Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is one of the most-read Russian novels of the twentieth century. The film adaptation by director Michael Lockshin has become a surprise hit, amassing the highest ever domestic circulation for a film rated 18+, even amid calls for its censorship in Russia. Yet the improbable success and significance of both works is more than merely a response to censorship, as most of the Western coverage has made it out to be – in the Russia of today and the Soviet Union of yesterday, repression was never in short supply. Instead, it is about substance. It is in faith, the most serious of topics, that Bulgakov so effectively conveys his resistance to tyranny.

When the Soviet Union declared Christ a fairy tale, a novel daringly challenged the idea. The new film adaptation proves controversial too.