Поэтика игры в романе М. А. Булгакова «Мастер и Маргарита»: образ кота Бегемота

The article deals with the question of the functioning of the game code of M. Bulgakov’s novel “Master and Margarita”. The focus of the researcher is the image of the cat Begemoth, one of the members of the Woland suite. The article explores the connection between the image of the cat and the figure of Hans Sachs, a well-known representative of the German Renaissance. Principles of game conjugation of two figures are buffoonery, carnival, satire. At the same time, the three hypostases of the cat Begemoth (the cat – fat man – a boy with a knight (pazh) refer the reader to the figure of Leo Taxil (the French writer Gabriel Zhogan Pazhes), the punning allusion which is found in the last chapters of the novel and is determined by the writer’s position in depicting the religious question.