Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich (1891-1940), writer, playwright.
Born on May 15, 1891 in Kyiv in a large and friendly family of a professor, teacher at the Kyiv Theological Academy. After graduating from high school, at the age of 16, Bulgakov entered the university at the Faculty of Medicine.
In the spring of 1916, he was released from the university as a “second-class militia warrior” and went to work in one of the Kyiv hospitals. In the summer of the same year, the future writer received his first appointment and in the fall he arrived at a small zemstvo hospital in the Smolensk province, in the village of Nikolskoye. Here he began to write the book “Notes of a Young Doctor” - about a remote Russian province, where malaria powders prescribed for a week are swallowed immediately, births are given under a bush, and mustard plasters are placed on top of a sheepskin coat... While yesterday’s student was turning into an experienced and determined zemstvo doctor, events began in the Russian capital that would determine the fate of the country for many decades. “The present is such that I try to live without noticing it,” Bulgakov wrote on December 31, 1917 to his sister.
In 1918 he returned to Kyiv. Waves of Petliurists, White Guards, Bolsheviks, and Hetman P. P. Skoropadsky rolled through the city. At the end of August 1919, the Bolsheviks, leaving Kyiv, shot hundreds of hostages. Bulgakov, who had previously avoided mobilization by hook or by crook, retreated with the Whites. In February 1920, when the evacuation of the Volunteer Army began, he was struck down by typhus. Bulgakov woke up in Vladikavkaz, occupied by the Bolsheviks. The following year he moved to Moscow.
Here, one after another, three satirical stories with fantastic plots appear: “Diaboliad”, “Fatal Eggs” (both 1924), “Heart of a Dog” (1925).
During these years, Bulgakov worked in the editorial office of the newspaper "Gudok" and wrote the novel "The White Guard" - about a broken family, about the past years of the "carefree generation", about the civil war in Ukraine, about the suffering of man on earth. The first part of the novel was published in the Rossiya magazine in 1925, but the magazine was soon closed, and the novel was destined to remain unprinted for almost 40 years.
In 1926, Bulgakov staged The White Guard. “Days of the Turbins” (that’s the name of the play) was staged with great success at the Moscow Art Theater and left the stage only with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, when the scenery of the play was destroyed by bombing.
“Proletarian” playwrights and critics jealously followed the successes of the talented “bourgeois echo” and took all measures to ensure that already staged plays (“Zoyka’s Apartment,” 1926, and “Crimson Island,” 1927) were filmed and the newly written “Running” (1928) and “The Cabal of the Holy One” (1929) did not see the light of the stage. (It was only in 1936 that the play “The Cabal of the Holy One” under the title “Molière” appeared on the stage of the Art Theater.)
Since 1928, Bulgakov worked on the novel “The Master and Margarita,” which posthumously brought him world fame.
He died on March 10, 1940 in Moscow from severe hereditary kidney disease, before reaching the age of 49. Only a few knew how many unpublished manuscripts he had.
Born into the family of a teacher at the Kyiv Theological Academy, Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov, and his wife Varvara Mikhailovna. He was the eldest child in the family and had six more brothers and sisters.
In 1901-1909 he studied at the First Kyiv Gymnasium, after graduating from which he entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University. He studied there for seven years and applied to serve as a doctor in the naval department, but was refused due to health reasons.
In 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, he worked as a doctor in front-line hospitals in Kamenets-Podolsk and Chernivtsi, in the Kiev military hospital. In 1915 he married Tatyana Nikolaevna Lappa. On October 31, 1916, he received a diploma “as a doctor with honors.”
In 1917, he first used morphine to relieve the symptoms of diphtheria vaccination and became addicted to it. In the same year he visited Moscow and in 1918 returned to Kyiv, where he began private practice as a venereologist, having stopped using morphine.
In 1919, during the Civil War, Mikhail Bulgakov was mobilized as a military doctor, first into the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic, then into the Red Army, then into the Armed Forces of Southern Russia, then transferred to the Red Cross. At this time he began working as a correspondent. On November 26, 1919, the feuilleton “Future Prospects” was first published in the newspaper “Grozny” with the signature of M.B. He fell ill with typhus in 1920 and remained in Vladikavkaz, without retreating to Georgia with the Volunteer Army.
In 1921, Mikhail Bulgakov moved to Moscow and entered the service of the Glavpolitprosvet under the People's Commissariat for Education, headed by N.K. Krupskaya, wife of V.I. Lenin. In 1921, after the disbandment of the department, he collaborated with the newspapers “Gudok”, “Worker” and the magazines “Red Journal for Everyone”, “Medical Worker”, “Russia” under the pseudonym Mikhail Bull and M.B., wrote and published in 1922 -1923 years “Notes on Cuffs”, participates in the literary circles “Green Lamp”, “Nikitin Subbotniks”.
In 1924 he divorced his wife and in 1925 married Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya. This year, the story “Heart of a Dog”, the plays “Zoyka’s Apartment” and “Days of the Turbins” were written, the satirical stories “Diaboliad”, and the story “Fatal Eggs” were published.
In 1926, the play “Days of the Turbins” was staged with great success at the Moscow Art Theater, permitted on the personal orders of I. Stalin, who visited it 14 times. At the theater. E. Vakhtangov premiered the play “Zoyka’s Apartment” with great success, which ran from 1926 to 1929. M. Bulgakov moved to Leningrad, there he met with Anna Akhmatova and Yevgeny Zamyatin and was summoned several times for interrogation by the OGPU about his literary work. The Soviet press intensively criticizes the work of Mikhail Bulgakov - over 10 years, 298 abusive reviews and positive ones appeared.
In 1927, the play “Running” was written.
In 1929, Mikhail Bulgakov met Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, who became his third wife in 1932.
In 1929, the works of M. Bulgakov ceased to be published, the plays were banned from production. Then on March 28, 1930, he wrote a letter to the Soviet government asking either for the right to emigrate or for the opportunity to work at the Moscow Art Theater in Moscow. On April 18, 1930, I. Stalin called Bulgakov and recommended that he apply to the Moscow Art Theater with a request for enrollment.
1930-1936 Mikhail Bulgakov worked at the Moscow Art Theater as an assistant director. The events of those years were described in “Notes of a Dead Man” - “Theatrical Novel”. In 1932, I. Stalin personally allowed the production of “The Days of the Turbins” only at the Moscow Art Theater.
In 1934, Mikhail Bulgakov was admitted to the Soviet Union of Writers and completed the first version of the novel “The Master and Margarita.”
In 1936, Pravda published a devastating article about the “false, reactionary and worthless” play “The Cabal of the Saints,” which had been rehearsed for five years at the Moscow Art Theater. Mikhail Bulgakov went to work at the Bolshoi Theater as a translator and libbretist.
In 1939 he wrote the play “Batum” about I. Stalin. During its production, a telegram arrived about the cancellation of the performance. And a sharp deterioration in Mikhail Bulgakov’s health began. Hypertensive nephrosclerosis was diagnosed, his vision began to deteriorate, and the writer began using morphine again. At this time, he was dictating to his wife the latest versions of the novel “The Master and Margarita.” The wife issues a power of attorney to manage all her husband’s affairs. The novel “The Master and Margarita” was published only in 1966 and brought world fame to the writer.
On March 10, 1940, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov died, on March 11, the sculptor S.D. Merkulov removed the death mask from his face. M.A. Bulgakov was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery, where, at the request of his wife, a stone from the grave of N.V. was installed on his grave. Gogol, nicknamed "Golgotha".
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov(May 3, 1891, Kyiv, Russian Empire - March 10, 1940, Moscow, USSR) - Russian writer, playwright, theater director and actor. Author of stories, short stories, feuilletons, plays, dramatizations, film scripts and opera librettos.
Mikhail Bulgakov was born into the family of an associate professor (since 1902 - professor) of the Kyiv Theological Academy Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov, in Kyiv. The family had seven children
In 1909, Mikhail Bulgakov graduated from the First Kyiv Gymnasium and entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University. In 1916 he received a diploma confirming “the degree of doctor with honors with all rights and advantages.”
In 1913, M. Bulgakov entered into his first marriage - with Tatyana Lappa. Their financial difficulties began on their wedding day. According to Tatyana’s memoirs, this is clearly felt: “I, of course, didn’t have any veil, nor a wedding dress - I had to do with all the money that my father sent. Mom came to the wedding and was horrified. I had a pleated linen skirt, my mother bought a blouse. We were married by Fr. Alexander. ...For some reason they laughed terribly at the altar. We rode home after church in a carriage. There were few guests at dinner. I remember there were a lot of flowers, most of all daffodils...” Tatyana's father sent her 50 rubles a month, a decent amount at that time. But the money in their wallet quickly dissolved, since Bulgakov did not like to save and was a man of impulse. If he wanted to take a taxi ride with his last money, he decided to take this step without hesitation. “Mother scolded me for my frivolity. When we come to her for dinner, she sees that there are no rings or my chain. “Well, that means everything is in the pawnshop!”
After the outbreak of World War I, M. Bulgakov worked as a doctor in the front-line zone for several months. Then he was sent to work in the village of Nikolskoye, Smolensk province, after which he worked as a doctor in Vyazma.
Since 1917, he began using morphine, first to alleviate allergic reactions to the anti-diphtheria drug, which he took because he was afraid of diphtheria after an operation. Then the morphine intake became regular. In December 1917, he came to Moscow for the first time, staying with his uncle, the famous Moscow gynecologist N. M. Pokrovsky, who became the prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky from the story “The Heart of a Dog.” In the spring of 1918, M. Bulgakov returned to Kyiv, where he began private practice as a venereologist. At this time, M. Bulgakov stopped using morphine.
During the Civil War, in February 1919, M. Bulgakov was mobilized as a military doctor in the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic. In the same year he managed to work as a doctor for the Red Cross, and then in the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. As part of the 3rd Terek Cossack Regiment he fought in the North. Caucasus. He was actively published in newspapers. During the retreat of the Volunteer Army at the beginning of 1920, he fell ill with typhus and because of this he could not leave for Georgia, remaining in Vladikavkaz.
At the end of September 1921, M. Bulgakov moved to Moscow and began collaborating as a feuilletonist with metropolitan newspapers and magazines.
In 1923, M. Bulgakov joined the All-Russian Writers Union. In 1924, he met Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya, who had recently returned from abroad, and who in 1925 became his new wife.
Since October 1926, the play “Days of the Turbins” was staged at the Moscow Art Theater with great success. Its production was allowed for a year, but was later extended several times, since I. Stalin liked the play, who attended its performances several times. In his speeches, I. Stalin either agreed that “Days of the Turbins” was “an anti-Soviet thing, and Bulgakov is not ours,” or argued that the impression from “Days of the Turbins” was ultimately positive for the communists. At the same time, intense and extremely harsh criticism of M. Bulgakov’s work began in the Soviet press. According to his own calculations, over 10 years there were 298 abusive reviews and 3 favorable ones.
At the end of October 1926 at the Theater. Vakhtangov, the premiere of the play “Zoyka’s Apartment” was a great success.
In 1928, M. Bulgakov conceived the idea of a novel about the devil, later called “The Master and Margarita.” The writer also began work on a play about Moliere (“The Cabal of the Holy One”).
In 1929, Bulgakov met Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, who became his third and last wife in 1932.
By 1930, Bulgakov's works ceased to be published, and plays were removed from the theater repertoire. The plays “Running”, “Zoyka’s Apartment”, “Crimson Island”, and the play “Days of the Turbins” were banned from production. In 1930, Bulgakov wrote to his brother Nikolai in Paris about the unfavorable literary and theatrical situation for himself and the difficult financial situation. At the same time, he wrote a letter to the USSR Government, dated March 28, 1930, with a request to determine his fate - either to give him the right to emigrate, or to provide him with the opportunity to work at the Moscow Art Theater. On April 18, 1930, Bulgakov received a call from I. Stalin, who recommended that the playwright apply to enroll him in the Moscow Art Theater.
In 1932, the play “Dead Souls” by Nikolai Gogol, staged by Bulgakov, was staged on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater. The experience of working at the Moscow Art Theater was reflected in Bulgakov’s work “Theatrical Novel” (“Notes of a Dead Man”), where many theater employees were removed under changed names.
In January 1932, I. Stalin again allowed the production of “The Days of the Turbins,” and before the war it was no longer prohibited. However, this permission did not apply to any theater except the Moscow Art Theater.
In 1936, Bulgakov left the Moscow Art Theater and began working at the Bolshoi Theater as a librettist and translator.
In 1939, M. Bulgakov worked on the libretto “Rachel”, as well as on a play about I. Stalin (“Batum”). The play was already being prepared for production, and Bulgakov with his wife and colleagues went to Georgia to work on the play, when a telegram arrived about the cancellation of the play: Stalin considered it inappropriate to stage a play about himself. From that moment (according to the memoirs of E. S. Bulgakova, V. Vilenkin and others), M. Bulgakov’s health began to deteriorate sharply, he began to lose his sight. Bulgakov continued to use morphine, prescribed to him in 1924, to relieve pain symptoms. During the same period, the writer began to dictate to his wife corrections for the latest version of the novel “The Master and Margarita.” The editing, however, was not completed by the author.
Since February 1940, friends and relatives were constantly on duty at M. Bulgakov’s bedside. On March 10, 1940, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov died.
M. Bulgakov is buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. At his grave, at the request of his wife E. S. Bulgakova, a stone was installed, nicknamed “Golgotha,” which previously lay on the grave of N. V. Gogol.
The novel “The Master and Margarita” was first published in the “Moscow” magazine in 1966, twenty-six years after the author’s death, and brought Bulgakov world fame. The Theatrical Novel (Notes of a Dead Man) and other works by Bulgakov were also published posthumously.
based on an article from ru.wikipedia.org
Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasyevich(1891–1940), Russian writer. Born on May 3 (15), 1891 in Kyiv in the family of a professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy. Family traditions were transferred by Bulgakov in the novel “The White Guard” (1924) to the way of life of the Turbins’ house. In 1909, after graduating from the best First Gymnasium in Kyiv, Bulgakov entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University. In 1916, having received a diploma, he worked as a doctor in the village of Nikolskoye, Smolensk province, then in the city of Vyazma. The impressions of those years formed the basis of the series of stories Notes of a Young Doctor (1925–1926). Literary critic M. Chudakova wrote about this period of Bulgakov’s life: “During these one and a half years, he saw his people face to face, and, perhaps, it was the gaze of a doctor who knew that without basic education and at least primitive hygienic standards, it was impossible to leap forward into a bright new world.” peace, strengthened Bulgakov’s confidence in the destructiveness of the soon to come revolutionary upheavals for Russia.”
While still a student, Bulgakov began writing prose - apparently mainly related to medical topics, and then to zemstvo medical practice. According to his sister's recollections, in 1912 he showed her a story about delirium tremens. After the October Revolution of 1917, Bulgakov and his wife T. Lappa returned from Vyazma to Kyiv. The bloody events that he witnessed, when the city passed to the Reds, then to the Whites, then to the Petliurists, formed the basis of some of his works (the story “I Killed”, 1926, etc., the novel “The White Guard”). When the White Volunteer Army entered Kyiv in 1919, Bulgakov was mobilized and went to the North Caucasus as a military doctor.
While fulfilling his medical duties, Bulgakov continued to write. In his Autobiography (1924), he reported: “One night, in 1919, in the dead of autumn, I wrote my first short story. In the city to which the train dragged me, I took the story to the newspaper editor. It was published there. Then they published several feuilletons.” Bulgakov’s first feuilleton “Future Prospects”, published with the initials M.B. in the newspaper “Grozny” in 1919, gave a harsh and clear picture of both the contemporary socio-political and economic state of Russia (“it’s such that you want to close your eyes... you want to close your eyes”) and the future of the country. Bulgakov foresaw the inevitable retribution with war and poverty “for the madness of the October days, for the independence of traitors, for the corruption of the workers, for Brest, for the insane use of money printing machines... for everything!” Neither in those days, nor at any time subsequently, did the writer have any illusions about the “cleansing power” of the revolution, seeing in it only the embodiment of social evil.
Having fallen ill with typhus, Bulgakov was unable to leave Vladikavkaz with the Volunteer Army. An attempt to get out of Soviet Russia by sea, through Batum, was also unsuccessful. For some time he remained in Vladikavkaz, earning a living from theater reviews and plays written for the local theater (which he later destroyed).
In 1921 Bulgakov arrived in Moscow. He began collaborating with several newspapers and magazines as a feuilletonist. He published works of various genres in the newspaper “Nakanune”, published in Berlin. In the newspaper "Gudok" Bulgakov collaborated with a whole galaxy of writers - I. Babel, I. Ilf and E. Petrov, V. Kataev, Yu. Olesha. The impressions of this period were used by Bulgakov in the story “Notes on Cuffs” (1923), which was not published during the writer’s lifetime. The main character of the story is a man who, like Bulgakov, came to Moscow to start life from scratch. The need to write a mediocre play in order to “fit into” a new life depresses the hero; he feels his connection with the previous culture, which for him is embodied in Pushkin.
A kind of continuation of “Notes on Cuffs” was the story “Diaboliad” (1925). Its main character, the “little man” Korotkov, found himself in the thick of the phantasmagoric life of Moscow in the 1920s and became its chronicler. The action of other stories by Bulgakov written during these years takes place in Moscow - “Fatal Eggs” (1925) and “Heart of a Dog” (1925, published in 1968 in the UK).
In 1925, Bulgakov published the novel “The White Guard” (incomplete version) in the magazine “Russia”, work on which he began in Vladikavkaz. The tragedy of the civil war, playing out in the writer’s native Kyiv (in the novel - the City), is shown as a tragedy not only of the people as a whole, but also of the “individual” family of intellectuals the Turbins and their close friends. Bulgakov spoke with piercing love about the atmosphere of a cozy house, in which “painted tiles glow with heat” and people who love each other live. The heroes of the novel, Russian officers, have a full sense of honor and dignity.
In the year the novel was published, Bulgakov began work on a play, plot-wise and thematically connected with the White Guard and later called “Days of the Turbins” (1926). The process of its creation is described by the author in “Theatrical Novel” (“Notes of a Dead Man”, 1937). The play, which Bulgakov reworked several times, was not a dramatization of the novel, but an independent dramatic work. The play “Days of the Turbins,” which premiered in 1926 at the Moscow Art Theater, was a huge success with the audience, despite the attacks of official critics who accused the author of “winking with the remnants of the White Guard,” and saw in the play “the Russian chauvinist’s mockery of Ukrainians." The play ran for 987 performances. In 1929–1932 its showing was prohibited.
Soon after “Days of the Turbins,” Bulgakov wrote two satirical plays about Soviet life in the 1920s - “Zoyka’s Apartment” (1926, ran on the Moscow stage for two years), “Crimson Island” (1927, removed from the repertoire after several performances) - and drama about the Civil War and the first emigration “Running” (1928, banned for production shortly before the premiere).
In the late 1920s, Bulgakov was subjected to sharp attacks from official criticism. His prose works were not published, his plays were removed from the repertoire. In the early 1930s, only his dramatization of Gogol’s “Dead Souls” was performed on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater; the play about Moliere “The Cabal of the Holy One” (1930–1936) was performed for some time in a “corrected” version by censorship, and then was also banned. In March 1930, Bulgakov addressed Stalin and the Soviet government with a letter in which he asked either to give him the opportunity to leave the USSR or to be allowed to earn a living in the theater. A month later, Stalin called Bulgakov and allowed him to work, after which the writer received the position of assistant director at the Moscow Art Theater.
The permission to work given to Bulgakov turned out to be Stalin’s favorite treacherous move: the writer’s works were still prohibited from publication. In 1936, Bulgakov earned money by translating and writing librettos for the Bolshoi Theater, and also played in some performances at the Moscow Art Theater. At this time, Bulgakov was writing a novel, begun back in 1929. The original version (according to the writer’s own definition, “a novel about the devil”) was destroyed by Bulgakov in 1930. In 1934, the first complete edition of the text was created, which in 1937 received the title “The Master and Margarita” . At this time, Bulgakov was already mortally ill; he dictated some chapters of the novel to his wife E.S. Bulgakova. Work on the novel was completed in February 1940, a month before the writer's death.
Over the years of work on The Master and Margarita, the author's concept has changed significantly - from a satirical novel to a philosophical work in which the satirical line is only a component of a complex compositional whole. The text is full of many associations - first of all, with Goethe's Faust, from which the epigraph to the novel and the name of Satan - Woland - are taken. The Gospel stories are artistically transformed by Bulgakov in chapters that represent a “novel within a novel” - the Master’s work about Pontius Pilate and Yeshua Ha-Nozri. Realizing the unacceptability of The Master and Margarita within the framework of Soviet ideology, Bulgakov nevertheless tried to promote the publication of the novel. To this end, in 1938 he wrote the play “Batum”, the central figure of which was the young Stalin. The play was banned; The publication of the novel did not take place during the author's lifetime. Only in 1966 did Bulgakov’s widow, with the assistance of K. Simonov, manage to publish the novel in the Moscow magazine. The publication became the most important cultural event of the 1960s. According to the memoirs of critics P. Weil and A. Genis, “this book was immediately perceived as a revelation, which contained in encrypted form all the answers to the fatal questions of the Russian intelligentsia.” Many phrases from the novel (“Manuscripts don’t burn”; “The housing problem only ruined them”, etc.) have become phraseological units. In 1977, Yu. Lyubimov staged a play of the same name based on “The Master and Margarita” at the Taganka Theater.
Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich (1891-1940) - Russian writer and playwright, theater actor and director. Many of his works today belong to the classics of Russian literature.
Family and childhood
Mikhail was born on May 15, 1891 in the city of Kyiv. On the third day after birth, he was baptized in Podil in the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross. His grandmother Anfisa Ivanovna Pokrovskaya (maiden name Turbina) became his godmother.
His father, Afanasy Ivanovich, was a teacher at the Kyiv Theological Academy, had the academic degree of associate professor, and later professor.
Mom, Varvara Mikhailovna, (maiden name Pokrovskaya) taught at a girls’ gymnasium. She was originally from the city of Karachaev, Oryol province, her father served as an archpriest in the Kazan Cathedral Church. Varvara was a very energetic woman, she had a strong-willed character, but along with these qualities she had extraordinary kindness and tact.
In 1890, Varvara married Afanasy Ivanovich and since then was engaged in housekeeping and raising children, of whom there were seven in the family. Misha was the eldest child; later two more brothers and four sisters were born.
All children inherited a love of music and reading from their mother. It was thanks to his mother that Misha himself became a writer, his younger brother Ivan became a balalaika musician, another brother Nikolai was a Russian scientist, biologist and doctor of philosophy.
The Bulgakov family belonged to the Russian intelligentsia, sort of provincial nobles. They lived well in terms of material security; their father’s salary was enough for a large family to exist comfortably.
In 1902, tragedy struck; father Afanasy Ivanovich passed away untimely. His early death complicated the situation in the family, but his mother, Varvara Mikhailovna, knew how to run the house so well that she was able to get out and, despite everyday hardships, give her children a decent education.
Studies
Misha studied at the First Kyiv Gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1909.
Then he continued his studies at Kiev University, choosing the Faculty of Medicine. This choice was not accidental; both of his maternal uncles were doctors and earned very good money. Uncle Mikhail Pokrovsky had a therapeutic practice in Warsaw and was Patriarch Tikhon’s doctor. Uncle Nikolai Pokrovsky was known as one of the best gynecologists in Moscow.
Mikhail studied at the university for 7 years. He had kidney failure and was therefore exempt from military service. But Mikhail himself wrote a report to be sent to the fleet as a doctor. The medical commission refused, so he asked to go to the hospital as a Red Cross volunteer.
In the fall of 1916, Mikhail Bulgakov was awarded a diploma of excellent completion of the university with the degree of doctor.
Medical practice
In 1914, the First World War began. Young Bulgakov, like millions of his peers, had hopes for peace and prosperity, but wars destroy everything, although in Kyiv its breath was not immediately felt.
After graduating from the university, Mikhail was sent to a field hospital in Kamenets-Podolsky, then to Chernivtsi. Before his eyes, a breakthrough of the Austrian front took place, the Russian army suffered colossal losses, he saw hundreds, thousands of mutilated human bodies and destinies.
In the early autumn of 1916, Mikhail was recalled from the front and sent to the Smolensk province, where in the village of Nikolskoye he was in charge of the zemstvo hospital. He was a very good doctor; during the year that he worked at the Nikolskaya Hospital, he saw about 15 thousand patients and performed many successful operations.
A year later, he was transferred to the Vyazma city hospital to the position of head of the venereal and infectious diseases department. This entire period of healing was later reflected in Mikhail’s work “Notes of a Young Doctor.”
In 1918, Mikhail returned to Kyiv, where he began private practice as a venereologist.
He served through the Civil War as a doctor in the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic, in the Red Cross, in the army of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia and in the Terek Cossack Regiment. He visited the North Caucasus, Tiflis and Batumi, suffered from typhus, and at the same time began writing articles and publishing in newspapers. He had the opportunity to emigrate, but did not do so, adhering to the firm belief that a Russian person should live and work in Russia.
Moscow
Mikhail wrote in a letter to his brother: “I’m exactly four years late, I should have started doing this a long time ago - writing.” He decided to give up medicine completely.
At the end of 1917, Bulgakov managed to visit Moscow for the first time; he came to visit his uncle Nikolai Pokrovsky, from whom he later copied the image of his professor Preobrazhensky in “Heart of a Dog.”
And in the fall of 1921, Mikhail decided to finally settle in Moscow. He got a job in the literary department of Glavpolitprosvet as a secretary, worked there for two months, after which a difficult time of unemployment began. He gradually began publishing in private newspapers and worked part-time in a troupe of traveling actors. And all this time he continued to write uncontrollably, as if he had broken through many years of silence. By the spring of 1922, he had already written enough feuilletons and stories to begin a successful collaboration with the capital's publishing houses. His works were published in the newspapers “Rabochiy” and “Gudok”, magazines:
- "Red Magazine for Everyone";
- "Medical worker";
- "Renaissance";
- "Russia".
Over four years, the Gudok newspaper published more than 100 feuilletons, reports and essays by Mikhail Bulgakov. Several of his works were even published in the newspaper Nakanune, which was published in Berlin.
Creation
In 1923, Mikhail Afanasyevich became a member of the All-Russian Writers Union.
- autobiographical work “Notes on Cuffs”;
- "Diaboliada" (social drama);
- the novel “The White Guard” is the writer’s first major work;
- one of the most famous books “Heart of a Dog”;
- “Fatal eggs” (fantastic story).
Since 1925, Moscow theaters have staged performances based on Bulgakov’s works: “Zoyka’s Apartment”, “Running”, “Days of the Turbins”, “Crimson Island”.
But by 1930, Bulgakov’s works were banned from publication and all theatrical productions were canceled. This was explained by the fact that his work discredits the “ideological purity” of Soviet culture and literature. The writer plucked up courage and turned to Stalin himself - either to allow him to write, or to give him a chance to travel abroad. The leader answered him personally, saying that the performances would resume; although he considered “Days of the Turbins” an “anti-Soviet thing,” he himself adored this performance and visited it 14 times.
Bulgakov was restored as a playwright and theater director, but no more books were published during his lifetime.
From 1929 until his death, Mikhail worked on the work of his entire life - the novel “The Master and Margarita”. This is an immortal classic of Russian literature. The work was published only in the late 60s, but immediately became a triumph.
Personal life
While a university student, Mikhail got married for the first time. His wife was Tatyana Lappa. Her father ran the state chamber in Saratov and at first was very wary of the relationship between the young people. The Lappa family belonged to the pillar nobles, they were well-born aristocrats, high officials and a completely different world than the one in which Mikhail was brought up and grew up.
The romance between Tatiana and Mikhail began back in 1908, lasted five years, but eventually ended with a wedding. In 1913 they got married. Tatyana's mother, who came to the wedding, was horrified by the bride's outfit; there was no veil or wedding dress. The newlywed wore a linen skirt and blouse at the wedding, which her mother managed to buy for her.
Over time, Tatyana’s parents came to terms with their daughter’s choice; her father sent her 50 rubles a month, a decent amount at that time. Tanya and Misha rented an apartment on Andreevsky Spusk. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Kyiv was considered a fairly large theater center, and young people often went to premieres. Bulgakov had an excellent understanding of music, loved to attend concerts, and several times he had the opportunity to attend Chaliapin’s performances.
Bulgakov did not like to save; he could use his last money to take a taxi to get from the theater to his home. He decided on such actions without much thought, he didn’t care much that he didn’t have a penny for the next day and, perhaps, there would be nothing to eat, he was a man of impulse. Tatyana’s mother, when she came to visit them, often noticed that her daughter was missing either a ring or a chain and realized that everything was again pawned at the pawnshop.
When he became a writer, Bulgakov based the image of Anna Kirillovna in the work “Morphine” on his first wife Tatyana.
In 1924, he met Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya, who had recently returned from abroad. She came from an old princely family, was well versed in literature and fully supported the writer in his work. In 1925, he divorced Tatyana Lappa and married Belozerskaya.
He lived with his second wife for 4 years; in 1929 he met Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya. In 1932 they got married.
Elena is the prototype of Margarita in his most famous work. She lived until 1970 and was the custodian of the writer’s literary heritage.
Death
In 1939, Bulgakov began work on the play “Batum” about the great leader, Comrade Stalin. When almost everything was ready for the production, a decree came to stop rehearsals. This undermined the writer’s health, his vision deteriorated sharply, and congenital renal failure worsened. To relieve pain, Mikhail began taking morphine in large doses. In the winter of 1940, he stopped getting out of bed, and on March 10, the great writer and playwright passed away. Bulgakov was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
