„Mistrz i Małgorzata” Michaiła Bułhakowa – profanacja czy apologia chrystianizmu?

Abstract

Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” is recognized as a masterpiece of the world literature. Where does its genius and popularity stem from? Is it the mere fact that the novel portrays the life in the Soviet Russia at the end of the 1920’s in a both witty and satirical way? Does the style – a combination of fantasy, irony and humor – provide a sufficient explanation for the acclaim and admiration for Bulgakov’s book? One of the characteristic features of the Warsaw apologetic school approach has been a conscious choice of those literary texts for analysis that could be considered a testimony to an individual’s experience of faith and its defence. Understood this way, apologetics studies both texts which are apologetic in principle, as well as these containing implicit apologetic elements, including literary texts. Basing on the above assumption, this article reflects on and analyses Mikhail Bulgakov’s masterpiece “The Master and Margarita” with the aim to answer the question whether and to what extent can this novel be considered an indirect apology of Christianity. The author sets out with outlining Bulgakov’s biography, with an emphasis on his religious upbringing, his abandoning religion when coming of age and ignoring Christian ethics in his private life (three marriages). After portraying persecutions of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches in Bolshevik Russia, the article presents the novel’s origin, which constitutes Bulgakov’s peculiar reaction to the aggravating ideological battle of the communists against faith and religion. So far, interpretations of “The Master and Margarita” have attempted to depict it as a secular myth that merely draws on the Gospel motives. This doesn’t seem to be a correct reading though. In his novel, Bulgakov preaches faith in God and His Providence, that watches over every man and the world; defends the historical dimension of Jesus, whom he presents as a living person that can perform redemptive acts and who controls the seemingly almighty spirit of darkness. Moreover, Bulgakov points to responsibility a man holds for his or her deeds before God and shows the world in its material and earthly, as well as spiritual and eternal dimension. All the presented arguments speak in favour of reading Bulgakov’s novel as a literary apology of Christianity.