Bulgakov’s satire, then, has to function doubly hard, by using a dark under-the-radar humor to draw the reader’s attention to the shortcomings of the Soviet project and the way in which it, at times, brought out the worst in its people. The satire seeks to expose the hypocrisies of Soviet life but was severely limited in how explicit it could be because of the risk to the author of censorship, imprisonment or even death. The targets are many, ranging from currency to accommodation, censorship to state-imposed atheism. It was within this suffocating atmosphere that Bulgakov wrote The Master and Margarita, taking satirical aim from within at the Soviet society which Bulgakov was not allowed-by state order-to escape. The imposition of the system, however, reached a climax of tyranny under the Union’s second leader, Joseph Stalin, who oversaw increasing state paranoia, censorship, mass imprisonment, and executions. It grew out of the overthrow of Russia’s monarchy and was constructed around the core principle of giving its people equal social and economic rights.
The Soviet Union (shorthand for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was the one of the dominant political entities of the 20th century and represents the largest-scale attempt to create a Communist society in the history of humankind.
0 kommentar(er)
