Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Bulgakov was born in Kiev in 1891. His father was a professor at the Kiev Theological Academy; his grandfather was a scholar of the famous Russian playwright, Gogol.
Friendship, respect, and mutual love reigned in Bulgakov's large family and happy home. From childhood Bulgakov was drawn to theater. At home, he wrote comedies, which his brothers and sisters acted out; in high school, theater was his favorite subject. In 1909, he enrolled in Medical School of Kiev University. He graduated in 1916. In 1913, he moved with his first wife to the village of Viazma where he was assigned to obligatory medical service as part of his education. [Bulgakov had married three times: with Tatiana Nikolaevna Lappa (1913), Liubov Evgenevna Belozerskaia (1924) and Elena Sergeevna (1932).]
In 1918 Bulgakov returned to Kiev and began to practice medicine.
Kiev was at that time the focal point of an intense struggle between German troops, the Ukrainian Nationalist Army, Red troops, and the Russian Volunteer Army. Bulgakov enlisted as a field doctor in a Volunteer Army regiment and went to the Caucasus. Toward the end of 1919, he resigned from military service and started to work as a journalist and playwright. After a few of his early plays were staged in local theaters, Bulgakov moved to Moscow, where he stayed for the rest of his life and where literature and theater were his only concerns.
The first few years in post-revolutionary Moscow were a continuous struggle for survival. Bulgakov wrote comic sketches for various newspapers. In many of these works--some autobiographical--Bulgakov protested the cruelty, violence, and murders he witnessed during the Civil War. From 1924 to 1926 wrote "The Fatal Eggs" and "Heart of a Dog," two short novels that contain bitter satire and elements of science fiction. Both are concerned with the fate of a scientist and the misuse of his discovery. The most significant features of Bulgakov's satire, such as a skillful blending of fantastic and realistic elements, grotesque situations, and a concern with important ethical issues, had already taken shape; these features were developed further in Bulgakov's last novel The Master and Margarita.
In 1925, Bulgakov began his eleven-year association with the Moscow Art Theater. His play The Day of the Turbins premiered on October 5, 1926 and continued the theme of the earlier The White Guard -- dealing with the fate of Russian intellectuals and officers of the Tsarist Army caught up in revolution and civil war. Other plays treated the topic of people caught up in momentous, historical upheavals. Bulgakov's satirical comedies were staged with success but provoked hostile attacks in the Soviet press. In the spring of 1929 all of Bulgakov's plays were banned, leaving him without a source of income. He sent a letter to the Soviet government in March of 1930 requesting permission to resume his publications. He received a personal telephone call from Stalin and permission to work at the Art Theater, where he adapted Gogol's Dead Souls for stage.
The fate of a writer fighting for his spiritual and artistic independence and his right to create became the subject of several of Bulgakov's works in the 1930s. During the late 1930s he was librettist and consultant at Bolshoi Theatre. However, Stalin's favor protected Bulgakov only from arrests and executions, but his writings remained unpublished. His novels and dramas were subsequently banned and, for the second time, Bulgakov's career as playwright was ruined. After his last play Batum was banned even before rehearsals, Bulgakov requested permission to leave the country. Years of such requests resulted in failure. In poor health, Bulgakov devoted his last years to what he called his "sunset" novel--The Master and Margarita.
The Master and Margarita (written 1928-40) takes place on three levels, each of which provides a commentary on the others. The historical narrative is set in Jerusalem, where Pontius Pilate condemns to death a man whom he knows to be innocent. The contemporary narrative is set in Moscow, where the Master and Margarita live and where the Master has written a novel about Pilate. The third, fantastic level introduces the devil, who appears in Moscow with a retinue that includes an enormous black cat. The philosophical and religious themes circulate around the intrusion of the devil into the life of modern Moscow and the crucifixion of Jesus-figure, Yeshua, in Jerusalem.  Yet this is a carnivalesque world created by Bulgakov: the devil, Woland, is unconventionally seen more as an agent for good and the Jesus-character is not at all very Biblical.
While working on Master and Margarita in 1937-1939, Bulgakov was sometimes optimistic and believed in the possibility of the publication, but at other times he lost his optimism and did not dream of ever seeing it in print.
In the summer of 1938, when the manuscript was nearly finished, the author ultimately lost all hope: "In front of me 327 pages of the manuscript (about 22 chapters). The most important remains - editing, and it's going to be hard, I will have to pay close attention to details. Maybe even re-write some things", wrote Bulgakov from Moscow to his wife on June 15 1938, "'What's its future?' you ask? I don't know. Possibly, you will store the manuscript in one of the drawers, next to my "killed" plays, and occasionally it will be in your thoughts. Then again, you don't know the future. My own judgement of the book is already made and I think it truly deserves being hidden away in the darkness of some chest..."
Over thirty years had passed when on November 22, 1969, Elena Bulgakova told how, with an almost ritual attention to detail, Bulgakov organized his first private reading of Master and Margarita to his friends:
"He divided it into four evenings….  All arrived exactly 7:30pm. Sat in his office in half-circle, like in the theatre. He sat at his desk, lighted candles. Read. When he finished reading, the dinner table had to be perfectly set. 'Well, now a shot of vodka', he would say, rubbing hands. Nobody was allowed to talk about the novel; everyone was barely able to stay silent... He wrote the Conclusion on the fourth evening….  When he finally finished reading that night, he said: 'Well, tomorrow I am taking the novel to the publisher!' and everyone was silent".
When the reading ended, the panic that Bulgakov's friends felt overpowered their admiration of this rare and bright literary phenomena. "At times the strain became too much", honestly wrote V. Vilenkin, "I remember when he finished reading, we were silent for a long time, and felt overwhelmed and bruised. And it was quite a while before I understood the philosophical and moral implications of this incredible work.…"
As if he already had known the future readers' reaction, in 1934, when working on the first version of the manuscript, Bulgakov included the tale of the  Master tells Ivan how the author tried to read his novel "to some people, but even half of it wasn't understood".
There were such sharp differences between the novel and the other books in print [in Soviet Union] at the time - the bible chapters, the character possessing inhumanly powers.. - that at first the novel's readers were in shock. It was hard for them to listen when in the back of their minds was the thought of what was going to happen to such a novel, and to its author.
On May 14, 1939 Elena Bulgakova wrote in her diary, "When he read the last chapters, everyone sat paralyzed. Everything scared them. P. (P. A. Markov, in charge of the literature division of MHAT) later at the door fearfully tried to explain to me that trying to publish the novel would cause terrible things".  (Due to the political climate of the 1930s and 40s Soviet Union, Bulgakov would have faced ostracism, work camps and maybe even death had he attempted to publish Master and Margarita.)
In the sixties, after Stalin's death, many of the literary works previously banned in the USSR were published. Master and Margarita was first published in censored form in 1967 in number 11 of Moscow magazine. The novel's readers experienced a sharp feeling of loss, which stemmed from the conclusion of the novel: "You will be reading these pages when I will no longer be among you; you will look for me, but you will not find me".   Master and Margarita was again republished in a fuller form in 1973; yet it took until 1989 before Bulgakov's work could be published in Russia in its original form.
Bulgakov has an astonishing talent for transforming harsh reality into an almost jovial anecdote. His works are full of genuine humor and wit along with satire and bitter irony. From humorous sketches Bulgakov progressed through Gogolian grotesque and surrealistic stories to end with the profoundly philosophical novel, Master and Margarita.
Bulgakov transformed ugly reality by elevating the problem of evil to the realm of metaphysics. Along with the castigation of everyday triviality, lies, dishonesty, and hypocrisy, the main themes of Bulgakov's works are crucial confrontations of an individual with the hostile forces of is environment, the arbitrariness of the (Soviet) authorities, and the cruelty of man to man. By introducing into Master and Margarita the figures of Yeshua and Pilate, Bulgakov showed his concern for the significance of ethics in modern life, with a continuous struggle between light and darkness going on today as it did two thousand years ago.
Mikhail Bulgakov died in Moscow on March 10, 1940.

Mikhail Bulgakov: Timeline

• 3 May, 1891 - Mikhail Afanesévich Bulgakov was born in Kiev. Father was a professor at the Kiev Theological Academy. Mikhail was one of seven children, the oldest of the three males.
• The family lived at No. 13 St. Andrew's hill (the Turbin's house in The White Guard, although there called St. Alexei's Hill) for about 20 years, leaving in 1920 never to come back. The father died sometime before the revolution, and the mother left at some undetermined point, leaving the house to their offspring. Mikhail started a medical practice, specializing in venereology.
• April, 1913 - First marraige to Tatiana Nikolayevna.
• 1919 - Bulgakov mobalized as doctor to white army.
• 1919 - Mikhail abandoned his medicine, moved to the Caucasus for a time, where he wrote stories for newspapers, and plays for local theatres.
• 1921 - Moved to Moscow.
• March 1921 - The New Economic Policy (NEP) was put into effect, as a result of agricultural disasters and labor paralysis. Many Communists felt betrayed, as it allowed a partial restoration of free trade, gave peasants the ability to sell surplus goods independently, and allowed private enterprise to be set up, provided it was leased from the government.
• late 1920s - The New Economic Policy ended, and the Five-Year Plans were introduced. With this came the RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers), a group under the intolerant leadership of Leopold Averbakh. They persecuted and pressured writers, molding them into only writing what they wanted - a few resisted. Bulgakov was one of them.
• 1924 - Diaboliad first published in the almanac Nedra (The Depths), No. 4, pp. 221-60.
• 1924-32 - Second marraige to Lyubov Yevgenievna Belozerskaya.
• 1925 - The Fatal Eggs first published in Nedra, No. 6, pp. 79-148. Also published during this time in Nedra were the other Bulgakov works No. 13. The Elpit - Rabkommun Building, A Chinese Tale, and The Adventures of Chichikov
• 1925 - Wrote The Heart of a Dog. Publication in Nedra banned by censors.
• 1925 - The first part of The White Guard is serialized in a magazine. It received a storm of criticism from party-line "reviewers", as it did not portray any Communist heroes, but it portrayed people's much more realistic reactions to the upheavals in the country, and their doomed feelings. The book was never published in full during Bulgakov's lifetime.
• 1926 - Wrote the play form of The White Guard, entitled The Days of the Turbins. Also written was Zoya's Apartment. Both were subjected to relentless criticism, bannings, rewritings by the theatrers, and temporary "unbannings". The White Guard had begun to be published in the magazine Rossia, but due to the involvement of the authorities was never completed.
• 1926-28 - Wrote the play Flight, about the civil war and émigrés.
• 1928 - The White Guard is published in Paris. (released in 2 volumes)
• 1928-40 - Started work on The Master and Margarita. This would last Bulgakov the rest of his days. Even in his final days he would dictate revisions to his wife. According to Soviet playwright Sergey Yermolinsky (1900-1989) the working title was "The Hoofed Consultant."
• 1928 - Bulgakov's The Crimson Island premiered at the Vakhtangov Theater. It was quickly banned.
• 1928 - Flight was banned, after Stalin characterized it as an "anti-Soviet phenomenon."
• 1928 - Three Bulgakov plays were being simultaneously performed - The Days of the Turbins, Zoyka's Apartment, and The Purple Island (a satire on censorship).
• 1929 - All three plays were banned.
• 1929-36 - Wrote the play The Cabal of Hypocrites, about the life of Molière
• 1930 - The critical attacks had become so ferocious, and the bans so strict, that Bulgakov burns many of his manuscripts in frustration.
• 1930 - Censors reject The Cabal of the Hypocrites (Molière). Bulgakov, despairing, sent a long and brave letter to Stalin. He pointed out that in 10 years of his literary activity, 300 reviews of his work had appeared in the press, of which 3 were favourable. He wrote that "there is no hope for any of my works" in Russia, and begged the government to order him to leave the country. If this would not take place, he begged to be given a position at the Moscow Art Theater, Director, actor, extra, stagehand, anything. He then wrote "If this, too, is impossible, I beg the Soviet government to do with me as it sees fit, but do something, because I, the author of five plays, known in the USSR and abroad, am faced at present with poverty, the street, the end. I beg you specifically to assign me, for no organization, not a single person replies to my letters." Bulgakov was permitted to work at the theater.
• 1931 - Wrote the play Adam and Eve, a science fiction satire.
• 1932 - The Cabal of the Hypocrites finally accepted by the Moscow Art Theatre. By Stalin's orders, The Days of the Turbins is revived.
• 1932 - Married to third wife Yelena Sergeyevna.
• 1932 - Wrote stage adaption to Gogol's Dead Souls
• 1933 - Wrote The Life of Monsieur de Molière, a biography of the French playwright. It was rejected by the publishing house that had invited him to write it.
• 1934 - Wrote the play Bliss, also a science fiction satire.
• 1934-35 - Wrote the play Last Days, about the last days of Pushkin.
• 1935 - Wrote the play Ivan Vasilievich, another science fiction satire.
• 1936 - Resigned from the Moscow Art Theater, wrote the Theatrical Novel, a parody of Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theater, was left unfinished.
• 1936 - The Cabal of the Hypocrites opens at the Moscow Art Theater, and is greeted enthusiastically by the audience. It was closed after seven performances, due to a critical attack in the publication Pravda (Truth). Ivan Vasilievich was also about to open at this time, at the Theatre of Satire, but was abandoned after the Pravda article.
• 1936-39 - Wrote stage adaptions of four libretti written for the Bolshoi Theater.
• 1938 - Wrote the play Batum, which deals with the life of a young Stalin.
• 1938 - Wrote stage adaption for Don Quixote
• 1939 - Stalin bans Batum.
• 1940 - Bulgakov dies.
• 1952 - A slightly censored version of The Fatal Eggs published by the Chekov Publishing House, with descriptions that might be seen as anti-religious ommited.
• 1955 - Days of the Turbins, Last Days published in Moscow.
• 1962 - The Life of Monsieur de Molière published, as well as a small collection of plays.
• 1963 - The Magazine Moskva publishes several of his early stories.
• 1965 - A slightly larger collection of Bulgakov's plays published. The magazine Novy Mir publishes the Theatrical Novel
• 1966 - The first publication of The White Guard in Russia.
• 1966 - A volume of selected Bulgakov prose published.
• 1966-67 - The Master and Margarita appears in two issues of Moskva, highly censored.
• 1967 - The Master and Margarita, translated by Michael Glenny, published in New York by Harper & Row. Uncensored edition.
• 1967 - Black Snow (A Theatrical Novel), also translated by Michael Glenny, published by Harvill.
• 1967 - The Master and Margarita, translated by Mirra Ginsburg, published in New York by Grove Press. Censored edition - approximately 23,000 words omitted.
• 1968 - Grove Press in New York published The Heart of a Dog, translated by Mirra Ginsburg.
• 1969 - The full text of The Master and Margarita published by Posev Publishing (Germany)
• 1972 - Diaboliad and Other Stories, translated by Carl R. Proffer, Edited by Ellendea Proffer & Carl R. Proffer, is published by Indiana University Press in Indiana, and in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, Don Mills, Ontario.
• 1973 - A collection of Bulgakov's three novels published in Moscow, containing The White Guard, The Theatrical Novel, and a fuller version of The Master and Margarita,
• 1975 - Michael Glenny's translation of A Country Doctor's Notebook published by Harvill Press, London.
• 1978 - Colin Wright's Mikhail Bulgakov: Life and Interpretations published by the University of Toronto Press.
• 1984 - The Cabal of Hypocrites performed by the Royal Shakespeare Theater.
• 1985 - the plays Flight and Bliss, translated by Mirra Ginsburg, are published in New York by New Directions.
• 1987 - Early version of The Theatrical Novel published in the megazine Novy Mir.
• 1987 - The White Guard, translated by Michael Glenny, is published by Academy Chicago Publishers in Chicago.
• 1987 - The Fatal Eggs: Soviet Satire, edited and translated by Mirra Ginsburg, is published by Grove Press in New York.
• 1989 - David M. Bethea's The Shape of Apocalypse in Modern Russian Fiction published by Princeton University Press. The Master and Margarita is the focus of chapter four, subtitled "History as Hippodrome".
• 1989-1991 - Sobranie sochineniy v 5 tomah (Collected works in 5 volumes) published in Moscow.
• 1991 - The Gnostic Novel of Mikhail Bulgakov: Sources and Exegesis by George Krugovoy, a study of The Master and Margarita, published by the University Press of America.
• 1995 - Ardis publishes a new translation of The Master and Margarita by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor. Later published by Vintage in 1996.

Sources:
Chudakova, Marietta.
Natov, Nadine. "Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasievich," Handbook of Russian Literature, ed. Victor Terras (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985),62-63.
<www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bulgakov.htm>.  December, 1999.