Mikhail Bulgakov - biography, information, personal life. A very short biography of M. A. Bulgakov: the most important Biography of Bulgakov briefly about the main interesting things

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov. Born May 3 (May 15), 1891 in Kyiv, Russian Empire - died March 10, 1940 in Moscow. Russian and Soviet writer, playwright, theater director and actor.

Mikhail Bulgakov was born on May 3 (15), 1891 in the family of an associate professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy at 28 Vozdvizhenskaya Street in Kyiv.

Father - Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov (1859-1907), Russian theologian and church historian.

Mother - Varvara Mikhailovna Bulgakova (nee Pokrovskaya; 1869-1922).

Sister - Vera Afanasyevna Bulgakova (1892-1972), married to Davydov.

Sister - Nadezhda Afanasyevna Bulgakova (1893-1971), married Zemskaya.

Sister - Varvara Afanasyevna Bulgakova (1895-1956), prototype of the character Elena Turbina-Talberg in the novel “The White Guard”.

Brother - Nikolai Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1898-1966), Russian scientist, biologist, bacteriologist, Ph.D.

Brother - Ivan Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1900-1969), balalaika musician, in exile since 1921, first in Varna, then in Paris.

Sister - Elena Afanasyevna Bulgakova (1902-1954), prototype of the “blue eyes” in V. Kataev’s story “My Diamond Crown”.

Uncle - Nikolai Ivanovich Bulgakov, taught at the Tiflis Theological Seminary.

Niece - Elena Andreevna Zemskaya (1926-2012), famous Russian linguist, researcher of Russian colloquial speech.

In 1909, Mikhail Bulgakov graduated from the First Kyiv Gymnasium and entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University. The choice of becoming a doctor was explained by the fact that both mother’s brothers, Nikolai and Mikhail Pokrovsky, were doctors, one in Moscow, the other in Warsaw, both earned good money. Mikhail, a therapist, was Patriarch Tikhon’s doctor, Nikolai, a gynecologist, had an excellent practice in Moscow. Bulgakov studied at the university for 7 years - having been exempted for health reasons (kidney failure), he submitted a report to serve as a doctor in the navy and, after the refusal of the medical commission, asked to be sent as a Red Cross volunteer to the hospital.

On October 31, 1916, he received a diploma confirming “the degree of doctor with honors with all the rights and benefits assigned to this degree by the laws of the Russian Empire.”

In 1913, M. Bulgakov married Tatyana Lappa (1892-1982). Financial difficulties began on the wedding day. This can be seen in Tatyana Nikolaevna’s memoirs: “Of course, I 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 in a carriage. There were few guests. I remember there were a lot of flowers, most of all daffodils...” Tatyana's father sent 50 rubles a month, a decent amount at that time. But the money quickly disappeared: M. A. Bulgakov did not like to save and was a man of impulse. If he wanted to take a taxi with his last money, he decided to take this step without hesitation. “Mother scolded me for my frivolity. We come to her for dinner, she sees - neither my rings nor my chain. “Well, that means everything is in the pawn shop!”

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, M. A. Bulgakov began to use morphine, first in order to alleviate allergic reactions to the anti-diphtheria drug, which he took out of fear of diphtheria after the operation. Then the morphine intake became regular.

In December 1917, M. A. Bulgakov came to Moscow for the first time. He stayed 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. A. Bulgakov returned to Kyiv, where he began private practice as a venereologist - at this time he stopped using morphine.

During the Civil War, in February 1919, M. Bulgakov was mobilized as a military doctor into the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Then, judging by his memoirs, he was mobilized into the white Armed Forces of the South of Russia and was appointed military doctor of the 3rd Terek Cossack Regiment. In the same year, he managed to work as a doctor for the Red Cross, and then again in the white Armed Forces of the South of Russia. As part of the 3rd Terek Cossack Regiment he was in the North Caucasus. Published in newspapers (article “Future Prospects”). During the retreat of the Volunteer Army at the beginning of 1920, he was sick with typhus and therefore was forced not to leave the country. After recovery, in Vladikavkaz, his first dramatic experiments appeared - he wrote to his cousin on February 1, 1921: “I was 4 years late with what I should have started doing long ago - writing.”

At the end of September 1921, M. A. Bulgakov moved to Moscow and began collaborating as a feuilletonist with metropolitan newspapers (Gudok, Rabochiy) and magazines (Medical Worker, Rossiya, Vozrozhdenie, Red Journal for everyone"). At the same time, he published some of his works in the newspaper Nakanune, published in Berlin. From 1922 to 1926, the newspaper “Gudok” published more than 120 reports, essays and feuilletons by M. Bulgakov.

In 1923, Bulgakov joined the All-Russian Writers Union. In 1924, he met Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya (1898-1987), who had recently returned from abroad, who became his wife in 1925.

Since October 1926, the play “Days of the Turbins” was performed at the Moscow Art Theater with great success. Its production was allowed only for a year, but was later extended several times. The play attracted the attention of I. Stalin himself, who watched it more than 14 times. In his speeches, I. Stalin said that “Days of the Turbins” was “an anti-Soviet thing, and Bulgakov is not ours” and when the play was banned, Stalin ordered its return (in January 1932) and before the war it was no longer banned. However, this permission did not apply to any theater except the Moscow Art Theater. Stalin noted that the impression from the “Days of the Turbins” was ultimately positive for the communists (letter to V. Bill-Belotserkovsky, published by Stalin himself in 1949).

At the same time, intense and extremely harsh criticism of M. A. Bulgakov’s work takes place in the Soviet press. According to his own calculations, over 10 years there were 298 abusive reviews and 3 favorable ones. Among the critics were influential writers and literary officials (Mayakovsky, Bezymensky, Averbakh, Shklovsky, Kerzhentsev and others).

At the end of October 1926 at the Theater. Vakhtangov, the premiere of the play based on M. A. Bulgakov’s play “Zoyka’s Apartment” was a great success.

In 1928, M.A. Bulgakov traveled with his wife to the Caucasus, where they visited Tiflis, Batum, Cape Verde, Vladikavkaz, Gudermes. This year the premiere of the play “Crimson Island” took place in Moscow. M. A. Bulgakov came up with the idea of ​​a novel, 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 were no longer published, and his plays were removed from the theater repertoire. The plays “Running”, “Zoyka’s Apartment”, “Crimson Island” were banned from production; the play “Days of the Turbins” was removed from the repertoire. 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, who recommended that the playwright apply to enroll him in the Moscow Art Theater.

In 1930 he worked as a director at the Central Theater of Working Youth (TRAM). From 1930 to 1936 - at the Moscow Art Theater as an assistant director. In 1932, the play “Dead Souls” by Nikolai Gogol, staged by Bulgakov, was staged on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater. In 1934, Bulgakov was twice denied permission to travel abroad, and in June he was admitted to the Union of Soviet Writers. In 1935, Bulgakov performed on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater as an actor - in the role of the Judge in the play “The Pickwick Club” based on Dickens. The experience of working at the Moscow Art Theater was reflected in Bulgakov’s work “Notes of a Dead Man” (“Theatrical Novel”), for which many theater employees became the material for the characters.

The play “The Cabal of the Holy One” (“Molière”) was released in February 1936, after almost five years of rehearsals. Although E. S. Bulgakova noted that the premiere on February 16 was a huge success, after seven performances the production was banned, and Pravda published a devastating article about this “false, reactionary and worthless” play. After the article in Pravda, Bulgakov left the Moscow Art Theater and began working at the Bolshoi Theater as a librettist and translator. In 1937, M. Bulgakov worked on the libretto of “Minin and Pozharsky” and “Peter I”. He was friends with Isaac Dunaevsky.

In 1939, M. A. 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. Doctors diagnosed Bulgakov with hypertensive nephrosclerosis enru - a hereditary kidney disease. 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 the latest version of the novel “The Master and Margarita.”

Before the war, two Soviet theaters staged performances based on M. A. Bulgakov’s play “Don Quixote.”

Since February 1940, friends and relatives were constantly on duty at M. Bulgakov’s bedside. On March 10, 1940, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov died. On March 11, a civil memorial service took place in the building of the Union of Soviet Writers.

Before the funeral service, Moscow sculptor S. D. Merkurov removed the death mask from M. Bulgakov’s face.

M. Bulgakov was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery. At his grave, at the request of his widow E. S. Bulgakova, a stone was installed, nicknamed “Golgotha,” which previously lay on the grave.

Bulgakov treated him with respect. Once, at the name day of the wife of the playwright Trenev, his neighbor in the writer’s house, Bulgakov and Pasternak found themselves at the same table. Pasternak read his translations of poems from Georgian with a special aspiration. After the first toast to the hostess, Pasternak announced: “I want to drink to Bulgakov!” In response to the objection of the birthday girl-hostess: “No, no! Now we’ll drink to Vikenty Vikentievich, and then to Bulgakov!” - Pasternak exclaimed: “No, I want for Bulgakov!” Veresaev, of course, is a very big man, but he is a legitimate phenomenon. And Bulgakov is illegal!”

After the writer’s death, she wrote the poem “In Memory of M. A. Bulgakov” (March 1940).

Michael Bulgakov. Romance with a secret

Personal life of Mikhail Bulgakov:

First wife - Tatyana Nikolaevna Lappa (1892-1982), first wife, the main prototype of the character Anna Kirillovna in the story “Morphine”. They were married in the period 1913-1924.

Tatyana Lappa - the first wife of Mikhail Bulgakov

Second wife - Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya (1895-1987). They were married in 1925-1931.

Lyubov Belozerskaya - the second wife of Mikhail Bulgakov

Third wife - Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya (1893-1970). They got married in 1932. She was the main prototype of the character Margarita in the novel The Master and Margarita. After the death of the writer, she is the custodian of his literary heritage.

Stories and novels by Mikhail Bulgakov:

“The Adventures of Chichikov” (poem in 10 paragraphs with a prologue and epilogue, October 5, 1922)
"The White Guard" (novel, 1922-1924)
“Diaboliada” (story, 1923)
“Notes on Cuffs” (story, 1923)
"The Crimson Island" (story, published in Berlin in 1924)
“Fatal Eggs” (story, 1924)
“Heart of a Dog” (story, 1925, published in the USSR in 1987)
"Great Chancellor. Prince of Darkness" (part of the draft version of the novel "The Master and Margarita", 1928-1929)
"The Engineer's Hoof" (novel, 1928-1929)
“To a Secret Friend” (unfinished story, 1929, published in the USSR in 1987)
“The Master and Margarita” (novel, 1929-1940, published in the USSR in 1966-1967, second version in 1973, final version in 1990)
“The Life of Monsieur de Molière” (novel, 1933, published in the USSR in 1962)
“Theatrical Novel” (“Notes of a Dead Man”) (unfinished novel (1936-1937), published in the USSR in 1965).

Plays, librettos, film scripts by Mikhail Bulgakov:

“Zoyka’s Apartment” (play, 1925, staged in the USSR in 1926, released in mass circulation in 1982)
“Days of the Turbins” (a play written based on the novel “The White Guard”, 1925, staged in the USSR in 1925, released in mass circulation in 1955)
"Running" (play, 1926-1928)
“Crimson Island” (play, 1927, published in the USSR in 1968)
“The Cabal of the Holy One” (play, 1929, (staged in the USSR in 1936), in 1931 the censor was allowed to be staged with a number of cuts called “Molière”, but even in this form the production was postponed)
“Dead Souls” (dramatization of the novel, 1930)
"Adam and Eve" (play, 1931)
“Crazy Jourdain” (play, 1932, published in the USSR in 1965)
“Bliss (the dream of engineer Rhine)” (play, 1934, published in the USSR in 1966)
“The Inspector General” (film script, 1934)
“Alexander Pushkin” (play, 1935 (published in the USSR in 1955)
“An Extraordinary Incident, or The Inspector General” (play based on the comedy by Nikolai Gogol, 1935)
“Ivan Vasilyevich” (play, 1936)
“Minin and Pozharsky” (opera libretto, 1936, published in the USSR in 1980)
“The Black Sea” (opera libretto, 1936, published in the USSR in 1988)
“Rachel” (libretto of the opera based on the story “Mademoiselle Fifi” by Guy de Maupassant, 1937-1939, published in the USSR in 1988)
“Batum” (a play about the youth of I.V. Stalin, original title “Shepherd”, 1939, published in the USSR in 1988)
“Don Quixote” (libretto of the opera based on the novel by Miguel de Cervantes, 1939).

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov - Russian writer.
Mikhail Bulgakov was born on May 15 (May 3, old style) 1891, in Kyiv, in the family of Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov, a professor at the Department of Western Religions of the Kyiv Theological Academy. The family was large (Mikhail is the eldest son, he had four more sisters and two brothers) and friendly. Later, M. Bulgakov will remember more than once about his “carefree” youth in a beautiful city on the Dnieper steeps, about the comfort of a noisy and warm native nest on Andreevsky Spusk, and the shining prospects for a future free and wonderful life.

The role of family also played an undeniable influence on the future writer: the firm hand of Varvara Mikhailovna’s mother, who was not inclined to doubt what is good and what is evil (idleness, despondency, selfishness), education and hard work of her father (“My love is green lamp and books in my office,” Mikhail Bulgakov would later write, remembering his father staying up late at work). In the family there reigns the unconditional authority of knowledge and contempt for ignorance that is not aware of it.

When Mikhail was 16 years old, his father died of kidney disease. Nevertheless, the future has not yet been canceled; Bulgakov becomes a student at the Faculty of Medicine at Kyiv University. “The medical profession seemed brilliant to me,” he would say later, explaining his choice. Possible arguments in favor of medicine: independence of future activity (private practice), interest in the “human structure,” as well as the opportunity to help him. Next is the first marriage, which was too early for that time. Mikhail, a second-year student, against the wishes of his mother, marries young Tatyana Lappa, who has just graduated from high school.

Young doctor Mikhail Bulgakov

Bulgakov's studies at the university were interrupted ahead of schedule. The world war was going on, in the spring of 1916, Mikhail was released from the university as a “warrior of the second militia” (his diploma was received later) and voluntarily went to work in one of the Kyiv hospitals. Wounded, suffering people became his medical baptism. “Will anyone pay for blood? No. Nobody,” he wrote a few years later on the pages of The White Guard. In the fall of 1916, Doctor Bulgakov received his first appointment - to a small zemstvo hospital in the Smolensk province.

The choice associated with the constant tension of the moral field, against the backdrop of a breakdown in the routine course of life, extreme everyday life, shaped the future writer. It is characterized by a desire for positive, effective knowledge - serious reflection on the atheistic worldview of the “naturalist”, on the one hand, and faith in a higher principle, on the other. One more thing is important: medical practice left no room for deconstructive mindsets. Perhaps this is why Bulgakov was not affected by the modernist trends of the beginning of the century.

The daily surgical practice of a recent student who worked in military field hospitals, then the invaluable experience of a rural doctor, forced to cope alone with numerous and unexpected diseases, saving human lives. The need to make independent decisions, responsibility. Moreover, the rare gift of a brilliant diagnostician. Later, Mikhail Afanasyevich showed himself as a social diagnostician. It is obvious how insightful the writer turned out to be in his disappointing forecast of the development of social processes in the country.

At the turning point

While yesterday's student was growing up, turning into a determined and experienced zemstvo doctor, events began in Russia that would determine its fate for many decades to come. The abdication of the Tsar, the February days, and finally the October Revolution of 1917. “The present is such that I try to live without noticing it... Recently, on a trip to Moscow and Saratov, I had to see everything with my own eyes, and I would not want to see anything more. I saw how gray crowds, whooping and vile swearing, broke windows on trains, I saw people being beaten. I saw destroyed and burnt houses in Moscow... stupid and brutal faces... I saw crowds that besieged the entrances of captured and locked banks, hungry tails at the shops... I saw newspaper sheets where they write, in essence, about one thing: about blood , which flows in the south, and in the west, and in the east, and about prisons. I saw everything with my own eyes, and finally understood what happened” (from a letter from Mikhail Bulgakov on December 31, 1917 to his sister Nadezhda).

In March 1918, Bulgakov returned to Kyiv. Waves of White Guards, Petliurists, Germans, Bolsheviks, nationalists of Hetman Pavel Petrovich Skoropadsky, and Bolsheviks again roll through the city. Every government is mobilizing, and doctors are needed by everyone who holds a gun in their hands. Bulgakov was also mobilized. As a military doctor, he goes to the North Caucasus with the retreating Volunteer Army. The fact that Bulgakov remained in Russia was only a consequence of a confluence of circumstances, and not a free choice: he lay in typhoid fever when the White army and its sympathizers left the country. Later, T.N. Lappa testified that Bulgakov more than once blamed her for not taking him, who was sick, out of Russia.

Upon recovery, Mikhail Bulgakov left medicine and began collaborating with newspapers. One of his first journalistic articles is called “Future Prospects.” The author, who does not hide his commitment to the white idea, prophesies that Russia will lag behind the West for a long time. The first dramatic experiments appeared in Vladikavkaz: the one-act humoresque “Self-Defense”, “Paris Communards”, the drama “The Turbin Brothers” and “Sons of the Mullah”. All of them were performed on the stage of the Vladikavkaz Theater. But the author treated them as steps forced by circumstances. The author will evaluate “Sons of the Mullah” as follows: “they were written by three people: me, the assistant attorney and the hunger. In 1921, at its beginning...” About a more thoughtful piece (“The Turbin Brothers”), he will tell his brother bitterly: “When I was called after the second act, I left with a vague feeling... I looked vaguely at the actors’ made-up faces, at the thundering hall. And I thought: “but this is my dream come true... but how ugly: instead of the Moscow stage, the provincial stage, instead of the drama about Alyosha Turbin, which I cherished, a hastily made, immature thing...”

Bulgakov's move to Moscow

Perhaps the change of profession was dictated by circumstances: a recent military doctor in the White Army lived in a city where Bolshevik power was established. Soon Bulgakov moved to Moscow, where writers flocked from all over the country. Numerous literary circles were created in the capital, private publishing houses were opened, and bookstores operated. In the hungry and cold Moscow of 1921, Bulgakov persistently mastered a new profession: he wrote in Gudka, collaborated with the Berlin editorial office of Nakanune, attended creative circles, and made literary acquaintances. He treats forced work in a newspaper as a hateful and meaningless activity. But you also have to earn a living. “... I have lived a triple life,” wrote Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov in the unfinished story “To a Secret Friend” (1929), born as a letter to the writer’s third wife, Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya. In essays published in Nakanune, Bulgakov sneered at official slogans and newspaper cliches. “I am an ordinary man, born to crawl,” the narrator certified himself in the feuilleton “Forty Forties.” And in the essay “Red Stone Moscow” he described the cockade on the band of his uniform cap: “It’s either a hammer and a shovel, or a sickle and rake, at least not a hammer and sickle.”

“On the Eve” published “The Extraordinary Adventures of the Doctor” (1922) and “Notes on the Cuffs” (1922-1923). In The Doctor's Extraordinary Adventures, the descriptions of successive authorities and armies are given by the author with an undisguised sense of hostility. It comes to the seditious thought about the wisdom of desertion. The hero of "Adventures..." does not accept either the white idea or the red idea. From work to work, the courage of the writer, who dared to condemn both warring camps, grew stronger.

Mikhail Bulgakov mastered new material that required other forms of display: Moscow in the early 1920s, characteristic features of the new way of life, previously unknown types. At the cost of mobilizing mental and physical strength (there was a housing crisis in Moscow, and the writer lived in a room in a communal apartment, which he would later describe in the stories “Moonshine Life,” with dirt, drunken brawls and the impossibility of privacy), Bulgakov published two satirical stories: “The Devil’s Day” ( 1924) and “Fatal Eggs” (1925), wrote “Heart of a Dog” (1925). His story about the pain points of the modern day takes fantastic forms.

"Fatal Eggs"

A chicken pestilence (“Fatal Eggs”) occurred in the Soviet Republic. The government needs to restore the “chicken population”, and it turns to Professor Persikov, who discovered the “red ray”, under the influence of which living creatures not only instantly reach colossal sizes, but also become unusually aggressive in the struggle for existence. The hints about what is happening in Soviet Russia are unusually transparent and fearless. The ignorant director of the chicken state farm, Rokk, who mistakenly receives snake and ostrich eggs ordered from abroad for professorial experiments, uses a “red ray” to remove hordes of giant animals from them. The giants are marching on Moscow. The capital is saved only by a happy accident: unprecedented frosts hit it. At the end of the story, brutal crowds destroy the professor's laboratory, and his discovery perishes along with him. The accuracy of the social diagnosis proposed by Bulgakov was appreciated by wary critics, who wrote that from the story it is absolutely clear that “the Bolsheviks are completely unfit for creative peaceful work, although they are capable of well organizing military victories and protecting their iron order.”

"Dog's heart"

The next piece, “Heart of a Dog” (1925), was no longer put into print and was published in Russia only during the years of perestroika, in 1987. Her phrases and formulas immediately entered the oral speech of an intelligent person: “the devastation is not in the closets, but in the heads”, “everyone can occupy seven rooms”, later “sturgeon of the second freshness” and “whatever you don’t miss, nothing at all” will be added to them you are not there,” “it’s easy and pleasant to tell the truth.”

The main character of the story, Professor Preobrazhensky, conducting a medical experiment, transplants the organ of the “proletarian” Chugunkin, who died in a drunken fight, into a stray dog. Unexpectedly for the surgeon, the dog turns into a man, and this man is an exact repetition of the deceased lumpen. If Sharik, as the professor called the dog, is kind, intelligent and grateful to the new owner for the shelter, then the miraculously revived Chugunkin is militantly ignorant, vulgar and arrogant. Having convinced himself of this, the professor carries out the reverse operation, and the good-natured dog appears again in his cozy apartment.

The professor's risky surgical experiment is an allusion to the "daring social experiment" taking place in Russia. Bulgakov is not inclined to see the “people” as an ideal being. He is confident that only a difficult and long path of enlightening the masses, the path of evolution, not revolution, can lead to a real improvement in the life of the country.

"White Guard"

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov also does not let go of his experiences during the Civil War. In 1925, the first part of “The White Guard” appeared in the magazine “Russia”. During these months, the writer has a new novel, and, leaving Tatyana Lappa, he dedicates “The White Guard” to Lyubov Evgenievna Beloselskaya-Belozerskaya, who became his second wife. Bulgakov chooses the path of writing in radically changed conditions, when many are confident that the traditions of the great Russian literature of the 19th century are hopelessly outdated and are no longer interesting to anyone.

Bulgakov writes a defiantly “old-fashioned” thing: “The White Guard” opens with an epigraph from Pushkin’s “The Captain’s Daughter”; it openly continues the traditions of Tolstoy’s family novel. In The White Guard, as in War and Peace, family thought is closely connected with the history of Russia. At the center of the novel is a broken family living in Kyiv in the “house of the white general”, on Andreevsky Spusk during the fratricidal war in Ukraine. The main characters of the novel were the doctor Alexei Turbin, his brother Nikolka and sister, the charming red-haired Elena, and their “tender, old” childhood friends. Already in the first phrase that opens “The White Guard”: “Great was the year and terrible year after the Nativity of Christ 1918, from the beginning of the revolution,” Bulgakov introduces two points of reference, two systems of values, as if “looking back” at each other. This allows the writer to more accurately assess the meaning of what is happening, to see modern events through the eyes of an impartial historian.

Back in 1923, on the pages of a diary bearing the eloquent title “Under the Heel,” Mikhail Bulgakov wrote: “It cannot be that the voice that is disturbing me now is not prophetic. Can't be. I can’t be anything else, I can be one thing - a writer.” Bulgakov’s powerful entry into literature, about which Maximilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin (real name Kirienko-Voloshin) said in a private letter that it “can only be compared with the debuts of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy,” will pass by the general reading public. And although the birth of a great Russian writer took place, few people noticed him.

"Days of the Turbins"

Soon the Rossiya magazine closed, and the novel remained unprinted. However, his heroes continued to disturb the writer’s consciousness. Bulgakov begins to compose a play based on The White Guard. This process is wonderfully described on the pages of the later “Notes of a Dead Man” (1936-1937) in the lines about the “magic box” that opens in the evenings in the writer’s imagination.

In the best theaters of those years there was an acute repertoire crisis. In search of new dramaturgy, the Moscow Art Theater turns to prose writers, including Bulgakov. Bulgakov's play "Days of the Turbins", written in the footsteps of the "White Guard", becomes the "second "Seagull" of the Art Theater, and People's Commissar of Education Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky called it "the first political play of the Soviet theater." The premiere, which took place on October 5, 1926, made Bulgakov famous. Every performance is sold out. The story told by the playwright shocked the audience with its life-like truth of the disastrous events that many of them had recently experienced. In the wake of the resounding success of the play, the magazine “Medical Worker” published a series of stories, which would later be called “Notes of a Young Doctor” (1925-1926). These printed lines turned out to be the last that Bulgakov was destined to see during his lifetime. Another consequence of the Moscow Art Theater premiere was a flood of magazine and newspaper articles that finally noticed Bulgakov the prose writer. But official criticism branded the writer’s work as reactionary, affirming bourgeois values.

The images of white officers that Bulgakov fearlessly brought onto the stage of the best theater in the country, against the backdrop of a new audience, a new way of life, acquired an expanded meaning for the intelligentsia, no matter whether military or civilian. The play included Chekhov's motifs, the Moscow Art Theater's "Turbines" were correlated with "Three Sisters" and fell out of the current context of poster, propaganda drama of the 1920s. The performance, met with hostility by official criticism, was soon filmed, but in 1932 it was restored by the will of Stalin, who personally watched it more than a dozen times (to this day his attitude towards Bulgakov himself remains a mystery).

Drama by Mikhail Bulgakov

From that time until the end of M.A.’s life. Bulgakov no longer abandoned drama. In addition to a dozen plays, the experience of intratheater life will lead to the birth of the unfinished novel “Notes of a Dead Man” (first published in the USSR in 1965 under the title “Theatrical Novel”). The main character, an aspiring writer Maksudov, who works for the Shipping Company newspaper and writes a play based on his own novel, is undisguisedly biographical. The play is written by Maksudov for the Independent Theater, which is led by two legendary personalities - Ivan Vasilyevich and Aristarkh Platonovich. The reference to the Art Theater and two major Russian theater directors of the 20th century, Konstantin Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, is easily recognizable. The novel is full of love and admiration for the people of the theater, but it also satirically describes the complex characters of those who create theatrical magic, and the intra-theater ups and downs of the country's leading theater.

"Zoyka's apartment"

Almost simultaneously with “Days of the Turbins,” Bulgakov wrote the tragic farce “Zoyka’s Apartment” (1926). The plot of the play was very relevant for those years. Enterprising Zoika Peltz is trying to save money to buy foreign visas for herself and her lover by organizing an underground brothel in her own apartment. The play captures the abrupt breakdown of social reality, expressed in a change in linguistic forms. Count Obolyaninov refuses to understand what a “former count” is: “Where did I go? Here I am, standing in front of you.” With demonstrative simplicity, he does not accept not so much “new words” as new values. The brilliant chameleonism of the charming rogue Ametistov, the administrator in Zoya’s “atelier”, forms a striking contrast to the count, who does not know how to adapt to circumstances. In the counterpoint of the two central images, Amethystov and Count Obolyaninov, the deep theme of the play emerges: the theme of historical memory, the impossibility of forgetting the past.

"Crimson Island"

Zoya's Apartment was followed by the anti-censorship dramatic pamphlet The Crimson Island (1927). The play was staged by the Russian director, People's Artist of Russia Alexander Yakovlevich Tairov on the stage of the Chamber Theater, but it did not last long. The plot of "Crimson Island" with the uprising of the natives and the "world revolution" in the finale is nakedly parodic. Bulgakov's pamphlet reproduced typical and characteristic situations: a play about a native uprising is being rehearsed by an opportunistic director, who readily alters the ending to please the all-powerful Savva Lukich (who in the play was made to resemble the famous censor V. Blum).

It would seem that luck was with Bulgakov: it was impossible to get to the “Days of the Turbins” at the Moscow Art Theater, “Zoyka’s Apartment” fed the staff of the Yevgeny Vakhtangov Theater, and only for this reason the censorship was forced to endure it; The foreign press wrote admiringly about the courage of the “Crimson Island”. In the theater season of 1927-1928, Bulgakov was the most fashionable and successful playwright. But the time of Bulgakov the playwright ends just as abruptly as that of the prose writer. Bulgakov's next play, “Running” (1928), never appeared on stage.

If “Zoykina’s Apartment” told about those who remained in Russia, then “Running” spoke about the fates of those who left it. White General Khludov (he had a real prototype - General Ya. A. Slashchov), in the name of a high goal - the salvation of Russia - went to execution in the rear and therefore lost his mind; the dashing General Charnota, who rushes into attack with equal readiness both at the front and at the card table; soft and lyrical, like Pierrot, university privat-docent Golubkov, saving his beloved woman Seraphim, the ex-wife of a former minister - all of them are outlined by the playwright with psychological depth.

True to the precepts of classical Russian literature of the 19th century, Bulgakov does not caricature his heroes. Despite the fact that the characters were not at all portrayed as ideal people, they evoked sympathy, and among them there were many recent White Guards. None of her characters were eager to return to their homeland to “take part in building socialism in the USSR,” as Stalin advised to end the play. The issue of staging “Running” was considered four times at Politburo meetings. The authorities did not allow the second appearance of white officers on the stage. Since the writer did not listen to the leader’s advice, the play was first staged only in 1957 and not on the capital’s stage, but in Stalingrad.

1929, the year of Stalin’s “great turning point,” broke the fates not only of the peasantry, but also of any “individual peasants” still remaining in the country. At this time, all of Bulgakov's plays were removed from the stage. In desperation, Bulgakov sent a letter to the government on March 28, 1930, which spoke of “deep skepticism regarding the revolutionary process” taking place in backward Russia, and admitted that “he had not even attempted to compose a communist play.” At the end of the letter, filled with genuine civic courage, there was an urgent request: either to be allowed to go abroad, or to be given a job, otherwise “poverty, the street and death.”

His new play was called "The Cabal of the Holy One" (1929). At its center is a collision: the artist and power. The play about Moliere and his unfaithful patron Louis XIV was lived by the writer from the inside. The king, who highly values ​​the art of Moliere, nevertheless deprives the patronage of the playwright, who dared to ridicule the members of the religious organization “Society of the Holy Gifts” in the comedy “Tartuffe”. The play (titled “Molière”) was rehearsed at the Moscow Art Theater for six years and at the beginning of 1936 it appeared on the stage, only to be removed from the repertoire after seven performances. Bulgakov never saw any of his plays on the theater stage.

The result of the appeal to the government was the transformation of a free writer into an employee of the Moscow Art Theater (the writer was not released abroad, despite the fact that at the same time another dissident writer Evgeniy Ivanovich Zamyatin was allowed to leave). Bulgakov was accepted into the Moscow Art Theater as an assistant director, assisting in the production of his own adaptation of Gogol’s “Dead Souls.” At night he writes a “novel about the devil” (as Mikhail Bulgakov originally saw the novel about “The Master and Margarita”). At the same time, an inscription appeared in the margins of the manuscript: “Finish before you die.” The novel was already recognized by the author as the main work of his life.

In 1931, Bulgakov completed the utopia “Adam and Eve,” a play about a future gas war, as a result of which only a handful of people remained alive in the fallen Leningrad: the fanatical communist Adam Krasovsky, whose wife, Eve, goes to the scientist Efrosimov, who managed to create the apparatus , exposure to which saves from death; fiction writer Donut-Nepobeda, creator of the novel “Red Greens”; the charming hooligan Marquisov, devouring books like Gogol's Petrushka. Biblical reminiscences, Efrosimov’s risky assertion that all theories are worth one another, as well as the pacifist motives of the play led to the fact that “Adam and Eve” was also not staged during the writer’s lifetime.

In the mid-1930s, Bulgakov also wrote the drama “The Last Days” (1935), a play about Pushkin without Pushkin, and the comedy “Ivan Vasilyevich” (1934-1936) about the formidable tsar and the foolish house manager, due to an error in the operation of the time machine changed centuries; the utopia "Bliss" (1934) about a sterile and ominous future with ironically planned desires of people; finally, a dramatization of Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” (1938), which under the pen of Bulgakov turned into an independent play.

Mikhail Bulgakov chose the most difficult path: the path of a person who firmly delineates the boundaries of his own, individual existence, aspirations, plans and does not intend to obediently follow the rules and canons imposed from outside. In the 1930s, Bulgakov's dramaturgy was just as unacceptable for censorship as his prose had been before. In totalitarian Russia, the themes and plots of the playwright, his thoughts and his characters are impossible. “Over the last seven years I have made 16 things, and all of them died, except one, and that was a dramatization of Gogol! It would be naive to think that the 17th or 18th will go,” Bulgakov writes on October 5, 1937 to Vikenty Vikentievich Veresaev.

"Master and Margarita"

But “there is no such writer that he should shut up. If he fell silent, then he was not real,” these are the words of Bulgakov himself (from a letter to Stalin on May 30, 1931). And the real writer Mikhail Bulgakov continues to work. The crowning achievement of his creative career was the novel “The Master and Margarita,” which brought the writer posthumous world fame.

The novel was originally conceived as an apocryphal “gospel of the devil,” and the future title characters were absent from the first editions of the text. Over the years, the original plan became more complex and transformed, incorporating the fate of the writer himself. Later, the woman who became his third wife entered the novel - Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya (they met in 1929, the marriage was formalized in the fall of 1932). A lonely writer (Master) and his faithful girlfriend (Margarita) will become no less important than the central characters in the world history of mankind.

The story of Satan's presence in Moscow in the 1930s echoes the legend of the appearance of Jesus two millennia ago. Just as they once did not recognize God, Muscovites do not recognize the devil, although Woland does not hide his well-known signs. Moreover, Woland meets seemingly enlightened heroes: the writer, editor of the anti-religious magazine Berlioz and the poet, author of the poem about Christ Ivan Bezrodny.

The events took place in front of many people and yet remained misunderstood. And only the Master, in the novel he created, is given the opportunity to restore the meaningfulness and unity of the flow of history. With the creative gift of experience, the Master “guesses” the truth in the past. The accuracy of the penetration into historical reality, witnessed by Woland, thereby confirms the accuracy and adequacy of the Master’s description of the present. Following Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin", Bulgakov's novel can be called, by well-known definition, an encyclopedia of Soviet life. The life and customs of new Russia, human types and characteristic actions, clothing and food, methods of communication and occupations of people - all this is unfolded before the reader with deadly irony and at the same time piercing lyricism in the panorama of several May days.

Mikhail Bulgakov builds The Master and Margarita as a “novel within a novel.” Its action takes place in two times: in Moscow in the 1930s, where Satan appears to arrange the traditional spring full moon ball, and in the ancient city of Yershalaim, in which the trial of the “wandering philosopher” Yeshua takes place by the Roman procurator Pilate. The modern and historical author of the novel about Pontius Pilate, the Master, connects both plots.

In the years when the national point of view on what was happening was asserted as “the only correct one,” Bulgakov came out with a distinctly subjective view of the events of world history, contrasting the members of the “writing collective” (MASSOLIT) with a lonely creator. It is no coincidence that the cast “ancient chapters” of the novel, telling the story of the death of Yeshua, are introduced by the writer as a truth revealed to an individual, as a personal comprehension of the Master.

The novel revealed the writer’s deep interest in issues of faith, religious or atheistic worldview. Connected by origin with a family of clergy, albeit in its “scientific” book version (Mikhail’s father is not a “father”, but a learned cleric), throughout his life Bulgakov seriously reflected on the problem of attitude towards religion, which in the thirties became closed to public discussion. In The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov brings to the fore the creative personality in the tragic 20th century, affirming, following Pushkin, the independence of man, his historical responsibility.

Bulgakov the artist

All the artistic features of Bulgakov’s work are aimed at developing the reader’s own attitude to what is happening. Almost every writer's work begins with a riddle, which is designed to destroy the previous clarity. Thus, in “The Master and Margarita” Bulgakov deliberately gives the characters unconventional names: Satan - Woland, Jerusalem - Yershalaim, he calls the eternal enemy of the devil not Jesus, but Yeshua Ha-Nozri. The reader must independently, without relying on what is generally known, penetrate into the essence of what is happening and seem to relive in his mind the central episodes of the world history of mankind: the trial of Pilate, the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In Bulgakov’s works, the time of the present, the momentary, is necessarily correlated with the time of the “big” history of mankind, the “blue corridor of millennia.” In “The Master and Margarita” the technique is deployed throughout the entire space of the text. Thus, the current momentary values ​​of the Soviet era are called into question and reveal their obvious transience and dubiousness.

Mikhail Bulgakov is characterized by another feature: his hero, whether in prose or drama, is returned by the author to the origins of fate. And Moliere still does not know the scale of his genius (“The Cabal of the Holy One”), and Pushkin’s poetry (“The Last Days”) is generally considered weaker than Benedict’s, and even Yeshua wanders, afraid of pain, does not feel omnipotent and immortal. The judgment of history has not yet been completed. Time unfolds, bringing with it opportunities for change. Probably, it was precisely this feature of Bulgakov’s poetics that made it impossible to stage “Batum” (1939), written as a drama not about an omnipotent ruler, but about one of many whose fate had not yet taken final shape. Finally, in Bulgakov’s works there are only two options for endings: either the thing ends with the death of the main character, or the ending remains open. The writer offers a model of the world in which there are countless possibilities. And the right to choose an action remains with the actor. Thus, the author helps the reader to feel like the creator of his own destiny. And the life of a country is made up of many individual destinies. The idea of ​​a free and historically responsible person, “sculpting” the present and future in his own image and likeness, proposed by the writer Bulgakov, is a precious testament to his entire creative life.

"Batum"

“Batum” was the last play by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (originally it was called “The Shepherd”). Theaters were preparing for Stalin's 60th birthday. Considering the months needed to get a particularly important thing through censorship, as well as for rehearsals, the search for authors for the anniversary began back in 1937. After urgent requests from the Moscow Art Theater directorate, Bulgakov began working on a play about the leader. Refusing a flattering order was dangerous. But Bulgakov takes an unconventional path here too: he does not write about the all-powerful leader, like the authors of other anniversary works, but talks about Dzhugashvili’s youth, starting the play with his expulsion from the seminary. Then he takes the hero through humiliation, prison and exile, that is, he turns the dictator into an ordinary dramatic character, treating the biography of the leader as material subject to free creative implementation. After reviewing the play, Stalin banned its production.

A few weeks after the news of the ban on Batum, in the fall of 1939, Bulgakov suffered from sudden blindness: a symptom of the same kidney disease from which his father died. The will of a terminally ill writer only postpones death, which occurs six months later. Almost everything the writer did was still waiting in the wings on his desk for more than a quarter of a century: the novel “The Master and Margarita,” the stories “The Heart of a Dog” and “The Life of Monsieur de Molière” (1933), as well as 16 that were never published during the writer’s lifetime. plays. After the publication of the “sunset novel,” Bulgakov will become one of the artists who defined the face of the 20th century with their creativity. This is how Woland’s prophecy addressed to the Master will come true: “Your novel will bring you more surprises.”

Since February 1940, friends and relatives were constantly on duty at M. Bulgakov’s bedside. On March 10, 1940, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov died. On March 11, a civil memorial service took place in the building of the Union of Soviet Writers. Before the funeral service, Moscow sculptor S. D. Merkurov removed the death mask from M. Bulgakov’s face.

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.

In 1966, the magazine “Moscow” began publishing the novel “The Master and Margarita” for the first time in banknotes. This happened thanks to the titanic efforts of the writer’s widow E. S. Bulgakova and the effective support of Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov. And from then on the triumphant march of the novel began. In 1973, the first complete edition of the novel appeared in the writer’s homeland; in the mid-1980s, the novel was published abroad, where it was published by the American publishing house Ardis. It was only in the 1980s that the works of the outstanding Russian writer finally began to appear in Russia one after another.

M.A. Bulgakov is one of the most famous Russian writers and playwrights. He wrote not only novels, stories, short stories, plays, but also many feuilletons, film scripts, and librettos.

He was born in Kyiv in 1891. His mother taught at a women's gymnasium, and his father taught at the Kyiv Theological Academy. The family was large: in addition to Mikhail, the parents raised 6 more children. Misha was a talented boy, had a phenomenal memory and wrote his first work at the age of seven.

When his father died, Bulgakov had to work part-time on the railroad and do tutoring, but he did not give up his studies at the First Kyiv Gymnasium. After graduating in 1909, he entered the Faculty of Medicine at Kiev University. While still a student, he married for the first time. After receiving his diploma in 1916. worked as a doctor (first in the village of Nikolskoye, and then in Vyazma). He became addicted to morphine, but his wife helped him cope with this problem.

In 1918 As part of the officer squad, he defended Kyiv from the troops of the Directory. At the end of winter 1919 he was mobilized into the UPR army as a military doctor. Then he worked as a military doctor in the Russian Cossack regiment. He became infected with typhus, so due to the illness he was not able to leave his homeland.

After recovery, he settles in Vladikavkaz. Works at a local military hospital. After some time, he forever abandoned medical activities and devoted himself to literature. Moves to Tiflis, and then to Baku.

Since the autumn of 1921 Mikhail Afanasyevich lives in Moscow. A number of his works are published in newspapers and magazines. Two years later he becomes a member of the All-Russian Writers Union. In 1925 marries a second time. In 1926 Representatives of the OGPU conducted a search in his apartment, which resulted in the seizure of the writer’s personal diaries and a handwritten version of the story “Heart of a Dog.”

The period from 1924 to 1928 is the most fruitful in Bulgakov’s work, because it was then that his most famous works appeared, and the plays “Days of the Turbins”, “Zoykina’s Apartment”, “Crimson Island” were successfully staged on theater stages. But soon, due to criticism of Bolshevik ideas, M.A. Bulgakov was summoned for interrogation, publication was stopped, and his plays were excluded from theater repertoires. He writes a letter to Stalin, after which the persecution of the writer stopped and he received the position of director.

In 1932 Bulgakov marries for the third time. In 1934 He is accepted into the USSR Writers' Union.

In the last years of his life, Mikhail Afanasyevich’s health deteriorated sharply. He gradually loses his sight, but does not give up work on his main novel

Option 2

Bulgakov spent his youth in Kyiv and the writer has a lot of connections with this city. He was born in 1891, the first in a fairly large family, which after him had six children. After graduating from high school, he entered the medical faculty and in 1914, with the outbreak of war, he went to serve in a military hospital.

A year later, Bulgakov starts a family with Tatyana Lappa, in 1916 receives a doctor's diploma, and also begins to use morphine, first for medical needs, then to obtain a narcotic effect. Two years later he will return to

Kyiv and will begin to practice as a private venereologist. Each of these facts will be reflected in the work of the writer, who will write the whole story Morphine, about a doctor addicted to drugs and The Heart of a Dog, where the main character will be a professor of venereology.

In general, there is a lot of biography in the writer’s work. It’s easy to remember, for example, Notes on Cuffs, which also talk about working as a doctor and about addiction.

Since 1919, he served as a doctor; in 1921 he moved to Moscow, where, by the way, he began his literary career with Notes on Cuffs. A year later he divorces, a year later he marries Olga Belozerskaya again, and writes actively. It was the beginning of the 20s that gave Bulgakov’s readers Heart of a Dog, Zoyka’s Apartment and many other interesting works.

In the second half of the 20s, the writer gained popularity, his plays were actively staged in theaters, and he began writing The Master and Margarita in 1928. In 1930, an active decline in his career began: publishers rejected his works, plays were no longer accepted into theaters. Bulgakov writes an open letter and Stalin personally decides on Bulgakov’s fate.

In 1934, the first edition of The Master and Margarita was completed. In 1939, his play about Stalin was canceled, his health deteriorated and the writer consumed a lot of morphine; he already dictated the completion of the novel The Master and Margarita to his third wife. The writer managed to survive the war and left this world on March 10, 1949, but he did not see the publication of his great novel, which was allowed to be published in 1966.

Bulgakov Mikhail. Biography 3

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was born in 1891 and died in 1940.

The writer was born in Kyiv. He was the eldest of seven children in the family. He was very educated, successfully graduated from the university and after studying went to work in a hospital, as it was popular among his peers. This became one of the factors in Bulgakov’s subsequent vice - he became addicted to morphine, which was a drug, but thanks to his inner strength and the support of his wife, he was still able to overcome leprosy. Based on the knowledge and sensations that Mikhail Afanasyevich received during his addiction, the famous work “Morphine” was written.

Already a middle-aged man, Bulgakov moved to Moscow and was actively involved in his creative activities. His first works are reflections of post-revolutionary Russia with its bureaucracy, the ignorance of the numerous gentlemen of this world, etc.

Gogol worked in various newspapers, mainly in the capital. His articles were actively published there: popular science, essays, short stories, feuilletons.

It is known that Bulgakov was married three times and towards the end of his life he had a whole bunch of illnesses, one of them was kidney disease, from which Mikhail Afanasyevich died.

Biography by dates and interesting facts. The most important.

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Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich was born in 1891, May 3 (15). He was born in Kyiv. The parents of the future writer are Varvara Mikhailovna (maiden name Pokrovskaya), a teacher, and later an inspector at courses for women. His father is also a teacher, he worked in Mikhail and became the eldest son in a large family in which cultural traditions were very strong. We will describe Bulgakov’s work, as well as his biography, in this article.

Studying at the gymnasium, passion for theater, literature, marriage

His training took place first at the Kyiv gymnasium. The future writer finished it with only two excellent marks - in God's law and geography. At this time, he became interested in theater (he knew, for example, “Aida” and “Faust” by heart), read “with ecstasy” Saltykov-Shchedrin and Gogol, and the first works that marked Bulgakov’s work also appeared.

In 1907 his father died. In 1913, Mikhail Afanasyevich married T.N. Lappe.

Working as a doctor

The period from 1916 to 1917 - graduation from Kyiv University, where he studied at the Faculty of Medicine. Exempt from conscription due to illness, the author we are interested in travels to his destination. This establishment was located in the village of Nikolskoye. And after some time he went to Vyazma. "Notes of a Young Doctor" was written based on impressions received during this period.

Medical practice in Kyiv

In 1918, Bulgakov returned to Kyiv, where he made attempts to engage in medical practice (private - as a freely practicing venereologist). At this time, according to the writer himself, he was successively called up to serve as a doctor by all the authorities that occupied the city. However, Bulgakov managed to evade both the Red Army and the Petliurists who “mobilized” him.

Military service, professional literature

In 1919-1920, the following events took place in the writer’s life. Mikhail Afanasyevich was “mobilized” by Denikin’s men and sent to the North Caucasus with a train. Here he began to engage in literature professionally: at this time the first stories appeared in the newspapers of Vladikavkaz and Grozny, which reflected sympathy for the white movement, the perception of the abdication of Nicholas II as a “historical misfortune,” etc. He participates as a doctor in battles. Denikin’s men, retreating under the onslaught of the Red Army, abandoned Bulgakov, who was sick with typhus, to the mercy of fate, which served as the basis for disappointment in these “comrades in arms.” With the arrival of the Reds, Mikhail Afanasyevich begins to work in the arts department. His activities consisted of reports on Chekhov and Pushkin, writing plays for the local theater, one of which, called “Paris Communards,” he even sent to Moscow, hoping for success in a competition announced in that city.

Moving to Moscow

In 1921, Mikhail Afanasyevich came to Moscow, where he took a job as a secretary in the literary department of the People's Commissariat for Education. In search of income with the beginning of the NEP, he often changes his place of work: he works as a chronicle editor in one of the private newspapers, as an entertainer, as an engineer, etc. At the same time, he settled on Sadovaya, in a communal apartment in a house that once belonged to a tobacco manufacturer. Many times the morals of apartment No. 50 will appear in various works that make up Bulgakov’s work.

In 1922, Mikhail Afanasyevich actively published in the press - in such magazines as “Rupor”, “Worker”, “Red Magazine for Everyone”, “Zheleznodorozhnik”, “Krasnaya Niva”, etc.

Collaboration in "Gudok", new works and a new marriage

The period from 1922 to 1926 - collaboration with a newspaper called "Gudok", and also published "Nakanune" in the Berlin Russian newspaper, the editor of which is A. N. Tolstoy, who at that time had not yet returned from emigration.

Let's imagine Bulgakov's life and work in 1923-1924 with the following two main events. In 1923, the story “Notes on Cuffs” appeared. The following year, Mikhail Afanasyevich meets L. E. Belozerskaya, who returned from emigration to Paris, and marries her.

In 1925, Bulgakov's work continued. "Diaboliada" appears - the first collection consisting of satirical stories. At the same time, a collection of short stories called “Fatal Eggs” was published. This year was also marked by the creation of the manuscript of “The Heart of a Dog,” a work that was published only 60 years later.

Search at Bulgakov's

In May 1926, OGPU officers searched Bulgakov’s place and confiscated the above-mentioned manuscript, as well as his diaries. The writer, having repeatedly asked for these materials to be returned to him and not receiving any response to these requests, declares that he will soon be forced to withdraw from the All-Russian Writers Union demonstratively. After this, the papers, including the manuscript of “The Heart of a Dog,” were returned to Bulgakov.

Works of 1925-1928

In 1925-1926, the series “Stories” was published, as well as a collection of stories called “Notes of a Young Doctor”.

The following events occurred from 1925 to 1927. The novel "The White Guard" was created. Based on it, in 1926 the play “Days of the Turbins” was written and staged, which premiered at the Moscow Art Theater at the same time.

From 1926 to 1928, Mikhail Bulgakov, whose life and work are presented in our article, wrote a play called “Running,” which only saw an audience in 1957.

In 1926, the play “Zoyka’s Apartment” was also created, which was staged at the Vakhtangov Theater. Together with “Days of the Turbins,” it was soon withdrawn due to the pressure of tendentious criticism.

In 1928 - another work for the theater ("Crimson Island"). It was staged by the Chamber Theater in the same year, but this time too the play was banned almost immediately.

Evaluation of Bulgakov's work by literary criticism

Literary criticism of the late 1920s assessed the work of Mikhail Bulgakov sharply negatively. His works were not published or performed on stage. For example, Stalin’s negative reviews of the play “Running” are known, which, from his point of view, is an “anti-Soviet phenomenon.” The leader called "Crimson Island" "waste paper." The result of persecution - and whose work was often marked by the negative consequences of contact with the Soviet regime, remains without work and, accordingly, without funds, writes a letter to the “Government of the USSR” and sends it to seven addresses of various government agencies. Trying to understand his future fate, in a letter he explains his author’s position, saying that he prefers the Great Evolution to the Great Revolution, that is, a more natural, in his opinion, gradual course of history. On April 18, 1930, Stalin himself called Mikhail Afanasyevich’s apartment at his apartment, and as a result of this conversation, the writer was promised a job at the Moscow Art Theater. An unspoken condition of the agreement was the creation of a work praising the leader. Later, in 1939, a play called “Batum” was written, telling about the “young years of the leader.” However, neither the content nor the tone of the story satisfied the authorities.

Work at the Moscow Art Theater

With the start of work at the Moscow Art Theater, Bulgakov’s life and work changed significantly. Since the early 1930s, Mikhail Afanasyevich has held the position of assistant director at this theater. Shilovskaya's passion for Elena Sergeevna (1929), who later became his wife, dates back to this period of his life.

In 1931, the play "Adam and Eve" appeared. During this year, as well as next year, he wrote a dramatization of Tolstoy's War and Peace, commissioned by the Bolshoi Drama Theater. However, this performance was not staged.

In 1932, a dramatization of Gogol's "Dead Souls" appeared. "Days of the Turbins" are being returned to the viewer (by personal order of Comrade Stalin).

In 1930-1936, a drama was created called “The Cabal of the Holy One”, staged in 1943. This was preceded by work on a biographical story in 1932-1933. It was published in 1962.

Another play, Bliss, appeared in 1934 (published only in 1966).

In 1934-1935 a drama called “The Last Days” was released, staged on stage in 1943. At first it was conceived in collaboration with

Bulgakov refuses "alterations"

The period from 1934 to 1936 was marked by the following events. Bulgakov's play "Ivan Vasilyevich" appears. This work, which had reached dress rehearsals at the Theater of Satire, was filmed literally on the eve of the premiere. During the period from 1928 to 1936, the writer did not have a single thing published, and not a single play representing the original work of M.A. appeared on the theater stage. Bulgakov. Mikhail Afanasyevich stubbornly refuses the “alterations” suggested to him (for example, “reforging” some white officer from the work “Running”, ending with the revolutionary choral song “Crimson Island”, etc.).

Latest works

In 1936-1937, the “Theatrical Novel” (an unfinished work) was created. It was published in 1965.

In 1938, Bulgakov created a play called Don Quixote. From the beginning of the 1930s until the end of his life, he also continued to work on his most famous work, which is now the first thing people turn to when studying Bulgakov’s work, “The Master and Margarita.”

Mikhail Afanasyevich died in Moscow in 1940, which was hereditary in his family (passed on to the writer from his father).

Thus ends the life and work of M. Bulgakov - now recognized

Mikhail Bulgakov is a Russian writer, playwright, director and actor. His works have become classics of Russian literature.

The novel “The Master and Margarita” brought him worldwide fame, which was repeatedly filmed in many countries.

When Bulgakov was at the peak of his popularity, the Soviet government banned the staging of his plays in theaters, as well as the publication of his works.

Brief biography of Bulgakov

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was born on May 3, 1891 in. Besides him, there were six more children in the Bulgakov family: 2 boys and 4 girls.

His father, Afanasy Ivanovich, was a professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy.

Mother, Varvara Mikhailovna, worked for some time as a teacher in a girls’ gymnasium.

Childhood and youth

When children began to be born one after another in the Bulgakov family, the mother had to leave her job and start raising them.

Since Mikhail was the oldest child, he often had to babysit his brothers and sisters. This undoubtedly affected the formation of the personality of the future writer.

Education

When Bulgakov turned 18, he graduated from the First Kyiv Gymnasium. The next educational institution in his biography was Kiev University, where he studied at the Faculty of Medicine.

He wanted to become a doctor largely because this profession paid well.

By the way, in Russian literature before Bulgakov there was an example of an outstanding writer who, being a doctor by training, spent his whole life happily practicing medicine: this is.

After receiving his diploma, Bulgakov applied to do military service in the navy as a doctor.

However, he failed to pass the medical examination. As a result, he asked to be sent to the Red Cross to work in a hospital.

At the height of the First World War (1914-1918), he treated soldiers near the front line.

A couple of years later he returned to Kyiv, where he began working as a venereologist.

It is interesting that during this period of his biography he began to use morphine, which helped him get rid of the pain caused by taking the anti-diphtheria drug.

As a result, throughout the rest of his life, Bulgakov will be painfully dependent on this drug.

Creative activity

In the early 20s, Mikhail Afanasyevich came to. There he begins to write various feuilletons, and soon takes up plays.

Later, he became a theater director at the Moscow Art Theater and the Central Theater of Working Youth.

Bulgakov's first work was the poem “The Adventures of Chichikov,” which he wrote at the age of 31. Then several more stories came from his pen.

After this, he wrote the fantastic story “Fatal Eggs,” which was positively received by critics and aroused great interest among readers.

dog's heart

In 1925, Bulgakov published the book “Heart of a Dog,” which masterfully intertwines the ideas of the “Russian Revolution” and the “awakening” of the social consciousness of the proletariat.

According to literary scholars, Bulgakov's story is a political satire, where each character is a prototype of one or another political figure.

Master and Margarita

Having gained recognition and popularity in society, Bulgakov began writing the main novel in his biography, “The Master and Margarita.”

He wrote it for 12 years, until his death. An interesting fact is that the book was published only in the 60s, and even then not in full.

It was published in its final form in 1990, a year before.

It is worth noting that many of Bulgakov’s works were published only after his death, since censorship did not allow them to pass.

The persecution of Bulgakov

By 1930, the writer began to be increasingly harassed by Soviet officials.

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