The Master and Margarita:Drawings by Marina Ordynskaya

Here's what the Rostov artist Marina Ordynskaya writes about her impressions of the novel:

I was amazed and captivated by the unique combination of creative freedom: freedom of the author's text, judgments, philosophical views, and freedom of the author's form, which nonetheless incorporated a number of traditional literary motifs. Before reading The Master and Margarita, I had never experienced such a breadth of freedom in a text by a Russian author. The intertwining of divine and demonic categories in human characters and life's conflicts, the free interpretation of biblical stories, the revival of demons in the Soviet reality, and a love-lyrical line that was poignant in its novelty.

Later, when I learned about 20th-century Russian history from sources other than official Soviet ones, I tried to imagine what an artist with such a level of feeling and freedom of imagination, capable of literary play of such intensity, must have endured in the deceitful and frightening environment that was becoming increasingly commonplace for our country.

The fabric of the novel always made me feel the reality of the fantastic world, the duality of reality. And between them, the existence of the author's vision of the world through the Master becomes possible and legitimate, creating artistic realities that allow us to see the image of Man in a new light. For me, the novel became a testament to a heightened, simultaneously satirical and tragic, understanding of reality. It's a testament to the contradictions between the artist's worldview, striving for life through creativity and immersion in the artistic truth of his novel, and a reality that is dark and sickeningly distorts the author's ideals and life goals. In creativity and art, the world is transformed by the artist, and this elevates him above real life, which seeks to shape him according to its absurd, fleeting laws.