A Novel where Interpretations Branch: A Mythoanalysis of ‘The Master and Margarita’ in 2024

Recently, Russian society has witnessed a boom in the popularity of feature films that play on the Soviet past in various modalities, from historical events to screen adaptations of literary works written during the Soviet era. In early 2024, the attention of ordinary people was drawn to the Russian film ‘The Master and Margarita’, where director M.A. Lokshin, a representative of the younger part of the so-called ‘Generation X’, took on the Soviet 1930s. Mythoanalysis of the film provides a partial answer to these questions: the events that unfolded in the novel and, consequently, in the film, cover a period of time that is quite distant from the present, and there are more possibilities for constructing an image of the Soviet past. In this case, the focus of attention will be on the ontological part of the system of modern social mythology. Mythoanalysis will make it possible to see that the main ontological categories found in the painting – space and time, cause-and-effect and the relationship between the part and the whole – contain mythological content and ensure the relevance of the painting. In M.A. Lokshin’s film adaptation of the novel ‘The Master and Margarita’, we actually see the fantasies of a representative of Generation X on the theme of the Soviet past of the 1930s, which even in some ways produce allusions to the present day. Reinterpreting H. White, it is possible to use the term ‘practical present’ in relation to the painting. Mythoanalysis allowed us to see that the main ontological categories found in the painting – space and time, cause-and-effect relationship and the relation between the part and the whole – contain mythological content and ensure the relevance of the painting. In the future it's possible to refer to metamodernist categories.

Soviet past, mythoanalysis, contemporary social mythology, ontological categories, space, time, part and whole, cause-and-effect relationship, generation, object-oriented approach