The Stalinist Subject and Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita

• Published in: The Russian review (Stanford) 2015-04, Vol.74 (2), p.293-310
• Main Author: MERRILL, JESSICA E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Body; Bulgakov, Mikhail; Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasevich (1891-1940); Congresses and Conventions; Ideologies; Ideology; Israel; Jerusalem, Israel; Liberalism; Literary criticism; Narratives; Novels; Political ideology; Realism; Religiosity; Russian Federation; Russian literature; Sins; Soviet studies; Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich (1879-1953); Stalinism; Subject; Subjectivity; U.S.S.R; World view; Worldview
• ISSN: 0036-0341; 1467-9434
• DOI: 10.1111/russ.10770

The article argues that Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita critiques the dominant Soviet ideology of the 1930s from a position that is at the same time informed by a Stalinist subjectivity. Recent work on Soviet subjectivity suggests that the Stalinist subject was produced from a hybrid of messianic spirituality and liberal self‐fashioning. Bulgakov's novel provisionally separates these two worldviews into the two worlds of his novel–Moscow and Jerusalem. The article demonstrates that the narrative structures of the novel's two plots create two different subject positions. In Moscow, the narrative presupposes the existence of an omnitemporal omniscience, and characters are treated as corporal beings, to be “unmasked” and punished for their sins as in the End of Days. In Jerusalem, the narrative adheres to the conventions of historical realism, and the hero, Pontius Pilate, is developed as a modern, liberal subject. The article concludes that Bulgakov presents these worlds ambivalently–finding fault and hope in both. Rather than read Bulgakov's novel as a liberal critique of Soviet culture, the article hopes to facilitate a recognition of how a fragmented Stalinist subject position can provide the material for a great work of art.