Reading Order
The Master and Margarita Reading Order
Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (written 1930–1940, published 1967) is a complete standalone novel. It interweaves two narratives: in Moscow in the 1930s, the devil — Woland — arrives with his retinue and subjects the Soviet literary establishment to a series of supernatural humiliations; in Yershalaim (Jerusalem), Pontius Pilate oversees the execution of Yeshua Ha-Nozri. A third thread follows the Master, a novelist who has written a novel about Pilate, and Margarita, the woman who loves him. Bulgakov wrote and revised the novel secretly during the Stalinist terror, knowing it could never be published in his lifetime.
Where to start
The Master and Margarita
Complete The Master and Margarita Book List
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The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov·1967·Standalone — Woland (the devil) in 1930s Moscow; the Master and Margarita; Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem; the great satirical novel of the Soviet period, written secretly during the Stalinist terror and published twenty-seven years after Bulgakov's death - Buy
The Heart of a Dog
OptionalMikhail Bulgakov·1987·Bulgakov's novella — a Moscow doctor implants human tissue into a stray dog, with consequences that satirize the Soviet new man; shorter and more immediately accessible than The Master and Margarita; a good entry point into Bulgakov
The Master and Margarita — Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Master and Margarita a standalone?
Yes — The Master and Margarita is entirely self-contained and has no sequel. It is Mikhail Bulgakov's last novel; he also wrote The Heart of a Dog (1925, published 1987) and The White Guard (1925), both standalones.
Why was The Master and Margarita not published until 1967?
Bulgakov wrote The Master and Margarita between 1930 and 1940 and died in 1940 knowing it could never be published in Soviet Russia under Stalin. His wife, Elena Shilovskaya, preserved the manuscript through the Stalinist terror and the German invasion. The novel was first published in the Soviet literary magazine Moskva in 1966–1967, heavily censored; the complete text was published in the Soviet Union in 1973.
Who is Woland in The Master and Margarita?
Woland is Bulgakov's version of the devil — a figure who tests corruption, reveals the lies people tell themselves, and metes out punishments that are essentially just. His name comes from Mephistopheles' self-introduction in Goethe's Faust. Bulgakov's devil is not evil in any simple sense; he is the enforcer of a kind of cosmic justice that the Soviet state has declared abolished.
Is The Master and Margarita based on Goethe's Faust?
The Master and Margarita is deeply in dialogue with Goethe's Faust — the novel's epigraph quotes Faust, Woland is modeled partly on Mephistopheles, and Bulgakov is using the Faust framework to interrogate Soviet atheism and the spiritual corruption produced by a state that has declared religion abolished.
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