Margarita - a witch of Russian descent

      I assume that I have special relations with this book . Its incredible author M. A. Bulgakov created a  genius novel, which has been interest of many researchers for over sixty years. "The Master and Margarita" novel was introduced to me by my mom long before I studied it at school. The novel seemed to me strange, I didn't understand it completely and couldn't give value to its language and plot.
     Later, when I read the novel with the full awareness about its contents, I started enjoying it much more, liking certain chapters and details. Then I realised that I fell in love with it forever. No wonder "The Master and Margarita" became one of the subjects of my final diploma project in the university. This is when I started exploring the novel from a scientific point of view, discovering more and more beauty in it and getting to know new things about the world of the novel created by Bulgakov.

an illustration to the novel The Master and Margarita

      The topic I am raising today is quiet broad nevertheless interesting and directly related to the idea of my blog. I am going to make few posts telling the story of Margarita - a witch of Russian descent.
     Margarita is the most famous witch of Russian, and perhaps, World literature. There are numerous books written about her character and I in turn would like to concentrate on her witchy side.
       As soon as it is a novel I am talking about, there is a great love story in it and Margarita is a part of it. She is pictured as an ordinary woman living an ordinary life with a husband she doesn't love. The routine life makes her to search for a wonder of love. And she finds it... or it finds her?
       Margarita means "pearl" (derived from a Greek word "margarites"). Pearl is a talisman of arts, inspiration and spiritual perfection and besides is used in witchcraft.  Margarita is a symbol of  Master's renewed belief in creation, this is she, who saves few pages of Master's novel he intents to burn, and also a symbol of sacrifices done in the name of love.
       I used to tell in the first posts, that a witch plays a dual role in humans' life: good and bad. Witchcraft helps people get what they want. Margarita decides to become a witch and makes a deal with Devil  in order to find her lover Master who seemed to be lost somewhere.
     Though it seems that Margarita is chosen by Woland (Devil in Bulgakov's novel) randomly, it is not so. She was always meant to be someone else. Margarita has a squinting eye which is considered to be a mark of a dark power, she has black hair and she wears preferably black attire - a color of witchcraft; she sees prophetic dreams and is very sensitive towards the meaning of the signs around her. Her soul feels that something is going to happen.
     Bulgakov describes how Margarita turns to a witch. But why turns? Because her very appearance changes when she applies a cream given by one of the servants of Woland, Azazello, on her face and body. She becomes a twenty years old instead of thirty, her eyes turn greener and she feels like... laughing! She gains strength and happiness she never knew before. Here we see one of the attributes of a witch: a magical ointment. Moreover, Margarita's initiation into a witch happens during a full moon when most of the important magical  rituals are done.

Margarita in modern art

    Our Russian witch is now ready to act, she is awaiting for signal to move out of her boring house... After a call Azazello gives her, she hears a strange knocking behind the door of her room. When she opens it, a floor broom comes out jumping and eager to fly away through the window. So here comes a necessary tool of a witch  a broomstick, though a bit modified. Margarita then heads  to a gathering of the witches called Sabbath (rus. Shabash) naked what once again refers to a usual practice of witchcraft.
     I have tried to explore which features and attributes of a "typical" witch Margarita is bestowed by Bulgakov. Among them are magical tools like broomstick and ointment, a ritual of initiation during a full moon, features of Margarita which make her look like a witch before and after initiation. I am going to continue with the novel The Master and Margarita in my next post. There is plenty to tell about :)

Yours sincerely,

Witchcraft and Literature

Unconditional Love of The Witch Olesya - Part 2

Today we continue to look inside the relations of the novella's main heroes.
How the protagonist finally meets witch is somehow a folklore theme. While hunting a hare in the woods with Yarmola, the hero looses the way and proceeds walking inside the forest. The barrier is a swamp he has to cross. He sees the walls of a woodman's house among the trees and, struggling to go through the marsh, he approaches it. The main hero opens the hut's door and sees only the hut's dark premises... After he calls out for some live soul, he notices an old woman sitting on the floor with a pile of chicken feathers in front of her.

Baba Yaga's hut, as pictured in the Russian fairy tales

Of note note that the main hero's thinking regarding witches is not free from "standard" beliefs. He, not knowingly, feeds his mind with superstitions. When seeing  Manuilikha, he compares her at once with  Baba Yaga, a Russian folklore character. The hero, himself, is just like Ivan from the Russian fairy tales, who stumbles upon Baba Yaga's hut and then asks her to help him.The old witch Manuilikha is not happy at all to see a stranger in her house, moreover, a young man... All because she is accustomed to live out of reach of people and she has a 25 years old granddaughter. The main hero then tries to soften her offering a coin but she has to make a spread for him  in return. While this the hero hears a woman's voice singing a song... and this is how the meeting with Manuilikha's granddaughter Olesya occurs. The protagonist asks Olesya to show him a path out of the woods and they get into a small conversation. The young man of the story gets to know that Olesya and her grandmother were indeed driven away to the forest, and she says herself the people call "Grandmother a 'witch,' a 'shedevil,' a 'jail-bird'". Would you be friendly to others after such accusations in your address?
 Furthermore, the relations between Olesya and the master develop during frequent visits of the latter to the hut. First, the conversations of the young people remind "teacher-pupil" talks, when the hero tries to educate Olesya... Nevertheless, he considers her to be very intelligent for a girl who doesn't even know how to read and has been living in the woods whole her life.

 I guess that the "witchiness", secrets, surrounding Olesya, charm the main hero more that her wit. He tries to convince himself that magic and witchcraft and witches after all, don't exist, while Olesya's belief in her curse of being able to know secrets of life and. actually, do magic, never fades away.  Oleays shows few tricks to her lover and he tries to explain it by some laws of physics...She throws herself in the embrace of love though she knows that this won't lead to any good. Olesya's ability to give her whole entity to the person she loves and never ask for same in return, is her main strength as well as weakness. In order to please her beloved she, in spite of anything, decides to go to the village church, and this is where she meets peasants' enmity towards her witch's nature. They beat and abuse her, and while she manages to escape, she curses everyone around, singing a sentence to flee this place forever.
  The main hero hurries to see Olesya after this incident and finds her covered in bruises and wounds  She explains him that now she and her grandmother have to  leave... Olesya however is happy anyway, because she was able to love...unconditionally. She only regrets that she didn't have a baby with her beloved...
The main hero can't do anything: neither stop nor follow her. He is the one who is weak and can sacrifice his love to his social status. Olesya leaves the place suddenly and all is what the main hero left is her coral necklace... May be he will now start believing in supernatural because Olesya predicted that their love won't have a happy ending...
I can't  not to make analogy with Margarita, a woman, who sacrificed her entity  and Olesya, who stayed true to her witchy nature. Both had to persuade their lovers to believe in love and both physically suffered for standing their ground. Do Russian writers consider women to be stronger than the men? Or more dedicated... or do women simply BELIEVE in the power of love?