What kind of peace that the Master deserved, Bulgakov says?
If peace is paradise, then why does Woland give it? Or is peace nothing and eternal death?
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M. Bulgakov in the finale of the novel “The Master and Margarita” leaves a huge field for interpretation. Apparently, he didn't even know how to put all the dots on the “I”in a convincing way. But with regard to the Master, it is absolutely unequivocal-He did not deserve Light, he deserved Peace…what does this mean…???
If he does not deserve the Light, then he cannot be counted among the saints and he is not prepared for Paradise. The master is too earthly, too sinful, too immersed in the hustle and bustle of earthly life, too much in love with his earthly woman…but he doesn't deserve Hell for what he does…so it will stay somewhere in the middle…the author does not know what this means and offers the reader one of the options – a small house covered with ivy and with a tiled roof, a dense shady garden, the chirping of birds and a blessed silence…the dream of an 18th-century European burgher before the invention of electricity…I think that the author would wish himself such “Eternal Peace”.
P.S.-Woland is the second (dark) half of the Supreme. He has no less power and authority than the Almighty. And such a small thing as to give Eternal Peace to a little man, he can not strain…
We've already discussed this and I recommend reading it:
How did you understand the ending of the novel “The Master and Margarita”? Why did Yeshua give them peace and not the opportunity to be together? Is this punishment or pity?
please note both Marina Zajnulina's answer and Yuri P.'s comment.
I also wrote in another answer on the topic of M and M, the topic of the NKVD and in general Stalin as a kind of quasi-justice in a world that is abandoned by God (or God such as Yeshua) despite the fact that Bulgakov himself is a monarchist who accidentally (the disease that caused this) remained in Russia. Bulgakov is trying to somehow come to terms with this reality, to come to peace, one might say.
In my opinion, this straightforwardness should not be attributed to Bulgakov. Yeshua is not quite God, Woland is not quite the devil, and peace is not heaven and hell at all. Everything is ghostly, unstable, turned upside down and mixed up in a collapsed empire.
As far as I remember Bulgakov's biography, he really wanted peace. Firstly, he repeatedly asked Stalin for permission to emigrate and did not receive it, and secondly, he was seriously ill. As you can see, he identified himself with the Master. Peace is a metaphor for the afterlife, of course. In some cultures, there were ideas about hell and heaven, where only distinguished people, a few, go, and about the existence of the afterlife, where almost everyone goes after death-ordinary people who have not done anything particularly bad and good in life. For example, Hades among the Greeks. Perhaps this is what Bulgakov had in mind.
You can also recall that at the beginning of the 20th century in Europe, Beklin's painting Island of the Dead, which depicts the afterlife in the form of such a cozy, shady place on a private island in the sea, was extremely popular among the bourgeoisie, among the people. It was said about this phenomenon that the dying old Europe was trying to find its peace.