The Master and Margarita

by Mikhail Bulgakov

we strove, first of all, to produce what has been lacking so far: a translation of the complete text of Bulgakov’s masterpiece into contemporary standard American English. At the same time, our translation aims to be as literal a rendering of the original Russian as possible. Challenged by the third of Goethe’s well-known ideas on translation (as articulated in his notes to the West-Ostlicher Divan), we have “associated ourselves closely with our original.” We have made every effort to retain the rhythm, syntactic structure, and verbal texture of Bulgakov’s prose. We have often eschewed synonyms in favor of repeating the words that Bulgakov repeats, and we have tried, as far as possible without sacrificing clarity, not to break up Bulgakov’s long sentences and to adhere to his word order. In sum, we strove for an accurate, readable American English translation of The Master and Margarita that would convey the specifically Bulgakovian flavor of the original Russian text. —Diana Burgin and Katherine O’Connor