Propaganda attack through "russian culture." I see on Facebook another wave of admiration for the adaptation of "The Master and Margarita" and indications that this is just another form of propaganda, met with fierce resistance. Unfortunately, we are so saturated with this that we no longer even smell it when we consume it, and that is why this film was made now. Here are just a few facts for you to think about.
1. Bulgakov is one of the most fiery anti-Ukrainian Russian writers (alongside Brodsky and Solzhenitsyn). He was the son of a tsarist censor from Oryol who lived in Kyiv and was involved in censoring and suppressing everything Ukrainian, banning any works in the Ukrainian language. Bulgakov absorbed this hatred from childhood.
2. Many of Bulgakov's works are permeated with mockery of Ukraine. In his works, Ukrainians are always grotesque and unsympathetic characters. He repeatedly mocks the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian independence and never describes a positive Ukrainian character. He calls the Ukrainian language "terrible and incorrect."
3. Many actors in "The Master and Margarita" take an active pro-war stance, publicly endorsing war and spreading propaganda. For example, Yevgeny Knyazev (Berlioz) publicly supported the occupation of Crimea as early as 2014 and continues to do so with lectures supporting the war. Leonid Yarmolnik also publicly endorses war, Putin, and mass murders - as do several other actors in the film (Basharov, Vernik, Guskov). Consuming media content produced by war criminals cheering for war criminals, is a form of complicity.
4. The film was made to order with state money. The money for the shooting was also allocated by the "Cinema Fund" - a state institution that finances the production of Russian propaganda films. Foreign promotion and financing of this work abroad is also done not by sincere enthusiasts but by state propaganda.
So what to do?
Remember that in schools, they impose and call great primarily those writers who support propagandist ideological narratives. They are also soldiers - soldiers of the information front. The same writers who did not support propaganda - they rotted in prisons or were killed, or fled - and you will not read their works in the school curriculum, or they will not be promoted as actively (for example, Chekhov (who liked Ukraine and spoke Ukrainian) with his humanistic worldview - interestingly, he is even more popular abroad than in his homeland).
Apply the rule of three monkeys about spreading toxic content: don't watch evil, don't listen to evil, or speak (about) evil. (Mizaru, covering his eyes, who sees no evil; Kikazaru, covering his ears, who hears no evil; and Iwazaru, covering his mouth, who speaks no evil). All the above does not negate the undeniable talent of the writer. Still, this argument is flawed - admiring the beauty of the engraving on the knife with which they are going to stab you is hardly a reason to agree to violence against yourself. Decolonization of your mind and country is only possible through deep reflection.
Сomment from Kateryna Ilchenko: ·
"The most interesting thing in M&M is a legitimization of evil. Bulgakov wrote it when he looked for ways to survive in stalin’s empire. That’s the autobiographical reasons to create a system when kindness is good but powerless, but evil is omnipotent, and productive and you need to find the way to cooperate with it. Voland is really romantic figure here. And that’s not a unique motive for “humanistic” Russian literature. The same situation you can find in Dostoevsky’s novels and many others. The model: kindness is to be patient and take no action, moral superiority will award you. The evil from the other point is not simple, it’s complicated, contains different granes and could be good. These things are not so visible without deep analyses, but they form and structure world and life perception on a symbolic level"