of menace and ‘tenderness’ (a word Bulgakov uses frequently in this context). The same combination will reappear in Nikanor Ivanovich’s dream — an extraordinary rendering of the operation of secret police within society, which also suggests the ’theatre’ of Stalin’s trumped-up ‘show trials’ of the later thirties.

92

Quinquet lamps: A specially designed oil-lamp, named for its French inventor, in which the oil reservoir is higher than the wick. Like carbon arc lamps in apartment hallways, they were a means of saving electricity.

93

All sitting?: Bulgakov plays on the meanings of the Russian verb sidet: ’to sit’ and also ‘to sit in prison’.

94

The Covetous Knight: One of Pushkin’s ‘little tragedies’, written in 1830, about the demonic and destructive fascination of gold.

95

As a young scapegrace ... some sly strumpet: The first two lines of the baron’s opening monologue in scene two of The Covetous Knight.

96

And who’s going to pay the rent — Pushkin?: This household’ way of referring to Pushkin is common in Russia, showing how far the poet has entered into people’s everyday life, though without necessarily bringing a knowledge of his works with him.

97

There great heaps ... of gold are mine: Lines from Hermann’s aria in Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades, based on the story by Pushkin (the lines, however, are by Modest Tchaikovsky).

98

Glorious sea, sacred Baikal: A pre-revolutionary song about Lake Baikal, sung by convicts at hard labour. It became popular after the revolution and remained so throughout the Soviet period.

99

cisco: A northern variety of whitefish caught in Lake Baikal.

100

Barguzin: A local personification of the north-east wind.

101

Shilka and Nerchinsk: Towns on the Shilka River east of Baikal, known as places of exile.

102

Lermontov studies: Mikhail Lermontov (1814-41), lyric poet and novelist of the generation following Pushkin.

103

Maximilian Andreevich did not like Kiev: Bulgakov, however, loved Kiev, his birthplace, as the descriptions of the city and of Vladimir’s Hill here and in The White Guard make clear. Prince Vladimir (or St Vladimir), grand prince of Kievan Rus, gave firm foundations to the first Russian state and in 988 converted his people to Christianity.

104

Passport!: The internal passport, a feature of Russian life in tsarist times, was abolished after the revolution, but reinstated by Stalin in 1932. It was the only accepted means of identification and had to be carried at all times. The precinct number that the cat gives later (412th) is absurdly high, even for a big city.

105

Everything was confusion... : The second sentence of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, proverbial in Russia.

106

a church panikhida: A special service of the Orthodox Church for commemoration of the dead.

107

leech bureau: Leeches have been used medically since ancient times as a means of blood-letting, thought to lower blood pressure and cure various ailments. A rather primitive treatment in this context.

108

Margarita: The name Bulgakov gives to his heroine recalls that of Gretchen (diminutive of Margarete), the young girl ruined by Faust in Goethe’s drama. It may also recall Marguerite de Valois (1553-1615), wife of French king Henri IV, known as ‘la reine Margot’ (several times in later chapters Margarita will be called Margot and even Queen Margot).

109

the dread Antonia Tower: A fortress in ancient Jerusalem which housed the Roman garrison in the city and where the Roman procurator normally stayed on official visits. It was named by Herod the Great in honour of the Roman general and triumvir Mark Antony (83-30 BC), who ruled the eastern third of the empire.

110

Hasmonaean Palace: Palace of the Hasmonaean or Maccabean dynasty, rulers of Judea in the second century BC, who resisted the Seleucid kings Antiochus IV and Demetrius Soter.

111

the Manège: Originally a riding academy built after the war with Napoleon, the building was later used as a quondam concert hall. Abandoned after the revolution, it served in Bulgakov’s time as a garage and warehouse for the Kremlin, but has now been restored as a permanent art-exhibition space.

112

a candelabrum ... seven golden claws: Woland’s two candelabra are satanic parodies of the menorah made by the Jews at God’s command during their wandering in the wilderness (Exodus 25:31-9, 37:17-24). A seven-branched candelabrum also stands on the altar of every Christian church.

113

a beetle artfully carved: The Egyptians saw the scarabaeus beetle as a symbol of immortality because it survived the annual flooding of the Nile. The ritual use of carved stone scarabs spread to Palestine, Greece and Italy in ancient times.

114

Hans: Like Jack, Jean, or Ivan in the folk-tales of their countries, the Hans of German tales is generally the third son of the family and considered a fool (though he usually winds up with the treasure and the princess for his bride).

115

Sextus Empiricur, Martianus Capella: Sextus Empiricus (second-third century AD), Greek philosopher, astronomer and physician, was a representative of the most impartial scepticism. Martianus Capella, a Latin author of the fifth century AD, wrote an encyclopedia in novel form entitled The Marriage of Mercury and Philology.

116

this pain in my knee ... Mount Brocken: Satan’s lameness is more commonly ascribed to his fall from heaven. Mount Brocken, highest of the Harz Mountains in Germany, is a legendary gathering place of witches and devils, and the site of the Walpurgisnacht (as in Goethe’s Faust) on the eve of the First of May.

117

Abaddon: Hebrew for ‘destruction’. In the Old Testament it is another name for Sheol, the place where the dead abide (Job 26:6, 28:22; Psalms 88:11). In the New Testament, it is the name of the ‘angel of the bottomless pit’ (Revelation 9:11).

118

waltz king: Unofficial title of the Viennese composer Johann Strauss (1825- 99)-

119

Vieuxtemps: Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-81), Belgian virtuoso violinist, made his début in Paris at the age of ten. He travelled the world giving concerts, taught in the conservatory of Brussels and for some time also in the conservatory of St Petersburg, where he was first violinist of the imperial court.

120

Monsieur Jacques: Identified by L. Yanovskaya as Jacques Coeur (c. 1395- 1456), a rich French merchant who became superintendent of finances under Charles VII. He did make a false start in life in association with a counterfeiter before embarking on his legitimate successes, and was indeed suspected of poisoning the king’s mistress, Agnes Sorel, but was quickly cleared. He was neither a traitor to his country nor an alchemist.

121

Earl Robert: Identified by L. Yanovskaya as Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (?1532-88), a favourite of Elizabeth I of England, whose wife, Amy Rosbarts, did die in suspicious circumstances, though not by poisoning but by falling downstairs.

122

Madame Tofana: La Tofana, a woman of Palermo, was arrested as a poisoner and strangled in prison in 1709. The poison named after her, aqua tofana, had in fact been known since the fifteenth century and is held responsible for the deaths of some 600 persons, including the popes Pius III and Clement XIV and the Duke of Anjou.

123

a Spanish boot: A wooden torture device.

124

Frieda: Her story is reminiscent of that of Gretchen in Faust. B. V. Sokolov finds Bulgakov’s source in The Sexual Question, by Swiss psychiatrist Auguste Forel, who tells a similar story of a certain Frieda Keller.

125

The marquise: Made-Madeleine d‘Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers (1630—76), a notorious poisoner, was decapitated and burned in Paris.

126

Madame Minkin: Nastasya Fyodorovna Minkin, mistress of Count Arakcheev (1769-1834), military adviser to the emperor Alexander I. A notoriously cruel and depraved woman, she was murdered by her household serfs in 1825.

127

the emperor Rudolf Rudolf II Hapsburg (1552-1612), German emperor, son of Maximilian II, lived in Prague, took great interest in astronomy and alchemy, and was the protector of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.

128

A Moscow dressmaker: The heroine of Bulgakov’s own play, Zoyka’s Apartment, which describes a brothel disguised as a dressmaker’s shop.

129

Caligula: Gaius Caesar (AD 12-41), nicknamed Caligula (’Little Boot‘), was the son of Germanicus and succeeded Tiberius as emperor. Half mad, he subjected Rome to many tyrannical outrages and was eventually assassinated.

130

Messalina: (AD 15-48), third wife of the emperor Claudius, was famous for her debauchery.

131

Maliuta Skuratov: Nickname of the Russian nobleman Grigory Lukyanovich Skuratov-Belsky, the right-hand man of Ivan the Terrible, who made him head of the oprichnina, a special force opposed to the nobility, which terrorized Russia, burning, pillaging and murdering many people. He is said to have smothered St Philip, metropolitan of Moscow, with his own hands.

132

one more ... no, two!: B. V. Sokolov identifies these two unnamed new ones as former People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs, Genrikh G. Yagoda (1891- 1938) and his secretary, P. P. Bulanov. Yagoda, a ruthless secret-police official who fabricated the ’show trial’ of the ‘right-wing Trotskyist centre’, was later arrested himself and condemned to be shot, along with his secretary, Bukharin, Rykov and others, in Stalin’s third great ‘show trial’ of 1938.

133

the Kamarinsky: A popular Russian dance-song with ribald words.

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A salamander-conjurer: The salamander enjoyed the reputation during the Middle Ages and Renaissance of being able to go through fire without getting burned.

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the same dirty, patched shirt: According to one of Bulgakov’s sources, M. N. Orlov’s History of Man’s Relations with the Devil (St Petersburg, 1904), Satan always wears a dirty shirt while performing a black mass.

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it will be given to each according to his faith: A common misapplication of Christ’s words, ’According to your faith be it done to you’ (Matt. 9:29).

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wandered in the wilderness for nineteen days: A comic distortion of well-known examples: the period of wandering is usually a round figure - forty days or forty years - and the usual sustenance is manna or locusts and wild honey (see Numbers 33:38, Amos 5:25, Matt. 3:1-4).

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manuscripts don’t burn: This phrase became proverbial among Russian intellectuals after the publication of The Master and Margarita, an event which in itself seemed to bear out the truth of Woland’s words.

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Aloisy Mogarych: An absurd combination of the Latinate Aloisius with the slangy ‘Mogarych’, the word for the round of drinks that concludes a deal, which happens to have the form of a Russian patronymic.

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bruderschaft: A special pledge of brotherhood drunk with interlaced right arms, after which the friends address each other with the familiar form ty.

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Falerno: A rich and strong red wine, named for the ager falernur in the Roman Campagnia where it was produced in ancient times (not to be confused with the white Falerno now produced around Naples).

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Caecuba: Also a strong red wine, product of the ager caecubus in southern Latium.

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the feast of the twelve gods: The twelve senior gods of the Roman pantheon: Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Vulcan, Apollo, Diana, Ceres, Venus, Mars, Vesta, Mercury and Minerva.

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lares: A word of Etruscan or Sabine origin, referring to the nameless protective deities of the house and hearth in Roman religion.

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messiah: From the Hebrew mashiah, meaning ‘the anointed one’, referring to the redeemer and deliverer of Israel to be born of the royal house of David, prophesied by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah and others, and awaited by the Jewish nation. Christians believe that this prophecy was fulfilled in Christ (christos being Greek for ‘the annointed one’).

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were they given the drink before being hung on the posts?: Thought by some commentators to be a legal mercy granted to the condemned to lessen the suffering of crucifixion, as Pilate means it here, though in the Gospels it has more the appearance of a final mockery. Jesus also refuses to drink it (see Matt. 27:34, Mark 15:23).

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among human vices he considered cowardice one of the first: This saying, not found in the Gospels, is of great thematic importance for the novel. Bulgakov himself, according to one of his friends, regarded cowardice as the worst of all vices, ‘because all the rest come from it’ (quoted in a memoir in Vospominaniya o Mikhaile Bulgakove, Moscow, 1988, pp. 389-90). Interestingly, all references to this ’worst of vices’ were removed from the original magazine publication of the novel.

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thirty tetradrachmas: The ‘thirty pieces of silver’ mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew (26:15) as Judas’s reward from the high priest for betraying Jesus. A tetradrachma was a Greek silver coin worth four drachmas and was equivalent to one Jewish shekel.

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Now we shall always be together: Yeshua’s words are fulfilled in the Nicene creed: ’... one Lord Jesus Christ ... who was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate ...‘ — words repeated countless times a day for nearly two thousand years in every liturgy or mass. Later in the novel, Pilate will say that nothing in the world is more hateful to him than ’is immortality and his unheard-of fame‘.

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the son of an astrologer-king ... Pila: Details found in the poem Pilate by the twelfth-century Flemish poet Petrus Pictor (noted by Marianne Gourg in her commentary to the French translation of the novel, R. Laffont, Paris, 1995). The name of Pila thus becomes the source of the procurator’s second name.

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En-Sarid: Arabic for Nazareth.

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Valerius Gratus: According to Flavius Josephus, in Antiquities of the Jews (Book 18, Chapter 2), Valerius Gratus was procurator of Judea starting from sometime around AD 15, and was thus Pilate’s immediate predecessor.

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might he not have killed himself?: Here Pilate prompts Aphranius with what is in fact the Gospel account of Judas’s death (Matt. 27:5).

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baccuroth: Aramaic for ’fresh figs‘.

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the pure river of the water of life: ’And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb’ (Revelation 22:1).

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the Hotel Astoria ... bathroom: A large hotel on St Isaac’s Square in Petersburg, where Bulgakov and his wife used to stay when visiting the city.

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starka: An infusion of a pale-brown colour, made from spirits, white port, cognac, sugar, and apple and pear leaves.

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a currency store: A phenomenon of Soviet life, currency stores emerged in the early thirties, offering a great variety of goods (in the midst of the general impoverishment and uniformity of Soviet life) in exchange for foreign currency. They were supposed to be exclusively for foreigners, but were also patronized by privileged Russians who had access to currency or special coupons (Bulgakov himself occasionally had currency from sales of his books abroad and could avail himself of this privilege). There was in fact a currency store at the comer of the Arbat and Smolensky Square.

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Harun al-Rashid: (?766-809), Abassid caliph of Baghdad, known in legend for walking about the city at night disguised as a beggar, familiarizing himself with the life of his subjects. He became a hero of songs and figures in some tales from The Thousand and One Nights.

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Palosich!: A spoken contraction of the name Pavel Yosifovich.

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Kerch Hening: Much-prized fish from the Crimean city of Kerch, on the Sea of Azov.

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Bitter, bitter!: There is an old Russian custom of shouting ‘Bitter!’ every now and then during the banquet after a wedding. The newly-weds are then expected to kiss so as to make it sweet.

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Dead Souls: The only novel by the ‘father of Russian prose’ Nikolai Gogol (1809-52). Its influence on The Master and Margarita is pervasive. Bulgakov made an adaptation of Dead Souls for the Moscow Art Theatre in the thirties, while at work on his own novel.

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Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Thalia: Three of the nine Greek muses, of tragedy, lyric poetry and comedy respectively.

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The Inspector General: A comedy by Nikolai Gogol, one of the masterpieces of the Russian theatre.

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Evgeny Onegin: Koroviev’s comically slighting reference is to Pushkin’s poem, not to Tchaikovsky’s opera.

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Sofya Pavlovna: The citizeness happens to have the same name as the heroine of Griboedov’s Woe From Wit. It may have been this connection that landed her such a desirable job.

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Panaev: Two Panaevs made a brief appearance in Russian literature: V. I. Panaev (1792-1859) was a writer of sentimental poetry, I. I. Panaev (1812-62), on the contrary, was a liberal prose-writer and for a time an editor of the influential journal, The Contemporary.

??

Skabichevsky: A. M. Skabichevsky (1838-1912) was a liberal critic and journalist.

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balyk: A special dorsal section of flesh running the entire length of a salmon or sturgeon, which was removed in one piece and either salted or smoked. Highly prized in Russia.

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Resting his sharp chin on his fist ... Woland stand fixedly: Woland seems almost consciously to adopt the pose of Rodin’s famous sculpture known as the Thinker, actually the central figure over his Gates of Hell.

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to Timiriazev: That is, to the statue of the botanist and founder of the Russian school of plant physiology, Kliment Arkadyevich Timiriazev (1843 - 1910), on Tverskoy Boulevard near the Nikitsky Gates.

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Peace be unto you: Bulgakov playfully gives this common Hebrew greeting (a translation of Shalom aleichem) to his demon. It was spoken by the risen Christ to his disciples (Luke 24:36, John 20:26) and is repeated in every liturgy or mass.

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Sparrow Hills: Hills on the south-west bank of the Moscow River, renamed ‘Lenin Hills’ in the Soviet period.

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Devichy Convent: Actually the Novodevichy Convent, founded by Basil III in 15 24, on the spot where, according to legend, maidens (devitsy) were gathered to be sent as tribute to the Mongols. Nikolai Gogol’s remains were transferred there in the 1930s, and many members of the Moscow Art Theatre are also buried there, including Bulgakov himself.

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the festal spring full moon: The first full moon after the vernal equinox, which determines the date of the feast of Passover and thus of Easter.