The name of the hat comes from Fédora Romazov, a character from the play Fédora by the French writer Victorien Sardou (1831-1908). Ī fedora is a felt hat, often made from Belgian rabbit fur, with a wide brim and indented crown, typically creased lengthwise down the crown and pinched near the front on both sides. A literal translation would be: a respectable hat as a pastry, but the translation given here is quite correct, since шляпа пирожком was the popular name given to a Федора. With the description of «black horn-rimmed glasses of a supernatural size» Bulgakov gives an indication of his appreciation of such characters.Īs far as the hat is concerned, Bulgakov described a приличную шляпу пирожком. The first of the two citizens at Patriarch's Ponds looks like a functionary. In The Master and Margarita however, Bulgakov consequently used the prerevolutionary names, which often were of christian orthodox origin.Ī grey summer suit and a respectable fedora In Bulgakov's time, the Patriarch's Ponds were called Пионерские пруды or Pioneer's Ponds. Many streets, squares and buildings got a new name in the Soviet era. The name is in plural, though there is actually only one pond.Ĭlick here for a more detailed description of this location. The Russian name of this place is Патриаршие пруды or Patriarch's Ponds. The Patriarch's Ponds are situated in a park very close to Bulgakov's former residence in the Большая Садовая улица or Big Garden Street in Moscow. However, the service is ubiquitous in the novel, but is indicated by the impersonal «one» or «them», or referred to as «a certain organisation».Ĭlick here to read more about Russians and foreigners. In The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov never mentions the NKVD by name. Later, during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West, this service was known as the notorious КГБ, the Комитет государственной безопасности or Committee for State Security. Foreigners belonged to «the breed of the unknown and the strangers», to whom you should not talk.įoreigners who visited the Soviet Union were closely monitored by the secret service НКВД, the Народный комиссариат внутренних дел or People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, which had informers and infiltrators at work everywhere. Talking to them was dangerous and those who did, would be pursued by the Soviet secret police on suspicion of espionage. In his speech to the joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the Communist Party on January 11, 1933, General Secretary Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) had warned that «the former» (the supporters of the previous regime) were scattered around the country and they only wanted to bring «mischief and harm».

The title is an ironical reference to the psychology of many Muscovites in a period in which there existed an obsession for espionage. The question is asked by Faust the answer comes from the demon Mephistopheles. The epigraph comes from the scene entitled Faust's Study in the first part of the drama Faust, written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1842).

Master and margarita text