Mikhail Afanasievich
Bulgakov
(1891 – 1940)
• Biography
• Born in Kiev on May
3d, 1891 to Afanasy
Ivanovich Bulgakov
and Varvara
Mikhailovna
Pokrovskaya
• the writer’s father,
1907
 Father is a son of a priest, and is studying for
his doctorate at Kiev Theological Seminary
at that time, where he would eventually
become a professor specializing in the
history of religion; he also works as a censor
in Kiev Censorship Section, in charge of
material printed in French, German, and
English
Mother is a teacher, whose father was a bishop, and
her two brothers are doctors
• the writer’s mother in
1907, after her
husband’s death
 Father dies of sclerosis of the kidneys
at age 48 (when Mikhail is 16). His
wife is left to care for 7 children,
Mikhail being the oldest
• Bulgakov enters Kiev University in 1909, at
age 18. He specializes in medicine
• Bulgakov as a high
school boy, 1909
• Bulgakov as a student
• Bulgakov during his
university years
• At the age of 22, he marries Tatyana
Nikolaevna Lappa, the niece of one of his
mother’s friends
• In 1916, Bulgakov receives his degree.
During 1916-1919, he works as an army
doctor with his wife as a nurse in different
areas of Russia and Ukraine
• Bulgakov working at
the hospital in Saratov
in the summer of 1914
• He witnesses a number of horrors, tries to desert the army
several times and gets mobilized again
• During 1919-1920, he gets his first professional experience
as a journalist and a playwright, writing, giving lectures,
and seeing his first plays produced. He gives up his
medical career and decides to make a living as a writer
• During 1921-1923, Bulgakov writes feuilletons and stories
for the Moscow and Leningrad newspapers and magazines
 In 1922, his first serious literary effort – Part One of
“Notes on the Cuff” – is published in the newspaper
Nakanune. It is heavily autobiographical; its style
and structure mimic the lack of stability in Civil War
Russia
• A year later, Part Two of “Notes on the Cuff” is published
in the magazine Rossia. The novel White Guard was
apparently begun around this time. It is a historical novel
about the Civil War, abounding in realistic descriptions of
real people and real places. The novel was deemed
provocative because it was sympathetic in its depiction of
its White heroes
Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya, Bulgakov’s second wife
• In 1921, the story
collection “Diaboliad,”
which is mainly dark
satire, and part one of the
novel White Guard were
published. This same
year, Bulgakov marries
Lyubov Evgenievna
Belozerskaya
• In 1925, the Moscow Art Theater suggests
that Bulgakov make a play out of White
Guard, a project he had already begun on
his own. Diaboliad, a collection of his
stories, which includes “The Fatal Eggs,” is
published. His novella Heart of a Dog is
written but rejected by the censors.
Although being an entertaining work, it is
also a political allegory, imploying an idea
of unnatural operation on a man and a dog
as an obvious metaphor for the Bolshevik
Revolution
the Art Theater building
• In 1926, two minor collections of
feuilletons are published: Stories and A
Treatise on Housing. Due to attention
attracted by attempts to get his novella
Heart of a Dog published, representatives of
secret police search his apartment,
confiscating both the manuscript of the
novella and his diaries, and interrogate him.
His plays, Days of the Turbins and Zoya’s
Apartment, premiere; they are immediately
successful and controversial
Bulgakov in 1926, at the time of the premiere of Days of the
Turbins
 Days of the Turbins brought a lot of fame to
Bulgakov and revitalized the Moscow Art Theater.
When it was premiered, the play caused a political
and social sensation, due to its special meaning to
post-Civil War and post-Revolutionary society in
which the conquered have no voice and the victors
are not quite at ease
• During 1925-1927, stories which belong to the cycle Notes
of a Young Doctor are published in The Medical Worker.
This is Bulgakov’s last appearance in print during his
lifetime
The most famous picture of Bulgakov taken at the time of the
premiere, 1926
 During 1927, attacks on Bulgakov intensify; play
Days of the Turbins is banned
 In 1928, he begins the work which will become The
Master and Margarita; his play Flight is banned
before its premiere. Play Crimson Island premieres
Bulgakov’s study in his
apartment
 In 1929, his plays Days of the Turbins, Zoya’s
Apartment, and Crimson Island are banned. After
continuing attacks, Bulgakov writes to the Secretary
of the Central Committee of USSR, Enukidze,
asking that he and his wife be allowed to leave the
country. The full text of White Guard is published
in Paris
• In 1930, in despair at his general situation, and the banning
of his new play The Cabal of Hypocrites, for which he had
high hopes, Bulgakov burns his manuscripts. He writes a
letter to Stalin, in which he points out that he is obviously
useless to his country as a writer and asks that he be
allowed to leave. Stalin provides him with a minor theater
job at TRAM (Theater of the Working Youth. Later, he is
given work at the Art Theater as an assistant director on the
production of Dead Souls
 in 1931, the play Adam and Eve is written, a work
which has never been published in Soviet Union.
Bulgakov again addresses the government asking for
permission to travel abroad, and receives no answer
• In 1932, after a routine request by the theater, Days of the
Turbins is allowed on stage again, a development which
mystifies all concerned. New play Days is premiered.
Bulgakov marries Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya. Premiere
of Dead Souls at the Art Theater takes place in Bulgakov’s
adaptation
Bulgakov and Elena Sergeevna. His third marriage
Bulgakov in 1932
 In 1933, Bulgakov turns in his Life of Monsieur de
Moliere, a short biography for a series edited by A.
Tikhonov, who soon rejects the manuscript. Later in
a year, Bulgakov secretely does extensive work on
the new draft of The Master and Margarita
• In 1934, he writes the play Bliss which will not be
produced in his lifetime. Later, he writes again to the
government requesting permission to travel. Finishes the
scenario of The Inspector General
• In 1935, he rewrites Zoya’s Apartment for the Paris
production
• In 1936, after a warfare in the theater, the play The Cabal
of Hypocrites finally premieres. It is a great success with
the public despite the flaws of interpretation imposed by
Stanislavsky, but official criticism is swift and damaging.
The most important attack on this play is published in
Pravda under the title “External Glitter and False
Content.” The play is immediately taken out of the
repertory. This event is a final blow to the already strained
relations between Stanislavsky and Bulgakov. Bulgakov
officially resigns from the Art Theater. Toward the end of
the year, he begins Theatrical Novel which is a satire on
his adventures in the Art Theater from his first play to his
last
 In 1937, Bulgakov works with V. Veresaev on the
play Pushkin, a collaboration which ends in a
quarrel; ultimately, Veresaev takes his name off the
manuscript. The first version of the play Ivan
Vasilievich is finished
• In 1938, Bulgakov continues his intensive work on The
Master and Margarita. The adaptation of Don Quixote is
finished
• In 1939, the epilogue to Master and Margarita is written.
The play Batum, about the young Stalin (written at the Art
Theater’s instigation for Stalin’s jubilee) is finished.
Permission has been granted to Bulgakov to travel. He and
his wife go to Leningrad. There he becomes sick and it is
discovered that he has hypertonic nephrosclerosis, the
disease which killed his father at almost the same age.
Bulgakov returns to Moscow seriously ill and anxious to
finish his novel
Bulgakov during the last days
 In 1940, the last work is done on the final proof and
correction of Master and Margarita. In March of
that year, Bulgakov dies
• To most people today, Bulgakov is best known as the
author of –Master and Margarita; in his own lifetime, he
was known mainly as a playwright. He is a hero to
Russians, but in the Soviet Union both his life and his
works are still presented selectively.
– Major Works
por
• Notes on the Cuff – autobiographical prose
White Guard – novel
• Heart of a Dog - novella
• The Master and Margarita -novel
• Stories
• Diaboliad – collection of stories
• Notes of a Young Doctor
• Stories and A Treatise on Housing - feuilletons
• Plays
• Days of the Turbins
• Zoya’s Apartment
• Flight
• The Crimson Island
• The Cabal of Hypocrites
• Adam and Eve
• Life of Monsieur de Moliere
• Bliss
• The Inspector General
• PushkinIvan Vasilievich
• Batum
Major Themes
• Bulgakov is a unique phenomenon and a
characteristic victim of life under 20th
century totalitarianism
• Regarded as a “mystical” writer
• Spiritual barrenness was characteristic of
Russian radical thought at the beginning of
the 20th century
• Lived at a time when Soviet Union was
single-mindedly engaged in constructing a
“new socialist society;” everything was
directed to speeding the nation’s progress
toward communist future
• Was regarded as a writer “out of his time,”
as an alien in Moscow literary world, which
was dominated by Socialist-Realist tradition