About the work
“Meister und Margarita” is a stage adaptation by Lilja Rupprecht and Jörg Bochow of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel of the same name, which Bulgakov wrote between 1928 and his death in 1940, having burned an earlier draft in 1930 before starting again in 1931. Because of Soviet censorship the novel first appeared, heavily cut, in the magazine “Moskva” in 1966–67; an uncensored edition was published by YMCA-Press in Paris in 1967, and a complete Soviet edition did not appear until 1973. It was first translated into German by Thomas Reschke in 1968; the Dresden production uses the more recent translation by Alexander Nitzberg (2012). Rupprecht and Bochow's stage version premiered on 14 November 2026 at the Schauspielhaus of the Staatsschauspiel Dresden, directed by Rupprecht herself.
Plot
In 1930s Moscow, the devil Woland and his entourage throw the city's self-righteous literary and bureaucratic society into chaos, while the writer known only as “the Master” is denounced for his novel about Pontius Pilate and confined to a psychiatric clinic. His lover Margarita strikes a bargain with Woland to save him, becoming a witch for one night and hosting Satan's spring ball. Embedded in the action is the Master's novel about the procurator Pilate, who judges Yeshua Ha-Notsri against his own conscience.
Cultural significance
The novel is regarded as one of the most important Russian works of the twentieth century and the foremost satire of Soviet bureaucracy, surveillance and state atheism; its line “manuscripts don't burn” still stands for literature's resilience against censorship. Bulgakov's widow Yelena preserved the manuscript after his death, and the novel's history as a victim of censorship has contributed greatly to its reputation.