Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Mikhail Bulgakov

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Britannica Concise Encyclopedia

(born May 15, 1891, Kiev, Ukraine, Russian Empire — died March 10, 1940, Moscow, Russian S.F.S.R., U.S.S.R.) Russian playwright, novelist, and short-story writer. He wrote and staged many popular plays in the years 1925 – 29, including dramatizations of his own novels, but by 1930 his trenchant criticism of Soviet mores had caused him to be effectively prohibited from publishing. His works, known for their scathing humour, include the novella The Heart of a Dog (written 1925), a satire on pseudoscience that did not appear openly in the Soviet Union until 1987, and the dazzling fantasy The Master and Margarita, not published in unexpurgated form until 1973.

For more information on Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, visit Britannica.com.

Search unanswered questions...

Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics

Biography: Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Biographies

The Soviet novelist and playwright Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov (1891-1940) was a satirist with an outstanding talent for depicting the grotesque, the comic, and the fantastic.

Mikhail Bulgakov was born on May 2, 1891, in Kiev of a middle-class intellectual family. He graduated in medicine from the University of Kiev but soon abandoned his medical career for journalism. His first literary efforts were short stories, such as "The Fatal Eggs" and "Devilry," in which the real world is mixed with science fantasy for the purpose of social and moral satire.

The realistic novel The White Guard (1924) was Bulgakov's first major triumph and is notable as one of the few works published in the Soviet Union which sympathetically portray the supporters of the White cause during the civil war. This outstanding novel was never reprinted in Russia, but Bulgakov's dramatic adaptation of it, The Days of the Turbins (1926), became a fixture on the Soviet stage. From 1926 until his death Bulgakov was closely associated with the Moscow Art Theater, for which he wrote over 30 plays, only 8 of which were performed in his lifetime.

During the 1930s Bulgakov's partiality for satire and his independence as a writer kept him under a political cloud. At one time the pressure on him became so great that he asked Stalin for permission to leave the Soviet Union permanently, but Stalin refused. He also suffered from poor health and became blind the year before his death in 1940.

It was not until the 1960s that Bulgakov was fully rehabilitated by the Soviet authorities. At that time the manuscripts of numerous stories and plays and of three novels were discovered and published; these works established him as one of the finest 20th-century Russian writers. The first of the novels to appear was Black Snow (written in the late 1930s), a satire on the Soviet theatrical world. The second, The Heart of a Dog (written in 1925), is a science fantasy in which human organs are transplanted into a dog, giving it the most disgusting qualities of mankind.

The third novel, The Master and Margarita, was written in his last years and is Bulgakov's greatest work. It is a complex, grotesque, and fantastic satire, combining a unique interpretation of the story of Jesus with descriptions of the literary and theatrical circles of Moscow and with weird adventures caused by the mischief of the devil. The novel has many symbolic elements, which can be interpreted in a great variety of ways. A number of Bulgakov's manuscripts remain unpublished.

Further Reading

There is no full-length study of Bulgakov in English. Most of the English-language editions of his works, however, contain valuable introductory material. Shorter treatments of Bulgakov are in Gleb Struve, Soviet Russian Literature, 1917-50 (1951); Marc Lvovich Slonim, Modern Russian Literature from Chekhov to the Present (1953); Viacheslav Zavalishin, Early Soviet Writers (1958); and Edward J. Brown, Russian Literature since the Revolution (1969).

Additional Sources

My life with Mikhail Bulgakov, Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1983.

Milne, Lesley, Mikhail Bulgakov: a critical biography, Cambridge England; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

A pictorial biography of Mikhail Bulgakov, Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1984.

Russian History Encyclopedia: Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov
Top
Home > Library > History, Politics & Society > Russian History Encyclopedia

(1891 - 1940), twentieth-century novelist, journalist, short story writer, and playwright; author of internationally acclaimed novel Master and Margarita.

Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov was born in Kiev. He graduated from the Kiev University Medical School in 1916 and married Tatiana Lappa, his first of three wives. He practiced medicine in provincial villages, then in Kiev, where he witnessed the outbreak of the Russian Civil War and struggled with morphine addiction. In 1920 he abandoned medicine for a writing career and moved to Vladikavkaz, Caucasus, where he wrote feuilletons and studied theater.

Bulgakov moved to Moscow in 1921. There his troubles with censorship began. His satirical (patently science fiction) novel Heart of a Dog (Sobache serdtse) was deemed unpublishable. His play Days of the Turbins (Dni Turbinykh), based on his autobiographical novel White Guardu (Belaya Gvardiya), premiered in 1926 and was banned after its 289th performance (although it supposedly numbered among Josef Stalin's favorite plays). Subsequent plays were banned much earlier in the production process. His short story "Morphine" (1927) was his last publication in his lifetime. In 1930 he wrote a long letter (his second) to the Soviet government requesting permission to emigrate. He received in response a telephone call from Stalin, who offered him an assignment as assistant producer at the Moscow Art Theater. Although not subjected to forced labor or confinement, Bulgakov hardly enjoyed privilege. His work remained unpublished and unperformed. His attempts to appease the censors by tackling relatively safe subjects (historical fiction and adaptations) proved futile.

Bulgakov's novel Master and Margarita was written between 1928 and 1940. Resonant with the influence of Nikolai Gogol, it concerns the Devil, who, disguised as a professor, travels to Moscow to wreak havoc. This exuberantly irreverent work swirls with fierce wit, narrative inventiveness, and a myriad of historical, literary, and religious references.

Bulgakov's last play, Batum (1939), written in honor of Stalin's sixtieth jubilee, was banned. Bulgakov died of kidney disease in 1940.

Bibliography

Bulgakov, Mikhail. (1987). Heart of a Dog, reprint ed., tr. Mirra Ginsburg. New York: Grove.

Bulgakov, Mikhail. (1996). The Master and Margarita, reprint ed., tr. Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor. New York: Vintage.

Milne, Lesley. (1990). Bulgakov: A Critical Biography. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Proffer, Ellendea. (1984). Bulgakov: Life and Work. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis.

—DIANA SENECHAL

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Columbia Encyclopedia - People
Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasyevich (mēkhəyēl' əfənä'syəvĭch bʊlgä'kəf), 1891-1940, Russian novelist and playwright. He wrote satirical stories (The Deviliad, 1925, tr. 1972) and comedies (Zoe's Apartment, 1926) and the long novel The White Guard (1925, tr. 1971), in which a Kievan family hostile to the revolution is sympathetically and realistically portrayed. He condensed and dramatized this as The Days of the Turbines (1926, tr. 1934). The satirical and philosophical novel The Master and Margarita (tr. 1967, 1995) is considered his most important book; it was not published until a censored edition appeared in 1967 (other versions were published in 1973 and 1989). He worked intermittently on this fantasy, which concerns Satan's visit to Moscow, from 1928 until his death. His other novels include The Heart of a Dog (1925, tr. 1968). Bulgakov was officially criticized for several of his works.

Bibliography

See The Early Plays of Mikhail Bulgakov: 1926-1936 (tr. 1972); study by A. C. Wright (1978).

Wikipedia: Mikhail Bulgakov
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Bulgakov in 1939
Born May 15 [O.S. May 3] 1891
Kiev, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine)
Died 10 March 1940 (aged 48)
Moscow, USSR
Occupation novelist & playwright
Genres Fantastic, Satire

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (Russian: Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, May 15 [O.S. May 3] 1891, Kiev – March 10, 1940, Moscow) was a Soviet novelist and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his fantasy novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.[1]

Contents

Biography

Mikhail Bulgakov was born to Russian parents on May 15, 1891 in Kiev (now the capital of Ukraine), in the Russian Empire. He was the eldest 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, theatre, opera.

Bulgakov in 1909.

In 1913 Bulgakov married Tatiana Lappa. At the outbreak of the First World War he volunteered with the Red Cross as a medical doctor and was sent directly to the frontline, where he was badly injured at least twice. In 1916, he graduated from the Medical School of Kiev University and then served in the White Army alongside his brothers. He also briefly served in the Ukrainian People's Army.

After the Civil War and rise of the Soviets, much of his family emigrated to Paris (in exile). Mikhail and brothers ended up in the Caucasus. He first began to work as a journalist there, but when they were invited to intern as doctors by the French and German governments, Bulgakov was refused permission to leave Russia because of typhus. This was when he last saw his family.

Bulgakov suffered from his long-acting war wounds, which had a bad effect on his health. To suppress chronic pain, especially in the abdomen, he injected himself with morphine long enough to become addicted to it. Throughout the following years his addiction grew stronger as he eventually reached a state of hypochondriasis. His book, entitled Morphine and released in 1926, was one of the best describers of the writer's state during these years.

Though his first fiction efforts were made in Kiev, he only decided to leave medicine to pursue his love of literature in 1919. His first book was an almanach of feuilletons called Future Perspectives, written and published the same year. In 1921, Bulgakov moved with Tatiana to Moscow where he began his career as a writer. They settled near Patriarch's Ponds, close to Mayakovskaya metro station on the Sadovaya street, 10. 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 and staging of any of his plays.

Bulgakov in the 1910s - his university years.

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. 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, librettos. Many of them were not published, other ones were "torn to pieces" by critics.

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 writer. He spoke directly to Stalin on the phone asking to leave the Soviet Union. Stalin replied that a Soviet writer cannot live outside of his homeland, implying that if Bulgakov tried to leave, he would be killed.

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 often prohibited 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, and from his youth Bulgakov guessed of his future mortal diagnosis.

Early works

See also: Category:Works by Mikhail Bulgakov

During his life, Bulgakov was best known for the plays he contributed to Konstantin Stanislavsky's and Nemirovich-Danchenko's Moscow Art Theatre. Stalin was known to be fond of the play Days of the Turbins (Дни Турбиных) (1926), which was based on Bulgakov's novel The White Guard. His dramatization of Molière's life in The Cabal of Hypocrites (Кабала святош) is still performed by the Moscow Art Theatre. Even after his plays were banned from the theatres, Bulgakov wrote a comedy about Ivan the Terrible's visit into 1930s Moscow and a play about the early years of Stalin (1939), which was prohibited by Stalin himself.

Bulgakov in 1926.

Bulgakov began writing prose with The White Guard (Белая гвардия) (1924, partly published in 1925, first full edition 1927–1929, Paris) – a novel about a life of a White Army officer's family in Civil war Kiev. In the mid-1920s, he came to admire the works of H. G. Wells and wrote several stories with elements of science fiction, notably The Fatal Eggs (Роковые яйца) (1924) and the Heart of a Dog (Собачье сердце) (1925). He intended to compile his stories of the mid-twenties (published mostly in medical journals) that were based on his work as a country doctor in 1916–1918 into a collection titled Notes of a Young Doctor (Записки юного врача), but he died before he could publish it.[2]

Bulgakov in the early 1930s.

The Fatal Eggs tells of the events of a Professor Persikov, who, in experimentation with eggs, discovers a red ray that accelerates growth in living organisms. At the time, an illness passes through the chickens of Moscow, killing most of them and, to remedy the situation, the Soviet government puts the ray into use at a farm. Unfortunately there is a mix up in egg shipments and the Professor ends up with chicken eggs, while the government-run farm receives the shipment of ostrich, snake and crocodile eggs that were meant to go to the Professor. The mistake is not discovered until the eggs produce giant monstrosities that wreak havoc in the suburbs of Moscow and kill most of the workers on the farm. The propaganda machine then turns on Persikov, distorting his nature in the same way his "innocent" tampering created the monsters. This tale of a bungling government earned Bulgakov his label of a counter-revolutionary.

Heart of a Dog features a professor who implants human testicles and pituitary gland into a dog named Sharik (means "Little Balloon" or "Little Ball" - popular Russian nickname for a male dog). The dog then proceeds to become more and more human as time passes, resulting in all manner of chaos. The tale can be read as a critical satire of the Soviet Union; it contains few bold hints to communist leadership (e.g. the name of donor drunkard of human implants is Chugunkin ("chugun" is a cast iron) which can be seen as parody on the name of Stalin ("stal'" is steel). It was turned into a comic opera called The Murder of Comrade Sharik by William Bergsma in 1973. In 1988 an award-winning movie version Sobachye Serdtse was produced by Lenfilm, starring Yevgeniy Yevstigneyev, Roman Kartsev and Vladimir Tolokonnikov.

The Master and Margarita

Bulgakov in 1936.
Main article: The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita (Мастер и Маргарита), which Bulgakov began writing in 1928, is a magic realism satirical novel published by his wife in 1966, twenty-six years after his death, that has led to an international appreciation of his work. The book was available underground as samizdat for many years in the Soviet Union, before the serialization of a censored version in the journal Moskva. It contributed a number of sayings to the Russian language, for example, "Manuscripts don't burn" and "second-grade freshness". A destroyed manuscript of the Master is an important element of the plot, and, in fact, Bulgakov had to rewrite the novel from memory after he burned the draft manuscript of this novel.

The novel is a critique of Soviet society and its literary establishment. The work is appreciated for its philosophical undertones and for its high artistic level thanks to its picturesque descriptions (especially of old Jerusalem), lyrical fragments and style. It is a frame narrative involving two characteristically related time periods and/or plot lines: a retelling of the gospels and a description of contemporary Moscow.

The novel begins with Satan visiting Moscow in the 1930s, joining a conversation between a critic and a poet debating the existence of Jesus Christ and the Devil. It then evolves into an all-embracing indictment of the corruption, greed, narrow-mindedness, and widespread paranoia of Soviet Russia. Published more than 25 years after Bulgakov's death, and more than ten years after Stalin's, the novel firmly secured Bulgakov's place among the pantheon of great Russian writers.

There is a story-within-the-story: A short historical fiction narrative about the interrogation of Yeshua by Pontius Pilate and the Crucifixion.

Bulgakov Museum in Moscow

Detail, Bulgakov Museum in Moscow
Main article: Bulgakov museum in Moscow

Bulgakov's old flat, in which parts of The Master and Margarita are set, has since the 1980s become a gathering spot for Bulgakov's fans, as well as Moscow-based Satanist groups[citation needed], and had various kinds of graffiti scrawled on the walls. The numerous paintings, quips, and drawings were completely whitewashed in 2003. Previously the best drawings were kept as the walls were repainted, so that several layers of different colored paints could be seen around the best drawings. Although quite old,the building stayed viable for a while. The building's residents, in an attempt to deter loitering, are currently attempting to turn the flat into a museum of Bulgakov's life and works. To date (February, 2005), they have had trouble contacting the flat's anonymous owner.[3]

On December 21, 2006, the museum in Bulgakov's flat was damaged by an anti-satanist protester and disgruntled neighbor, Alexander Morozov.[4]

The Bulgakov museum in Moscow remains open and contains personal belongings, photos, and exhibitions related to Bulgakov's life and his different works. There is a fantastic museum and different poetic and literary events are often being held in the flat. The museum's web site is only available in Russian but the entrance fee is only about $1 (the museum was free till January 2009) and its opening hours are 1 p.m. - 7 p.m. The flat is located close to Mayakovskaya metro station on the Sadovaya street, 10.

Bulgakov Museum in Kiev

The Mikhail Bulgakov Museum (Bulgakov House) in Kiev, (in his family home, which was the model for the house of the Turbin family in The White Guard) has been converted to a literary museum with some rooms devoted to the writer, as well as some to his works.

Legacy

A minor planet 3469 Bulgakov discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1982 is named after him.[5]

The award-winning British writer Salman Rushdie stated that The Master and Margarita was an inspiration for his own novel The Satanic Verses.

Famous quotes

The following quotes from The Master and Margarita have become catch phrases in Russia:

  • "Manuscripts don't burn" ("Рукописи не горят")
  • "There's only one degree of freshness — the first, which makes it also the last" ("Свежесть бывает только одна – первая, она же и последняя"
  • "Not causing trouble, not bothering anyone, fixing the primus" ("Не шалю, никого не трогаю, починяю примус") - (a "primus" is a brand, and by extension type, of portable stove)
  • "No ID, no person" ("Нет документа - нет человека")

In popular culture

Cat Béhémot

Bibliography

Main article: Bibliography of Mikhail Bulgakov
See also: Category:Works by Mikhail Bulgakov
In chronological order by year of first translation:

Novels and short stories

  • Great Soviet short stories, 1962
  • The Master and Margarita, 1967
  • Black snow: Theatrical Novel, 1986
  • Heart of a Dog, 1968
  • A Country Doctor's Notebook, 1975
  • Diaboliad and Other Stories, 1990
  • The Terrible news: Russian stories from the years following the Revolution, 1990
  • Notes on the Cuff & Other Stories, translated by Alison Rice, Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1991.
  • The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire, 1918-1963, 1993.
  • A Dead Man's Memoir (A Theatrical Novel), 2007

Theater

  • The Early Plays of Mikhail Bulgakov, 1990
  • Peace plays: two, 1990
  • Zoya's apartment: A tragic farce in three acts, 1991
  • Six plays, 1991

References

  1. ^ Neel Mukherjee. "The Master and Margarita: A graphic novel by Mikhail Bulakov". The Times. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fiction/article3901149.ece. Retrieved 2009-01-19. 
  2. ^ Coulehan, Jack (1999-11-09). "Literature Annotations: Bulgakov, Mikhail - A Country Doctor's Notebook". Literature Arts and Medicine Database. New York University. http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=207. Retrieved 2009-02-11. 
  3. ^ Stephen, Chris. "Devil-worshippers target famous writer's Moscow flat". The Irish Times, Saturday, February 5, 2005. Page 9.
  4. ^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061225/ennew_afp/afpentertainmentrussia_061225190417
  5. ^ . http://books.google.com/books?hl=ru&q=3461+Mandelshtam+1977. 
  6. ^ "Sympathy for the Devil" - Salon.com at dir.salon.com
  7. ^ Sympathy for the Devil : Rolling Stone at www.rollingstone.com

External links

Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mikhail Bulgakov

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Russian History Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of Russian History. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mikhail Bulgakov".  Read more