Mikhail Bulgakov ( May 15 [O.S. May 3] 1891, Kiev – March 10, 1940, Moscow) was a Russian novelist and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for the novel
The Master and Margarita, which the
New York Times Book Review has called one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
Mikhail Bulgakov was born to Russian parents on May 15, 1891 in Kiev, Ukraine (which at the time was part of the Russian Empire). He was the oldest son of Afanasiy Bulgakov, an assistant professor at the Kiev Theological Academy. He was the grandson of priests on both sides of the family. From 1901 to 1904, Mikhail attended the First Kiev Gymnasium, where he developed an interest in Russian and European literature.
In 1913 Bulgakov married Tatiana Lappa. At the outbreak of the First World War he volunteered with the Red Cross. In 1916, he graduated from the Medical School of Kiev University and then served in the White Army. He briefly served in the Ukrainian People's Army. His brothers also served in the White Army. After the Civil War and rise of the Soviets, they emigrated to exile in Paris. Mikhail, who had enlisted in the White Army as a field doctor, ended up in the Caucasus. There he began to work as a journalist.
In 1919 he decided to leave medicine to pursue his love of literature. In 1921, he moved with Tatiana to Moscow where he began his career as a writer. Three years later, divorced from his first wife, he married Lyubov' Belozerskaya. He published a number of works through the early and mid 1920s, but by 1927 his career began to suffer from criticism that he was too anti-Soviet. By 1929 his career was ruined, and government censorship prevented publication of any of his work.
In 1931, Bulgakov married for the third time, to Yelena Shilovskaya, who would prove to be inspiration for the character Margarita in his most famous novel. They settled at Patriarch's Ponds. During the last decade of his life, Bulgakov continued to work on
The Master and Margarita, wrote plays, critical works, stories, and made several translations and dramatisations of novels, but none were published.
Bulgakov never supported the Soviet regime, and mocked it in many of his works. Therefore, most of his work stayed in his desk drawer for several decades. In 1930 he wrote a letter to the Soviet government, requesting permission to emigrate if the Soviet Union could not find use for him as a satirist. He received a personal phone call from Stalin himself, who asked Bulgakov if he truly desired to leave the country. Bulgakov replied that a Russian writer could not live outside of his homeland.
Stalin had enjoyed Bulgakov's work,
The Days of the Turbins and found work for him at a small Moscow theatre, and then the Moscow Art Theatre. In Bulgakov's autobiography, he claimed that he wrote to Stalin out of desperation and mental anguish, never intending to post the letter. Bulgakov wrote letters to Stalin during the 1930s again requesting to emigrate, to which Stalin did not reply.
The refusal of the authorities to let him work in the theatre and his desire to see his family living abroad, whom he had not seen for many years, led him to seek drastic measures. Despite his new work, the projects he worked on at the theatre were unsuccessful and he was stressed and unhappy. He also worked briefly at the Bolshoi Theatre as a librettist but left when his works were not produced.
Bulgakov died from nephrosclerosis (an inherited kidney disorder) on March 10, 1940. He was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. His father had died of the same disease.
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