Abstract
<jats:p>The purpose of the study is to identify the archetypal nature of female images in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novels “The White Guard” and “The Master and Margarita”. This is due to the need to search for primary elements, schemes, and archetypes in the creative consciousness of the writer, which influenced the specifics of his worldview and the depiction of deep psychological and philosophical aspects of human existence in his works. The article analyzes the semantics, functions, and transformation of female archetypes, including their role in the plot, their connection with mythological and Jungian archetypes, as well as their influence on the evolution of characters. Special attention is paid to the dynamics of the images of Elena Turbina and Margarita, their symbolic meaning and reflection in the context of historical and cultural realities. The study is original in that it is the first one to reveal the peculiarities of the transformation of the female archetype under the influence of historical and cultural realities of the 1920s and 1930s based on Bulgakov’s novels “The White Guard” and “The Master and Margarita”. A comprehensive analysis of female images in the two novels revealed the common and distinctive features of their archetypal nature, which made it possible to trace the evolution of Bulgakov’s ideas about women in the eschatological era. As a result of the research, the semantics of key details (appearance, speech, actions) in the context of archetypes were analyzed; the classification of female images by archetypes was determined; the functions of archetypal female images in the structure of the novels (for example, as symbols of moral choice, guides between worlds) were revealed; the transformation of archetypes in two Bulgakov novels was compared. The study describes the specific features of the writer’s worldview, which portrayed reality from an eschatological perspective.</jats:p>