The life and mysterious death of Mikhail Bulgakov

Origin of the writer

Bulgakov M. A. was born on May 3, 1891 in the city of Kyiv. His parents were representatives of the intelligentsia. Mother worked as a teacher at the Karachay gymnasium. My father was a teacher (his portrait is presented above). After graduating from the Kyiv Theological Academy, he worked there, as well as in other educational institutions. In 1893, Afanasy Bulgakov became the Kyiv regional censor. His duties included censorship of works written in foreign languages. In addition to Mikhail, the family had five more children.

The life and mysterious death of Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Bulgakov was born on May 15, 1891 in a large family of professor of the Kyiv Theological Academy Afanasy and Varvara Mikhailovna Bulgakov. Mikhail was the eldest of seven children - he had four more sisters and two brothers.

Start

As Mikhail himself admitted, his youth was spent “carefree” 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.

Mom raised her children with a “steady hand,” never doubting what was good and what was evil. The father passed on his hard work and love of learning to his children. In the Bulgakov family, “the authority of knowledge and contempt for ignorance” reigned.

When Mikhail was 16 years old, his father died of kidney disease. Soon after this, Mikhail entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University. The arguments that influenced in favor of medicine were the independence of future activities and interest in the “human structure,” as well as the opportunity to help him.

While in his second year, Mikhail got married, against the wishes of his mother, he married young Tatyana Lappa, who had just graduated from high school.

Training period, work in field hospitals

The biography of such an author as Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov should be examined in great detail. A table of dates associated with his life will be of little help to those who set out to find the origins of his work and understand the features of his inner world. Therefore, we invite you to read the detailed biography.

The future writer studied at the First Alexander Gymnasium. The level of education in this educational institution was very high. In 1909, Mikhail Afanasyevich entered Kiev University, after which he was to become a physician. In 1914, the First World War began.

After graduating from the university in 1916, Mikhail Afanasyevich worked in field hospitals (in Kamenets-Podolsky, and after some time in Cherepovtsy). He was recalled from the front in September 1916. Bulgakov became the head of the Nikolskaya rural hospital, located in the Smolensk province. A year later, in 1917, Mikhail Afanasyevich was transferred to Vyazma. This period of his life was reflected in “Notes of a Young Doctor,” created in 1926. The main character of the work is a talented doctor, a conscientious worker. In seemingly hopeless situations, he saves the sick. The hero is acutely aware of the difficult financial situation of uneducated peasants living in Smolensk villages. However, he understands that he cannot change anything.

Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich Biography

Russian writer. Mikhail Bulgakov was born on May 15, 1891 in Kyiv, in the family of Associate Professor of the Kyiv Theological Academy Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov and Varvara Mikhailovna. The name of the eldest son and future writer was given in honor of the guardian of the city of Kyiv, Archangel Michael. Later, the following were born into the Bulgakov family: Vera, Nadezhda, Varvara, Nikolai, Ivan, Elena.

On August 18, 1900, Mikhail Bulgakov entered the preparatory class of the Second Kyiv Gymnasium, and on August 22, 1901, he entered the first class of the First Kyiv Alexander Gymnasium for men. March 14, 1907 died of nephrosclerosis

father of Mikhail Bulgakov. In May 1909, Bulgakov graduated from the First Alexander Gymnasium, and on August 21 he was enrolled as a student at the Faculty of Medicine at Kyiv University. On April 26, 1915, in the Kiev-Podolsk Church of St. Nicholas the Good, the wedding of Mikhail Bulgakov with Tatyana Nikolaevna Lappa, the daughter of the manager of the Treasury Chamber, whom Mikhail met back in 1908, took place.

Back in the summer of 1914, after the outbreak of the First World War on July 19, Bulgakov took part in organizing an infirmary for the wounded at the Treasury Chamber in Saratov and worked there as a doctor. In April-May 1915, he applied to serve as a doctor in the naval department, but was

declared unfit for military service due to health reasons. After receiving permission from the rector of the university, on May 18 Bulgakov began working at the Kiev military hospital in Pechersk. In May-September 1916 he worked as a doctor in the front-line hospitals of Kamenets-Podolsk and Chernivtsi. On July 16, he was enlisted as a “reserve doctor of the Moscow Military Sanitary Administration” for secondment to the Smolensk governor for the purpose of working in zemstvos.

On October 31, 1916, at Kiev University, Mikhail Bulgakov 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 the summer of one thousand nine hundred and seventeen, Bulgakov began regularly using morphine: after he was forced to vaccinate himself against diphtheria, fearing infection due to a tracheotomy performed on a sick child, the severe itching that began was suppressed by morphine; as a result, drug use became a habit. On September 18, one thousand nine hundred and seventeen, Bulgakov, who received a certificate from the Sychevsky district zemstvo government that “has proven himself to be an energetic and tireless worker,” was transferred to the Vyazemsk city zemstvo hospital as the head of the infectious and venereal department. In the fall of nineteen seventeen, Mikhail Bulgakov began work on a series of autobiographical stories about medical practice at the Nikolskaya Hospital. In December nineteen seventeen he came to Moscow for the first time, staying with his uncle, the popular Moscow doctor N. M. Pokrovsky.

On February 19, 1918, Bulgakov was released from military service due to illness and at the end of the month returned with his wife to Kyiv. In the spring of 1918, with the help of his mother’s second husband, doctor Ivan Pavlovich Voskresensky, Mikhail Bulgakov got rid of morphinism and opened a private practice as a venereologist. At the beginning of February 1919, as a military doctor, he was mobilized into the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic, and on the night of February 3, during the retreat of Ukrainian troops from Kyiv, he successfully deserted.

At the end of August 1919, according to one version, Bulgakov was mobilized into the Red Army as a military doctor; On October 14-16, together with units of the Red Army, he returned to Kyiv and, during street fighting, went over to the side of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia and became a military doctor of the 3rd Terek Cossack Regiment. In November, as a military doctor of the 3rd Terek Cossack Regiment, Bulgakov took part in the campaign against Chechen-aul and Shali-aul against the rebel Chechens. Since the beginning of December, he worked in a military hospital in Vladikavkaz.

At the end of December, Mikhail Bulgakov left his service in the hospital and stopped practicing medicine. From that moment on, he began to engage in literature professionally - working as a journalist in local newspapers. Bulgakov's first publication took place on November 26, 1919 in the newspaper Grozny.

He moved to Moscow in 1921. He served as secretary of the Main Political Education Department under the People's Commissariat for Education. In 1921-1926 he collaborated with the Moscow editorial office of the Berlin newspaper “Nakanune”, publishing essays about the life of Moscow, with the newspapers “Gudok”, “Rabochiy”, the magazine “Medical Worker”, “Russia”, “Vozrozhdenie”. The first collection of satirical stories, Diaboliad, caused controversy in the press.

In 1926, Bulgakov’s play “Days of the Turbins” was staged at the Moscow Art Theater; in 1926-1929 at the Evg. Vakhtangov’s play “Zoyka’s Apartment” by Bulgakov was performed, and “The Crimson Island” was rehearsed at the Moscow Chamber Theater in 1928-1929. Literary criticism of the late 20s. negatively assessed Bulgakov's work.

By 1930, his works were not published; the plays were removed from the theater repertoire. In 1930 he worked at the Central Theater of Working Youth. 1930-1936 - at the Moscow Art Theater as an assistant director, on whose stage in 1932 he staged “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol. Since 1936 - at the Bolshoi Theater as librettist and translator. He died on March 10, 1940 in Moscow.

He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

From Mikhail Bulgakov’s “Letter to the Government of the USSR” dated March 28, 1930: “Having analyzed my scrapbooks, I discovered 301 reviews about me in the USSR press over ten years of my literary work. Of these: there were 3 commendable ones, 298 were hostile and abusive.

They wrote “about Bulgakov, who was and will remain what he was, a new-bourgeois brat, sprinkling poisoned but powerless saliva on the working class and its communist ideals.” I do not prove with documents in hand that the entire press of the USSR, and with it all the institutions entrusted with the control of the repertoire, throughout all the years of my literary work unanimously and with extraordinary fury proved that the works of Mikhail Bulgakov cannot exist in the USSR. And I declare that the USSR press is absolutely right. I ASK THE USSR GOVERNMENT TO ORDER ME TO LEAVE THE USSR ASAP, ACCOMPANIED BY MY WIFE LYUBOV EVGENIEVNA BULGAKOVA.

I appeal to the humanity of the Soviet regime and ask me, a writer who cannot be useful in his own country, to be generously released. If what I wrote is unconvincing, and I am doomed to lifelong silence in the USSR, I ask the Soviet Government to give me a job in my specialty and send me to the theater to work as a full-time director. I specifically and emphatically ask for a categorical order for a secondment, because all my attempts to find work in the only area where I can be useful to the USSR as an exceptionally qualified specialist have been a complete fiasco. My name has been made so odious that job offers on my part have been met with fear. I am asking to be appointed as a laboratory assistant-director at the 1st Art Theater - at the best school, headed by the masters K. S. Stanislavsky and V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko.

If I am not appointed director, I am applying for a full-time position as an extra. If you can’t be an extra, I’m asking for the position of stagehand. If this is also impossible, I ask the Soviet Government to deal with me as it sees fit, but to do it somehow, because I, a playwright who wrote 5 plays, popular in the USSR and abroad, at the moment, have poverty , street and death."

Among the works are plays, novels, stories, short stories, feuilletons, essays: “Sketches of a Zemstvo Doctor”, “Self-Defense”, “The Turbine Brothers”, “Crimson Island”, “Devilliada”, “Fatal Eggs”, “Heart of a Dog”, “Notes” young doctor”, “White Guard”, “Days of the Turbins”, “Stories”, “Treatise on Life”, “Zoyka’s Apartment”, “Running”, “The Master and Margarita”, “The Cabal of the Saints”, “The Life of Monsieur de Moliere” , “Last Days”, “Theatrical Romance”.

Revolution in the fate of Bulgakov

The usual life of Mikhail Afanasyevich was disrupted by the February Revolution. Bulgakov expressed his attitude towards her in his 1923 essay “Kyiv the City.” He says that with the revolution, “history has begun.”

At the end of the October Revolution, Bulgakov was released from military service. He returned to his native Kyiv, which, unfortunately, was soon occupied by the Germans. Here Mikhail Afanasyevich plunged into the maelstrom of the Civil War. Bulgakov was a very good doctor, so both sides needed his services. The young doctor remained faithful to the ideals of humanism in all situations. Gradually, indignation grew in his soul. He could not come to terms with the cruelty of the Whites and Petliurists. Subsequently, these sentiments were reflected in Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard,” as well as in his stories “On the Night of the Third,” “Raid,” and in the plays “Running” and “Days of the Turbins.”

Bulgakov honestly fulfilled his duty as a doctor. During his service, he had to be an involuntary witness to the crimes that were committed at the end of 1919 in Vladikavkaz. Mikhail Afanasyevich no longer wanted to participate in the war. He left the ranks of Denikin's army at the beginning of 1920.

Plays created in Vladikavkaz

Shortly before the Whites left Vladikavkaz, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov fell ill with relapsing fever. His short biography of this time is especially dramatic. In the spring of 1920 he recovered. However, Red Army detachments had already entered the city, and Bulgakov was unable to emigrate, which he really wanted. It was necessary to somehow build relations with the new regime. Then he began to collaborate with the Revolutionary Committee, in the arts department. Mikhail Afanasyevich created plays for Ingush and Ossetian troupes. These works reflected his views on the revolution. These were one-day propaganda pieces, written mainly for the purpose of surviving in difficult conditions. Bulgakov’s story “Notes on Cuffs” reflected his Vladikavkaz impressions.

Writer's career

In 1921, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov moved to Moscow, where he began to make a living by writing feuilletons for many famous, and not so famous, newspapers and magazines, such as:

1. Hooter,
2. Russia,
3. Worker,
4. Red magazine for everyone,
5. Renaissance,
6. Medical worker.

Some statistics. , essays and articles by M.A. were published in the Gudok newspaper. Bulgakov.

Bulgakov joined the All-Russian Writers' Union (1923), where he met Lyubov Belozerskaya, who already in 1925 became the writer's second wife.

In October 1926, the Moscow Art Theater staged the production “Days of the Turbins” with dizzying success, which was especially popular even with Stalin. The leader said that this was an anti-Soviet thing, and Bulgakov was “not ours,” but at the same time he attended the performance of the production about fifteen times. True, except at the Moscow Art Theater, the production was not staged anywhere else.

In 1929, the writer met Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, she became the third and last wife of the writer in 1932.

Moving to Moscow, new works

In Tiflis, and then in Batumi, Mikhail Bulgakov could emigrate. His biography, however, took a different path. Bulgakov understood that the place of a writer in difficult times for the country is next to the people. The biography of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov in 1921 is marked by his move to Moscow. Since the spring of 1922, his articles were regularly published on the pages of magazines and newspapers in this city. The essays and satirical pamphlets reflected the main signs of life in the post-revolutionary years. The main object of Bulgakov's satire was the “NEP scum” (in other words, the nouveau riche NEPmen). Here it is necessary to note such short stories by Mikhail Afanasyevich as “The Cup of Life” and “The Trillionaire”. He was also interested in representatives of the population with a low level of culture: market traders, residents of communal apartments in Moscow, bureaucratic employees, etc. However, Mikhail Afanasyevich also noticed new phenomena in the life of the country. So, in one of his essays, he depicted a symbol of new trends in the face of a schoolboy walking down the street with a brand new backpack.

The story “Fatal Eggs” and features of creativity of the 1920s

Bulgakov's story "Fatal Eggs" was published in 1924. Its action takes place in an imaginary near future - in 1928. By this time, the results of the NEP were already obvious. In particular, the standard of living of the population increased sharply (in the story created by Mikhail Bulgakov). The writer’s biography does not imply a detailed acquaintance with his work, but we will still retell the plot of the work “Fatal Eggs” in a nutshell. Professor Persikov made an important discovery that could greatly benefit all of humanity. However, falling into the hands of self-confident, semi-literate people, representatives of the new bureaucracy, which flourished under War Communism, and strengthened its position during the NEP years, this discovery turns into a tragedy. Almost all the heroes of Bulgakov's stories, created in the 1920s, fail. In his work, the writer strives to convey to the reader the idea that society is not ready to learn new ways of relationships that are based on respect for knowledge and culture, and hard work.

“Running” and “Days of the Turbins”

In Bulgakov’s plays “Running” and “Days of the Turbins” (1925-28), Mikhail Afanasyevich showed that all the authorities that succeeded each other during the Civil War were hostile to the intelligentsia. The heroes of these works are typical representatives of the so-called “new intelligentsia”. At first they were either wary of the revolution or fought against it. M.A. Bulgakov also considered himself to be part of this new layer. He spoke about this with humor in his feuilleton entitled “Capital in a Notebook.” In it, he noted that a new intelligentsia, “iron,” had emerged. She is capable of chopping wood, loading furniture, and doing x-rays. Bulgakov noted that he believes that she will survive and will not perish.

Attacks on Bulgakov, call from Stalin

It must be said that Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (his biography and work confirm this) was always sensitive to changes in Soviet society. He experienced the triumph of injustice very hard and doubted the justification of certain measures. However, Bulgakov always believed in man. His heroes worried and doubted with him. Critics did not take it kindly. Attacks on Bulgakov intensified in 1929. All of his plays were excluded from theater repertoires. Finding himself in a difficult situation, Mikhail Afanasyevich was forced to write a letter to the government with a request to go abroad. After this, the biography of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was marked by an important event. In 1930, Bulgakov received a call from Stalin himself. The result of this conversation was the appointment of Mikhail Afanasyevich to the position of assistant director at the Moscow Art Theater. Productions of his plays again appeared on theater stages. After some time, the biography of such a writer as Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was noted for the staging of “Dead Souls” he created. His life seemed to be getting better. However, everything was not so simple...

Persecution of Bulgakov

A successful career did not please the pride of the brilliant writer for long. Already in 1930, Bulgakov’s works ceased to be published, and productions were subject to bans .

From this moment on, the writer begins to have a difficult financial situation. In the same year, Bulgakov wrote to his brother in Paris about his problems. He also sends a letter to I. Stalin himself, saying in it that the leader must determine his future, either allow him to go abroad, or give him the opportunity to earn a living in his native country.

Almost a month later, Stalin himself called Bulgakov and advised him to contact the Moscow Art Theater with a request for a job.

At the Moscow Art Theater, the writer was hired as an assistant director, and five years later he played a role in the play “The Pickwick Club.”

The play “The Kabbalah of the Holy One” was rehearsed for five years and came out with enormous success in 1936 , but after seven performances, an article was published in the Pravda newspaper, criticizing the production to the nines. After this, Bulgakov left the Moscow Art Theater and got a job at the Bolshoi Theater as a librettist and translator.

In 1939, Bulgakov was preparing to stage the play “Batum”, dedicated to I. Stalin, but just before the premiere a telegram arrived saying that Stalin was prohibiting the production because he considered a play about himself inappropriate.

Bulgakov - banned author

Despite Stalin’s external patronage, not a single work by Mikhail Afanasyevich appeared in the Soviet press after 1927, with the exception of an excerpt from the play “Running” (“The Seventh Dream”) in 1932 and a translation of Molière’s “The Miser” in 1938. The Case is that Bulgakov was included in the list of prohibited authors.

What else is remarkable about the biography of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov? It is not easy to briefly talk about him, because his life was marked by many important events and interesting facts. It is worth saying that, despite all the difficulties, the writer did not think of leaving his homeland. Even during the most difficult period (1929-30), thoughts of emigration practically never occurred to him. In one of his letters, Bulgakov admitted that it was impossible anywhere else except the USSR, since for eleven years he drew inspiration from it.

Novel "The Master and Margarita"

In 1933, Mikhail Afanasyevich tried to publish his work “The Life of Monsieur de Moliere” in the “ZhZL” series. However, he failed again. After this, he made no further attempts to publish his creations until his death. The writer devoted himself entirely to creating the novel “The Master and Margarita.” This work became his greatest achievement, as well as one of the best works of Russian and world literature of the 20th century. Mikhail Afanasyevich devoted twelve years of his life to working on it. The idea for “The Master and Margarita” appeared back in the late 1920s as an attempt at a philosophical and artistic understanding of socialist reality. The author considered the first versions of the work unsuccessful. Over the course of a number of years, Mikhail Afanasyevich constantly returned to the characters, trying on new conflicts and scenes. Only in 1932 did this work, the author of which is known to everyone (Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov), acquire plot completion.

A full biography of Bulgakov involves consideration of the question of the significance of his work. Therefore, we will talk about this too.

Biography of Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov is a brilliant writer and a great mystifier, who wrote “The Diaboliad”, “The White Guard”, “Ivan Vasilyevich”, “Days of the Turbins”, “Running”, “Heart of a Dog”, “The Master and Margarita” and many other unique works. Many of them were filmed in the writer’s homeland and abroad.

A number of critics consider the precious testament of his work to be his desire to give readers the opportunity to feel like the creators of their own destinies. To do this, he gave the right to choose an action to the main character, and left the ending of the works open, or ended them with the death of the hero.

The significance of Bulgakov's creativity

Showing that the white movement is doomed to defeat, that the intelligentsia will certainly go over to the side of the reds (the novel “The White Guard”, the plays “Running” and “Days of the Turbins”), that society is in danger if a culturally and morally backward person has the right to impose on others his will (“Heart of a Dog”), Mikhail Afanasyevich made a discovery that became part of the system of national values ​​of our country.

What else is interesting about Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich? Biography, interesting facts related to him, and his work - everything bears the stamp of pain for the person. This feeling was invariably characteristic of Bulgakov as a continuer of the traditions of domestic and world literature. Mikhail Afanasyevich accepted only that literature that shows the suffering of real heroes. Humanism was the ideological core of Bulgakov's works. And the true humanism of a true master is always close and dear to the reader.

Books

The first published book by Mikhail Bulgakov was the story “The Adventures of Chichikov,” written in a satirical manner. It was followed by the partially autobiographical “Notes on Cuffs,” the social drama “Diaboliad,” and the writer’s first major work, the novel “The White Guard.” Surprisingly, Bulgakov’s first novel was criticized from all sides: local censorship called it anti-communist, and the foreign press described it as too loyal to the Soviet regime.

Mikhail Afanasyevich spoke about the beginning of his medical career in the collection of short stories “Notes of a Young Doctor,” which is still read with great interest today. The story “Morphine” especially stands out. One of the author’s most famous books, “The Heart of a Dog,” is also associated with medicine, although in reality it is a subtle satire on Bulgakov’s contemporary reality. At the same time, the fantastic story “Fatal Eggs” was written.

By 1930, Mikhail Afanasyevich’s works were no longer published. For example, “Heart of a Dog” was first published only in 1987, “The Life of Monsieur de Moliere” and “Theatrical Novel” - in 1965. And the most powerful and incredibly large-scale novel, “The Master and Margarita,” which Bulgakov wrote from 1929 until his death, first saw the light only in the late 60s, and then only in an abbreviated form.

In March 1930, the writer, who had lost his footing, sent a letter to the government in which he asked to decide his fate - either to be allowed to emigrate, or to be given the opportunity to work. As a result, Joseph Stalin personally called him and said that he would be allowed to stage plays. But the publication of Bulgakov’s books never resumed during his lifetime.

last years of life

In the last years of his life, Mikhail Afanasyevich had the feeling that his creative destiny was ruined. Despite the fact that he continued to actively create, Bulgakov’s works practically did not reach contemporary readers. This broke Mikhail Afanasyevich. His illness worsened, leading to early death. Bulgakov died in Moscow on March 10, 1940. This ended the biography of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, but his work is immortal. The remains of the writer rest in the Novodevichy cemetery.

The biography of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, briefly outlined in this article, we hope, has made you want to take a closer look at his work. The works of this author are very interesting and important, so they are definitely worth reading. Mikhail Bulgakov, whose biography and works are studied at school, is one of the greatest Russian writers.

Death

In 1939, the writer worked on the play “Batum” about Joseph Stalin, in the hope that such a work would definitely not be banned. The play was already being prepared for production when the order came to stop rehearsals. After this, Bulgakov’s health began to deteriorate sharply - he began to lose his vision, and congenital kidney disease also made itself felt.

Mikhail Afanasyevich returned to using morphine to relieve pain symptoms. Since the winter of 1940, the playwright stopped getting out of bed, and on March 10, the great writer passed away. Mikhail Bulgakov was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery, and on his grave, at the insistence of his wife, a stone was placed, which had previously been installed on the grave of Nikolai Gogol.