SOURCE: Bethea, David M. “History as Hippodrome: The Apocalyptic Horse and Rider in The Master and Margarita.” In The Master and Margarita: A Critical Companion, edited by Laura D. Weeks, pp. 122-42. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1996.

In this essay, Bethea discusses Bulgakov's use of the image of the horseman from the Book of Revelations in The Master and Margarita.

Although The Master and Margarita has been called “an apocalyptic fiction, one whose referential focus is, within its defined context, ‘the end of all things,’”¹ little has been said beyond this.² Only Edward Ericson has ventured further than casual allusion to claim, in the closing of his article, that “the ending of the novel is an elaborate parody of the last book in the Bible, the Apocalypse of St. John.”³ We need have no doubt of Bulgakov's knowledge of the text of Revelation and of his willingness to...