"Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

where it was entitled 'Mania Furibunda'. In May of 1929, Bulgakov sent this
chapter to a publisher, who rejected it. This was his only attempt to
publish anything from the novel.
The second version, from later in the same year, was a reworking of the
first four chapters, filling out certain episodes and adding the death of
Judas to the second chapter, which also began to detach itself from Woland
and become a more autonomous narrative. According to the author's wife,
Elena Sergeevna, Bulgakov partially destroyed these two versions in the
spring of 1930 -- 'threw them in the fire', in the writer's own words. What
survived were two large notebooks with many pages torn out. This was at the
height of the attacks on Bulgakov . in the press, the moment of his letter
to the government.
After that came some scattered notes in two notebooks, kept
intermittently over the next two years, which was a very difficult time for
Bulgakov. In the upper-right-hand corner of the second, he wrote:
'Lord, help me to finish my novel, 1931.' In a fragment of a later
chapter, entitled 'Woland's Flight', there is a reference to someone
addressed familiarly as ty, who is told that he 'will meet with Schubert and
clear mornings'. This is obviously the master, though he is not called so.
There is also the first mention of the name of Margarita. In Bulgakov's
mind, the main outlines of a new conception of the novel were evidently
already clear.
This new version he began to write in earnest in October of 1932,
during a visit to Leningrad with Elena Sergeevna, whom he had just married.
(The 'model' for Margarita, who had now entered the composition, she was
previously married to a high-ranking military official, who for some time
opposed her wish to leave him for the writer, leading Bulgakov to think he
would never see her again.) His wife was surprised that he could set to work
without having any notes or earlier drafts with him, but Bulgakov explained,
'I know it by heart.' He continued working, not without long interruptions,
until 1936. Various new tides occurred to him, all still referring to Satan
as the central figure -- The Great Chancellor, Satan, Here I Am, The Black
Theologian, He Has Come, The Hoofed Consultant. As in the earliest version,
the time of the action is 24-- 5 June, the feast of St John, traditionally a
time of magic enchantments (later it was moved to the time of the spring
full moon). The nameless friend of Margarita is called 'Faust' in some
notes, though not in the text itself. He is also called 'the poet', and is
made the author of a novel which corresponds to the 'Gospel of Woland' from
the first drafts. This historical section is now broken up and moved to a
later place in the novel, coming closer to what would be the arrangement in
the final version.
Bulgakov laboured especially over the conclusion of the novel and what
reward to give the master. The ending appears for the first time in a
chapter entitled 'Last Flight', dating from July 1956. It differs little
from the final version. In it, however, the master is told explicitly and
directly:
The house on Sadovaya and the horrible Bosoy will vanish from your
memory, but with them will go Ha-Nozri and the forgiven hegemon. These
things are not for your spirit. You will never raise yourself higher, you
will not see Yeshua, you will never leave your refuge.