The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

He completed his second draft in 1936, by which point he had devised the major plot lines of the final version. He is believed to have drawn from this to create the Walpurgis Night ball of the novel. In the early 1920s, Bulgakov had visited an editorial meeting of an atheist journal. He started writing the novel in 1928, but burned the first manuscript in 1930 (just as his character The Master did) as he could not see a future as a writer in the Soviet Union at a time of widespread political repression. Mikhail Bulgakov was a playwright and author. Many critics consider it to be one of the best novels of the 20th century, as well as the foremost of Soviet satires. The Master and Margarita combines supernatural elements with satirical dark comedy and Christian philosophy, defying categorization within a single genre. The devil, manifested as one Professor Woland, challenges the Soviet citizen's beliefs towards religion and condemns their behavior throughout the book. The story concerns a visit by the devil and his entourage to the officially atheistic Soviet Union.

The novel has since been published in several languages and editions. A samizdat version circulated that included parts cut out by official censors, and these were incorporated in a 1969 version published in Frankfurt. The manuscript was not published as a book until 1967, in Paris. A censored version, with several chapters cut by editors, was published in Moscow magazine in 1966–1967, after the writer's death, by his widow.

The Master and Margarita ( Russian: Мастер и Маргарита) is a novel by Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union between 19 during Stalin's regime.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov