“My Anna bores me like a bitter radish”: How the famous novel by Leo Tolstoy was created. IV

“I, however,” Koroviev continued to chatter, “knew people who had no idea not only about the fifth dimension, but who had no idea about anything at all and yet performed the most perfect miracles...”

M.A. Bulgakov, "The Master and Margarita"

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov is an artist who left a rich literary legacy in almost all genres: he began with a feuilleton, a story, an essay, created a cycle of original plays and dramatizations that had audience success, wrote stories, librettos, deep and brilliantly shaped novels - “ White Guard”, “The Life of Monsieur de Molière”, “Notes of a Dead Man” and “The Master and Margarita” - the pinnacle of his creativity. This last piece writer, his “sunset novel”, completes a significant theme for Bulgakov - the artist and power, this is a novel of difficult and sad thoughts about life, where philosophy and fantasy, mysticism and heartfelt lyrics, soft humor and well-aimed deep satire are combined.
The history of the creation and publication of this most famous novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, one of the most outstanding works in modern domestic and world literature, is complex and dramatic. This final work, as it were, summarizes the writer’s ideas about the meaning of life, about man, about his mortality and immortality, about the struggle between good and evil principles in history and in the moral world of man. What has been said helps to understand own assessment Bulgakov of his brainchild. “When he was dying, he said,” recalled his widow, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova: “Maybe this is right... What could I write after the Master?..”

Creative history“The Master and Margarita” in the most general outline boils down to the following. Bulgakov attributed the idea of ​​the novel and the beginning of work on it to 1928, but according to other sources it is obvious that the idea of ​​writing a book about the adventures of the devil in Moscow arose several years earlier, in the early to mid-1920s.

The first chapters were written in the spring of 1929. On May 8 of this year, Bulgakov submitted to the Nedra publishing house for publication in the almanac of the same name a fragment of the future novel - its separate independent chapter, called “Mania Furibunda,” which translated from Latin means “violent insanity, mania of rage.” This chapter, from which only fragments not destroyed by the author have reached us, in content approximately corresponded to the fifth chapter of the printed text “It was in Griboedov.” In 1929, the main parts of the text of the first edition of the novel were created (and possibly a plot-completed draft version of it about the appearance and tricks of the devil in Moscow).

M. Bulgakov wrote a novel, which he read in a certain society, where they told him that in this form they would not let him in, since he was extremely harsh with attacks, then he rewrote it and is thinking of publishing it, and in the original edition, releasing it as a manuscript to the society and this is simultaneously with publication in a truncated, censored form.” Probably, in the winter of 1928/29, only individual chapters of the novel were written, which were even more politically acute than the surviving fragments of the early edition. Perhaps, the “Mania Furibunda”, which was given to “Nedra” and has not reached us in full, was an already softened version of the original text. Bulgakov’s intention to put the manuscript into free circulation as “samizdat” is also plausible: after all, lists of “Cabal of Saints”, “Cabal of Saints”, “ Heart of a Dog", story " Fatal eggs” with a different version of the ending, unpublished in the collection “Nedr”. This first edition of the novel had at least 15 chapters, 10 of which had titles, occupying about 160 pages of handwritten text in a thick school-sized notebook (this is how handwritten editions of the novel were preserved).
In the first edition, the author went through several options for the titles of his work: “The Black Magician”, “The Engineer’s Hoof”, “Woland’s Tour”, “Son of Perdition”, “Juggler with a Hoof”, but did not settle on any. This first edition of the novel was destroyed by Bulgakov on March 18, 1930, after receiving news of the ban on the play “The Cabal of the Holy One.” The writer reported this in a letter to the government on March 28, 1930: “And I personally, with my own hands, threw a draft of a novel about the devil into the stove...” There is no exact information about the degree of plot completion of this edition, but from the surviving materials it is obvious that the final one is still missing compositional juxtaposition of two novels in a novel (“ancient” and modern), which constitutes genre feature“The Master and Margarita.”

Written by the hero of this book - the master - there is, in fact, no “novel about Pontius Pilate”; “simply” a “strange foreigner” tells Vladimir Mironovich Berlioz and Antosha (Ivanushka) Bezrodny at the Patriarch’s Ponds about Yeshua Ha-Notsri, and all the “New Testament” material is presented in one chapter (“The Gospel of Woland”) in the form of a lively conversation of the “foreigner” and his listeners. There are no future main characters - the master and Margarita. This is still a novel about the devil, and in the interpretation of the image of the devil, Bulgakov is at first more traditional than in the final text: his Woland (or Faland) still acts in the classical role of a tempter and provocateur (he, for example, teaches Ivanushka to trample the image of Christ), but The “super task” of the writer is already clear: both Satan and Christ are necessary for the author of the novel as representatives of absolute (albeit “multipolar”) truth, opposing the moral relativism of the world of Berlioz, Mogarych, Latunsky, Lavrovich... For Bulgakov not only denies, but also affirms.
Work on the novel resumed in 1931. The concept of the work changes significantly and deepens - Margarita and her companion appear - the Poet, who will later be called the master and occupy a central place. But for now this place still belongs to Woland, and the novel itself is planned to be called: “Consultant with a Hoof.” Bulgakov is working on one of the last chapters (“Woland’s Flight”) and in the upper right corner of the sheet with the outline of this chapter he writes: “Help, Lord, to finish the novel. 1931.” This edition, the second in a row, was continued by Bulgakov in the fall of 1932 in Leningrad, where the writer arrived without a single draft - not only the idea, but also the text of this work was so thought out and matured by that time. Almost a year later, on August 2, 1933, he informed the writer V.V. Veresaev about the resumption of work on the novel: “I... was possessed by a demon. Already in Leningrad and now here, suffocating in my little rooms, I began to stain page after page of my novel, destroyed three years ago. For what? Don't know. I'm amusing myself! Let it fall into oblivion! However, I’ll probably give it up soon.” However, Bulgakov never abandoned The Master and Margarita, and with interruptions caused by the need to write commissioned plays, dramatizations, scripts and librettos, he continued his work on the novel almost until the end of his life.

By November 1933, 500 pages of handwritten text had been written, divided into 37 chapters. The genre is defined by the author himself as a “fantasy novel” - this is what is written at the top of the sheet with a list of possible titles: “The Great Chancellor. Satan. Here I am. Feather hat. Black theologian. Foreigner's horseshoe. He appeared. Advent. Black magician. Hoof of a Consultant (Consultant with a Hoof),” but Bulgakov did not stop at any of them. All these title options still seem to point to Woland as the main person. However, Woland has already been significantly displaced by a new hero, who becomes the author of a novel about Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and this inner romance is broken in two, and between the chapters that form it (chapters 11 and 16), the love and misadventures of the “Poet” (or “Faust”, as he is called in one of the drafts) and Margarita are described. By the end of 1934, this edition was roughly completed. By this time, the word “master” had already been used three times in the last chapters in addressing the “Poet” of Woland, Azazello and Koroviev (who had already received permanent names). Over the next two years, Bulgakov made numerous additions and compositional changes to the manuscript, including finally crossing the lines of the master and Ivan Bezdomny. In July 1936, the last and final chapter of this edition of the novel, “The Last Flight,” was created, in which the fates of the master, Margarita, and Pontius Pilate were determined.
The third edition of the novel was started at the end of 1936 - beginning of 1937. In the first, unfinished version of this edition, brought to the fifth chapter and occupying 60 pages, Bulgakov, unlike the second edition, again moved the story of Pilate and Yeshua to the beginning of the novel, composing a single second chapter, called “The Golden Spear.” In 1937, a second, also unfinished, version of this edition was written, brought to the thirteenth chapter (299 pages). It dates from 1928-1937 and is entitled “Prince of Darkness.” Finally, the third and only completed version of the third edition of the novel was created in the period from November 1937 to the spring of 1938. This edition takes up 6 thick notebooks; The text is divided into thirty chapters. In the second and third versions of this edition, the Yershalaim scenes were introduced into the novel in the same way as in the published text, and in its third version the famous and final title appeared - “The Master and Margarita”.
From the end of May to June 24, 1938, this edition was retyped on a typewriter under the dictation of the author, who often changed the text along the way. Bulgakov began editing this typescript on September 19, with individual chapters being rewritten. The epilogue was written on May 14, 1939, immediately in the form that we know.

At the same time, the scene of the appearance of Matthew Levi to Woland was written with a decision about the fate of the master. When Bulgakov became mortally ill, his wife Elena Sergeevna continued editing under her husband’s dictation, and this editing was partly made in the typescript, partly in a separate notebook. On January 15, 1940, E. S. Bulgakova wrote in her diary: “Misha, as much as she can, is editing the novel, I’m rewriting it,” and episodes with Professor Kuzmin and the miraculous transfer of Styopa Likhodeev to Yalta were recorded (before that, the director of the Variety Show was Garasey Pedulaev , and Woland sent him to Vladikavkaz). Editing was stopped on February 13, 1940, less than four weeks before Bulgakov’s death, at the phrase: “So this means that the writers are going after the coffin?”, in the middle of the nineteenth chapter of the novel...
The last thoughts and words of the dying writer were addressed to this work, which contained all of his creative life: “When at the end of his illness he almost lost his speech, sometimes only the ends and beginnings of words came out,” recalled E. S. Bulgakova. - There was a case when I was sitting next to him, as always, on a pillow on the floor, near the head of his bed, he made me understand that he needed something, that he wanted something from me. I offered him medicine, a drink - lemon juice, but I clearly understood that this was not the point. Then I guessed and asked: “Your things?” He nodded with an air of “yes” and “no.” I said: “The Master and Margarita?” He, terribly delighted, made a sign with his head that “yes, this is it.” And he squeezed out two words: “So that they know, so that they know...” But it was then very difficult to fulfill this dying will of Bulgakov - to print and convey to people, readers the novel he wrote.
One of Bulgakov’s closest friends and first biographer P. S. Popov (1892-1964), having re-read the novel after the death of its author, wrote to Elena Sergeevna: “Brilliant skill always remains brilliant skill, but now the novel is unacceptable. 50-100 years will have to pass...” Now, he believed, “the less they know about the novel, the better.” Fortunately, the author of these lines was mistaken in the timing, but in the next 20 years after Bulgakov’s death, we do not find any mention in the literature of the existence of this work in the writer’s heritage, although Elena Sergeevna, from 1946 to 1966, made six attempts to break through censorship and publish the novel .
Only in the first edition of Bulgakov’s book “The Life of Monsieur de Molière” (1962) V. A. Kaverin managed to break the conspiracy of silence and mention the existence of the novel “The Master and Margarita” in the manuscript. Kaverin firmly stated that “the inexplicable indifference to the work of Mikhail Bulgakov, which sometimes inspired the deceptive hope that there are many like him and that, therefore, his absence in our literature does not constitute a big disaster, this is a harmful indifference...” Four years later, the magazine “ Moscow” (No. 11 for 1966 and No. 1 for 1967) published the novel in an abridged version with numerous censorship cuts and editing that distort the meaning of the text in comparison with the final, fourth and first posthumous edition of the novel presented by E. S. Bulgakova. The magazine version of the book with censorship omissions and distortions and cuts made on the initiative of the management of the editorial board of “Moscow” (E. S. Bulgakova was forced to agree to all this, just to keep her word given to the dying author to publish this work), thus amounted to , the fifth edition, which was published abroad as a separate book.

The response to this publishing arbitrariness was the appearance in “samizdat” of a typewritten text of all places that had been released or distorted in the journal publication, with an exact indication of where the missing parts should be inserted or the distorted ones should be replaced. The author of this “cut” publication was Elena Sergeevna herself and her friends. This text, which constituted one of the versions of the fourth (1940-1941) edition of the novel, was published in 1969 in Frankfurt am Main by the Posev publishing house. Passages removed or “redacted” from the magazine publication were in italics in the 1969 edition. What was this censorship and voluntaristic “editing” of the novel? What goals did it pursue? Now this is quite clear. 159 bills were made: 21 in the 1st part and 138 in the 2nd; A total of more than 14,000 words were removed (12% of the text!). Bulgakov's text was grossly distorted, phrases from different pages were arbitrarily combined, and sometimes completely meaningless sentences arose. The reasons related to the literary and ideological canons that existed at that time are obvious: the most removed passages were those describing the actions of the Roman secret police and the work of “one of the Moscow institutions,” the similarities between the ancient and modern worlds. Further, the “inadequate” reaction was weakened Soviet people” on our reality and some of their very unattractive features. The role and moral strength of Yeshua was weakened in the spirit of vulgar anti-religious propaganda. Finally, the “censor” in many cases showed a kind of “chastity”: some persistent references to the nudity of Margarita, Natasha and other women at Woland’s ball were removed, the naked fat man, the hostess, was removed brothel in Strasbourg and the enterprising Moscow dressmaker, Margarita’s witchy rudeness is weakened, etc.

In preparing the complete uncensored domestic edition, published in 1973, the edition of the early 1940s was restored, followed by textual revision carried out by the editor of the publishing house “Khudozhestvennaya Literatura” (where the novel was published) A. A. Saakyants. Published after the death of E. S. Bulgakova (in 1970), this, in fact, the sixth edition of the novel was established for a long time as canonical by numerous reprints, and as such was introduced into literary circulation in the 1970-1980s. Finally, for the Kyiv edition of 1989 and for the Moscow collected works of 1989-1990, the seventh and to date final edition of the text of the novel was made with a new reconciliation of all surviving author’s materials, carried out by the literary critic L. M. Yanovskaya. However, it should be remembered that, as in many other cases in the history of literature, when there is no definitive author's text, the novel remains open to clarification and new readings. And the case with “The Master and Margarita” is almost classic in its way: Bulgakov died while working on finishing the text of the novel; he failed to complete his own textual task for this work. Therefore, there were obvious traces of the novel’s shortcomings even in its plot part (Woland limps and does not limp; Berlioz is called either the chairman or the secretary of Massolit; the white bandage with a strap on Yeshua’s head is suddenly replaced by a turban; Margarita and Natasha of “pre-witch status” disappear somewhere; Aloysius appears without explanation; he and Varenukha fly out first from the bedroom window, and then from the staircase window; Gella is absent in the “last flight,” although she leaves the “bad apartment,” etc., and this cannot be explained as “on purpose.” conceived”), some stylistic errors are also noticeable. So the story of the publication of the novel did not end there, especially since all its early editions were published.

Illustrations

By the way, about the Rushevs. Nikolai Konstantinovich Rushev was an artist and the father of the brilliant girl Nadya. Nadya, who inherited the ability to draw from her father, made completely unique series of drawings for various works of art. When a binder of that very “Moscow” with a novel fell into her hands, the girl literally became obsessed with the book and began new series drawings illustrating The Master and Margarita. Over the course of a year, she made more than 160 compositions... But the novel, they say, is cursed... “Once at an exhibition, one came up to Nadya and me old artist, who wished to remain anonymous. He said that he knew Mikhail Bulgakov’s widow, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, that Nadya, in order to continue her successful work, needed to get to know her, because she also kept all the bills (cut out pieces - author’s note) issued during the first publication.” (N.K. Rushev “The Last Year of Hope”) Such an exemplary artist, don’t you think? Nikolai Rushev met with Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, but without Nadya. On March 6, 1969, a completely healthy 16-year-old girl suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. The doctors couldn't save him. When the father brought the drawings to Elena Sergeevna, an amazing thing became clear: the portrait of Margarita, made by Nadya, conveyed a complete resemblance to the writer’s wife, who was the prototype of Margarita. Of course, Nadya had never seen Elena Sergeevna or her photographs.

Film adaptations

In our country, the full version of the novel has not yet been published in print, but in Poland they have already made a film adaptation. Andrzej Wajda was the first to take aim at The Master and Margarita, releasing the film Pilate and Others in 1971. They filmed it without any major tragedies, it was released, everything was great. And the only strange thing is that this film was never shown in Russia.

In 1972, the Italian-Yugoslav version of The Master and Margarita was filmed. Director - Alexander Petrovich. In 1988, another Pole, Maciek Wojtyszko, created an eight-episode television film based on the novel. And in not a single case were there any mystical circumstances interfering with filming, budgets did not disappear without a trace, the only copies did not evaporate, or the screening of films was not prohibited. True, in the 80s, Roman Polanski took on the film adaptation of the novel in Hollywood, and the project was closed, but for completely earthly reasons - the producers found the project simply unprofitable.

Our directors created complete mysticism. They also remembered that Woland could not stand electricity, and I even read someone’s version that Bulgakov did not like cinema, and therefore, it means that nothing works out with film adaptations...

Igor Talankin, Elem Klimov, Eldar Ryazanov and a number of other talented directors dreamed of making a film based on the novel, and not one of them managed to make their dream come true.

Vladimir Naumov wanted to film “The Master and Margarita” together with his friend Alexander Alov. Naumov had known the writer’s widow, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, since the days of working on “Running.” She worked as a literary consultant on the set, and she gave it to Naumov to read full version novel. When he started working on the film, Elena Sergeevna had already died. And one night Naumov had a dream that the front door rang. The director walked to the door and looked through the peephole. “I look: Elena Sergeevna in a fur coat.” He opened the door and invited the guest to come in. She just said: “I’ll be a minute - Mikhail Afanasyevich is waiting downstairs. I wanted to inform you, Volodya, that there will be no film.” The dream turned out to be prophetic.

Ryazanov was simply forbidden to make the film from above. No explanation. He was never able to get to the bottom of the truth, who exactly banned it and why.

In 1991, the original script for the novel was written by Elem Klimov (co-authored with his brother German Klimov) and, as chairman of the Union of Cinematographers, received the right to shoot. The newspapers were already writing about the future film. But it was never filmed because there was no technology; their development required huge amounts of money, which he never found.

But Yuri Kara found them somewhere. About $15 million was spent on his project. And it is with this film that the most mysteries are associated. The film was filmed in 1994, but was never released. The director himself recalled that during filming there were so many obstacles, as if the novel was resisting with all its might. “At the beginning of autumn we made expensive decorations of ancient Jerusalem in Sudak,” Kara recalled. “But just as we were about to start filming, it snowed.” Filming had to be cancelled, and the scenery had to be redone.” When the film was finally shot, a conflict broke out between the director and the producer, which ended in litigation. Then the film with the film disappeared, and the person to whom it was given for safekeeping suddenly died. Then it seemed like they found the film and came to a compromise with the producer, but Bulgakov’s relatives suddenly appeared and banned the release of the film... In short, it’s some kind of insurmountable hassle, for some reason it seems to me that if they come to an agreement with the relatives, then some other insurmountable problems will appear obstacles.

Vladimir Bortko made the film on his second attempt. The first was undertaken in 2000, but the project was closed. Starting work on the film for the second time, Bortko film set banned all talk about mysticism. Although he admitted that he once met a strange gentleman at the Patriarch’s, who casually said: “You won’t succeed.” However, it worked. Not a masterpiece, of course, but we are not talking about the artistic value of the paintings now. The film was filmed and even shown on television!

Here is a selection of facts from the Internet on the topic of mysticism on set:

People's Artist of Russia Oleg Basilashvili lost his voice on the set of The Master and Margarita. Doctors diagnosed him with ligament hemorrhage. The artist’s colleagues at the St. Petersburg BDT theater unanimously claim that on the eve of the ill-fated filming, Oleg Valeryanovich felt excellent. He rehearsed in the play "Quartet" and in good mood was preparing to work on The Master and Margarita, where he played Satan Woland. Problems with his voice began already on the set, when Basilashvili pronounced Bulgakov’s famous phrases with his inimitable bass. His throat seemed to be convulsing, the actor began to wheeze and lost consciousness for a few seconds. The next day, appearing at the theater, Basilashvili was practically unable to speak. A doctor was urgently called and prescribed him complete rest and absolute silence for at least a month.

Alexander Kalyagin, who was preparing to play Berlioz, had two heart attacks in a row.

Viktor Avilov played at the Woland Theater with two pectoral crosses. But at the same time, on tour in Germany, his heart stopped twice. The young, full of energy actor died of cancer.

The artist Valery Ivakin, who replaced Avilov in the play, had a heart attack during the second performance.

Alexander Abdulov, who played Bassoon, sadly states: “This is the fifth time I’m playing Koroviev with the fifth director, but not one of these films has seen the light of day yet.”

Well... And even if the fate of Alexander Abdulov somehow painfully echoes Woland’s words about lung sarcoma, here is an excerpt from an interview with Abdulov:

Have you seen the film adaptations by Yuri Kara and Andrzej Wajda, which never reached a wide audience? Are they worth the conversations that arise around them year after year?

Saw. They're not worth it. It is not interesting. Vaida, in my feeling, simply did not understand Bulgakov. I have no right to dispute the great director, but it was none of his business. It's none of Kara's business. My fellow producer helped film his film. The film lies under his blanket and he doesn’t show it to anyone. He tried to re-edit it, offered to do it to big directors - everyone refused, even for a lot of money.

So there’s no mysticism in the fact that Kara’s picture didn’t come out, is there?

The mysticism begins when your brother begins to discuss this painting. This is where the Sabbath, Satan's ball, will begin. You will come up with all the mysticism. When we were filming, there was no devilry.

Quotes from “The Master and Margarita”:

Yes, man is mortal, but that would not be so bad. The bad thing is that he is sometimes suddenly mortal, that's the trick! (Woland)

A brick will never fall on anyone’s head for no reason at all. (Woland)

It is easy and pleasant to speak the truth. (Yeshua Ha-Nozri)

People are 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, frivolous... well, well... ordinary people... in general, they resemble the old ones... housing problem only spoiled them... (Woland)
Congratulations, citizen, having lied! (Bassoon)

For mercy's sake... would I allow myself to pour vodka for the lady? This is pure alcohol! (cat Behemoth)
The most interesting thing about this lie is that it is a lie from the first to the last word. (Woland)

...never ask for anything! Never and nothing, and especially among those who are stronger than you. They will offer and give everything themselves! (Woland)

(Woland to Behemoth: Get out.) I haven’t had coffee yet, how can I leave? (cat Behemoth)

Manuscripts don't burn. (Woland)

It's nice to hear that you treat your cat so politely. For some reason, cats are usually called “you,” although not a single cat has ever drunk brotherhood with anyone. (cat Behemoth)

No document, no person. (Koroviev)

Maestro! Shorten the march! (Cat)

Beg them to leave me as a witch!.. I will not marry an engineer or a technician! (Natasha)
It's sometimes nice to linger on the festive midnight. (Woland)

...he wasn't verbose this time. The only thing he said was that among human vices, he considers cowardice to be one of the most important. (Aphranius, about Yeshua)

I don’t play pranks, I don’t hurt anyone, I fix the primus stove. (cat Behemoth)

Well, the one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves. (Woland)

There is only one freshness - the first, and it is also the last. And if the sturgeon is second freshness, then this means that it is rotten! (Woland)

In a white cloak with a bloody lining and a shuffling cavalry gait, early in the 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. (Author)

Everyone will be rewarded according to their faith. (Woland)

History will judge us. (cat Behemoth)

Housekeepers know everything - it is a mistake to think that they are blind. (cat Behemoth)

I will be a silent hallucination. (cat Behemoth)

After all, you think about how you can be dead. (Azazello).

He didn't deserve light, he deserved peace. (Levi about the Master).

Why chase after the footsteps of what is already over. (Woland).

Love jumped out in front of us, like a killer jumps out of the ground in an alley, and struck us both at once! That's how lightning strikes, that's how a Finnish knife strikes! (Master).

Yes, I give up,” said the cat, “but I give up solely because I can’t play in an atmosphere of bullying from envious people!” (cat Behemoth)

The time will come when there will be no power of Caesars or any other power. Man will move into the kingdom of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all.

All power is violence against people.

The cat turned out to be not only solvent, but also a disciplined animal. At the first shout from the conductor, he stopped advancing, got off the step and sat down at the stop, rubbing his mustache with a ten-kopeck piece. But as soon as the conductress pulled the rope and the tram started moving, the cat acted like anyone who is expelled from the tram, but who still needs to go. Having let all three carriages pass by, the cat jumped onto the rear arch of the last one, grabbed some intestine coming out of the wall with its paw, and drove away, thus saving a dime.

Understood! - Ivan declared decisively, - I ask you to give me paper and a pen.
“Give me some paper and a short pencil,” Stravinsky ordered the fat woman, and told Ivan this: “But today I advise you not to write.”
“No, no, today, certainly today,” Ivan cried out in alarm.
- OK then. Just don't strain your brain. If it doesn’t work out today, it will work out tomorrow... And remember that here we will help you in every possible way, and without this nothing will work out for you. Do you hear?.. You will be helped here... can you hear me?.. You will be helped here... you will be helped here... You will get relief. It’s quiet here, everything is calm... They will help you here...

You know, I can’t stand noise, fuss, violence and all sorts of things like that. I especially hate human screams, be they a scream of suffering, rage, or some other scream.

Love jumped out in front of us, like a killer jumps out of the ground in an alley, and struck us both at once!
That's how lightning strikes, that's how a Finnish knife strikes!

No no no! Not another word! Under no circumstances and never! I won’t take anything in your mouth in your buffet! I, most respected one, passed by your stand yesterday and still can’t forget either the sturgeon or the feta cheese. My precious one! Cheese cheese is not green, someone deceived you. She's supposed to be white. Yes, for tea? After all, this is slop! I saw with my own eyes how some unkempt girl poured raw water from a bucket into your huge samovar, while the tea continued to be poured. No, my dear, that’s impossible!
The second freshness is nonsense! There is only one freshness - the first, and it is also the last. And if the sturgeon is second freshness, then this means that it is rotten!

Something evil lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and table conversation. Such people are either seriously ill or secretly hate those around them. True, exceptions are possible. Among the people who sat down with me at the banquet table, I sometimes came across amazing scoundrels!

...the darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city hated by the procurator. The hanging bridges connecting the temple with the terrible Anthony Tower disappeared, an abyss fell from the sky and flooded the winged gods over the hippodrome, the Hasmonean palace with loopholes, bazaars, caravanserais, alleys, ponds... Yershalaim disappeared - the great city, as if it did not exist in the world...

“A cat is not supposed to have pants, sir,” the cat answered with great dignity, “won’t you order me to put on boots too?” Puss in Boots only happens in fairy tales, sir. But have you ever seen anyone at a ball without a tie? I don't intend to find myself in a comical position and risk being pushed into the neck!

Frankly speaking, I don't like latest news on the radio. They are always reported by some girls who mumble the names of places. in addition, every third of them is tongue-tied, as if such people were deliberately selected.

Why chop wood,” the talkative cat picked up, “I would like to serve as a conductor on a tram, and there’s nothing worse than this job in the world.”

“I am in admiration,” Koroviev sang monotonously, “we are in admiration, the queen is in admiration.”
“The Queen is delighted,” Azazello muttered behind his back.
“I’m delighted,” the cat cried.

Never ask for anything. Never ask for anything, and especially from those who are stronger than you. They will offer and give everything themselves!

I hereby certify that the bearer of this, Nikolai Ivanovich, spent the night mentioned at Satan’s ball, having been brought there as a means of transportation... put a parenthesis, Gella! Write "hog" in brackets. Signed - Behemoth.
- What about the number? - Nikolai Ivanovich squeaked.
“We don’t put numbers, with a number the paper will become invalid,” the cat responded, waved the paper, got a seal from somewhere, breathed on it according to all the rules, stamped the word “paid” on the paper and handed the paper to Nikolai Ivanovich.

Listen to the soundlessness,” Margarita said to the master, and the sand rustled under her bare feet, “listen and enjoy what you were not given in life - silence.” Look, there ahead is your eternal home, which was given to you as a reward. I can already see the Venetian window and the climbing grapes, it rises to the very roof. This is your home, your forever home. I know that in the evening those whom you love, whom you are interested in and who will not alarm you will come to you. They will play for you, they will sing to you, you will see the light in the room when the candles are burning. You will fall asleep, having put on your greasy and eternal cap, you will fall asleep with a smile on your lips. Sleep will strengthen you, you will begin to reason wisely. And you won’t be able to drive me away. I will take care of your sleep...

Writer and blogger K.M. Weyland (or Uyland? Uyland?.. may the translators forgive me and correct me) offers the following 7 steps that will help you take a raw idea and make candy out of it.

You should approach creating a plan for a work with the understanding that not only will it not constrain you, but, on the contrary, it will help you find exciting and original solutions that would otherwise be almost impossible to think of. A plan is a map of the area. With its help, you can plot the shortest route... or wander around to your heart's content, looking into everything interesting places and collecting a collection of refrigerator magnets.

In addition, the plan will help avoid plot dead ends, which means it will save a lot of time. Not to mention the money for treating depression, alcoholism and caffeine addiction (and they sooner or later overtake everyone creative personality, which neglects advance planning). It can take months to revise a novel draft, but revising an outline will take... a few minutes? hour? Depends on your typing speed.

1. Decide on a concept

• Protagonist: who main character?


• Situation: why is he interesting? What is his condition at the beginning of the story? What will he be like at the end?


• The goal of the main character: what does he want at the beginning, what is he ready to do? What will change by the end?


• Antagonist: how and why would someone interfere with the main character?


• Tragedy: what troubles are you ready to send to the main character?


• Conflict: What will the main character do when faced with trouble? And why does he have to deal with them throughout the entire novel?

2. Sketch out the episodes you need.

Done? Great. Put down your pen/keyboard for a minute and look over the resulting list with an eagle's eye. What has been written probably raises a lot of questions. Write them down. Yes, yes, if you don’t know something, if some details of the episode are not clear, make a note and write down the question. It’s better to count all the holes in the plot in advance and understand in which directions you have to think next.

Now let's go through each issue separately. Any ideas? Even a few? Let's write it down. It doesn’t matter if the idea is crazy - the orchid of genius can still bloom on its grave. We go through the solution options in search of the least predictable for the reader. Break the mold, turn stereotypes upside down, surprise yourself. Most of what you come up with you may never write down, so let your imagination run wild. Compose, ask new questions, look for unexpected answers - talk to yourself without fear that the orderlies will hear you.

3. Get to know your characters

Let's take the protagonist for example. What was he doing before he got into your novel? Start with tragedy. Could something in your protagonist's past be the reason? Why does he react to tragedy this way? Perhaps some unresolved problems from the past will make his life even more difficult and affect the development of the conflict?

After you decide on the biography of your hero in general terms, conduct an interview with him. Ask questions and let the character answer them: in his own voice, based on his worldview and understanding of the situation. If you happen to know English, then perhaps this questionnaire will help you: 365 questions for your character.

4. Explore the environment

Don't try to make your life too easy. Don't choose places just because you know them or like them. The setting should work for the plot. If you can easily move the action to another location, then it may be worth looking for alternative locations. Find a place that will enrich your story and allow your characters to develop better.

Based on the list of episodes available, make a list of required locations. Is it possible to throw out some or combine them without losing anything? It's probably worth doing that way. But it's up to you.

By the way, the same goes for unnecessary characters.

5. Write a plan

Go in order, episode by episode, trying to assemble the existing scenes into a whole. This is your main task - to give meaning and structure to chaos. The plan can only include short description(Sasha and Masha met in a cafe), maybe detailed (Sasha was stupid over a cup of tea, at that time Masha decided to try Irish coffee, but got dirty with cream; Sasha noticed this, laughed, Masha was offended, Sasha offered to pay for her order, etc.) etc.) or very detailed (It was getting dark. In mid-January in county town N. Alexander went to a cafe that Misha had long ago recommended to him...).

Focus on the key moments for each scene. Think about whose point of view the story will be told from. What are the goals of the characters involved in the episode, what do they want? What can intensify the conflict? How can you demonstrate the main idea more clearly? How will this affect subsequent episodes?

As a result, you should have a continuous sequence. Pay attention to possible illogicalities, sagging, and “pianos”. If something is not going well and you feel stuck, try moving to the next scene you know and slowly rewinding. For example, you need the characters to get to point A, but you don't know how to do it. Start at point A. What's going on? Why is this happening? Try it, maybe you’ll be able to identify the cause by the consequences.

6. Write an abbreviated outline

Firstly, the episode will help you look at history from a new angle. Due to the abundance of details in the main plan, did you miss or forget something? It's time to fix this. Secondly, an episodic book makes it easier to solve global problems. Do you need to understand how much time has passed? Estimate the number of chapters and parts of a book? See how the resulting plan and the original idea compare? Has the main idea been proven? The episode will help you.

7. Write a novel

And when (note, not “if”, but “when”) you realize that there are other, better solutions, that the original plan can be improved, just do it. Without hesitation. Because the plan is not the rails, and you are not the tram. A plan is just a map. And you are free to leave the beaten path at any time and go into the jungle in search of adventure.

If after all you still think that you don’t need a plan, I have a wonderful one for you.

abridged version

Do you want to write a novel but still can’t muster the strength? This happens quite often. Writing books is easy; hard to write good books. If it weren't so, we'd all be creating bestsellers.

good fiction is not something accidental - it is the result of carefully planned action, the design of the novel. You can do design work both before and after writing your book. I tried to do both and, in the end, I was convinced that before was both faster and of better quality.

How to design work of art? In my main job I am involved in the architecture of complex software projects. And I write books in the same way as programs - using the snowflake method. What it is? Before we go any further, take a look at this drawing. The pattern of a snowflake is one of the most important mathematical objects, which has been studied by many scientists.

Here we see turn-based strategy creating snowflakes. At first she doesn’t look much like herself, but gradually everything falls into place.

You can write novels using the same principles - start small, and then add more and more details until you have a full-fledged story. Part design work in literature this is creativity, and part of it is managing your own creativity: turning scattered material into a well-structured novel. This is exactly what I want to teach you.

Most writers spend a lot of time thinking about a novel. Perhaps you are doing some research. You calculate how the story will develop. You are brainstorming. You hear the voices of various characters. This is the most important part of creating a book, what I call “throwing in the information.” I'm assuming you know how to do it: you've already got an idea for a book in your head, and now you're ready to sit down and start writing.

But before you get down to business, you should take care of organizational issues. You need to write down all the ideas on paper in a form that you can use later. For what? Because our memories are unreliable, and because your story (like any other story at the same stage) has many holes that need to be patched before you can begin to work. You need to create an outline for your novel, and in a way that doesn't discourage you from writing. Below is step by step diagram, which I use to create design documents for my books, and which I hope will help you.

Step one

Take an hour and write a one-sentence summary of your novel. Something like this: “An evil physicist travels back in time to kill the Apostle Paul” (annotation for my first novel, Sin). This is your novel in close-up, analogous to the big triangle in the snowflake diagram. When you pitch your book to publishers, the blurb sentence should appear at the very beginning of the work. It is also called a hook, which allows you to sell the novel to the publisher, distributors, stores and readers. So try to make it sound as good as possible.

Some tips on how to do this:

*The shorter the better. The sentence should not exceed 15 words.

*No names! Better to say Disabled Acrobat than Jane Doe.

*Tie general concept works with characters. Which of the characters suffered the most as the story progressed? Now indicate what he wants to receive as a reward.

*Read brief annotations books on the New York Times bestseller list to understand how it's done. The ability to describe a book in one sentence is an art and worth mastering.

Step two

Take another hour and expand the sentence into a paragraph describing the plot, conflict, and resolution of the novel. As a result, you will get an analogue of the second stage in the snowflake circuit. Personally, I like stories that have three conflicts plus an ending. The development of each of the conflicts takes up a quarter of the book, and another quarter is spent at the end. You can also use this paragraph in your proposal for publication. Ideally, it should consist of five sentences. One sentence for the beginning, one for each of the conflicts, and one more for the end.

Step three

All of the above will give you general form stories. Now you need to write something similar for each of the heroes. Characters are the most important part of any novel, so the time you invest in creating them will pay off tenfold when you start working on the book. Spend an hour on each of the main characters and write a short one-page essay: - Name of the hero.

— A sentence that describes the story of his life.

— The hero’s motivation (what does he want to achieve ideally?)

— The hero’s goal (what does he want to achieve specifically?)

— Conflict (what prevents him from achieving his goal?)

— Epiphany (what does he learn, how does he change as a result of the events that happened?)

— A paragraph that describes the events in which the hero takes part.

Important note: You may need to go back and rewrite the annotations after this. This good sign- your heroes teach you something useful for your story. At each stage of writing a novel, you can go back and reshape what you did earlier. This is a very useful thing: it is better to correct all the shortcomings now rather than when you have already written a 400-page manuscript.

Step four

At this stage, you should have it in your head full picture your novel - and it will only take you a day or two. Now we need to write the story. Spend a few hours and turn each annotated sentence into its own paragraph. All of them, except the last one, must end with a conflict (the last one - the ending of the work). As a result, you will receive a synopsis of the novel, which can then also be used to send to the publishing house.

Step five

Spend a day or two writing a one-page description of each main character. Half a page will be spent on minor characters. These character synopses should tell your story from each character's point of view. If necessary, go back and make changes as needed. This stage gives me the most pleasure, and later I insert character synopses into the main synopsis. Editors like this because they always like character-based fiction.

Step six

Now you have a solid story and several stories based on it, one for each character. Take a week and expand your one-page synopsis to a four-page synopsis. Essentially, you need to stretch each paragraph from Step Four to a full page. Along the way, you discover the internal logic of the work and make strategic decisions.

Step seven

Turn the description of the characters into a detailed story about each of them, indicating all the essential details: date of birth, appearance, life history, motivation, goals, etc. And most importantly, how will the hero be transformed by the end of the novel? As a result, your characters will turn into real people and sometimes they will present their claims to the development of the plot.

Step eight

Before you start working on your manuscript, there are a couple of things you can do to help you along the way. First, you need to take a four-page synopsis and make a list of all the scenes that will need to be written. The most convenient way to do this is in Excel. For some reason, many writers do not want to deal with unfamiliar programs. Deal with it. You've already mastered how to type in Word. Excel is even simpler. You need to create a list of scenes, and this program is designed to make lists. If you lack knowledge, buy a book and learn. Spend less than a day - it's worth it.

Each scene should have one line in the table. In the first column, list the characters on whose behalf the story is told, or through whose eyes you look at what is happening in the novel. In another, broader column, write down what happens in this scene. If desired, in the third column you can indicate how many pages you plan to stretch this scene to, and in the fourth column the numbering of chapters. An Excel spreadsheet is the ideal tool for this, as you can see the entire story and can easily move scenes from place to place.

I usually end up with about 100-plus lines and it takes about a week to compose them.

Step nine

Step nine is optional. Go back to Word and write out each scene listed in the table into several paragraphs. Sketch out approximate dialogues and sketches of problems to be solved. If there is no problem in the scene, then you need to create it or cut the entire scene. I usually had one or two pages per chapter and I started each of the chapters on new page. Then I printed out the text and put it in a binder so that I could swap chapters around or completely rewrite them without confusing the rest. This process usually took me a week. The end result was a 50-page document, which I then corrected with a red pen as I wrote the draft. I wrote down all the ideas that came to my mind in the morning in the margins of this document. This, by the way, is a relatively painless way to write a long-form synopsis, which all writers hate so much.

Step ten

At this point, sit down and start drafting. You'll be surprised how quickly you can write. I've seen authors triple the speed of writing a novel this way, yet still have their drafts look like they'd already been pre-edited. I've heard writers complain more than once about the difficulty of writing a first draft. All of them, without exception, sit and think: I don’t know what to write about next! Life is too short to write like this! There's no reason to spend 500 hours working on the first draft if you can do it in 150 hours.

That's all, actually. The snowflake method helps me and some of my friends who also decided to try it. I hope you find it useful.

Acknowledgments: I thank my friends at Chi Libris and especially Janelle Schneider for discussing the snowflake method and everything else.

"All happy families are similar to each other, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” begins with this phrase famous work Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Anna Karenina". Today this novel occupies a prominent place in the golden fund of world literature, but its creation was not at all easy for the author. He planned to write the book in just two weeks, but it ended up taking four years. In his hearts, the writer exclaimed: “I’m tired of my Anna like a bitter radish!”

According to literary scholars, the idea of ​​​​creating the novel “Anna Karenina” was born to Tolstoy after reading one of the works of A. S. Pushkin. When the phrase “The guests were going to the dacha...” flashed before Lev Nikolayevich’s eyes, his imagination immediately began to draw the plot. As the writer himself noted: “I involuntarily, accidentally, without knowing why or what would happen, I conceived of people and events, began to continue, then, of course, I changed it, and suddenly it began so beautifully and coolly that a novel came out, which I have now finished in draft, the novel is very lively, hot and finished, with which I am very pleased and which will be ready, God willing, in two weeks.”

However, Tolstoy was unable to write Anna Karenina so quickly. From a family and everyday affair, the novel grew into a socio-psychological one. Tolstoy began work in 1873. When several chapters of the work were ready, the writer took them to the Russian Messenger publication. Now he had to write a continuation of the novel in time for the release of each issue.

Contemporaries recalled how difficult it was for Tolstoy. Often he set to work with inspiration, and it also happened that the writer shouted: “My Anna bores me like a bitter radish,” “Unbearably disgusting,” “My God, if only someone would finish Anna Karenina for me!” Only four years later the novel was ready.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but the editor of the Russian Messenger, Mikhail Katkov, did not like the epilogue, and he did not allow it to be published. Instead of an epilogue, a note appeared in the journal:

“In the previous book, under the novel “Anna Karenina,” “The ending follows.” But with the death of the heroine, the novel actually ended. According to the author’s plan, there would have been a short two-page epilogue, from which readers could learn that Vronsky, in confusion and grief after Anna’s death, goes as a volunteer to Serbia and that everyone else is alive and well, while Levin remains in his village and is angry at the Slavs. committees and volunteers. The author, perhaps, will develop these chapters for a special edition of his novel.”

Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy was more than once reproached for the fact that death main character turned out to be too cruel. The writer answered this quite wisely:
“One day Pushkin said to his friend: “Imagine what kind of thing my Tatyana did. She got married. I didn’t expect this from her.” I can say the same about Anna. My heroes do what they should do in real life, and not what I want.”

Literary scholars are still guessing about who became the prototype for the main character. Describing the appearance of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy imagined the daughter of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin: “Her hairstyle was invisible. Only noticeable, decorating her, were these willful short rings of curly hair, always sticking out at the back of her head and temples. There was a string of pearls on the chiseled strong neck.”

Tolstoy knew family drama his close friends, in which the wife filed for divorce and remarried. This was an unheard of resonance at that time.

About a year before work on the novel began, not far from Yasnaya Polyana A certain Anna Stepanovna Pirogova threw herself under the train, abandoned by her lover. The mutilated corpse affected Tolstoy strong impression.

Tolstoy, you proved with patience and talent,
That a woman should not “walk”
Neither with the chamber cadet, nor with the aide-de-camp,
When she is a wife and mother."

"Anna Karenina" is considered the most filmed work of Russian literature. A

“However,” Koroviev continued to chatter, “I knew people who had no idea not only about the fifth dimension, but who had no idea about anything at all and yet performed the most perfect miracles...”

M.A. Bulgakov, "The Master and Margarita"

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov is an artist who left a rich literary legacy in almost all genres: he began with feuilletons, short stories, essays, created a series of original plays and dramatizations that had audience success, wrote stories, librettos, deep and brilliant novels - “The White Guard” ”, “The Life of Monsieur de Molière”, “Notes of a Dead Man” and “The Master and Margarita” - the pinnacle of his creativity. This last work of the writer, his “sunset novel,” completes a significant theme for Bulgakov - the artist and power, this is a novel of difficult and sad thoughts about life, where philosophy and science fiction, mysticism are combined and soulful lyrics, gentle humor and apt deep satire.

The history of the creation and publication of this most famous novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, one of the most outstanding works in modern Russian and world literature, is complex and dramatic.

This final work, as it were, summarizes the writer’s ideas about the meaning of life, about man, about his mortality and immortality, about the struggle between good and evil principles in history and in the moral world of man. The above helps to understand Bulgakov’s own assessment of his brainchild. “When he was dying, he said,” recalled his widow, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova: “Maybe this is right... What could I write after the Master?..”

How the novel “The Master and Margarita” was created (11 photos) The creative history of “The Master and Margarita” in the most general terms boils down to the following. Bulgakov attributed the idea of ​​the novel and the beginning of work on it to 1928, but according to other sources it is obvious that the idea of ​​writing a book about the adventures of the devil in Moscow arose several years earlier.

at the beginning-middle

1920s. The first chapters were written in the spring of 1929. On May 8 of this year, Bulgakov submitted to the Nedra publishing house for publication in the almanac of the same name a fragment of the future novel - its separate independent chapter, called “Mania Furibunda,” which translated from Latin means “violent insanity, mania of rage.” This chapter, from which only fragments not destroyed by the author have reached us, in content approximately corresponded to the fifth chapter of the printed text “It was in Griboedov.” In 1929, the main parts of the text of the first edition of the novel were created (and possibly a plot-completed draft version of it about the appearance and tricks of the devil in Moscow). in a truncated censored form.” Probably, in the winter of 1928/29, only individual chapters of the novel were written, which were even more politically acute than the surviving fragments of the early edition. Perhaps, the “Mania Furibunda”, which was given to “Nedra” and has not reached us in full, was an already softened version of the original text. Bulgakov’s intention to put the manuscript into free circulation as “samizdat” is also plausible: after all, lists of “The Cabal of Saints,” “The Heart of a Dog,” and the story “Fatal Eggs” were already circulating among the interested public. with unprinted in the collection “Nedr” with a different version of the ending. This first edition of the novel had at least 15 chapters, 10 of which had titles, occupying about 160 pages of handwritten text in a thick school-sized notebook (this is how handwritten editions of the novel were preserved).
In the first edition, the author went through several options for the titles of his work: “The Black Magician”, “The Engineer’s Hoof”, “Woland’s Tour”, “Son of Perdition”, “Juggler with a Hoof”, but did not settle on any.