Depicting the Divine: Mikhail Bulgakov and Thomas Mann

Two of the iconic novels of the twentieth century, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (1928-40) and Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers (1933-43), each engage with religious themes in the face of militant, sometimes violent, cultural opposition: Soviet communism and Nazi anti-Semitism. They have divine characters, Jesus and Yahweh, and draw upon modern developments in biblical study, emphasising scripture as texts subject to literary criticism. Yet, as Voronina shows, Mann and Bu...