With the beginning of the third millennium, all the great churches, except Islam, alas, turned into profitable commercial enterprises. And almost a hundred years ago, unsafe trends emerged in Russian Orthodoxy towards turning the church into an appendage of the state. This is probably why the great Russian writer Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was not a church person, that is, he did not go to church, he even refused unction before his death. But vulgar atheism was deeply alien to him, as was savage empty holiness. His faith came from his heart, and he turned to God in secret prayer, I think so (and I’m even firmly convinced).
He believed that two thousand years ago an event occurred that changed the entire course of world history. Bulgakov saw the salvation of the soul in spiritual feat the most humane person Yeshua Ha-Nozri (Jesus of Nazareth). The name of this feat is suffering in the name of love for people. And all subsequent Christian denominations first tried to forgive the theocratic state, and then they themselves turned into a huge bureaucratic machine, now - into commercial and industrial firms, if expressed in the language of the 21st century.
In the novel, Yeshua is an ordinary person. Not an ascetic, not a hermit, not a hermit. He is not surrounded by the aura of a righteous man or an ascetic, he does not torture himself with fasting and prayers, he does not teach in the bookish way, that is, in the Pharisee way. Like all people, he suffers from pain and rejoices in being freed from it. And at the same time, Bulgakov’s Yeshua is the bearer of the idea of ​​a God-man without any church, without a “bureaucratic” mediator between God and man. However, the power of Yeshua Ha-Nozri is so great and so comprehensive that at first many take it for weakness, even for spiritual lack of will. The tramp-philosopher is strong only by his naive faith in goodness, which neither the fear of punishment nor the spectacle of blatant injustice, of which he himself becomes a victim, can be taken away from him. His unchanging faith exists in spite of conventional wisdom and serves as an object lesson to the executioners and scribe-Pharisees.
The story of Christ in Bulgakov's novel is presented apocryphally, that is, with heretical deviations from the canonical text of Holy Scripture. This is most likely a description of everyday life from the point of view of a Roman citizen of the first century after the birth of Christ. Instead of a direct confrontation between the apostles and the traitor Judas, the Messiah and Peter, Pontius Pilate and the Sanhedrin with Kaifa, Bulgakov reveals to us the essence of the Lord’s Sacrifice through the psychology of perception of each of the heroes. Most often - through the mouth and notes of Levi Matthew.
The first idea of ​​the apostle and evangelist Matthew in the image of Levi Matthew is given to us by Yeshua himself: “He walks and walks alone with a goat’s parchment and continuously writes, but I once looked into this parchment and was horrified. I said absolutely nothing of what was written there “I begged him: burn your parchment for God’s sake!” The author makes it clear to us that man is not able to comprehend and depict the Divine idea in letters and words. Even Woland confirms this in a conversation with Berlioz: “...well, you should know that absolutely nothing of what is written in the Gospels actually ever happened...”
The novel “The Master and Margarita” itself seems to continue a series of apocryphal gospels written in Aesopian language in later times. Such “gospels” can be considered “Don Quixote” by Miguel Cervantes, “Parable” by William Faulkner or “The Scaffold” by Chingiz Aitmatov. To Pilate’s question whether Yeshua really considers all people good, including the centurion Mark the Rat-Slayer who beat him, Ha-Nozri answers in the affirmative and adds that Mark, “truly, is an unhappy person... If I could talk to him... I I'm sure he would change dramatically." In Cervantes' novel, the noble hidalgo Don Quixote is insulted in the Duke's castle by a priest who calls him "an empty head." To which he meekly replies: “I shouldn’t see, and I don’t see, anything offensive in the words of this kind man. The only thing I regret is that he didn’t stay with us - I would prove to him that he was wrong.” And the incarnation of Christ in the 20th century, Obadiah (son of God, in Greek) Kallistratov experienced for himself that “the world... punishes its sons for the purest ideas and impulses of the spirit.”
M.A. Bulgakov nowhere shows even a single hint that before us is the Son of God. There is no portrait of Yeshua as such in the novel: “They brought in... a man about twenty-seven years old. This man was dressed in an old and torn blue chiton. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. Under his left eye The man had a large bruise and an abrasion with dried blood in the corner of his mouth. The man brought in looked at the procurator with alarming curiosity.”
But Yeshua is not exactly the son of man. When asked by Pilate if he has relatives, he replies: “There is no one. I am alone in the world,” which sounds like: “I am this world.”
We do not see Satan-Woland next to Yeshua, but we know from his dispute with Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny that he stood behind his back all the time (that is, behind his left shoulder, in the shadow, as expected evil spirits) in moments of sorrowful events. Woland-Satan thinks of himself in the heavenly hierarchy as approximately equal to Yeshua, as if ensuring the balance of the world. But God does not share his power with Satan - Woland has power only in the material world. The kingdom of Woland and his guests, feasting on a full moon at the spring ball, is night - a fantastic world of shadows, mysteries and ghostliness. The cooling light of the moon illuminates him. Yeshua is accompanied everywhere, even on the way of the cross, by the Sun - a symbol of life, joy, true Light.
Yeshua is not only able to guess the future, he builds this future. The barefoot wandering philosopher is poor, wretched, but rich in love. Therefore, he mournfully remarks to the Roman governor: “Your life is meager, hegemon.” Yeshua dreams of a future kingdom of “truth and justice” and leaves it open to absolutely everyone: “... the time will come when there will be no power of either an emperor or any other power. Man will move into the kingdom of truth and justice, where there is no no power will be needed."
For Pilate, such words are already part of a crime. And for Yeshua Ha-Nozri, everyone is equal as creations of God - Pontius Pilate and the Rat Killer, Judas and Matthew Levi. All of them are “good people”, only “crippled” by one or another circumstance: “... evil people not in the world." If he had bent his soul even a little, then "the whole meaning of his teaching would have disappeared, for good is the truth!" And "it is easy and pleasant to speak the truth."
Yeshua's main strength lies primarily in his openness to people. His first appearance in the novel occurs like this: “The man with his hands tied leaned forward a little and began to say: “ a kind person! Trust me..." A closed person, an introvert, always instinctively moves away from his interlocutor, and Yeshua is an extrovert, open to meeting people. "Openness" and "closedness" are, according to Bulgakov, the poles of good and evil. Moving towards is the essence of good. Leaving into himself, a person somehow comes into contact with the devil. This is the key to the episode with the question: “What is truth?” To Pilate, suffering from hemicrania, Yeshua answers like this: “The truth... is that you have a headache.” .Pain is always punishment. Only “God alone” punishes. Therefore, Yeshua is the truth itself, and Pilate does not notice this.
And a warning about the coming punishment is the catastrophe that followed the death of Yeshua: “... semi-darkness came, and lightning furrowed the black sky. Fire suddenly splashed out of it... The rain poured out suddenly... The water fell so terribly that when the soldiers they fled downwards, raging streams were already flying after them.” This is like a reminder of the inevitable Last Judgment for all our sins.

The image of Yeshua Ha-Notsri in the novel by M. A. Bulgakov. According to literary scholars and M.A. Bulgakov himself, “The Master and Margarita” is his final work. Dying from a serious illness, the writer told his wife: “Maybe this is right... What could I write after “The Master”?” And in fact, this work is so multifaceted that the reader cannot immediately figure out which genre it belongs to. This is a fantastic, adventurous, satirical, and most of all philosophical novel.

Experts define the novel as a menippea, where a deep semantic load is hidden under the mask of laughter. In any case, “The Master and Margarita” harmoniously reunites such opposing principles as philosophy and science fiction, tragedy and farce, fantasy and realism. Another feature of the novel is the shift in spatial, temporal and psychological characteristics. This is the so-called double novel, or a novel within a novel. Two seemingly completely different stories pass before the viewer’s eyes, echoing each other.

The action of the first takes place in modern years in Moscow, and the second takes the reader to ancient Yershalaim. However, Bulgakov went even further: it is difficult to believe that these two stories were written by the same author. Moscow incidents are described in vivid language. There is a lot of comedy, fantasy, and devilry here. Here and there the author's familiar chatter with the reader develops into outright gossip. The narrative is based on a certain understatement, incompleteness, which generally calls into question the veracity of this part of the work. When it comes to the events in Yershalaim, art style changes dramatically. The story sounds stern and solemn, as if it were not piece of art, and chapters from the Gospel: “In a white cloak with bloody lining, with a shuffling gait, in the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, came out into the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great...” Both parts, according to the writer’s plan, should show the reader the state of morality over the past two thousand years.

Yeshua Ha-Nozri came to this world at the beginning of the Christian era, preaching his teaching about goodness. However, his contemporaries were unable to understand and accept this truth. Yeshua was sentenced to the shameful death penalty - crucifixion on a stake. From the point of view of religious leaders, the image of this person does not fit into any Christian canons. Moreover, the novel itself has been recognized as the “gospel of Satan.” However, Bulgakov's character is an image that includes religious, historical, ethical, philosophical, psychological and other features. That is why it is so difficult to analyze. Of course, Bulgakov, as an educated person, knew the Gospel very well, but he did not intend to write another example of spiritual literature. His work is deeply artistic. Therefore, the writer deliberately distorts the facts. Yeshua Ha-Nozri is translated as the savior from Nazareth, while Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Bulgakov's hero is “a man of twenty-seven years old”; the Son of God was thirty-three years old. Yeshua has only one disciple, Matthew Levi, while Jesus has 12 apostles. Judas in The Master and Margarita was killed by order of Pontius Pilate; in the Gospel he hanged himself. With such inconsistencies, the author wants to once again emphasize that Yeshua in the work, first of all, is a person who managed to find psychological and moral support in himself and be faithful to it until the end of his life. Paying attention to appearance of his hero, he shows readers that spiritual beauty is much higher than external attractiveness: “... he was dressed in an old and torn blue chiton. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. The man had a large bruise under his left eye and an abrasion with dried blood in the corner of his mouth.” This man was not divinely imperturbable. He, like ordinary people, was subject to fear of Mark the Rat-Slayer or Pontius Pilate: “The one brought in looked at the procurator with anxious curiosity.” Yeshua was unaware of his divine origin, acting like an ordinary person.

Despite the fact that the novel pays special attention to human qualities the main character, his divine origin is not forgotten. At the end of the work, it is Yeshua who personifies that higher power that instructs Woland to reward the master with peace. At the same time, the author did not perceive his character as a prototype of Christ. Yeshua concentrates in himself the image of the moral law, which enters into a tragic confrontation with legal law. Main character came into this world precisely with the moral truth - every person is good. This is the truth of the entire novel. And with her help, Bulgakov seeks to once again prove to people that God exists. The relationship between Yeshua and Pontius Pilate occupies a special place in the novel. It is to him that the wanderer says: “All power is violence over people... the time will come when there will be no power of either Caesar or any other power. Man will move into the kingdom of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all.” Feeling some truth in the words of his prisoner, Pontius Pilate cannot let him go, for fear of harming his career. Under pressure from circumstances, he signs Yeshua’s death warrant and greatly regrets it. The hero tries to atone for his guilt by trying to convince the priest to release this particular prisoner in honor of the holiday. When his idea fails, he orders the servants to stop tormenting the hanged man and personally orders the death of Judas. The tragedy of the story about Yeshua Ha-Nozri lies in the fact that his teaching was not in demand. People at that time were not ready to accept his truth. The main character is even afraid that his words will be misunderstood: “... this confusion will continue for a very long time.” for a long time" Yeshuya, who did not renounce his teachings, is a symbol of humanity and perseverance. His tragedy, but already in modern world, repeats the Master. Yeshua's death is quite predictable. The tragedy of the situation is further emphasized by the author with the help of a thunderstorm, which ends and storyline modern history: "Dark. Coming from the Mediterranean Sea, it covered the city hated by the procurator... An abyss fell from the sky. Yershalaim, a great city, disappeared, as if it did not exist in the world... Everything was devoured by darkness...”

With the death of the main character, the entire city plunged into darkness. At the same time, the moral state of the residents inhabiting the city left much to be desired. Yeshua is sentenced to “hanging on a stake,” which entails a long, painful execution. Among the townspeople there are many who want to admire this torture. Behind the cart with prisoners, executioners and soldiers “were about two thousand curious people who were not afraid of the hellish heat and wanted to be present at the interesting spectacle. These curious ones... have now been joined by curious pilgrims.” Approximately the same thing happens two thousand years later, when people strive to get to Woland’s scandalous performance in the Variety Show. From behavior modern people Satan concludes that human nature does not change: “...they are people like people. They love money, but this has always been the case... humanity loves money, no matter what it is made of, whether leather, paper, bronze or gold... Well, they are frivolous... well, mercy sometimes knocks on their hearts.” .

Throughout the entire novel, the author, on the one hand, seems to draw a clear boundary between the spheres of influence of Yeshua and Woland, however, on the other hand, the unity of their opposites is clearly visible. However, although in many situations Satan appears more significant than Yeshua, these rulers of light and darkness are quite equal. This is precisely the key to balance and harmony in this world, since the absence of one would make the presence of the other meaningless.

The peace that is awarded to the Master is a kind of agreement between two great powers. Moreover, Yeshua and Woland are driven to this decision by ordinary human love. Thus, as the highest value of Bulgako

Yeshua Ha-Nozri

YESHUA HA-NOZRI - central character novel by M.A. Bulgakov “The Master and Margarita” (1928-1940). The image of Jesus Christ appears on the first pages of the novel in a conversation between two interlocutors on the Patriarch's Ponds, one of whom, the young poet Ivan Bezdomny, composed an anti-religious poem, but failed to cope with the task. He turned out to have Jesus completely alive, but he had to prove that he did not exist at all, “that all the stories about him are simple inventions, the most ordinary myth.” This image-myth in Bulgakov’s novel is contrasted with the wandering philosopher Yeshua Ha-Nozri, as he appears in two chapters of the “ancient” plot: first in the second - during interrogation by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate - and then in the sixteenth chapter, depicting the execution of a righteous man crucified on the cross . Bulgakov gives the name of Jesus in a Judaized form. A probable source was the book of the English theologian F.W. Farrar “The Life of Jesus Christ” (1874, Russian translation - 1885), where the writer could read: “Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Yeshua, which means “his salvation is Jehovah,” from Oshea or Hoshea is salvation.” It was also explained there that “ha-noceri” means Nazarene, literally from Nazareth. The image of Jesus Christ, as depicted in the novel, contains many deviations from the canonical gospels. Bulgakov's wandering philosopher is a man of twenty-seven (and not thirty-three), a Syrian (and not a Jew). He knows nothing about his parents, he has no relatives or followers who accepted his teachings. “I am alone in the world,” says I. about himself. The only person who showed interest in his sermons is the tax collector Levi Matvey, who follows him with parchment and continuously writes, but he “writes it down incorrectly,” everything is mixed up, and one may “fear that this confusion will continue for a very long time.” Finally, Judas from Kiriath, who betrayed I., is not his disciple, but a casual acquaintance, with whom a dangerous conversation began about state power. The image of I. has absorbed different traditions of depicting Jesus Christ, which have developed in scientific and fiction, but is not tied to any one strictly defined one. The influence of the historical school, which found its most consistent expression in E. Renan’s book “The Life of Jesus” (1863), is obvious. However, in Bulgakov such a “consistency”, expressed in the “cleansing” of the gospel story from everything fabulous and fantastic from the standpoint of Renan’s “positive science”, is absent. There is no opposition in the novel between Jesus and Christ, the son of man and the son of God (in the spirit of A. Barbusse’s book “Jesus versus Christ,” published in Russian translation in 1928 and, presumably, known to the writer). During interrogation by Pilate and then, during the execution, I. may not realize that he is the messiah, but he is (becomes) one. From him an ambassador comes to Woland with a decision on the fate of the Master and Margarita. He is the highest authority in the hierarchy of light, just as Woland is the supreme ruler of the world of shadows. Acting person, objectified in the narrative, I. is shown on the last day of his earthly journey, in the guise of a righteous man, a bearer of the ethical imperative of good, convinced that “there are no evil people in the world,” a thinker in whose view “all power is violence over people” and therefore, there is no place for it in the “kingdom of truth and justice”, where a person must sooner or later move. The time when the novel was created falls at the height of political processes, the victims of which were those who committed “thought crimes” (Orwell’s term), while criminals were declared “socially related elements.” In this temporal context, the story of the condemnation of the “thought-criminal” I. to execution (and the release of the murderer Barrabvan) acquired an allusive meaning. I. is destroyed by the cowardly state machine, but it is not the root cause of his death, which is predetermined by a misanthropic ideology posing as a religion.

Lit. see the article “Master”.

All characteristics in alphabetical order:

During the reign of the emperors Octavian Augustus and Tiberius, Jesus Christ lived in the Roman Empire, myths about whom became the basis of the Christian religion.
We can assume different dates for his birth. 14 AD correlates with the reign of Quirinius in Syria and with the census of that year in the Roman Empire. 8 BC will be obtained if we correlate the birth of Jesus Christ with the census in the Roman Empire in 8 BC and the reign of King Herod of Judea, who died in 4 BC.
An interesting evidence from the Gospels is the correlation of the Birth of Jesus Christ with the appearance of a “Star” in the sky. A famous such event of that time is the appearance of Halley's Comet in 12 BC. Information about the mother of Jesus Mary does not contradict this assumption.
The Dormition of Mary, according to Christian tradition, occurred in 44 AD, at the age of 71, that is, she was born in 27 BC.
As the legend says, in early childhood Mary served in the temple, and the girls served in the temple until their periods appeared. That is, she, in principle, could leave the temple around 13 BC, and in the next year, the year of the comet, she gave birth to Jesus (from the Roman soldier Panther, as Celsus and the authors of the Talmud report). Mary had more children: Jacob, Josiah, Judah and Simeon, as well as at least two daughters.
According to the evangelists, the family of Jesus lived in Nazareth - "... and he came and settled (Joseph with Mary and the baby Jesus) in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets, that he should be called a Nazarene." (Matthew 2:23 ). But there was no such city in the time of Jesus. The village of Nazareth (Natsrat) appeared in the 2nd century AD as a settlement of Christians (“natsri” are Christians in Hebrew, followers of Yeshua Ha Notzri, Jesus of Nazareth).
The name Jesus is "Yeshua" - in Hebrew, "Yahweh will save." This is a common Aramaic name. But he was not a Nazarene; “Nazarenes” - ascetics - took a vow of abstinence from wine and cutting their hair.
“The Son of Man came, eating and drinking; and they said, “Here is a man who loves to eat and drink wine, a friend of publicans and sinners.” (Matthew 11:19).
The compilers of the Gospels, who did not know the geography of Galilee, decided that since Jesus was not an ascetic, it means he was from Nazareth.
But that's not true.
"...and leaving Nazareth, he came and settled in Capernaum by the sea... (Matthew 4:13)
Jesus performed many "miracles" in Capernaum...
In his native village, where he once returned, Jesus could not perform miracles, because they had to be prepared:
“He said to them: Of course, you will tell Me the proverb: Physician, heal Yourself; do here, in Your fatherland, what we heard happened in Capernaum. And He said: Truly I say to you, no prophet is accepted in in his own country." (Luke 4.23-24)
Capernaum (in Aramaic "Kfar Nachum" - the village of Consolation) was on the northern shore of Lake Kinneret - the Sea of ​​​​Galilee, in the time of Jesus called Lake of Gennesaret, named after the fertile wooded plain on its western shore. Genisaret Greek transcription. "Ha (Ha, He, Ge)" in Hebrew (Hebrew) is the definite article. Netzer is a shoot, a young shoot. Genisaret - Ge Nisaret - Ha Netzer - thickets, valley of thickets, forest valley or forest thickets, etc.
That is, Yeshua Ha Nozri - Jesus is not from Nazareth, which did not exist at that time, but from the valley of Gennesaret (Ge) Netzer, or from some village in this valley - Jesus of Gennesaret.
Jesus' religious activity, as described in the Gospels, began at the age of 12, when he began to "teach the law" to the people in the temple. He probably left the family very soon, perhaps at that time Joseph died. If Jesus had not left the family at this time, then, according to the custom of the Jews of that time, he would have already been married. Celsus and the Talmud say that Jesus worked as a day laborer in Egypt. It is possible that it was in Egypt that he began to listen to various “prophets” or joined the Essenes sect. The year 19 AD is the year of Jesus' 33rd birthday and the year of one of the outbursts of fanaticism in Judea. According to the Gospel of Luke - "...Jesus, beginning his ministry, was about thirty years old...". This year Jesus linked his activities with John the Baptist. The Apostle John of Zebedee, associated with Jesus precisely from this time, in his Gospel, quite reliably describes his first coming to Jesus and the coming to him as disciples of other young guys who were carried away by his tricks and left their stern teacher for his sake - John the Baptist. Other evangelists describe his more famous activities, which began in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, that is, in 29 AD after his exit from the desert, where he hid after the execution of John the Baptist by Herod Antipas. In this activity, Jesus is accompanied by fully grown apostles.
The signs of Jesus' genius are described quite clearly by the authors of the Gospels, these are: a negative attitude towards the family, a negative attitude towards women, visions of the “devil” who tested his faith.
Perhaps, to propagate his teachings, Jesus himself prepared his arrest, crucifixion and apparent death. In the narration of the activities of Christ, long before his death, the mysterious phrase “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” allegedly sounded from his lips. Jesus prepared for a long time for the “miracle of the resurrection” to prove that he was a true “prophet”, a messenger of “God”. The very use of Roman execution, that is, crucifixion, and not stoning, which should have been applied to an apostate from Jewish laws, was carefully arranged by himself. This can also be evidenced by the fact that before that he made several trial experiments in the “resurrection” of his assistants: the daughter of Jairus, the son of a widow, Lazarus... It can be assumed that he probably acted according to the recipes of sorcerers of some nations, similar topics, which are preserved in the Haitian cult of “Voodoo”, which goes back to the black cults of Africa. (People know cases when, by all indications, clearly dead people suddenly came to life. Such cases are also known in the practice of various cults, in the cult of Haitian blacks - Voodoo and in the Hindu cult in the practice of yoga. Many mammals can be in the same state of imaginary death animals, and in some of these animals hibernation is a natural state for waiting out unfavorable conditions. The possibility of being in a state of apparent death for mammals is due to the action of the same mechanisms that are characteristic of fish and amphibians waiting out unfavorable conditions in hibernation.) The Gospels report on this. details of the "miracle of the resurrection of the crucified Jesus". While on the cross, Jesus received some kind of drink from the guard in a sponge mounted on a spear and fell into such anesthesia that he did not react to the injection in the side with a spear. And the reason for the spear injection was, it must be said, strange...
The fact is that in the case described, all those crucified hung on the cross for only a few hours. This is unusual for this type of Roman execution; executed slaves usually hung on the cross for a very long time, for weeks. It is also known that before being taken down from the cross, two other criminals had their legs broken, and Jesus, who was in a state of anesthesia, was only pierced with a spear. So that during the crucifixion the soldiers acted according to the scenario known to Jesus and some of his companions, they could receive some gifts in advance before the crucifixion, and not only during the “execution” as described in the Gospels. But the resurrection was probably not entirely successful. Although Jesus may have appeared to the apostles three days later, he then does not really act anywhere else. This means that he most likely died at the same time from infection of the wound inflicted by the spear...
The date of Jesus' death is associated with the reign of the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate in Judea. Little is known about the beginning of the reign of Pontius Pilate in Judea, but the end of his activities there is well known... The Roman historian Josephus reports that the Samaritans, friends of Emperor Tiberius, filed a complaint against Pontius Pilate for the bloody dispersal of a demonstration in 36 BC Roman legate Vittellius. In 37 AD, Pontius Pilate was recalled to Rome. However, Pilate, as an official, could have been recalled in connection with the death of Tiberius in the same year.
The last date of the activity of Jesus Christ may be 37 AD, but 33, according to tradition, or 36, the year associated with some demonstration suppressed by Pilate, are acceptable. At the time of the crucifixion, Jesus was about 50 years old, and his mother Mary was slightly over 60 years old.

1. Best Work Bulgakov.
2. The deep intention of the writer.
3. Complex image of Yeshua Ha-Nozri.
4. The cause of the hero's death.
5. Heartlessness and indifference of people.
6. Agreement between light and darkness.

According to literary scholars and M.A. Bulgakov himself, “The Master and Margarita” is his final work. Dying from a serious illness, the writer told his wife: “Maybe this is right... What could I write after “The Master”?” And in fact, this work is so multifaceted that the reader cannot immediately figure out which genre it belongs to. This is a fantastic, adventurous, satirical, and most of all philosophical novel.

Experts define the novel as a menippea, where a deep semantic load is hidden under the mask of laughter. In any case, “The Master and Margarita” harmoniously reunites such opposing principles as philosophy and science fiction, tragedy and farce, fantasy and realism. Another feature of the novel is the shift in spatial, temporal and psychological characteristics. This is the so-called double novel, or a novel within a novel. Two seemingly completely different stories pass before the viewer’s eyes, echoing each other. The action of the first takes place in modern years in Moscow, and the second takes the reader to ancient Yershalaim. However, Bulgakov went even further: it is difficult to believe that these two stories were written by the same author. Moscow incidents are described in vivid language. There is a lot of comedy, fantasy, and devilry here. Here and there the author's familiar chatter with the reader develops into outright gossip. The narrative is based on a certain understatement, incompleteness, which generally calls into question the veracity of this part of the work. When it comes to the events in Yershalaim, the artistic style changes dramatically. The story sounds strictly and solemnly, as if this is not a work of fiction, but chapters from the Gospel: “In a white cloak with a bloody lining, and with a shuffling gait, in the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, came out into the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great. .." Both parts, according to the writer’s plan, should show the reader the state of morality over the past two thousand years.

Yeshua Ha-Nozri came to this world at the beginning of the Christian era, preaching his teaching about goodness. However, his contemporaries were unable to understand and accept this truth. Yeshua was sentenced to the shameful death penalty - crucifixion on a stake. From the point of view of religious leaders, the image of this person does not fit into any Christian canons. Moreover, the novel itself has been recognized as the “gospel of Satan.” However, Bulgakov's character is an image that includes religious, historical, ethical, philosophical, psychological and other features. That is why it is so difficult to analyze. Of course, Bulgakov, as an educated person, knew the Gospel very well, but he did not intend to write another example of spiritual literature. His work is deeply artistic. Therefore, the writer deliberately distorts the facts. Yeshua Ha-Nozri is translated as the savior from Nazareth, while Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Bulgakov's hero is “a man of twenty-seven years old”; the Son of God was thirty-three years old. Yeshua has only one disciple, Matthew Levi, while Jesus has 12 apostles. Judas in The Master and Margarita was killed by order of Pontius Pilate; in the Gospel he hanged himself. With such inconsistencies, the author wants to once again emphasize that Yeshua in the work, first of all, is a person who managed to find psychological and moral support in himself and be faithful to it until the end of his life. Paying attention to the appearance of his hero, he shows readers that spiritual beauty is much higher than external attractiveness: “... he was dressed in an old and torn blue chiton. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. The man had a large bruise under his left eye and an abrasion with dried blood in the corner of his mouth.” This man was not divinely imperturbable. He, like ordinary people, was subject to fear of Mark the Rat-Slayer or Pontius Pilate: “The one brought in looked at the procurator with anxious curiosity.” Yeshua was unaware of his divine origin, acting like an ordinary person.

Despite the fact that the novel pays special attention to the human qualities of the protagonist, his divine origin is not forgotten. At the end of the work, it is Yeshua who personifies that higher power that instructs Woland to reward the master with peace. At the same time, the author did not perceive his character as a prototype of Christ. Yeshua concentrates in himself the image of the moral law, which enters into a tragic confrontation with legal law. The main character came into this world with a moral truth - every person is kind. This is the truth of the entire novel. And with the help of it, Bulgakov seeks to once again prove to people that God exists. The relationship between Yeshua and Pontius Pilate occupies a special place in the novel. It is to him that the wanderer says: “All power is violence over people... the time will come when there will be no power either of Caesar or any other power. Man will move into the kingdom of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all.” Feeling some truth in the words of his prisoner, Pontius Pilate cannot let him go, for fear of harming his career. Under pressure from circumstances, he signs Yeshua’s death warrant and greatly regrets it.

The hero tries to atone for his guilt by trying to convince the priest to release this particular prisoner in honor of the holiday. When his idea fails, he orders the servants to stop tormenting the hanged man and personally orders the death of Judas. The tragedy of the story about Yeshua Ha-Nozri lies in the fact that his teaching was not in demand. People at that time were not ready to accept his truth. The main character is even afraid that his words will be misunderstood: “...this confusion will continue for a very long time.” Yeshua, who did not renounce his teachings, is a symbol of humanity and perseverance. His tragedy, but in the modern world, is repeated by the Master. Yeshua's death is quite predictable. The tragedy of the situation is further emphasized by the author with the help of a thunderstorm, which completes the plot line of modern history: “Darkness. Coming from the Mediterranean Sea, it covered the city hated by the procurator... An abyss fell from the sky. Yershalaim, a great city, disappeared, as if it did not exist in the world... Everything was devoured by darkness...”

With the death of the main character, the entire city plunged into darkness. At the same time, the moral state of the residents inhabiting the city left much to be desired. Yeshua is sentenced to “hanging on a stake,” which entails a long, painful execution. Among the townspeople there are many who want to admire this torture. Behind the cart with prisoners, executioners and soldiers “were about two thousand curious people who were not afraid of the hellish heat and wanted to be present at the interesting spectacle. These curious ones... have now been joined by curious pilgrims.” Approximately the same thing happens two thousand years later, when people strive to get to Woland’s scandalous performance in the Variety Show. From the behavior of modern people, Satan concludes that human nature does not change: “...they are people like people. They love money, but this has always been the case... humanity loves money, no matter what it is made of, whether leather, paper, bronze or gold... Well, they are frivolous... well, and mercy sometimes knocks on their hearts.”

Throughout the entire novel, the author, on the one hand, seems to draw a clear boundary between the spheres of influence of Yeshua and Woland, however, on the other hand, the unity of their opposites is clearly visible. However, despite the fact that in many situations Satan appears more significant than Yeshua, these rulers of light and darkness are quite equal. This is precisely the key to balance and harmony in this world, since the absence of one would make the presence of the other meaningless.

The peace that is awarded to the Master is a kind of agreement between two great powers. Moreover, Yeshua and Woland are driven to this decision by ordinary human love. Thus, Bulgakov still considers this wonderful feeling as the highest value.