Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich needs no introduction. This great prose writer and playwright is known all over the world. Mikhail Afanasyevich is presented in this article.
Origin of the writer
Bulgakov M.A. was born on May 3, 1891 in the city of Kiev. His parents were representatives of the intelligentsia. Mother worked as a teacher in the Karachay progymnasium. My father was a teacher (his portrait is presented above). After graduation, he worked in it, as well as in other educational institutions. In 1893 Afanasy Bulgakov became the Kiev regional censor. His duties included censoring works written in foreign languages. The family, besides Mikhail, had five more children.
Training period, work in field hospitals
An author such as Mikhail Bulgakov, a biography, should be considered in great detail. The 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 suggest that you read a 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 supposed to become a physician. In 1914, the First World War began.
After graduating from the university in 1916, Mikhail Afanasyevich worked in (in Kamenets-Podolsk, and after a while in Cherepovets). He was recalled from the front in September 1916. Bulgakov became the head of the Nikolskaya rural hospital, located in a year later, in 1917, Mikhail Afanasyevich was transferred to Vyazma. In the "Notes of a Young Doctor" created in 1926, this period of his life was reflected. The protagonist of the work is a talented doctor, a conscientious worker. In seemingly hopeless situations, he rescues the sick. The hero is acutely worried about the difficult financial situation of the uneducated peasants living in the Smolensk villages. However, he realizes that he cannot change anything.
A 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 "Kiev-city". He noted that "suddenly and menacingly" with the revolution "history has come."
Upon graduation, Bulgakov was released from military service. He returned to his native Kiev, which, unfortunately, was soon occupied by the Germans. Here Mikhail Afanasevich plunged into the maelstrom of the Civil War. Bulgakov was a very good doctor, so both sides needed his services. The young doctor in any situation remained faithful to the ideals of humanism. Gradually indignation grew in his soul. He could not come to terms with the cruelty of the Whites and the Petliurites. Subsequently, these sentiments were reflected in Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard", as well as in his stories "On the Night of the Third Day", "Raid" and in the plays "Run" and "Days of the Turbins".
Bulgakov honestly performed the duty of a doctor. During his service, he had to be an unwitting witness to crimes that were committed at the end of 1919 in Vladikavkaz. Mikhail Afanasyevich did not want to participate in the war anymore. He left the ranks of Denikin's army at the beginning of 1920.
First articles and stories
After that, Mikhail Afanasyevich decided not to engage in medicine anymore; he continues to work as a journalist. He began writing articles that were published in local newspapers. Bulgakov completed his first story in the fall of 1919. That same winter, he created several feuilletons, a number of stories. In one of them, called "A Tribute to Admiration", Mikhail Afanasyevich tells about the street clashes that took place in Kiev during the revolution and the Civil War.
Plays created in Vladikavkaz
Shortly before the whites left Vladikavkaz, Mikhail Afanasyevich fell ill with relapsing fever of this time, especially dramatic. In the spring of 1920 he recovered. However, the detachments of the Red Army had already entered the city, and Bulgakov could not emigrate, which he really wanted. It was necessary to somehow build relations with the new regime. Then he began to cooperate with the Revolutionary Committee, in the subdivision of arts. Mikhail Afanasevich created plays for Ingush and Ossetian troupes. These works reflected his views on the revolution. These were one-day propaganda campaigns, written mainly with the aim of surviving in difficult conditions. Bulgakov's story "Notes on the Cuffs" reflected his Vladikavkaz impressions.
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 a difficult time for the country was next to the people. The biography of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov in 1921 was marked by the move to Moscow. Since the spring of 1922, his articles were regularly published in the pages of magazines and newspapers in this city. The essays and satirical pamphlets reflect the main signs of life in the post-revolutionary years. The main object of Bulgakov's satire was the "scum of NEP" (in other words, the nouveau riche-Nepmen). It should be noted here such short stories by Mikhail Afanasyevich as "The Chalice of Life" and "Trillionaire". He was also interested in representatives of the population with a low level of culture: bazaar traders, residents of communal apartments in the city of Moscow, office workers, bureaucrats, etc. However, Mikhail Afanasyevich 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 who walks with a brand new knapsack down the street.
The story "Fatal eggs" and the peculiarities of creativity of the 1920s
Bulgakov's story "Fatal Eggs" was published in 1924. Its action takes place in the imaginary near future - in 1928. By this time, the results of NEP were already evident. In particular, the standard of living of the population has risen sharply (in the story created by Mikhail Bulgakov). The biography of the writer 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 be of great benefit to all mankind. However, falling into the hands of self-confident, semi-literate people, representatives of the new bureaucracy that flourished under military communism and strengthened its positions during the NEP, this discovery turns into a tragedy. Almost all the heroes of Bulgakov's stories, created in the 1920s, fail. In his work, the writer seeks to convey to the reader the idea that society is not ready to learn new ways of relationships, which are based on respect for knowledge and culture, for hard work.
"Running" and "Days of the Turbins"
In Bulgakov's plays "The Run" and "Days of the Turbins" (1925-28), Mikhail Afanasyevich showed that all the authorities that replaced each other during the Civil War are 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. MA Bulgakov also referred to this new stratum. He told about this with humor in his feuilleton entitled "The Capital in a Notebook." In it, he noted that a new intelligentsia, "iron", had appeared. She is capable of chopping wood, loading furniture, and doing X-rays. Bulgakov noted that he believes that she will survive, will not disappear.
Attacks on Bulgakov, Stalin's call
It must be said that Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (his biography and work confirms this) has always been sensitive to changes in Soviet society. He was very upset with the triumph of injustice, doubted the justification of certain measures. However, Bulgakov always believed in man. Together with him, his heroes worried and doubted. Critics took this unfavorably. Attacks on Bulgakov intensified in 1929. All of his plays were excluded from the 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 that, 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. Once again, performances of his plays appeared on the stages of theaters. After some time, the staging of the performance of "Dead Souls" created by him was noted for such a writer as Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, a biography. His life, it would seem, is getting better. However, things were not so simple ...
Bulgakov is a banned author
Despite Stalin's external patronage, not a single work of Mikhail Afanasyevich appeared in the Soviet press after 1927, with the exception of an excerpt from the play "The Run" ("The Seventh Dream") in 1932 and the translation of Moliere's "The Miser" in 1938. that Bulgakov was included in the list of banned authors.
What else is remarkable about the biography of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov? It is not easy to tell about him briefly, because his life is marked by many important events and interesting facts. It is worth saying that, despite all the difficulties, the writer did not think to leave his homeland. Even in the most difficult period (1929-30), he was practically not visited by the thought of emigration. In one of his letters, Bulgakov admitted that nowhere else, except the USSR, he was impossible, since for eleven years he drew inspiration from him.
The novel "The Master and Margarita"
Mikhail Afanasevich in 1933 tried to publish his work in the series "ZhZL". However, he failed again. After that, he made no further attempts to publish his creations until his death. The writer devoted himself entirely to the creation of 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 of "The Master and Margarita" appeared in his mind 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. For a number of years, Mikhail Afanasyevich constantly returned to the characters, tried on new conflicts and scenes. It was only in 1932 that this work, the author of which is known to everyone (Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov), acquired its plot completeness.
The complete biography of Bulgakov involves consideration of the question of the meaning of his work. Therefore, we will talk about this as well.
The value of Bulgakov's creativity
Having shown 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 "The Run" 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 Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov? Biography, interesting facts related to him, and his work - everything is stamped with pain for a person. This feeling was invariably characteristic of Bulgakov as the successor of the traditions of Russian and world literature. Mikhail Afanasyevich accepted only 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.
last years of life
In the last years of his life, Mikhail Afanasyevich did not leave the feeling that his creative destiny was ruined. Despite the fact that he continued to actively create, practically did not reach his contemporary readers. This broke Mikhail Afanasyevich. His illness worsened, which led to an early death. Bulgakov died in Moscow on March 10, 1940. This was the end of the biography of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, but his work is immortal. The remains of the writer rest at the Novodevichy cemetery.
The biography of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, summarized in this article, we hope, made you want to get to know his work better. The works of this author are very interesting and important, so they are definitely worth reading. Mikhail Bulgakov, whose biography and work are studied at school, is one of the greatest Russian writers.
Introduction
Bulgakov is one of the most widely read writers of the 20th century, now we boldly call him a great, genius, which previously could not have been thought of. And yet the name of the author of The Master and Margarita is not just a milestone in the history of literature. His living books should not overshadow an original person, a wonderful person, strong in spirit and faith, an honest Russian writer who managed to live such a difficult, happy life rich in creativity and deeds and find his difficult fate in history and literature.
Now the name of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov is surrounded by readers' attention both in our country and abroad, crowned with well-deserved glory. And it was not so long ago when words deprived a wonderful artist of the main right for him - live and direct communication with the reader, viewer, listener, followed his every step, and each of his new things was greeted suspiciously and often saw in her what it was not there at all, but what did his critics and opponents want to see there - the "frantic adherents" of the party ideology. The reasons for such unfair criticism and actual harassment in the press, and later complete suppression, were immediately revealed. Bulgakov did not know how to dissemble, to adapt either in life or in literature, he was not uncommonly a whole person, which, of course, manifested itself in his work. Both orally and in writing Mikhail Bulgakov throughout his life consistently defended the principles of Russian classical literature, following the precepts of his great teachers: Pushkin, Gogol, Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy - his beloved and revered writers. He reasonably believed that modern Russian literature cannot develop successfully without assimilating all the best that has been accumulated over many years by the great Russian literature.
Bulgakov wrote only about what he had studied well, deeply and comprehensively, what worried him. The opportunistic moments of creativity were deeply alien to him. He had his own point of view on the processes taking place in the country, which often did not coincide with the official one. The writer and citizen was convinced that the leading role in the development of the country should be played by the intelligentsia, and was a zealous adherent, in his words, of the “beloved and great Evolution”, a classic representative of that part of cultural figures who, without leaving the country in difficult years, sought to preserve their "generic characteristics" in the new conditions. But he was well aware that the creative and life attitudes, realized in works of art, would meet with a fierce rebuff. And this predicted existence in an almost hostile environment. For a long time Bulgakov was known as the author of the play "Days of the Turbins" and the staging of Gogol's poem "Dead Souls". But "manuscripts do not burn", the brilliant word is immortal, time has no power over the works created by the master with a pure soul and a wise heart. And the farther the dates of creation of Bulgakov's works go from us in time, the more the interest of the reader and viewer to them grows.
Over the past decades, the biography of the writer and his work have been studied in sufficient detail. Here will be considered the main milestones of his life, his family ties and not only them.
Childhood and youth
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was born on May 3, 1891 in the family of the teacher of the Kiev Theological Academy Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov and his wife Varvara Mikhailovna, nee Pokrovskaya, the first child in their marriage, concluded on July 1, 1890. Place of birth - the house of priest Matvey Butovsky in Kiev, on Vozdvizhenskaya street. Both parents came from old families of the Orlovsky and Karachevsky, clergy and merchants: the Bulgakovs, Ivanovs, Pokrovsky, Turbins, Popovs ... Ivan Avraamievich Bulgakov, a grandfather from his father's side, was a village priest, by the time his grandson Mikhail was born, he became the rector of the Sergievsky cemetery church in Orel ... Another grandfather, from his mother's side, Mikhail Vasilyevich Pokrovsky, was an archpriest of the Kazan Cathedral in the city of Karachev. The fact that both grandfathers were priests of the same locality, were born and died in the same year, had an almost equal number of children - the writer's biographers see a kind of intergeneric "symmetry", a special providential sign. And by the surname of her maternal grandmother, Anfisa Ivanovna Turbina, the autobiographical characters of the novel "The White Guard" and the play "Days of the Turbins" were subsequently named.
On May 18, Mikhail was baptized according to the Orthodox rite in the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross. The name was given in honor of the guardian of the city of Kiev, Archangel Michael. The godparents were: my father's colleague, ordinary professor of the Theological Academy Nikolai Ivanovich Petrov and Mikhail's paternal grandmother Olympiada Ferapontovna Bulgakova (Ivanova).
In the 1892-1899s and in the 1900s. in search of better housing, the family changed apartments almost every year. The number of household members also grew: Mikhail had six brothers and sisters - Vera (1892), Nadezhda (1893), Varvara (1895), Nikolai (1898), Ivan (1900) and Elena ( 1902). The last city address for a full family turned out to be the famous later - Andreevsky Descent, 13 (building 1, apt. 2, the future "House of the Turbins"), and the suburban address - a dacha in the village of Bucha near Kiev, where the family regularly spent the summer months. But the new housing did not please the father and his family for long. In the fall of 1906, A.I. Bulgakov became fatally ill - he was diagnosed with nephrosclerosis. Colleagues of Afanasy Ivanovich did not leave him in trouble. With enviable efficiency - in order to have time to appreciate his merits - on December 11, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Theology. At the same time, the Council of the Theological Academy filed a petition before the Holy Synod for conferring on him the title of ordinary professor, which was satisfied on February 8, 1907. Realizing that he would soon die, Afanasy Ivanovich tried to keep his family no less wealthy with his passing away. The next day, A.I. Bulgakov filed a petition for dismissal from service due to illness, and died on March 14.
Mikhail's parent, Varvara Mikhailovna, like her father, instilled in her children hard work and a desire for knowledge. According to the writer's sister, she said: “I want to give you all a real education. I cannot give you any dowry or capital. But I can give you the only capital that you will have - this is education. " So in 1900 (August 18), Mikhail was enrolled in the preparatory class of the Kiev Second Gymnasium, which he graduated "with a second degree award." And on August 22, 1901, he began his studies at the famous First Male Alexander Gymnasium and in May 1909 he graduated from it, having received a certificate of maturity on June 8 of the same year. This gymnasium had a special and prestigious status. Emperor Alexander I in 1811 granted her broad rights. Pupils were prepared for admission to universities. According to researchers, this gymnasium and its teachers for Bulgakov are akin to the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum and its teachers for Pushkin.
Gymnasium student Misha Bulgakov
The writer KG Paustovsky, who studied with him, gave the following portrait of the future author of The Master and Margarita: “Bulgakov was overflowing with jokes, inventions, and hoaxes. All this went freely, easily, it did not arise for any reason. This was an amazing generosity, the power of imagination, the talent of an improviser ... There was a world, and in this world there existed as one of its links - his creative youthful imagination. " This behavior of Mikhail Bulgakov was also facilitated by the relaxed family atmosphere, which his sister, Nadezhda, recalled: “... the main method of raising children ... was a joke, affection and goodwill ... this is what forged our characters ... Laughter sounded all the time in our house ... was the leitmotif of our life. "
Bulgakov did not study brilliantly at the gymnasium. At that time, he wrote satirical poems about the same mother and about us, gave us all poetic characteristics, drew cartoons, played the piano. Of Bulgakov's hobbies of that time, football stood out - a game that was just beginning to gain popularity in Russia at that time, and theater. But all this did not prevent the schoolboy Bulgakov from having other interests ...
Writer's first marriage
At the end of spring or early summer of 1908, after finishing the penultimate, seventh grade of the gymnasium, Mikhail met fifteen-year-old Tatyana Lappa, the daughter of the chairman of the Saratov Treasury. A romantic relationship arose between him and Tasya, whose difficult fate ended in a happy marriage: the wedding took place on April 26, 1913 in the Kiev-Podolsk Dobro-Nicholas Church. Mikhail was at that time a second-year student at the university, Tatiana studied at the Higher Courses for Women. The Bulgakovs lived together for 11 years, Tatiana was with her husband in all his subsequent wanderings during the First World War and the Civil War in Kiev, hospitals on the Southwestern Front of the Russian army, in the Smolensk region, in the Caucasus and in Moscow, where they parted in 1924.
Bulgakov the medic
After graduating from high school, Mikhail Bulgakov did not particularly hesitate in choosing a profession: the influence of relatives-doctors, brothers Vasily, Nikolai and Mikhail Pokrovsky; the close presence of a friend of their home, pediatrician I.P. Voskresensky, outweighed the hereditary roots of the ancestors - the clergy, and the time and upbringing were already completely different.
On August 21, 1909, he was admitted to the Faculty of Medicine of the Imperial University of St. Vladimir in Kiev. The studies also took place in the conditions of the war of 1914-1918 that began then. Medical student Bulgakov does not stand aside: in August 1914 he helps his wife's parents to organize an infirmary for the wounded at the Treasury Chamber in Saratov and works there as a medical orderly; in May 1915 he entered the Kiev military hospital of the Red Cross in Pechersk; in the summer of the same year he served as a surgeon in the front-line hospitals of the cities of Kamenets-Podolsk and Chernivtsi in the Austrian Bukovina ... the advantages assigned to this degree by the laws of the Russian Empire ”.
Arriving in the middle of September 1916 at the Smolensk medical council, Bulgakov was sent to one of the most remote corners of the Smolensk province - to the village of Nikolskoye in the Sychevsky district as the head of the third medical center. He and his wife arrived there on September 29 - it is this date, the beginning of the medical activity of the future writer in Nikolskoye, is on the certificate issued to him later. The work of a "zemstvo doctor" is reflected in the autobiographical cycle of stories "Notes of a Young Doctor", and in the story "Morphine" Bulgakov indirectly tells about himself ...
Terrible affliction
In the summer of 1917, he began to take morphine regularly after he had to be vaccinated against defthyritis for fear of infection as a result of a tracheotomy performed on a sick child; the beginning of severe itching and pain began to drown out with morphine, and as a result, drug use became a habit, which he could get rid of, almost miraculously, according to drug addicts, only a year later, in Kiev through the efforts of his wife Tatyana and doctor I.P. Voskresensky , his stepfather.
The then incurable morphinism damaged the zemstvo medical career: Bulgakov worked at the Vyazemskaya hospital from September 20, 1917 to February 19, 1918, when he was released from military service due to illness. On February 22, a certificate was received from the Vyazemsk district zemstvo council that he "performed his duties flawlessly," and at the end of February Mikhail and his wife returned to Kiev, where they settled in the almost deserted parental house. In the spring, Bulgakov gets rid of morphinism and opens a private practice as a venereologist. There was enough work: the power in the city was constantly changing - Reds, Whites, Petliurists - there were battles in the streets and in the suburbs, crowds of military and non-military people rolled and rolled back, there were arrests and pogroms, robberies and murders - in a word, all the horror, chaos and confusion Civil war in 1918-1920s. Bulgakov felt on his own fate, having experienced, as he recalled, "10 coups in person." The events of that time were described by him in Moscow in the novel "The White Guard". The author himself, his brother Nikolai, his sister Varvara, his son-in-law Leonid Karum, friends and acquaintances of Bulgakov became the main characters of the novel and the subsequent play "Days of the Turbins". It was in the mid-1920s, but Bulgakov began his first literary experiments in Vyazma, describing the life of a zemstvo doctor in the Sychevsky district, and continued in Kiev with prose: works have not survived).
The last Kiev power for Bulgakov in 1919 was the power of Denikin's Volunteer White Army. He was recognized as liable for military service and was mobilized as a regimental doctor in a unit in the North Caucasus. At the turn of 1919-1920. he leaves the service in the hospital and generally studies medicine, begins to work as a journalist in local newspapers. Only three of his publications of that time have survived: the pamphlet "Coming Prospects" (newspaper "Grozny", November 26), the essay "In a Cafe" and (in excerpts) a story with the subtitle "Tribute to Admiration" ("Kavkazskaya Gazeta", January 18 and 18 February). These events are also noted in Bulgakov's "Autobiography".
The first literary sketches of the writer
The writer Yu.L. Slezkin helped Bulgakov to decide on literary work, with whom he collaborated with the Whites in the newspaper Kavkaz. The official duties of Mikhail Afanasyevich consisted of organizing literary evenings, concerts, performances, debates, where he gave an opening speech before the start of the performance.
To earn a living, Bulgakov began to write plays: for the drama troupe of the local Russian theater, a one-act humoresque "Self-Defense" was written. After it, in July-August, he wrote the "big four-act drama" The Brothers Turbines, and in November-December 1920, the comedy-buff "Clay Grooms (The Treacherous Dad).
On October 1, 1921, Bulgakov was appointed secretary of the Literary Department (LITO) of the Glavpolitprosvet, which did not last long: on November 23, the department was liquidated and from December 1, Bulgakov was considered dismissed. Mikhail began to collaborate in the private newspaper "Commercial and Industrial Bulletin". But only six issues came out, and by mid-January 1922 Bulgakov was again unemployed. On February 16, there was a hope of getting a job in the newspaper "Rabochy" - the organ of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and from the beginning of March he became its employee, publishing about 30 reports and essays there. In parallel, from mid-February, Bulgakov got a job as head of the publishing department in the scientific and technical committee of the Air Force Academy. NE Zhukovsky This gave at least some opportunity to live.
Heavy blow
On February 1, 1922, a great grief fell upon Bulgakov, the first after the death of his father. His mother, Varvara Mikhailovna, died in Kiev. Bulgakov loved his mother, although he often conflicted with her (especially when she became Voskresenskaya, giving her stepfather to her children). He dedicated the kindest words in the novel "The White Guard" to her memory. And the very death of the mother, as recognized by her son, was one of the impetus for the realization of the idea of this work.
However, the most difficult and difficult period of Bulgakov's life in Moscow was drawing to a close. With a job at the end of February and March 1922, the family's financial situation began to gradually improve, which was facilitated by the publication of reports and articles. As early as February 4, the newspaper Pravda published Bulgakov's first Moscow reportage "The Emigrant Tailoring Factory", then reports and articles, essays, feuilletons and stories under various pseudonyms began to appear in Rabochaya Gazeta, in the Rupor magazine, and other Moscow publications ... Since the beginning of April, Bulgakov has been working as a literary processor for the newspaper of railway workers "Gudok". Its task is to give literary form to correspondence from the provinces, which did not differ in literacy. At the same time, he writes reports, stories and feuilletons for Gudok, works there as part of the “fourth page”, a brigade of journalists. He also publishes announcements in various publications that "... is working on compiling a complete bibliographic dictionary of modern Russian writers with their literary silhouettes ...".
Such service and such "products" for "Gudok", "Rabochy" and other Soviet newspapers and magazines did not bring moral and creative satisfaction, although they provided the writer with his daily bread. On April 18, 1922, Bulgakov informed his sister that, among other things, he was also working as an entertainer in a small theater. And in May he began cooperation in the émigré “Smenovekhovskaya” newspaper “Nakanune” and its “Literary Supplement”. The newspaper was published in Berlin with Soviet money and was relatively, in a European way, liberal, contributing to the return of the emigre intelligentsia to their homeland. Bulgakov published there 25 of the best essays, stories and feuilletons of that time, and from these publications his fame as a journalist began. The newspaper also had a Moscow editorial office, and AN Tolstoy, who headed the Literary Supplement, demanded from the Muscovites: "Send more Bulgakov."
The recognized success of Bulgakov's publications in newspapers in Moscow and Berlin, and in a number of magazines put him in the front ranks of Moscow literary men, young prose writers of the "new wave". The writer is invited to literary evenings, meetings and concerts, enrolls in a creative trade union, performs in circles of the humanitarian intelligentsia.
By the mid-1920s. he has two novels on his creative account ("The Devil", 1923 and "Fatal Eggs", 1924), autobiographical Notes on Cuffs, dozens of stories, essays, feuilletons, - all this made up three books of selected prose, published in Moscow and Leningrad. At the beginning of 1925, the story "Heart of a Dog" was written, which was not approved for publication and was published only several decades later ...
Working at night, in 1923-1924. he writes his main work of that time, the novel "White Guard" ("Yellow ensign"), biographically correlated with the events experienced by the author in the Civil War in Kiev at the turn of 1918-1919. The full text of the novel was published in the late 1920s. in Paris and in 1966 in Moscow.
Then there were changes in his personal life. In early January 1924, Bulgakov took part in an evening organized by the Nakanune newspaper at the Foreigners Service Bureau. There he met Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya, who had recently returned from abroad, and soon became his second wife: in April 1924, Bulgakov and TN Lappa filed for divorce. And the marriage with Belozerskaya was registered on April 30, 1925 - a year after the divorce from T.N. Lappa and almost six months after the start of life together.
Leaving at the end of 1924 from his home on Bolshaya Sadovaya, Bulgakov left in the past his difficult life at the beginning of this decade, his former wife and some Moscow acquaintances acquired by that time. Having moved to the continuation of Prechistenka, to a three-room apartment on the first floor, Bulgakov remained here until February 1934, having restored normal living conditions for himself.
Theatrical recognition. Problems with the government
For Bulgakov, the prechistinskoe time is the time of the beginning of his theatrical success, the beginning of his dramatic activity; here were written "Days of the Turbins", "Zoykina's apartment", "Crimson Island".
At the same time, another play was written - the comedy "Zoykina's Apartment", accepted for staging by the Theater-Studio. Eug. Vakhtanogov (by the Third Studio of the Moscow Art Theater). Work on it went on throughout almost the entire 1926.But the literary and especially theatrical success of Bulgakov aroused fierce envy and hatred for him and for his works of critics: "proletarian writers", "Komsomol poets", literary futurists and other "extremists from culture" , - "frantic zealots." The terms "bulgakovism", "podbulgachnik" appeared, meetings and rallies were held. The leadership of culture in the country did not extinguish the raging passions, but only added fuel to the fire, sometimes forbidding, then permitting performances. Bulgakov's newspapers and magazines stopped printing. The case came to the consideration of the Government. The organs of the OGPU NKVD also intervened, establishing unofficial surveillance of the writer, flooding his entourage with informers and informers. Some of these "correspondences" now published are depressing.
The organs of the secret services continued to persistently show their interest in the personality of Bulgakov. On September 22 and November 18, 1926, the writer was summoned to the OGPU for interrogations.
Efforts to discredit the writer, undertaken by the bureaucratic nomenklatura and their hangers-on, critics, were not in vain: in 1929, Days of the Turbins, Zoykina's Apartment, Crimson Island were removed from the repertoire, rehearsals of the new play "Run" and the production were banned. the play "Cabal of the holy man". In a series of letters to higher authorities and A.M. Gorky, Bulgakov informs about an unfavorable literary and theatrical situation for himself and a difficult financial situation.
The question of "the writer Bulgakov" was discussed at a meeting of the Politburo and was resolved positively: on April 18, Stalin phoned him. A remarkable and now legendary dialogue took place, in which the writer subsequently assessed his position as one of the five main mistakes in life. But life soon began to improve.
Happy love
Turn of 1929 - early 1930s was full of dramatic events for Bulgakov, not only of a purely creative nature. New serious changes were brewing in his personal life. Bulgakov began to have friendly feelings for E.S. Shilovskaya, but soon they realized that they loved each other. Relations with E.S. Shilovskaya took a new turn and changed Bulgakov's life in many ways. On October 4, 1932, a marriage was registered between Elena Sergeevna and Bulgakov. It was in Elena Sergeevna that Bulgakov finally found his beloved, for whom his work was the main thing in life.
A new frontier in life. Another set of failures
It was after such difficult personal circumstances - both dramatic and joyful - that Bulgakov began to implement his main work - the future novel "The Master and Margarita". On various manuscripts, Bulgakov differently dated the beginning of work on it - either 1928, then 1929. Most likely, in 1928 the novel was only conceived, and in 1929 work began on the text of the first edition. On May 8, 1929, the writer handed over to the Nedra publishing house the chapter "Furibunda Mania" from the novel "The Engineer's Hoof". Translated from medical Latin, the title of the chapter meant "mania of rage", and it roughly corresponded in content to the chapter in the final edition "It was in Griboyedov." With this publication Bulgakov hoped to improve his financial situation at least a little, but the chapter in Nedra did not appear.
Since the early 1930s. the writer and playwright was literally overwhelmed with work. Since April 1930 he has been working at the Theater of Working Youth (TRAM) as a consultant, since May 10 - at the Moscow Art Theater as an assistant director. Almost a year later, on March 15, 1931, Bulgakov left TRAM. At the Moscow Art Theater, the new director was immediately assigned to the planned production of Gogol's Dead Souls, and he had to rewrite the text of the staging. Bulgakov also collaborates with the Moscow Traveling Sanitary and Educational Theater of the Institute of Sanitary Culture, writes a stage version of War and Peace for the Bolshoi Drama Theater in Leningrad and for the Leningrad Red Theater, a fantastic play about the future war - Adam and Eve. The last play became interested in the Moscow Theater. Eug. Vakhtangov: in the fall of 1931 the playwright reads it in the theater. But theaters refused to stage "Adam and Eve".
The unfavorable situation continued even later: in July-November 1932 Bulgakov composed for the Yury A. Zavadsky Studio Theater the play "Mad Jourdain" based on the well-known comedies of Zh-B. Moliere, at the same time, under the contract, wrote a biography of this playwright for the series "The Life of Remarkable People", in 1933-1934. works on a new version of the play "Running" for the Moscow Art Theater, writes the comedy "Bliss, or the Dream of the Engineer Rhine" for the Leningrad Music Hall and the Moscow Satire Theater. All these projects did not receive practical completion: the book was rejected, the plays were not staged. Despite temporary setbacks, Bulgakov does not stop working on the novel "The Master and Margarita", the personal circumstances of life only favor the creative process. At the end of 1933, he also used his acting skills in practice: the profession of an actor attracted a writer and playwright from his youthful dacha performances - Mikhail Afanasyevich was a true man of the theater. On December 9, Bulgakov plays the role of Judge at the viewing at the Moscow Art Theater of the first six films staged by N.A. Venkstern "Notes of the Pickwick Club" by Charles Dickens. Later in 1934-1935. Bulgakov played this role regularly in the theater, and also took part in the radio play "The Pickwick Club" at the head of a team of fellow actors.
But the main play for Bulgakov in the early and mid-1930s, without a doubt, was the play about Moliere - "Cabal of the sanctimonious". Started back in October 1929, now permitted, now prohibited, it was being prepared for staging in two theaters at once. The censorship did not like the title "Cabal the Holy One" and was removed. On October 12, 1931, Bulgakov signed an agreement on staging the play with the Leningrad BDT, and on October 15, with the Moscow Art Theater. However, the release of Moliere in Leningrad was thwarted by a series of critical articles in the local press by playwright Vsevolod Vishnevsky, who saw in Bulgakov not only an ideological opponent, but also a dangerous competitor. In the Moscow Art Theater, the fate of the play also did not turn out very well. On March 5, 1935, the play was finally shown to K.S. Stanislavsky. He did not like the production, but the founder of the Art Theater made his main claims not to directing or acting, but to Bulgakov's text. The "genius old man" seemed to feel the censorship unacceptability of the main idea that Bulgakov had - the tragic dependence of the great comedian on the insignificant power - the pompous and empty Louis and the "hypocritical bondage" surrounding him. That is why Stanislavsky tried to slightly shift the emphasis, to transfer the conflict to the plan of confrontation between the genius and the crowd that did not understand him. When this failed, Stanislavsky refused to rehearse. His associate V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko undertook the production. On February 5, 1936, the first dress rehearsal took place, with an audience, and on February 16, the premiere of Moliere took place.
The audience liked the performance, but the playwright not very much. Lush scenery and acting in many ways made Moliere a play on a historical theme. Everything seemed to be fine, and nothing foreshadowed a catastrophe. However, the fate of the production was quickly resolved, regardless of the viewer's opinion. On February 29, 1936, the chairman of the Committee on Arts, P.M. Kerzhentsev, presented to the Politburo a note “On Moliere” by M. Bulgakov.
Stalin approved the proposal of the chairman of the Committee on Arts Affairs, and of course the other members of the Politburo too. It was decided to publish in the central newspapers an article based on Kerzhentsev's materials condemning Moliere.
The main blow to the play "Moliere" was dealt on March 9, 1936, when the newspaper Pravda published an editorial inspired by Kerzhentsev "External brilliance and false content", repeating the main theses of the chairman of the Committee on Arts. It calls Molière a “reactionary” and “fake” play, Bulgakov is accused of “perverting” and “vulgarizing” the life of a French comedian, and the Moscow Art Theater was accused of “covering up the play's shortcomings with the glitter of expensive brocade, velvet and all sorts of trinkets”. The directors of the theater themselves refused to continue the performances. The play has only been played seven times.
MM Yanshin, one of Bulgakov's closest friends, a brilliant performer of roles in his plays (Lariosika in Days of the Turbins and Bouton, Moliere's servant), took a shameful part in the campaign against Moliere. Subsequently, Bulgakov forever severed his friendship with Mikhail Mikhailovich. After Bulgakov left the Moscow Art Theater, he was invited to work at the Bolshoi Theater as a "librettist consultant."
Writers, poets and journalists about Bulgakov
Bulgakov did not like poetry and poetry, however, he recognized the talent of outstanding contemporaries-poets. He was friends and met with A.A. Akhmatova, respected B.L. Pasternak. Once at the birthday of the wife of the playwright Trenev, his neighbor in the writer's house, Bulgakov and Pasternak found themselves at the same table. Pasternak, with a special kind of breath, read his translated verses from Georgian. After the first toast to the hostess, Pasternak announced: "I want to drink to Bulgakov!" In response to the objection of the birthday lady-hostess: “No, no! Now we will drink to Vikenty Vikentyevich, and then to Bulgakov! " - Pasternak exclaimed: “No, I want for Bulgakov! Veresaev, of course, is a very big person, but he is a legitimate phenomenon. And Bulgakov is illegal! "
Recalling his meetings with the writer, V.Ya. Vilenkin, who was in charge of the Moscow Art Theater, noted: “What kind of person was Bulgakov? This can be answered immediately. Fearless - always and in everything. Vulnerable but strong. Gullible, but not forgiving any deception, no betrayal. Conscience incarnate. An incorruptible honor. Everything else in it, even a very significant one, is already secondary, depending on this main thing, which attracts to itself like a magnet. "
Journalist E.L. Mindlin: “Everything is in Bulgakov - even a plaster-hard, dazzlingly fresh collar and a carefully tied tie, not fashionable, but perfectly tailored suit, trousers ironed into a fold, especially the form of addressing interlocutors with emphasis on the dead after revolutions ending with "s", like "if you please" or "as you please," the kissing of the ladies' hands and the almost parquet ceremony of bowing - everything set him apart from our midst. And, of course, his long fur coat, in which he, full of dignity, went up to the editorial office, invariably holding his hands sleeve to sleeve! "
Actress of the Moscow Art Theater S. S. Pilyavskaya: “Unusually elegant, smart, with all seeing, noticing everything, with a nervous, very often changing face. Cold, even a little prim with strangers and so open, mockingly cheerful and intently attentive to friends, or just acquaintances ... ".
Playwright AA Faiko: “Bulgakov was thin, flexible, all in sharp corners, light blond, with transparent gray, almost watery eyes. He moved quickly, easily, but not too freely ... he appeared in a dashingly ironed black pair, a black bow tie on a starched collar, in patent, sparkling shoes, and everything else also with a monocle, which he sometimes gracefully threw out of his eye socket and , having played for some time with a lace, inserted it again, but, absentmindedly, already in the other eye ... ". An employee of the Moscow Art Theater PA Markov: “He was, of course, very smart, devilishly smart and amazingly observant not only in literature, but also in life. And, of course, his humor could not always be called harmless - not because Bulgakov proceeded from a desire to humiliate someone (this was in fundamental contradiction with his essence), but his humor, at times, took, so to speak, revelatory character often escalating to philosophical sarcasm. Bulgakov looked into the essence of a person and vigilantly noticed not only his external habits, exaggerating them into an unthinkable, but quite probable characteristic, but, most importantly, he delved into the psychological essence of a person. In the most bitter moments of his life, he did not lose the gift of wondering at her, he loved to be surprised ... ”.
A series of performances
The middle of the 1930s was for Bulgakov both the time of turning to the work of his beloved Gogol, and to the biography of Pushkin: in January 1937, a round mourning date was widely celebrated - one hundred years since the death of the poet. Bulgakov's performance of Dead Souls was a success at the Moscow Art Theater. In 1934, work began on a screenplay based on Gogol's poem "The Adventures of Chichikov", together with film director I.A.Pyriev. At the same time, Bulgakov concludes an agreement with the Kiev film studio "Ukrainfilm" on the creation of a screenplay for "The Inspector General" together with the director M.S. Karostin. Collaboration continued with Moscow theaters: for the Theater of Satire, he reworked the already accepted play "Bliss" into another play, which later received the name "Ivan Vasilyevich". And for the Theater. Eug. Vakhtangov Bulgakov began work on a play about Pushkin, and later, in 1938-1939, wrote for this theater a dramatization of Don Quixote based on the novel by M. Servantes.
On June 24, 1937, Bulgakov received a letter from the artistic director of the Vakhtangov Theater, VV Kuza, with a proposal to stage Don Quixote. The playwright hesitated for a long time whether to undertake this: the fate of the previous plays did not add optimism. Finally, he decided, and in the summer of 1938 the first version of the play was written. This happened in Lebedyan, a small town on the upper Don. Bulgakov came there on vacation, to Elena Sergeevna, who was there with her children; after the most intense work on the typewritten edition of "The Master and Margarita", the text which was masterfully typed under dictation by his wife's sister.
Bulgakov stayed in Lebedyan from June 26 to July 21, living in the house of the accountant V.I. Andrievsky. There were written the lines of "Don Quixote", which have become winged today: "... People choose different paths. One stumbles along the road of vanity, the other crawls along the path of humiliating flattery, others make their way along the road of hypocrisy and deceit. Am I walking one of these roads? No! I walk the steep road of chivalry and despise earthly blessings, but not honor! " These words of the itinerant knight Don Quixote are applicable to Bulgakov. According to an agreement with the theater, the play was supposed to be released by January 1, 1940, but the playwright did not live to see the premiere on April 8, 1941.
On September 10, 1939, the Bulgakovs went to Leningrad to rest. Here the writer again felt a sudden loss of vision. We returned to Moscow, where doctors diagnosed acute hypertensive nephrosclerosis. Bulgakov, since the doctor himself, and remembering the fatal illness of his father, immediately realized the hopelessness of his position. The authorities showed some attention to the patient: on November 11, the head of Soviet writers A.A. Fadeev visited him. From November 18 to December 18, Bulgakov was in a government sanatorium in Barvikha, where his condition temporarily improved.
Recent years of activity
Late 1939 - early 1940 for Bulgakov, they were also creative, despite the progressive illness. In Leningrad, as part of 3 volumes of Moliere's collected works, the play "The Miser" was published in Bulgakov's translation. At the same time, the typewritten version of the novel "The Master and Margarita", made in the summer of 1938, was intensified. Although old plots and individual scenes were deleted from it and new plots and individual scenes were added, the novel itself acquired the now well-known completeness and plot structure. The former names of the early to mid-1930s have disappeared, and the final title, "The Master and Margarita", has been established. The writer made amendments to the dying writer before February 13, 1940 - just a month before his death, and when he finally became blind, he continued to dictate to Elena Sergeevna. The editing stopped at the words of Margarita: "So it is, therefore, the writers are following the coffin?" Soon this phrase came true, alas, literally.
* * *
The work of Mikhail Bulgakov has a tremendous impact on the modern world. And not only because he is recognized as a genius writer, playwright. Bulgakov was no less a genius thinker, able not only to correctly assess the most complex and intricate socio-political situations, but also to foresee the foreseeable future. He was a man of honor and dignity, unable to bend his soul. If we add to this that he truly, meaningfully loved Russia, was an adherent of the observance and development of the best spiritual and cultural traditions of the Russian people, then his dramatic life fate will become completely understandable. Bulgakov was a kind of passion-bearer, a sufferer, a martyr, who understood very early that Russia would have to experience tremendous upheavals. But still Bulgakov could not imagine that the punishments sent down to the Russian land would be so heavy and prolonged.
For more than twenty years, he never ceased to hope for a better life for Russia, tried to believe in the sanity of the people and their ability to distinguish black from white, and waited for the necessary changes. Gradually, a feeling of hopelessness and despair arose and developed in the writer's soul, which inevitably had to manifest itself in his work. The novel "The Master and Margarita" is the most convincing confirmation of this. The novel "The Master and Margarita" will remain in the history of Russian and world literature not only as evidence of the greatest human resilience of Bulgakov the writer, not only as a hymn to a moral man - and a creative man - a master, not only as a story of Margarita's high, unearthly love, but also as a monument to the city where all the main events of the book take place, a monument to Moscow, where, as the writer himself admitted, "he came to stay forever."
We can proudly count the creative heritage of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov among those indestructible "cornerstones", those granites, those foundations on which a new, high and majestic building of our culture is being created.
Bulgakov rightfully and dignifiedly took his place among the classics of Russian literature and world culture.
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov is dear to all readers as a writer with a capital letter and interesting as a person who embodied in his destiny the dignity and courage of an artist.
In August 1919, after the capture of Kiev by General Denikin, Mikhail Bulgakov was mobilized as a military doctor in the White Army and sent to the North Caucasus. Here his first publication appeared - a newspaper article entitled "Future Prospects".
Soon he parted with the medical profession and devoted himself entirely to literary work. In 1919-1921, while working in the Vladikavkaz subdivision of arts, Bulgakov composed five plays, three of which were staged at the local theater. Their texts have not survived, with the exception of one - "The Sons of the Mullah".
In 1921 he moved to Moscow. He served as secretary of the Main Political and Educational Committee under the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR.
In 1921-1926 Bulgakov collaborated with the Moscow editorial office of the Berlin newspaper Nakanune, publishing essays on the life of Moscow, with the newspapers Gudok and Rabochy, the magazines Medical Worker, Russia and Vozrozhdenie.
In the literary supplement to the newspaper "On the Eve" were published "Notes on Cuffs" (1922-1923), as well as the writer's stories "The Adventures of Chichikov", "The Red Crown", "The Chalice of Life" (all - 1922). In 1925-1927 in the magazines "Medical Worker" and "Red Panorama" stories from the series "Notes of a Young Doctor" were published.
The general theme of Bulgakov's works is determined by the author's attitude to the Soviet regime - the writer did not consider himself its enemy, but evaluated reality very critically, believing that his satirical denunciations were beneficial to the country and the people. Early examples include the novellas "The Devil. The Tale of How the Twins Ruined the Clerk" (1924) and "The Fatal Eggs" (1925), combined into the collection "The Devil" (1925). The novel "Heart of a Dog" written in 1925, which has been in "samizdat" for more than 60 years, is distinguished by greater skill and a sharper social orientation.
The borderline separating the early Bulgakov from the mature was the novel "The White Guard" (1925). Bulgakov's departure from an emphatically negative image of the White Guard environment brought charges against the writer of attempts to justify the White movement.
Later, on the basis of the novel and in collaboration with the Moscow Art Theater, Bulgakov wrote the play "Days of the Turbins" (1926). The famous Moscow Art Theater production of this play (the premiere took place on October 5, 1926) brought Bulgakov wide fame. The Days of the Turbins enjoyed unprecedented success with the audience, but not with the critics, who launched a devastating campaign against the performance that was “apologetic” to the White movement and against the “anti-Soviet” author of the play.
In the same period, at the Yevgeny Vakhtangov Studio Theater, Bulgakov's play "Zoykina's Apartment" (1926) was staged, which was banned after the 200th performance. The play "Running" (1928) was banned after the first rehearsals at the Moscow Art Theater.
The play "Crimson Island" (1927), staged at the Moscow Chamber Theater, was banned after the 50th performance.
At the beginning of 1930, his play The Cabal of the Saints (1929) was banned and did not make it to rehearsals in the theater.
Bulgakov's plays were removed from the repertoire of theaters, his works were not published. In this situation, the writer was forced to turn to the higher authorities and wrote a "Letter to the Government", asking him to either provide him with a job and, therefore, a livelihood, or let him go abroad. The letter was followed by a telephone call from Joseph Stalin to Bulgakov (April 18, 1930). Soon Bulgakov got a job as a director of the Moscow Art Theater and thereby solved the problem of physical survival. In March 1931 he was admitted to the cast of the Moscow Art Theater.
While working at the Moscow Art Theater, he wrote a staging of "Dead Souls" based on Nikolai Gogol.
In February 1932, the Days of the Turbins at the Moscow Art Theater were resumed.
In the 1930s, one of the main themes in Bulgakov's work was the theme of the relationship between the artist and the authorities, which he realized based on the material of different historical eras: the play "Moliere", the biographical story "The Life of M. de Moliere", the play "The Last Days", the novel "The Master and Margarita ".
In 1936, due to disagreements with the leadership during the rehearsal preparation of Moliere, Bulgakov was forced to break with the Moscow Art Theater and go to work at the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR as a librettist.
In recent years, Bulgakov continued to work actively, creating the libretto of the operas "The Black Sea" (1937, composer Sergei Pototsky), "Minin and Pozharsky" (1937, composer Boris Asafiev), "Friendship" (1937-1938, composer Vasily Soloviev-Sedoy; remained unfinished), "Rachel" (1939, composer Isaac Dunaevsky), etc.
An attempt to resume cooperation with the Moscow Art Theater by staging the play "Batum" about the young Stalin (1939), created with the theater's active interest in the 60th anniversary of the leader, ended in failure. The play was banned from staging and was interpreted by the political leaders as the writer's desire to improve relations with the authorities.
In 1929-1940, Bulgakov's multifaceted philosophical-fantastic novel "The Master and Margarita" was created - the last work of Bulgakov.
Doctors discovered in the writer hypertensive nephrosclerosis, an incurable kidney disease. he was seriously ill, almost blind, and his wife made changes to the manuscript under dictation. February 13, 1940 was the last day of work on the novel.
Mikhail Bulgakov died in Moscow. Buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
During his lifetime, his plays "Adam and Eve", "Bliss", "Ivan Vasilievich" did not see the light of day, the last of them was filmed by director Leonid Gaidai in the comedy "Ivan Vasilievich changes his profession" (1973). Also after the death of the writer was published "Theatrical novel", which was based on the "Notes of the deceased".
Before publication, the philosophical-fantastic novel "The Master and Margarita" was known only to a narrow circle of people close to the author, the unreproduced manuscript was miraculously preserved. The novel was first published in abridged form in 1966 in the Moscow magazine. The full text in the last edition of Bulgakov was published in Russian in 1989.
The novel has become one of the artistic achievements of Russian and world literature of the 20th century and one of the most popular and read books in the writer's homeland, has been repeatedly filmed and staged on the theater stage.
In the 1980s, Bulgakov became one of the most published authors in the USSR. His works were included in the Collected Works in five volumes (1989-1990).
On March 26, 2007 in Moscow, in an apartment on Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, house 10, where the writer lived in 1921-1924, the government of the capital established the first Museum of M.A. Bulgakov.
Mikhail Bulgakov was married three times. The writer married his first wife Tatyana Lappa (1892-1982) in 1913. In 1925, he officially married Lyubov Belozerskaya (1895-1987), who was previously married to journalist Ilya Vasilevsky. In 1932, the writer married Elena Shilovskaya (née Nuremberg, after Neelov's first husband), the wife of Lieutenant General Yevgeny Shilovsky, whom he met in 1929. From September 1, 1933, Elena Bulgakova (1893-1970) kept a diary, which became one of the important sources of the biography of Mikhail Bulgakov. She preserved an extensive archive of the writer, which she transferred to the State Library of the USSR named after V.I. Lenin (now the Russian State Library), as well as the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Pushkin House). Bulgakova managed to achieve the publication of The Theatrical Novel and The Master and Margarita, the full reprint of The White Guard, and the publication of most of the plays.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
Who is Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov? Great writer, satirist, playwright, director and actor. It is very difficult to summarize Bulgakov's biography. Bulgakov, whose interesting facts of life are difficult to describe briefly, is worthy of respect and memory of descendants. Let's consider his biography in a little more detail than what is written on the pages of Wikipedia.
In contact with
From under his pen came an unthinkable number of dramatizations, plays, stories, opera librettos, screenplays and short stories. For many people, this person still remains a mystical mystery, mainly due to his incomparable works, such as "The Master and Margarita" and many others. Now we will try to understand in more detail the biography of the writer.
Childhood years of the writer
The life and work of Bulgakov originates from May 3 (15), 1891... The child was very handsome and had a memorable appearance. Blue bottomless eyes and a thin figure perfectly emphasized Mikhail's artistry. From childhood, the boy was very interested, if not in love with literature. One of the first large-scale works that young Mikhail read was the book Notre Dame Cathedral by Victor Hugo. At that time, the boy was only eight years old. And even earlier, at the age of seven, the first work came out from under his child's hand - the story "The Adventures of Svetlana".
The father of the future writer was an associate professor at the Kiev Theological Academy, and his mother taught at the Karachaev gymnasium. Mikhail Afanasevich was the oldest child in a large family. The writer had four sisters - Varvara, Lena, Vera and Nadezhda, and two brothers - Kolya and Vanya.
The family of little Misha was from hereditary bell nobles, their ancestors were priests and served in the Oryol province.
Mikhail Bulgakov's education
At the age of eighteen, Mikhail Afanasyevich graduated from the First Kiev Gymnasium, after which he entered the Medical Faculty of Kiev University. His choice was influenced by the fact that most of his relatives worked in the medical field and lived quite well off.
Interesting fact. Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov had an uncle, N.M. Pokrovsky, who worked as a gynecologist in Moscow and was a very respected and experienced doctor. It was in his image that Professor Preobrazhensky was described.
Bulgakov was a rather closed, secretive person, who did not like to talk about personal matters, suffering from frequent neuroses. Perhaps, such troubles as the untimely death of his father (he died at forty-eight due to serious inflammation of the kidneys) and the suicide of his close friend Boris Bogdanov due to the non-reciprocal love for the master's sister, Varvara Bulgakova, contributed to the formation of just such an image of the writer.
First wedding
This wedding would be a great movie plot. April 26, 1913 M.A.Bulgakov married Tatiana Lappa... Mikhail at that time was twenty-two years old, and his chosen one was a year younger than his beloved.
Tatyana was not from a poor family, and she should have had enough money for a wedding dress, but on the wedding day, the bride stood in front of the altar in a dress skirt and a blouse, which the indignant mother managed to buy before the ceremony itself.
But, in spite of everything, according to eyewitnesses, it was one of the happiest weddings. There was a lot of joy and laughter.
Later, Tatyana recalled that Bulgakov was a wasteful man and did not know how to rationally manage finances. He was not afraid to spend his last money on a taxi if he had a desire to ride around the city.
The bride's mother was not happy with her son-in-law. If she saw that another piece of jewelry was missing from her daughter, it was immediately clear that it was already in the pawnshop.
Medical talent of the writer
MA Bulgakov was a surprisingly talented doctor. He received at least forty people a day. But, fate was not particularly supportive of his aspirations. Mikhail Afanasevich was very susceptible to various diseases.
Addicted to drugs
In 1917 Bulgakov becomes infected with diphtheria... To get rid of the disease, the writer takes serum, as a result of which he begins a strong allergic reaction, accompanied by severe pain.
To get rid of the torment, Mikhail begins to inject himself with morphine, and after that, he simply sits on it.
Faithful Tatiana Lappa heroically helps him to escape from drug captivity. She deliberately reduced the injected dose of the drug, replacing it with distilled water. It was very difficult, because the writer more than once attempted to kill his beloved, once, he threw a hot stove at Tatyana, and also more than once threatened her with a pistol. The girl reacted to this with angelic calm, justifying such actions by the fact that the writer did not want to harm her, he just felt very bad.
Life without morphine
Thanks to the great efforts of the narrowed one, in 1918 Mikhail Afanasevich stops taking morphine. In the same year, he ends his studies with Pokrovsky, his uncle on his mother's side. Bulgakov returns to Kiev as a venereologist.
World War I
When the First World War began, Bulgakov worked as a doctor next to the front, but soon he was mobilized into the army of the UPR (Ukrainian People's Republic), and then to the south of Russia, where Mikhail Afanasyevich was appointed doctor of the third Terek Cossack regiment, as part of this regiment he visited in the north of the Caucasus and managed to work as a doctor in the Red Cross Society.
In 1920, the writer fell ill with typhus, in connection with which he was forced to remain in the Caucasus. At the same time he was published in newspapers, began to write drama. In a letter to his cousin, Bulgakov says that he found what he had to do for four years now - to write.
In honor of Bulgakov's great works, a memorial plaque was even erected on the building of the regional hospital in Chernivtsi (Ukraine), where he worked as a surgeon.
Writing career
In 1921 Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov moved to Moscow, where he began to make a living writing feuilletons for many famous, and not so, newspapers and magazines, such as:
- Beep;
- Russia;
- Worker;
- Red magazine for everyone;
- Revival;
- Medical worker.
Some statistics. From 1922 to 1926 more than 120 feuilletons were published in the newspaper "Gudok", essays and articles by M.A. Bulgakov.
Bulgakov enters the All-Russian Union of Writers (1923), where he meets Lyubov Belozerskaya, who is already in 1925 becomes the second wife of the writer.
In October 1926 at the Moscow Art Theater, the production of Days of the Turbins, which was especially popular even with Stalin, is being staged with dizzying success. 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 in the Moscow Art Theater, the production was never staged anywhere else.
In 1929, the writer met Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, she became the third, last wife of the writer in 1932.
Bulgakov's persecution
A successful career did not lighten the pride of the genius writer for long. Already in 1930, Bulgakov's works ceased to be published, productions were subject to bans.
From this moment on, the writer begins 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 or allow him to go abroad, or give him the opportunity to earn bread 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.
In the Moscow Art Theater, the writer is hired as an assistant director, and five years later he played a role in the play "The Pickwick Club".
The play "Kabbalah Holy" was rehearsed for five years and came out with tremendous success. in 1936, but after seven performances, an article is published in the Pravda newspaper criticizing the production to smithereens. After that Bulgakov left the Moscow Art Theater and got a job at the Bolshoi Theater as a librettist and translator.
In 1939, Bulgakov prepares for the production of the play "Batum", dedicated to I. Stalin, but just before the premiere a telegram arrives stating that Stalin forbids the production, because he considers the play about himself inappropriate.
Death of a writer
After that, M. Bulgakov's health deteriorates sharply, he ceases to see, doctors diagnose kidney inflammation. The writer starts taking morphine again to relieve pain.
At the same time, ES Bulgakov's wife, under the dictation of her husband, is completing the last and final version of The Master and Margarita.
The writer passed away on March 10, 1940... At that time he was only 49 years old. M. A. Bulgakov was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery, on his grave, at the request of the writer's wife, a tombstone from the grave of N. V. Gogol was installed, which would later be called “Golgotha”.
Works by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov
During his impermissibly short life, the writer managed to leave his descendants an invaluable literary contribution. The name of such a great writer cannot be forgotten, and, as we know, manuscripts do not burn. Here is a small list of masterpieces by the great writer:
- The Master and Margarita;
- White Guard;
- Notes of a young doctor;
- Morphine;
- Fatal eggs;
- Theatrical novel;
- Devil's Day;
- I killed;
- Red crown;
- Square on wheels;
- The Adventures of the Dead.
Name: Mikhail Bulgakov
Age: 48 years old
Place of Birth: Kiev
A place of death: Moscow
Activity: writer, playwright, theater director and actor
Family status: was married
Mikhail Bulgakov - biography
Bulgakov is the author of many famous works, which not only fell in love with filmmakers, but also entered the list of program works studied at school. Many literature teachers recommend the adaptation of the story "Heart of a Dog" and the novel "The Master and Margarita" for viewing after studying the author's work.
Childhood, family of the writer
Misha was born into a large family, in which, besides him, there were six more children. The father was a professor of theologian, and the mother raised the children. Mikhail, as the eldest, had to help his mother in everything. And the woman's efforts were not in vain, since the children in the Bulgakov family were able to glorify and make the surname famous.
Among the children of Afanasy Ivanovich and Varvara Mikhailovna were scientists in the field of biology, a musician who managed to prove to everyone abroad how unusual a Russian balalaika can be. Mikhail is not very attracted to the medical profession, but he successfully passes the exams at the medical faculty of Kiev University. His maternal uncles were a therapist and gynecologist and earned great money, and the boy did not want to lack anything.
Mikhail studied for seven years, having a reservation from the army for health reasons. He tried many times to serve in the navy, but with the outbreak of hostilities he volunteered for a military hospital.
Further destiny
Mikhail Bulgakov served as a doctor in the First World War, then treated patients in Vyazma, Kiev, Moscow. And in the capital, his biography is changing dramatically. He tries himself in a different role - in literature. At the very beginning of this activity, he writes feuilletons, later creates plays for the theater, based on which performances are staged on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater and in the Central Theater of Working Youth. One of the major works of the very first, written by Bulgakov, was the novel "White Guard". He received a lot of devastating critical articles, but with this he created the incredible popularity and originality of the author's thinking.
Mikhail Afanasyevich will connect medicine more than once with literature, since this topic is very close to him and understandable. And he masterfully owns it, using a satirical view of existing reality. Not everything was easy for the writer: the novel "The Master and Margarita" was written until the very death of Bulgakov. The writer stops publishing, he turns to the government and receives a positive response from Stalin. He allowed to put Bulgakov on stage.
Bulgakov's work for the theater
The biography disposes of the way it is written for a person in the family. And the writer's plays successfully see the light in the form of performances on the stage of theaters in the capital. And Joseph Vissarionovich personally visited the play "Days of the Turbins" fourteen times. Then the unspoken persecution of the writer began again, and the head of state reinstated the author as a playwright and director. His plays are repeatedly closed, and Bulgakov is making a dismissal from the theater.
Now literary translations began to feed him. Once Mikhail Afanasevich calculated how many times he was scolded and how many times he was praised by literary critics. It turned out that in just ten years, critics turned to the work of the writer 301 times. Only three of them were positive. The author was also criticized by such famous writers as Mayakovsky, Averbakh and Shklovsky.
Mikhail Bulgakov - biography of personal life
In Bulgakov's personal life, everything was simple: whom he loves, he makes those women the prototypes of his novels. The writer is very quick in making decisions about his love affairs. So, for example, Tatyana Lappa became his first wife. Poor bride, modest wedding, no less modest life. The bride's father helped as much as he could, but there was always not enough money. The writer could not and did not want to save: he could hire a taxi for the last pennies, was extremely frivolous and often succumbed to any impulse. Several items dear to Tatiana had to be constantly pawned at the pawnshop.
In love with the writer's work, Lyubov Belozerskaya immediately broke Bulgakov's heart. He immediately divorces Tatyana and marries Lyubov's princely blood. Seven years later, he has a new beloved Elena Shilovskaya. And again, without thinking for a long time, Mikhail takes a second divorce and marries for the third time. Elena is his Margarita from the famous novel.
She became the last wife of the great master, who managed to ensure that all the works were published. Unfortunately, Bulgakov had no direct heirs, because none of his three wives could give him a son or daughter. His biography is also mystical in his personal life.
The last years of the life of Mikhail Bulgakov
The writer passed away very quickly. He conceived a work that should not have been banned. They put on a play about Stalin, rehearsals were in full swing, but suddenly everything was sharply ordered to stop. Bulgakov was very worried, his vision deteriorated, congenital renal failure worsened. The pains were difficult to bear, and Mikhail Afanasyevich began to use morphine. Deterioration did not wait long. All of these symptoms were the cause of the death of Mikhail Bulgakov. The writer barely survived until spring.
Biography Author: Natsh
