Wikipedia about that novel:
The Master and Margarita
Bulgakov in 1936.The Master and Margarita (?????? ? ?????????), which Bulgakov began writing in 1928, is a fantasy satirical novel published twenty-six years after his death in 1966 by his wife, that has led to an international appreciation of his work. The book was available underground as samizdat for many years in the Soviet Union, before the serialization of a censored version in the journal Moskva. It contributed a number of sayings to the Russian language, for example, "Manuscripts don't burn" and "second-grade fresh". A destroyed manuscript of the Master is an important element of the plot, and in fact Bulgakov had to rewrite the novel from memory after he burned the draft manuscript of this novel.
The novel is a multilayered critique of the Soviet society in general and its literary establishment. It is a frame narrative involving two characteristically related time periods and/or plot lines; the retelling of the gospels, and modern Moscow (thus relating it to The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (The Master and Margarita was an inspiration for this novel[citation needed]).
The novel begins with Satan visiting Moscow in the 1920s or 30s, joining a conversation of a critic and a poet, busily debating the existence of Jesus Christ and the Devil. It then evolves into an all-embracing indictment of the corruption, greed, narrow-mindedness, and widespread paranoia of Soviet Russia. Banned but widely read, the novel firmly secured Bulgakov's place among the pantheon of great Russian writers.
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