Mikhail Bulgakov

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Mikhail Bulgakov

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

Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov (Russian: Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, 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.[1]

Contents

[edit] Biography

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.

Bulgakov in 1909.
Bulgakov in 1909.

The Bulgakov sons enlisted in the White Army, and in post-Civil War Russia, ended up in Paris, except for Mikhail. Mikhail, who had enlisted as a field doctor, ended up in the Caucasus, where he eventually began working as a journalist. Despite his relatively favored status under the Soviet rule of Joseph Stalin, Bulgakov was prevented from either emigrating or visiting his brothers in the West. Some details of his biography are unclear - Bulgakov was quite secretive about his early life and swore his three wives to secrecy.

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. 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 none of his works were published due to censorship.

Bulgakov in the 1910s - his university years.
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 from his most famous novel, and settled with her 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 these were unpublished.

Bulgakov never supported the Soviet regime, and mocked it in many of his works[citation needed]. Therefore, most of them were consigned to 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, and 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 his autobiography and in many biographies, it is stated that Bulgakov wrote the letter out of desperation and mental anguish, never actually intending to post it. Bulgakov wrote subsequent letters to Stalin during the thirties again requesting to leave the country, 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 after his works were not produced.

Bulgakov died from nephrosclerosis (an inherited kidney disorder, which also killed his father) on March 10, 1940. He was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

[edit] Early works

During his life, Bulgakov was best known for the plays he contributed to Konstantin Stanislavsky'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 grotesquely funny comedy about Ivan the Terrible's visit into 1930s Moscow and a play about the early years of Stalin (1939), which was also prohibited by Stalin himself.

Bulgakov in 1926.
Bulgakov in 1926.

Bulgakov began writing prose with The White Guard (Белая гвардия) (1924, published in 1966) - a novel about a life of a White Army officer's family in Civil war Kiev, and a short story collection entitled Notes of a Young Doctor (Записки юного врача), based on Bulgakov's work as a country doctor in 1916 - 1919. 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).

Bulgakov in the early 1930s.
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 ostrich, snake and crocodile eggs, while the government-run farm receives the shipment of chicken 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. 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.

[edit] The Master and Margarita

Bulgakov in 1936.
Bulgakov in 1936.

The Master and Margarita (Мастер и Маргарита), which Bulgakov began writing in 1928, is a fantasy satirical novel published twenty-six years after his death in 1966 by his wife, 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 fresh". 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 multilayered critique of the Soviet society in general and its literary establishment. It is a frame narrative involving two characteristically related time periods and/or plot lines; the retelling of the gospels, and modern Moscow (thus relating it to The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (The Master and Margarita was an inspiration for this novel[citation needed]).

The novel begins with Satan visiting Moscow in the 1920s or 30s, joining a conversation of a critic and a poet, busily 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. Banned but widely read, the novel firmly secured Bulgakov's place among the pantheon of great Russian writers.

[edit] Bulgakov's flat

Detail, interior Bulgakov's flat 1997. Photo G. McIver
Detail, interior Bulgakov's flat 1997. Photo G. McIver
Bulgakov's tomb at Novodevichy Cemetery incorporates a gravestone taken from Gogol's grave during his reburial in 1931.
Bulgakov's tomb at Novodevichy Cemetery incorporates a gravestone taken from Gogol's grave during his reburial in 1931.

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, 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. 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.[2]

On December 21, 2006, the museum in Bulgakov's flat was damaged by an anti-satanist protester and disgruntled neighbor, Alexander Morozov.[3]

The museum remains open and contains personal belongings, photos, and several exhibitions related to Bulgakov's life and his different works. There is also a small cafe, and different poetic and literary events are often being held in the flat. As an extra bonus a black cat can sometimes be seen walking around inside the museum. The museum's web site is only available in Russian but the entrance is free and its opening hours are 1 p.m. - 11 p.m. The flat is located close to Mayakovskaya metro station on the Sadovaya street, 10 (go through the arch and then turn to the left).

[edit] Legacy

A minor planet 3469 Bulgakov discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1982 is named after him. [4]

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 touching anything, fixing the primus" ("Не шалю, никого не трогаю, починяю примус") - (a "primus" is a brand/type of portable stove)
  • "No ID, no person" ("Нет документа - нет человека")

[edit] In popular culture

[edit] Bibliography

A bibliography of the works of Bulgakov, in both Russian and English translation, can be found at the article Bibliography of Mikhail Bulgakov

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
  2. ^ Stephen, Chris. "Devil-worshippers target famous writer's Moscow flat". The Irish Times, Saturday, February 5, 2005. Page 9.
  3. ^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061225/ennew_afp/afpentertainmentrussia_061225190417
  4. ^ Dictionary of Minor Planet Names - p.290

[edit] External links